Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1920-05-27
WOMEN URGED TO
MAINTAIN HOME
Because of Its Congested Con-
fusion City Is Luring Place
for Enemies of Families.
RURAL LIFE is PROTECTION
Logical Hope of Social Cooperation
Rests With Rural Woman-she Is
Asked to Support Family as
National Institution.

Asserting that the apartment house,
the family hotel, the division of feni-
home space, commercialized recreation
are undermining home life in the city.
Z. j. Galpin, until recently secretary
OF the Wisconsin Country Life confer
ence, is making a nationwide appeal
for farm women to maintain the fam
lily as a national institution.
1.-THE city because of it's completely
and cOngested confusion is a lurking
place for the deadly enemies of the
family and of the home," says Mr..
Galpin. Home life on the scattered
farmstead is under the mothers eye
and, in general, open to the public
gaze This very publicity of rural life
protects the family group from in
weston or insidious disintegration.
Penalties are quickly enacted in the
country for violation Of family faith.
Farm Home Is Nations BuIwark.
Home life in metropolitan cities ap-
pears to be almost in the last ditch.
The city mother has surrendered her
domestic ministratiOns so completely
into the hands of institutiOnalized
agents that she is fast losing her So
cial function in the household. The
apartment house, the family hotel, the
high cost Of home space, commercial
lied recreation, are all antagonists of
dOmesticity that subtly weaken home
ties. This is the city tax upon city
residence.
"From the wider point of view,
therefore, the farm home has special
significance as the bulwark of national
life. The nation at large becomes an
intensely interested party, therefore,
in any attempt to solve the rural life
problem for America will insist that
any policy or program widening, vary
ing and deepening human contracts
for the rural population shall not en-
danger the permanence of the farm
family as a basic institution.
Family Is Rural institution.
LII Tie lace OI 1dllIIy uC-
cline in our cities, in spite of the gen
eral urban increase, the nation may
well turn with anxiety to the country
population and to the farm home and
to the farm woman, to maintain the
family as a national institution.
"The family is the rural institution
par excellence, and dOmesticity is be-
yond doubt the leading trait Of Amer
lean country life. 1t may even be
claimed without much fear Of contra
diction that home gathers much of it's
sweet fascination in the minds of men
from the experience of the farm house
hold. In this small landed cluster the
housewife mother has retained her
functions of guardian of her children,
Of preceptress, nurse, physician.
Farm Mother Retains Wide Function.
"Her presence-her own hand, her
own smile, her own prayer-has been
as constant as the familiar acres and
the rising sun. She has presided over
the kitchen and commissary. She has
fed man and child. She has clothed
them, tucked them away at night, met
them in the morning. She is at home
when the little ones come from school,
when the farmer returns from town.
If sickness or accident befallS the hus-
bandman, she manages the farm and
cares for the sick herself. If disap-
pointment and disaster comes, she is
the first to meet it,
Farm Wife Contributes IdeaIsm.
"The hoe man built the farmhouse,
but the housewife has kept it in or
der. She has put up with much Of the
inconvenience Of the house planned
as shelter rather than as a wOman's
workshop, and has accepted the pen
atty that overwOrk has wrought upon
her body and soul.
"The muscular system Of the farm
woman is not her greatest asset, nor
is muscular energy, though valuable,
the contribution of woman to the farm
home.
eff the homestead partnership Of
man, woman, and child is ruled by
the principle of economy, whereby
each takes just the part for which
each is best suited and then fills it
with tasks that seem necessary, the
farm woman will be assigned first of
all to the realm of the spirit, which,
from time out of mind, has been con-
sidered woman's sphere.
Overfatigue Checks Energy.
ETloo1;o,,, baipbtpnC tho 0Oro-
monplace into romance, art, duty, and
religion springs from her when her
spiritual energy is at high tide; but
as a matter of fact, overuse of COM
paratively light-built muscular engines
brings upon the farm woman more
or less chronic state Of fatigue. Fa-
tigue poisons her nerve system. An
accumulation of fatigue weakens the
very capacities and energies for which