The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-10-29

couple to reach out helping hand to the weaker one and help lift him or her up to the higher life.
 More than that, it would seem that the inferior one of a married couple would be eager to sit at the feet of the superior one and learn all that he or she had to teach and that he or she would feel that no, criticism could come so graciously as that which was in spired by love and an ardent desire for his or her own good.
 Nothing, however, could be fur
 ther from the state of the case.
 Neither husbands nor wives accept
 with gratitude few well-inten-
 tioned hints about their manners
 and habits. The minute either a
 man or a woman attempts to turn
 matrimony into mutual improve
 ment society it becomes scrapping
 match. Neither a vamp nor the
 Demon Rum can break up a home so quickly as can critic on the
 hearth.
 It is a great pity that men and wom. en refuse the gift that their husbands and wives yearn to bestOw upon them DeCduSG SO OlItH IS IuC man that would bring them the sue. cess they crave. Sometimes, for in stance, a woman comes from much better family than the man she marries She is better educated and has had fal wider social advantages than he has had.
 He has great native ability. He has push and enterprise, all the qualities that enable a man to climb high but he will never reach the top-most rung be cause he is handicapped by his lack oi early advantages. He is shy on gram mar and short on pronunciation. He is like bull in a china shop in draw ing room, and ,hopelessly befuddled by the silver on dinner table.
 His wife would like to call his
 attention to his lapses in grammar,
 and pronunciation and teach him
 beautiful English. She would like | to instruct him in table etiquette
 and help him to acquire the little
 niceties of manner that distinguish
 the gentleman from the boor. But
 she dares not do it, for at the very
 first suggestion that he change his
 ways she sees that she has wounded DIIH lO JuC QulChS OI SAoO hC AhNo
 into a rage that makes it impos-
 sible ever to reopen the subject
 unless she is one of those women
 who are born fighters and enjoy
 domestic scrimmage.
 Nor are wives any more amenable than husbands to criticism. It is very common thing for man to marry out of his class under the fatuous belief that he will have no difficulty at all in making over his wife according to his taste. A man who is cultured in mind elegant in~manner, fastidious in dress, will often choose a wife, a girl whose pretty face has captured his fancy, but who is uneducated, <untaught. loud of voice and bold of manner, and who knows neither how to dress or to con- duct herself in society.
 Her husband would like to polish
 his rough diamond, but he attempts
 to do so at his peril. If he suggests
 that she try to initiate the quiet
 charm of manner of some old wom-
 an friend of his, she becomes green
 eyed with jealousy. If he finds
 fault with her clothes and tells her
 that real ladies do not year "flam-
 boyant garments that shriek at the
 beholder, she goes into mysteries.
 If he tries to get her to read and study, she weeps that he is tired of her and no longer loves her.
 And, after having proven by his failures that no husband can im- prove his wife, he gives up the hopeless task and settles down to make the best of his bad bargain or else repudiates it, according to the type of man he is.
 Certainly it is tragical that a woman cannot tell her husband that he eats his soup audibly, or that he has told the same old stories over and over again