Evening star., 1937-02-06

FIELD OF DIGESTS GROWING
Embaed Professors Lend Interest Current Magazine Discus
sions-Natura History Is Pretty and Pleasant Decline
of the Male.

be advancing, but, very handsomely
he asks, "And why not?" It by no
means follows that men are taking
the reverse course, he says scornfully.
Mr.. Faber. too, says that men are
not declining. The idle parasittcal
wealthy men may be reaping the just
deserts Of their lives OF silken ease.
says he, but not the Common Mani
He is just as up-and-coming as ever,
says Mr.. Faber, and, If you don't be-
lieve it, learn that there were 2,0l4
more strikes in 1885 than in any
year since 1921, and in 1887 there will
probably be still more. He does not
limit his argument to this one bit Of
evidence, but he brings it forward
as "the most forcible proof" OBJ
viously Mr.. Faber is a class struggle-r.
which means that by quoting the C. g..
he can prove anything. The reviewer
still thinks, however, that Mr.. UzzelTS
piece is not answered. These two writ
ers do protest too much.
CCRIBNERS also carries an article
dUOuI "OlIltu LII 4IS T CD1 ud1y AQIll-
Der, one Of those pieces which like the
declining male thing are obviously
designed to call forth controversy. In
this one, "The New Woman Goes
Home" by Mrs. Ralph Borsodi. the
contention is made that a woman
earns much more keeping house for
her husband than she does on any
job.
Mrs. Borsodi insists that she and
her husband kept track of her own
household labors until they were sure
of their facts. She saved more by
baking, cooking, canning, laundering
and preserving in her own home than
she could have made on job. she de.
clares
Some years back another periodical
brought forward a similar claim. It
may have been the Nation or 1t may
have been the New Republic-it is so
hard to tell them apart! But anyway
1t ran a series of pieces called Wages
for Wives" based on the claims which
Mrs. Borsodi now brings forward, only
urging that the woman who does all
these things in a home should be paid
In cash and not in the mere satiSfac-
ton Of knowing that her labors save
as much as her husband earns.
The somewhat startling upshot was
that, after all her various jobs in
the home had been computed in terms
Of wages, she was entitled to more
than the entire income which her hus.
band was making. Is a wife luxury?
Or is a husband? That is another Of
the questions which will not be an
swered. Scribner'S apparently likes
these controversial things and Is bid
ding for popularity on the basis Of
them.
livery now and then the reviewer
- decides to reform her lament.
ably frivolous mind and get a grim
hold on reality or something OF that
kind and take the serious magazines
seriously. Every now and then. Yes
every now and then.
And what happens on these admi-
rable occasions? Why the serious
magazines do something like the thing
that the Nation has done in its Janu-
ary 80 issue, and the resolve to take
life more earnestly goes glimmering
of to the tune of unregenerate laugh
ter. For in the January 80 copy Of
the Nation no less a savant than Jo-
seph Wood Krutch undertakes to
pSychoanalyZe Alice in Wonderland"
from the claSs-conscious viewpoint.
Oh, we'll. How serious are you?