23 

 PAINTINGS AND WORKS OF ART. 



The time may readily be recalled by those still young, when a "committee on 

 paintings and works oi art" on our society's list, would have been as inappropriate 

 as would Lie now one to consider spots on the moon. In the days of Elkanah Wat- 

 son and his associates, 'household manufacturers" stood prominently, if not 

 solely, on the catalogue for female competition, and very wisely it still retains its 

 place of honor. But the premiums proposed, covered mostly the issues of the 

 knitting-needle, hand-card, spinning-wheel and loom, whose products were then 

 itial to the wellfare of a thrifty household, and claimed all the time of matron, 

 and maiden that could be spared from the ordinary routine of other domestic 

 duties. Modern progress has superseded these old-time triumphs of individual 

 skill, and machinery has wrought such innovations in textile art. as, on the score 

 both of time and economy, to relegate those worthy implements of past generations 

 to the store-rooms, and garrets, or label them for the museum. Though the aged 

 among us. who yet remember with childish fondness the click, the whirr and the 

 thud of their respi - in the spacious kitchens of olden time, may lament 



the decay of their handiwork and the present ignorance of these helpful appliances 

 of former industry, there is consolation in the fact that their cheaper and far more 

 abundant supply by steam and water power has afforded opportunity for the in- 

 coming of other useful and attractive occupations for the time thus redeemed from 

 hard labor atid drudgery. Our farmers' daughters need not now be limited to the 

 scanty education acquired during a few months of the year at the district school. 

 The loom and the spinning-wheel are indeed gone, but books and periodicals have 

 increased on the tables and shelves of the cottage. The cold, bare walls of for- 

 mer davs smile with varied tints of paper-hangings, pictures and bric-a-brac of 

 who- i the wealthy alone could boast, half a e-ntury ago. The orna- 



mental has, lepartments of household industry, supplanted the useful : 



nor is this to be deprecated, if an acquaintance with the essentials of thrifty house- 

 keeping be still retained. If, for example, a knowledge of good bread making, of 

 the best use of dairy products, of the secrets of the culinary art, house-furnishing 

 and gene;.:' igem til be understood, the exchange of the olden time 



linens and w >olens for better and less expensive factory fabrics, is a 

 positive benefit, both in the line of economy and as giving greatei >copeforthe 

 combination of the ornamental and the useful, to the great advantage of the family. 

 And surely it is to be hoped that no New England — at least, no Berkshire — farm- 

 er's daughter will ignore the requisites oi a competent housewife in favor of mere 

 accomplishments. The numerous recent lessons-takers of Marion Harland and 

 Miss Parloa all over the land betoken a revival in the female world, of a desire to 

 become able mistresses of households, which in late years has declined, like the 

 love of agriculture among our young men, who have foolishly preferred measuring 

 tape and calico, to the position of independent farmers on their own estates. 



No— the rightly educated maiden of these days, be she ever s > devoted to art, is 

 not disparaged by a thorough acquaintance with the craft of good housekeeping; 

 but can render her home all the more attractive by an ability to gratify not only 

 the palates, but the aesthetic tastes of her guests as well ; and the hand that moulds 

 lest loaf and concocts the most toothsome preserves, may also lie an adept 

 with the piano, the crayon and the i 



With these general remarks, your committe proceed to a more particular discus- 

 sion of the work assigned them. We found before us a department of ninety-one 

 entries, comprising 165 articles differing in labor and merit, from the first pencil 

 of the ••school boy without any instruction," to eminent specimens of art. 

 The catalogue, in detail, is as follows : < >il and water colors, crayon, india-ink, 

 pencil and charcoal drawings, bracket, wax, paper, leaf, leather, hair and worsted 

 work, wood carving, ornamental fabrics from milkweed, thistle and the grasses, 

 photographs lermy, and your committee found no sinecure the task of just 



discrimination, suitable awards, and the imperative necessity of rejection. In some 

 cases of apparently equal individual worthiness, in the same category, choice was 



