Of  Interest  to  Women. 
SHALL  it  be  doubted  that  interest  in  physical  cul¬ 
ture  has  taken  fast  hold  of  our  women?  A  late 
report  is  to  the  effect  that  the  popular  Oberlin  College 
has  received  an  endowment  from  Miss  Julia  Dickin¬ 
son,  of  Michigan,  lately  deceased.  One-half  of  this 
goes  to  the  chair  of  Lady  Principal ;  the  other  to  a 
regular  department  of  Physical  Culture  for  Women. 
*  #  * 
For  many  years  Susan  B.  Anthony  has  struggled  to 
open  for  her  sex  the  path  which  she  has  regarded  as 
the  surest  for  their  advancement.  Scoffs  and  ridicule 
have  been  her  larger  portion  of  reward  from  the  com¬ 
munity  at  large.  Yet  now  the  wave  of  a  social  fad 
has  embraced  her,  and  her  name  has  been  rendered 
immortal  by  a  souvenir  spoon  bearing  both  it  and  her 
likeness.  The  watchword  of  the  cause  to  which  so 
many  of  her  years  have  been  devoted:  “Political 
Equality  ”  appears  as  an  inscription  to  complete  the 
souvenir. 
*  *  * 
An  exchange  tells  of  an  especially  artistic  room  in 
gold  and  brown,  the  whole  scheme  of  which  was  car¬ 
ried  out  by  the  little  woman  who  gave  it  its  last,  best 
charm,  herself.  The  floor  staining  was  attained  by 
the  use  of  burnt  umber  and  turpentine;  the  wall  fin¬ 
ishing  by  first  kalsomining  it  with  the  faintest  shade 
of  brown;  an  oaken  rail  marked  the  dado,  which  was 
powdered  with  a  set  design  in  dark,  rich  brown, 
stenciled  by  the  fair  owner  of  the  room.  The  patterns 
were  first  outlined  on  very  stiff  paper,  and  cut  like 
stencil  plates,  a  space  for  every  line;  these  were  held 
against  the  wall  and  worked  over  with  the  dark 
shade,  which  passing  through  the  spaces,  marked  the 
design  upon  the  wall.  Picture  moldings  were  of  oak; 
the  frieze  above,  and  the  picture  railing  were  dabbled 
with  liquid  gold,  giving  a  filmy,  transparent  effect  of 
gold  over  brown.  Brown  denim  draperies;  brown 
Japanese  rugs;  a  table  cover  of  brown  and  gold,  and  a 
yellow  lamp  shade  were  some  of  the  accessories. 
What  woman  with  a  woman’s  genius — and  time, 
couldn’t  achieve  this  ?  *  *  * 
Social  Insurgency  and  Gracious 
Womanhood. 
IT  is  the  new  that  attracts,  other  things  being  equal. 
Yet  Mrs.  E.  Lynn  Linton  curtly  says  of  the  pres¬ 
ent  times  :  “  What  is  new  is  the  translation  into  the 
cultured  classes  of  certain  qualities  and  practices 
hitherto  confined  to  the  uncultured  and  savages.” 
Speaking  of  the  honor  of  womanhood  “as  that  honor 
was,”  she  tells  us  that  under  the  new  retjiine  blots  upon 
character  do  not  count  for  so  much  as  was  once  the 
case — in  the  time  when  women  were  modest  violets 
and  chaste  lilies,  content  to  bloom  unseen. 
Is  it  true,  as  she  tells  us,  that  women  are  clamoring 
for  easy  divorce,  and  deriding  the  sacredness  of  the 
marriage  tie  ?  If  it  be  true  in  England — as  we  affirm 
that  it  is  not  true  in  America — may  it  not  be  that  English 
writers  are  themselves  to  blame  for  a  portion  of  the 
responsibility  pertaining  thereto  ?  At  least  three  of 
these,  who  have  held  prominent  positions  of  repute 
before  the  public  :  viz.,  Charles  Reade,  Bulwer-Lytton 
and  Mrs.  Linton,  have  presented  the  question  of  social 
purity  on  the  part  of  the  man  as  a  thing  not  to  be  in¬ 
sisted  on  by  society ;  the  two  former  by  defending  char¬ 
acters  of  their  own  creation,  who  sinned  in  this  direc¬ 
tion  ;  the  latter  by  openly  declaring  that  the  man’s 
unfaithfulness  to  the  marriage  tie,  does  not,  and  ought 
not  to  count  for  so  much  as  s'milar  laxity  on  the  part 
of  the  woman. 
Judging  from  a  late  article  in  the  Nineteenth  Cen¬ 
tury — and  it  cannot  be  denied  that  she  makes  some 
excellent  points  in  that  article — it  would  appear  that 
the  woman  best  fitted  to  win  the  essayist’s  warmest 
approval  would  be  a  languishing  and  retiring  creature, 
possibly  lacking  in  sense,  and  interested  in  little  but 
sensibility  ;  one  who  never  ventures  to  look  over  and 
beyond  the  safe  boundaries  which  her  masculine  pro¬ 
tectors  have  set  for  her,  and  who  admits  to  her  own 
mind  no  ideas  except  those  dressed  up  in  a  style  suited 
to  female  comprehension  by  these  same  masculines, 
her  adorers  sans  question  and  sans  raison. 
The  essayist  may  herself  be  a  woman  to  admire,  in 
many  ways ;  her  strictures  on  her  sex  are  no  doubt 
true  as  regards  those  whom  she  characterizes  as  the 
vulgar  herd  of  women  who  smoke  with  the  men  ;  those 
who  love  a  racing  mare  with  a  long-legged  foal  better 
than  a  child  ;  the  sporting  woman  with  a  penchant  for 
butchery  ;  the  adventuress.  Certainly,  too,  one  would 
not  wish  to  gainsay  her  commendation  of  certain  sweet 
and  gracious  women  who  do  honor  to  their  woman¬ 
hood.  But  surely,  we  have  a  right  to  inquire  why  it 
should  be  implied  throughout  this  whole  brilliant 
article  that  the  woman  who  keeps  to  what  was  sup¬ 
posed  to  be  distinctively  “  woman’s  sphere”  in  the 
golden  ages  of  the  past,  is  the  woman  to  command 
all  admiration.  Surely  we  have  a  right  to  inquire  why 
it  is  implied  throughout  that  she  who  dares  to  do  more 
than  to  love  and  to  obey  is  to  be  classed  as  far  on  the 
road  toward  social  insurgency,  and  toward  the  point 
at  which  she  shall  show  only  a  distorted  likeness  of 
the  gracious  model  of  womanhood.  Now  it  might  not 
be  amiss  for  a  woman  to  express  to  the  world  in  such 
terms  as  are  permitted  to  her,  her  opinion  as  to  the 
correct  model  for  her  sex  ;  but  what  shall  we  say  when 
that  woman  is  herself  so  far  from  copying,  in  any 
essential  degree,  the  phases  of  character  thus  set 
forth  ? 
Our  caustic  essayist  has  certainly  swung  far  from 
the  model  with  which  she  lias  charmed  us  :  “Given 
the  worth  of  a  woman  reckoned  by  the  flax  she  spun 
and  the  thread  she  wove.”  Reckoned  by  this  standard, 
what  is  the  worth  of  the  average  woman  of  our  time, 
and — woe-worth  the  day — what  is  the  worth  of  our 
essayist  herself  ?  It  may  perhaps  be  fairly  assumed 
that  the  value  of  the  latter  to  the  world  at  large — or  at 
least  to  the  world  of  editors  and  of  essay  readers — lies 
in  the  fact  that  she  is  in  the  van  of  those  “  unabashed 
self-advertisers”  through  the  workings  of  her  most 
trenchant  pen.  Her  sense  of  graciousness  and  pro¬ 
priety  for  herself  does  not  even  forbid  her  from  just 
daintily  touching  upon  profanity,  provided  that  she 
does  it  always  in  well-chosen  French  ;  but  it  goes  with¬ 
out  saying  that  this  can  have  no  possible  kinship  with 
the  “  stable  slang”  so  abhorrent  to  her  womanly  soul. 
Ah!  is  there  not  more  than  one  way  of  “  drinking 
from  the  muddiest  waters  ?  ”  and  shall  the  daintiness 
of  manner  in  the  one  who  quaffs  excuse  the  absence 
of  clarity  ? 
It  is  the  opinion  of  this  accepted! y  strong  thinker 
that  lovely  woman,  in  attempting  to  imitate  or  rival 
man  on  his  own  rightful  ground,  is  not  only  destroying 
her  distinctive  charm  of  womanhood,  but  is  digging 
her  own  premature  and  certain  grave.  With  this 
thought  we  may  not  quarrel  if  it  be  set  forth  clearly 
what  may  be  included  in  man’s  rightful  ground.  If  it 
be  restricted  to  his  right  to  be  horsey,  to  be  an  adven¬ 
turer,  to  be  impure,  to  be  the  advocate  of  free  love,  to 
be  a  drunkard,  we  may  well  say  amen  to  the  assertion. 
But  if  it  be  supposed  to  include  all  those  rights  which 
man  has  arrogated  to  himself  throughout  the  cen¬ 
turies  ;  the  right  to  be  counted  in  a  separate  class  from 
idiots ;  the  right  to  personal  freedom ;  the  right  to 
possess  earnings ;  the  right  to  draw  her  breath  in  the 
fear  of  the  Lord,  and  not  the  fear  of  man ;  yea,  were 
it  even  the  right  to  write  essays  on  the  status  of  woman 
for  The  Nineteenth  Century  or  The  North  American 
Review,  we  say  let  lovely  woman  continue  the  absurd 
rivalry  without  fear  of  the  yawinng  grave  before  her. 
It  is  not  (as  the  essayist  would  have  us  believe)  alone 
through  the  eager  recognition  of  the  work  of  female 
globe-trotters  who  are  mendicants  as  far  as  literary 
style  and  accuracy  are  concerned,  that  “  reason  and 
manliness  are  suffocated  by  the  sense  of  sex  ;  ”  one 
manifestation  of  this  suffocation  through  man’s  sense 
of  sex  has  been  an  overweening-  sense  of  his  own  im¬ 
portance  because  of  his  manhood  and  the  privileges  and 
immunities  which  it  has  conferred,  myra  v.  norys. 
Co-operation  of  Parent  and  Teacher. 
**  '"T"'  HE  world  is  only  saved  by  the  breath  of  the 
A  school-children.”  Upon  whom  rests  the  re¬ 
sponsibility  of  the  salvation  of  Earth’s  remotest 
bounds?  God  gave  the  responsibility  to  the  parents. 
The  parents  have  given  their  charge  over  into  the 
hands  of  the  school-teachers,  men  and  women  some¬ 
times  of  immature  years,  often  boys  and  girls  scarcely 
out  of  their  teens,  hired  for  another  purpose,  and  grudg¬ 
ingly  paid  for  another  service.  “  My”  child  must  be 
a  mannerly  child;  “  my”  child  must  be  an  example  of 
morality.  How  often  in  company  with  patrons  of 
district  schools  you  hear  upon  a  misdemeanor  in 
manners  or  morals,  the  comment:  “  Why  my  child 
never  was  guilty  of  such  a  thing  until  he  began  going 
to  school.”  Upon  whom  is  the  reflection  ?  Has  the 
mother  forgotten  her  child  ?  Can  the  right  hand  for¬ 
get  its  cunning?  Can  the  teacher  take  the  place  of  the 
parents?  He  does  take  it  many  times,  in  the  highest 
a  nd  noblest  sense  of  the  word. 
Many  and  many  an  urchin  to-day  knows  nothing 
of  morality  or  good  manners  save  as  he  learns  them 
from  the  person  who  stands  before  him  six  hours  for 
20  days  during  each  of  eight  months  of  the  year; 
and  that  person  not  always  in  his  position  and  acting 
from  absolute  love  of  uplifting  humanity — in  any  mean¬ 
ing  of  the  phrase. 
Can  I  support  this  statement?  Yes!  Why  are  the 
weary  little  creatures  in  that  schoolroom  yonder  ? 
Years  must  come  and  go  before  they  reach  school  age. 
They  are  sent  by  parents,  with  older  brothers  and 
sisters,  “  to  get  them  out  of  the  way.”  Let  us  call  in 
that  cottage  over  there;  the  first  question,  (if  the  in¬ 
mates  have  the  dimmest  idea  of  your  vocation)  will  be. 
“  When  will  your  school  begin?  the  children  bother 
me  so.” 
What  can  this  mean  ?  Can  the  public  be  deluded 
into  thinking  it  means  that  parents  wish  to  maintain 
the  ascendancy  of  correct  manners  and  morals  over 
their  children,  when  in  the  opening  hours  of  their  ex¬ 
istence,  they  are  shoved  anywhere  to  be  “out  of  the 
way.” 
I  have  in  mind  a  little  white-haired  boy  who  had 
been  thoroughly  instructed  by  his  teacher  as  to  the 
immorality  of  using  tobacco.  Within  15  minutes  there¬ 
after  he  was  found  in  a  compromising  position,  with  a 
cigar.  His  teacher  said  :  “Oh  Jimmie!  Jimmie!!”  “It’s 
papa’s;  it’s  papa’s,”  came  the  response  quick  as  light¬ 
ning.  Ah  !  there  is  an  important  sense  in  which  the 
teacher  cannot  take  the  place  of  the  parent. 
Parents  are  responsible  for  the  government  of  the 
schools.  Of  course  there  are  exceptions  ;  teachers  are 
not  always  happy  in  methods  taken  to  obtain  and 
maintain  order.  So  many  families  lack  systematic 
government;  are  so  sentimental  in  the  indulgence  of 
their  children  ;  are  so  covetous  of  the  last  moment 
of  their  children’s  time  ;  while  in  every  little  difficulty 
in  the  school  room,  they  side  against  the  teacher  ;  en¬ 
courage  tattling  of  school-room  matters ;  never  visit 
the  school-room,  the  scene  of  the  moral  and  mental 
training  of  their  coffspring  ;  are  absolutely  unac¬ 
quainted  with  the  person  who  guides  the  crafts  which 
they  have  set  adrift  on  Life’s  sea. 
Cooperation  in  this  afternoon  of  the  nineteenth  cen¬ 
tury  seems  to  be  the  talisman  of  success.  And  when 
the  cooperation  of  parents  and  teachers  is  perfect,  in 
a  degree,  then  will  goverinent  be  perfect  in  a  degree. 
v. 
Choice  Ways  of  Cooking  Salted  Cod. 
SALT-CODFISH  is  a  very  useful  and  convenient 
food.  Even  dwellers  in  the  large  cities  of  the 
coasts  will  find  it  a  pleasant  change  from  the  fresh 
fish  and  meats  that  form  their  principal  diet;  and  those 
who  live  in  inland  cities  and  towns,  where  fresh  fish 
can  not  be  obtained,  depend  largely  on  salted  fish. 
Salt  fish  is  an  especial  convenience  to  those  who  live 
on  farms  at  a  distance  from  markets.  In  the  summer 
when  fresh  meats  soon  spoil  these  families  eat  much 
salt  meat,  and  fish  is  an  acceptable  change. 
Of  all  salt  fish  cod  is  the  most  generally  liked,  but 
as  most  housekeepers  know  but  one  or  two  ways  of 
preparing  it  their  families  soon  tire  of  it.  Of  the  va¬ 
riety  of  ways  in  which  it  may  be  prepared  a  few  are 
given  below.  Many  object  to  cooking  this  fish  be¬ 
cause  of  the  unpleasant  odor  that  penetrates  into  every 
corner  of  the  house.  This  may  be  avoided  by  boiling 
it  only  a  short  time.  Long  boiling  renders  it  tough 
and  tasteless.  Cod  boiled  by  the  following  method 
will  be  tender,  of  superior  flavor,  and  will  not  give  off 
a  bad  odor  while  cooking. 
Boiled  Salt  Codfish. — Soak  all  night  a  two  pound 
package  of  boneless  codfish  in  four  quarts  of  water,  to 
which  add  a  generous  half  pint  of  vinegar.  In  the 
morning  drain  and  renew  the  water  and  vinegar.  One 
hour  before  dinner  put  the  fish  over  the  fire  in 
three  quarts  of  cold  water,  and  place  it  where  the  water 
will  quickly  become  hot.  When  hot  move  the  kettle  to 
Health  has  its  weight.  We  cannot  go 
far  above  or  below  our  healthy  weight 
without  disturbing  health.  We  cannot 
keep  health  and  lose  our  weight. 
It  is  fat  that  comes  and  goes.  Too 
much  is  burdensome  ;  too  little  is  danger¬ 
ous. 
Health  requires  enough  fat  for  daily 
use  and  a  little  more  for  reserve  and  com¬ 
fort.  That  keep  us  plump.  The  result 
is  beauty — the  beauty  of  health. 
A  little  book  on  careful  living  shows 
the  importance  of  keeping  your  healthy 
weight.  We  send  it  free. 
Scott  &  Bownk,  Chemists,  132  South  5th  Avenue,  New  York. 
