THE PRESENT TESTING TIME. 
WOMEN AS SCHOOL COMMISSIONERS, 
HERE is no class of matter which this department 
welcomes so gladly as that upon live topics of 
interest to women. To this class belongs the appeal 
to the women of New York given in another column. 
While there is still an overwhelming majority of 
women who are opposed or indifferent to woman 
suffrage as applied to gereral politics, we believe that 
in the case of women and the schools the facts are 
exactly reversed. Women know —they cannot fail to 
know—that women can and will do better with the 
superintendency of the schools than it is possible for 
men to do. The political side and the monied side of 
the question will fail to appeal to them when in office 
as they do to men; while the good of the schools, 
which means the future status of their children, will 
be the supreme object of their efforts. 
Mrs. Giff »rd’s paper is the plainest statement of 
facts as they now stand in this State. The nomination 
of Miss S. A. Little as school commissioner, referred 
to in the editorial columns, October 14, may well give us 
an object lesson to illustrate some of its points. It is 
thought—has indeed been said plainly—that in the 
inertness of the women lies the chief danger of de¬ 
feat in this special case. The women of the State, as 
a rule, are not at all awake to the fact that men have 
{jiven the power into their hands. But if the women 
of a test county allow a woman who represents the 
acme of culture to be attained upon the farm while 
engaged in the daily household tasks ; who has taken 
sufficient interest in the schools to work with voice 
and pen at Farmers’ Institutes and in prominent publi¬ 
cations ; if they allow such a one to be set aside, how 
shall they then prove their own fitness to be the cus¬ 
todians of the weal of our own public schools ? 
GRANDMA GRIGGS’S LETTER. 
RS. GRIGGS is getting on in years. Indeed, one 
rarely hears the neighbors call her Mrs. Griggs; 
but old and young alike feel privileged in saying 
Grandma Griggs. Yet, in spite of her years and her 
snowy white hair, she keeps her place as chief cook 
and housekeeper in her home. True, there are only 
Grandma and Grandpa now, the children having long 
since flown from the dear old nest, and left the two 
old people alone, as when they first began life’s 
journey together, so many years ago. 
They live on a farm, and the position of “chief 
cook” and housekeeper on a farm is very diffe-ent 
from the same position in the city. Grandma Griggs 
does the milking, butter making, baking, washing, 
ironing, besides all the other work. She raises chick¬ 
ens and turkeys, feeds calves, and, withal, does not 
stint herself in flower beds, though she knows she 
“ must tend them all herself.” When the burden of 
house cleaning is added to the daily routine work, it 
is no v onder that the time is, practically speaking, 
melancholy. 
Now, I had a long letter from this same Grandma 
Griggs, from which I would like to quote a little 
narrative of her own experience. With the preceding 
description of her and her surroundings, it will be 
better appreciated : “I had been house cleaning, and 
was all tired out ; had just finished washing the wood¬ 
work on the latticed porch which I convert into a 
summer kitchen when the weather grows hot. My 
arms ached and my neck was stiff from looking up 
while washing the ceiling. I thought I would put 
fresh papers on the shelves, and then would stop and 
rest. You know I set great store by my afternoon 
nap ; it is the elixir of life to me. It was after two 
o’clock when I had taken a hurried bath and changed 
my dress; I was just about to throw myself across the 
bed, when there was a knock upon the door. My first 
impulse was to keep quiet, and not go to the door, but 
I said : ‘Get behind me, Satan,’ and went and opened 
the door. Imagine my chagrin, my provocation, yes, 
vexation, when I saw old Mrs. Dill standing there, and 
with her work in hand ! Oh, I get so tired of her ! 
I felt ugly ; I thought I couldn’t treat her kindly. I 
was tired and I wanted a rest. How could I sit with 
her, be pleasant and entertain her ? What right had 
she to intrude herself upon me ? Was I obliged to 
give up my coveted restful nap because of her, when 
she came unsought? All these and a thousand similar 
thoughts came in mind, as she crossed the threshold. 
As I placed a chair for her, however, and she untied 
her worn sun-bonnet and took it off, I thought of the 
many trials which beset her ; of her aged, almost help¬ 
less husband ; of the unkind, even cruel treatment of 
her son, who would take her all and put her in the 
poor-house—I say, when I thought of all this I forgot 
myself, and thought only of her. 
“ ‘ What are you making, Mrs. Dill? ’ 1 said, as she 
unfolded her work. 4 O, I’m jus’ knittin’ some lace to 
kill time. I do’no as I’ll ever have any use fur it, but 
it’s a comfort to make it.’ 4 How pretty it is,’ I said, 
looking at it closely. 4 1 wonder whether I could learn 
to make it.’ 4 Of course you could,’ she replied, and 
she seemed so pleased with the prospect of doing 
something for me, I got a spool of thread and my 
knitting needles, and sat down beside her, and—would 
you believe it ?—the afternoon slipped away before wo 
knew it. I learned to knit the lace and, somehow, 
felt peculiarly rested, especially when poor old Mrs. 
Dill said, when she started home, 4 1 never had such a 
good time.’ ” 
What a quaint lesson in self-sacrifice ! What a 
boundless field lies about us for doing good to those 
with whom we come in contact, doing good in a thou¬ 
sand little ways, by rendering some little kindness by 
making others happy—for people are better when they 
are happy. Grandma Griggs was happy while being 
kind to her poor neighbor. She was better for having 
been kind. No one ever did a kind thing without 
feeling inwardly uplifted. Soul-growth is the inevit¬ 
able fruit of self-sacrifice. There is opportunity for 
this soul-growth everywhere and every day. One need 
not wait for the ballot, for the rostrum, for reputa¬ 
tion, for fame, ere he hopes tabe able to find an op¬ 
portunity to help his fellows. 44 Whosoever will lose 
his life for my sake shall find it.” 
MKS. W. A. KELLEKMAN. 
AN APPEAL TO THE WOMAN VOTERS OF NEW 
YORK STATE. 
OR 12 years the women of this State have been 
eligible to the office of school commissioner, and 
during that time in several districts the position has 
been filled by women with great ability and fidelity. 
There are at present six women school commissioners 
in the State. In 1892 a law was enacted which em¬ 
powered women to vote for candidates for this office. 
At the coming November election, for the first time 
(with the exception of two counties, Tompkins and 
Dutchess, which elected their officers one year ago) can 
women vote for the candidates for school commissioner. 
Under the law, any woman 21 years of age, who is 
native born, or a naturalized citizen (naturalization of 
the husband and father carries with it that of the wife 
and family), who has been a resident of the State for 
one year, of the county four months, and of the elec¬ 
tion district 30 days, can vote for such candidates. 
It is quite probable that in many districts the final 
result would not be materially changed whether 
women voted or not. But there is a vital principle in¬ 
volved to which women would do well to give earnest 
thought. It is often asserted by the opponents of 
woman suffrage that 44 women do not want to vote.” 
The truth or falsity of this does not affect the right of 
any woman who does desire the franchise to enjoy 
that right which the genius of our government accords 
to all citizens. Let us disprove that assertion. Let us 
show not only our interest in the supervision of the 
schools in which our daughters are for the most part 
the teachers, and in which our children will receive 
the greater part of their school training, but also our de¬ 
sire for extension of civil privileges, by improving 
those opportunities already conceded to us by our 
political sovereigns. 
A woman in order to vote must first have her name 
registered on the polling list. The days for registra¬ 
tion are October 21 and 28. On the first day her name 
can be sent to the registration board by some other 
person, but on the last day, October 28, she must 
appear and register for herself. Let us show our 
belief in the future by registering in person, and when 
November brings about Election Day, let us go to the 
polls, either alone or with some friend, and there cast 
our ballots for the candidate who we believe has at 
heart the best educational interests of the schools. 
MKS. W. C. GIFFOKD. 
TAKE COURAGE AND LEARN TO SWIM. 
R ESTLESS souls, impatient of a country-bound 
life, and deeming themselves too great for the 
quiet farm or the little village where a stern necessity 
bids them dwell, will do well to consider other lives 
that have been broad and beatiful amid just such sur¬ 
roundings. The poet Whittier, identifying himself 
with the anti-slavery cause, visited, when between 20 
and 30 years of age, New York, Philadelphia and 
Washington. “These brief journeys bounded his 
travels in this world,” writes Mrs. Annie Fields in her 
charming notes of the life and friendships of our well- 
beloved poet. That mind and heart are not necessarily 
hemmed in by narrow surroundings, Whittier’s life 
nobly proved. Never was a man more truly and 
heartily in touch with his times. His pulse throbbed 
in sympathy with Garibaldi in his struggles for Italy; 
as earlier in life even the disabling hand of ill health 
had not deterred him from standing side by side with 
Garrison and Phillips in the great upheaval of con¬ 
science that led to our own Civil war. 
But “his travels, his romance, his friendships, were 
indulged chiefly by proxy of the printed page.” In 
what an age of literary wealth we live ! All the world 
comes to even the most sequestered homes if eager 
minds but bid it welcome. Travel and the tonic of the 
city’s rapid life are good ; but solitude and reflection 
are also good if self and petty interests do not bound 
the mental horizon. 
If your life seems narrow, broaden your thoughts 
and enthusiasms! R?ad and think, cultivate sweet 
and charitable thoughts, know who are laboring for 
the advancement of mankind and throw your hearts 
and sympathies into the good work even if at present 
there seems little hope of your affording real assist¬ 
ance. Everything moves in this world of ours either 
forward or backward. Keep always on the side of 
right and of the best tendencies and let not the oppor¬ 
tunity come to fill a wider sphere and find you unpre¬ 
pared. 
Once more, Whittier may furnish a suggestion for 
our country maidens and yoang men in the following 
reference to one phase of rural life : “ He was an 
adept in the art of conversation, having trained him¬ 
self in the difficult school of a New England farm¬ 
house, fit ground for such athletics, being typically 
bare of suggestion and of relief from outside sources.” 
To awaken a social spirit from the ashes of old 
thoughts and incidents does, indeed, demand a touch 
little short of genius. If it is well worth while for our 
girls and boys to study Latin and the higher mathe¬ 
matics for the sake of the mental discipline afforded, 
then surely the cultivation of the conversational 
powers is also worth any course of training making 
toward their development. The reference to Whittier 
goes on to say that 44 the unbroken afternoons and the 
long evenings, when the only hope of entertainment 
is in such fire as one brain can strike from another, 
produce a situation as difficult to the unskilled as that 
of an untaught swimmer when first cast into the sea.” 
Many of her friends would be willing to testify to 
the charm of a certain woman. She undoubtedly owes 
much of h :r tact and social genius to a girlhood spent 
among relatives and neighbors whose burdens of ill 
health and tendencies toward sadness it was the con¬ 
stant wish of her loving heart to relieve. She learned 
to lead their thoughts away from present ills to what¬ 
ever stores of impressions amusing and cheerful their 
memories cherished. Of course, she soon had all their 
old stories by heart, but her lively appreciation shed 
a charm of newness over every recital. If she knew 
all the queer old people and every locality as well as 
they whose memories reached back to them, it only 
gave additional pleasure to the story teller and made 
it seem the more like talking over old times with a 
cotemporary. 
Though she is no longer the companion of the old 
and the morbid, the accomplishment won in those 
early days still gives delight to others. The woman 
whose presence was once the delight of her country 
home finds in her city life plenty of people not easy to 
talk with ; friends as much in need of her loving sym¬ 
pathy, and emergencies where a ready wit and skill in 
drawing out other minds demands all the art of which 
her girlhood training put her in graceful possession 
Try to see the opportunity that lies under every 
trial. The society of a tiresome old grandmother may 
not seem to lead to the realizing of your dreams of 
social enjoyment; but learning to entertain her may 
be exactly the practice needed to fit you for the life 
for which you sigh. Remember that people who have 
not learned to swim, drown when they get into water 
beyond their depth. A mill pond will do to learn to 
swim in, and no accomplishment but sooner or later 
finds its happy sphere of usefulness. 
Prepare yourself for the best you can imagine, 
believe that you will realize the highest of which you 
are capable, work and press forward. 
PKUDENCE PKIMKOSK. 
A cream of tartar baking powder. 
Highest of all in leavening strength. 
—Latest United States Government 
Report. 
Royal Baking Powder Co., 
106 Wall Street, New York. 
