2S 
JAN 44 
TME RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
that they may be provided for the man. Did 
any one ever know or hear of a farm house 
that was provided with running water in the 
kitchen, stationary wash tubs with drains and 
a bath room before machines were bought for 
the farm work ? And yet all these conven¬ 
iences are just as saving of labor to a woman 
as are straw choppers, harvesting and thrash¬ 
ing machines to the man. Indeed they are 
more so, for they are of continual daily use. 
The woman too often yields her right, thinking 
she can get along without them, and 
the man, like Barkis, “is willin. ” 
Think of the women who after a long day’s 
toil sit up at night to darn and mend while 
the men snore in a chair, loaf at the country 
store or are in bed at rest. Women’s work is 
taken up when out of bed—an hour too early 
as a rule—and is laid down only when she 
goes to bed. She never takes an hour’s noon¬ 
ing in the heat of harvest. A man would feel 
insulted to work hard all day and then have 
to get his own meals and make his own bed, 
but that is practically what the majority of 
women do all their lives. A woman who 
worked at house-cleaning for me several days 
in October and richly earned her dollar a day, 
told me that, aside from getting the break¬ 
fast in the morning for herself and husband, 
she took in much washing which she did 
after nightfall besides all her baking and mar¬ 
keting, and she was out at work every day 
except a part of Saturday, and she has been 
working at this rate for years, and all for the 
sake of keeping her home over her head. I 
can appreciate her desire, for as King Lear 
said: “He who has a house to put his head 
in, has a good head-piece,” and still to toil in 
her fashion is terrible for a woman. I do 
not know how a man feels when he is tired, 
but a tired-out woman mus* - , in the nature of 
things, be a great deal tireder while the phys¬ 
ical harm done is in her case far greater. 
There is no doubt but that women are them¬ 
selves to blame for much of their hard work. 
The idea of hospitality entertained by the ma¬ 
jority of countrywomen is to feed the stomach. 
I remember going once to visit a distant rel¬ 
ative whom I had not seen since I was a small 
child and whom I was not likely to see again 
and I was unable to forewarn her of my com¬ 
ing. I had only part of a day to spend with 
her. She was a bright and witty woman and 
had a genial husoand. She gave me a cordial 
welcome and soon had me seated in the parlor 
(opened only on state occasions—the kind of 
room I abhor) and then leaving her husband 
to talk, she disappeared for three hours, at the 
end of which time we were seated at a very 
elaborate dinner. The man had “visited” 
and I enjoyed the good dinner of which I have 
a live memory, while of my woman relative 
I have only the slightest recollection. Upon 
another occasion I stopped to spend a part of 
a day with a friend in Baltimore, who was tem¬ 
porarily without a cook. “We must make the 
most of our short time,” she said at the outset. 
When mid-day came she went to her kitchen 
for five or ten minutes and returned with a 
tray upon which she had arranged a 
simple lunch quite sufficient for our need. I 
do not recall anything that we had to eat, but 
the memory of that visit is delightful. She 
gave me of herself what I wanted, and did not 
waste the opportunity in preparing food for 
me that I could always find at home. When 
people come unannounced they are to take “pot 
]uck” as a matter of course, and it is no compli¬ 
ment to a guest to treat him as if he were all 
stomach and no heart. Especially in the coun¬ 
try where social enjoyment is far less com¬ 
mon than in towns, the most should be made 
of it and the mind refreshed with the variety 
it brings. Insanity often has its source in the 
isolation of country life and its lack of 
change. Farmers’ families neither ride 
enough nor walk enough. Walking in many 
localities is not pleasant because of tramps, 
and when a woman is tired she is not likely to 
take to the fields for recreation. She drops 
in a chair by a window and sews, and keeps 
on breathing the house-poisoned air for lack 
of any better. The “grange societies” area 
move in the right direction, in the way of 
social recreation. The undeveloped or unre¬ 
lieved mind is very apt to become a prey to 
petty cares and anxieties that a larger mind 
would regard as frivolities. 
The disposition of many farmers’ wives to 
do without “help” because “they make more 
work than they do” shows a lack of courage 
that is in a way craven. True, the hired girl 
breaks and wastes and destroys to the amount 
of her wages, but not always. And then it is 
better to suffer breakage in wares than in 
bodily health. The stupidest girl can usually 
be set at some work that she can do. More¬ 
over, freedom that is worth having was never 
yet won without a struggle, and a “struggle” 
with a hired girl is worth a trial or with a 
dozen in succession. Hired men for much of 
the work about the house do admirably—the 
“handy” ones. The old maxim that one 
can’t have his cake and eat it, too, applies to 
the superfluous work of the farmhouse, when 
it is either to kill yourself with work, or sac¬ 
rifice something for the sake of being relieved. 
Allowing that things will not be done by the 
servant in your way, and that above her 
board and wages, there will be loss, the loss 
will, in point of fact not amount to very 
much. The thing after all to succeed in farm¬ 
ing, lies more in good management than in 
small economies, Benjamin Franklin’s max¬ 
im about pennies to the contrary notwith¬ 
standing. When a woman runs out in the 
rain and wet, to get a hen and chickens under 
shelter, and runs herself half dead to drive 
cattle out of where they ought not to be, 
and catches a cold in the first place and a pain 
in heUside in the second, she might well ask 
herself what would have happened if she had 
not attempted either! And so with many 
another thing that women think must be done 
to prevent woful disaster, and overtax them¬ 
selves in order to do it. You who have read 
G-ibbons’s great history remember his account 
of the destruction of the statue of the God 
Serapis in Alexandria. It was confidently 
affirmed that if any impious hand should dare 
to violate the majesty of the god, the heavens 
and the earth would instantly return to their 
original chaos. But a brave soldier, animated 
by Christian zeal, and armed with a battle- 
axe, resolved to put the matter to test', and 
aimed a heavy blow against the cheek of 
Serapis. Thousands awaited in terror the 
dreadful catastrophe; but nothing at all hap¬ 
pened. It did not even thunder and the heav¬ 
ens and the earth sailed on in their accustomed 
serenity although the statue was broken into 
pieces and the legs of Serapis ignominiously 
dragged through the streets of the city. And 
so with many customs and habits that are no 
better than so many superstitions. Do have 
a little courage, enough to feel that things 
can be done differently, or left entirely 
undone, and you will still escape the poor- 
house . 
Consider how differently the men and 
women and the boys and girls on farms gen¬ 
erally, spend their evenings, their rainy days, 
and bad weather. If there is any reason why 
boys shouldn’t learn to patch and darn, and 
to take care of their own rooms, as well as 
girls, it has not yet come to light. There is 
nothing unmanly, or unwomanly in knowing 
how to do, or in doing, any useful thing. 
Although men as cooks, receive the highest 
wages paid to cooks in the world, still the 
average woman will rise from a sick bed to 
cook the breakfast for her husband because 
she feels somehow that he can not prepare it 
for himself, although he has watched her do 
it a hundred times, so much does custom 
fashion the mind. Every one of the thousands 
of Chinamen in this country, with compara¬ 
tively few exceptions, does his own cooking, 
washing, inending, and every detail of his 
housekeeping, and this in addition to his day’s 
work. In point of time and industry he 
comes the nearest to the work of the Ameri¬ 
can farmer’s wife of any one. 
In the matter of expenditure I venture to 
say that the house-mother on the farm spends 
on herself on an average, during her entire 
life—until she breaks down and the doctor 
steps in with his bills —25 per cent, less than 
any other member of the family. If anyone 
is sufficiently curious in the matter to keep an 
exact record of the entire moneys expended 
by the different members of a farmer’s family 
—the cost of maintenance and of extras—he 
will probably suffer no surprise in observing 
that the male members get the lion’s share. 
The girls rarely have an equal chance with 
the boys, and the boys, as a rule, are fearfully 
impolite and disobliging to their sisters and 
often to the mother, careless of sparing her 
steps and saving the work of her hands. 
They too often act as if they thought that the 
mission of women was to straighten up the 
world after they had stumbled through it. 
The custom that obtains on some farms of 
allowing the women only the proceeds of 
certain commodities for their personal expen¬ 
ses, such as butter, eggs, etc., is often very un¬ 
fair. Beyond being neatly and comfortably 
dressed, 1 do not see that anybody need to feel 
badly because of plain clothing, but it is piti¬ 
able when one forever is denied some small 
luxury that may not cost over five dollars. I 
used to afflict myself in a similar way and do 
without certain articles that I could dispense 
with, but which I was always wanting. 
But now I summon up courage like the 
soldier with the battle axe, give the cheek of 
Serapis a whack, buy the things I most desire 
and await the coming of my doom! Nothing 
terrible happens. The house has never run 
away nor burned down,nor have thieves brok¬ 
en into steal—saving once—nor the sheriff ap¬ 
peared on the scene. I have learned that 
over-care a* d over-anxiety rarely, if ever, 
amount to two rows of pins Beyond a certain 
reasonable limit and prudent foresight, it is a 
great deal better to trust to Providence than to 
a tired body. Of course on a faun, where all 
the members of the family work together in 
a community kind of way, the interests are 
supposed to be mutual. But this is not true. 
The man holds the balance of power every 
time in the disposition of the money and the 
real estate. I never have known but one far¬ 
mer whose wife never had to ask him for 
money. He made it a point to see that her 
pocketbook was never empty, and he replen¬ 
ished it, I believe, in more liberal wise than 
he did his own. He knew her loyalty and 
thrift, but he resolved from the beginning, 
when they joined their fortunes, that his wife 
should never be subjected to the humiliation 
of asking him for every cent she needed to 
spend. 
(To be continued.) 
GOLDEN GRAINS. 
George Eliot says the reward of one duty 
is the power to fulfill another. 
Spurgeon says: “The Word of Life is 
meant for men as sinners and not for men as 
philosophers”. .. 
Queer, isn’t it? —How curious it is that a 
man may seriously doubt if he is a Christian, 
but be very certain that he is a Baptist, or 
Presbyterian or Methodist says the Indepen¬ 
dent. 
If thou art worn and hard beset 
With sorrows, that thou wouldst forget. 
If thou wouldst read a lesson that will keep 
Thy heart from fainting and thy soul from sleep, 
Go to the woods and hills!—No fears 
Dim the sweet look that nature wears.— lA>ngfellow. 
The Duke of Argyll, in one of his recent 
works, says: “There is nothing but mind 
that we can respect; nothing but heart that 
we can love; nothing but a perfect combina¬ 
tion of the two tnat we can adore.” A pro¬ 
found and striking truth. 
Robertson says: “The one who will be 
found in trial capable of great acts of love, is 
ever the one who is always doing considerate 
small ones. 
Kingsley advises us to do to-day’s duty, 
fight to day’s temptation and not to weaken 
and distract yourself by looking forward to 
things which you cannot see, and could not 
understand if you saw them. 
You will seldom find a character of peculiar 
finish but you will also find that it has come 
up through prescribed conditions—“through 
much tribulation.”. 
The Christian Intelligencer says: “In our 
homes we seldom have to overcome resistance, 
but we often let the children slip away be¬ 
cause we do not sympathize with them. We 
forget how we felt when we were young. We 
look at facts and fancies with eyes from which 
experience has swept the golden glamour, and 
we are intolerant where we ought to be pa¬ 
tient. The generation which is coming on the 
stage elbows and crowds the one which has 
possession, and in each the personal feeling 
influences opinion and action. Youth and age 
sympathize more readily than youth and mid¬ 
dle age, because the latter, outside the intens¬ 
ity of the struggle, has leisure to get the child- 
heart back again.. 
CONDUCTED BY MRS. AGNES E. M. CARMAN. 
“Rest is not quitting thebusy career ; 
Rest is the fitting of self to one's sphere .” 
Is yours to be a cloudy or a sunshiny house 
during 1888? __ 
Whatever you dislike in another, take care 
to correct in yourself. 
Prosperity is the only test that a vulgar 
man cau’t pass through. If a man has any¬ 
thing mean in his disposition a little good 
luck is sure to bring it out. 
THE NEW YORK TRADE SCHOOLS. 
HOW BOYS MAY BECOME MASTER MECHANICS. 
There is a silly prejudice among American 
parents of the middle class, and especially 
among mothers, against having their children 
learn trades. Every boy who can acquire a 
common-school education—and in these days 
there are few who cannot—aspires to fill a 
clerical position. The professions are over¬ 
crowded. There are doctors who should be 
sawyers of wood rather than of the human 
anatomy; poor lawyers who might have made 
their mark as bricklayers; and more than one 
hand wields the pen, whose owner might have 
doubled his income had it held the plane and 
adz. 
As a consequence, foreign workmen are 
earning, and sending out of the country from 
four to six dollars per day each, while Ameri 
can lads, perched upon high stools in count¬ 
ing-houses and offices, are becoming narrow- 
chested, round-shouldered and near-sighted, 
at sums varying from to $50 per month. 
Broad shoulders and manly forms are the ex¬ 
ception, and not the rule. Few hardy and 
robust youths, such as are found among Swiss 
mountaineers, and the laboring classes of 
every country, are to be seen among the 
young men of our middle and better classes. 
We bid fair to become a race of pigmies be¬ 
cause, forsooth, manual labor is “vulgar.” 
The apprenticeship sj’stem has had much to 
do with this state of things. I do not refer to 
that which was in vogue in the days of “Si¬ 
mon Tappertit,” when apprentice lads sat at 
their master’s tables and fell in love with 
their master’s pretty daughters; but to the 
modern apprentice, who is merely a hired 
boy, learning what he can by observation and 
such practice as he can get while making him¬ 
self useful around the shop. During the reign 
of Queen Elizabeth a law was passed forbid¬ 
ding any person to work at a trade who had 
not first served an apprenticeship of seven 
years, which law was not repealed until 1814. 
The apprentice laws still provide for inden¬ 
turing a lad to a master mechanic, although 
such indentures are seldom made except by the 
overseers of the poor for pauper lads. 
In the olden times the master worked with 
his men, and the more apprentices he could 
employ, and the more thoroughly he could 
teach them, the greater Ids profit. Now, as 
pointed out by Richard T. Auchmuty, in 
Harper’s, a master rarely works at his trade, 
his time being more profitably spent 
in looking for customers, managing his fi¬ 
nances, or purchasing material. The fore¬ 
man, in whose charge the shop is put, has no 
time to waste on untrained lads. The trades- 
unions are opposed to masters taking more 
than one apprentice, be they ever so willing 
to teach them, one of their accepted theories 
being the advantage of limiting the number of 
workers. 
Under union rules an employer is only al¬ 
lowed from two to four apprentice lads,whose 
term of service is from two to four to five 
years, which under the most favorable cir¬ 
cumstances allows an employer to graduate 
only one skilled workman a year. This only 
holds good in large cities. In country towns 
where there are no unions, a boy can learn a 
trade without opposition, if he can find a 
master workman willing to teach him; but 
the standard of workmanship not being so 
high in country towns, country mechanics 
cannot compete with city workmen on even 
terms. 
Even where a boy can find a master work¬ 
man willing to take him for an apprenticeship 
of four or five years, he must during that 
time be submitted to the degrading influences 
of such associates—often foreign laborers of 
the lowest classes—as his work throws him in . 
the way of. Thus, a boy who is willing to 
work, and anxious to De taught how he may 
best earn an honest livelihood, finds his path 
beset with almost insurmountable obstacles 
from the start. Many a mother who has no 
foolish prejudice against the learning of a 
trade, is unwilling to have her son thrown 
among such companions as an apprenticeship 
necessitates for a number of years, and at an 
age when he is most susceptible to outside in¬ 
fluences. 
It remained for the trade schools to make it 
possible for a boy to find out what be is fitted 
for, and to learn to do that thing in a master¬ 
ly and scientific way, without being submit¬ 
ted to the demeaning and degrading influ¬ 
ences of a four years’ apprenticeship. The 
workman of the future must do what all pro¬ 
fessional men now do, he must learn how to 
do some sort of work before he seeks employ¬ 
ment. The trade school is to the mechanic 
what the law school is to the lawyer, the 
medical school to the physician, and the scien¬ 
tific schools to the architect and engineer. 
On the Continent the necessity for these 
schools was recognized about the middle of 
the last century; There are, in Europe, 
schools for the building trades, for clock and 
watch making, for iron work, furniture and 
pottery, for the weaving of silk and wool, and 
for the making of beer and sugar,and thus it is 
possible for these skilled workmen in every 
branch of labor to obtain lucrative employ¬ 
ment, while our unskilled American men are 
often idling about the beer-shops for the want 
of work which they do not know how to do. 
The amount of money expended upon these 
technical schools in European countries shows 
the value set upon them by the governments. 
The annual expenses of the Technical School 
When Baby was sick, we gave her Castoria 
When she was a Child, she cried for Castoria, 
When she became Miss, she clung to Castoria, 
when she had Children, she gave them Castoria, 
