742 
Wrrmmv’sXDotrk. 
CONDUCTED BY EMILY LOUISE TAPLIN. 
THE WOMAN OF TO-DAY. 
frOEM READ BEFORE SOROSIS.] 
As yon walk the broa'l highways oC culture and art, 
O sweet, earnest women, of beautiful lives. 
In your care of tile Intellect slight not the heart — 
That gerul of the old-faShtOUOtt mothers and wives. 
The fair fields of progress are lovely, indeed. 
With the white robes of women who march on to 
fame, 
And the world is as ready to wish them God-speed 
As once it was ready to hiss them to shame. 
Oh! ho! for this era! this aye of progression! 
Bo glad that you live In this wonderful time. 
From the ruts of old creeds that bred wrong and op¬ 
pression 
We are marching out Into a future sublime. 
No more 'midst the sneers of an Insolent throng 
The woman of talent must make her gifts known. 
Now the world doffs les hat as she passes along; 
She is courted and sought, like the queen on her 
throne. 
The feminine “doctor,’' once rudely assailed 
By ridicule's shafts, has attained her true place; 
And daintily habited, booted, and veiled 
She enters sad homes like a vision of grace. 
The pert paragrapher falls flat in his mirth 
When he jests of tile "blue-stockings” careless array 
Her exquisite toilets are models for Worth 
(Sorosis itself proves my statement to-day). 
The women who think —In our cities and towns— 
Are no longer objects of Insult or fear; 
“Society” copies their eotnures and gowns. 
And whenever they speak the world pauses to hear. 
Then, ho! far this century! Thou ght U the fashion! 
The pathways are crowded to culture and art! 
But, alas! for us all, if the warm springs of passion 
Run dry In that time-honored organ, the heart. 
In the drama of life, full of pathos and pain. 
The scenes call for sympatliy. tenderness, lire; 
And the women whose hearts have dissolved into 
brain 
Are not the star actors, who teach and Inspire. 
We were meant to be creatures of sweetness aud love 
Though the highways of knowledge are lofty and 
broad, 
I know of fair hilltops that tower above— 
The hills of affection that lie close to God. 
In your strong, earnest ofToris great good to attain, 
Oh! earuest-souled women, remember this truth 
It was love and compassion, not talent aud brain, 
That Buddha and Christ brought the world In Its 
youth. 
Bravo, beautiful army, march onward and pray 
For the truest conception of duty aud right; 
You can baste the dim dawn of a wonderful day 
When the fair brow of Justice shall shine with new 
light, 
A day when the sins of your fathers and brothers 
By the eyes of the world are regarded the same 
As the errors and sins of your slscers anil mothers— 
When mjti sha. i admit there is no sea? to shame. 
Formed by the sam e clay, by the same God created, 
By the same pas-dona stirred, the same temptations 
vexed, 
Why should not our faults by the same rule be rated? 
i Why pardon one sinner aud sentence the next? 
This age Is for women! The pathway is clear, 
The boulders are gone that obstructed the past; 
There is much to be hoped for aud little to fear. 
Your purpose and strength are respected at last. 
The gates are wide open to knowledge and art: 
Ab ypu cultivate gardens in Intellects soil 
Sun the fruit- of your brain In the warmth of your 
heart 
And the world shall acknowledge ths wort h of your 
toll. 
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX. 
OF INTEREST TO WOMEN. 
Edelweiss is now a fashionable bridal 
flower. They are dried in their European 
home, and steamed before using to restore the 
shape. This flower is an illustration of the 
glamor cast over the common place by poetic 
associations. It is a very or tiuary woolly 
little thing, that would hardly attract atten¬ 
tion were it not for its habit of growing on in¬ 
accessible precipices, or on the borders of 
glaciers. It is not half so pretty as our pearly 
everlasting, and greatly resembles the little 
mouse-ear so common on our hillsides in early 
Spring. If we honor the plant for its courage 
in growing on these bleak hillsides, why not 
give equal honor to the pretty, but not special¬ 
ly romantic erauoerry? This chooses even 
more forbidding places of growth than the 
Edelweiss; we saw some tiny, careworn cran¬ 
berry plants brought by the Greely expedi¬ 
tion from Cape Sabine. 
We saw an encouraging little incident on the 
Sixth Avenue Elevated Road recently. The 
cars were crowded, aud seats were at a pre¬ 
mium. Au aqueduct laborer, covered with 
mud aud clay, got up aud ofTeral his seat to a 
middle-aged woman, evidently returning from 
a matinee. She thanked him profusely, but 
energetically refused the seat, and insisted on 
his sitting down again, saying she knew he was 
returning from a hard day’s work, and needed 
rest far more than she did. Such an example 
of courtesy on one side, and consideration, 
that is the essence of courtesy, on the other, 
needs no further comment. 
ANXIOUS MARTHAS. 
Some of Ruskin’s sharpest and most tren¬ 
chant words are directed against what he de¬ 
scribes as “immoral cheapness”—cheapness so 
much below the actual value of the article, 
that it tells of dishonest workmanship or un¬ 
derpaid toil. The great critic continues to tell 
us that nothing is over really cheap, and if we 
purchase au article for oue-half its market 
value, some one must be cheated. This same 
rule holds good applied to household labor; 
there is a class of energy we may describe, 
after Ruskin’s adjective, as “immoral indus¬ 
try.” It is this that reducos a woman to a 
machine, aud makes her forget all the graces 
that might have been in an unceasing round 
of drudgery. She is iudeed a very Martha 
cumbered with many cares, too busy to listen 
to the voice of her Divine Master, even though 
He sit iu her very household. 
Domestic work does not always mean do¬ 
mestic drudgery. It simply depends on the 
point of view. But to make it more than 
drudgery, we must needs possess “a soul above 
buttons.” Household cares must not be the 
main end in life, but simply a means to that 
end. 
Morally speaking, the wife and mother has 
the highest of destinies, and her character 
and intellect should receive the highest culti¬ 
vation. But alas! she does not always talce 
this view, and too many appear to think that 
their duties end with their material cares. 
And so they toil, until sweetness and come¬ 
liness is fled, aud intellect or spirituality 
mere empty sound, perfectly content if they 
can be described as the most energetic and 
forehanded housekeepers in the district. 
How we do feel for their children ? Poor 
little predestined victiinsjto whom “mother” 
means no friend of loving sympathy, but an 
energetic machine, wound up for life, with no 
idea of duty save iu making bread and butter, 
and pickles and preserves; in rubbing aud 
scrubbing, and sweepiug and dusting, until 
the very enumeration of her duties becomes a 
weariness at the flesh. This is uot the type of 
every enegertic housekeeper. We know 
many like “ Josiah Allen’s wife.” who, iu the 
midst of mauy cares, have practical sympathy 
for the suffering, aid for the needy, and a 
ready iuterest iu every good idea agitating 
the community. And this is the type of busy 
housekeeper we honor. She is energetic in 
mind as well as body, and though she recog¬ 
nizes the material necessities brought before 
her, she does not coniine her active mind to 
this alone. 
It is a popular error—and a popular sneer— 
to say that the woman with a “ mission” or 
the professional woman, is neglectful of her 
home duties. This may sometimes lx* a fact, 
but it is not by any means a self-evident 
axiom. It seems to us that a woman who 
gives herself up to material drudgery, to the 
extinction of intellectual growth, is as greatly 
to blame, as she who ignores the sweetness 
of working for those she loves. Domestic 
works alone, or intellect alone, will not make 
a perfect woman, she needs the combination 
of both. But, ah me! how full of briars is 
this work-a-day world, if we do but step out 
of the beaten path on either hand. 
-♦ » » . ■ - ■ - 
AN ILLOGICAL PROTEST. 
“ELEANOR KIRK.” 
The sensible article of “Worker” in last 
week’s issue of your paper has stirred me up 
to send you a letter recently received from an 
indignant “wife, mother and housekeeper.” 
It is the strangest of all strange things that 
the busiest and most overworked women are 
the ones who usually resent any suggestions 
or advice in the matter of labor-saving, and 
generally insist that their daughters shall foL 
low carefully in their footsteps. This is the 
letter: 
Dear Madam; It seems'very singular to me 
that a lady who boasts that she is an exper¬ 
ienced cook and housekeeper should advise all 
of her sisters to become type-writers, steno¬ 
graphers, photographers and what not. I 
want to ask you If all the women rush to pro¬ 
fessions who is going to take care of our men 
and what will become of the children? Is it 
possible that you believe in giving up our 
kitchens to foreign servants? Now, I think 
there is as much credit in being able to cook a 
meal of victuals as to write a good story for a 
newspaper or take a photograph of a mass of 
r<x:ks; and it is very' wrong to keep saying to 
woman, as you and some other woman’s-rights 
women do, that they are overworked. In 
fact, I think it is a great shame. It is the 
fashion for women to complain now-a-days 
aud blame their husbands for their own ahift- 
lessnoss and laziness, and it is very easy to 
make some women nervous and dissatisliod. 
And then for you to make a mountain out of 
such a little mole-hill as the making of yeast. 
I can make yeast that will keep and make 
good bread aud at a less expense tha n bought- 
en. I believe in saving my husband’s money. 
In fact, I do all my own work for nine in the 
family, and make every garment that we 
wear, excepting shoes and boots, aud if I was 
put to my stumps I could make them too. I 
don’t ask any odds of anybody', and that was 
the way I was brought up. As a sample of 
the effect of such writing as yours, my daugh¬ 
ter, who can’t bear housework, said after 
reading one of your letters, that if she ever 
kept house she wouldn’t break her back mak¬ 
ing soap and yeast, and her husband might 
starve to death before she would got up cold 
winter mornings, as I did, and make the 
fires. 
It seems to me that such teaching is very 
daugerous. We are told iu Holy Writ to do 
what our hands find to do with all our might, 
and though the shirkers of the world may 
have an easier time here, a day r of reckoning 
will surely come hereafter. 
.Now, I haven’t intended to hurt your feel¬ 
ings, but when I see a thing that I think is 
wrong, I feel that I have a commission to set 
it right. Yours respectfully, 
MRS. -, 
Wife. Mother and Housekeeper. 
“ P. S.—I want to say that my husband is 
willing and able to hire help for me if I 
thought best to have it. In the Summer I 
average 50 pounds of butter a week.” 
The above is doubtless as honest (in expres¬ 
sion of opinion as ever came from the heart of 
woman, but how frightfully narrow and illog¬ 
ical. Aud what a showing! Fifty pounds of 
butter a week, and all the cooking, washing 
aud ironing, scrubbing and sewing, for nine 
persous. It does uot seem credible, aud yet. I 
am sure that every word of this dreadful story 
is true. I have seen and talked with just such 
ambitious workers, women, who at night are 
too tired in soul aud body to read or visit, 
and who drag themselves out of bod every 
morning in the year, wan, weak and unre¬ 
freshed. Home go to pieces in harness, others 
suffer from chrouic maladies, aud some be¬ 
come helpless invalids. Others still lose their 
good looks, aud their good nature, aud grow 
as sour as the pickles they are so fond of mak¬ 
ing aud spoiling their childrens stomachs 
with. 
Then look at the moral and religious side of 
this subjeet. How much spiritual growth is 
possible to the woman whose time from y'ear’s 
end to year’s end is entirely occupied with the 
practical details of housekeeping} My corres¬ 
pondent asks what will becorue of our chil¬ 
dren, and who will take care of our men? 
God knows what would become of them if all 
our wives aud mothers were like this one. 
Then she imagines that she performs all her 
duty toward her family when she washes their 
clothes, fills their stomachs aud darns their 
socks? Is there no higher service thin this? 
A women can set a greater value on the abili¬ 
ty to “ cook a meal of victuals” than the 
writer. In her opinion, no woman has approx¬ 
imated toward an education until she can cook 
enough dishes to comfortably feed a family in 
an emergency, and knows how to care for the 
sick iu practical fashion. She may sing with 
the sweetest of the poets, calculate au eclipse, 
or preach the most eloquent sermons. Some¬ 
times these talents, grand as they are, have 
seemed like the veriest rubbish when some 
dear one has needed the special service that 
alone could preserve life, or make life endura¬ 
ble until the physician and nurse could be sum¬ 
moned. 
Only a few' days ago I heard a most accom¬ 
plished woman remark t hat she had seen the 
time when she would gladly have exchanged 
every talent she possessed for the ability to 
make “a bowl of drinkable gruel.” 
No, No! Let us have as thorough a domes¬ 
tic foundation as possible, but let us at. the 
same time instruct our girls that it is asm aud 
a shame to waste their strength aud nervous 
energies anywhere, in the parlor,in the church, 
in the ball-room, in the kitchen, if women 
are so situated that they must do all of their 
own housework—as unfortunately too many 
of them are—wash, iron, bake aud brew for 
“nine in a family,” heaven grant them grace 
and patience. But when as in the case of my 
correspondent, this is unnecessary, may they 
come to have more sense than she has shown 
for if they do uot she may well ask who will 
take care of our men, and what will become 
of the children? 
Surely “Big oaks from little acorns grow,” 
the acorns in this case boiug un innocent little 
yeast cake, a photographic camera, and a 
type-writer. 
Daring the past Summer my heart has been 
cheered by the sight of girls striking out in 
new and unexpected directions, and 1 have 
not hesitated to make mention of these facts. 
Now, was it uot for a woman who loves her 
box, a novel aud cheering spectacle to see 
young, intelligent and attractive women earn; 
ing good money by taking photographs? 
There have been several such artists on the 
Rhode Island coast this Summer. One of these 
was an invalid from the effect of late hours 
tight laciug and fashiouable life generally, in 
obedience to the infernal practice of dressing 
to please the eye of some rich man with a view 
to nmrriace. This girl not only took first- 
class pictures, but she entirely regained her 
health. 
The next count in the indictment, is the 
writer’s advice to busy house-keepers to raise 
their bread with Fleisehmann’s yeast cakes in¬ 
stead of puttering and failing with home-made 
experiments. 
In the name of common sense why should 
women add to their heavy burdens when skill 
and science have done so much to save them? 
The time may come and perhaps is not far 
distant when this active and ambitious house¬ 
keeper will be very glad to have the baker 
stop before her door and leave the loaves 
which now she doubtless holds in as much 
contempt as the labor-saving material above 
mentioned. 
HOBBIES. 
ALICE GOLDSMITH. 
“A hobby is one of the most useful things 
in life, aud something which every young per¬ 
son should cultivate.” 
There is a world of truth aud thought iu 
the above. With a hobby the poorest clerk 
or the richest millionaire is supplied with a 
cure for ennui or worry, that will save him 
many a doctor’s bill. If a young man who is 
confined to his desk for 1(J hours a day, has a 
decided taste for botany or geology, bo will 
employ lus holidays iu making excursions in¬ 
to the country, and the arranging of the 
specimens he may collect, will while him from 
sadder thoughts iu the evenings. A talent for 
woodcarving, painting, mechanics or any of 
the many pursuits requiring deftness of hand, 
or quickness and correctness of eye, will 
prove a resource against business worry that 
will add veal's to his life. Children should be 
traiued bo encourage a taste for simple and 
wholesome pleasures that do uot depend upon 
money for their gratification. To aid a child 
to develop his natural taste for auy pursuit is 
the best way to form a “hobby.” If a boy 
takes kindly to tools or mechanics', help him 
aloug; skill in any handicraft is a valuable 
possession. If ho shows a partiality for any 
science help him to make a collection, or to do 
some original work, start him toward his 
hobby. If he has an enthusiasm for study and 
work, the subject makes little difference. At 
that critical age when the confidence of the 
youth is uot tempered by the judgement of 
the mau, devotion to a hobby, may serve to 
prevent the formation of habits which might 
wreck a career. 
It is the inability of the busiuess aud profess¬ 
ional men of this country to take rest from 
the wearisome routine of their life which 
drives so mauy of them to madness or suicide. 
Newspaper men are especially liable, by in¬ 
cluding Sundays and holidays among their 
workdays, to bring on a stab? of mental col¬ 
lapse that is almost as distressing as down¬ 
right insanity. A little devotion to u “sane 
madness” for growing tulips or fancy peas, or 
raising birds, has saved more than one life. 
When a man has no resources of recreation in 
himself, business becomes a treadmill, and if 
ho persists in it for many years, he will de¬ 
crease in mental aud physical vigor to an 
alarming degree. 
I once know a boy who had a hobby for col¬ 
lecting postage stamps. His time and money 
all went in collecting and arranging his be¬ 
loved stamps. This only lasted for a few years 
of his boyish life, but even this was not use- 
lass. He was saved from idleness and its at¬ 
tendant evils, and from bad associations. Ho 
became a connoiseur in stamps aud their val¬ 
ues, and while gathering knowledge about 
them learned much that was worth knowing 
about, the countries that produced them. 
When at 10 years of age he became the proud 
producer of a small printing press, he throw 
all his aoquired habits of work and research 
into the production of his amateur paper, aud 
to-day at the early age of 22, is a successful 
journalist standing high in his profession, 
still, however, with a “hobby”—this time for 
music. 
Individuality is not encouraged as it should 
bo in our schools, Teachers are overworked 
and have little time to study the mental pecu¬ 
liarities of their pupils. A child with a good 
memory may outstrip in class honors many a 
schoolmate simply by virtue of the superficial 
knowledge of all the studies which ho has no 
trouble in acquiring. A boy or girl of an 
originul turn of mind asks questions, wants to 
know the why and wherefore of things, aud 
revolts at the mere memorizing of lessons, 
that ho does uot understand. The chief ob¬ 
ject of the best educators is the development 
of this tendency to ask questions and to refuse 
to bo content with the mere learning of rules. 
Life is too short to master more than a 
single department of any science. The ten- 
