Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 September 1888 — FEMALE TRAINING INSTITUTES. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

FEMALE TRAINING INSTITUTES.

BY FREDERIC TOWNSEND.

’NOTICE in papers that a wealthy but single old philanthropist is going to establish and endow a training institute for women. This will make the conjugal pathway much easier for

our sons to traverse than it has been for us bald-headed pioneers. I would rather beard the royal Bengal tiger in his Bessemer drawing-room, though, than be a professor in the institute.

I would that every man hesitating on the threshold of matrimony would cut this out, and mention the name of this paper when he writes. There was no household editor evolving this thought when I bounded into the arena of married life, hence I have laid the dust of several summers with tears of repentance. My error consisted in seeking to train the recognized exponent of my domestic ties. Were Ito harbor such a purpose again I should very guardedly tell her so in a sealed document not to be opened until after my death. One of my first advances was to demonstrate the utility of tobacco in fertilizing the atmosphere of the fireside. I showed conclusively how many millions of microbes were snuffed out per second by the fumes of old Virginia leaflets. Statistics, I can now declare from experience, have no power to soften a woman’s heart. So I harness the microbes only in the woodshed, with a heavy astrakhan for a smoking jacket. *

Another course in domestic culture I had planned for her comprised flexibility in arranging my armchair by the evening lamp and locating my slippers conveniently near. We never got beyond the rudiments in this branch of instruction, as she showed tendencies of mature reflection in a different school of thought. I usually am lucky enough to find the slippers without going outside the city limits, and am now satisfied if nothing worse than a nest of kittens interferes with their fit.

Chemistry was next dropped from the curriculum. An oral effort of mine on “Bread Making” awoke no slumbering ambition in the idol of my adoration. Perhaps she had got a tip that ambition killed Cromwell. Mayhap she deemed it much a-dough about nothing. At any rate, the warty hand I often grasp in the fervency of a political canvass or a chance meeting at the bar, makes my bread as well, and I always hold it up to the light, like a piece of smoked glass or a precious gem, before I partake of it. I would not cast any reproach upon it, but I would reap any roach I found in it without a single lingering regret.

I once beamed fondly on each maid I met upon the strand, And on occasion not too staid, Could squeeze a velvet hand; A tapering waist I often laced With arm that knew well how— But I haven’t, I haven’t, I haven't for a long time now. • This feature of my disposition I purposed letting my wife get used to gradually, but, meanwhile, she entered a protest which I was injudicious enough to lend an ear to. Possibly a wife can be trained to clamber up a trellis like a grapevine, and one I had got so she could climb up the stairway to my office every time a pretty girl was within. Speaking of trains and women, let me reside a moment on the suggestive fact that the Goddess of Liberty always flags her train. Assuming that the full course in the training institute will cover four years, I would suggest that the time might be profitably employed in pursuing the following curriculum: First Year— Cultivation of the giggle, to the end that it may be used with some discrimination. Second Year — Daily drill in overcoming the temptation to look around to see how another woman’s new dress sets in the back. Third Year— Hygienic instruction in the dangers of theater-going, eating ice cream and candy, and wearing expensive bangles. Fourth Year— Etiquette of the parlor sofa. Avoidance of such trite expressions as “Oh, Gawge, this is so sudden,” and “I never was kissed by : man before in all my life. ”