Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 84, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 April 1910 — WOMEN'S INTERESTS [ARTICLE]

WOMEN'S INTERESTS

Thoasrhta on Domestic Economy. There ar» siany (households in which the mistress of the establishment doesn’t know her business, writes the Country Contributor. This is a deplorable state of affairs. What right has a woman to marry and take on the responsibility of housekeeping when she doesn’t know the first thing about it? Wh|at man would dare attempt life at such hazards? With such a wife a man Is truly “up against it” when hard times come. If the woman has been wholly dependent on the cook and the best that the marked affords for food for her husband and family, where are they to land when prices rise as they have risen and retrenchment in household expenses is necssary?

There are many women who hold this ignorance and Incapacity of theirs as a distinction—they imagine that it marks them something above the common herd. Out upon such nonsense! What man at the head of a large manufacturing or business concern can succeed unless he knows the minutest detail of the business? Why is It that the man “who began as an office boy” so often ends as a millionaire? Simply because he knows his business from the ground up. If the details of a business, then, are not above the close study and consideration of a financier, why should the minutiae of the day’s work be beneath the notice of the mistress of any sort of house? Why should not the flour bin and the grease can be under her inspection? And why should she not be able to take the place of any servaflt~lirtß6~TlCfiie If necessity presents Itself? To my mind, nothing is more interesting than the preparation of food and the study of domestic problems. Our supper in the kitchen redemonstrated to our minds the fact that we have too much house. Nobody needs a parlor, a living room, a dining room and a kitchen, at least nobody In moderate circumstances. The family life is much alike among rich and poor and we are nestling, close living creatures by nature. A small room with a genial fire draws the family like a magnet, a little circle, needing only love and congeniality to bring happiness. ,Can we not take a lesson, from this regarding the .Actual essentials of existence?