The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, May 23, 1895, Page 8

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, THURSDAY, MAY 23, 1895 THE WOMANS CONGRESS The Woman’s Congress has waked up. It nas realized in time what Mrs. Stetson calls its opportunity for talking back. Be- fore yesterday morning’s session was over there®was no dearth of discussion, and as the president, Mrs. Cooper, stood upon the platform sweetly auctioning off another minute there was no lack of bidders for the privilege of speech. Curiously enough it was not woman suf- frage, not a question of man’s superi- ority or inferiority in intellect, not a matter of morals and manners which precipitated the dew of discussion from the thunder-clouds of thought. Doubtless, women are interested in all these things; but, to judge by yester- day’s excitement, there is one subject which is still the vital question to women of all kinds: the homely one of house- keeping. After an apparently inoffensive talk by the Rev. Ada Bowles on ‘“Home Indus- tries’’ there followed a remarkable discus- sion which ranged from the shocking un- reliability of newspaper reporters and the color of 2 woman'’s hair to an attack upon ministers, a profession of un-faith and a @enial of the Deity. Mrs. Bowles had spoken eloquently about ‘‘clean, bonest lye,’”’ ‘‘zood soft soap,” ‘‘clear greese,” ‘nice, new, white wool” and other housewifely details as though she still spent most of her time in the spotless New England kitchen and back yard, her description of which had brought a wistful look of remembrance to many an old woman's face among her listeners. She accused men of having limited woman’s usefulness in the home, and of having driven her out of that home by their inventions. “You shall spin asa factory girl more cotton in a day than youn have donein a year at home,” is one of the imaginary speeches she attributes to man. She says he has even deprived the mother of the pleasure of rocking her own baby to sleep, but being \practical as well as a woman, Mrs. Bowles suggests-that mothers deposit their babies in these man-given patent cradles, wind up the spring, set the cradles rocking, put on their bonnets, go to vote and be back in four minutes with that blessed baby—asleep or loud awake—still swinging away. But “God bless the men!" was the end of her talk. And man was gracefully thanked by another woman who invoked God’s bless- ing upon him for having made woman’s work lighter. A member suggested that man’s meddling with woman’s affairs would result in his taking the spring housecleaning off her hands, and there was a fervent “amen” to that. And then reference was made to the monumental selfishness of one man who is lying neath a lying tombstone, which ascribes to him the glory of the thing his wife invented. *I don’t understand,” then boldly said a woman in the gallery, who has not red hair, “the necessity of the continued allu- sicas i this congress to religion and God- 1sm. The ininisters are the ones who have most bitterly opposed woman's progress from the first. Advanced women should be done with the myths of religion. As for me, I have always been converted; not to any sect or kind of religion, but to the gloricus belief in woman’s freedom. ButI don’t believe in a God.”” There was an awed hush, followed by a mixture of ladylike hisses and applause. Then the Rev. Ada Bowles came forward. “You are a brave woman,” she said, ad- dressing the dark-haired atheist in the gallery, “and I think you believe what you say, but the time will come,” and Mrs. Bowles’ tone suggested the pulpit, “the time will come when your belief in God will be as strong and as fearlessly ex- pressed as—"" “Nev-er!” came a long-drawn-out, obsti- nate wail from the gallery. “Let us be tolerant,” said Anna Shaw, who is a doctor of medicine as well as a minister. “If any one feels deeply, it is better that he should express his feelings than to use dynamite. An expression of opinion never blew up anybody. If the lady wishes to make public her unbelief, it relieves her and it doesn’t hurt us. But—" And Miss Shaw became the Rev. Anna 8haw, and amid much hand-clap- ping ané visible satisfaction the religious tone of the congress was re-established. One of the best papers read in the congress followed, Mrs. Helen Campbell’s “Skilled Labor or Domestic Service.” Its thoughtful argument brought about a discussion of the ‘help” question, which in its humanity, its comprehension of the subject and its capacity to look upon the matter from all points of view, does credit to the woman who engaged in it. “Give the woman who's doing your work & good room to live in. Crowd your guest, but make your servant comfortable.” “1f a diploma shall be required in time from the maid, a diploma must also attest the fitness of the mistress to command.” ““Your servant has as much right to re- ceive callers as any other member of the family.” “If you want to elevate domestic ser- wvice,” said Miss Anthony, rising from her flower-bedecked throne, ‘‘elevate the head of it.” “The nurse’s cap and apron on the street is a disgrace to American mothers,” said the Rev. Eliza Tupper Wilkes. And, evidently, the whole of the con- gress agreed with her. Nevertheless, San Francisco is not likely to see the abolish- ment of domestic livery, for woman seems to have become quite as broad-minded as man in her capacity to draw the line be- tween theory and practice. MirraM MICHELSON. e THE MORNING SESSION. Cooks and Domestic Servants on the Card for Discus- sion. Once again Golden Gate Hall was crowd- ed to the doors yesterday morning with the women of San Francisco and a num- ber of men. ‘*‘Cookery” was the principal subject, and, as every one knows, since the time of Owen Meredith “‘civilized man can- not live without cooks”—or woman either, for that matter. Then, again, the servant girl problem was on thecard and the views of the women of the congress on the sub- ject were known to be pronounced. The first paper on the programme was by Mrs. Sturtevant Peet on “Our House- hold Limitations.” ““The home of our childhood ” ssid tbe speaker, *'is not the home of our maturer years. The protection and maintenance of our homes should be the first care of onr Government. The home is the nursery of love, the kindergarten of moral force and the temple of morality. It is toa govern- ment what a number of small springs are to a mighty river of homes, and their purity should be the first care of our Gov- ernment. “The mnew woman,” continued the syeakgr, ‘‘was at last awakening to the re- alization that she might use her brain as well as bands. The criticisms against the more advanced women were answered by the question, if 2 woman who was capabie of making a good speech was not also capable of caring properly for her home? The trouble of the times was in the mis- DISCUSSES COOKS. Valuable Pointers Are Given on the Management of the Home, but the Servant Girl Problem Still Remains Unsolved. construing of the motives of women. The ancient Greeks regarded their women in the light of slaves, and unless the men of the present day recognized intellect in women the condition of the latter would not be superior to that of the ancient Greek women. “The woman of to-day,” concluded Mrs. Peet, *‘is the outgrowth of ideas conceived in the days of our Puritan fathers, and later of those born of the American free- dom of 1776. We may be thankful that we have advanced women among us, for to them will we look for the elevation of the home to higher planes.” There seemed to be no desire on the part of those present to discuss the paper, for the reason, as Mrs. Alice McComas stated, that the paper was so excellent in itself that it needed no discussion. The Rev. Ada C. Bowles of Pomona was announced to handle ‘the next subject, ‘Home Industries—Past, Present and Fu- ture.” ‘¢ In talking of this question of home,” she said, “you will see the exceeding limits I am under. The idea of discussing the home in twenty minutes—the whole round earth of homes—is a matter of im- possibility. 1 am going to talk to you about the old New England home as I knew it fifty years ago, and which, I be- lieve, is the foundation of the home of the present in its highest and best estate, and will be the foundation of the home of the future by laying broad and deep those in- dustrial ideas and respect for honest household service that must lie at the foundation of home making. “1 am going to take you straight into one of these old New England kitchens, and you will notice the exceeding white- ness of the floor and the shining of the gewter on the dresser, and you will ask ow this cleanliness was accomplished; and then I will show you the ash-barre set up for the leach, and I should tell you how ~the flour-barrel was set up there on its stand, with a hole about two inches from the bottom, and clean sticks and straws put in; and then, all the ashes accumulated from that beautiful hearthstone put in there and water poured into the top, andjgradually coming out of that spill at the bottom you would see a clean, honest lye and there was not a bit of any other kind of a lie about it. Then with the nice clear scrap grease saved from the kitchen they made soft soap—that kind of soft soap that when it filled the barrel to the brim you could stand a two-year-old child on the top of it. With this soap and the sand that the New England coast provided so liberaily all kinds of cleanli- ness were possible.”” The shoemaker’s bench in the corner, which was such a source of industry and profit, the loom, the quilting frame, every- thing that occupied the attention of all the family, came in for a glowing and loving description by Mrs. Bowles. The home tailoring and weaving of rag carpets, the sFinning and the cotton cardings were kindly remembered as all tending to the development of that thrift whicn went to build up and maintain the leasant home. But the time came at ast, she said, when man, audacious man, came with his inventions and knocked the spinning and the knitting, the tatting and the weaving and the sewing of the women higher than Gilderoy’s kite. He even | would not let her rock her own baby, but | came along with a new-fangied machine | where all you had to do was turn the crank, wind up some clockwork and the cradle would be rocked for an hour. “‘Man even then,”’ said Mrs. Bowles, “must have had a foreboding that the time was coming when he would have to rock the baby while the woman went to_ vote, and he was forestalling against it. It will only be necessary to put your babies into one of these patent cradles when you go to vote and you will find them rocking when you come back. “I have only hinted,”” she continued, “at what the industry of the past has done— laid the foundation for the industry out of which come the present homes, with all the marvelous intricacies of present house- keeping, but they are the prophecy of the | day toiome when the men wiFl s‘t:lyfl more closely divide the care with women in the houschold. The men are going to take spring housecleaning into their own MRS. E. O. stand to say a few words to bear out the stand of Myss McComas, who had stated tu~t many of the great inventions were the children of the brain of women, and abbed by men under their rights as hus- ands. Miss Anthony cited one instance, the Borden horseshoe-machine, invented by a woman, claimed by the husband, who received all the revenue from it. At this point the stout, red-faced woman in the gallery arose and called the atten- tion of the class and of the congress to the fact that she was not redheaded, as some reporter, she seemed to think, had taken rnm:wcall her. This being settled she et into the men, accusing them of being moral cowards and political perverts, who voted as their wives directed and claimed the glory themselves. Then she touched on the girls. “New England girls!”” she exclaimed, her voice husky with excitement, “New England girls never shirk as they doin California—and let their mothers do the work.” At the request of Mrs. Bowles, Mrs. Ada Van Pelt told of her first experience with an invention. Bhe took it to a model- maker, trusting him with the precious thought, and the next thing she knew he had patented it for himself. “‘One of the beautiful signs of the times,” said Miss Shaw, “‘with the incoming of the new woman and the new man, will be the hands.” “Amen!” shouted a stout, red-faced U] . MRS, W. E. HALE OF THEE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. doing away foreverof the antagonisms be- woman in the gallery and the audience joined in the laugh which followed. ‘It is the general idea,” said a lady from the rear of the stage, ‘‘that the new woman does not appreciate the men, but when d;a read of these anen they will know differently. God bless the men, I say, they have invented so many things to lighten labor. The wemen _themselves have never been up to the invention of anything. Man has invented almost every- '.h{:x that has helped woman. I say, to{, God bless the men.” Mrs. Ella Gregory, Mrs. McComas, Mrs. Sparks and Mrs. Bowles corrected the last speaker’s statement that the women had not been up to inventions, the latter stat- ing that within the past ten years women have taken out some 18,000 patents. ‘‘Should we not, as women,” asked Mrs, ks, ‘‘be very thankful to these men who are inventing things so that we may have time to go to the polls and vote ?” “Why, certainly,” answered the chair- tween the sexes. I hate this difference which has eternally stood between the true comradeship and the true friendship of man and woman. While we remember what men have done in the past, we might as well remember what a full grown man, with all his powers and possibilities, or a full grown woman can do compared with a child. Women are born just as much as baby boys are, and no more and no less. But the opportunities for education and culture which have come to the men ought | to have produced in them much larger re- sults than we have had from our om;or- tunities. If they did not, man would be infinitely inferior to woman. Now that these opportunities are coming to us and we women are beginning to have body and mind and soul all developed, we can tell better in 6000 years from now about the | comparative strength of the masculine and feminine minds. wait and work. “Talking of inventions, I know that very man. “And we are,” Miss Anthony and Miss Shaw, who had | appeared on the stage at this point, were greeted with applause, and Miss Anthony, whose quick ear had caught the spirit of the discussion, advanced to the speakers’ | - | invention, but they have erected a monu- much work that men claim has been done by women. The cotton-gin was a woman'’s ment to a man for'it. But, with all this, I | believe we will soon come to realize that | all this antagonism has done more tointer- ntil that time we must | W, fere with the frrogress of the race than any- thing else. believe with Mrs. Bowles, that the nearer men and women come to the divine source of our being the nearer we will come to the great truths of life, and these will reconcile all antagonisms be- tween the sexes. If I could have but one thing in this world, and have it a nniform law, I would have the application of the Golden Rule as given to us by the Lord Christ. By being tolerant to that which seems intolerance we will grow wise."” Then Miss Shaw disclosed a horrible secret. Bhe gave it out that she was going to take out a patent herself. ‘I am goix:F toride a bicycle this summer,” she said, and the congress went into convulsions of laughter. Mrs. Colonel Megeru of Oakland, repre- senting the Ebell SBociety of that city, was introduced by Mrs. Cooper. Her societ; contained 250 members, she said, whic wished to be represented at the congress to say that it was fully in sympathy and ac- cord with the work of the congress and sent its greeting to the two distinguished guests present. The second paper of the morning, “Skilled Labor or Domestic Service,” by Mrs. Helen Campbell, professor of honse- hoid economics in the University of Wis- consin, was read by Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Btetson. It dealt directly with the servant- girl question in its many and all-absorbing hases and was full of interest from the goginning. Itis one of the subjects upon which Mrs. Campbell is thoroughly posted and nEon which she has written a number of books. After discussing the various phases of the question, the paper pointed out that only the Jeast educated at the portion of their lives when education was most neces- sary accepted service, and that they re- mained in it only long enough to get mar- ried and learn enough to keep house for themselves. The researchies of Miss Luc; Salmon into this queestion were given in detail, and statistics of 3000 servant-giris in New York showed that, with board, room and laundry and an average wage of $3 25 per week, the servant-girl could save $150 a year, and really made more money than a large numberof schoolteachers through- out the country. Mrs. Johnson, in the discussion of the Eaper, spoke of the work of Mrs. Eliza proat Turner of Philadelphia in the mat- ter of securing better servants and. better treatment for them. One of the latter's plans was to make an arrangement whereby the servant-girls would not be compelled to remain in the homes of their emp loyers evenings, their places bein, supplied by girls from a reserve force kepi constantly on hand. Mrs. Eliza Tupper Wilkes, however, seemed to strike the keynote of the situ- ation in a few remarks she made, judging fiom the apnlause with which her words were received. “There is no greater question bearing upon woman than this,”” she said. *“Our homes are built upon it; and I “f‘ chal- lenging denial, that the position of a slave in the Bouth was scarcely less degrading than is the position of the average servant to-day in American homes. sk your- selyes to-day this question: ‘Would you like to see your daughter take service in any home?” You go to other women’s daughters and say, ‘Why do you worry about living? y do you-worry about sewing or learning the typewriter, when homes are waiting? But when you want your daughter to take a place in the world it is never in any one’s kitchen you give her the opportunity. “Iknow there isanother side to this servant question. You have the raw ma- terial to deal with. There are injustices to the mistresses as well as to the servants. But we cannot wait for the educated do- mestic. She is coming, the diploma is coming and all that, but just now the best thing needed in your home and mind is to surround the one whose hands save ours, Wwho puts herself between us and the worst kind of drudfery, with such things as will help her self-respect. Give the woman who is doing your work a good room in your house, pleasant pictures upon the .vnus“ and see how quickly she will rise to it. You say she keeps her room like a pigpen now; well, I don't blame her if it 13 ike most rooms servants are given now. Give her a plage to receive her callers. She has as much rightto it as any member of the family. “‘These little things are the beginning toward the right thing and the recognition of valuable service. I think the true secret at the bottom of all with servants at the present time is this one of self-respect. It relates to that. e are making too at a bugbear of work. However, the household may be arranged 1n the future, it can never be that there will not be a certain amount of work to be done. That work must be done by the mistress or her servant. The trouble at present js that there is not a strong enough mutual relation in regard to the worl That principle of self-respect on the part of SMITH OF SAN JOSE. | the servant is not developed in the house- hold where the servant is placed. It is not the work that makes us slaves. Itisthe spirit in which we do that worl Speaking of the suggestion in Mrs. Campbell's paper that the servant should berequired to show a diploma, Mrs. Cruzan stated that if the servant was required to show a diploma the mistress should be required to show one, too. In order to be a good mistress one munst know something of the service work. Miss Susan B. Anthony had something tosay on the question. She began by a story of Professor Fairchild of Oberlin College forty years ago. He was talking of the degradation of slavery and the in- feriority of the work done by slaves, and he further continued that the work done by free negroes was inferior and more de- grading than that of the bond. In that class was Miss Ella Brown, a sister to Miss Antoinette Brown, the first woman ever ordained a minister. She asked Professor Fairchild if the married woman was not a slave to her husband as much as the negro to his master, and if that were the case was not the work of the servants of the married slave more inferior and degrad- ing than that of their mistresses. Miss Anthony held that that struck at the root of the servant girl question of to- day. The married woman was a slave, no matter whether she was president of a mite society or not, and the work of the free woman in service to her was infinitely more degrading for the same reason as that of the freed negro in slavery days. “If you want to elevate the domestic servants,” she concluded, ‘“elevate the head of that service. make the married woman equal. Let them be asmy friend, this venerated Lucretia Mott, wrote in the autograph albums of young brides: ‘Let your dependence be mautnal, four independence equal, and your obl! igations reciprocal.’ And when you get the wife on that plane, legally and constitutionally, you will never hear any : more of housework bein%degndlng." “I hope the lady is here,” exclaimed Mrs. Wilkes, “who said last night that she did not believe in the Woman's Congress, but who did want to hear Miss Anthony, because she knew that she wasn't one o those strong-minded women.” _The married women present and the girls, including Miss Anthony, forgot all about the horrid marriage bondage for the nonce and laughed heartily at this sally. “I want to say,” said a gentleman in the audience, rising, “that the paper read was most excellent and was written by one who evidently understood her subject; but for a solution of the question the men will have to-prepare themselves for the posi- tions, et their diplomas as servants, and everythiog will be lovely.”” “It wili be a profession when the men take it up,” said Miss Anthony. It was evident that both the unknown ! fentlemnn and Miss Anthony were deal- ng in irony at each other's expense. Mrs. Van Pelt read letters from Mrs. Mary Lowe Dickinson, president of: the Woman’s Council, announcing the ap- pointment of Miss Anthony and Miss Shaw as representatives of that organization in the congress. ‘‘And these are Anna 8haw, D.D. “You havea D said Miss Shaw. “Qh, thats all right, you are D.D., doubly dear, to us,” smilingly retorted the president. 7 “I was ordained a minister of the gos- pel,” said Miss Shaw, rising, “but only re- ceived a degree as bachelor of medicine, which accounts for the D too many. But, then, come to think of it, it is much harder for a woman to be a bachelor than to be a doctor.” Mrs. E. O. Smith of S8an Jose was next introduced by the president to read a pa- per on “Cooks and Cookery.” The lady was kindly received and many times dur- ing the delivery of her ideason this im- rtant subject was frequently interrupted E(y) applause. She said: The thoughts which 1 propose to present for your consideration are based on thirty years' experience with cooks and cookery, and are lain, unvarnished statements. I believe in Kome——bome all the way through, from the drawing-room, with its piano; the library, ‘with its books and magazines, to the kitchen, with its pots, kettles and frying-pans. No home is complete without all these, and they are within reach of the great middle class of Americans to which I am proud to belong. co-operative system covering any department of the home as it has been bequeathed to us by the aspiration of humanity to “‘set the solitary in families” would break iis perfect symmetry. The public reading-room and concert hall are beneficent institutions, but they are not home- like, and an eating or dining room where fami- lies would congregate wouid bear the same re- lation to the family around the festal rd, with the bidden guest only present, that the hall and reading-room do to the family circle round the fireside, with book and song. ‘The home has shown its right to exist in its present form, and the present agitation with regard to itis all in the interest of the better home. But home is not anybody’s sphere. It is the first and last choice of almost every woman, but there is no iron door that shuts her in. The door swings in and out for her. Her sphere is the world, and for aught I know myriads of worlds, and all that she can right- fully obiain of it and make use of is hers. Butto my mind the first great movs to be made to the interest of better home life in thiscountry must be made in the department of cookery. We have been gazing starward till our wings have sproutea and our plumage isas gaudy as the peacock’s. James G. Blaiie was once quoted s saying that our homes bave too much Queen Anne frontand Mary Ann back. We have made @ tremendous blunder by degrading the art of cookery to the level of the occupation of the hod-carrier or the chimney sweep, and we must rectify our mistakes. We eat to live. The first cry of a healthy child is for food, and if it 18 not soon furnished the little stranger commences to devour its fingers and thumbs, We eat twice the quantity of food necessary, for the reason tnal it is unsatisfactorily pre- pared and the stomach is not nourished by it. At the close of the nineteenth century in this country we know less of the chemical analysis of food and the best manner of preparing itfor assimilation in the human stomach than wedo of the manufacture and cffect of poisons. The rank, unsavory odor trom thousands of kitch- ens where all hygienic rules are broken swells to heaven daily, and should be offered as burnt incense for transgression of law through sins of ignorance. Under the head of “Household Economics” we can only treat of cooking in the home. Not a word is to be said of ihat great horde of professionals who carry on their work of slow poisoning behind green-baize doors in our restaurants; who mixand smother and spice and pepper and stew their food till the concoction is a delusion and a snare, in. tended to vitiate the taste and to create a de- sire for stimulants with which to increase the action of organs devitalized by the want of properly cooked food. The life principle which was in the raw material they literzlly cook out. The nutritious properties of both animal and vegetable food too often escape during the process of cooking through lack ot skill, cars and intelligence on the partof the cook; and m:l indigestible portion only is sent to the table. It is not necessary to speak to an audience of intelligent women of the amount of reaponsi- bility which is placed upon the one who super- intends the cooking of the dinners, and yet it is time to stop a moment and ask ourselves what we do for her. One of the daughters makes a choice of teaching as a profession; she is kept atschool. The revenues of State, city and family are taxed fer her preparation. Another wishes to become proficient in music, perbaps to gratify a taste only. She must be taught at home or abroad. The concentrated enius of the old and new worlds must become er inspiration, and she must be kept under hothouse pressure for years to accompi that much to be desired result. Even that one who shows a taste for milli- nery or dressmaking must give years of labor under experiencea modistes to enable her to begin her life work. But if one shows a taste the credentials of Miss M.D.,” said Mrs. Cooper, or so too many there,” MISS JENNIE WARD. Make laws that will | for homemaking and goes about by every look | and sign indicating that she desires to ercome the queen of some household, wha for her? That one iz allowed to t:;}&:rehde(; time away, and at last without any preparation she goes 0ut to superintend something of whieh she knows nothing; in fact, she s fold to go into her own home'and cook. In chousands of cases that proves to be her life work, and she is forced to learn in the most severe school of .ll'knnt One where we are taught by mistakes. here 18 no excuse for this. This daughter is as much entitled to a liberal gducation in & so-called finishing school as the others, and 8 school where she could, be taught practical cookery with a scientific basis shonldpbo ro- vided for her. In fact, such education monls be compulsory. The Puritan mothers in mass fifly years ago required of all their daughters that ihey knit a pillow-case full of stockings before matrying, and sometimes set them 8t it quite :?x' Y- Some of these girls who haa no. imme. : ate prospects rebelled. What if we should v;'y:rel:al&b&ele{;r&xzi ynlnr hands? they said. g cal mother, th, t have the stockings. So it young v:ox;:n’:‘al}} cated in cooking never have & home of their own or domestics to manage, they'll have some- pers. T one instance in particular 1 c-;ne under my notice. It oec%rred “qt : fl)l‘fl.: x en cook books were not as plentiful as now. Romeor young couple started out to build & Bis wordly osaara maat R iond her with il runk an t; Wardrobe—and she had little mors, bus they were content. It happened one day about two weeks after marriage he hiad goncas usual to his daily toil and she was busying herrel with the house work, She took it into her | head to surprise him with pork and beans for dinner. She knew nothing of the propensity of beans for swelling in water. So she filled a gallon kettle with them, covered them with water, buiita fire under them and wentout- side for an hour. Imagine her dismay on re- turning to the kitchen to find stove, floor and everything within reach, covered with beans. It was beans, beans, everywhere. She gathered them up in her hands. She swept them up with a broom, bat all the time the beans kept swelling and pouring out. In despair she finally took to dividing them out. She filled the stewpan and {rying-pan from the kettle and then sat down to When the husband came to dinner it was to find her with eyes red {rom weeping and three kettles of beans for a dinner for two. He could not control a smile, which she caught, and then he had the three kettles of beans ail to himself. to tell him between sobs that her mamm: beans never acied that way. Itisnotan unusual case by any means for young housekespers to enter upon their dutiss as densely fgnorart of their business as this one, and utierly ineficient in the manage- ment of the domestic. ; One of the foregone corclusions that our sex has come down through the ages saddled with is that we are al] born cooks. This is no more true than that we aze all born artists or physicians. In one case, as in the others, there must be something in the indfvidual to supple- ment the work of the educator, and to become an expert in cookery one must have a genius for it; butany one of average intelligence can obtain s technical knowledee that will be of untold benefit to them in the work of or the superintendence of the department. The pre. mfing enius of cookery, however, is judg- Saent. 1 ‘constant play of the ingenuity is called for in cooking dinners. Conditions are never twice alike. They are as changing as the cloudy sky that the artist tries to catch with his brush. The cook meets the unexpected at every turn. The ignorant young housekeeper is appalled at this and becomes discouraged. If she be poor in purse she tries to surmount the diffi- culties that beset her, whicn she often does at the expense of her good nature and peace of mind. Having means to do so, she turns the department over to cooks from the intelligence office. These cooks are of three classes—one in ten good, three in ten bad, and the remainder indifferent. Thef are mostly of one price, and, like the man with the two roads, whichever one you take you wish you had taken the other. If you have devoted your life and energies to the motherhood of which we hear so much and happen to have a large family of children, you are lucky if you can induce any domestic to stay with you. They are for the most part ignorant and dictatorial and are often a men- ace to the household. ‘We have brought this state of things about by allowing the position requiring more brains and wits than any in the department of house= hold labor to become so degraded that few care to engage in it and do so only as a last re- sort. We require no standard of intelligence and no stamp of any institution, simsly strength to perform the manual labor and a certliicate of cnaracter from the last place. We cannot induce the better ciasses to engage in the study of cooking till we give it the stamp of gentility, and we cannot give it the stam of gentility till a better class engage in it. This problem will be solved when society be- comes conscious of its importance. 1f this new woman who is attracting so much attention in the newspaper and magazine world at the present time be a reality, and if her excuse for living be the uplifting of man- kind, let it be a part of her mission to wrest the department of cookery from the hands of irresponsible ignorance and place it where it belongs. How is she to do this? First, by instilling in the minds of daughters in th2 home the importance of the department, by making them realize that they have no more right to present themselves as candidates for the superintendency of a home unless qualifiea for the position than they have to apply for a position in the schools without the proper credentials. Becond—Demand a higher standard for do- mestics. Let them establish their rights to the position of high responsibility in the home by Ppresenting credentials such as would be cepied forother positions in the worid of labor. | To do thisthe estabiishment of schools is neces- sary. The absurdity of s polytechnic school with no annex for a ccoking department is apparent to every one. The one greatest bene- factor to the present crisis wonld be that one who out of his or her surplus means would endow schools for cookery which should cover all the {reund gone over by the plans of Mis. Camipbell Whittaker and other noble women, and should adopt suggestions fron: women of age and experience who have learned to do by undoing and who have worked their wa. through & wilderness of mistakes toa know{- edge of practical issues. When diplomas from achools of that Mnd are required before domestics can gain admittance to our kitchens, then, and not till then, will cookery be classed among genteel professions 2nd cooks attain the respect to which their po- sition of responsibility in the home should en- title them. When that time shall come the daughter inthe home will wear the kitchen apron with the same degree of pride with which she now wears the embroidery apron. This tendency in us to crowd what are known as the genteel occupations finds us at the pres- ent time with hundreds of our daughters edu- cated for teachers, stenographers, ete., idly waiting for positions, while the department of cookery goes a-begging. Mrs. Smith’s pnf‘aer brought out some clever stories of the experience of youn, housewives in_their first essays at their own range. Mrs. Gregory furnished a couple of stories of her own experience,and Mrs. Bowles, one of the young brides, who essayed to cook for herself and husband a dish of pork and beans. Not knowing the swelling properties of beans, she filled a }Eot with them and set them on to boil. hen she went out into the garden. When she returned an_hour later, she found the stove covered with beans which had burst out of the pot, and to end it all, when she | had finished she had three pots full for herself and husband. When that lucky | young man came home and saw what was up, he could not help a covert smile, upon catching which the beans were all for himself, his poor, vexed little bride goin, again to the garden too full of cry to ea her share of her wonderful cooking. Calls for Miss Pheebe Couzins at this point brought her forward and she was greeted with applause. I have come up from the south,” said Miss Couzins, ““to join hands with you in this great congress. I have the advantage in that I was present and helped to organ- ize the first Woman’s Congressin 1874, called in New York. I remember that Miss Anthony was not there, but she is al- ways around somewhere doing good work for women. I thoughtI would come up and greet you on the Pacific Coast, as, in my girlhood, I first greeted the women on the Atlantic coast. “I was present at the grand last meeting of the Equal Rights League and Henry Ward Beecher was present. He offered a medal to the woman who would give the best biblical definition of man’s sphere. I a2m glad to say, Mrs. President, that [ got. the medal. I found that verse which reads: *And the Lord said he would watch it jeal- ously, even as a man wipeth a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down.” So that, on biblical authorili" being clear of the washing of dishes, I think we can divide honors in this matter. If men will clear up and wach the dishes we will call the thing square. ““I notice in your paper you have omit- ted one very important topic in this con- nection, and that is the financial indepen- dence of the mother and of the home. ‘While Miss Anthony was talking on the other paper I remembered a review I had when 1 was a law student on the old Anglo-Saxon law. King Canute made a law for women. He recognized, and those old Anglo-Saxons realized, theright of the mother to an equal share in all the profits of the household; and these old nations have given to us perfect equality for women in the home and state. They be- lieved that there was a sacred aift of grophecy in woman; that by reason of er motherhood she stood next to the godhead. They held that the wife and the mother, b; her industry and care, con- tributed equally with the husband to the maintenatice and support of the family. Therefore everything which came to the home was hers absolutely, half of it, by law. If the husband died she took one- balf of the real and personal estate and all her dower which she bad brought to the marriage relation. . ““Woman must be free from these sark- Ing cares of the pennies. I was glad to hear Miss Bhaw speak in the way sge did. She spoke most beautifully in referring to the final unity of the man and woman. It :;po;-nugonésrlx; :romen have sought in ovement, but it i g 'l;:’ '"(’; ey, it isharmony. Thatis iss Cousine then spoke feelingly and proudly of her six morfths’ experiegn{:e Te-