PASSING OF THE HEARTH

Te Aroha News, Volume XLI, Issue 66284, 30 September 1925, Page 4

PASSING OF THE HEARTH

(By Junius Junior) It is an age of science, of improvement, of invention; the old order passeth and is ' known no more. Thfr light of science is brought to bear upon the problems of every day life, and the amelioration of household drudgery is the aim of much* of our modern research. Old methods and customs are being thrown aside as cumbersome and out of date, t the household institutions of our fathers are being superseded bv newer, quicker, and more effective methods; the machine is made to do the work of man. Electricity, the new handmaid of civilisation, is being universally adapted to pei’form in a better manner the many functions of the home. Electric light, electric heating, are no longer the luxury of the rich, but may be found in the cottage of humblest workman. In the main we are content that it should be so; we pass aside without regret the obsolete, and welcome the novel and the improved. But there are some things the passing away of which we view askance, and to whose successors we never become properly reconciled. Possibly there is nothing that marks so clearly the changing spirit of our generation as the universal substitution of the modern gas or electric heater for the open fireplace of our fathers. For the hearth is the heart of the home; with it are associated the tehderest memories of childhood; around it we want to gather in the evening and enjoy that sweet family communion which is the greatest factor of home life. For with the passing of the hearth the need of it grows the greater; there is so much to attract the young folk out-doors these days that there is all the more need to furnish a strong counter attraction within doors. It is a regrettable fact, yet none the less a true one, that home life as we knew it in the last veneration is a thing of the nast —home in these days of bustle and restlessness is becoming but a place to eat and sleep in. No longer do we attach any sentimental value to that word, for sentiment, too, is a thing of the past. In a great measure this is due, I think, to the passing of the old open fires, for there is but poor comfort in the gas or the electric heater —heat we may get, but there is something lacking. A, real blazing honest-to-goodness fire is as a living thing. It has its moods even as a human, it gives us a sense of companionship that is strangely lacking in the modern substitue. Of old we used to see visions and dream dreams while gazing at its glowing coals: and then what a zest it gave to sure friendships. Sitting around the blazing hearth we used to plan and scheme the conquests of the future, and see in its glowing embers the vision of attained ambition. In the country we can still find these things, but in the city the hearth and all it stands for is fast being shouldered aside by its modern rivals and being consigned to the limbo of forgatten things. , V