Academic Housekeeping.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVII, Issue 21, 22 May 1912, Page 60

Academic Housekeeping.

LONDON UNIVERSITY’S PROPOSAL. DRAWBACKS TO EXALTING HOUSECRAFT. ITS PROPER SPHERE. LONDON, March 15. It is possible that in the near future the university degree of B.Sc. will be bestowed on successful students of home sciences at London University. To qualify for this, applicants will have to be proficient in the chemistry of rooking and the laundry, applied chemistry, housework, sanitary science, hygiene, economics, bacteriology (with application to bread-making, alcohol, disease and its prevention, etc.), ethice, general biology, physics, physiology, psychology, a»d the management of business aII airs—a list which, the average housewife will opine, would indeed justify the reward of even so dignified an honour ao a B.Sc. diploma. Far be it from a New Zealander, a native of the first country in the world to endow a ( hair of Domestic Economy, to suggest that academic housekeeping is likely to be fraught with anything but advantages, but many thoughts must occur to the ordinary practical housekeeper (tint is, the one who has learned her art by experience) on hearing of this propcised exaltation of housework.

It is a necessary evil—a routine which is gone through in New Zealand by thousands of women because, through lack of means or scarcity of domestic labour, it must be done by the mistress of the house. Whether she loves her work—as, for instance, an artist loves painting or an author writing, or whether she loathes it, as she may do in her heart—it still must be done; and, in this art, virtue is not always its own reward. Housework, giving no glorious result at the end but being just as exacting. Just as backsliding day by day. just as neutral a joy an I as unsatisfactory an intellectual companion, may be just as barren of real pleasure at the end of a hardworking life as at the beginning—that ifl to say, for those whose brain insists on thinking beyond pots and pans, stews, gravies, bed-making, scrubbing, window-cleaning, and the thousand and one tasks too humble to find place in a dictionary of virtues. It is no lack of appreciation of the loveableness and thoughtfulness of the other sex that prompts one to say that far too few men, even in these enlightened day*, realise the bitter cross that housework represents to many women, who bear it uncomplainingly year after year, but whose lives bear all too plainly the marks of that burden and whose husbands should be wise enough to understand their import. A CRITICISM OF NEW ZEALAND WOMEN. Very few remarks are commoner to the writer, from tourista who have studied us and our ways, that New Zealand women, over the age, perhaps, of twentyeight. look as aged and more worried than their English rous’.Hs ten years their seniors. Hotly as we may contest the dictum there’s little doubt, in the niim’rs of all travelled New Zealanders, that the remark is true. And the reason, since one there must l>e, certainly seems to be that the worries of housekeeping sit too heavily on us. That New Zealand girls are unhappy

in their work, no one who knows their bright resourcefulness and their sensible methodical manner of coping with tho worries that arise, would ever be so stupid as to claim, but it is not on the girls, whose vivacity and youthfulness would stand the strain, that it fails, but on the woman who is between youth and early middle-age—the period to which all must come —the line of demarcation which, regretfully leaving behind it an all too short youth and its frolics and gaieties, must look forward to a much longer term of increasing quietude and, more important still, a time when the mind, not so ready to absorb outwardly will ask for its compensation inwardly from the stock of experience and culture garnered during the eager early years Here comes in what might be called the treachery of housework for, having claimed all one’s time, attention and energy for years, it falls far behind all other arts in bestowing no diploma of culture of itself, as a reward for faithful service, no virtue that is its own reward. One exception must be made—it does give health when duties are not too exacting and health is one of the greatest of prizes. Nevertheless that is a prize by no means the copyright of housework. NOT BECAUSE, BUT IN SPITE OF HOUSEWORK. Tn New Zealand —and in Canada, from all accounts —glowing examples are to he found of the way intellectual, refined, delightful women have, though hampered with housework, bent their will sternly to the task of keeping house

tasks in their proper sphere, a strictly subordinate one, and have succeeded in retaining their personality not because but in spite of housework. Unfortunate ly such women must probably ever remain glorious exceptions and their way has been tremendously difficult. One there is as an example—a really first-class housekeeper in every one of the manifold branches of her profession —who lays hands on most of the new magazines and good novels that appear in New Zealand, who can discuss them with an assuran-ee that many a critic might envy, who can darn a stocking beautifully and in record time, knows all there is to be known about a well-stocked kitchen garden, does her own cooking, cleaning, dusting, ironing, etc., etc., is a delightful musician. But, as a woman, she’s a worn-out shell, all energy, enthusiasm'and fire, always determined to lie her own charming self' and not a household drudge. She receives from her friends that peculiar worship that sinh women call out, a devotion that renders her one of the unforgettable ones in a world of women. But, unless one is mistaken, the price to be paid will be terribly big. HOUSEWORK’S REAL WORTH. A certain amount of housework is good for every woman, though why a good ileal that is given her should be regarded as her metier, as if she were predestined to domestic slavery, is difficult to guess. Homeerast —a good name, since it is .1 craft and not an art —to a definite extent, is the business and pride of our sex, just as pretty clothes are, and the knowledge that she can do it and do it well is as justifiable and satisfactory a stiffener to the backbone—if we may use a vulgar expression—as the knowledge that one is a skilful surgeon, a good mother, a champion in sport, or excels in any department. Tilings that have to be done should always be done as well as possible, but in the matter of housework women should take a leaf out of their men folks’ book, and confine their household duties to prescribed hours.