HOME AND EDUCATION

...The slender beauty of the Hepplewhite furniture was often accentuated by a line of inlaid wood of light color...

...No woman has ever served in the Senate or in any important state office which means political control...

...Since that time, state education has been literally turned over to women and all state superintendents of education have been women...

...These agents are given power above the sheriff, so that any abused or neglected animal or child may be restored to safety and comfort without delay...

...There is also a law forbidding the selling or mortgaging of a homestead without the signature of both husband and wife...

...Never have a body of voters so humbly and earnestly prepared themselves for the privilege of citizenship...

...IT IS true that these results might have been accomplished without the ballot...

...These should serve to bring out and to emphasize beauties of outline and not to obscure them...

...The saving of their time and strength would be a saving to the state itself, and an increase in its efficiency...

...The Furnishing of a Modest Home...

...Mothers are now co-equal guardians of their children, and the age of consent for girls is eighteen...

...It is met by an obstruction in the ownership of the state by private interests which determine state elections and court decisions to such an extent that these private interests, not the will of the people, dictate who shall serve as mayor of a city, or governor of a state...

...There are directions in which woman's vote together with man's vote is not allowed to follow the line of natural law...

...What has been said about the relation of applied ornament to form in an article of house-furnishing considered as a whole SIMPLE LINES ARE NOT NECESSARILY STRAIGHT LINES may be said of its parts, of hinges, handles and knobs...

...The mere existence of this latent tendency exercises a restraining influence upon legislation...

...Study clubs, discussions, an awakened interest in civic and political questions, are the natural response to responsibility...

...It is to the self interest of a state to encourage and not discourage the service of its citizens...

...It must also be recognized that women do not represent big business...

...Reference: Daniels...

...An increased self-respect and a growing political consciousness are marked characteristics of Colorado women...

...Good shapes for many of the common, ordinary, every-day things of life, for table-ware, for chairs, for tables, have come to us through preceding generations...

...It must always be realized that they do not seek big offices...

...The power of Colorado women in legislation is shown by the passage of some twenty laws affecting the welfare of children...

...An experiment cannot be recorded before it has been tried...

...Suppose we cannot have all the beauties we want, suppose we cannot have things that are beautiful in outline and also beautiful in their decoration, which shall we choose...

...This is a question which cannot be answered for some time to come...

...It is always desirable to add beauty to beauty, and when a chair, for example is comfortable and is of beautiful form it is well to bring its good outline into prominence by a little carving or inlaid wood or other well-chosen decoration...

...A Bureau of Protection for animals and children has been made a state department with offices at the capitol and with funds and officials provided by the state...

...We should, as often as possible, have exhibitions of furniture, new and old, and should keep in touch with the literature of the subject...

...It is absolutely meaningless and by attracting the eye to formless masses of light and dark obscures any good points the article may have...

...to help and not hinder the purposes of the public spirited few...

...And woman's influence as a political purifier has not yet been given a chance to operate...

...The Mosely Commission, sent from England to investigate school conditions, published a report in which Colorado was praised for the best system of education in the United States...

...to render their efforts easy instead of difficult...

...For we all admit that the demand for simplicity has become something of a fad and that manufacturers and dealers have not been slow to take advantage of the craze, and to flood the market with plain furniture which has little besides its freedom from ornament to recommend it...

...It would seem, therefore, as if there were conditions in our modern life which make the demand for simple forms something more than a fad...

...Again there is a foundation for the popular demand lying in what artists call "restraint...

...GOLORADO women were enfranchised in 1893...

...Women teachers, therefore, universally receive the same wages as men...

...But in other states where woman's influence is used as a substitute for power, her work is accomplished at a tremendous cost of time and strength...

...In measuring the political influence of women, two things must be borne in mind...

...These two facts weigh against their influence for certain kinds of political reform, and give them in politics, as in the home, a woman's point of view...

...We have the strongest compulsory school law and the most enlightened laws concerning delinquent children of any section in the world, save where our laws have been copied...

...Freed from politic 1 ambition and from commercialism, they contribute to the state or city a class of voters who regard all subjects from the viewpoint of humanity and education, a valuable offset to the over-commercialized standpoint of the average man, who is apt to decide all public questions according to the interests of business alone...

...When a man undesirable to this sovereign is elected to important office, a lot of registered votes are produced in favor of a candidate who is ready to serve the sovereign interest and do the royal will...

...At political caucuses when a man of questionable character is suggested for nomination, the man is often turned down with the explanation, "The women won't stand for him...

...A large majority of county superintendents are women...

...We have the strictest laws for the prevention of the abuse, moral, mental or physical, of children, of any country in the world and the best enforced, not merely in our cities but throughout the entire state...

...According to Ellis Meredith of Denver: "We have the best child labor law in the world, and no child is abused or neglected for more than a few days at the longest...

...The simple gold band for china brings out the circle, one of the most beautiful of lines...

...I wonder that the latter is not more often found in the libraries of towns with large German population...

...Finally the forms emerged as we have them today, perfectly suited to their use and good to look upon...

...But there are cases in which changing conditions have demanded changes in form...

...We may suppose their history to be like this: Good conscientious workmen in making useful articles tried to give them the forms best suited to the use to which they were to be put...

...The mere fact that the woman's point of view is backed by power makes that point of view prevail...

...They seem to think that we are rejecting ornament just for the sake of rejecting it and they are failing to give us that for which we renounce it—beauties of form...

...The best and most pleasing forms are to be found in mahogany furniture...

...Utility should be sought first, then grace of form and then decoration...

...Three women have been nominated for Parliament in Norway...

...On the other hand it is always undesirable to make an un-beautiful out line conspicuous by by means of decoration or to obliterate a good outline by any kind of ornament no matter how beautiful the ornament may be in itself...

...This is because most of the forms fcund in this wood had their origin years ago and have had the benefit of the conscientious workmanship and the intelligent criticism of which we spoke above...

...A majority of women were indifferent and many were oppposed to their own enfranchisement, but it is difficult to find a Colorado woman today who does not approve of her own enfranchisement now that it is an accomplished fact...

...When, however, we examine the furniture that has come in response to this demand we find that much of it is so poorly finished and so carelessly put together that it collects and holds dust...

...It may be of interest to teachers to know that throughout the state of Colorado the school law of "equal pay for equal work" prevails...

...IT IS interesting to try to separate in thought that which is reasonable from that which is unreasonable in the present demand for simple house furnishings...

...The International Studio and Deutsche Kuns't und Dekoration are both helpful periodicals...

...Even the shapes are often unsatisfactory, for though plain, the furniture often has many little upright bars so close together that it is difficult to get a dust-rag between them...

...And this is just where the manufacturers seem to misunderstand us...

...That women have raised the standard of moral character for political candidates is undeniable...

...Next in importance to the beauties of fitness to purpose and those of form come the beauties of ornament...

...For good workmanship we must be willing to pay, and intelligent appreciation will come only by education...

...for those kinds of furniture, for example, that are loosely described as "mission...

...And while we are on the subject, I wish we could all join in a crusade against the mottling of metal work...

...The second gain to the state of Colorado in the enfranchisement of its women is an increased humanitarian spirit as shown in legislation and in the establishment of new institutions...

...As time went on these forms were adopted by other good workmen who modified them occasionally either to make them serve their purpose better or to give them more graceful lines...

...These interests constitute sovereignty in the State of Colorado...

...This bureau commands the services of 600 agents throughout the state...

...The first point to be kept in mind, it seems to me, is that simplicity is not an end in itself, that it never was and never ought to be...

...But mahogany furniture is expensive and we ought to be able to develop in the cheaper woods forms of furniture at once beautiful and suited to the needs of our modern life...

...One question frequently asked as a test of the woman's right to the ballot is: Does the woman's vote purify politics...

...Larger interests shared in common with husband and son, unite men and women in closer companionship, uplift the home, and help to redeem women from the personal and petty qualities which we as a sex are supposed to possess...

...Within recent years, too, conditions have arisen that make it necessary for women to be much away from home, if for no other purpose than to do the work that is essential to good homemaking, and it is often very desirable to reduce the amount of work that must be done in the house...

...Beauty of Form (A Reading Course in Domestic Science.—Lesson X.) Note:—Outlines of the lessons in Domestic Science and a list of reference books can be obtained without cost by addressing The Home and Education Department of La Follette's Weekly, Madison, Wisconsin, They are intended for the use of individuals and of clubs...

...These forms will come only as the good models in mahogany came—through careful workmanship and intelligent selection and criticism...

...It cannot be estimated until women are given the confidence and the encouragement that are given to men and it cannot be estimated in any state until the privilege of citizenship has been enjoyed by all the women of all the states for at least a hundred years...

...Women have secured the enactment of laws protecting the home...

...but they may be roused en masse by their own leaders at especial times and for especial purposes...

...Conducted by BELLE CASE LA FOLLETTE and CAROLINE L. HUNT Woman Suffrage in Colorado By MARIE JENNEY HOWE THE chief gain to the state of Colorado in the enfranchisement of its women, has been the development of the women themselves...

...They do not stand for or command large commercial interests...

...The power of woman's vote to purify politics cannot be estimated until votes are honestly counted at the polls, and until elections are fairly upheld by the courts...

...Dewey C. Bailey, president of the Denver Woman's Club, has been endorsed by the State Women's Republican Club for the nomination for Congress in the First District...

...There are beautiful, old-fashioned teaspoons which illustrate this point, and in the case of these and of other useful articles whose form we have no reason to change for utility's sake it seems folly to search for novelty...

...On most occasions women, like men, are divided in party allegiance...

...Helen N. Grenfell, who served three terms from 1899-1904, deserves the credit of building up the department...

...They even survived that worst period of American furniture when manufacturers, tempted by the newly-discovered powers of the machine and of the lathe, covered furniture with all sorts of purposeless and meaningless decoration...

...A little cutting often enhances and calls attention to the beauties of form in glass-ware while deep cutting may utterly ruin them...

...Mrs...

...In New York, Massachusetts, or Illinois, the efforts of the most valuable and sensible women too often result in discouragement, exhaustion and delay...

...A third gain to the state of Colorado, therefore, in the enfranchisement of its women is in the possession by the state of a latent moral force backed by power...

...Colorado has no dower or community law, while on the other hand the wife's property is hers absolutely...

...The establishment of this Bureau alone ought to justify woman suffrage in Colorado...

...The power of Colorado women in creating institutions is shown by the establishment of industrial schools for boys and girls, a school for deaf and blind children, the first kindergarten for blind children in the United States, provision for feeble minded children, juvenile courts, probation officers, truancy officers, houses of detention, and a state home for dependent children...

...Obviously beauties of outline...

...We have learned within recent years of the dangers that lie in dust...