p. 13 | Home Making by MRS. D. W. REAVIS

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 2, 1915

Home Making

By MRS. D. W. REAVIS

MRS. D. W. REAVIS

According to Webster, the word home means “the house in which one lives; residence; place or country in which one dwells.” In other words, the house in which one dwells is called his “home.” This is true in part; but simply dwelling in any house, however grand the building and its furnishings, cannot make it fulfill the requirements of an ideal home. No one will admit that any building alone could possibly meet the design of our Creator in establishing the true Christian home.

We all have heard the expression, “He has a beautiful home, but there is no happiness in it,” and have contrasted it in our minds with the phrase concerning “love in a cottage,” which strongly implies that wealth alone will not make a desirable home. The millionaire, with his spacious mansion and retinue of trained servants, may appear to be in a position greatly to be desired, and in some cases he undoubtedly is. But any and every home may have just as much enjoyment and about as many servants to conduct its affairs, if its makers really desire them.

First, let every home secure a first-class economical cook, then a chambermaid possessing tact, a laundress of good judgment, a governess with a big bump of patience, a dressmaker with a cheery disposition, a gardener inclined to system and order, and a janitor willing to bear all the blame if the fire goes out. Does this appear to be an extravagant suggestion? It all depends on the kind of servants introduced into the home. If you call the servants needed in every home by their right names, it will cost only the salary of two to keep a well-regulated home. Your servants should be Bear and Forbear, Patience, Prudence, Observation, Tact, System, Judgment, and Cheerfulness. With the influence of such helpers, the housewife is far more independent than the one burdened with persons, instead of these good characteristics vested in husband and wife, which are bound to bring the desired results in the making of a home.

Have we not, in a way, despised the things which nearly all of us can do, and which, after all, are the important things? God would not create a world, and people it with beings, only a few of whom could do the “important” things. The daily work of the world is always the important thing. The worker is the important person. We have outgrown the old-time idea that no woman should ever work outside the home, as well as the notion that the kitchen is narrowing, and that all women should be “liberated” from its “drudgery.” We have learned a great deal about drudgery—learned that much we have called by that name is only such when we do it in a drudging way. Housework is being elevated to its proper place in the world. Domestic science is prominent among the branches in our college courses for women. Our newer and far better conception of education today teaches us that there is something noble for each and every woman to do, something practical and elevating, something eclipsing and far better than indefinite dreams.

There is much that might be said on the art of practical housekeeping. The more study we give to this subject, the less irksome housekeeping will appear. It has been truly said that the reason so many women become nervous wrecks is that they lack a proper adjustment to their work for each day. The desire to attain an immaculate condition in the home every day consumes all the hours of the allotted time for work, and there is no reserve for improving the intellectual powers, for much-needed recreation, and for rest. This authority on home making suggests the plan of performing first the most essential things to be done, and leaving minor duties for a more convenient time.

The mother is the vital part, the heart, of the home. To her is given a most noble and uplifting responsibility, yet many mothers labor with mistaken ideas of their supposed love and affection for their children. They carry all the responsibilities of the home, in order that the “little dears” may be shielded from burdens, because “they will have enough to endure when older grown, in homes of their own.” Such children are to be pitied more than the orphan left to the care of a practical adopted mother. We certainly would have no sympathy with, nor affection for, the son who says, “What is home without a mother?” yet remains in the hammock reading, while his mother near by is chopping wood.

From the writings of Charles Wagner, in “The Simple Life,” I quote a few lines setting forth his ideas of the home:—

“One need not journey far to discover the ravages made in modern society by the spirit of worldliness; and if we have so little foundation, so little equilibrium, so little calm good sense, one of the chief reasons lies in the undermining of the home:—

“The squalor and misery of the home is not enough to explain the current which carries each man away from his own. Why does the peasant desert, for the inn, the house that his father and his grandfather found so comfortable? It has remained the same. There is the same fire in the same chimney. Whence comes it that it lights only an incomplete circle, when in olden times young and old sat shoulder to shoulder? Something has changed in the minds of men. Yielding to dangerous impulses, they have broken with simplicity. We must learn again to live the home life, to value our domestic traditions. To do this, there is need of neither numbers nor a rich establishment. To create a home, you must have the spirit of home. . . .

“Poor moderns! always moving or remodeling. Let us light again the flame put out on our hearths; make sanctuaries for ourselves; warm nests where the children may grow into men; where love may find privacy, old age repose, prayer an altar, and the fatherland a cult.”

Yes, many, many men have in these days changed from the days of their grandfathers in the matter of home loving, and in too many instances the cause of the change can be traced to the new, dissatisfied, extravagant home maker.

Only four letters are needed to spell the short word H-O-M-E, but its true meaning is as broad as the earth. Its letters stand for four great principles which underlie its strong foundation: H-appiness, O-ccupation, M-ethod, E-levation. Elevation is the result of Method; Method is developed in Occupation; Occupation produces Happiness. Therefore, in home making, elevation is to be the aim in all the details of home life. Method operated upon and within the income of the head of the house, will give to the home maker an occupation that will not only prevent discontent, poor health, and insanity, but will broaden her sympathies, develop her mind and heart, and impart the happiness the Creator designed for every home.

Takoma Park, D. C.