The position of the mother in the American home has been revolutionized by the American magazines for women. From the silent, submissive factor of our former American life she has been raised to a new station. She is no longer told to go to her knitting when questions regarding the State, the fine arts or the advancement of man are discussed. Her presence, advice and good counsel are courted at all times. The days when the mother’s position in our homes was to cook, wash and slave unrelentingly at the household shrine are gone. Care for the home is her first duty, but this care includes a consideration for the intellectual and social welfare of those who compose the home. Music has become one of the most desirable factors in making the home loved.
The mother should by all means be a musician, and she should fight to keep up her musical work in after life, if only for the welfare of her children. This is a very important question and we are sure that our readers will be delighted to have the views of Mrs. Bloomfield-Zeisler, Mme. Sembrich, Mrs. H. H. A. Beach and other artists, who in a coming issue will discuss this subject. In our best homes the mother is no longer shelved or retired. She knows the wisdom of keeping up with her children in their battle for success. As a writer in the New Idea expresses it,—“She now has the position of ‘mother emeritus,’ a degree which is conferred by time, and which means that she has worked out her problems of circumstance and vicissitude with dignity, courage and self- possession, and that she has been marked one hundred per cent.”
