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About Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 30, 1904)
'"s, amv- yjr -YWVurttt 1 kt : vjL,r-v visr WJf The Product of ih 1 1 r -i! v 7 ' v7 :cPkUMu' Jin 1 Willi WHY vl .. : ill - ... ' -.III m il r wee ay3 J Weans' of Jfinfrcte C vtore ktNETT-ONE bushels of tomatoes were canned) Nl this year by an Illinois Institution tna( turns I out twenty-flve wives a year who know every I detail of perfect housekeeping. The otner day a nis cunning nnusH uuwn the state telegraphed the Illinois Training School for Girls, located at Geneva, asking how many cans of vegetables It would need for the coming year. ' We won't want any from you or any one else outside of our home; we raise, preserve, and eat the product of our own farm." This was the answer Mrs. Ophelia Amlgh wired back to the concern that expected to make a big sale to the state. In learning how to do this and other kinds of house- old work, hundreds of Illinois girls have fitted themselves to become perfect housekeeping wives. The girl who leaves this Institution has been trained to cook, bake. sew. wash, Iron, and to trim up a house that will be the pride of any appreciative husband in the land. h Trained for Life's Battle. Today scores of girls who have been found without the ' home they ought to have, have been sheltered In this noble Institution and trained how to successfully meet the battles of life. One hundred and twenty-five are now employed In lucrative positions. Colored girls wtio were picked off the streets of Chicago are now teaching school In Oklahoma. Others have found places In other callings, but. better than all, scores have found honest husbands who today are proud of the, wives and the homes that are now presided over by these well trained young women. The girls who have married have largely become the wives of farmers and are now In homes that the husband owns. A large number o( railroad, engineers have wives who were trained In this school. Every now and then a proud young mother visits the hospitable roof. She brings from one to (hree bright faced, children, wlio, Supt. Amlgh says, are the best dressed and best behaved children that today are growing toward American citizenship. Within the last two years a dressmaking department has been a,dded to the Institution. No girl who has not a natural ability In that line Is admitted to the department, but there are many who readily take to the work. The girls in this department are making most of the clothes now worn by the young women who have left the Institution and, are working for their living. The employed girls pay for the work out of their earnings. The forty or more attendants In the Institution also patronize the clever apprentices, who are steadily acquiring a valuable knowledge of a paying business. Divided Into Ten Big Families. . There are ten families of girls In this big training school. Each family has from twenty-five to thirty girls under the direction of a managing matron, a housekeeper, and a laundry matron. A girl Is put In the kitchen for a period of Ml.! three months, and there, under the direction of practical teachers, she learns every detail of kitchen work, Including cooking, baking, scrubbing, washing, and pres. rving. There are girls who work in the morning and others In the after noon so as to give all an opportunity to attend school. One after another other departments of housekeeping are thor oughly taught and learned. While this Instruction Is being Imparted each child Is being carried through the eight gradts of Instruction employed In city and country schools so that they may enter a high school from this Institution. Draw ing and music are taught and' the walls of the Institution are . decorated with the products of pen and pencil wielded by the students of different classes. Girls between the ages of 10 and 18 years of age are com mitted to the school, which Is given the care and custody of the ward until the age of 21 is nttalned. They are com mitted by Juvenile courts and by courts of record from all of the counties of the state. After a child has been In the school for a period of not less than one year she may be assigned to a home, the environments of which are inves tigated before she Is allowed to take up her abode thre. The girl must make a periodical r.eport until she arrives at the age of 21 unless she marries.' Her earnings are sent to tho Institution and banked and held In trust for her, necessary expenses being deducted. Every child of the school is pro vided with a bank book for this purpose. Some of the girls have accounts that run over $100, and In the aggregate the Institution Is now holding a large sum of money In trust. The demand for girls by good families is active and ma:iy have found good homes. Call Institution Iheir Home. A visitor Is employed by the Institution to cull on the glr's who are out at work or In homes, but many mike frequent calls at the Institution of their own free will. The superin tendent talks to several of them over the telephone every day. It Is a common occurrence for a girl who Is at work or on a farm to call up the home and ask for advice con cerning a matter of which she Is In doubt. Some of the girls have come home to be married and the ceremony takes placo In the cozy parlors of the administration buildim;. On a recent occasion one of the girls died at the home and tho funeral services were held there. On this sad occasion ipilta a company of the girls who had been In the bcIioo! camo long distances to attend the funeral. The other day It was necessary for the superintend i.t to refuse admittance to two Chicago girls. The caw- v;i. from the lack of room. The capacity of the school Is "II. Inn there are now 201 In the institution. A largo room in ih attic of one of the bulldjigs is utilized as a dormitory. The state is expected to furnish another cottage soon. Connect, d with the school Is a farm of ninety-one acres, and It is expected that this will be Increased. The products of this farm go a long ways toward feeding the big family. All of the work Is done under the direction of a farmer whose wife was one of the girls of the Institution, csssssssssssssssss Jtan WAo 7(as Written 5,000 & oerns. W. D. NESBITS ANNUAL OUTPUT IS 700 PIECES OE VERSE. i O have written 8.000 poems and Still to be a 0 B I young man are things suggesting a record In I I the newspaper side of literature. A I In all these thousands of Iambics, ana- pestles, trochalcs, and dactylics not to have one love poem goes further and smashes all records In all times. Then, out of these thousands of poems to have taken only eighty-six to represent his first venture Into the world of books And the rtader has several lines upon the personality and character of Wilbur V. Nesbit, who for ten years has been writing GOO poems a year for newspapers, and who at the present time Is keeping the pace for the week day and Sun day Issues of The Chicago Tribune, as ho has done for two years past. The person who realizes what It might be to write BOO betters a year In hltchy prose will p excused for a spirit ot doubt In these figures. He wllj be allowed to speculate upon corps of W. D. Nesblts, who are Interchangeable on Trfa Tribune staff. But to th,ose who know Wilbur D. Nesbit In person there will be no questioning ot the fact that there Is -only one. ffar4 fpr Some to Believe. ' But doubtless some explanations will be necessary In these figures and (hese statements. Mr. Nesbit admits It. Several years ago he received a sharp reminder of the possibility. He had gone to his native Xenla, O.,' on a visit and Inci dentally had called upon a local liveryman in passing the stables. Sitting In the ofllce from which the proprietor had excused himself a moment one of the drivers with friend stepped into the harness room, one thin partition away from the visitor. " Who was that fellow you spoke to Just now?" queried the stableman's friend. -"It's Bill Nesbit, a young fellow who used to live here," A the reply. "He- lives' east somewhere now," " What does he do?" "He writes poetry .for a newspaper." "The he does? Say, is that a fact?" Sure and they pay him for it." " Weil," came the comment, together with a sigh, " don't It bet what some people will do for a llvln'?" Perhaps the chance versifier would change the query to how a man "can" make a living that way? For newspaper ' verse has been Nesbit's living and more for several years, as It promises to be his living indefinitely, lie Is one of a handv tvl In the whole country who are making a living In rhymes, solely, unmixed with the prosaic side of newspaper work. Most of the newspaper poets write more prose than verse In thw oourae of the day's work; with Nesbit his day's stunt Is rhyme, and if It la not forthcoming there Is a bole in the editorial page where it ought to have been. First Effort In Advertising. Once, not to have written the day's rhymes would have rteant a hole In an advertising page. For Mr. Nesbit's first poem was dedicated to tome stylish straw hats in the front windows of an Indianapolis dry goods house, and the basis bf the rhymed rhapsodies was Riley's " The South Wind and the Sun." As the advertising man for the house, Mr. NcsbK'a, proas had not been effectual. He was already facing (he, oideal called in the vernacular "firing" when, this parody on Riley was turned o the glorlflca'ton of (ha straw hat. "Who wrote that stuff?" demanded .he proprietor of, (be manager at the sight of the morning's proofs. - Er Nesbit I told him I didn't thln' l w " M Tell him to go ahead and write some more of the kind," broke in the proprietor, and thus out of a, Rooster dry tools, tore a poet was. md. ' v Newspaper Wo.rk Wins Uknowledgment. . The Indianapolis newspapers .oofc him, up for the editorial columns, and he was with ht Journal Indianapolis from, istto to IK'S, when he was called, to the Baltimore American. From the American, where he W the "Josh Wink" of that paper, devoted to rhyming wit and humor, be came to TiisvThiuu, where btf critic concede be ''has found him self." " The Trail to Boyland " s the ftrBt acknowledgment of it In the book world, from the presses of the Bobbs-Mer-t lit company. In Tub Tribune his friends first saw more than the " Josh Wink " n him when he took up his " Ser mons In Song " as the Monday morning feature of Thb Tribune's editorial page. Nesbit himself perhaps would say that he has cut deeper In this feature than in any other Then why did they not constitute the first book? For the reason that these eighty-six published poems subtracted from 6,000 leave 4, 011 still in his scrapbooks at his home In Evanston, and among these thousands, even his " Sermons in Song," are not overwhelmingly prominent in the scores of other topics treated. And then they are added to, steadily, at an average of two a day) Plays on the Heart Strings. But writing two poems a day is not all that may ruffle the serenity of a congenita, good nature. The readers' com ments may have a good deal to do with it For instance, one will read something and say, "How like Riley 1" and per paps nod suggestively. Another sees Field in his work, and still another suggests Stanton. But if Riley figures In Nes bit's work it Is through Riley's philosophy, preached to the younger poet a few years ago when Riley Impressed upon him to avoid writing at the heads of scholars, and instead " write at the hearts of men." This is the Nesbit Idea today. And to the extent tba Nesbit goes at the hearts of men through the dialects of the boy, and of the negro, and the farmer he must accept the dialects as they are and be likened to those who wrote be fore him. For Instance in Nesbit's "Sh-h-h!!" where he strikes so truly the boy nature, he has only the boy dialect of Riley and Field and of everybody else for Its expression: " My ma she's upstairs In bed, And ITS there wlf her. ITS all bundled up an' red Can't nobody stir; Can't nobody say a word Since IT come to us. Only thing 'at I have heard, Ceptln all ITS fuss, Is '811-11-111' " I goed In to see my ma. Nen dumb on the bed. Was she glad to see me? Pshaw! , 8H-H-H!' afs what she said! Nen IT blinked an tried to see Ntrt I runned away Out to my old apple tree Where no one could say SH-a-UI " Nen laid down on th' ground, v. An' say 'at I jest wish, , was big! 'An' there's a sound 'At old tree says SH-H-H!' Nen, I cry an" cry an' cry Till my pa, he hears An' come here an' wiped mj.eye An' mP up the tears Nen says ' SII-H-H!' " I'm go' tell my ma 'at she, -v Don't suit me one bit ' Why d they all say ' SH-H-H!' to toe An' no say SH-H-H!' to ITT' ' "Her Christina,. Prayer" His Favorite. It the child tide of the mother be clear to him, so la the mother side of the ctlld. as Indicated in "Her Christmas Piayer," which the author has read oftener to himself than almost anything he ever wrote: Mary Mother, be good to him; Be kind to him that day Twill be the only Christmas time That he has been away. I promised him a world of toys IX he would only stay Pure, heaven's full of little beys That sing and laugh and play. But you would know the smile of him Among a. thousand more; His smile will make all else seem dim i When you call hlra " Asthore." Sure, you will know him by his eyes, That are so sweet and blue, And deep, and clear, and very wise They read the heart of you. His hair Is golden as the sun; ' , His curls they are so quaint They mind you of the halo on An angel or a saint I promised him a splendid tree, With candles all aglow. O, Mary Mother, you can see 'Twas me that loved him so. And surely, surely, you will see My boy so sweet nnd slim His eyes are hungering for me As my eyes are for him. Mary Mother, be good to him; He kind to him that day. 'Twill bo the only Christmas time That he has been away. His Ideal of an Environment. Most of Mr. Nesbit's poems are written at his home In Evanston. Such revision as they get is when he copies them on a typewriter In his desk In The Tribune office.' In these compositions he denies that environment cuts, any particular fl gure. Some days .the work Is easier thai) it (s on. others; . some days it is a great deal harder, lint for the year around he insists that a writing room about thirty-five feet square, high In proportion, with trees at the windows on all sides, and o great writing table exactly In the center of, 1' would be a physical inspiration beyond measure. . Such system as is in his work Ues in the small notebook In which he puts down every possible (heme for a bit of poetry and in the determination, n,ot to Jqok. upon tla work ( a'l more than the "fork of a day winch exacts, its unvarying quantity of, rhyme. Ho feels (hat1 If be should, consider the next six months, as, a whole, i which 2Q0, poems must be forth-cornjnj-f from h,)tn, be would go to piece a, i (he coi)(emp)a(lon. Poems on, Hand. NesbH says that be never permits himself a think o( more than the work he must do for tbe one day, and yet when that day' work Is off bis hands, If be la (n (he mood be will keep, rtfc'h( on, "laying up against' a dry spell." Tbese extra poems are cretully deposited In a drawer ot bis desk, that be calls hi " lea box," pl are ptojy used when there pomes a day when nothing suggests a poem and bis brain seems, as he describes t, Uke a "cold pancake." The verses, "Her Christmas Prayer," for Instance, quoted above, were written almost two years before they were printed, apd, had, beep entirely forgotten until one da when a, hurraed, search for " something to use " brought them to light. One characteristic ot Mr. Nesbit's verse that has been commented upon generally Is its consistent cheerfulness and lu avoidance of either subjects or mode of treatment of sub jects that would wound the feelings of any reader. Tet, with all this, be tries to avoid mawklshness of sentiment or that overdone gentleness which is usually termed "soft" That the publlo wants and appreciates virile, ringing verse, wheth er it touch upon the " common run of things " or the " heart interest " Xeatures ot existence, is becoming more and more evident Serious Poems Are Popular. Serious verse, as exemplified In his " Sermons In Song," Is taking Its rightful place in the recognition of the general public Simply because a man does verses for a newspaper should not be regarded a making It necessary for him to if;. -; " -rU" ; -'" I a- , IP'jl i i Ar?Jt ti!?? t' ' - -i . .-..-. . ,. "V V '! " : ' -- ,y, 2 jf ,- ', . . . . confine himself to the farcical Jingle or the broadly humorous verse. The lighter matter, though ephemeral and. often In consequential, holds its own for the day (t Is printed, but the poems which in a common, natural, whole hearted way touch upon prases of Hfe or of sentiment which, are familiar to all, are the ones that go into the scrap book and preserve not only the name ot the man who writes them but of the paper that publishes them. It is Mr. Nesbit's opinion that the newspaper taste for verse has undergone a change In the last ten years. For merly all verse In the newspaper was expected to be in light vein, appropriate to tbe Joker' column. Twenty years ago it could not be too rough In horseplay or too Irreverent when the writer undertook; to make parodies. Today, as the exchange, man on the newspaper estimates the verse writer's work, It in the serious side, of rhyme that uppeuls to the public. The " 8ermons In Song " have had a recognition from the man with the shears such as even Nes bit did not anticipate. This unexpected recognition has been ' ono of the strongest pointers directing the writer away from bis first Idea of" mere jingles. Somu of thesu sermons have fuund place in the "Trail to Boyland."