Part 8

XIII

ON THE AVERAGE WOMAN

The position of woman seems to be worrying a lot of people a great deal nowadays. Whether she is or is not psychologically inferior to man, whether “emancipation” is a good thing for her, whether it is better for her to vote intelligently or stay at home and knit stockings mechanically, whether she should be mentally and physically capable of supporting herself or be content to be the more or less beautiful appendage of some man; these are questions that are considered weighty enough to fill newspapers, magazines and even books with arguments pro and con. And woman continues to spell herself with a capital W.

Dyspeptic men and dyspeptic women with a literary tendency are rushing into print, and both long and short-haired logicians are taking to the platform in the vain endeavor to put woman where she belongs—although the exact location of that place has not been clearly determined nor concisely defined. And there is considerable doubt extant as to her remaining there, when the learned disputants have succeeded in putting her in the right spot. The modern woman seems to be more uncertain, coy and hard to please than those, even, that puzzled the poet.

But the most encouraging thing about it is the position of the average woman on these questions. The world is made up—let us devoutly thank Heaven—of average women, and it is the sanity of these that will save the situation. Nothing ever interested me more than the discussion at a State Federation Convention a few years ago on this very topic. One afternoon was given up entirely to the discussion of the position of woman—not by experts and psychological students, but by the reading and thinking average club women themselves. And it was indeed “happifying,” as the good old Methodist used to say, to behold the good sense and sweet reasonableness of these women. The erratic notions of Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman, the erotic ideas of Mme. Marholm, the vagaries of Olive Schreiner, and the dyspeptic pessimism of some of our recent novelists all came up for consideration, and it was with pious joy that I noted that the distorted views of woman in the economic and the domestic world have little weight with the average woman who reads and who has fallen into the pernicious but enjoyable habit of thinking for herself and forming her own conclusions.

It may be that what we are told is true and not one woman in five thousand is fit to bring up her own children, but it looks to me as if the aforesaid average woman with a mind-which-doesn’t-hurt-her-because-she-knows-how-to-use-it, belongs to a class which makes a serious matter of child-study when God sends her children. It may be that woman’s place is still at the loom and the spindle and the mending-basket, but judging from the average woman’s remarks she has other duties of more importance in the economic world in these days of machinery.

Once upon a time a woman, writing for a foreign review, bewailed the absence of serious concentrated thought among women, and advanced as the reason therefor their gregarious habits and crowded life, and their utter disability to apply to themselves the benefits of solitude. Women as a class do depend on each other or upon the men of their acquaintance for their opinions, whether on social or political themes.

And yet women are not, all of them, so absolutely without properly correlated opinions as certain writers would have us believe. That she is often defective in consecutive mental training derives from influences beginning with the embryo woman in her cradle. She is tended by a nurse who is not allowed to “turn her off” in the slightest degree. As soon as she can talk she is provided with a nursery governess and later with chaperones and companions, tutors and governesses, and is finally sent to boarding-school, where she lives, moves and has her being in “her set.” A boy may be taught to amuse himself before he walks. A boy may play alone and his elders are only too thankful if he will. When older, a boy may go off alone for delightful half days in the woods or follow the bent of his nature or his own sweet will.

But the girl imbibes with her mother’s milk an indefinite idea that she must not be alone. Whether it be the effect of injudicious nursery tales or the early development of her social nature, she is trained with a certain deference to that idea, and instead of a healthy, natural being, capable of standing on her own feet, intellectually and morally, she grows up, unavoidably, with an unconscious habit of leaning on others. Is this solely due to the unbiased woman-nature? May it not be attributed, as we say in New England, to her bringing up?

Sometimes she never experiences, in her sheltered and measured existence, any lack, mental or spiritual. Sometimes, indeed, this great universe with all its mighty forces of life and death and love and passion and hatred, is nothing to her but a pretty background for the display of fashions. But sooner or later comes to more women than are dreamed of in the philosophy of the world a great crisis, a time when human nature stands stripped of all false, meretricious pretences and the disillusionment of life comes upon her.

“There is scarcely,” says our review writer, “one man in a thousand who at some time in his life has not felt and indulged the impulse to step out from the rank and file of his familiars and contemporaries, and envisage his own nature. Not a man, worthy of the name, but has searched for and found himself—has borne out his own convictions, and wrestled through the long nights of his own youth with the stern-browed angel of some revelation.”

The same thing, we venture to assert, happens to thousands of women. The dreary time of disillusionment comes and the cutting contrast between the real and the ideal makes itself painfully felt. Friends die, hopes are shattered, the inexorable facts of life force themselves upon us and we awake from the golden dreams of early life. The more delicately organized a woman is the deeper the springs of truth in her lie, and the more is it a necessity of her nature that, when the spell is broken, she shall stand face to face with the inner meaning of life, that she shall search and find herself. Long nights are spent in passionate protest, in earnest struggling for light, in eager searching for truth. Call it morbid, unhealthy, if you will; you do not say so of man. Many a thoughtful, earnest woman of to-day, under whose calm demeanor no one suspects an extinct crater, dates the development of her intellectual self from just such battles, which resulted in the conquest of self and petty aims. The soul-writhings of such women in books are overdrawn and unnatural. Not one woman in a thousand would be guilty of writing such self-accusing, self-revealing scenes; but hundreds of women readers recognize the state of mind, and although they may not have writhed bodily all night on the floor like some heroines of recent novels, they have bidden, after reading of such, long forgotten ghosts to be quiet.

The secret of our late President McKinley’s strength was his mastery over self. He had himself under thorough control. He did not fear self-communion, for he was sanely balanced. The quality in him which appealed the most strongly to women, of course, was his unselfish devotion to his womenkind. His mother and his wife always stood first in his heart, and he was the good son and ideal husband before he was the soldier and the statesman. Some men seem to be ashamed of being true to their women-folk; President McKinley was great enough to respect all women and to love with a singularly unselfish devotion those belonging to him.

How much better this world would be if there were more such characters; if people were content to be simply true and faithful to their highest ideals, or rather were equal to the effort of living up to them. It is easy to lie awake at night or sit by the fire and dream of grand and noble deeds; it is another thing to carry those ideals right out into the workaday world and face the battles of life with them. So much depends on the way we carry them, however; if we carry the high ideals as a burden on our backs, they are not a success. Let us try using them as a shield.

There is one little book that I wish could be put into the hands of every woman. And then I should demand a promise that each one should read a chapter in it on retiring every night. It is called “The Magic Seven” and was written by Lida A. Churchill, who has struck a helpful chord in this little book that might go far toward transforming the world, if the world would stop long enough to read it.

The great need among women is to acquire self-poise and to learn self-control. This book comes nearer to teaching these than anything I have yet seen, although, of course, it all depends on the woman herself whether she will be calm and strong and self-reliant. As Miss Churchill says: “God Himself cannot give you anything which you are unwilling or unready to receive.”

Here is one of her formulas. Try it, and after saying it over every day in the quiet of your own room, or on the car, or in the midst of crowds, see if you are not more calm, more sure of yourself, more trustful of God:

“I am still of heart and of tongue. I invite, and I hold myself in the attitude to receive, the Intelligence which teaches, the Love which satisfies and protects, the Power which invincibilizes, the Peace which blesses. I admit nothing into my life which would prevent or hinder the greatest soul-receptivity. I wait in the silence with and for God.”

But we must not forget that it is the average woman who makes or unmakes life for us. She may not write books, nor paint pictures, nor become famous; but she is the home-maker—the mother of the world. And the Average Woman will continue right along at the old stand as wife and mother, but with an enlarged sense of outside responsibilities. She will vote wherever the law will let her and yet mind her baby. She will study polemics in clubs and higher mathematics all by her lonesome and yet continue to order the dinner and, if necessary, cook it herself; and owing to the spread of cooking schools and domestic science departments, it will be better cooked and more daintily served than of yore.

No; let us cease to worry about ourselves or fret our souls with the arguments of men who know next to nothing about us. Every man has his opinion about women as a class, but in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand his premises are all drawn from the women of his own household. So that if he sets us down as weak-brained, fickle, and vastly inferior to MAN, we can easily judge of the women of his immediate circle, and pity him accordingly.

The nineteenth century has seen a wonderful change in the position of woman all over the world. This remark is so trite that my pencil blushes to record it. The twentieth century is ushering woman in as a very decided factor in the world’s progress and will doubtless bring her into greater activities and prominence than ever; but God instituted woman a number of years ago, when He set certain limits to her physical development, and He has not yet shown any decided intention of changing her mental qualities into replicas of the biped He created a short time previous and called man, and we shall continue to be just plain women when all is said and done.

Not but what that greatest room in the world—the room for improvement—is still open to us; but the fun of it is that so many more are all the time crowding up to its doors. Women as a class are growing more intelligent every year; realizing their own responsibilities, inside and outside the four walls of home; learning to balance themselves and to walk steadily along untried paths; rejoicing in this discovery of their own mental powers and yet clinging tightly to the old family loves and home ties.

So let us not worry ourselves over the dismal prophecies of great men as to the position of woman. We will continue to meander along the pleasant paths of improvement, but spell ourselves with a small w.

God made us all; may He help us to realize our limitations as well as to develop our utmost. Selah.

XIV

ON PUBLIC DUTIES

One of Mary E. Wilkins’ delightful heroines remarks, in speaking of certain would-be leaders of social reform in her village: “I don’t know that I think they are so much above us as too far to one side. Sometimes it is longitude and sometimes it is latitude that separates people.” “This is true,” says President Roosevelt, “and the philosophy it teaches applies quite as much to those who would reform the politics of a large city, or, for that matter, of the whole country, as to those who would reform the society of a hamlet.” But the active woman of to-day—and much more the woman of to-morrow—is not in danger of separating herself by either latitude or longitude. She is eager to help, and meets her problems half-way with outstretched hands. She is taking hold of all sorts of municipal matters and working against unsanitary conditions, defective sewerage, poor drainage, impure drinking water and the practice of making backyards, alleys and even streets the dumping-ground of those who are too negligent, or too indolent to consider the appearance of their immediate locality.

“The poor ye have always with you,” and as Dr. Babcock has said: “To take care of the lower orders is essential to social safety, though the words, ‘Inasmuch as ye did it to the least of these,’ had never been spoken, and the thought of helping humanity should be some little comfort, though the recognition of a ‘cup of cold water’ had never been dreamed of. To help poor children to learn to sew cannot compromise you in any way. To prick your finger in the sewing-school and draw one little red drop, is in the line of the world’s redemption, at least from ignorance and incapacity.”

But to this mission of woman from simply altruistic motives we can add that divine commission entrusted to Mary at the door of the sepulchre on that Sabbath morning nineteen hundred years ago, so that she is working everywhere to lift little children out of degradation, to teach them, to make of them good citizens, to abolish child-labor. And is it not true that every woman working in a quiet way for the improvement of those in her immediate neighborhood is manifesting the spirit of the scriptural injunction, “Bear ye one another’s burdens”?

“The women’s clubs of the period, with their classes for intelligent study of the great questions of the day, are creating a new political economy,” says the Hon. Carroll D. Wright, late chief of the Bureau of Labor Statistics in Washington, and no man in this country is better fitted to judge of the economic conditions that attend any great movement. One of the significant features of the club movement is that our deepest thinkers, our most far-sighted men recognize in it one of the great forces of the age. It is all well enough for one or two brilliant women writers who pride themselves on belonging to no women’s clubs whatever, to direct their powers of sarcasm against the movement and to flippantly observe that women’s clubs are a fad, or to inveigh against our taking ourselves seriously. We can even bear that Mr. Bok or Mr. Cleveland should warn his readers against being led unwillingly into public life, to the utter neglect of buttonless husbands and starving children; these things are outside the pale of serious consideration.

What does the earnest, thinking woman who reads Drummond’s “Ascent of Man” and Ruskin’s “Unto This Last” care? What does the woman who is studying the great humanitarian problem of to-day—whether singly or in classes—mind if a magazine writer who cares more for brilliancy than for accuracy takes her to task because she takes the fact of organized effort for bettering present conditions, and ministering to great human needs, seriously? For men who think and read and observe what is going on in the world to-day, men who come nearest to seeing what are the present economic forces and whither they are tending—such men are the quickest to recognize women as an important factor in the world’s progress, and are the most cordial in extending a hand-clasp of sympathy and “God-speed” to any specialized movement among us.

The day has gone by when it is fair or safe to arraign men for conditions which hedge in a woman; by which I mean that the men of this country are ready and willing to extend a helping hand to women who really want anything. When the women of this country or any part of it rise up and declare in a body that they want the ballot, for instance, they will get it; for it is not the men who are keeping it from us. When the women of America come forward ready for concerted action on any subject, the men are with them as a rule. Of course this refers to mankind collectively, not individually, and I leave it to any woman if the men of her household are not, as a rule, quite in sympathy with her outside interests and work. The average man sees in some measure the value of the club movement. The thinking man and the one who sees below the surface in this restless, changing, hopeful age goes farther and recognizes that with all our shortcomings and superficialities we have at heart an unquenchable desire to do our part of the world’s work; moreover, that there is a tremendous psychological significance in the banding together of several hundred thousand women all actuated by the same purpose, even if the movement be slightly chaotic and not always well directed.

The fact that thousands of earnest club-women all over this great country are studying its social conditions is of tremendous significance. We began in club life by studying literature, present and past. Then we took up history, and from comparing causes and effects in the past we naturally come to studying the economic conditions of to-day. Once take up this question and we become a powerful factor in its evolution. Women can create and maintain public sentiment, and it is the thinking women who usually become club women. The new political economy, which means the care and culture of mankind, to-day demands our attention. There are many phases of it, but most of our studies bear upon it in one form or another. It is not pleasant to hear about women who make shirtwaists for forty-eight cents a dozen and ruffled skirts for nineteen cents apiece, and thankful—poor creatures!—to get even that. It is heart-breaking to hear of the girls who work in laundries at three to six dollars a week, and at a risk of having hand or foot crushed in the mangle. It is quite heartrending to be told of the hardships that befall a girl who has lost her hand and must find some way to earn her scanty living. But when we are told how we can help these conditions the matter becomes practical. When we are shown that by patronizing bargain counters and buying cheap shirtwaists and petticoats we encourage these conditions, and it is explained how we can improve matters for the laundry girl, then our feelings have not been harrowed in vain.

When we come to realize that it rests with us to create a demand for better conditions we are ready for our part of the work. We may deplore the existence of “yellow journals,” but if we buy them we encourage their sale and contribute to their support. We may believe the sweatshop to be a pet institution of Satan, but if we buy its products we are encouraging the men who keep up its existence. One of the most hopeful auguries for the future of the concerted “woman movement” is the fact that it has definitely recognized its duty with respect to industrial conditions. Thousands of women and children are suffering from the lack of intelligent sympathy as well as from scanty wages, impure air, improper food and all the other things that are attendant on grinding poverty. Shall we—because fate has cast our lot in happier conditions—ignore these sisters of ours? Shall we not, rather, set about the earnest study of our duty in the premises?

You remember the story of Henry Ward Beecher, who hired a horse at a livery stable to go for a drive. Before starting he said, “That is a fine-looking animal; is he as good as he looks?” The owner replied, “Mr. Beecher, that horse will work in any place you put him and do all that any horse can do.” And Mr. Beecher eyed the animal still more admiringly and remarked, “Well, I wish to goodness he was a member of my church.” Now, that is the way we ought to work if we would find all that modern opportunities mean for us individually—“Work in any place we are put and do all that a woman can do.” But not restlessly, strenuously.

The truest and best philanthropic work tends to broaden the sympathy and widen the conception, if not of the brotherhood of man, at least of the sisterhood of woman. There is really no end to it—this question of what women may accomplish for the public good. And one of the most hopeful signs of this close of the nineteenth century is that women are no longer content with hiding their light under a bushel. They think very little about the position of the light, so that it is shedding bright rays over the dark places of the earth.

There is still here and there a woman who feels that she is of no value because she has not money or some special gift. Let her take heart. Whatever she is of herself, whatever she can do in the way of personal service, is of inestimable value. There is nothing else to compare with it. Christ gave Himself. It is the highest gift, and its noblest form is personal service in small things.

XV

ON HOME-LOVING AND HOUSEKEEPING