USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > The Congress of Women : held in the Woman's building, World's Columbian exposition, Chicago, U.S.A., 1893 : with portraits, biographies and addresses > Part 108
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 | Part 105 | Part 106 | Part 107 | Part 108 | Part 109 | Part 110 | Part 111 | Part 112 | Part 113 | Part 114 | Part 115
I know the sweet illusions that still adhere to the idea of chivalrous devotion on the part of man, and of clinging dependence on the part of woman, and this might be well perhaps if men were always strong and women always young and beautiful; yet even here it is questionable whether it were possible for a woman to find lasting happiness merely as a passive recipient of loving admiration, however ardent, for so long as a woman has a rational and spiritual nature, so long she fails of highest happiness if these are lost sight of. And further, grant that these conditions of devotion upon the part of man and clinging dependence on the part of woman could be permanent, it is question- able whether such a state would be healthful to either mind or body, since this form of selfishness, like any other, is liable to die of its own excesses. Furthermore, the fates of the Juliets, the Ophelias, the Desdemonas, and of countless hosts of other women who were all that is gentle, sweet and confiding, does not lead to the belief that the · fate of such women is at all enviable. On the other hand, the tragic consequences of all this emotional fervor, this unrestrained expression of feeling, especially when com- bined with artless simplicity and utter ignorance of what is worthy to be loved, which, strange to say, men and women are so slow to learn; for this frenzied emotion and intensity is still hallowed with the name of love, its dicta are regarded infallible, and that too in the most important concerns of life.
768
THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
If the privileges now afforded to women shall lead them to more realistic views in regard to the affections, incalculable results for good must in eviably follow; for there is no truth that men and women need to see more plainly than the fact that the emotions and the affections are to be kept under wise control, and they are of value only as they are under control, and that the infallibility of love is not in proportion to its intensity, but rather in proportion to its clearsightedness. How plainly Dante saw this truth, and how firmly he was guided by it is evident from what he says in the "Vita Nuova," after describing his first meeting with Beatrice: "I say that from that time love quite governed my soul, and with so safe and undisputed lordship that I had nothing left for it but to do all his bidding continually. And albeit her image that was with me always was an exaltation of love to subdue me, it was yet of so perfect a quality that it never allowed me to be overruled by love without the faithful counsel of reason whensoever such counsel was useful to be heard." I know the tendency of women is to live in their feelings; still this tendency need not be abnormally culti- vated, as it has been in times past, and above all things this emotional state should not be considered the ideal condition for woman, for in whatever way we may regard woman, whether as an individual of and for herself, or whether we regard her as a helpmate for man, in either case it is the rational life that gives a permanent worth to the emotional life. Desirable and indispensable as the latter may be, its best signifi- cance is in its subordination to the rational. Shakespeare knew this well, and while he has portrayed every phase of the emotions with all the allurements and attractions which undisciplined ardor knows how to offer, he has not failed to show the evil results which are sure to follow when reason fails to obtain control. The Juliets, the Ophelias and the Desdemonas perish, the victims of their own impulses, but women like Portia, whose wealth of feeling was not under the sway of caprice, loved, not only to their own advantage, but to that of their households. No submission is more womanly than that of Portia to her husband, but it is the submission of strength and not of weakness.
Of the many old superstitions in regard to woman there is one which has not entirely passed away, and that is that women by a kind of intuition or divination have a feeling for truth, which is an easy substitute for the unremitting labor and continual mental activity that is essential to the logical comprehension of truth. Hence the inexactness of women and their inability to tell the truth, not from lack of moral sincerity, but because they do not recognize the fact that a clear apprehension of the truth is not a free natural gift, but is an acquired ability, that is gained only by the most rigorous mental discipline. It would be quite as easy to gain strong physical power without continuous exercise of the muscles as to gain intellectual and moral strength without the constant activity of the moral and intellectual faculties, and women can never expect to arrive at an accurate knowledge of any subject so long as they are willing at a moment's notice to give hasty answers to the most profound problems, social, economical, religious or philosophical, merely to follow some impulse that with them takes the place of intelligent conviction. So long as this is the case, so long as feeling takes the place of accurate thinking, women can not have that subtlety of analysis and sustained power of reasoning which is absolutely essential to the correct investigation of any subject, philosophical or scientific.
And so of those other mists of feeling which obscure the problems with which women of today have to deal, especially the disposition to let personal matters decide rather than the consideration of broad universal principles. It is not strange that this is the case, since women have been governed so long by motives of personal con- siderations. Yet if they will share in the larger life of today it will be by a recognition of the value of underlying principles, and not through the oldtime artifice, intrigue and use or abuse of personal influence. Is it not a little singular that while patience, one of the most significant virtues in the Middle Ages, and one considered essentially feminine, that in the modern time women are restlessly impatient? Here I should make a distinction and say that they are patient under inevitable physical ills, but are
769
THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
exceedingly impatient under moral wrong. At first thought this may seem a virtue rather than otherwise, for so long as the bad can be made good, and the good made better, no one has a right to be passively indifferent.
The difficulty lies in women failing to perceive that the process of the universe can not be violently hastened; that the moral world as well as the physical has its laws which must be regarded if success is to be attained. It is not easy for women to see that what ought to be may be practically impossible at present, and, indeed, in many cases can be reached only by the slowest processes, but this impatient haste on the part of women will brook no delay. They have a restless, feverish desire for activity, and inability to stay quiet, an irritable impatience to accomplish something and to see immediate returns for the amount of energy expended. Increased oppor- tunities for philanthropic and reformatory effort have added to the intensity of this impatience. Seeing, as they believe, the Kingdom of Heaven to be within reach, they are ready to take it by violence, and so defeat the object in view. It should be said, how- ever, that within the last few years there is evidence of decided change in this respect. Already the disciplinary power of systematic thought and study is making itself felt among women who have availed themselves of it, and instead of bending their energies exclusively in trying to alleviate poverty, squalor and degradation, we find many of them making earnest inquiries as to the cause of all this poverty and vice -- trying to find out the underlying causes which bring about the need of charity and almsgiving, for that there should be continued poverty among men and women sound in mind and body proves a radical injustice somewhere. And women as well as men should make it their duty, if not pleasure, to know where the evil lies, and apply the remedy there instead of resting content with the system so long in vogue of almsgiving out of ignorant pity and useless sympathy. It is a question much discussed at the present time what effect the increase of thought and study will have upon the health of women. Doctors disagree upon the subject, but meanwhile women are going right along solving the problem in a practical way. Whether the answer will be in the nega- tive or affirmative is not yet apparent, but this much is certain, as Professor Mor- ris has so aptly put it, "Patient thought and study are not half so perilous to one's nerves and brains as are the fret and worry incident to the strife for the possession of the thousand and one now alleged necessaries of decent living. Genuinely patient thought and study are as much a sedative as an excitant, for they bring the repose of strength." So far as my own observation goes, it is not the stimulus of thought and study which works the ills of which physicians complain today as it is the irrational life which women are disposed to live, simply because material productions have increased so rapidly that it is comparatively easy for nearly every home to have an excess of luxuries, which, instead of adding to the well-being of those who possess them, are often an increased perplexity and aggravation.
Until our homes are simpler and less an object of care and anxiety, until our dress is determined by beauty, health and utility rather than by fashion or caprice, and until our tables are ordered with regard to physical well-being, we do wrong to lay the various forms of nervous prostration to the account of thought and study. Even in cases where household luxuries are not an occasion of fret and worry there is danger of pernicious influence from them, since they lead one to rest content with the lower forms of happiness rather than to seek the higher. The sense of vision is the most tyrannical of all our senses, and few women have it under wise control. I would not wish to advocate stoicism and puritanism in the home, but this love of luxury, this gratification of the senses tends to enervate and make us satisfied with ourselves and our surroundings, forgetful of the facts that it is in the activity of our powers rather than in the passive gratification of them that we eventually come to that real satisfac- tion which alone is the object of highest desire.
In reflecting upon the broader opportunities open to women, the question arises as to what effect they will have upon religion and the church. Hitherto women have been the conservative element in the church and its chief support. Evidently a change
(49)
770
THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
in this respect is going on, and remembering the effect which the logical keenness of the Mary Shelleys, the Harriet Martincaus, the George Eliots has had upon their religion, it is not strange that there is serious questioning as to what will become of the church in the future, and whether religion is to be thrown aside as a thing of the past if women are no longer to be its chief supporters. But to my mind there is little cause for apprehension on this score. So long as there is in humanity a spirit that impels one to the knowledge and performance of practical duties, so long as there is a desire for such an explanation of the universe as shall give life, aim and meaning, so long as there is a love for the truth which shall make one free, so long there need be no questioning but what religion in some form will claim the deepest interests of humanity, and whatever form that religion may take, women in the future as in the past will give to it loyal fidelity and faithful service.
In conclusion, let me add that if in my paper I have said some things of women that seemed ungracious, it is not because I do not appreciate women or because I do not know them-for I know woman well, the good, the bad and the indifferent, and have hope for all, If what I have said shall lead any to the higher rational life of which I have spoken, the object of my paper will be accomplished.
CULTURE-ITS FRUIT AND ITS PRICE. By MRS. MAY WRIGHT SEWALL.
Every time has its catch words, its popular phrases indicative of the caprice, the motive, the opinion or the aspiration which rules the passing hour.
In the verbal currency of our day perhaps no other word experiences more frequent or more aston- ishing fluctuations than the word culture. As young people are certain to infer the definition of terms from their use, it is not to be wondered at that, through its numerous and contradictory applications, the meaning of culture is in many youthful minds vague and nebulous.
Culture, when applied to men, is often used as a synonym for learning; when ascribed to women it is frequently employed as an equivalent for accomplish- ment. Thus one may, within the same hour, have culture predicated of a distinguished linguist and of a noted æsthete, of one woman who paints china and velvet and of another who does Kensington embroid- ery; of one who reads French, of another who speaks German, and of a third who sings Italian; and it is daily asserted with lavish impartiality of companies of women who in clubs and classes are continuing an education which in their youth and in its proper sea- son suffered an untimely abridgement.
MRS. MAY WRIGHT SEWALL.
This undiscriminating use of the word has debased its originally noble significance, and it has come to suggest to the inquiring and crit- ical mind a tendency to dabble, a dilettant habit, and superficial acquirements in superfluous departments of study.
This misuse of the word has been followed by a misunderstanding of the sub- stance which it rightly names, and it is the fashion of the day in certain circles to scoff at culture, to belittle it by making it take on a provincial air through limiting it to a single locality, and playing that Boston is its habitat; to degrade it by a ridicu- lous orthography and an affected pronunciation; sneeringly to attribute it to fops and pedants, and finally, to put it on the defensive by assuming that it belongs to the dead past, that it is inimical to modern progress, and must, in the interests of progress, be shelved and labeled with other interesting but outgrown antiquities, or ticketed with the extinct arts.
In recent years another word has gained a strange ascendency over the popular
Mrs. May Wright Sewall, of Indianapolis, vice-president International Council of Women, president of the National Council of Women of the United States, chairman of the committee on a World's Congress of Representative Women, is a native of Wisconsin. Her parents, however, were both from old New England families. She was graduated from the Northwestern University of Evanston, Ill., with the degree A. B., in 1867. The degree of A. M. was conferred upon her three years later. Mrs. Sewall is known as a most thorough and successful educator. She united in marriage with Mr. The- odore L. Sewall in 1880. In 1882 Mr. and Mrs. Sewall opened a private school for girls, known as the Girls' Classical School. She is a member of the Association for the Advancement of Women, an honorary member of the American Historical Asso- ciation of Sorosis, etc. She has spent several summers in England, France, Germany and Italy. Mr. Sewall has many lec tnres on social, educational and reform topics. She is perhaps at her best as an extemporaneous speaker, her style being clear, cogent and eloquent. To various activities Mrs. Sewall adds those of a housekeeper and entertainer, her Wednesday afternoon receptions being a feature of the intellectual and social life of her city. Her postoffice address is Indianapo- lis, Ind.
771
772
THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
mind, the influence of which has increased as the authority once associated with the word culture has declined. The word practical acts on large numbers in every mod- ern community as a charm in superstitious eras acted upon its victims.
Let any new interpretation of religion, any new system of education, any scheme of finance, any civil policy be heralded as practical, and its advocates may rely upon an immediate following to be enumerated by thousands. It is by the victims of this epithet, by the worshipers of utility. by the self-styled practical people, that culture is held in disdain. One sometimes questions whether the disdain springs from con- scious superiority or from envy, which is the forced confession of conscious inferior- ity. Whatever its source, disdain is a poisoned weapon, and it is the weapon of suicide.
The man of action is the hero of the practical world, and hardly less does the woman of action control the imagination of contemporary maidenhood. But far from being, what numbers of their admirers proclaim them to be, the foes of culture, living proofs of the uselessness of culture, men of action and in a very particular sense women of action, are the heralds of culture, its prerequisites, and almost always its agents.
The achievements of practical men are, to the great and permanent detriment of numberless young people in this generation, frequently cited to show how unessential to success culture is. When men of action, like Fulton or Whitney, like A. T. Stew- art, Vanderbilt or Jay Gould, or in very different lines of action, like Edison, or Pull- man, or Powderly are under discussion, the feature of their careers which is dwelt upon with particular insistence is, that "they were or are men of no culture;" that " they were or are men of no education," or " men of the most elementary," or in favorite phrase "of the most practical education." It is readily admitted that the inadequate education of these men is an element which, in their careers, was calculated to attract attention; an element properly emphasized by biographers and economists, since the fact emphasizes their extraordinary ability in the direction of their successes.
. Such careers may be regarded with complacency, with certain pride by every human being, since they indicate the dignity, the potency of the human spirit, which can set all obstacles at defiance and transcend circumstances. But such careers do not, as too many young people are led to believe, prove that success is the logical out- come of ignorance, the calculable goal of mind minus culture. What the man with -. out culture, the practical man, has achieved in the world of matter may but grossly figure what the same man with culture might have achieved in the world of thought; and one element never to be forgotten in calculating one's achievements is the plane upon which they are won. It is mainly the result of such careers and of the partial interpretation given to them that, in popular language, the antithesis of culture is practical education. It is by the advocates of practical education, who assume the rôle of the natural and necessary sponsors of progress, that culture has been put on the defensive. By them she, who, like beauty, has been wont to consider herself her own divine excuse for being, is compelled to state other and lower grounds which justify her continued existence. Thus any analysis of culture seems to involve an analysis of practical education; and in attempting such an analysis a humble disciple of culture hopes to show that the practical education, far from being the antithesis of culture, is the straight, broad path to it.
You will see then that the first question that arises in an attempt to define culture is: What is meant by a practical education? Is it not fair to reply that a practical education is such an education in kind and degree as can be practical, as can be used with effectiveness in subsequent life? Is not a practical education one that looks to a definite, a distinct and probably attainable end, instead of to the vague and intangible end of personal development, which is culture's avowed aim? One of the striking advantages of the practical education is that its end is thus definable; that it has an infallible test. One laying claim to a practical education must be ready at any hour to make answer to the pass-word of the work-a-day world: "What can you do?"
778
THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
This necessity, although deplored by shallow pretenders to culture who deem it antag- onistic, is really one of culture's strongest allies. The man who can make no response to the challenge of the business world, " What can you do?" is, by the modern code, a tramp, a vagrant. The demand that she too shall meet this test, that she too shall answer to the password of the practical world, "What can you do?" is, remembering all other boons-I say it deliberately and with no reserve-the greatest boon that mod- ern civilization has conferred upon woman. Today the ability to give a sufficing reply to this challenge is essential to self-respect in man or woman, and that it is so is a triumph of practical education; but the ability to answer this question is also a proof of culture.
In this assembly one could confidently inquire, "What do you expect your edu- cation here to do for you?" Probably every young man and every young woman would be ready with a definite answer. They have formed definite expectations of the education they are engaged in obtaining, and their parents have formed definite expectations of them and of what their education will do for them. It is definitely expected that this education will make of those who pursue it competent civil or mechanical engineers; or good draughtsmen or designers, or efficient farmers, poul- terers, horticulturists or stock raisers, or reliable pharmacists or chemists, or skillful wood carvers or decorators; and looking toward these occupations most, if not all of them, see in the education they are getting here a direct means of self-support. This is admirable. If life itself is noble and dignified, that which alone can support it can not be ignoble and mean; and any institution which stands for the dignity of labor and which brings up successive generations of young people with sound healthy notions of labor is a source of benefactions.
There is a tacit division of society into the professional and practical classes, and a tacit assumption that these classes are reciprocally inimical: the division is mislead- ing, and the assumption arising from it absurd. The professional class includes cler- gymen, lawyers, physicians (broadly embracing surgeons and dentists) and teachers; and latterly authors and artists; the practical class includes the followers of business trades, of mechanical arts, and indeed of all pursuits not specifically included under professional, but following either the etymology of the two words or the simple facts · regarding the two classes of workers, do not the practical profess as much as the pro- fessional? and do not the professional practice as much as the practical?
As for the tacit assumption, often boldly proclaimed, that the professional class prey upon the practical, that the professional class consumes what the practical class produces, is not its refutation read in the statement? The two classes serve one another, and to a corresponding extent live on one another. This is inevitable and it is to the common advantage of both.
A second division of society follows the lines of the first, and assumes that the cultured class is identical with the professional and that the uncultured is synonymous with the practical. If absurdity could pass beyond the first division, it may be said to culminate in the second. That a man is a member of one of the so-called profes- sions ( in distinction from one of the so-called business avocations) is no ground for the inference that he is a man of culture. The professions, once called the liberal professions, where thus called because no man could hope to enter them who had not enjoyed a liberal education. A particular education was called liberal from the gen- eral belief that certain studies tended to liberalize the mind, and by putting it into possession of the best thoughts of all times and all enlightened countries, freed it from the bondage of the prejudices of its own time and its own land At a time when such a liberal, i. c., such a liberalizing education was the indispensable condition for beginning the preparation of a professional career, it was reasonable to infer culture of a man in any one of the professions; but now when the call to preach may come to the most illiterate, and when the license may be granted to whomsoever claims the call; when the degree of M. D. will be granted to the youth or maiden who will give an indifferent attention to two or three courses of lectures; when anyone may be made
774
THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN
a notary, and any notary may be admitted to the bar, it is folly to profess to maintain the old and honorable identification of culture with these professions. * * * * * *
Since success is that which everyone most desires, the relative probabilities of success that wait on different courses usually determine the young man's or young woman's choice among theni. The lowest measure of success to which one's life can be subjected is the character of the shelter and the quality and the quantity of the food and raiment which he has been able to provide himself. Measured by this lowest unit, I believe the cultured as a class are more successful than the practical as a class. Let success be first gauged by bread and butter if you will; you will find the whitest loaves cut in the thinnest slices, most thickly spread with butter are on the table and in the larder of the cultured man. The second measure of success is in the number, the variety and magnitude of material luxuries in excess of the three primal necessities, shelter, clothing and food, enjoyed by the man himself, and in the number and mag- nitude of material benefits bestowed by him upon the community. In the personal application of this second measure, the average man of culture has the undoubted advantage of the average man destitute of culture. Measured by the material bene- factions which they bestow upon the public, it is granted that the non-cultured man enjoys a relatively superior degree of success. Great inventors, great discoverers, great business magnates, who generally belong to the practical as distinguished from the cultured class, have been conspicuously successful in promoting the material interests of the world. To them society owes the railroads, the steamships, the telegraphs, the telephones, the artificial lights, the banks, the insurance companies, and an innumerable et cetera of devices fo rdeveloping material resources and for increasing, distributing and preserving material benefits. But all of these intruments of material advancement are immediately made the instruments of culture, and are noble in just the degree to which they can be used to promote the ends of culture.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.