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 111
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With such an understanding of religion, we claim for woman the freedom and the right to undertake the solutions of all of the problems relating to the subject. We
Rev. Ida C. Hultin was born in Michigan. Her parents were Dr. Karl Constance Hultin, born and educated in Swe- den, and Susan Parkins Soman, born in Michigan and educated in same state. Miss Hultin was educated in Michigan High ยท School and Michigan University. She has traveled somewhat extensively in the United States. She has rare gifts as a public speaker and lecturer. Her profession is that of minister. In religious faith she is Unitarian. Her postoffice address is Moline, Il !.
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claim for her the right to tread any path, enter any door, probe any mystery, ask and try to answer any question that has significance to her as a responsible and religious being; a right to become the prophet of any gospel whose message has transformed her. This, to the end that her morality may partake of the healthfulness that comes only through trial and choice, that her piety may be the result of self-conscious devo- tion to truth and right, that her soundness of doctrine may mean the legitimate con- clusions of her own independent thinking. In short, that religion shall not mean to her the imposed or borrowed theories of masculine authority, but the progressive enunciations of her own personality; her own thinking, loving, living self; a manifesta- tion of her own spiritual life in vital relationship with the Infinite life. If this shall be, then woman alone will not be lifted, but humanity as a whole must be benefited. There would be one practical result of such a change as this, which in itself would almost revolutionize society, the establishment of one code of morals for both men and women.
It is not the masculine in the woman, but the womanly element, the mother element, which has so long been lacking. This we need in the religious life of the world. Not this at the expense of the masculine half, but both together-man thinking and doing in man's way, woman thinking and doing in woman's way. He, true manly; she, true womanly; each intelligently, responsibly, personally religious, thus complementing each other and each other's work, and helping and blessing the world. Woman will thus become a better homekeeper, truer wife, fitter mother, a more refining influence in society, a greater shaping power in the nation and the world. Man will become a better home-founder, truer husband, fitter father, more efficient member of society, a more potent factor in the nation and the world. Out of such a sainthood, which recognizes no sex in the realm of religious experience, will come the divine brother- hood of the human race, a brotherhood recognizing inevitably the Fatherhood of God.
I have not been pleading for any ism or creed. Theologies become trifles in com- parison with the one supreme subject of real and universal religion. Be true in that which seems to you to be true, and let religious consecration be the sacred impulse of the faith you cherish. Recognize the right of every man and every woman to that form of truth which seemeth to them to be sacred, and be very sure that wherever there is a human being there is God, and between that human being and God there is a relationship which in its essence is religious. Is it a lowly, unfortunate, chaotic soul? God is there working and working at a disadvantage, until you and I lend our- selves and the divine in us to the struggle. Is it a lofty, victorious, calm soul? God is there, and no matter the name of the prophet, no matter from what uttermost part of the earth he may come, no matter the form of his faith, God is there with a bene- diction, a baptism for you and for me if only we are able to bear it.
It is not the province of religion to do away with different forms of faith, but it is the duty of religious men and women to be so religious that forms shall be forgotten. Let us work toward a diviner conception, a more abundant realization of religion, a religion which shall unite the peoples of the earth and make men and women one in God.
THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF APPLIED ARTS. By MISS ELIZABETH B. SHELDON.
The value of any education is two-fold; first, to make life more valuable to the individual, and, second, to make the individual more valuable to society. An untrained person is not merely passively useless. He is actively dangerous- to himself and to the community.
The world has begun to realize the dangers of ignorance, hence we have free public schools. The world is beginning to realize the dangers of idleness; of mere head-cramming without hand training; and is establishing free manual training schools as a cor- rective.
Now that it has been discovered that man has a body as well as a brain, moral and educational reforin- ers claim that the salvation of the masses lies in uni- versal manual training.
I would take one step further. I would teach them not only to do something, and to do it well, but to make it beautiful.
I would do this as a matter of public improve- ment and public economy, as well as a matter of indi- vidual benefit. I would carry into the manual train- ing schools the kindergarten idea of making work attractive by adding the element of beauty, by giving play to the imagination, and by developing still fur- MISS ELIZABETH B. SHELDON. ther the universal creative instinct. We have happily evolved from the idea that work is a curse and beauty an invention of the devil. We now sec in the former a glorious opportunity for culture and service-the two things that make life worth living-and in the love of beauty inherent in every child of God we recognize a link connecting us with "that power not ourselves that makes for righteousness."
Our desires for usefulness and for beauty are legitimate, natural, vital, and should be developed equally. Through the lingering effects of our stern Puritan training our tendencies are overwhelmingly utilitarian. Only that side of our natures has been cultivated. Imagination still lies dormant, overshadowed by the unparalleled growth of our practicality. It is, however, criminal wastefulness, from an economic stand- point, to ignore the possibilities of wealth and culture in a general thorough under- standing of the principles of applied art.
A nation is rich in proportion as its inhabitants have the ability to turn ideas, taste and manual dexterity into things desirable.
The inimitable French touch, like a fairy's wand, transforms four or five dollars' worth of ribbon, flowers and lace into a bonnet for which women willingly pay twenty dollars-five dollars for the material and fifteen dollars for their skillful arrangement -- and the important part of it is that the Frenchman still has the same skill to put into another bonnet the next day, for which he may receive another fifteen dollars, and so on
Miss Elizabeth B. Sheldon is the danghter of Joseph Sheldon and Abby B. Barker Sheldon. She was educated in the public school of New Haven, Conn., and at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. She has traveled in Enrope since maturity and spent part of her childhood abroad with her parents. Miss Sheldon has delivered speeches in many Eastern cities. She is a member of Sorosis, New York City. She is a decorator by profession. In religions faith a Unitarian. Her postoffice address is No. 364 Mansfield Street, New Haven, Conn.
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indefinitely. It is a sort of cake that you can eat and have, too. Had he put equal skill into raising grain or potatoes he could have had but one crop to sell in a year, and that one would have been subject to the accidents and freaks of nature during the long period of its growth. This is the secret of the universal inferiority of agri- cultural nations as compared with manufacturing ones.
It was just this faculty and manufacturing skill in the French people-developed in every direction-that enabled them to pay, in three years, that enormous indemnity demanded of them by Germany in 1871. It was the direct result of the general applied art training of the masses-the philosopher's stone creating gold out of sim- ple raw materials, mixed with brains, taste and dexterity.
The French government maintains the most elaborate and efficient system of free art schools and schools of design that the world knows. As a result her decorative manufactures are unrivaled, and are her greatest source of wealth.
The Columbian Fair has been an object lesson of our position in applied art and its kindred professions. Its architecture is surpassingly beautiful. Our architects, however, after securing more or less knowledge of their subject in one of our four or five good schools, have been abroad to reap the advantages offered by more liberal and far-sighted governments than ours, as well as to study from original masterpieces of the world's architecture.
This is true also of our artists. In both of these departments our standing is creditable, for in these the necessity of rigorous training has been recognized and accepted. Not so, however, with our designers. The great majority of them are practically amateurs. They have never even imagined that there are comprehensive principles underlying design. Their aim is to evolve some fantastic idea that will attract attention by its novelty, irrespective of merit. The community receives a suc- cession of shocks, and mistakes its curiosity for admiration. Of course there are glo- rious exceptions among our designers, and more every year. But back of their work you will find patient, intelligent study and hard training possibly, a rare case of what -from their demoralizing influence upon designers-I hesitate to call "happy acci- dents." They lure us into relying upon luck rather than upon a comprehensive under- standing of cause and effect and conscientious painstaking.
In the main our decorative art is hopeful in its vitality-it is pitiful in its crude- ness. It is struggling for existence like a mob, with vigor, but without method or con- certed action. Our failures in design are the legitimate result of ignoring theory and trying to stand on the single slender leg of one person's experiments -- discarding the accumulated wisdom and experience of other times and nations.
We have in this country possibly ten fairly good schools of design-all private enterprises-one school to seven million people. Is it any wonder that ugliness is rampant in the land? That we find homely domestic tools, insulted by paint, gilding and a ribbon bow, masquerading apologetically as decorations in our parlors? That parasitical ribbon bows flaunt themselves from every possible coigne of vantage, reduc- ing all things to the level of millinery? It would be ludicrous if it were not so sad.
It is a pitiful expression of the hunger of our people for decorative effects and their blind grouping after the good they scent afar off. They are eager to learn. They only need to be convinced of the necessity and money value of such education. If we could but engraft upon their quick wit and inventiveness the refinement and unseduced patience of the Japanese, our manufacturers would stand pre-eminent.
The Japanese and the French realize that the best results are obtained when the designer is also the workman, and, above all, an artist.
In this country, however, designing is usually spoken of lightly-as a limited business, requiring only originality, and of very little consequence anyway.
In fact, however, the study of design is of particularly far-reaching importance. The material for this study is the visible universe. Everything may give a suggestion of form or color. The range of its application is whatever may be fashioned by man. The field is sufficiently broad-the opportunities are infinite.
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If the training I plead for were general, the advantages accruing to society would be-an improved public taste, demanding better goods, a constant rise in the standard and value of our decorative manufactures, until salesmen should tempt us by saying that their wares were of domestic make, instead of relying upon the magic word " imported " to make a sale, and upon the popular belief in the efficacy of a sea voyage to render any goods desirable.
It would mean beauty in the place of ugliness; a large crop of ideas-the most profitable crop that can be raised and an army of artist artisans in the place of bungling amateurs. Probably the most important advantage to the individual in this study is in learning to see and discriminate. We are all more or less blind-princi- pally morc.
I know a bright college girl who was taken through a garden last summer The owner pointed out his fine strawberries, peas, lettuce, etc., all of which were duly admired. At length they came to a long row of bean vines trained to grow in decor- ous stripes on the garden fence. "Oh," said this educated young person, "what a great quantity of morning glories you are raising this year!"
She literally did not know beans. The next day, however, when she saw the gardener transplanting some tobacco plants, she capped the climax by saying, " Well, I do know cabbages if I don't know beans!" Truly we have eyes, but we see not.
We learn to see things by modeling and drawing them-especially with the idea of using them in design. We learn to discriminate between the fundamental charac- teristics and the details-the important and the unimportant-a most valuable accom- plishment in every department of life. The imagination is quickened and the invent ive genius developed by the possibilities of design everywhere suggested if we have but learned to look for them. We learn the adaptation of means to ends, and gain a new perception of beauty in common things.
The best way to attain general culture is to study a specialty -- making it a base- line from which to branch out to take measurements and compute values.
No study could be better for this purpose than applied art. It is educating and refining -- it is also the means of carning a living. It is thoroughly practical and equally ideal. Beauty and utility meet there on common ground. It broadens our outlook in every direction. It touches our life in the most constant and intimate way.
It makes life and the individual more interesting, for a person is interesting in proportion as he is interested in living, in learning, in doing; in proportion as he irradiates facts, ideas and enthusiasm.
In our day and generation subtraction and division are lost arts. We only remem- ber how to add and multiply our needs, our luxuries, our duties. I would add, there- fore, to our manifold requirements a general comprehension, at least, of the principles of applied art, believing that it would be of infinite advantage to every one of us and a source of unmeasured wealth to the nation.
Metaphysicians assure us that every deed, yes, every thought, is eternal and inef- faccable. Then let the product of our hands and the thoughts of our hearts make for beauty and for harmony evermore.
NOT THINGS, BUT WOMEN.
By MRS. EFFIE PITBLADO.
Things are great. They are either the thought of God or man. Natural things are the thoughts of God; artificial things are the thoughts of man. But woman is greater than things, because she is the breath of God, or soul. Things are matter; woman is spirit. So she, with man, has dominion over things. The meaning of soul grows upon us, as we see it gaining the mastery over natural things-over wave and wind, over thunderbolt and sunbeam. The greatness of soul grows upon us, as we see it, turning thoughts into things of its own- into pictures, sewing machines, congress buildings, glass dresses; into things that niake not only the esthetic soul sing, but the utilitarian heart rejoice. Out of the silence of thought came all these forms of beauty and things of usefulness we see at this World's Fair. Things represent ideas. Ideas are not mascu- line or feminine, but human. Ideas are uppermost here. The dominion of mere physical force is dying. The dominion of mental and moral ideas is growing wider and stronger. It is evident from what we see at this World's Fair that women of ideas and moral stamina are fast coming to the front. Woman has a great part to play in this age, and she is prepared and is preparing for it. The arguments against equality MRS. EFFIE PITBLADO. are all answered, and today we smile at the belated being that talks about the superiority of the masculine intellect to the feminine. They are both superior in their way, and the sphere they choose is their sphere. If a man may sell ribbons and cut dresses, a woman may sit in the editor's chair, give a mission- ary address, deliver a political oration, open a drug store or run a convention or a mill. It is too late to deny that her imagination is just as fine and full of eyes as man's- that her heart is just as brimming over with poetry and pathos, that her reason is just as forceful and keen as man's.
The thought is growing that God has ordained certain rights to woman that somebody has denied. She is beginning gradually to seek to stand alongside her brother, her husband and lover in all the rights of mankind and in all the ordinances of our great Father. Such women still get a great deal of advice. They are told that woman was made for a higher sphere (or hemisphere), the home; and that if she departs from it her womanhood will suffer, and the domestic shrine be overthrown. But all this is contradicted by the facts and experiences and history of today. Who ever thinks of saying that Mrs. Cady Stanton's domestic shrine is overthrown, or that Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker's, or Mrs. Julia Ward Howe's, or Mrs. Mary A.
Mrs. Effie Pitblado was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1849. Her parents were Hugh Wilson, a lawyer, and Enphemia Gibb Wilson. She was educated in Edinburgh, and afterward in England. She has traveled in Enrope, Canada, and in America, and has crossed the Atlantic five times. She married Rev. C. B. Pitblado, D. D., of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and is the mother of two sons. Her principal literary works are addresses upon temperance, woman's snffrage, missions, education and religion. In religions faith she is a Methodist. Mrs. Pitblado has been a delegate to the National Woman Suffrage Association Convention in Washington, the New England Woman's Suffrage Association Conventions, the National Women's Christian Temerpance Union Conventions in New York, Denver and Chicago, and to the annnal Woman's Foreign Missionary Conventions in Lowell and Boston, Mass.
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Livermore's children are neglected, or their husbands not attended to, or their dishes not washed and stockings not darned? This wail about domestic shrine belongs to past history; we live in new times. I wish we had time to speak of the many great and useful women of our homes and hearts.
Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker, as everyone knows, belongs to the wonderful Beecher family, and is decidedly one of the most talented among them. She stands at the front among the leaders of the great vital reforms of the day. She is a woman of marvelous force of character, and to her the women of Connecticut owe the improvement of the laws in that state with regard to their property.
I have enjoyed the hospitality of her delightful home in Hartford many times, and she did me the honor to introduce me to the judiciary committee in the Capitol at Washington as a Scotch woman who would speak to them on the political status of women in Great Britain, when I went up with the committee of our National Woman Suffrage Association. I was at Washington in 1888 when I first became acquainted ( through Mrs. Hooker) with her co-worker, Susan B. Anthony, a woman who is known everywhere for her principle and pluck, power and purpose. Elizabeth Cady Stanton is another woman of brains and bravery. She is one of the ablest women of our times. Julia Ward Ilowe is not only the author of the " Battle Hymn of the Republic," and of other poems as rich and grand, but she is also a leading philanthropist and lecturer. Lucy Stone was a woman of radical ideas, and quiet, magnetic eloquence and heroic individuality. We all regret that we can never again hear her (as I have often heard her) plead before the Legislature of Massachusetts for the enfranchisement of women.
Mrs. Mary A. Livermore has for twenty-five years been one of the star lecturers in our most attractive lyceum courses, and she never was more popular than she is today. She is one of the ablest lecturers in the country at this hour.
I have heard her tell of Lady llenry Somerset's life and work in such glowing terms, that we could almost worship our English White Ribbon Queen, who is to the British women what our Frances Willard is to our American women-the head and the heart of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. Lady Henry Somerset's sympathy for and helpfulness to our American queen has been truly beautiful, and we love her not only for it, but for her own sweet self. Mrs. Ormiston Chant is another English woman who has charmed us with her inspirational speeches in behalf of womanhood, and she also is devoted to the elevation of woman, and the salvation of mankind. On this side of the Atlantic we have Mrs. Van Cott, a really successful evangelist, and Mrs. Annie Witteninyer, one of the grandest philanthropists that ever lived. Frances E. Willard, our queen of reforms, has probably more influence in this country than any other man or woman. She is president of the World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union, which has at least three hundred thousand members.
What a fine looking body of women the Board of Lady Managers are, with their attractive and gracious president. Mrs. Potter Palmer has visited nearly every court in Europe in the interest of women, and she has won by their exhibits official recogni- tion from every foreign country. She has also enlisted the co-operation of the women of her own country for the World's Fair, and addressed congressional committees with such genius that she obtained from them the legislation necessary to begin and carry on the work, and at the dedicatory services of this great Columbian Exposition crowned all by her splendid address, in which she said: "Even more important than the discovery of America is the fact that Government has just discovered woman."
We have always had our queens since the days of Queen Esther, Queen of Sheba, Queen Semiramis and Queen Boadicea, but never have we had more worthy queens than those of the nineteenth century.
Who can forget the smiling face of Vice-President Mrs. Charles Henrotin as she gave her delightful address of welcome to every World's Congress? Who but will say that our chairman of the Committee on Congresses in this Woman's Building, Mrs.
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James P. Eagle, has not only shown great ability and tact, but a remarkable degree of executive power and steady perseverance to arrange for, and preside at, all these addresses, every forenoon, for so many months? Her beauty and grace and kindly manners to all her speakers have added greatly to the charm of these Congresses in the Woman's Building.
I wish there was time to speak of Mrs. Palmer's secretary and her assistant secre- tary, Mrs. Helen M. Parker, in whose home I had the pleasure of stopping for a few weeks, and who, as you know, has been elected treasurer, at our last convention, of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union. It would be impossible in my limited time to tell you about the many gifted women in that organization. We have our lecturers, like Mrs. Mary Lathrop, whom you all know, and Rev. Annie Shaw; we have our superintendents, like Mrs. Mary H. Hunt.
We also have missionaries, like our all-round-the-world missionary, Mrs. Mary Clement Leavitt, who has had in connection with her addresses the services of two hundred and twenty-nine interpreters, in forty-seven languages. She has carried our white ribbon around the globe. And secretaries like Miss Anna A. Gordon; and state presidents like Mrs. Clara Hoffman, so well known here; and sergeants-at-arms like Mrs. Cornelia B. Forbes, of Connecticut, to keep our great national conventions in order; and organizers like Mrs. Mary Seymour Howell; and preachers like Miss Greenwood, of New York; and elocutionists like Miss Eva Shonts, who read on this platform, and who is called by Miss Willard our white ribbon elocutionist. I wish I had time to speak of such women as Pundita Ramabai, the student and teacher of the young widows of India, and of the heroic women who have gone out to heathen lands to carry the glad tidings of the Gospel to their sisters, and of the grand women at home whose plans and gifts have created such an organization that they can now disburse annually, for the work and support of these missionaries, one million five hundred thousand dollars. I need not tell you about the president of our National Council of Women, Mrs. May Wright Sewell, for many of you have heard her brilliant and learned addresses in this assembly hall; nor of Miss Elizabeth B. Sheldon, who decorated our Connecticut room in this building with such delicate taste and fine har- mony of color; nor of Miss Hosmer, the sculptor, for you have seen her exquisite statues and busts, and you know that her statue of Queen Isabella has been secured for the Californian World's Fair and will find a home in San Francisco. Neither do I need to speak to you of my countrywoman, Lady Aberdeen, for you have seen her exhibit here of the industries of the Irish women, and you have heard what she is doing for women in Great Britain at the head of the Woman's Liberal Federation. Few men have spoken out so freely against social wrongs as Mrs. Josephine Butler of England, and Dr. Kate Bushnell of this country. From the days of Madam Roland women have never been without their champions like Flor- ence Nightingale, and Mrs. Browning, our delightful poet. Time would fail us to speak of our women journalists, like Mrs. Frank Leslie and Alice Stone Black- well; our women ministers, like Rev. Olympia Brown and Dr. Augusta J. Chapine who, as chairman of Women's Religious Congresses, discovered that seventeen denom- inations have ordained women to the ministry; our discoverers, like Mrs. French Sheldon, F. R. G. S., who went unattended by a single white person through the wilds of Africa; and our temple builders, like Mrs. Matilda B. Carse, of Chicago, whose "Woman's Temple" is the finest office building in the world, and the architect of this beautiful Woman's Building, which is a monument to the brain and work of woman. But we must stop mentioning names, for the gifted, all-sided women of our land are legion. Many of them are unknown to the great public, and do their work quietly in their own church or town or home, and many of them have voluntarily become the rounds of the ladders on which their brothers and sons and husbands have climbed to fame. But many of them do their work in the eye of the world. Some of them are gen- iuses-none of them are angels-all of them are peers of men. Among them are inventors, lawyers, architects, physicians, painters, engineers, astronomers, editors, edu-
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