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 114
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After some years of missionary labor, realizing that trained workers were as nec- essary to success here as in secular pursuits, a training school was determined upon. There was no money -- no, not a cent at command when the women determined upon the measure; but there was much prayer and strong hope A consecrated woman of unusual business tact and fine culture at this juncture consented to work up the finan- cial resources, and passed through the South soliciting aid. Born and reared amid the wealth and refinement of Kentucky she laid aside the attractions of a beautiful home and did the work, a distasteful work, with untiring zeal, and in less than four years from its inception the cap-stone of the Scarritt Bible and Training School was placed upon it, amid the silent, though heartfelt, rejoicings of more than fifty thousand Southern women. A massive, well proportioned, elegant structure, it stands a hand- some monument of the business tact, economy, self-denial and devotion of women,
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who persevered in the face of opposition and difficulty. That which her intelligence and love plan, her hands rear, if possible. In scientific pursuits the women of the South have not made striking progress. The need of university training, growing out of the selfishness of the brothers or the conservatism of the daughters, has, to the pres- ent, prevented. This need will be met. When our women of means devise sufficient sums to meet the pecuniary demands of such institutions, or will endow chairs in those universities that are beginning to unlock their doors to women, this hindrance will be removed. Statistics are provokingly meager in endowments of schools for women in the Southland-indeed for women in all lands. Few magnificent gifts of this kind to educate women, even by women themselves, have been made, though they will leave large sums oftentimes to open or aid male schools. Why, I know not. Possibly from want of faith that their sisters would value such opportunities. May the day speedily , come when opportunities of the highest culture will multiply in the Southland. While our women have left the bugs and bats, rocks, rockets and comets, and much more of scientific research to their brothers, and have never startled the world along mathe- matical highways, they are turning their attention to such matters, and in the near future may rival Caroline Herschel or Mrs. Somerville. In imaginative literature there is much promise of books that will live; in narration, exposition and description there is a creditable showing. Macaulay said: "Poetry of the highest order may not be looked for in nations whose culture has attained perfection." So we look for poets- look confidently, too-since of late years from under our own magnolia came one of the sweetest singers of the century, Sidney Lanier. In journalism the women of the South are being heard and felt, and, indeed, they are making ready to enter any lines of usefulness their preferences, necessities or tastes dictate. Time will not permit illustrations, or I would name many women of the South who are recognized as lead- ers-honored for their attainments, admired for their success. Let me name one, the chairman of this Woman's Congress-born in Kentucky, reared there, educated there, claimed by Arkansas as its ideal of beautiful,energetic womanhood-who well represents the refinement, the intelligence and executive skill of our women. Do I claim too much when I say the women of the South are the peers of the best, the truest, the purest and richest womanhood of the world?
COOKING AS AN ART. By MISS HELEN LOUISE JOHNSON.
Since the days when it was first discovered that heat could be applied to, and improve the material Nature so bountifully provides for the use of man, much has been written on the subject of cooking. Some of the brightest men and women of all countries and generations have devoted their time and powers to this theme; yet today it must be confessed that to a large majority it seems commonplace. The old poets knew of its prolificness in sentiment, and inspired, no doubt, by some delicious con- coction, Homer and Horace sang of its virtues and its pleasures. Even the Father of History, Herodotus, deemed the easy grace and lively vigor of his style none too good for such a subject, and he gave us many interesting historical facts concerning it. It was after the Asiatic conquest that luxury in eating crept into Rome. Lucullus first introduced habits of epicureanism after his return from Asia, and the gourmand Api- cius, carved for himself a deathless name. Athenaus preserved for us in his writings the name of perhaps the first author of a book on the subject of cooking, that of Archestratus, who was called the guide of epicures. During and before the time of Julius Caesar, cooking was actually regarded as one of the greatest of arts; birthdays, funerals and victories being celebrated by great banquets, at which the chief cook, or " chief, " was often crowned, was always an honored guest, and no limit was placed or. the fortune he could command. The most famous cooks were those of Sicily, and they were generally nien of noble birth. But in the conquests of England, in the forming of a to-be mighty race, arts were pushed to the background. The science of war and a defensive existence were the kindergarten, the school and the college. In the days of Shakespeare cooking appeared only as a means to a desirable end-that of satisfying hunger. And in the simple living of our Puritan forefathers luxurious cook- ing had neither time nor place for its being. From the throes of gnawing hunger and of bitter pain, from the heart-aches, homesick longings, fears by night and stern labors by day were born those traits of American character which made Chicago possible, and crowned Columbus' discovery with its triumph of today.
When Kate Douglas Wiggin was just beginning the study of childhood, she was asked to give what she considered the qualifications of an ideal kindergartener, her answer was as follows: The music of St. Cecilia, the art of Raphael, the dramatic genius of Rachel, the administrative ability of Cromwell, the wisdom of Solomon, the meekness of Moses and the patience of Job. And in her recent book on " Children's Rights." she appends the following: " Twelve years' experience with children has not lowered my ideals one whit, nor led me to deem superfluous any of these qualifications; in fact, I should make the list a little longer were I to write it now, and should add, perhaps, the prudence of Franklin, the inventive power of Edison and the talent for improvisation of the carly Troubadours."
If these are the qualifications necessary for the woman who is to have the training of your child certain hours only during the day, what are those necessary for the mother, out of whose life and love and daily example must grow that child of larger growth, the man or woman? In no place in life is so needed the wisdom of all the ancients as in that high calling-the home-keeper. Breadth of view, many interests, any amount of true education will but serve to raise the standard of ideal womanhood,
Miss Helen Louise Johnson was born in Watertown, N. Y. ller parents were Mary Louise Clarke Johnson and Levi Arthur Johnson. She was educated at the public schools of Watertown, Wells College, Aurora, N. Y., and the Philadelphia Cooking School. She has traveled in the United States and Canada. Her principal literary work is magazine work. She is editor of "Table Talk," published in Philadelphia. Her profession is that of teacher of domestic science. Miss Johnson is a member of the Presbyterian Church. Her postoffice address is care of Table Talk Publishing Co., Philadelphia, Pa.
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and make of the hearth-stone, not a public campus, but a stepping-stone to Heaven. The true girl, and especially the American one, if she speaks ten languages, and thinks in four dead ones, if she paints like a Turner or sings like a nightingale, will, when love comes, forget to be artist in remembering how to be woman.
At the present time the subject of cooking is demanding more attention than it has ever before in the history of America. Hunger demands the daily use of the knife and fork; custom and fashion decree certain kinds of living, and science enables us more and more to perfect our modes of life. But until the generality of people will consent to study the subject of cookery with unprejudiced minds, it must remain a necessary evil to a few, a means to a happy end by many. Mrs. Henderson has most truly written that the reason why cooking in America is as a rule so inferior is not because American women are less able and apt than the women of France, but merely because American women seem possessed with the idea that it is not the fashion to know how to cook; that as an accomplishment the art of cooking is not as ornamental as that of needlework or piano-playing. When cooking is recognized in its proper place as a science as truly as chemistry, of which it has so much in itself, as an art more far-reaching than many others in its results, and as delightful and becoming as being able to decorate the family sideboard with hand-painted china, then American women will not alone equal their French sisters, but should, by reason of their superior advantages in education, surpass them in this as in other things. French women know how to dress because they make a study of it. They are world renowned cooks because they make a study of that also. " It takes more brains to prepare a good dinner than it does to learn French and German or to write a good essay."
The domestic problem is as much the question of the day to the women of this country as the labor question is to the man, and assuredly of as much moment. In the Congress of Household Economics, held only a week ago in the Art Institute, the much-disputed question of domestic service was viewed in all its phases. And the answer to the problem, given in so many forms, could always be translated a higher, a. better education-the education of our girls-not alone the few who are finished in fashionable boarding-schools, nor alone the many who crowd the colleges, although this step must to a certain extent begin right there. But the hundreds of "home " girls should be taught as well that cooking is an accomplishment every girl should pride herself upon possessing. When the generality of women who have homes to keep understand the art of cooking so that they are not dependent upon chef, caterer or cook for daily bread; when Dame Fashion has decided that cooking is as indis- pensable a part of the curriculum of study in all schools as arithmetic or literature; when girls of all kinds and conditions of life realize that cooking is not lowering to one's dignity, then, and not till then, will the Sphinx have to bestir herself to propound another riddle to womankind. When our girls as well as our boys are taught that any honest labor raises, not lowers, their dignity and standing; when they realize, as only good sense or higher education can teach them, that people make their work honored or degraded by their manner of performing it, not their occupation renders them so, then girls, instead of rushing into mills and factories, will, having studied the art of cooking, prefer the more quiet, dignified and elevating occupation of cooking. But it must first be placed in its rightful position, and this reform be from the outside, in; from the top, down. It must be made the fashion. "Every revolution was first a thought in one man's mind, and when the same thought occurred to another man, it is the key to that era. Every reform was once a private opinion, and when it shall be a private opinion again it will solve the problem of the age." If this reform be needed, it must come. If a remedy for a crying evil be found in a private opinion, let it be known. Let it become the fashion.
When you consider the wonderful mechanism of the human body, its manifold requirements, and how wonderfully Nature has ordained our being, we can well be aghast at the accepted ignorance of the art of cooking as an art, and the accepted ignorance of our cooks. What man would permit the walls of his house to be laid by
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a tinsmith ? What man would trust his life in a boat steered by a man who had been but a fireman in the hold? Yet how many of our so-called cooks have any real knowl- edge of the subject? How many, not alone of the cooks, but of the housekeepers, know why we cat butter with bread, rice and potatoes with meat? Or why Nature gives us fruit and green vegetables in the warm season, and not in the cold? Yet it is this very knowledge that makes of cooking an art. Why should we not demand of the person who has so much that concerns our well-being in her hands, that she have a training for it as well as the man who holds our horses, or the woman who makes our clothes? Most assuredly we would not employ a physician who had only read Steele's physiology and experimented on his own family. And it is safe to say that if we had better educated cooks, we could not support well so many doctors. But we can not demand, any more than teach, that we do not understand ourselves. "Perfection consists not in doing extraordinary things, but in doing ordinary things extraordinarily well." Cooking is an ordinary, everyday occupation, but when rightly donc is not only easily performed, but becomes a delightful labor. Raise it to its truc dignity. Give it its rightful place among the arts. Women have been fighting many battles for higher education in the last few years, and they have nearly gained the day. But when their victorious banner be unfurled, let not one star be missing from its field of glory-this star of household labor, which must include the training from childhood to motherhood, from the mother to the child. " It is better to be ready, even if one is not called for, than to be called for and found wanting."
GOD'S THOUGHT OF WOMAN. By MRS. ANNA RANKIN RIGGS.
God's thought of woman is a subject that has engaged the attention of the prophet, the theologian, the poet and philosopher all along the ages. Sometimes, unconsciously to themselves, have they betrayed the fact that they were not clear in their minds as to the Divine intent concerning her mission apart from wifehood and motherhood. All concede, sage and seer, that as a class God's thought of her was that of queen of the home, but not all the wise (?) think of her as equal to the king, whose happiness and sorrow, prosperity and adversity, she must share to the full half; not so in her right to govern and direct in the affairs of that home, not only in relation to its internal workings, but in those things outside the home which make for its weal or its woe. Her right to a voice in deciding what institution of learning her son may choose for his alma mater may or may not be questioned; but her right to decide as to what will imperil his safety out- side of the home is supposed to be a matter entirely beyond her right to consider. She may insist that the ever-present saloon and its twin evil, the brothel, threaten at every turn the moral integrity of her loved subjects, who from the nature of things can not be MRS. ANNA RANKIN RIGGS. always within "woman's kingdom " ( the home); they must go beyond her declared jurisdiction. She may, and does, in thousands of instances, see the son, husband and daughter exposed, directly or indirectly, to influences having their origin in one or both of the above-named sinks of iniquity; but she may not, as a rule, protest with the slightest degree of effective- ness, because of the disabilities imposed upon her through man's thought of woman! Not so God's thought of her, as we read His thought in history, both sacred and pro- fane. The first reveals to us His exalted purpose concerning her when He said: " It is not good that the man should be alone, I will make him an helpmeet for him, and they shall be one flesh;" not two, distinct and separate in life, but one. Adam acknowl- edged her power to lead, and did obeisance to her judgment when he followed her in the great transgression. It is nowhere intimated that God does not expect her to share man's responsibilities of church and state; on the contrary it is most clearly implied, by numerous examples given in His Word, that God designed woman should be man's helpmate in all the avenues of life. It can not be said of every man that he is expected to assume or permitted to assume responsibilities, or give any attention in particular to affairs which involve governmental questions and responsibilities, or questions of state. The great mass go not beyond that which is needful to the welfare of the body and interests most commonplace in their nature; still, man sits the soli- tary in families as regards rulership (in most instances, both of the family and in church and state); he sits the solitary often when in that home treads with queenly step a woman born to lead and think on matters that concern the welfare of the world, whose gifts, if utilized in the direction which God designed, would be the balance- wheel to that man, would supplement his power in a way that would broaden his capacity and influence beyond his power to think or compute. As it is, he is as a
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bird with one wing, never soaring to the diviner heights because he ignores the bal- ancing power divinely provided.
Who can estimate today the potency for the uplifting of the race, the purifying of nations, the better organization of state and municipal governments, the lifting up and purifying of that typical paradise, the home where woman's full right to be a helpmate for man is fully recognized. Some women are, through gifts, graces and providential surroundings, eminently fitted to be helpmates, and were they recognized as such the world would then have its full complement of power and would rapidly solve many of the social questions and other problems which today vex and perplex the most astute minds. God is waiting for the world to recognize His thought of woman before His edict shall go forth that is to free the world of much of its thralldom, much of its sor- row and mourning, before its moral mists shall be cleared away.
The world must learn to estimate His thought of her when He said: " Male and female created He them, and blessed them." As the world is now, woman as a class is largely cursed, not blessed. This is not God's plan, for wherever His love and guid- ance holds sway she is blessed equally with man. God has no other thought for man- kind than that they shall be blessed. What right have we to divorce from being blessed man's helpmate, when God in His Word declares His purpose to bless her equally when male and female created He them, and blessed them, in the day when they were created.
He made clear His designs concerning her as a helpmate outside of the home when he called Deborah to be a poet, a prophetess, a judge and a warrior. Where is the man combining in his person and work all this versatility of talent and variety of office? It has been stated by higli authority that Deborah was the only person in the nation, amid its millions, that could save the people at that time. She could decide the law cases of the people as judge, and sing the national songs as a poet, yet man in general denies woman's right to express at the ballot-box that God-given power that would, when added to that of good men, free our world from its greatest evil and the home of its deadliest foe, viz., the liquor traffic. What a shame that our race should be thus bound, simply because we are not willing that God's thought of woman should enter into the management of the world's affairs, and thus make it possible for His Kingdom to come, and His love to "reign where'er the sun doth his successive journeys run."
In the days of Josiah, the king, Huldah, the prophetess, who was also a wife, received a message from the king, a deputation of the high priests and princes of the nation, to inquire of the Lord concerning his people, she being the only one, judging from the sacred narrative, who was qualified to expound the Word of the Lord, and reveal the message of Jehovah to his people.
Queen Esther fasts and prays, lifts up her heart to God and her hand to the scep- ter of the king; turns the sword of the foe to his own destruction and saves her peo- ple, and puts the blush to King Saul, who failed to obey the command of God against Amalek.
First in the " Fall," God's greatest thought of her seems to have been when he made her the mother of redeemed humanity through the incarnate Son. The gentile world was looking forward to this event when Virgil wrote to Pollio, the consul, con- cerning his expectation of the golden age in connection with the birth of the long- expected Messiah. It would seem as if this divinely exalted relation to humanity's weal should forever settle the question of woman's right as an equal factor with man in the development of the social, political and religious life of the human race.
In mythology woman is high in distinction, although Jupiter sits enthroned in the heavens as supreme; by his side sits Juno, the mother of gods and goddesses. In idolatrous worship woman has a most exalted position; hence, great was Diana of the Ephesians.
In personifying the church prophecy makes mention of her in the most exalted terms: " Rejoice greatly, O, Daughter of Zion! Shout, O, Daughter of Jerusalem!
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Behold, thy king cometh unto thee." In his apocaliptic visions, John beholds the church as a "woman clothed a's the sun, the moon beneath her feet, and a crown of twelve stars upon her head." (Rev. 12.) Surely, this is an indication of her mission and power among the nations of the earth.
Her power is clearly set forth in history, sacred and profane. Scarce had the head of Samson rested in the lap of Delilah when he was shorn of his strength and delivered to his enemies.
Cleopatra wielded great power over Cæsar, Antony, Egypt, Pompey and Rome.
In the patriotic and moral reforms of the age a most striking example is that of Joan of Arc, whose power for conquest ceased not until she delivered France from the English.
Many books might be written in defense of God's unmistakable thought and design for woman as an equal factor with man in power and responsibility, varying but rarely in methods of application, with that class of women whom God providentially endows, and through this endowment calls to special work outside the home, just as he endows a special class of men whose mission is to lead and direct through pulpit and press, legislation and government, the advance of mankind.
Woman, whoever thou art, see to it that thou art true to thy call, be it in the home, at the editor's desk, on the rostrum, in the sacred desk, for in the fullness of time most surely coming He shall place thee beside thy brother in sharing with him the untangling and settling of governmental affairs. Be faithful to thy trust; hide not thy talent in a napkin, though it deprive thee of the queenship of home with its sub. jects so sweet and tender. God's thought of woman is superior to thine.
MRS. PALMER'S PORTRAIT. ADDRESSES DELIVERED ON THE OCCASION OF ITS UNVEILING.
The Board of Lady Managers having ordered a portrait made of Mrs. Bertha Honoré Palmer, to be placed in the Assembly Hall of the Woman's Building, with other distinguished women, and after the close of the Exposition to be permanently installed in the Woman's Memorial Building, Mrs. James P. Eagle and Mrs. Mary S. Lockwood were appointed a committee to see that the order was executed.
The following are the remarks made by Mrs. Lockwood, Mrs. Eagle and Mrs. Wheeler at the unveiling of the portrait:
PRESENTATION OF PORTRAIT BY MRS. MARY S. LOCKWOOD.
When the question arose among the lady managers, " What can we do that will best commemorate the work of women in the Exposition?" this happy thought came to us: We have in our midst the foremost artist of the age, Mr. Anders L. Zorn, who could put upon canvas the embodiment of that genius that has led us for three years over mountains of difficulty, through valleys of humiliation, to the crowning peaks of victory, listening to no such word as " fail," always helpful in voice and heart, ever ready to encourage in our days of discouragement, and always just in her verdict of " Well done!"
In the after-time, when our names have been forgotten, those who will come after us will look upon the portrait we now present to you, and see not only a likeness of our president, but the attributes which surrounded her, that helped us to help the women of this nineteenth century.
We thank her for the time and opportunity she has given us to accomplish our wishes. We also thank the artist for what he has done to commemorate the work, the life, the likeness of our president of the Board of Lady Managers of the World's Columbian Exposition, Mrs. Bertha Honoré Palmer.
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