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 24
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But say you all, I am sure, just here, such women are not made worse by the associated effort; they have only not yet pulled themselves up to their own standard. Yes, true; but a subtle danger to character, unknown to the isolated woman, lies in thesc modern associations, the danger that we pretend to be what we are not, that we think ourselves leading in the march of progress when we are only tagging on because the crowd attracts us.
The "Time Spirit" speaketh these words, I repeat, Individual Development Associated Effort.
Beware lest, as was said of George Eliot by a too severe critic, "we keep our ethics only for foreign export."
Beware lest the show of learning cheat us of the substance, of that truc knowledge which must be fibered upon our own thought to produce fruit of wisdow.
Beware lest the lazy, modern way of getting smatterings of things deceive us as to the leanness of our own mental cupboards.
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Beware lest we join on to things from shallow motives before there is anything in us fit to root itself in the eternal laws of growth.
Beware of the tyranny of organization, of that partizan spirit which exacts wor- ship of some intellectual or artistic "cult " as if these were absolute truth and beauty.
Beware of that spiritual dogmatism which makes the phrasing more than the message in all that feeds life's nobler part.
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THE KINDERGARTEN .* By MRS. VIRGINIA THRALL SMITH.
The world moves notwithstanding the assertion of fault-finders to the contrary, and intelligence, goodness and unselfishness do increase as time goes on. It is nowhere more conclusively proven than in a look at the wise efforts made in solving the problem of what is true charity. That a wise discrimination and care- ful benevolence is to be maintained by thinking people will be seen by close observation of methods now quite universally in active operation in all our large cities and in many of our smaller towns.
The most hopeful of all charities are those which elevate the very young. Every community stands under a moral obligation to give to every helpless child born within its border the best possible chance to grow into honesty and virtuc. The expense to the community of prevention will be far less than that of any attempt at care in all the moral diseases caused by the poverty, ignorance or vicious surroundings of its young children.
The poorest children in a community now find the beneficent kindergarten open to them from the age of two and a-half to six years. Too young heretofoic to be eligible to any public school, they have acquired MRS. VIRGINIATHRALL, SMITII. in their babyhood the vicious tendencies of their own depraved neighborhoods; and to their environment at that tender age has been due the loss of decency and self-respect that no after example or education has been able to restore to them. The kindergarten comes, in these helpful, later days, to thesc moral standings with sweet attractiveness, happy entertainment, wise development and instruction for little heads, hands and hearts, and with many a motherly lesson in cleanliness and those heretofore undreamed of amenities of life out of which we may hope, in some far day, may be evolved, " Peace on Earth, and Good-Will to Men."
The testimony at hand already as to the prosperity and value of the kindergarten is absolutely convincing. It is essentially a woman's work. It is natural that it should be, as it is simply for the period of infancy, and is only an extension-a disciplined and orderly extension-of the development and training of little children in nice homes with wise and loving mothers.
The kindergarten system is based upon the belief, laid down by the greatest authorities on education, that the most important formative period in youth is before the child has finished seven years of life, and before the regular training of the public school belongs to him by right of age. Habits, associations, desires and experiences
Mrs. Virginia T. Smith was born in Bloomfield, Conn., and educated in the common schools, the Suffield Institute and Mount Holyoke Seminary. She married young, and many years were devoted to the duties and pleasures of domestic life with which she combined philanthropic work. Mrs. Smith has held the position of city missionary for sixteen years, and served as a member of a board of charities for nine years. Mrs. Smith established the first free kindergarten in Connecti- cut, and finally secured a law attaching kindergartens to the public schools; and is receiving hearty support in her effort to establish a State Home for incurable children. Her postoffice address is Hartford. Conn.
* The title under which this address was delivered was: "The Kindergarten: Fresh Air Work and Family Homes for Children. "
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are acquired which last through life. The faculties are developed, the senses quick- ened, and good behavior, discipline, self-control, manners, morals --- all begin with the first awakening powers of the child.
One writer says : "The kindergarten attempts to do for children what should be done for them, but is not always done, in the family at home. It is a lament- able fact that all mothers are not fitted to train up infants in the way they should go. Even in the well-to-do classes there is a lack of knowledge, of the right temper, of experience, or of leisure to give the young child the kind of discipline that ensures good manners, good morals, or the kindly development of his natural powers. Home training of the right sort is no doubt the best training. There is no education in the world so valuable as that unconsciously imbibed in a refined and cultivated household before the child is six years old. But what shall we do for children who do not have homes at all worthy of the name? We know that the child is father of the man, and yet our civilization is very slow to begin at the right end of a social reform. We build prisons for adults and reformatories for children. These have become necessities, and testify to an inability to deal with the evils of our society."
So then we must begin in the right way to educate the children of the very poor. We must pick up out of the swearing alleys and gutters of depraved neighborhoods the neglected, harshly treated, half-fed and half-clothed, unwashed and uncombed prattling child, whose greatest knowledge of language is of slang and profanity, cleanse it and cover it with wholesome garments; teach it how to play and how to talk and what truth is, and so, lovingly and carefully, plant the germ of good in its receptive mind, and fill its hopeful heart with happy dreams of doing something noble in the future that the results must be beneficial to a great degree to the race we are trying to save. It is a higher duty of society to prevent crime than to punish it. The one is ennobling and pleasant and the other harsh and deterrent.
Already in Connecticut we see the kindergarten added to the public schools, and the fruits of such a union are, we believe, bound to be worth far more to society than is the advanced instruction of the highest departments in the languages and mathe- matics.
None of the modern philanthrophic enterprises seem to give more satisfaction to those who enjoy them, or more pleasure to those who furnish them, than the little outings which poor city children receive by reason of fresh-air funds. The benevolence is contagious, and every year it is developing into wider usefulness.
Children are sent into the country for several weeks and their health is naturally benefited by the change. It brings color to thin cheeks, elasticity to their bodies, awakens in their minds the love of simple pleasures, ideals of beauty, cleanliness and purity All through the pleasant country, in villages and farmhouses, people are found willing to take one or more of these little waifs into the family and give them a good time. We do not know whether the children or their kind and generous entertainers are the more benefited, for this opening of the heart and home is such a lovely char- ity that it is invaluable to those who participate in it. Family selfishness says that one's duty is all done when one's own children are carried into green fields, beside laughing waters, and into wholesome chambers in pleasant country houses for the nights; but the new and tender spirit of this later day claims that the little children of the poor need a change quite as much as any others, and that it should be a pleas- ure to see that it is given to them. This new benevolence becomes a threefold bene- diction, blessing the community where the children go, the givers, and the children, and it goes on increasing and enlarging its beneficence every year, so that one may not be able to over-estimate the moral benefit it holds. * *
In the kindergarten and the fresh-air work, and in the deeper child-saving work, which means the rescue of perishing little ones in the midst of moral stagnation and death by a permanent transplanting into the sweet soil of honest and pure living, comes the dawn of better things for the little children. In these most gracious oppor-
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tunities are the true methods for the nuture and direction of the little children, who should cach be so advantageously situated that his best inheritances should be nour- ished and strengthened, his evil tendencies repressed and overcome, and the atmos- phere in which he lives and grows up should be one of such unselfishness, gentleness, and Christian love as to be a constant inspiration toward all that is good.
The work in this line, so thoroughly begun in some localities, should extend from one end of our Union to the other, and the workers go out to their sister states, that have not yet realized their needs in this direction, with a force that shall overcome all apathy and awaken a new and earnest interest that will not rest till the work is thoroughly established.
The work of kindly effort for the children depends for its success upon the underlying principle of our efforts. If actuated and energized by a vital love for others, they must succeed. Constantly increasing light will be given, so that the wisest course of general action may be adopted, and the remedies at hand shall be so discriminately applied as to meet the real needs of each individual naturc.
MARRIAGE PROSPECTS IN GERMANY. BY MISS KATHE SCHIRMACHES.
The marriage prospects of every woman depends as a rule upon three circum- stances, the first of which is the number of eligible men living in the country. In this respect the German women are not particularly favored, for their number exceeds that of the men by a round one million and a half, so that it is impossible every German woman should marry, unless you institute polygamy, put a tax on bachelors, or forbid young men to emigrate.
The second circumstance the marriage prospects of a woman depend upon, is the more or less facility her countrymen find in founding a household of their own and supporting a family. In this direction the prospects are not bright. All over Ger- many you hear the same complaint; the needs are great, money and employment scarce, no new openings to be found, and the possibility of making both ends meet less than before. Under these circumstances the number of marriages is likely to decrease, and it actually does.
I come to the third point to be considered. It is of a less material character than the two preceding ones, but of a still more vital interest. It implies the views the two sexes hold on marriage in general, and the ideal type they expect one another to live up to. Now, what is, as a rule, a German man entitled to expect his wife to be? The answer is very short-his inferior, but a pleasant one; inferior, but at the same time one who is a lady and meets with all the outward marks of respect due to a lady, yet remains an inferior. This is no exaggeration.
Consult the church in Germany, she says: The Christian wife is an obedient wife. Consult the German law; it says: The German wife is a person supported by her husband; has in all circumstances to submit to his will, and in affairs of greater importance may not act without his permission.
Consult the army; as the most privileged and most highly considered class of Germany, it will answer: A wife is a very pretty, rich and lovable object, but incap- able of doing military service. Consult the men of science, and except some of broader views, they will pretend, should it be the teeth of fact, that a woman is incapable of rough work, high intellectual training, and high intellectual achievement. Consult the German government; it has hitherto shut out women from the univer- sity as a student, from the upper classes of girls' high schools as a teacher, from the school board and advisory councils, in all public affairs and all public functions. A Ger- man woman is nocitizen. Cousult the German press, and except some liberal papers and reviews, they but reach the judgments quoted above, and even liberal-minded editors of great liberal papers are taken aback at the idea of a woman discussing political economy and politics. Consult Germanliterature, and you will find it only knows of one relation between men and women, the relation through love and passion. The relation through thought, opinion, work, seem to be perfectly unknown hitherto. Then, after having consulted all these authorities, address yourself to a German average man on the point of getting married, and ask him what he expects his future wife to be. I think he will answer: "Pretty and gay, ignorant of life, able to follow in my thoughts, but by no means independent." Now, a modern woman may be pretty, and she may be gay, but she is never ignorant of life, and always independent. Therefore, her marriage prospects in Germany, and all the countries sharing the German ideal, are bad ones. This is the chief point where her difference from the older type lies. Hitherto a German woman on the average had but one way of getting happy, use-
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ful and respected-through marriage. She could attain this without a special train- ing of her faculties, or a thorough development of her character.
A modern woman, on the contrary, does not consider marriage as her inevitable fate; nor is she convinced that it be ever woman's chief gift, to fulfill the duties of a wife and a mother; nor does she believe that without a special training of her facul- tics and a thorough development of her character a woman can be able to fulfill these duties as they should be. She therefore asks as her right, considers as her personal duty, considers as a general necessity that a woman should, in the first place, be a character and full-grown personality; should, secondly, make sure of her chief gift or capacity, train it so as to know what regular work means, and be able to support herself. Then, having attained this, she asks for the liberty of choosing marriage, if she feel particularly disposed toward it, and of refusing it if she see another way of being more happy and more useful to the world. And this latter decision she wants to be allowed to take without being pitied by the world, nor blamed for it. A mod- ern woman, having thus developed her brains and her will, there is still one quality she cannot do without-a warm heart. She must have a feeling of fellowship toward all other women, pulling, so to say, at the same rope with her; the wish to help all those striving in the same direction with her, who may be less gifted or less fortunate than she, or to help all those who, loosing courage, have ceased to fight. Unless she have the backbone of a conviction and the feeling to stand with others for a cause, and to claim justice, she is no modern woman. I now repeat my question: Is this modern woman the wife her German countrymen expect? And I repeat the same answer as before, No; she is not; and therefore her marriage prospects are bad in Germany. Yet, though the modern woman knows that marriage at its actual state of development in Germany is not meant for her, yet she is not at all averse to marriage in itself.
Being a full-grown and fully developed woman. she is perfectly capable of love, of passion and devotion. She does not pride herself on being insensible of love, nor affect a lofty and ridiculous disdain of men in general. On the contrary, knowing how hard it is and how much it has cost her to make her way, to grow a character, she will fully appreciate a man, who, having done the same, expects the same from her, with whom she may share her ideas, thoughts and feelings, her experiences, her tendencies, perhaps even her profession; whose comrade she will be and whose wife, for the modern marriage is based in the first place on comradeship and mutual under- standing
Unless the modern woman find a man to appropriate her strength of will and ten- acity of purpose, as she does his; unless he admit her on a footing of perfect equality, for the simple reason that she is his equal; unless she be sure to find all this and be asked to give all this, I think she will not marry. For what outward motive could else lead her to that resolution? She supports herself, so does not want to marry in order that she may be provided for. She is fond of her work, absorbed by it, makes friends by it, is respected for it, so need not marry in order to obtain the regards due to a useful member of society. That at times she will suffer from being alone, that she will have her hours of temptation, crisis and depression, the modern woman is far too upright to deny. Yet, so far as I can see, a character of this stamp, a modern woman, will cherish liberty above all, and will be happier still when living alone, free to think, to feel and act as she likes, as if, having married for marrying's or passion's sake a man she does not thoroughly agree with, feels bored by his presence all her life. And the modern women begin to be somewhat bored. Hitherto they were taught to look up to man, and on a whole they did. How this innate feeling of respect for a man as such is more and more declining in the soul of modern women, and this change I consider as most destructive for the marriage prospects to our sex. It is no change one could rejoice in. It is very painful to realize, for who would not prefer admiring, venerating with all her heart, to blaming judging and condeming?
Yet this change from innate respect to downright indifference is actually coming
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about. It cannot be avoided, for it is the natural result of the modern woman's deep- ening experience of life. It is the knowledge of the realities of the world. It is this knowledge which mostly estranges woman from man. It comes to a woman who has come to know by direct personal experience what this world actually is like; what she may meet with, in spite of being a lady, when trying to make her way by herself and going out unprotected by a great name or a chaperon.
A woman comes to realize that there are two moral standards, and that what is morally wrong with her is allowed to men. A woman that has looked into the depths of society and understood its sham and shame, such a woman is not likely to consider men as her superiors nor to be satisfied with the world's standards from her own experience; her own reflection, a quiet, concentrated and very earnest protest, is rising. Taking into account her character, how could it be otherwise?
But considering the views of the German husband, this state of affairs can but displease him. For women leading independent lives, holding certain decided views of their own, women with ideas and principles, women that, before they got married, have brushed their own wings and fought their way in the world; women judging men and asking them to account for various very unpleasant things of the world-such women are, in Germany at least, a very great and startling innovation, and therefore, I repeat, their marriage prospects are bad ones. Things will not always remain like that. The modern woman is superiorly organized. The weather all over Europe is black, and times of storm and stress are always favorable to the rising types. Let the modern woman stand the test of our troubles to come, and she will see her claims admitted; let her exemplify the survival of the fittest, and she will be respected; let her be that woman and she will be desired. Until the time come when the modern woman shall meet the modern man, we have to work to sow and plant with a never- resting hand that there should grow great characters for the world, characters able to grapple with the great problems at issue; it is character we want. Walt Whitman says, "Have great men and the rest will follow."
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THE WOMEN WRITERS OF CALIFORNIA. By MRS. ELLA STERLING CUMMINS.
The people of California have a peculiar standard of their own from which they judge of the value of a story or an article. They have to be fed on strong meats. They require the boiled down process. They insist on the essence of things. Pretty little love stories or homespun tales won't do for the Californian public. So great is the demand for that which is strong that there is no objection to the improbable element being introduced into a story so long as the possible veri- ties are maintained. But a possible story which is not true in its ring merits, in their eyes, immediate condemnation. The possible improbable is all right, but the improbable possible is all wrong. For instance, they will read with pleasure and delight of the gen- tleman who was found and thawed out after being "eighteen centuries in ice," if he is dressed in ancient garments and speaks the tongue of that time, and otherwise comports himself as he should to carry out the illusion. But woc be unto the story of a man told of as living in San Francisco who does not comport himself historically correct with the times, nor act as an average citizen might in every particular. The writers there cannot create people out of their imagi- nations; they must be types of living people. Per- MRS. ELLA STERLING CUMMINS. haps sometimes this requirement brings to light queer creatures, just as if you overturned a stone and studied the unpleasant living things below -- the bluish bugs, the beetle, the angle worm, the thousand-legged worm, the little red spider, the uncanny things usually to be found in such a place-but we know the artist's studio is always lined with unpleasant studies, and the writer, like the artist, cannot paint beautiful things only. It would not be true; and besides, it would pall upon the taste like too many sweets. The Californian reading public cares nothing for sweets, very little for that which is merely beautiful, a great deal for that which is strong and for that which is true. The result is a rugged, picturesque litera- ture, which is to be found in the old files of the journals and magazines rather than in book form. Thus it is that, all unknown to the great world east of the Rockies, has arisen a school of writers, including women, which has achieved a style and quality of composition distinctly original and native to that latitude. While it was first evolved and made known by means of the genius of Bret Harte, Joaquin Miller and Mark Twain, yet this literary movement has not been confined to them alone, nor has it ceased with their departure from the state.
Mrs. Ella Sterling Cummins was born in Sacramento County, Cal. Her parents were Sterling B. F. Clark, of Vermont, and Rachel H. Mitchell Clark, of Pennsylvania. After the death of her father her mother married Mr. D. H. Haskell, and with her little brothers and sisters she received the name of Ella Clark Haskell. She received her education from her mother and from the Sacramento public schools. She was also much influenced by her husband, the late Adley H. Cummins, of San Francisco, whom she married in 1872. He was a scholar and orator as well as lawyer, and was phenomenal in his attain- ments, having a knowledge of sixty languages and dialects. They had but one child, a daughter. Mrs. Cummins' principal literary works are : "The California Story of the Files," "A Review of Californian Writers and Literature ; " a novel, "The Little Mountain Princess," and many short stories and articles contributed to "Lippincott's," to "North American Review,' and many Californian magazines and journals. In religious faith Mrs. Cummins is a Christian. Her ancestors were Method- ists. Her postoffice address is 1605 Baker Street, San Francisco, Cal.
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Having made a study of this literature for the past seven or eight years, in order to prepare a work upon the subject, I have been much impressed by the part women have played in this literary movement.
There has been a list of books by California writers catalogued by a society of San Francisco women. In this list I find the names of ninety women and one hun- dred and fifty-five volumes. In the list of the Pacific Coast Woman's Press Associa- tion I find the names of over one hundred women connected with matters of the pen and pencil. Besides, there are many (women writers unchronicled and unrecorded ) who are connected with newspapers, or who have been occasional contributors all along the route for the past thirty years or more, making about fifty more. Today their services are necessary to the columns of the journals or magazines; today they carve out niches which no one but themselves can fill. And today the work from their pens is so honest and so correct that in many cases their ephemeral articles may be classed under the head of literature, while the vivid short stories which appear from time to time are gems which have come from the lapidary's hand. But this story of the literary movement in California for women begins rather sorrowfully. Woman has been called the "Peaceful Invader," but along her path is to be found tragedy as well as comedy. The first literary effort made in California by women was as far back as 1858. A sincere and honest publication was the "Hesperian," which lasted till 1864. But as is now said of both publication and publisher, "Like her nice little mag- azine, Mrs. Day is dead." The first woman who entered journalism and tried to live by means of her pen fared poorly and died. She wrote under the names of "Topsy Turvy " and " Carrie Carleton " as early as 1865. She was a bright, sweet, lovable little woman, with a cheery style of composition which has earned her that most unusual title for a woman of " humorist." A few days before her death some one said to her: "When you are dead I shall kiss this lily-white hand." That night she set up to write the poem which has made her best known. It is entitled "When I Am Dead."
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