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 4
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*The title under which the address was delivered was "Is Self-Support Possible for Girls During the Years of Sec- ondary Education. "
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tineau and Captain Hall visited us and described our institutions, she would take employment in one and earn the money for her further advancement in knowledge. But many things have changed since that time, and Katie must be carefully protected for some years to come. There is something even more important for her than cult- ure, as her wise mother knows. If her brother Jack has the same ambitions, there is no trouble in his case. He has muscle and bone. These are not ill-paid in this favored land. There are railroads to build, mines to dig, crops to gather at all times. Jack can soon earn enough to take a course of instruction at one of the schools whose advantages have been made so inexpensive by the beneficence of individuals or denominations. But Katie's wage earning powers are very small, and she is too young to go from home for the purpose of making larger gains unless she can have watchful guardianship and protection. Is it possible for her to obtain this?
Katie will spend one-third as much of the year out of college as in college if slie is ever so fortunate as to get there. She will have in some places even more than that proportion of leisure time during the year. In my own state, she will have thirty-six weeks in college and sixteen out of college. Now suppose, instead of clos- ing the college buildings for these four months, we were to keep them open, as you so wisely propose to do with your new University --- at least to keep open the dormi- tory and refectory (I have in view the old-fashioned type of college). Suppose a suf- ficient number of college officials to be kept on duty for guardianship and protection, then let all the pupils who need self support engage daily in some profitable industry in buildings belonging to the college and reserved for this purpose. There might also be a night school, for backward pupils who wish to prepare for a particular class, but this feature should be carefully looked after that it may not become an injury, and should never be allowed to occupy more than two hours. No wages should be paid in money. The employes should have board and lodging, and should be credited on their board for next year with the amount of wages which they earn after deducting the actual cost of board and lodging. They should sign a contract, agreeing to these conditions, and to the further one that in case of their not remaining, to obtain pay- ment of their wages in board, these should be forfeited to the college.
But the objection may be made that the capital invested in this industrial plant . must lie idle for three-fourths of the year. Even if this should be the case, it would not be nearly such poor economy as the prevailing practice of letting thousands of college buildings remain unemployed for one-fourth of the year. Why have not our practical communities in all these years felt a little trouble at this great waste of the capital invested in that plant? But we will not imitate the college in this respect. We will try to arrange our industrial plant so that there shall be no unnecessary lying idle of capital. There are several ways in which this might be done. I will not stop to enumerate them all, but will only make one or two suggestions. Our industry might be operated by relays of pupils, each having three months of work and nine months of study. The companionship of the workers and students will be helpful to both.
However, there is one industry in which capital necessarily lies idle during the very months in which Katie has leisure. This is the canning factory. If I have been correctly informed but a small capital is needed to establish a canning factory which will employ twenty girls and have an output of five hundred cans daily. Twenty-five acres of tomatoes and a few acres of corn, strawberries and peas will keep this fac- tory busy for four months. The work is light and well suited to girls. In Michigan there are said to be two factories carried on entirely by women without the aid of even a boy. The pay is much more than Katie could earn by housework or sewing, and she has not yet learned any skilled labor. In Michigan I learned that from one dol- lar to a dollar and a half per day is the usual wages for girls. If Katie can earn seventy-five dollars during the summer, and if the college is one where she is charged only the actual cost of food and fuel, tuition being free, she will be able to pay by far the greater part of her next term's school expenses. A benevolent
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man or woman is often reported to have given five thousand dollars to found two or three scholarships in some girls' colleges. The same amount invested in an industrial plant to be attached to a college would pay for the education of a hundred girls, or rather would enable them to pay for their own education, a much nobler form of benevolence. Now, here are sisters from the East and West and the North and South, and I ask them to tell me whether such a plan has ever been attempted any- where, and if so, with what success?
I cannot close without expressing my sense of the great blessing to womanhood of this wonderful opportunity of thus taking counsel together and unbosoming our- selves to each other. So many women have schemes for the helping of their sex, or still better, of their race, fermenting in their brains and hearts, and are brain-sick and heart-sick for the lack of advice and sympathy. Here, for the first time, but not, thank God, for the last time, we have come together from the ends of the earth to this magic city to listen to each other's plans and hopes, and give wise warning or kindly encouragement.
EVE'S VOW.
When angels oped at God's command, With weeping, Eden's portal, And our sad parents, hand in hand, Forsook its joys immortal, Our mother's deep prophetic soul, Made wise by pain and sadness, Beheld the coming ages roll, Bereft of pristine gladness.
She saw our sickness, grief and tears, Her breast maternal sharing, Each bitter pang through future years Her race should bear-are bearing. To high resolve that hour gave birth Her burning tears repressing, She vowed to ope once more for carth Lost Eden's gates of blessing.
And since to realize her vow Hath woman ever striven. Each mother to her child till now This secret task hath given. But man grew jealous as she strove, And barred her pathway ever, Nor understood what depth of love Inspired the high endeavor.
Yet still her earnest spirit rose Above his scorn undaunted To struggle on, till should unclose Once more the gates enchanted, And give for sickness, grief and tears, Our mortal lot attending, Succession sweet of blissful years In life immortal ending.
See, strong Evangelists and brave, In sight the gates Elysian! The earnest now of all ye crave, Soon, soon its full fruition!
EDUCATION OF INDIAN GIRLS IN THE WEST.
By MRS. MARY C. TODD.
The social and business reconstruction which, in the past few years, has taken women from their homes all over the country and placed them in various public positions of honor and responsibility, positions re- quiring education, intelligence and good business judgment, has left untroubled but one class. With their patient faces, whose pathetic expression is but the shadow of the down-trodden life they lead, the Indian women have stood aside and have seen other women spreading into larger fields, and pluming their wings for larger flight. Wondering and igno- rant, they have never thought that to them any good might come, or any release from the debase- ment and servitude to which they have been born. Beasts of burden themselves, and accustomed to the slavish position which became theirs at their birth, they have looked for nothing better for their daugh- ters. The rough camp life, the field labor, the un- cleanly and demoralizing ties of "home" (if such it may be called), were accepted. Their sluggish minds looked for no help. But faithful teachers have gradually gathered into the government schools, the young girls; preferring indeed, if they can but MRS. MARY C. TODD. get hold of them, children of two or three years of age, hoping that they may grow into civilized ways. Keeping these children, if their parents will permit; until eighteen years of age, there is but little danger that when released from school life, they will return to savage ways. Those who spend a few years in the schools look with loathing upon the early betrothals and marriages into which they are often forced upon their return to their homes. Many of these young girls beg to be allowed to stay always in the schools, and never to be obliged to go home. For this reason, upon our reservation of school land, a building is being prepared where such as wish may find a happy and civilized home when their school days are ended. In these government schools all the appliances of a thrifty and busy life are at hand. Kitchens and dormitories most beautifully kept; neat tables supplied with wholesome and well-cooked food, all the domestic work performed by these girls from all the western Indian tribes-this is the surprise which awaits those who will visit the government schools. Most delicate and beautiful needle work and well-fitting clothing are the products of the sewing rooms, where, under a skillful teacher, they learn the use of the sewing machine and spend happy days. This training of all kinds has one most excellent effect, and that is the over- coming the shyness and reticence by which their intercourse with white people is
Mrs. Mary C. Todd, nee Mary McCahe, was horn in Terre Haute, Ind. Her parents were Virginians. In 1858 she married James H. Todd, of Peru, Ind., and in 1869 moved to Kansas. She is the mother of Mrs. Geo. C. Strong, of Wichita. When a child she attended the Academy of St. Marie des Bois, and afterward Putman Female Seminary, having, as classmate, Mary Hartwell Cathwood, the authoress. Later she was a student at College Hill, Cincinnati. In Kansas she was for a time president of the " Relief Corps " in connection with the "Garfield Post No. 40," and since 1876 has been engaged in literary work, principally newspaper and magazine articles. She has for years heen connected with the "Social Science Club," of Kansas and western Missouri, and is a charter member of the " Hypatia," was its president and went as a delegate to the General Federation of Women's Clubs in New York, in 1869. Her postoffice address is Wichita, Kan.
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always marked, and the almost inaudible tone which they always use. They learn from this association with their teachers, to speak; their minds develop, their thoughts grow, and they learn to clothe them in language. Their affections are developed and they become fond of their teachers. The writer witnessed an unexpected meet- ing of a class of girls of about fourteen years of age, with a teacher who had been absent over a year. While their manifested pleasure lacked the forwardness of many school girls, their pleasure at meeting her was unquestioned, as they followed her about, seeming unwilling to leave her, their conduct, reminding one of the silent and faithful affection of an animal.
The western schools established and supported by the government are most of them in Kansas, Oklahoma and the Indian Territory. These are mixed schools, and in every sense industrial schools. Shops for the carrying on of every kind of man- ual labor are provided for the boys, and the large grant of land which lies about every school is farmed by them.
The arrangement which the government has recently made with the various tribes for the opening up of their lands for settlement, will go far toward the civilization of the young people. For twenty-five years the government will extend to them its support. At the end of that time it is expected that, from their intercourse with white people, and their school education, they will have become self-supporting. It is hoped that at the end of a girl's school life she may go home to a house instead of a tent; to a permanent residence instead of a nomadic gypsy life; to a family clothed instead of blanketed; to a father and brothers who will serve her instead of exacting servitude. In the past, the years of study and training have been almost. lost as the girl returns to the untidy tent upon the bleak and barren ground. What hope is there for her to maintain the tidy and systematic method which she has learned, when surrounded by the sights and sounds and blood-thirsty ways of an Otoc or a Ponca camp?
But surrounded by whites, and encouraged and taught by their teachers and native preachers, surely a bright future is before these poor Indian girls. Surely the dor- mant mind will awaken, and the sluggish energies quicken, when she sees around her the homes of intelligent white women. The education of the Indian girl means the uplifting of the tribes in every way, and yet it means also and soon, the losing of the races of red men from off the face of the earth.
LEGAL CONDITION OF WOMAN IN 1492-1892. By MISS MARY A. GREENE.
The condition of the woman of a nation is an index of that nation's civilization. From the days of Hatasu, who, as queen, ruled over Egypt, sixteen centuries before Christ, down the ages to Isabella, of Spain, the first monarch of a new world, until this year of grace, 1893, when Victoria holds sway over lands which encircle the globe, has it ever been true that that nation which most elevates and honors its women most elevates and honors itself? The legal condition of woman is but a mirror reflecting her social condition. Laws are framed to meet the necessities of the social environ- ment. It is only when the body of the law has failed to keep step with the social development, that the legal condition of a sex or a class works an injustice.
In order, then, to understand the legal condition of woman in any country, or at any era, we must study the social condition that existed at the time the laws were framed. At the date of the discovery of our continent, the dawn of a new civilization was breaking upon Europe. This intellectual awakening of the world awakens women as well as men. Women of gentle birth apply themselves with enthusiasm to the study of Greek and Latin, in order to obtain for themselves the learning of the ancients. So it hap- MISS MARY A. GREENE. pens that we know much about the women of the higher classes in 1492. But of the women of the lower classes very little is recorded. They were truly and absolutely " the submerged tenth," not worth the notice of his- torians. Here and there a glimpse is caught, which suggests to us their social bond- age. A wedding custom among the German peasants was that the bride's father should remove her shoes and deliver them to the groom, who tapped the bride's forehead with them, in token of his matrimonial authority over her. The woman who married a slave could, by law, be put to death by her relatives, or be sold by them at their will.
The civilization of ancient Rome favored the domestic seclusion of woman. The European states, which arose out of the fall of the Roman empire, favored the same idea. Restriction and submission to a higher power was the policy of the middle ages. The laity were to be submissive to the clergy, vassals submissive to their lords, wives submissive to their husbands. In the rude and warlike society of those times, when shut up within his closely fortified castle, the feudal knight poured boiling oil or
Miss Mary Anne Greene was born at Warwick, R. I., in 1857. Her parents were John Waterman Aben Greene and Mary Frances (Low) Greene. She was educated for the legal profession at the Boston University Law School, receiving in 1888 the degree of Bachelor of Laws magna cum laude, and was admitted to the Suffolk Bar in Boston in September, 1888, where she practiced several years. Her principal literary works are articles upon legal subjects, for magazines and papers, such as "The Chautauquan," "The American Law Review," etc. She is the regular lecturer on Business Law for Women, at Lasell Seminary, Auburndale, Mass., and was invited to address the Congress of Jurisprudence and Law Reform, of the World's Congress Auxiliary in August, 1893. She spoke upon " Married Woman's Property Acts in the United States and Needed Reforms Therein." An extremely fragile constitution obliged her to refrain from the active practice of her chosen profession, since her return to her native state, and hence she has never applied for admission to the Rhode Island bar. Miss Greene is a member of the Baptist Church. Her postoffice address is Providence, R. I.
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shot arrows from his towers upon his neighbors, or sallied forth to encounter like assaults at their hands, the safe seclusion of the castle and the quiet occupations of cooking and spinning were, no doubt, the best for the women of the family. As refinement increased, women were able to come out of their seclusion a little, and to participate to some extent in the social life of the men. The growth of chivalry also helped to elevate the women of the higher classes in feudal days. Religion and gallantry were blended together. The love of God and the ladies was enjoined as a single duty. At the institution of the Order of the Golden Shield, Louis II., Duke of Bourbon, enjoined his knights to honor above all the ladies, "because from them, after God, comes all the honor that men can acquire." The laws also recognized this chiv- alrous homage and extended their protection. James II., of Aragon, enacted a law "that every man, whether knight or no, who shall be in company with a lady, pass safe and unmolested, unless he be guilty of murder."
With the incoming of the Renaissance and the Reformation, with the new spirit of personal dignity and independence, begotten of a wider knowledge and broader culture, the crudities of chivalry and the restrictions of feudalism began to fade away. Expansion and independence took the place of restriction and submission. Since the condition of the higher classes of women had been tending toward a higher position of esteem and honor under the later feudal system, their advancement could not fail to be rapid under the new order of the new age. This is shown by their educational elevation at the close of the fifteenth century.
Spain and Italy had at that time begun to admit women to the higher education of the universities. The Spanish Arabs were devoted to letters, and many of their high-born women publicly contended for prizes in science and arts at Cordova and Seville. The reign of Isabella counts among its many glories a galaxy of women whose scholarship would have been rare in any age. Isabella herself was learned in the classics, and her Latin instructor was a woman, Dona Beatriz de Galindo, who was called La Latina, on account of her rare acquirements. At the same time the Univer- sity of Salamanca had as lecturer in the Latin classics another learned woman, Dona Lucie de Medrano, while at Alcala, Dona Francisca de Lebrija filled the chair of rhetoric.
In Italy, a century carlier, Dotta, daughter of the celebrated Accursius, gave instruction in law at the University of Bologna, and nearly contemporary with her was Novella, the beautiful daughter of Andrea, who delivered her lectures upon the canon law from behind a curtain, as tradition has it, lest her beauty should distract the young men who were her pupils. These were the earliest of a long line of distinguished Italian women professors, reaching down to our own day, when Dr. Josephine Catani fills the chair of histology in the medical school of the ancient University of Bologna. The political status of woman in 1492 in Continental Europe was a survival of ancient ideas, of Roman jurisprudence. Even under the repression of the feudal system the capacity of woman to be a sovereign, a judge, an advocate and an arbitrator, was not denied. But the Roman law excluded her from all public offices, not, however, on the ground of incapacity, but simply on the ground of etiquette and expediency, as the Roman code puts it, "because it is not fitting that women and slaves should hold pub- lic offices." The system of civil law, which was built up in the fifteenth century from the ruins of the Roman code, incorporated this idea, so that we find it declared in the laws of Continental Europe that a woman may not be an advocate or a judge.
In England, where the influence of the Roman law was slight, the capacity and fitness of women for public office was to some extent recognized, and when Queen Mary came to the throne she placed women in judicial office. Lady Berkeley was made a justice of the peace for Gloucestershire, and Lady Rous, as justice of the quorum for Suffolk, " did usually sit on the bench at assizes among the other justices, cincta gladio, girt with the sword." The hereditary office of high sheriff of West- moreland was held at one time by a woman, and women were held to be eligible to election as burgesses, overseers of the poor, constables, sheriffs and marshals, and
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they occasionally occupied these positions. There is no doubt that women land- owners were allowed to vote as well as to hold public office, but the privilege was so very seldom exercised that instances are very rare. Still, in theory, the single woman or widow had a lawful right to cast a vote, while her married sister was rep- resented by the vote of her husband. The capacity of woman to be a sovereign was everywhere recognized, and even where the Salic law excluded woman from the throne her right and ability to rule as regent during the king's minority was fully admitted. Thus, in France, from 1483 to 1491, Anne of Beaujen held the office of regent during the minority of her brother, Charles VIII.
The royal Isabella, ruling in her own right as queen of Castile and Leon, and as co-equal with her husband, Ferdinand, of Aragon, in the government of the united countries, is a sufficient instance of the legal recognition of woman's right to the high- est and most responsible of all public offices.
As our American orator has recently said: " It was a happy omen of the position which woman was to hold in America that the only person who comprehended the majestic scope of his (Columbus') plans and the invincible qualities of his genius was the able and gracious Queen of Castile. Isabella alone, of all the dignitaries of that age, shares with Columbus the honors of his great achievement. She arrayed her kingdom and her private fortunes behind the enthusiasm of this mystic mariner, and posterity pays homage to her wisdom and faith." And in less than a century after Isabella, another woman, Elizabeth, of England, the virgin queen whose flag swept the seas, was the mistress and patroness of the first permanent settlement of her race upon our shores, a race which was destined to possess and dominate this northern continent of the New World.
Turning to the personal and property rights of the woman of 1492, we look at a darker side of the picture. This branch of the law affects rich and poor, high and low, alike. Only the high-born woman would be likely to hold public office, but every woman has a right to protection of her person and property. The laws of England differed from those of the continent of Europe in form and theory, but scarcely in their practical effect upon the woman. The theory of the common law of England, derived from our Germanic forefathers, was that of a division of duties. As the wife had the care of the household, and the responsibility of rearing her family, it was thought unreasonable to subject her to the annoyances of a suit at law to protect or defend her rights and to preserve her property. This was laid upon the husband's shoulders. He was to protect her and perform these duties for her. The wife in English law was considered as under the protecting wing of her husband, which cov- ered her from legal annoyance; hence, the old law - French term for a married woman, a femme covert, and her legal condition is her coverture. That this is the true theory of the law is evident from the laws governing the queen's consort of Eng- land. Such women, upon marriage, retained all their property and legal capacity to transact business. For as Sir Edward Coke puts it, " The wisdom of the common law would not have the king (whose continual care and study is for the public and circa ardua regni) to be troubled and disquieted on account of his wife's domestic affairs; and, therefore, it vests in the queen a power of transacting her own concerns without the intervention of the king, as if she were an unmarried woman."
The theory of the civil law of Continental Europe, coming down from the Roman code, was very different. These laws are based upon the weakness, frailty and in- capacity of the sex. The husband is made the curator of his wife much as the father is made guardian of his minor child. Upon this theory, also, a woman could not in early times be a witness in court, and long after she was made legally competent to testify, her testimony was held to be of slight worth. Whether the English or the Continental laws be considered, the effect upon the married woman was practically the same in respect to her ownership and control of her property. The husband had complete control of the wife's property, and was able to dispose of it at his own pleas- ure, without her knowledge or consent. She was not capable of making any binding
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