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 51
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 | Part 105 | Part 106 | Part 107 | Part 108 | Part 109 | Part 110 | Part 111 | Part 112 | Part 113 | Part 114 | Part 115
Not the men alone are giving their thoughts, So earnest, so wise, so great, Columbia's women keep pace by their side All over each sun-kissed state.
A national work of meaning so grand Is felt in our land today, The echoing voice of a far-off state, A sound to be heard for aye.
A few little seeds by some earnest minds A few years ago were sown, By " Chautauqua's shores," in the " Empire State, From which rich harvests have grown.
'Twas a great, grand thought to give to the world, This plan by a few outlined, To raise the world to a betterment, To lift up and ennoble mankind.
The clear Bryant bell, by Chautauqua's lake, Has rung its sweet peals in our ears, Carried music and joy to thousands of homes In these later passings of years.
Other circles for culture and study and growth Are springing up, side by side, In city and village, and hamlet and town, From Atlantic to the sun-down tide.
They traverse the fields of science and art, Of language and poetry rare; They seek for the wisdom of Grecian sage, Read old Egypt's sculptures fair.
The old circle for sewing, and the gossipy tea, On the roll of Today have no part; When women convene now, in language choice They converse on " Ethics " and "Art."
SIXTH PERIOD.
Yesterday is gone to the tomb of the past, Today let us not trouble borrow, For here we find gladness and peace and hope, But, watchman, what of Tomorrow?
376
THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
Its promise is bright and most hopeful, we deem, For brothers and sisters together, Now, side by side, drink from wisdom's deep fount, In cloudy and sunshiny weather:
The parents and children together now search For the treasures of all ancient lore; The mothers need never again be styled, "The old servant who waits on the door."
Some think that the race, in the coming years, For position, for culture, for health, Between man and woman, and boy and girl, For honors, for fame, for wealth,
Will settle some questions of present dark need, Which hope to some sad hearts may carry, When woman can live by her own honest work She'll not be in haste to marry.
When she'll give her hand in the marriage bond To the lawyer she'll ne'er be a debtor; 'Twill be for pure love, and not for a home, There'll be fewer ties, but better.
The tomorrow of woman stands not alone, With the sunrise light in her face, But also for man waits a blessing sure, If he's found in a true man's place.
We are nearing the end of another page In the history's roll of the world, A century's close is a turning time, New truths will then be unfurled.
Since the Puritan Fathers first came to these shores, And their homes of liberty sought,
The dawning time of each hundred years Has given to the world its new thought.
Both the church and the state, in the passing of years, Have rolled many clouds far away, And the gloom and the fear of the Puritan creeds Are truly not with us today.
Our nation has left in the depths of the past Its childhood and infantile sleep, And with noontide strength must wrestle now With problems both dark and deep.
Her money, her trusts, and her laborers' cries, Her tariffs, her capital schemes, Are the subjects demanding the wisest of laws- 'Tis no time for mere idle dreams.
Our nation's too frec, if the truth we'll confess, 'Tis high time her laws were made firm To keep out the paupers, and Old World serfs, With their death-spreading cholera germ.
377
THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
She is much too free, in her precincts and polls, For safety to Liberty's cause, When foreigners all are granted a vote Before they know aught of her laws.
Not faiths, nor creeds, are our greatest needs, Which ofttimes engender a strife ;. But the reaching out of the helping hand To the Jean Valjeans of life.
Earth's pitiful, sad and dejected ones Call daily to us for our care, The lowly and fallen need lifting up, True charity's deed is so rare. SEVENTH PERIOD.
Today is a time to be proud of, my friends, For 'tis filled with promises rare, In it are glimpses of coming joys, In them may we all have a share.
Grand women are found now in high honored seats, In the home, in the pulpit, the bar, In the doctor's gig-what a magical change Since that school-door went slightly ajar?
Columbia's women are found at the front, Where the youth of our nation are taught, In the church, on the press, in the temperance cause, Or with Charity's blessings fraught.
As America honors her natal time, Of her four hundred years today, Her women stand side by side with her men In her nationalistic display.
As Columbia's women we've stretched out kindly hands To our sisters from over the main; We have welcomed them all, from court or from cot, Or from ancient Palace of Spain.
And we've room for still more on our prairies so broad, Come from South land, and North Sea so cold! From mountain and plain and island, to greet Miss Columbia! four hundred years old.
Many names are enrolled this Columbian time In our national record book, But three stand forth with electric light,- Mesdames Palmer, Henrotin and Cooke.
They stood at the helm, amid all the storms, 'Till "our ship" at its anchorage lay- Let Columbia's women give them homage due In this " Woman's Building" today.
And others stand in a golden rank; We would take you all by the hand, But to number in name-'twere as easy to count The grains of the sea-beach strand.
378
THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
Many Christian names flash along into line On Columbia's Liberty Tree- A Julia, a May, Elizabeth, too, Frances, Lucy, and Susan B.
Women always have wanted the equal right To rule as queens in the heart; To make husbands, children and friends good and true, And thus act their noblest part.
Some are asking you brothers, for the equal rights To be found in the ballot box ---
Not to linger in halls, or about the polls, Nor to seek all the world's rough knocks;
But the equal right to stand in the line, As we're taxed just the same as you, And to cast our votes, with a hearty good-will, For laws that are loyal and truc.
We may not now know all the principles deep In our nation's political creed, Yet you surely will say we're full equals today To the masses-whose votes you all need.
We must dig and must delve in the mold of the past, For the lessons of wisdom made plain,- How nations have risen and prospered, or sunk Back, back to oblivion again.
The specters of ignorance, prejudice, doubt, Must beat a quiet retreat ; And the mandates of selfishness, fashion and pride, Must be trampled beneath our feet.
When woman has proved to the lordlier race She has broken these chains of the past, He will reach out his scepter, and graciously say, " Here's the half of my kingdom at last."
The tomorrow of woman we thus clearly define, We aim not, dear brothers, above you; True woman is happiest enthroned by your side, Go halvers! and see how we'll love you!
The true men and women must stand side by side, And with zeal and strength for the fight Must together march on, and lend helping hand For Truth, for Freedom, for Right.
When woman for her worth can thus be enthroned, And of Life be the Polar Star, Our land will be purer and better than now, And man will be nobler by far.
Each day filled with duty and kindly thought, Kindly word, kindly deed without strife, Will make a tomorrow of beautiful cloth For our wonderful web of life.
379
THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
When this web is complete, and its warp and its woof And its flowers of beauty been scanned, Our "Yesterdays" gone and "Todays" shall be lost In Tomorrow's bright summer land.
Columbia's women, press on your bright way, Rise higher in wisdom and art; But scatter about you wherever you go Sweet blossoms from kindliest heart.
May the century next inscribe on its roll, On Time's pillar still bright and free By the side of the men, the glorious work Of the women of '93.
CERTAIN METHODS OF STUDYING DRAWING .* By MISS AIMEE K. OSBORNE MOORE.
It is for a talk on the philographic, or self-correcting method, as a practical means of learning drawing, that we are come together. It is, therefore, needless to go into the question of the use of learning to draw, or to try to decide between the many opposite theories on which well-known drawing methods are founded, or seriously to discuss the question so frequently raised by art teachers of the admissibility, in studying draw- ing, of any outside helps, whatever, such as are gener- ally used in every other branch of study, sculpture, music, etc. To say that a method is new, is seem- ingly to say at the same time that its promoters have to fight against a great deal of prejudice (on the part at least of the teachers). In the present case the pedi- gree of our method is so ancient, and the modern writers who can be shown to be its sponsors are so highly respectable, that it is not very difficult to prove the prejudice against it chiefly caused by people not understanding its drift. Still, it must be admitted, the name "self-correcting" sounds terribly independ- ent, and to mention anything like "mechanical aids" is to call up a formidable bugbear, for it is the fashion among teachers to talk a great deal about art and the ideal, and very beautiful and enthusiastic things are MISS AIMEE K. OSBORNE MOORE. said in this connection, so much so that to speak of "mere drawing," as it was frequently called during the recent Congresses, would seem almost like taking up a very small, unpretentious subject.
Among the world's teachers, assembled lately in a solemn conclave, you may have noticed there were such vast differences of opinion as to what drawing is, that it becomes necessary to begin by asking cach person what he or she means by the term before discussing ways and means of studying the subject. So doing, you would receive more answers, and more varied ones, than we have time to listen to now. The Old Masters are simpler and at the same time broader in what they say; let us be modest, and try to content ourselves with what guidance we can get from them; first, as to what drawing is or should be; secondly, as to what kind of help is admissible in learn- ing to draw; and let us get, if possible, some practical suggestions with regard to such help. If we seek far enough we shall probably find that the artists of those times agree through their work, in countless points, with scientific and otherwise remarkable men of our own day, that, whether knowingly or unknowingly, they worked on such truly scientific lines as should cause infinite pain to those modern art teachers for whom science, when we approach the region of art, is a word of ill omen, and mechanical helps of any kind or degree an insuperable stumbling-block.
Miss Aimee K. Osborne Moore is a native of England. Her parents were James Moore, late Deputy Inspector-General of Hospitals in H. M. Service, and Anna Marion Osborne Moore. She was educated at Lawrance, Switzerland, and later studied in Paris and England. Has traveled in Europe, Italy, France and'America. Miss Moore is an artist and teacher. She is a member of the Anglican Episcopal Church. Her postoffice address is No. 41 Cathcart Road, London, S. W. England.
*The title under which this address was delivered was: "Philographic or Self-Correcting Methods of Studying Draw, ing."
380
381
THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
"The science of drawing or of outline is the essence of painting and of all the fine arts, and the root of all the sciences. He who can raise himself to the point of mastering it possesses a great treasure. Drawing embraces everything; it is used for machines, for plans, for building, for the ordering of battles, etc., so that in looking at all varieties of human work you will find each to consist wholly or in part of drawing."
Let us then establish at once that by drawing we mean the graphic represen- tation on a plane (flat or smooth surface) of all kinds of solid forms, with the varying aspects they present, according to the point from which we look at them, their dis- tance from us and from each other, and their own actual position, etc. "All drawing is founded on a right knowledge of perspective," says Leonardo da Vinci. The word per- spective, dictionaries tell us, comes from roots meaning to see through, or to see thoroughly. This definition can not, however, be considered altogether satisfactory, because thorough seeing implies quite different things according to the end we have in view when looking. A paper-hanger or a shop assistant, whose eye is well trained and who sees thoroughly, will, when looking at a large roll of paper or wire or woolen goods, be able to say within a little how many yards go to make up the piece, or how many rolls are required to paper a room. A modeler, or a sculptor, who is going to copy in wax or in clay a certain vase, a head or a whole figure, must rightly see and imitate the shape and the literal or proportional bulk of each part.
Drawing, then, deals with appearances, and whether we are going to make a draw- ing of a single object or a landscape, to do a portrait from life or to sketch an interior, our first aim must be to rightly see, and our second, to rightly record the actual appearance of the subject from our chosen point of view. The better we see and the more accurately we record it, the truer will our drawing be. Leonardo did not con - tent himself with telling his pupils to learn perspective-he gave them a great many practical hints on the subject, and the first thing he advised them to study, until they understood it properly, was their own eye, and its working.
The first thing Leonardo da Vinci suggests as a help in the translation of the appearance of solid forms on to a plane surface (Treatise on Painting) is the use of a piece of glass fixed upright at a convenient distance from the eye. "To make sure your perspective is right," says he, " fix a sheet of glass before your eye, between it and the thing you intend to make a portrait of; fix your head so that you can not move it at all; close and cover one eye, and with pen or pencil trace on the glass what you see before you. You can afterward take it off on thin tracing paper, and transfer it to another surface for painting pay great attention then to the aerial perspective." This passage, as well as many others in the remarkable work, goes far to prove how well dis- posed was Leonardo, at least toward the use of everything capable of helping the student to use to the utmost his own individual powers of judgment and criticism. With him all means are good and admissible be they scientific, common-sense, or distinctively mechanical and commonplace, provided they tend toward the true seeing and the intelligent rendering of those appearances of forms in space which it is the sole province of drawing to deal with. Starting with the use of Leonardo's glass plane, or rather the practical realization of his vague suggestion, we found that all the ele- mentary facts of perspective can be clearly demonstrated, and more, made absolutely tangible by the intelligent use of the apparatus we had made, and which we call a philograph, so that the beginner, instead of hearing of mathematical theories, and given a number of tiresome diagrams to work out, could learn the groundwork of perspec- tive directly from nature, and with proper guidance find out, so to say for himself, the first facts of the science on which the whole of linear perspective is built up, and with this advantage, that he only learns theoretically what he learns practically, and the theory after and in proof of the practice.
Next we made quite clear to ourselves that a much more important point has been attained; namely, we can do the same for the perspective of irregular forms, or organic or living bodies and figures, as for the lines and planes of linear perspective.
382
THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
However slow or tiresome, or, to many minds difficult they may be, methods for the study of linear perspective do exist, and can be learned by almost every one who goes to work properly to learn it; but with organic form this is not the case. Let me give a practical illustration by comparing drawing with sculpture. Say a sculptor is going to copy exactly a plaster head. Long before he thinks of giving it a laughing or a serene expression, the delicate modeling of each feature, or the smooth or the hairy surface, he must realize and put down in the clay the accurate dimensions of the whole mass of the head, the proper relative position and size, height or depth of each part or feature. He does this by help of his eye, and his already acquired knowledge (you will say). Yes, but that is not all; he uses a simple enough help, though one he would be sorry to be forced to do without, at least until he has had a great deal of experi- ence. This instrument, called " calipers," or compass of thickness, is not only toler- ated, but you will find that the very best French sculptors recommend and insist upon its constant use by students for the sake of cultivating their eye and judgment of form. But how is it with drawing? How do we expect to gain certainty here? You make an accurate drawing of this head* from one position, but if you move one inch to the right or to the left and look at it from that altered point of view, your drawing will be no longer accurate, all the relative spaces and distances will appear different and must be drawn so. The sculptor can walk around what he does, can measure it from front to back, from side to side, or diagonally, but you can do nothing of the sort, and according to what many people say, if you know a way of measuring you ought not to use it; you ought to depend solely upon your eye, even though it means, as it so frequently does, building up a complete work on an incorrect or uncertain foundation.
By means of these helps every ordinarily intelligent person can do in a measure for his own eye what photography does for the glass eye of the camera; not, indeed, produce a complete, effortless pictureof all he sees, but accurately record the facts of proportion and form, of perspective alterations, etc., as seen by the eye. Granted that what I say be true, and we make it a first condition with all growing students that they start with learning how and why the instruments may be relied on so far, it is casy to see that quite a new element of certainty is introduced into the study of drawing. We are enabled to judge of the work of our own eyes and of our neighbor's by applying the inexorable test of optical and geometrical facts to what hitherto had depended entirely on our own and on our fellow-man's right seeing and judging.
A few words as to the actual use of the philographic helps in studying according to the method. We act on the belief that just as sounding a note in music covertly repeated, even though you be at first guided to the true sound by some instrument, will soon lead to your being able to sound it correctly without helps; so correctly and repeat- edly reproducing graphically the appearance of a given form, even though you are helped to see it, is the shortest and best way of learning to see it without helps. It does not in any way encourage carelessness or scamping, but on the contrary cultivates to the full intelligent judgment and self-criticism on the part of the student, based on the understanding of the chief instrument he must employ, namely, his own eye, and on the laws according to which it works, to enable him to see the difficulties and to cope with them, one by one. By so much simplification, and the practical turning of small means to good account, to render it feasible for all sorts of people, and even solitary students, to master the elements of drawing thoroughly. I leave it to you whether this suggested strengthening of the foundations should imply any harm or any lessening of beauty and completeness in the superstructure. Should it not rather, as we strongly incline to think, have the contrary effect, by making it much harder to pass off bad drawing for good, and much more possible to correct the bad work and do away with bad workmanship.
*Displaying a Marble Bust.
THE ISHMAELITE OF OKLAHOMA. By MRS. SELWYN DOUGLAS.
Oklahoma is a compound Choctaw word, okla or ugla=people; homma=red: red people. It was suggested by Rev. Allen Wright, governor of the Choctaw Nation, and one of the delegates from the Choctaw Nation to Washington City, and accepted by the United States commissioner when the treaties were renewed at the close of the war in 1866. Oklahoma was originally a part of the Louisiana purchase. It was given to the Muskogee and Seminole Indians for a home in 1835. Since that time until 1889, when it became through treaties a part of the public domain, a period of fifty- ---- four years, Oklahoma has been the home of this Ishmaelitish people-a race resembling in many respects the ancient Israelites.
Four hundred years ago the race to which this Ishmaelite of Oklahoma belongs was an independent, self-governing nation-citizens of a sylvan republic, with laws respected throughout their wide domain- a nation crude, but child-like in its working, but capable of high-development, courageous, virtuous, heroic in endurance. A nation, which had the most primitive forms of religious worship to be sure; but without the degrading features of the religion of old Greece or Rome, or of modern India. A nation MRS. SELWYN DOUGLAS which had its rude manufactures, its agricultural industries, its strenuous occupations, its hardihood of fearless hunting-for these were no ease-loving, luxurious, tropical dreamers, these North American Indians. Up to this time theft and dissimulation were little known among them, and cold water was their sole drink. "The introduction of fire water," says Mr. Turner in his "History of Indian Treaties," "cost them their native independence of character."
This explains in part how this self-governing people, after four centuries, has degenerated into a savage, wandering race, these Ishmaelites of the American plain, with their hands always turned against their white neighbors. For the ruin of his race the red man has a fearful account against his white brother.
Our " sister in red"-the woman in this Ishmaelitish race-thanks the Great Spirit for the gift of motherhood. She watches eagerly for the dawning of intelligence in the copper-colored features and black eyes of her baby; she is very fond of him and he is rarely allowed out of her sight. To be sure he is strapped to a board, and kept straight. In this way the future warrior takes his first lesson in endurance, and the patience and quiet of this baby in his confinement is wonderful. His mother spends little time in preparing his toilet, and if he cries, what harm? It only develops his lungs.
The Indian mother names her boy from the first object she sees after his birth; but as he grows up, if any special characteristic is developed, he is named from that, and his baby name is dropped. Sometimes that " Reaper, whose name is Death," cuts
Mrs. Selwyn Douglas is a native of Ellicottville, N. Y. Her parents were Joseph Colman and Julia Blair Colman. She was educated at Vassar and at Ypsilanti, Mich. She married Mr. Selwyn Douglas. Her special work has been in the inter .. est of education. Her profession is that of a teacher of high schools. In religious faith she is a Presbyterian, and is a member of the Presbyterian Church. Her postoffice address is Oklahoma City, I. T.
383
384
THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
down this Indian boy, and the mother watches, with a heart full of anguish, his little limbs stiffen and grow cold and life go out. When the little body is put into a coffin, she brings his little moccasins, his beads, his small buckskin garments, and puts them into the coffin with him, that he may wear them in the land where he is gone. He is buried on the hillside. His little coffin is not put down in the ground, but is set on the sod, a wooden frame is built around it, and this is filled and covered with the red soil of Oklahoma:
" And soon the grassy coverlet of God Spreads equal green above its ashes pale."
Then the oldest woman of his tribe goes to the top of the hill, and with clasped hands, and face turned to the sun, she prays to the Great Spirit for the soul of this little boy till the last ray of sunlight has disappeared.
The Indian woman bears all the physical burdens of her race. She lifts the heavy loads, she cares for the ponies and the cattle, she loads and unloads the wagons. She is in every sense the home-maker, for she fashions the tepee out of poles and canvas, gets up in the morning and builds the fire, and permits her liege-lord to sleep the sleep of the righteous. For let me assure you, this liege-lord of hers is no believer in "Woman's Rights." To compensate her for this she is stronger physically than her husband; she has few of the ills of her white sister. The Indian wife takes charge of all the money that comes into the family, and doles it out to the husband in proper amounts. And I hope she makes special inquiries of how much he wants, what he is going to buy, what he did with the last she gave him, and winds up with a lecture on economy and hard times. I say I hope she does.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.