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 72
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Toward the end of September, autumn or fall begins to make its appearance. The birds of passage, which are mostly treated as long-looked-for friends, and allowed to enjoy their summer visit in peace, now take their departure. The wildernesses of the country are cleared, and the sheep, which have roamed about them at large during the summer, are driven down by systematically arranged gangs of men, com-
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manded by the so-called " Mountain-Kings." - The sheep are driven into large folds, kept up at public expense, and by the mark cut in their ears are sorted by their respective owners. These sheep-gathering days, called Rettir may be said to be the last outdoor dissipation of the year, and everybody who can manage it tries to join at the large common sheep-folds, where they meet friends not seen for months, and not likely to see for many more months.
After this sets in the long, and in many places dreary, winter. All life in the country seems to crouch despondingly under roof and thatch. The animals are now attended to in their stalls, or huts, by the men, and the women set to work in earnest at what may be properly called the domestic industry of the country. During the day various acts of routine work disturb, to a certain degree, the industry proper of some of the women; but toward dusk everybody has settled down, and this is the appear- ance of an Icelandic household generally during the long winter evenings: At the upper end of a long room, the so-called badstofa, the sitting-room of the family, which in most cases also serves as a dormitory for the women, sits the mistress of the. house at her spinning-wheel, surrounded by her children, the master often also by her side, carding the wool for her, or perhaps making some utensils required for the house. Next, in a row down the room on either side sit the hand-maidens, all at their spin- ning-wheels. Then the men are seated next, at the lower end of the room, carding the wool for the women, or some may be exercising their skill at wood-carving, making ornamental horn spoons or other things required for the house. For the most part, the whole company sits in silence, because one of the party, generally a youth, or one of the better readers among the men, is sitting in a central position in the room read- ing an Icelandic Saga to the company, an act that no one disturbs for a moment until the end of a chapter gives the reader an opportunity for a pause. Then there is a lively interchange of opinion between both sexes as to the merits and demerits of the actors of the Saga (drama), and it is striking to hear how intensely the girls realize, and how intelligently they rush with a freshman's boldness into a discussion of the subject. This kind of life accounts for our language being kept pure, and prac- tically unaltered, for over a thousand years-the whole of the people working together, indoors and out of doors.
The weaver, however, is, as a rule, separated from the rest of the household, the hand-loom being generally down-stairs, in the men's dormitory. The whole winter is spent in the way described, with a very few variations. Every garment of woolen fabric used in the household is spun, woven and knitted by hand by the inmates. They all work it and share it; each servant gets a certain number of garments as part of his wages. They all get as much skin as they require for shoes. Women make the shoes; not only their own, but the men's shoes, too. They often have to sit up at night, after the men have gone to bed, and make their shoes or mend them. The mistress generally makes her husband's shoes, and the children's till they are old enough to do it themselves. That is in addition to her many other duties, too numerous to count.
In spring, when all the vadmal, or cloth, is finished, ready to make up, the mistress generally cuts out all the garments and then teaches the servant girls, as well as her daughters (if she has any), to make them up. I think you will agree with me that the work must be good when I tell you that Her Majesty, Queen Victoria, has been wear- ing the Icelandic gloves for years, the only "woolen" gloves she wears, I am told; also that the work got the highest possible award at the International Health Exhi- bition in London, 1884, namely, "The Diploma of Honor," and the gold medal in the Anglo-Danish Exhibition in 1887.
Among many other questions about Iceland which I have been asked here at the World's Fair is, how many policemen we have in the country; the people seem much amused when I tell them that we have only two, and that both, of course, are in Reyk- javik, the capital. They were still more amused when I told them how little, really, they were needed, except in summer, when foreign sailors are there. The senior policeman, Jon Borgfjord, is quite a literary character, self-taught, and the one before
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him, Arni Gislason, wrote beautiful poetry, and was the most beautiful writer and engraver on metal-a real artist in that line-also self-taught. We have no work- houses or poorhouses in Iceland. When aged people, orphans or others, unable to carn their living, fall on the parish, or have to be provided for by parish aid they are put out as boarders to any family willing to receive them into the household; so they really never loose the feeling of a " home."
I should like to say a few words about women's education in Iceland, or rather, the want of it. The question of providing education for girls has of late years engrossed much attention; but slight progress has as yet, been achieved, mostly owing to the poverty of the people, and the miserable means of communication in the country. A few private attempts have been made to establish schools for girls over fourteen years of age, but these schools are small in scope, and otherwise fall short of what is needed nowadays. Hitherto, it may be said, that the mother has been the universal schoolmistress, as far as girls are concerned anyhow. Instruction in read- ing and religion is compulsory, and this, as a rule, has fallen to the mother's lot.
In the autumn or fall the clergyman visits every house in his parish, for the pur- pose of examining the children in reading and the catechism, and if he is satisfied with their progress, he invites the parents or guardians to send children of twelve or fourteen years of age, during Lent, to him for further instruction, that is, preparing for confirmation. Confirmation is compulsory at the age of fourteen to sixteen, and by law the priest is forbidden to confirm a child until it has made such progress in the art of reading as to be able to perform, with decency, the family service, and knows the catechism by heart from beginning to end, as well as the " Lärdomskver,"-a small book containing the essence of the Bible. Now here ends, as a rule, a girl's education in the country; in some cases a little writing is added to the list.
For men a very different provision has been made. A splendid Latin-school or college is provided for them, at Reykjavik, where they have six to seven years' good training by eminent masters, many of whom have even made their fame in Europe for their great scholarship. Then there is a medical and theological college for men, for the continuation of their studies when leaving the Latin-college. Those who are better off, and wish to take a higher degree in theology or medicine, as well as students of philology, law, etc., go to the University of Copenhagen on leaving the Latin-college. All these institutions in Reykjavik for men are endowed, so that most of the scolars receive a stipend; anyway, all who are in need of help, and who show themselves worthy of assistance, and often even those who are in no need, and there- fore ought not to have it. The Icelandic students who go to the University of Copen- hagen also receive a stipend for three years, an old provision made for them in olden times.
Now, what about the women? I have frequently been told since I came abroad, both in England and Scandinavia, even here in this country, that women in Iceland were so well educated that they could speak Latin; that they were, indeed, favored with a "vote "-suffrage-and they were blessed with liberty even beyond their sis- ters in Denmark; that they were at liberty to study at the university with the men, and so forth. Let me begin by explaining the first statement, namely, their Latin knowledge. There is not a woman in Iceland who can speak Latin, or who knows it. This is really built on Lord Dufferin's " Letters from High Latitudes," one of the most interesting books of travels ever written. Iceland is justly proud of that book, and the honor of a visit from so great and distinguished a man. I had the great priv- ilege to meet Lord Dufferin two years ago in Cambridge ( England), at the time of his receiving an "Honorary Degree " conferred by the university. Speaking about his travels in Iceland, I told him how everybody would stand up and tell me that all the women in Iceland spoke Latin, etc., just when I was deploring their want of edu- cation, and they all said Lord Dufferin was their authority. "Well," he said, with his usual well-known great humor, "I did not understand what they said, so I supposed it was Latin." Women have not suffrage in Iceland, but municipal vote. This, how-
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ever, is never used or hardly (only two women have voted in Reykjavik); they have not the necessary training or education for making use of it, and old prejudice and fear of being laughed at by the men and other women certainly will prevent them exercising this right at present.
And now we will analyze their privilege as regards university studies. A few years ago a bill was brought into our " Althing," or parliament, urging the necessity of better education of women. When it came before consideration of the Danish Gov- ernment it was well received; so far that a law was passed permitting women in Ice- land to study at the Theological and Medical College with the men, but that they would not receive any appointments, either in the church or as medical practitioners (medical men in Iceland are appointed by the Danish Government at a fixed salary ). The value of this law, I think you will agree with me, is none whatever. How can a woman go and study theology or medicine with men who have had at least seven or eight years' preliminary college education, and she has had none at all? For the law did not provide any preliminary education for women. Then comes the appendage, that their studies will have no reward, or recognition, which will secure them a future, which men naturally get. What possible inducement would it be for women, suppose they had the means, which they have not, to try and study under such circumstances ? In fact, they can not do it; they must have the same education as men before they can enter on university studies; and the question is, how they are to get that most important part.
For people living in Reykjavik, education is, comparatively speaking, very easy, as students from the colleges can always be engaged to give lessons, both private and in the schools. But in the country, where distances from house to house are so great that day-schools are impossible, is where the great difficulty comes in. I have known many instances when girls from the country, of good families, have gone as servants to the better families in Reykjavik, simply with the object of getting some instruction, their parents being too poor to pay for them there, but may perhaps have sons at the college, as education of sons is even within the reach of a poor man.
For some years I have been trying to set up a school in Reykjavik for the " higher education of women in the country," and by the assistance of kind friends in England I have succeeded so far as to build a house, and even to start a school two years ago, with fifteen girls; but, as only few could pay the full fee-one krone a day for everything, board and lodging, etc .; that is, about twenty-seven cents-and the others not even half of that sum, my small funds were exhausted at the end of the first year, and, to my great grief, I had to refuse quite a number of girls who were most anxious to avail themselves of this opportunity of education.
I came to this country expressly with the hope of raising some money, for the benefit of this school, by the sale of a collection of antique Icelandic silver and silver- gilt ornaments, spoons, etc., the only thing of value which I possess. But, as yet I have not found a purchaser, though I feel perfectly sure that, coming to this country with all its wealth, philanthropists and love of education, my most sanguine hopes will be realized. The World's Fair has awarded the Icelandic exhibit two medals, one for the "woolen goods," the home industries; the second for the " silver and metal work," the collection.
THE ECONOMIC INDEPENDENCE OF WOMEN .*
By MRS. LYDIA A. PRESCOTT.
Olive Schreiner in that prophetic vision of coming womanhood, "Three Dreams in a Desert," makes Reason say to the woman who has come out of the desert in search of the Land of Freedom but finds her progress obstructed by a dark, deep river with banks steep and high: "There is one way, and one only, to the Land of Freedom; down the banks of Labor; through the waters of Suffering." In answer to her questions, the woman learns that there is no bridge; that the water is deep; that the floor is worn so that her foot may slip at any moment and she be lost; that none have crossed before though some have tried and their bodies were swept away; that even a track to the water's edge is not yet made. Reason tells her she must not go into the water with the garments she wore in the desert, as she would be dragged down by them and lost. Then the woman gladly throws from her the mantle of ancient-received-opinion worn full of holes, though handed down to her as a priceless inheritance, and with it the girdle from her waist which had been in use so long that "the moths flew out in a cloud."
Then said Reason -- that old man-" take the shoes of Dependence off thy fect." And she stood MRS. LYDIA A. PRESCOTT. there clad in one white garment on the breast of which was written Truth. And the writergoes on to say that the sun had not often shone on it; the other clothes had covered it up. Then follows that fearful struggle between love and duty that is the experience of almost every good woman sometime in her life and her final submission to the voice of Reason. When the pitiful moan goes up- " For what do I now go to this far off land which no one has ever reached?" "Oh! } am alone! I am utterly alone!" And Reason said to her -- " Silence! What do you hear?" And she listened intently and said, " I hear a sound of feet-a thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands, and they beat this way." He said: " They are the feet of those who shall follow you. Lead on! Make a track to the water's edge. Where you stand now, the ground will be beaten flat by ten thousand times ten thousand feet, and over a bridge made of the bodies of those who shall follow you, and will not be washed away in the stream-shall pass away -- the entire Human Race."
What is the lesson which this wonderful allegorical picture would teach ? Woman- kind lost in the Desert of Economic Dependence, groping her way back to the Land of Freedom and Equality, down the banks of Labor, through the waters of Suffering. There is no other way. Her woman's girdle-that emblem of femininity, and for long ages a badge of physical, mental and moral inferiority-must be relegated to the shades of
Mrs. Lydia A. Prescott is a native of Michigan. She was born August 5, 1842. Her parents were Dio and Lydia Hess She was educated in Grand Rapids, Mich., and Denmark Academy, Iowa. She has traveled in Canada, the United States and Mexico. She married Maj. B. W. Prescott in January, 1867. Her literary works have been confined chiefly to that of cor- respondent on moral questions. Mrs. Prescott is a professional teacher. In religious faith she is a Congregationalist. Her postoffice address is Oakland, Cal.
*The full title of the address was "The Economic Independence of Women and Its Relation to Morals."
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eternal night, says the voice of an enlightened Conscience, along with that venerable mantle of ancient-received-opinion worn full of holes. Yet these are but adjuncts of the great underlying cause that has put the burden of subjection upon woman's back, tying it there, as this author has expressed it -- with the broad band of inevitable necessity -- until she is the creature you find her, the natural product of her condition, the fruit of an environment for ages-the ages of dominion of muscular force, from which she is now, in this last quarter of the nineteenth century, being slowly emanci- pated; her bonds have been cut asunder by the knife of mechanical invention and " she knows she might now rise."
" Take the shoes of Dependence off thy feet," says the voice of Reason, of Nature, of Revelation, and of God. Then, and then only, may woman rightly distinguish between truth and error, love and passion, duty and selfishness, right and wrong, and step by step grow into a realizing sense and wider knowledge of her possibilities for usefulness and her sacred obligations to the race.
That in the annals of time woman once stood noble and free, the recognized equal of man intellectually and economically, ample testimony is to be found in ancient customs, in the early languages, in history and revelation. That 'twas not man's prov- ince in the primitive ages of civilization to assign woman a position inferior to his own, is evidenced by a universal goddess-worship-from time immemorial. Says a writer in the Atlantic Monthly, a few years since: "The mysteries of this goddess, the worship of this great nature mother, is not more wonderful for its antiquity than for its prevalence as regards space. She was the Isis of Egypt, the Demeter of Greece, the Ceres of Rome, the Cybele of Phrygia, the Disa of the Norse, and was worshiped by the Suevi, the Muscovite and the Celt. She swayed the ancient world from the southeast corner of Egypt and India to Cornwall and Scandinavia on the west, every- where the Mater Dolorosa. And still she reigns, the ideal type of suffering and purity, in the Madonna, the mother of Jesus. If all ancient rulers believed in the ine- quality of the sexes, what led that great king of Egypt, who brought his fabulous land into the comity of nations, to name as his successor neither of his brilliant sons, who had rendered such marked service in his Asiatic conquests, but his one daughter Hatasu, his counselor in affairs of state, his chief advisor in the work of adorning his great capitol-Thebes-the "City of Monuments?" 'Twas this woman's brain that evolved the present system of foreign commerce in all of its essential details, and caused to be built a fleet of ships for that purpose which, laden with gifts for other nations, sailed away, as much the wonder of that early age as was the celebrated barge of Egypt's latest queen when obeying the mandate of Rome's triumvir.
Or what means the story of Deborah, divinely called to take the leadership in her country's emergency? She was a wife; why should she order an army to the front and plan a great campaign? Said Barak, at the head of his army, "If thou wilt go with me then I will go, but if thou wilt not go with me then I will not go." "She arose and went." A nation was redeemed and delivered, and, says the inspired writer, " Under the beneficent rule of this female judge, the land had rest for forty years." To such as believe in the inherent inferiority of woman, what a picture is this! The great Israelitish general reverently bowing before a female judge and commander, listening to words of wisdom that would guide a nation to victory.
And again, if 'tis woman's sphere to be a clinging dependent, and that by Divine decree, why that careful record about Solomon's virtuous woman, to be found in the last chapter of Proverbs, from which a text for this address may well be chosen?
This perfect woman, a model for all time, so strong, so self-reliant, that husband and children could safely depend upon her in every emergency, was far from the ideal type of a clinging vine-a dependent housewife. Though 'tis plain that her domestic duties were none the less faithfully performed because she went out into the world of trade and commerce as a producer-a live factor in this great organic, busy, human world. "She considereth a field and buyeth it," "With the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard." No mention is made of her asking her husband's advice or
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permission as regards this purchase, or that she was in the habit of consulting this Jewish elder and statesman about business affairs with which he was practically unac- quainted. "She perceiveth that her merchandise is good"-again pointing out that this woman relied not upon the opinions of her husband or of any other man or woman, but upon her own judgment. Not at all vine-like, you see; and if we are hunt- ing for clinging types, we shall be quite shocked at the next quotation: "She girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms," which strength of body as well as of mind, instead of being denounced as unfeminine, was most earnestly conimended. And as if the inspired writer could not enough exult over this important fact, he adds: "Strength and honor are her clothing and she shall rejoice in time to come." Then as if to show the full significance of this economic freedom combined with a perfect physical development, he goes on to give, first, a record of her charities: "She stretcheth out her hand to the poor and the needy." Of her discretion: " She openeth her mouth with wisdom and in her tongue is the law of kindness." Of her maternal foresight and wifely devotion: " ller children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also; and he praiseth her." Of the public regard for this loyal wife and mother, whose home horizon was not bounded by walls of timber and stone, but by the needs of humanity, and this brings us to our text, " Give her of the fruit of her hands and let her own works praise her within the gates." Which praise within the gates, be it remembered was, prior to the days of a public press, the greatest publicity known. Nor do I wish it to be overlooked for one moment that this noble woman, with a rec- ord worthy of being handed down from the early history of the race as a model wife and mother, won this renown, not through her husband's virtues, influence or position, albeit he was a great man, and sat with the elders; nor for any riches or honors that was in his power to bestow on his wife; not for the wealth she had herself acquired; but because this woman had a definite industrial position of her own, an occupation separate and apart from her husband's, over which he had neither jurisdiction nor control; a purpose in life of her own seeking, that promised to make the world a little better for her having lived in it, an industrial occupation which in no manner inter- fered with the obligations and responsibilities of wife and mother, the sanctity of home, or the claims of humanity.
Dependence begets an inforced submission to the power that feeds. And by a law as unvarying as that water finds its level, this submission has restricted woman's energies to a circle of private interests, warped her moral sense and so weakened her individual will as to render it partially or wholly incapable of carrying out what even the warped moral sense can see.
"The ethics of human life," says Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Stetson, " require a gov- erning personal force standing between cause and effect; a storage of energy to keep action steady when immediate pressure is removed; a power of judgment to decide between acting causes and move or refuse to move from ultimate rather that imme- diate reason. This is called the moral nature."
Unquestionably, then, the advance of humanity depends directly upon the ratio in which this moral nature is developed. And because it is now generally admitted that the development of human characteristics and of other forms of life are modified by conditions-by the environment-it behooves the student of ethics to find out what conditions tend most to develop the moral nature; to ascertain under what circum- stances men have manifested the most rapid growth in moral power and insight, pri- marily and essentially, under conditions of freedom.
That slavery begets vice and freedom virtue is a fact that rests upon the wisest laws of nature. No one expects that virtue and slavery can co-exist. " What is free- dom?" Mrs. Stetson tells us again, "The capacity to see what is right; the ability and will to do it; the courage to bear the consequences." That the kind of character which sees right and does it at all costs is only matured in an atmosphere of freedom is one of the most valuable lessons to be drawn from liberty. When governments require submission and dependence civic virtues are wanting. Where economic systems
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