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 88
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But right here is where Science has achieved her most splendid victory, by giving an exact analysis of the faculties of the human brain and their modes of action in individual, social and governmental life. Thus we find the law of the tribes, which I promise to give to you.
The brain is a wonderful organ. The secret of its action has been slow of dis- covery. Strange that this organ and instrument of the mind, which measures all things in the heavens and earth, should have been so tardy of discovering the laws and process of its own action, or so lately analyzed its own faculties.
"The human brain is constructed upon the mathematical plan of the ellipse," says the Book of Life. A circle has a single center of force, but an ellipse has two centers of force. A circle with its single center has no internal power or movement of life. An ellipse with its two centers has internal power or movement and of life. These two centers are polar to each other. All physiologists agree in saying this: "Polarity involves the concert of opposite tendencies-the attractive and the repul- sion; receptive and positive; masculine and feminine."
" The brain is the seat of all animal life; every bodily function receives its power to act from the brain," says one scientist. The brain is the seat also of spiritual life. From and through these centers of spiritual force every faculty of the human mind or spirit receives its power to act. They are not only the centers of organizing power in forming the body, but of all thought. There could be no activity or power to create thought or being but for these polar, responsive and co-operative, masculine
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and feminine forces, which center in the human brain. Let me emphasize this. As in the physical organization of the brain, the structural fibers center here; so in the mental organization. There are twelve groups of faculties which also center in these brain centers. The faculties have each a distinctive location in the brain, the result of the operation of a mathematical law. The special traits and characteristics of each group of faculties characterized one of the tribes of Israel.
This fact was observed and stated by the great historians, Kitto, Evald Milmann and other historians of the Jews.
The names of the twelve groups of faculties are: Art, which characterized the tribe of Simeon; science, which characterized the tribe of Asher; letters, which char- acterized the tribe of Gad; culture, which characterized the tribe of Naphtali; religion, which characterized the tribe of Levi; marriage, which characterized the tribe of Judah; familism, which characterized the tribe of Reuben; home, which characterized the tribe of Zebulon; rulership, which characterized the tribe of Joseph; labor, which characterized the tribe of Dan; wealth, which characterized the tribe of Benjamin; commerce, which characterized the tribe of Isaacher. Each group is subdivided into faculties. The functions of each group are dual, or masculine and feminine; the mas- culine quality dominating in man and the feminine in the woman, for both elements have entered into every part of each organism through the united forces of the parents.
I will now give the primary or dual division of the faculties, the first in each group being masculine, the second feminine:
Culture, subdivided into amity and reform; religion, subdivided into faith and love; rulership, subdivided into dignity and laudation; science, subdivided into reason and inspiration; marriage, subdivided into devotion and mating; labor, subdivided into justice and industry; letters, subdivided into memory and attention; familism, subdivided into parentity and reverence; wealth, subdivided into defense and economy; art, subdivided into form and color; home, subdivided into appetite and feeling; com- merce, subdivided into locomotion and aversion.
These form the different departments of society and government in a complete organization. We readily recognize that in each of the faculties the masculine faculty dominates in man, and the feminine in woman. Every brain organ or faculty pro- duces a distinctive kind of want that has a natural right to a means of satisfaction or expression.
A government, to be truly representative, must not only represent human beings as a mass; but as each class of wants in society has its distinct or producing cause in a mental faculty, this faculty must be represented in government by an officer.
In the Hebrew language, the language of Israel, in which Jehovah gave his name to Moses, each letter has a number which determines its meaning. The number of the name Jehovah is twenty-six (26), but none of the rabbis have ever been able to deter- mine its meaning. It has always remained the mystery of God. However, they have always had a belief that it would be revealed in the day or age when Israel should be restored. John, in his revelations, foretells the time as being one of the events which we perceive is culminating in our day, when "the mystery of God" shall be "finished." In the vision of St. John, he says: " A throne was set in Heaven, and (one) sat on the throne, and he that sat was to look upon like a Jasper and a Sardine stone." The word "one" in the sentence is an interpolation, and the colors of the Jasper and Sardine stones are masculine and feminine; for the law holds good among the colors that pre- vail in every realm of nature. It is a well-known scientific fact that colors are mascu- line and feminine to each other. This, John said, was a vision of that time that was to be hereafter, and although it was represented as being in Heaven, and was undoubtedly an actual vision of Jehovah and the officers of the Celestial Government, it represented the form of government which is to be the center and model of all earthly governments, because it is based upon the nature of God and of man, and for this reason is a subject of prophecy.
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The capital city will be at Jerusalem, " for the law shall go forth from Zion," and a new city, the form and architecture of which will be based upon the laws of the Divine and human mind, will be built upon the site of the ancient city of historic fame. This is what is meant by the New Jerusalem -not a phantom city in the skies, but an earthly -expressing in its external form and its internal harmony the laws of the Divine and human mind. But here we find that the equality of woman with man as an associate ruler was foretold or foreshadowed in the ancient days. David, in his prophetic psalm, picturing the beauties of the Messianic age, says: "Upon the right hand did stand the queen in gold of Ophir." These two central rulers or officers will administer the Divine government, not as autocrats, but as elected rulers by virtue of their eminent fitness, representing the functions of the brain centers, which are called by physiologists the "throne of the brain." A man and woman representing cach tribe, and also each dual group of faculties as manifested in the departments of society, will be associated officers in each department of government, the male officers representing and exercising the masculine functions, and the female officers the feminine functions. This makes the twenty-four rulers which John saw around the throne, and, with the two central male and female officers which represent the throne of the brain, makes the significant number twenty-six, the number of the name of Jehovah, the finished mystery of the ages.
It is not in the smallest degree necessary for woman to establish her ability to do precisely the same kind of work that man does, or has done. The sphere of woman is equal to that of man, and is as important. The natures of the two are so linked and interwoven and so equal in necessity that there should be no quarrel between them as to supremacy. It is only a question of defining accurately the differences between them and the functions cach shall fill, not only in politics and government, but in all the social and industrial 'activities of life. This is, I have stated and partly demon- strated, the office of Science. All the employments of society are dual; that is, cach has its masculine and feminine side, as well as the offices of government; that is, one side of it is more suited to the distinct characteristics of man, and another to that of woman.
By organizing society and government upon a purely scientific basis, we can secure opportunity for the full exercise of all the faculties of both man and woman, without the functions of one interfering with the functions of the other. But by their co-operation in orderly ways, the work of the world will be accomplished harmoniously, and the currents of human life be united and blended with the central forces of the Universe, and the Divine order and harmonies become established upon earth.
Let woman but proclaim this law of universal right and fundamental principle, and like the army of Joshua before Jericho, so shall the walls of prejudice, supersti- tion and weakness which now hedge her in fall like those ancient walls of stone, and she shall enter into her eternal possessions, and so shall come the Kingdom of Woman. Of woman, I say, not because of her dominance, except during her period of gestation or organization, but because here alone, after all the ages of the dominion of man, the functions of woman find their complete exercise as the real companion of man.
As an evolutionary step, I would suggest that women organize themselves into one great party, elect their leaders among women who have proven themselves fit for such grave responsibilities, study these scientific principles of life and government, and apply them as far as possible by forming departments which shall represent the twelve groups of faculties of the mind. In this way you will necessarily create the distinctive feminine offices and positions where woman can make herself an effective power which man will gladly recognize and seek to co-operate with her, and so shall cease the humiliating struggle for recognition which is so painful to the soul of the true woman, and her suffrage will be practically accomplished to her honor, and gen- crations of futile labor be saved.
May the grace and intelligence of the divine beings adorn and illuminate the human mind, perfect the human character, and guide the nations of the earth to the supreme fulfillment of their destiny-the establishment of that great and perfect system of life and government, the Kingdom of God.
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MEMBERS OF THE BOARD OF LADY MANAGERS.
1. Mrs. A. K. Delaney, Alaska.
4. Miss Laurette Lovell, Arizona.
7. Mrs. Marie P. Harmon Beeson, Oklahoma.
10. Mrs. Margaret Blaine Salisbury, Utah.
2. Miss Isabella J. Austin, Alaska.
5. Mrs. Franc Luse Albright, New Mexico.
8. Mrs. Genevieve Guthrie, Oklahoma.
11. Mrs. John A. Logan, District of Columbia.
3. Mrs. Thomas J. Butler, Arizona.
6. Mrs. Edward L. Bartlett, New Mexico.
9. Mrs. Thomas A. Whalen, Utah.
12. Mrs. Beriah Wilkins, District of Columbia.
LANDMARKS.
By REV. ANTOINETTE BROWN BLACKWELL.
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The earth has its green valleys, its lofty mountains, its fertile plains and its stony hills; but the elevations become the conspicuous landmarks. The higher they rise, the greater distance they overlook, the more noted are they as objects of remote interest and observation. Today we are to consider character as offering mental and ethical landmarks. Fifty years ago, with few exceptions, the womanhood of Christendom was restricted to a few carefully graded, nearly dead- levels of commonplace. The terraces upon which woman stood had several elevations which were largely conventional, artificial. They differed in rank, in position, in wealth, in influential connections which gave distinction; notably they differed little in cultivation or in obvious personal ability. In a ter- raced vineyard, the vines on a lower level may be more thrifty and beautiful than those higher up. In the old days 'middle-class womanhood, and that at the very foot of all the other social terraces, was liable to achieve more real individual merit, and the distinction which that confers, than the appar- ently much more favorably situated. This was largely because it was not thought proper or ladylike to be miscellaneously recognized for anything personal or REV. ANTOINETTE BROWN BLACKWELL. conspicuous. Every woman thrust into one world of the modest violet order, could bloom and beautify the one private niche which had appropriated her, but she herself and all of her friends believed that it would be little less than desecration to lavish this brightness and loveliness upon the unappreciated public. We have learned that a woman need not lose her modesty, her private worth or her homely virtues because she has gained a wider outlook, and because she has learned that her field of work may be as broad and helpful as she can make it in the service of any human interest. It used to be said that women were not entertaining to each other, the staple of conversation was too limited. Were such women enter- taining to men, except in flirtation or as admiring listeners to liberal outpourings of masculine wisdom? I would not depreciate earlier serene and beautiful days. Thou- sands of admirable women were unselfish in life, gracious in hearing, long suffering in sweet and patient amiability, but we can no more return to their surroundings, pursue their work, or assume their character than a full-grown chestnut tree can put itself back into the chestnut burr in which it was once inclosed. But we of our generation are not the full-grown tree. We are still in the green and juicy state of the young twig, easily bent away and made to grow into deformity. Wood, brick and mortar may be oddly jumbled into the misshapen hollow blocks which we christen houses; these may have utility, and some beauty. They are landmarks, but if enough of them
Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell is a native of New York. She was born March 20, 1825. Her parents were Joseph Brown and Abby Morse, both of New England. She was educated at Oberlin, Ohio, graduated in literary course in 1847; in theology in 1850, and was ordained an Orthodox Congregationalist in 1853. She has traveled as a lecturer for a number of years. She married in 1856 Samuel C. Blackwell. Her family consists of five daughters. Mrs. Blackwell is a minister, lecturer and author of much popularity. Her postoffice address is Elizabeth, N. Y.
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are scattered nearly at random over the country, cach largely a copy of its neighbor, they all become commonplace. Why need we each adopt the far from perfect cur- rent manners, customs and opinions of our nearest surroundings as resignedly as chil- dren accept mumps, whooping-cougli and measles; as rapidly as the tree toad takes on the color of the surface upon which it happens to rest? Why should our prejudices, our politics and our religion follow as closely in the wake of our fathers as sca foam follows in the wake of the ship? We inherit features, tendencies; no one can inherit characters. It is time women make that a deliberate personal formation. To be shaped and molded without our consent has no better justification than Aaron's apology for helping to make the golden calf. He explains: "They saith unto me, make us gods which shall go before us, for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what has become of him. Then I cast it ( the gold ) into the fire and there came out this calf." In the midst of a great clamor of opinions women cast their brightest jewels-the power of testing and proving all things for themselves-into the fire which tries all opinions; but to each there gener- ally comes out the traditions nearest to her hand. The real test is evaded. Thus if the man have eaten sour grapes it is the woman's teeth which are set on edge. In every heart there are ideals which wait to be realized. Like gold tarnished and dim, these ideals are often wrapped in a dark mind-rust. They are so obscured that they are quite unknown to their possessor. If another will burnish them with the light of his vivid perceptions, the possessor is amazed to find such rare gems hidden in the forgotten chambers of his being. He knows little about his untold, unmeasured wealth.
Every human being is an undeveloped wonder. There is no other like him in the universe. Whoever will make it the end of life to embody the vast wealth of hope, truth, beauty and goodness which he can find within himself, to give form and expres- sion to his own highest ideals, such a one will become a glorious landmark at which many will gaze reverently with admiration and emulation.
How pitiable, then, that women who are but just learning what some one assured the poor little Hindoo widows-that the world was made for women, too-are still content to be so largely the weak imitators of the more than questionable methods already too prominently in vogue! Successful men and women are taken as models to be imitated both in their lines of work and in their manner of work. Imitation leaves only a dim, weak copy. Its defects are as glaring as those of the multiples of a good solid handwriting imprinted on poor thin paper by machine pressure. Such reproductions of merely verbal documents are convenient, but for any human being to ape another instead of bringing out the best genuine character still undeveloped within himself is suicidal. Nature, who makes no two leaves nor two blades of grass precisely alike, has given also to every woman her own strength, her own symmetry of possibilities. If these can be steadily unfolded from within, a sweet, wholesome and useful character will certainly be evolved. Such a one may not develop into a high or striking landmark; she will become an altogether admirable one toward which every eye will turn with approval.
" Men have craved greatness where the fates withstood, Not in this life can all be greatly wise; But all who strive to may be greatly good, For in the effort, the attainment lics."
The fable of the birds who agreed that whoever could fly the highest should become their king is very suggestive. The feeble bat tucked himself under a feather of the eagle's wing, so light a weight that the cagle did not even know he was there. When the strong wing of the royal bird was weary, and the kingly eagle was compelled to descend, the bat spread his skinny wings and fluttered up a few feet beyond all of the others, then down he floated leisurely, wings but half closed, to receive admiring congratulations and the coronation. But pitiable little king! he has never dared to
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face the daylight since, lest his real weakness and his fraud should be discovered. Borrowed plumes are always dangerous. Mishaps are liable to intervene under such conditions. Too often the homely old proverb is illustrated, " Up like a rocket and down like a stick." Parchment wings are no better than the thin membrane of the bat; but to rely on our own resources, utilized by one's self, means an unending increase of power.
I rejoice that women have not proved themselves to be pre-eminently given to that class of methods. But if no progressive woman would descend even in the least degree to these unworthy, pitiable, political but really most impolitic measures, the great cause of womanhood would be much more rapidly advanced, and in the end every woman would stand in her own true niche an honored, approved, wholly beau- tiful madonna of integrity.
Men and women are the whole earth's rightful sovereigns by virtue of their intel- ligence and their higher appreciation of justice and equity. The physical forces wait their command, for it is intellect alone which can give them improved direction and control. The strength, the beauty, the grandeur of the world are the lawful servants and the inalienable possessions of all mankind. Many hued tiny blossoms and rich fruits, divinely tinted regal lands and skies gladden human lives. The tall firs, the white barked quivering aspens, the hearts of oak and the cedars of Lebanon are but precious gems often in a setting even richer than they. All these are for intelli- gent admiration, but equally for more prosaic human uses devised through ingenious re-adaptations. Mind alone can re-create a still nobler earth. But simple absolute truth to nature, physical and mental, is the charming method through which all desir- able transformations must be effected. As heat, light, and the power in steam and electricity can not be cajoled, cheated or defrauded, so neither can that in the far more admirable mental and moral forces. The intellectual and ethical worlds await transformations infinitely more glorious than can ever be realized in the physical domain. Women just entering upon their heritage of work in that wider field which is privileged to merge self-interest in the broader welfare of progressive humanity, are not destined to become the simple imitators of our brothers, even as to their best methods-certainly not as to their worst. Imitation is the genius of commonplace; it proclaims its own insufficiency, its poor mediocrity, Imitation has a tone, a puerile side to even its best attempts. As womanhood is not a copy of manhood but its correlate, so the ways and means of the women who become world-workers are not to be the dimmer repeated impressions of the ways and means of the world-workers among men, The monkey, like a good many queer plants and many still more odd and curious animals, is certainly one of the numberless creative jokes. They all illus- trate the desirability of humor, the wholesome sense of fun and enjoyment to enliven the earnest realities of life. They serve to impress the lesson that a laugh may be quite as healthful as a tear. The monkeys, whimsical caricatures of human beings, have imitation as their leading characteristic mentally. They are the best illustrations we have of the very low plane upon which we must place all pure imitation of every degree. The blundering attempt to do what some one else has done well is often deliciously absurd, and so far good as laughter provoking. It has its uses when imitation is made a light, practical gymnastics; but one can almost fancy a leading intention in making the monkey the standing illustration to enforce the imbecility of all serious mimicry of others. Young children are mimics of course; but to women, it is both a right and a duty to express their own individuality and every woman should aim to express something of her own ideal character in her work. She can realize her best self in her occupations very much as a novelist writes himself into the treatment of his characters. He may do this voluntarily; he is impelled to do it involuntarily. In the same way the life work of every woman becomes a revelation of herself and should be made to represent the highest ideal, womanly self. In the beginning God made male and female. Granite mountains joining their leagues of cold, rocky hands, but lifting white crowned heads upward toward light and sunshine in all their grandeur, are not
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man's superiors but his docile servitors. They are the high seats from which his pen- etrating eye can study limitless spaces; and the foothills are but man's footstools. Pathless oceans have easily become his entirely convenient highways. At human option Niagara, carth's diadem of waterfalls, is transformed into a still more magnificent jewel in the coronet of intellect and its rational utilities. Men and women are right- fully to possess the earth and its fullness of treasures; are to recreate a new earth in which the desert will blossom as the rose. Better still, the swords must be beaten into plowshares and the spears into pruning hooks. But in all intellectual and moral advancement in the consummation of applied higher truths and the more unselfish virtues, woman everywhere must uplift her own standards and illustrate her own best achievements.
THE NEXT THING IN EDUCATION. By MRS. MARY LOWE DICKINSON.
In this day of multiplied facilities for education, a day when training begins with the kindergarten and ends in what is called "higher education" both for men and women, the thoughtful observer is constantly con- fronted by the question, Why are not the people educated? It is quite true that a great many people are; that very many more believe they are; and still more believe the day is coming when they are to be educated in the broad and liberal sense of the word. Our systems, founded upon the old scholastic idea, are generally considered satisfactory, and any failure that may be observed in results is attributed to the fact that, in particular cases, they have not yet had time or opportunity for successful operation. And yet, year after year, we are passing through the mills of our public schools and colleges multitudes of minds that come out like travelers who climb to the top of every high tower on their journey, because they will not come home without being able to say " they have done it."
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