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 91
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When woman's ambition leads her to mount the highest plane of eminence and prog- ress, God forbid that it should become necessary for her to abandon the province of home,
Mrs. Anna S. Green, wife of Maj. James W. Green, a lawyer of West Virginia, is the daughter of William McDonald, a graduate of West Point, and Lucy Anne Naylor McDonald. She was educated at Madame Togo's, Winchester, Va. She is the mother of ten children. Her home duties for many years claimed the greater part of her time, but she found opportunity to do much hospital service during the Civil War. After her widowhood she became owner and editor of the Culpeper Exponent, a publication devoted to the best interests of the whole people. She is an active member of the Daughters of the Revolution. She resides at Culpeper, Va.
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the great centrifugal center from whose radii warmth reaches to the heights, depths and breadthsof remote points, where hope waits for this surcease of sorrow. Woman's real advancement can not invalidate this reserve power, which has home for environ- ment. From thence must come her strongest plea to be heard. The best of our statesmen and politicians realize this fact as the conserving influence of her co-oper- ation; they would not repress or depress her desire for advancement, and, doubtless with regret, they would mark her failure to value that province which is the custodian of carly impressions, where love and truth should ever be taught and found. "The race is not always to the swift or the battle to the strong." Patience is golden, and waiting rewarded. Let us work for the right and wait for the harvest-in time it will come.
We, as Americans, have, as a nation, achieved a great plan of country. Individual liberty has been symbolized and celebrated in the Magna Charta of American Independ- ence; citizens have been made free to inhabit a land which is a refuge for the oppressed and downtrodden of countries that are not blessed with the freedom of our own. Doubt- less the men who made and signed that great declaration were satisfied with its pro- visions; they did not realize the future to which we were tending. Perhaps some day not far distant the true spirit of '76 will again pervade the councils of our country, and women will be made citizens of America, with equal rights.
Let us hope on, that these lawmakers will some day grow magnanimous and not fear to put the responsibility of citizenship upon us. Let us be their helpmates in all things, and have power given us to protect our property, ourselves, and all rights, equally with themselves. The laws of the land are good, but women claim they are not in it. She has power to hold, but not to protect. Good women will not abuse this trust; they will value its bestowal. When the human family can cease to be jealous, and learn to love more for love's own sake and the God whom they serve, then will a millennium of justice shed its rays over our land. All God's creatures will then join to praise Him for mercies before unknown because of infirmities of sin. May woman be patient, yet persevere in her efforts for justice, for recognition of the rights of the citizenship which her country asserts, but which, especially for her, it has failed to provide. We will work, wait, and trust the "men" of our land. When Gen. Robert E. Lee, the great southern chieftain, Christian and soldier, became aware of the necessity to surrender the Confederate forces which he commanded, it was not the . principle of " individual liberty " he gave up, but it was a truce to its active demand and assertion. Having fought a good fight, he laid down his arms, trusting in his God, who was mightier than all. He, with his people, were willing to wait, and never did this great heart of resignation utter evil against those whom he consid- ered as God's instrument to delay and frustrate the hope of his people for personal liberty. Women must wait. Patience is golden, and in time will bring its reward.
SERVING ONE ANOTHER.
By MRS. ASHLEY CARUS-WILSON NEE MARY L. G. PETRIE, B. A.
The reports that it has been possible to collect for the Chicago Exhibition under the heading of "Philanthropic Education" seemed at first sight, when I was asked to make them the basis of a Congress paper, as for- tuitous a concourse of atoms as ever gravitated to. a center. Seeking for common characteristics, I observed:
First. That all described schemes whereby, in the battle of life, the rich may help the poor. I use the old-fashioned expression deliberately as more appli- cable to the present conditions than the ancient phrase "gentle and simple," and truer to the facts of life than the arrogant modern division of mankind into "upper and lower classes." We speak here of rich and poor, not only in money and what money can buy, but in skill and knowledge, in leisure and friends, in mental and moral power.
Secondly. I observed that the various devices. described, by which the one may aid the other, are all of them new, and many of them very new. Our fathers lived happy and creditable lives before the mania for shaping and joining societies, associations, guilds, unions and leagues for the amelioration of society arose. Are they, therefore, mere fads and MRS. ASHLEY CARUS-WILSON. superfluities of an age of peace and luxury? Nay. Three features in the life of today seem abundantly to justify their existence.
First. The rising standard of comfort. As we move either geographically or chronologically from a lower to a higher civilization, we observe that a larger and larger number of men are dissatisfied with themselves and their surroundings. Indeed, the motive power of all civilization has been well defined as "progressive desire." A need felt for the first time is not, therefore, an unreal one, and today we need many things that our fathers neither had nor missed.
Secondly. The increasing division of labor. Here we speak not of satisfying a new craving, but of replacing something of value that would otherwise be altogether lost. The application of machinery to almost every department of labor tends to divide it more and more, and consequently to reduce the laborer more and more to a machine. The artisan of the past, who brought the bit of work he had begun to the highest perfection that he knew, found an interest and an education in doing it, which his descendant does not find in the monotonous repetition of a single act. The
Mrs. Ashley Carus-Wilson (Mary L. G. Petrie, B. A.) is of Scotch descent. She was born at York Town, Surrey, England. Her father was Col. Martin Petrie, of the British Army. Her mother was of the Macdowall family, of Scot- land. She was educated at University College, London, and took the B. A. degree of the University of London with First Class Honors in 1883. In 1893 she married Mr. Ashley Carus-Wilson, M. A., Professor of electrical engineering at McGill University, Montreal. Her special work has been in the interest of The College by Post, of which she is founder and presi- dent. Its aim is to encourage systematic study of the Holy Scriptures; to aid in secular study those who cannot avail them- selves of professional tuition. The teaching is all given by correspondence and is wholly gratuitous. Address inquiries to the Secretary, Hanover Lodge, Kensington Park, London, England. Her principal literary work is "Clews to Holy Writ." She is a member of the Church of England, and is well known as a lecturer, especially upon Foreign Missions, History and Literature, Bible Study, etc. Her postoffice address is No. 66 McTavish Street, Montreal, Canada.
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agricultural laborer of the past, who depended on his own eye and hand for the unswerving furrow or the neatly felled sheaf, developed aptitudes which his successor who rides a machine is without. A multitude of unremembered artists made our ancient cathedrals glorious with lavish carving. Nowadays even our æsthetic needs are to a large extent gratified by wholly mechanical processes. It is good that the huniblest cottages should be hung with chromo-lithographed copies of good pictures, but the production of these copies draws out no artistic faculties in their producers. Thanks, however, to the good artificial light which modern inventions supply, the plowman or factory "hand" has an evening that his ancestor had not, in which the day's dull toil may be supplemented by the carving class or instructive lecture, calling out powers that would otherwise remain undeveloped.
Thirdly, the growing tendency toward separation of class from class. "Our greatest industrial danger," said the Bishop of Durham lately, "lies in the want of mutual confidence between employers and employed. Confidence is of slow growth. It comes most surely through equal intercourse." The descendant of the apprentice who lived under his master's roof now receives his wages from an employer who does not know his nante. In many of our great towns rich and poor do not even meet on Sundays before their common Maker. The employers dwell in a handsome new suburb, and swell the well-dressed congregation of a new church. The employed herd in the older part of the city, and form parishes where, as an East End London vicar lately expressed it, "Every lady cleans her own doorstep." No wonder, therefore, that in our days social questions are in the forefront, and "the human heart by which we live" demands new means of bringing together those who would otherwise be utterly separated in all relations outside of business to their great mutual loss. We need (I again quote Dr. Westcott) "to hallow large means by the sense of large responsibility; to provide that labor in every form may be made the discipline of noble character."
It is the public-house that fills the workhouse and the prison; and the public- house is too often filled by the mismanaged home, the badly chosen and the worst cooked meal. When, therefore, a girl acquires practical skill in cookery, she not only fits herself for the comfortable and well-paid calling of a first-class domestic servant instead of the comfortless and ill-paid calling of an unskilled factory hand, but she diminishes her risk of becoming the hapless wife of a drunkard. Board schools had, however, been in existence more than ten years before the government recognized that cookery should be regularly taught in them. Private enterprise preceded gov- ernment action in training teachers for this subject and in forming schools of cookery in London, Leeds, Edinburgh and Glasgow. To Miss Fanny Calder's initiative is owing the Liverpool Training Schools of Cookery and the Northern Union Schools of Cookery, and government recognition both of cookery and laundry work is due to her vigorous struggle with the Education Department. Private enterprise must supple- ment government action also in continuing the training when school is over, or giving it then to those who have attended schools for which teachers of cookery could not be provided.
Classes for cookery and domestic economy in Wiltshire and Dorsetshire were founded by Mrs. Bell in 1889. The Bishop of Salisbury suggested this scheme, which works through the organization of the Girls' Friendly Society. It began with a grant of ten pounds, and gave during the next two years between fifty and sixty courses of lessons in cookery and laundry work to girls fresh from school. Eventually it was affiliated to the Northern Union Schools of Cookery.
In days of old every woman, as the term " spinster " still indicates, " sought wool and flax and worked willingly with her hands," and no part of the world produced more characteristic and interesting fabrics than the Scottish Highlands. But when the machine-made goods of our great centers of industry were distributed to the remotest corners of the kingdom, native homespun was in danger of being altogether discarded for cheaper but less durable and becoming raiment. The insight to recog-
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nize the value of these native industries, the sympathy to understand their usefulness and profitableness to the peasants, and the skill and patience to initiate and perpetuate a scheme for their resuscitation ere it was too late, were found in three. successive .duchesses of Sutherland. Forty-four years ago Harriet, Duchess of Sutherland, the beautiful daughter of the Earl of Carlisle, and Queen Victoria's chosen friend, organ- ized an Industrial Society at Golspie, a little town on the southeast coast of Suther- landshire, close to her Highland home, Dunrobin Castle. Four hundred people attended its first exhibition in September, 1850, and prizes to the value of ten pounds were awarded to the fancy tartans, tweeds, plaids, blankets and hose exhibited. For several years a similar annual exhibition was held in a pavilion erected for the pur- pose, until it was no longer in the Duchess' power to give such active evidence of her regard for the welfare of the Highlands. But the Scottish wife of her eldest son- who was Countess of Cromartie in her own right-became the patron of a second series of exhibitions, of which the first was held in August, 1886. The sales realized over two hundred pounds, and thirty pounds were given in prizes. The present Duke of Sutherland, then Marquis of Stafford, had recently married Lady Millicent St. Clair Erskine, daughter of the Earl of Rosslyn, and she, supported by many other ladies well-known in Scotland, and aided by Miss Joass, the indefatigable secretary of the Highland Home Industries, has from the first thrown her whole heart into this work. In 1887 the exhibition at Golspie represented the whole of Sutherland, and men's carvings were added to women's spinnings, sales and prizes bringing the exhib- itors over three hundred and seventy-seven pounds. In 1888 it was transferred to the Town Hall of Inverness, and not only the number and variety, but the quality of the articles exhibited, indicated the progress made. The exhibitors gained about four hundred pounds, and received orders enough to keep them busy throughout the fol- lowing winter. Two months later, on November 25, Anne, Duchess of Sutherland, to whose patriotic zeal and untiring effort this success was largely due, entered into rest. In 1889 the exhibition was held in the Earl of Dudley's London house, opened by Princess Louise, Marchioness of Lorne, and presided over by the Countess of Rose- berry. Over six hundred pounds were realized, the exhibits coming from many parts of Scotland, and equally successful sales were held at Inverness and London in 1890 and 1891. Out of this pioneer scheme in Sutherlandshire other schemes have grown, such as those at Beaufort and Gairloch, and Lady Dunmore's work in Harris. The time-honored distaff and spinning-wheel reject altogether the inferior materials which undiscriminating machines turn into shoddy, and amply vindicate both the artistic and the useful qualities of hand-work.
That civilization means more, even for the poorest, than mere " creature comfort " was the thought that led a woman to organize, in 1885, the Home Arts and Industries Association. Its fourfold aim is to train eye and hand, and thus fit for many callings; to fill the idle hours of working people happily; to foster sympathetic intercourse between rich and poor, and to revive good old handicrafts. Its classes, to the number of between four and five hundred, are held all over the country for girls and lads and men, chiefly by lady volunteers; and the London central office, which is managed by a female staff, supplies these classes with suitable designs and organizes instruction for their teachers. Their pupils are drawn from the ranks of unskilled as well as of skilled labor, and are always forthcoming in large numbers. The street arab who came at first "just for a lark," comes again and yet again for the growing interest of the work, and it has its own quiet influence in civilizing him. Moreover, this unos- tentatious work must develop some of the latent artistic talent that here, as elsewhere, only waits to be called out and do something to remove the reproach that in matters artistic we are an uneducated nation-a reproach justified not only by the vulgar delights of " the masses," but by the prevalent drawing-room " art criticism " of " thc classes."
A wood-carving class for working lads in Ratcliff, one of the poorest parts of East London, was organized in 1884 by the Hon. Beatrice de Grey, and is now carried
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on by the Hon. Odeyne de Grey, her sister, and Miss Gertrude D. Pennant. The class meets for two hours one evening a week, from November or December till July every year. Four out of the six lads who originally formed it are now working in it as men.
From eleven to seventeen men have availed themselves of a class which Lady Grisell Baillie Hamilton and her sister have, during three years, freld in Scotland for two hours twice a week throughout the four winter months. They pay a small fee to cover expense of warming and lighting the barn in which they meet, and gladly buy their own tools. The picture frames, hanging cupboards, bookcases, etc., which they make they prefer to keep rather than to sell. Apart from the technical skill gained they benefit by the awakening of interest and effort in connection with something quite outside the ordinary routine of their lines.
In 1889 Miss A. E. Maude formed a class for the villagers of Drayton, Somerset, in order to provide them with profitable occupation when the weather forbids outdoor work. Observing that most of the other Home Arts and Industries classes chose wood carving, she was enterprising enough to take up iron work instead. The zest with which the men and boys, whom she teaches every Wednesday evening during the winter, handle the pliers, and labor at the forge and the anvil, and tlie ready sale found for the lamps, kettles, screens, brackets and candlesticks produced have amply justified her choice. Gifts from the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, the Somerset County Council, and the Ironmongers Company enabled them to furnish their workshop in the first instance, and it is now open every evening all the year round. Over four hundred articles made by her pupils have been sold since the class was formed, and they have won the bronze medal of the Recreative Evening Schools Association, and the " Gold Star " of the Home Arts and Industries Exhibition in London.
The Working Lads' Institute 'at Torquay, Devonshire, founded about 1886, offers to lads between twelve and eighteen years of age recreation and education, brightens their lives by human kindness, and brings them under moral and religious influence. Its bent iron and repoussé classes are self-supporting. Their products are sold at industrial exhibitions and privately; half the profits pay all expenses, the other half is a welcome addition to the lads' earnings, and Miss G. Phillpotts states that the classes also form a training school of good manners.
In 1890 a class for brass repoussé work was formed at Bournemouth by Miss Edith H. G. Wingfield Digby. A higher motive than either love of art or love of gain led eight men there, chiefly artisans, to give some ten hours a week to brass-work. Missionary zeal had been kindled at the Bible class they attended, and the proceeds of their work, whose high artistic merit may be judged from the specimens sent to Chicago, redeemed a little Chinese girl from slavery, and afterward helped to pay for her maintenance and Christian education in the Jubilee School of the Church Mission- ary Society at Hong Kong. Certificates of merit have been awarded to three mem- bers of Miss Wingfield Digby's class by the Home Arts and Industries Associations.
We turn to three schemes which combine cookery with the work of the loom and the needle, and the carving-tool, hitherto dealt with separately, and four others nearly as comprehensive.
That it was founded by the Princess of Wales is not our only reason for naming the Technical School at Sandringham first. Her Royal Highness' desire to train the sons and daughters of the Sandringham laborers bore fruit some years before tech- nical education had gained its present hold upon the public mind. The school began in an old schoolroom, with evening classes instructed by an artisan from a neighbor- ing town. The interest aroused was so great that the princess determined to make the whole scheme larger and more lasting. She sent Fraulein Nödel, formerly German governess to the young princesses, to study the subject in London and the great Con- tinental centers of technical education, and then appointed her lady superintendent of the school. In the enlarged schoolroom men and lads meet to learn carpentry, joinery, wood-carving, brass and copper repoussé, and bent iron work. Meanwhile,
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the girls of the village are taught cooking, sewing, dressmaking, the making of baby clothes, and general domestic management from 10 A. M. to 6 P. M. every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. The Norfolk County Council inspected and highly commended the school, but the Princess of Wales declined their offer to undertake its supervision and cost, preferring to maintain it at her own expense and keep it under her personal control. Her medical attendant, Doctor Manby, lately gave the elder girls a course of lectures for the Saint John's Ambulance Association, and all who attended gained certificates. The school has gained many prizes at exhibitions held in London and different provincial centers, and the sale of the articles produced increases steadily.
In 1629 Baptist, Viscount Campden, bequeathed two hundred pounds, and in 1643 his widow likewise bequeathed two hundred pounds, "to be yearly employed for the good and benefit of the poor of Kensington forever." Two acres abutting on the High street of Notting Hill, London, are reputed to have been given for a similar purpose by Oliver Cromwell. The money was invested in land, and, thanks to "unearned increment," this modest capital of four hundred pounds and two acres now yields an annual increase of almost forty-four hundred pounds. Of this sum, thirteen hundred pounds is annually expended in pensions to the aged and deserving, and nearly nine hun- dred pounds more goes to hospitals, provident clubs and special relief of special cases of need. With this aid to the aged, sick and distressed, we are not here concerned. The remaining sum of about eighteen hundred pounds is laid out for the young of Ken- sington in apprenticeships, premiums, exhibitions and scholarships for the pupils of public elementary schools, and finally in providing the Campden trust lectures and evening classes formed in 1888, whereby they may continue their education on leaving school. The classes during last session were attended by one hundred and ninety-six boys who learned carpentry, wood-carving, and mechanical drawing, and by one hun- dred and forty-eight girls who learned cookery, dressmaking and drawing. Their success is, in no small degree, due to the untiring energy of the honorary secretary, Miss Catherine Hamilton. Out of four hundred and eighty-four pounds spent on these classes twenty-two pounds and nine shillings was contributed by pupils' fees. The recent founding of the Kensington Polytechnic by the Marquis of Lorne and others, promises to extend and develop the scheme still further, as this building has been assigned to the Campden trustees, of whom the vicar of Kensington is chairman.
The Recreative Evening School's Association, of which H. R. H. Princess Louise, Marchioness of Lorne, is an active president, is little more than seven years old. Its object is to provide further instruction and healthful occupation for girls and boys who have left our elementary day schools. Careful inquiry showed that not more than four per cent of these continued their education in any systematic way; while it. was obvious that they were sent forth into the work of life unfitted for its duties, and exposed, at the most critical age, to the perils of the streets at all hours. The secret of the great success of the association lies in the fact that the evening classes have been made bright and attractive. Instead of the dreary book-lessons in the three R's and English, which were formerly almost the only attraction for evening scholars, they introduced lantern illustrations of geography and travel, history and simple science. Among other subjects taught were bookkeeping, shorthand, musical drill, gymnastics, clay modeling, metal-work, wood-carving, dress-cutting, and cookery, which no government grants were then available. Ladies and gentlemen of culture and leisure were secured as voluntary teachers, and as managers of savings banks for the scholars, whom they also took for Saturday rambles and visits to public build- ings and places of interest. The association soon worked wonders. New pupils flocked into schools which had been almost empty. In London the centers aided increased from twenty-nine in 1886 to two hundred and thirty-two in 1892, while the estimated average attendance grew from four thousand three hundred and fifty in 1887 to twelve thousand five hundred in 1892.
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