Makers of gloves,Physicians,Makers of glue,Picklers and preservers,Workers in gold and silver leaf,Saddle and harness makers,Hair weavers,Shoemakers,Hat and cap makers,Soda-room keepers,Hose-weavers,Snuff and cigar makers,Workers in India-rubber,Stock and suspender makers,Lamp-makers,Truss-makers,Laundresses,Typers and stereotypers,Leechers,Umbrella-makers,Milliners,Upholsterers,Morocco-workers,Card-makers, andNurses,Grinders of watch crystals.Paper-hangers,7,000 women in all.
There is no mention of female wood-engravers, though we have had such for twenty-five years; and pupils from the Schools of Design have already achieved a certain success in this direction. To the enumeration of the census, I may add, from my own observation,—
Photographists and daguerrotypists,Tobacco-packers,Phonographers,Paper-box makers,House and sign painters,Embroiderers,Button-makers,Fur-sewers; and, at the West,Fruit-hawkers,Reapers and hay-makers.
In a New-Haven clock factory, seven women are employed among seventy men, on half-wages; and the manufacturer takes great credit to himself for his liberality. At Waltham, also, a watch factory has been lately started, in which many women are employed.[24]In the census of the city of Boston for 1845, the various employments of women are thus given:—
Artificial-flower makers,Comb-makers,Boardinghouse-keepers,Confectioners,Bookbinders,Corset-dealers,Printers,Corset-makers,Blank-book makers,Card-makers,Bonnet-dealers,Professed cooks,Bonnet-makers,Cork-cutters,Workers in straw,Domestics,Shoe and boot makers,Dress-makers,Band and fancy box makers,Match-makers,Brush-makers,Fringe and tassel makers,Cap-makers,Fur-sewers,Clothiers,Hair-cloth weavers, andCollar-makers,Map-colorers.
I think you cannot fail to see, from this list, how very imperfect the enumeration is: not a single washerwoman nor charwoman, for one thing, upon it. Yet here you have the occupations of 4,970 women. Of these, 4,046 are servants,—a number which has, at least, doubled since then; and which leaves only 924 women for all other avocations.
In New York, Mr. Jobson, formerly surgeon-dentist to Victoria, offers to instruct women in the duties of a dentist. I do not know that he has a single practising pupil; but he asserts that some of the most distinguished dentists in Europe are women. A few years since, the town of Ashfield elected two women and three men to the duties of a School Committee,—duties for which women are greatly to be preferred. A letter from the senior lady shows that one of them at least never attempted to do the actual work to which she was called, considering itoutof her sphere! Does any one in this audience suppose that those women felt incapable of the duty? We know better; but they were not of the stuff of which martyrs are made, and, deferring to popular views, set aside a sacred opportunity. They might have so done that work as to have secured the election of women for ever after.
The occupations of which the census takes no account may be classed as—
Under the Professions come—
of which there are increasing numbers.
Under Public Offices we find—
It is probably known to you all how largely the rural post-office duties are performed by women; petty politicians obtaining the appointment, and leaving wives and daughters to do the work. There are several Registers of Deeds; but I know only one,—Olive Rose, of Thomaston, Me. She was elected in 1853, by 469 votes against 205; was officially notified, and required to give bonds. Her emolument depends upon fees, and ranges between three and four hundred dollars per annum. She continues to perform the duties of her office, and, if an exquisitely clear hand-writing is of service there, will probably never be displaced.
Under the head of Semi-professions come—
Under that of Artists,—
I am sorry to conclude these attempts at statistics with one reliable estimate, which holds, like a nutshell, the kernel of this question of female labor.
In 1850, there were engaged in shoemaking, in the town of Lynn, 3,729 males and 6,412 females,—nearly twice as many women as men; yet, in the monthly payment of wages, only half as much money was paid to women as to men. The three thousand men received seventy-five thousand dollars a month; and the six thousand women, thirty-seven thousand dollars: that is, the women's wages were, on the average, only one-quarter as much as those of the men.
If we inquire into details, we may find many exceptional causes at work, not perceptible at first sight: still this remarkable fact remains essentially unchanged.
In my first lecture, I showed you that women were starving, and that vice is a better paymaster than labor. I showed you the awful falsity of the cry, "Do not let women work: we will work for them. They are too tender, too delicate, to bide the rough usage of the world." I showed you that they were not only working hard, but had been working at hardand unwholesome work, not merely in this century, but in all centuries since the world began. I showed you how man himself has turned them back, when they have entered a well-paid career. Practically, the command of society to the uneducated class is, "Marry, stitch, die, or do worse."
Plenty of employments are open to them; but all are underpaid. They will never be better paid till women of rank begin to work for money, and so create a respect for woman's labor; and women of rank will never do this till American men feel what all American men profess,—a proper respect for Labor, as God's own demand upon every human soul,—and so teach American women to feel it. How often have I heard that every woman willing to work may find employment! The terrible reverses of 1837 taught many men in this country that they were "out of luck:" how absurd, then, this statement with regard to women! One reason why so many young women are attracted to the Catholic Church is, that the Catholic Church is a good economist, and does not tolerate an idle member. In Catholic countries,—nay, in Protestant,—the gray hood of the Sister of Charity is as sacred as a crown.
When I think how happy human life might be, if men and women worked freely together, I lose patience. Such marriages as I can dream of,—where, household duties thriftily managed and speedily discharged, the wife assumes some honorable trust, or finds a noble task for her delicate hands; while thehusband follows his under separate auspices! Occupied with real service to men and each other, how happily would they meet at night to discuss the hours they had lived apart, to help each other's work by each other's wit, and to draw vital refreshment from the caresses of their children! It is your distrust, O men! that prevents your having such homes as poets fancy. You will not help women to form them. The sturdy pine pushes through the tightest soil, and will grow, though nothing more genial than a November sky bid it welcome; but tender anemones—wind-flowers, as we call them—must be coaxed through the loose loam sifted from thousands of autumn leaves, and tremble to the faintest air. Yet are anemones fairer than the pine, and their lovely blossoming a fit reward for Nature's pains. Follow Nature, and offer the encouragement which those you love best daily need. Do it for your own sakes; for proper employment will diffuse serenity over the anxious faces you are too apt to see. Do not fancy that the conventions of society can ever prevail over the will, it may be the freak, of Nature. That stepdame is absolute. She set Hercules spinning, and sent Joan of Arc to Orleans. She taught Mrs. John Stuart Mill political economy, and Monsieur Malignon netting and lace-work. She enables women to bear immense burdens, heat, cold, and frost; she sets them in the thick of the battle even; while in South Carolina, and in the heart of Africa, or among the Indians of the Rocky Mountains, old men croonover forsaken babes till the milk flows in to their withered breasts.[25]
Women want work for all the reasons that men want it. When they see this, and begin to do it faithfully, you will respect their work, and pay them for it. We are all taught that we are the children of God; only Mohammedans deny their women that rank: yet we are left without duties, as if such a thing were possible,—left without work that offers any adequateendas a stimulus to diligence or ambition; and, until "Work" becomes man's cry of inspiration, woman will never train herself to do her work well.
It was Margaret Fuller, I think, who wrote of the Polish heroine, the Countess Emily Plater, "Sheis the figure I want for my frontispiece. Short was her career. Like the Maid of Orleans, she only lived long enough toverify her credentials, and then passed from a scene on which she was probably a premature apparition." Ah! that is what all women should do,—verify their credentials! "Say what you please," said a young girl to her lover, as they passed out of a Woman's Convention; "a woman thatcanspeak like Lucretia Mott,oughtto speak." And men themselves cannot escape from this conviction. The duty of women, therefore, is to inspire it by doing whatever they undertake worthily and well; patient in waiting for opportunities, prompt to seize, conscientious to profit by them.
The Sorbonne, which still excludes woman from its courses and colleges, has formed a separate course, and now institutes examinations, and distributes diplomas for women. The Committee consists of three of the Inspectors of the University, two Catholic priests, one Protestant clergyman, and three ladies.
A daughter of the greatest living French poet passed the examination lately for the mere honor of it. Another girl, the daughter of one of the highest public functionaries, passed the examinations; going through the winter twilight every morning at five, that she might not only be permitted to found a school on her estate, but secure the right to teach in it. Aware that her rank would befriend her, she concealed her name that she might owe nothing to favor. That is the right spirit. When a majority, or even a plurality, of women are capable of it, farewell to lecturers and lectures, to conventions, special pleadings, and the like! The whole harvest will be open, and the laborers will come, bringing their sheaves with them.
In receiving lately a letter from a distinguished French author,—Madame Sirault,—I was struck by the following sentence: "Every career from which woman is steadily repulsed by man is, by this fact alone, marked with the seal of death. The very repulse stigmatizes it. Man may not be conscious of what he does; but the career which is too vile for a woman to enter has outlived all chance of reform, and must perish with its abuses."
And, heroic as this statement may seem to you, it is a simple statement of fact. Can man demand of woman a higher purity, a more ideal Christian grace, than the letter of the Scripture, than the spirit of Christ, demands of man himself?—"Be ye therefore perfect, as your Father in heaven is also perfect."
That was the clear command laid upon the simple fishermen, upon Luke the physician and Matthew the publican, as well as upon Mary and Martha. The world's eyes are slowly opening to the need of a pure life in men; and it helps to show men what they ought to be, when women knock at the doors of their workshops, and insist on entering.
"What!" says the soldier, "must my sister follow me to the field to take this blood-stained hand; to see me decked in the spoils of fallen men; or hunting unprotected women like a brute beast, till they fall senseless on the bodies of those they loved?"
"Shut her out!" cries the minister of state. "Shall mysistersee these hands, dripping with blood-money, bribed by a slave power or a party interest, signing papers that condemn children yet unborn to the miseries of hopeless war?"
"Shut her out!" cries the advocate. "I am preparing to defend this man for luring helpless innocence to the brink of hell, for building up a fortune on dollars wrung from starving women, for putting a bullet through his brother because he did not live a life purer than his own."
"Turn her out!" cries the judge. "She will seethat my scales are loaded. She heard that railroad company offer me a bribe. She caught a whisper just now from the husband of yonder outraged woman. She will hear the liquor dealer's counsel, and see the golden lure that South Carolina offers when the fugitive stands at the bar. Turn her out!"
"Turn her out!" says the physician. "Shall she hear me jeer at what she deems holy? Would you have her grow shameless also?"
"Shut her out," says the trader, "while I mark my goods! This spool of cotton is short fifty yards: mark it two hundred. This yard of muslin was made at Manchester: sew on the Paris tack. This shawl was woven in France: label it Cashmere. Color that cheese with annatto, weigh down that butter with salt, dilute that rose-water from the spring, grate up turnip to mix with that horseradish; but turn that woman out!"
"Turn her out!" cries the priest, last of all. "Polemics and theology have no charms for her. She will ask me why I do not do justly and love mercy. Turn her out!"
"Turn her out!" and, in the shudder which creeps over him while he speaks, man sees not only how tender and strong is his love for the sister that hung on the same maternal bosom; but he sees also what the gospel without and the gospel within demand of the son no less than the daughter of God.
Farewell to war, to statecraft, to legal tricks, to shifts of trade; farewell to bribery, to desecration, toidle controversy,—when woman enters in to man's labor!
You feel the doom falling, and strive to put it off. Not because God has made woman of a diviner nature; not because he has made her more precious, to be kept from the rough handling of the world,—does it shrink from her pure gaze. No; but because God himself, in balancing the world's forces, has blended her moral nature with her mental, purposely to check her brother's aggressiveness, and moderate his lust of gain. So has he given to man a cooler temper, a grander deliberateness, a strength equal to every strain, which shall repair the fault of her warm impulses, her "nimble" action, her unfitness, casual or universal, for long-sustained effort. But what can either of you do alone? Impulse, tenderness, and moral promptings, grow into tawdry sentimentalism, when shut out from their fit arena, when untrained to emulate a brother's active life. Coolness, forethought, and strength grow into cunning, rapacity, and tyranny, when uninfluenced by that gentler element of your nature which God has placed by your side. Helps-meet for each other you were ordained: why hinder and obstruct each other's pathway?
From this moment, put aside ignoble jealousy, inert sympathy, and stupid indifference to your own moral position. Only by heartily accepting the sweet juices and flavors of her life can you secure fragrant blossoms and precious fruit to your own. The words are just as true when I turn to counsel her. If ever this earthgrows liker heaven, it will be when the broad and generous sympathies prophesied by this new movement take practical shape, and there are—
"EverywhereTwo heads in council, two beside the hearth,Two in the tangled business of the world,Two in the liberal offices of life,Two plummets dropped for one, to sound the abyssOf science, and the secrets of the mind:Musician, painter, sculptor, critic, more:And everywhere the broad and bounteous EarthShall bear a double growth of its best souls."
"EverywhereTwo heads in council, two beside the hearth,Two in the tangled business of the world,Two in the liberal offices of life,Two plummets dropped for one, to sound the abyssOf science, and the secrets of the mind:Musician, painter, sculptor, critic, more:And everywhere the broad and bounteous EarthShall bear a double growth of its best souls."
"EverywhereTwo heads in council, two beside the hearth,Two in the tangled business of the world,Two in the liberal offices of life,Two plummets dropped for one, to sound the abyssOf science, and the secrets of the mind:Musician, painter, sculptor, critic, more:And everywhere the broad and bounteous EarthShall bear a double growth of its best souls."
I have often spoken, not only in this lecture, but in almost every one I have ever given, of the great need of conscientious, painstaking woman's work. During the last year, Baron Tœrmer has been borne by torch-light to his last home, and the mediæval artist has been mourned as a personal friend by many a crowned head. The torches of the priests who bore him to his grave very likely startled to the window our two young countrywomen, who are pursuing sculpture in the Eternal City. Little did they guess, that, in the city of Florence, there was living at that moment a woman as able, as renowned, though, for certain reasons, not so well known to them, as the great artist just departed. I will close this lecture with a brief sketch of Félicie de Fauveau, for whose woman's work no apology will ever need to be made.
Entering Florence by the Porta Romana, you find, in the Via della Fornace, a dark-green door, which opens in to a paved court, once the entrance to a convent. Beyond stretches a cool, quiet garden; andall manner of birdcages and dovecotes remind you of Rosa Bonheur's fondness for pets. Through that quiet garden, hedged with laurel and cypress, you might have walked, but a little time ago, with a shrewd, sagacious, life-loving French woman, an aristocrat and a Legitimist, whose eyes had looked upon the guillotine, and who was proud of having suffered for her faith and country. She would lead you to her small parlor, furnished with ancient hangings, carved chairs, and gold-grounded Pre-Raphaelite pictures of great value. Here she would introduce you to her daughter, Félicie de Fauveau.
A forehead low and broad; soft, brown eyes; an aquiline nose; a well-cut, well-closed mouth; a flexible, fine figure; a velvet skirt and jacket of the color of the "dead leaf;" a velvet cap of the same, drawn over blonde hair, cut square across the forehead, as in the picture of Faust,—this is what you see when you look at the artist; this is what Ary Scheffer painted and valued so, that no gold would buy the portrait while he lived. Fire, air, and water are in that organization: the movements of the arms are angular; but the hands are soft, white, fine, and royal.
Born in Tuscany, she was early carried to Paris; whence she removed, when very young, to Limoux, Bayonne, and Besançon. A great taste for music and painting she inherited from her mother. Her studies were profound, and among them she pursued archæology and heraldry. At Besançon she painted in oils, but was not satisfied; and from the workmenwho carved for the churches she got her first hint towards modelling. When her father died, she was ready to devote herself to the support of her family. When people told her it was unbecoming, she drew herself up: "Are you ignorant," she asked, "that an artist is a gentlewoman?"
Benvenuto Cellini was her prototype; and to her may be attributed that revival of a taste for mediæval art which, proceeding from Paris, has had, of late years, so great an influence on England.
Her first work was a group called "The Abbot." Encouraged by unlimited praise, she made a basso-relievo,—containing six figures, and representing Christina of Sweden in the fatal galley with Monaldeschi. This was in the last "Exposition des Beaux Arts," and received the gold medal from Charles X. in person.
Up to 1830, the young girl remained in Paris. Her mother was so accomplished, Félicie herself so witty and profound a talker, that a distinguished circle gathered round them; among them, Scheffer, Delaroche, Giraud. All manner of fine artistic experiments in modelling and drawing were improvised about their study-table. There she executed for Count Pourtalès a bronze lamp of singular beauty. A bivouac of archangels, armed as knights, were represented as resting round a watch-fire, where St. Michael stood sentinel; round the lamp, in golden letters,Vaillant, veillant,—"Brave, but cautious;" beneath, a stork's foot holds a pebble surrounded bybeautiful aquatic plants. Many models were lost on the breaking-up of her Paris studio. She was incessantly occupied with commissions for private galleries; she was to have modelled two doors for the Louvre, and to have superintended the decoration of a baptistery,—when the Revolution broke up her calm and studious life. With the celebrated daughter of the Duras Family, she retired to La Vendée, and, virtuous and honored, made herself as active, politically, as the reckless women of the Fronde. To this day, the peasantry know her as the Demoiselle. For those who remember her, there will never be another. Finally came pursuit and capture. After a long search, the two women were dragged from the mouth of an oven. Félicie assisted her companion to escape; was watched more closely in consequence, and remained seven months in prison at Angers. In prison she designed a group representing the duel of the Lord of Jarnac before Henry II., and a monument to Louis de Bonnechose. At the close of the seven months, she returned to her studio at Paris. But very soon the appearance of the Duchesse de Berri in La Vendée restored hope to all Royalist hearts, and Félicie rushed to her side.
"My opinions are dearer to me than my art," she said, and proved it by heroic sacrifices. On the failure of this second attempt, she was exiled by the government. In the very teeth of the authorities, she returned to Paris, broke up her studio, and joined her mother in Florence, where they have ever since resided,clad, not without significance, in colors of the fallen leaf. No one but an artist can guess what loss is involved in the sudden and forcible breaking-up of an old studio. At the very moment when Félicie and her mother were all but starving in Florence, a man in Paris made an almost fabulous fortune by selling walking-sticks made from designs which she had sketched during the happy evenings of her girlhood. The Fauveaus would not accept a dollar from the party they had served; and Madame had as much pride as her daughter in establishing the new studio. Félicie wrote, "We have manna, but only on condition that we save none for the morrow."
In her studio you find no Pagan traces, only Christian art,—St. Dorothea lifting her lovely hands for the basket of fruit an angel brings; a Santa Reparata, perfect in terra-cotta; exquisite mirror-frames of wood, bronze, and silver. She has executed for Count Zichy an Hungarian costume, a collar, belt, sword, and spurs, of finest work. The Empress of Russia has ordered from her a silver bell. It is decorated by twenty figures, the servants of a mediæval household; who assemble at the call of three stewards, whose figures form the handle. Round the bell is blazoned, in Gothic letters,—
"De bon vouloir servir le maître.""With good will to serve the master."
"De bon vouloir servir le maître.""With good will to serve the master."
"De bon vouloir servir le maître.""With good will to serve the master."
Beside the crowded labors of twenty-five years, Félicie has studied the merely mechanical portions of her art, and tried to discover some old artistic secrets.To cast a statue whole, so as to require no after-touch of the chisel, has been her lifelong endeavor. She finally succeeded in her St. Michael, though not till it had been recast seven times. It is probable her experiments led the way for those by which Crawford succeeded in casting his Beethoven. I cannot tell how many of you have heard of Félicie de Fauveau. The fact that her works are chiefly in private galleries and her own studio, screens her from observation. The higher dignitaries of the church and the princes of art are almost her only companions. She works constantly. About a year since, the death of her devoted mother drew the veil still closer round her daily life; but I retrace her story with honorable pride.
Félicie de Fauveau is not merely an artist. She is the first artist in the world, in her peculiar walk. As a worker in jewels, bronze, gold, and silver, as a designer of monuments and mediæval furniture, she stands without approach.
"Witness that she who did these things was bornTo do them; claims her license in her work."
"Witness that she who did these things was bornTo do them; claims her license in her work."
"Witness that she who did these things was bornTo do them; claims her license in her work."
So let all women claim it.
"THE OPENING OF THE GATES."
"If such a day never come, then I perceive much else will never come; heroic purity of heart and of eye, noble, pious valor to amendus and the age of bronze and lacquer,—how can they ever come?"—T. Carlyle.
"If such a day never come, then I perceive much else will never come; heroic purity of heart and of eye, noble, pious valor to amendus and the age of bronze and lacquer,—how can they ever come?"—T. Carlyle.
"TO destroy daughters is to make war upon Heaven's harmony. The more daughters you drown, the more daughters you will have; and never was it known that the drowning of daughters led to the birth of sons."
This passage from the treatise of Kwei Chunk Fu upon Infanticide may be translated so as to apply to every Christian nation. The Chinese are not the only people who drown daughters. England, France, and America, the three leading intelligences of the world, are busy at it this moment. The cold, pure wave of the Pacific is a sweeter draught than that social flood of corruption and depression which, like a hideous quicksand, buries your sisters out of your sight. "The more daughters you drown, the more daughters you will have." Most certainly; and if, instead of the word "daughters," you insert the words "weak and useless members of society,"—which is what the Chinese mean by it,—you will see that Kwei Fu is right. Let women starve; let them sink into untold depths of horror, without one effortto save them; and, for every woman so lost, two shall be born to inherit her fate.
Nor need the careless and ignorant man of wealth fancy that his own daughters shall escape while he continues heartlessly indifferent, though he never actively wronged a human creature. When the spoiler is abroad, he does not pause to choose his victims. The fairest and most innocent may be the first struck down; for human passions find their fitting type in the persecuted beast of the forest. It is not the hunter alone who feels his teeth and talons, but the first human flesh his lawless members seize.
If these things are so, surely it is our duty to consider well this question of work, to suggest all possible modes of relief, and, while waiting for the final application of absolute principles, to help society forward by all partial measures of amelioration; for only partial can they be, so long as the present modes of thought and feeling continue. How little any one person can contribute toward the solution of our difficulties, I am well aware; yet I venture to make a few suggestions.
The "Edinburgh Review," whether prepared to recommend female preachers and lecturers or not,doespropose women as teachers of Oratory; and says distinctly, that, for this purpose, they are to be preferred to men, as their voices are more penetrating, distinct, delicate, and correct than those of men. I think it was a matter of surprise to American audiences, when women first came forward as public speakers, that, inso large a number of cases, the parlortonewould reach to the extremity of a large hall. Women, too, were heard at a disadvantage, because popular curiosity compelled them to speak in the largest buildings. There are a great many women, and there are also a great many men, whose voices are wholly unfit for public exigencies; but, when you consider that women have been wholly untrained so far, how great do their natural advantages appear! Several female teachers of elocution in our midst prove that this is gradually perceived. These remarks should be extended so as to cover all instruction in the pronunciation of languages. There may be men capable of distinguishing the delicate shades of sound, so that a woman's voice can catch them; but such men are rare exceptions to the common incompetency. The French nasals cannot be distinguished accurately by a man's voice: the bass tone is too broad, and the treble wavers in trying to find the middle rest. Pursue the study of Italian for years with the best teacher that Boston can furnish; and, when you first hear a cultivated Italian woman speak, you will find that you have the whole thing to learn over again. So there was never any teacher of the French language equal to Rachel, whose nimble and fiery tongue never dropped an unmeaning accent nor tone; nor of the English like Fanny Kemble, who, despite certain "stage tricks," in vogue since the days of Garrick, shows us what delicate shades of meaning lie hidden in the vowel sounds, and what power a slight variation of a flexiblevoice confers upon a dull passage. The teaching of oratory and of language, then, should devolve upon woman.
"Why," asks Ernest Legouvé,—"why should not the immense variety of bureaucrative and administrative employments be given up to women?" Under this head would come the business inspection of hospitals, barracks, prisons, factories, and the like; and the decision of many sanitary questions. For all this, woman is far fitter than man. Her eye is quick; her common sense ready: she sees the consequence in the cause, and does not need to argue every disputed point. A shingle missing from the roof is a trifle to a man; but, the moment a woman sees it, her glance takes in the stained walls, the dripping curtains, wet carpets, sympathetic ceilings, damp beds, and very possibly the colds and illness, which this trifle involves. For this reason, she is a far fitter inspector of all small abuses than man.
Consider, then, Legouvé's proposition. The proprietor of the London Adelphi advertised, at the opening of the last season, that his box-openers, check-takers, and so on, would all be women. Throughout the whole range of public amusements, there is a wide field for the employment of girls, which this single step has thrown open.
Women are so steadily pressing in to the medical profession, that I have no need to direct your attention toward it; but I may say, that it is much to be wished that women should devote themselves to thespecialities of that science. Until within a very few years, a Boston physician has been expected to understand all the ills that flesh is heir to; an eye-doctor or an ear-doctor or a lung-doctor must necessarily be a quack. Women are entering, in medicine, a very wide field. A few specially gifted may master every branch of practice; but many will undoubtedly fail, from the want ofinheritedhabits of hard study, oftransmittedpower of investigation. I wish those who are in danger of this would apply strenuously to one branch of practice; and a great success in any one direction would do more for the general cause than a thousand competences earned by an ordinary career.
I do not suppose there is a city in the United States,—and, if not in the United States, then certainly not in the world,—where, if you asked the name of the first physician, you would be answered by that of a woman.[26]I do not complain of this: it is too soon to expect it. Colleges, schools of anatomy, clinical courses, have not yet been thrown open; and success, so far, has been mastered mainly by original endowment. Genius has held the torch, and shown the way; but I want women to remember, that, in this department, all the teachings of nature and experienceshow that they are bound to excel men. Let them, therefore, take the best way to accomplish it.
At the School of Design in New York, the other day, I pressed upon the observation of the young wood-engravers the possibility of opening for themselves a new career by wood-carving. It is quite common, in old European museums, to see the stones of plums and peaches delicately carved by woman's hand, and set in frames of gold and jewels. Sometimes they are the work of departed saints or cloistered nuns; and a terrible waste of time they seem to our modern eyes. Properzia dei Rossi,—whose early history is so obscure, that no one knows the name of her parents; while the cities of Bologna and Modena still dispute the honor of her birth,—Properzia began her wonderful career by carving on peach-stones. One she decorated with thirty sacred figures, holding the stone so near the eye as to gain a microscopic power. On one still in the possession of the Grassi Family, at Bologna, she chiselled the passion of our Lord; where twelve figures, gracefully disposed, are said to glow with characteristic expression. Properzia died a maiden, according to Vasari and the best manuscript contemporaneous authority; and there seems to be no ground for the vile stories that have clustered round her name, other than the fact, that in her sculpture of Potiphar's wife, finished when she knew that she was dying, she ventured to cut herown likeness. It is not to the carving of cherry-stones, however, that I would direct the attention of young women, but to the Swiss carving of paper-knives, bread-plates, salad-spoons, ornamental figures, jewel-boxes, and so on. On account of the care required in transportation, these articles bring large prices; and I feel quite sure that many an idle girl might win a pleasant fame through such trifles. No one will dispute the assertion, who recalls the pranks of her young classmates at school. Do you remember the exquisite drawings which once decorated the kerchiefs, the linen collars and sleeves, of a certain schoolroom? The sun of the artist set early; but I have often thought that a free maiden career in the higher walks of art might have preserved her to us. The same fancy, displayed in wood-carving, would have challenged the attention of the world; and the cherry-stones also bore witness to her power. The only practical difficulty would spring from the want of highly seasoned wood; and that could be obviated by a little patience. Should any young girl be tempted by my words into this career, I hope she will not give away her carvings to indifferent friends, but carry them into the market at once, and let them bring their price, that she may know her own value, and that of the work.
Properzia also excelled in engraving: so did Elizabetta Sirani in 1660. Her engravings from Guido are still considered master-pieces. We have female engravers on wood and steel, and also female lithographers.I want some woman to apply herself to this work, with such energy and determination as will place her at the head of it. Let her do this, and she could soon establish a workshop, and take men and women into her employ; standing responsible herself for the finish of every piece of work marked with her name. Let some idle woman of wealth offer the capital for such an experiment, and share some of its administrative duties. "Success" is the best argument. It would be possible to organize in Boston, at this moment, a shop of the best kind, where all the designing and engraving should be done by women. Why can it not be tried? Carvers on wood, and engravers then.
I have known several English barbers,—not women of the decorative art, like our sainted Harriet Ryan; but women actually capable of shaving a man! Why, then, does the "Englishwoman's Journal" inform us, that, in Normandy and Western Africa, there actually are female barbers?
I think there is room in Boston for an establishment of this kind; a place from which a woman could come to a sick-room to shave the heated head or cut the beard of the dying; a place where women's and children's wants could be attended to without necessary contact with men; and with the absolutely necessary cleanliness, of which there is not now a single instance in this city.
When I mentioned wood-carving to women, I was thinking, in part, of the immense annual demand for Christmas presents. In this connection, also, I shouldlike to direct the attention of our rural women to the art of preserving and candying fruit. "But that is nothing new," you will say. "Did not your Massachusetts census for 1845 enumerate certain picklers and preservers?" Yes; but those women were merely in the employ of men carrying on large establishments. What I would suggest is a domestic manufacture to compete with French candies, and to occupy the minds of our farmers' wives and daughters, to the exclusion of shirt-fronts and shoe-binding.
Every one of us, probably, fills more than one little stocking, on Christmas night, with candied fruit. If we belong to the "first families," and wish to do the thing handsomely, this fruit has cost from seventy-five cents to a dollar a pound; we knowing, all the while, that better could be produced for half or two-thirds the money. Last year, I purchased one pound of the candy, and examined it with practical reference to this question. Plums, peaches, cherries, apples, and pears, all tasted alike, and had evidently been boiled in the same sirup. Apple and quince marmalades alone had any flavor. Now, our farmers' daughters could cook these fruits so as to preserve their flavor, could candy them and pack them into boxes, quite as well as the Frenchmen; and so a new and important domestic industry might arise. The experiment would be largely profitable as soon as all risk of mistake were over; and perishable fruit at a distance from market could be used in this way. A few years ago, we had a rare conserve from Constantinopleand Smyrna, called fig-paste. Now we have a mixture of gum Arabic and flour, flavored with essences; made for the most part at Westboro', and called by the same name. Yes, we actually have fig-paste, spicy with wintergreen and black-birch! Now, what is to prevent our farmers' daughters from making this?—from putting up fruits in air-tight cans, and drying a great many kinds of vegetables that cannot be had now for love or money? Who can get Lima beans or dried sweet-corn, that does not dry them from his own garden?
Do not let our medical friends feel too indignant if I recommend to these same women the manufacture of pickles. The use of pickles, like the use of wine, may be a questionable thing; but, like liquors, they are a large article of trade: and, if we must have them, why not have them made of wholesome fruit, in good cider-vinegar, with a touch of the grandmotherly seasoning that we all remember, rather than of stinted gherkins, soured by vitriol and greened by copper? There are many sweet sauces, too,—made of fruit, stewed with vinegar, spice, and sugar,—which cannot be obtained in shops, and would meet a good market. How easy the whole matter is, may be guessed from this fact, that, sitting once at a Southern table,—the table of a genial grand-nephew of George Washington, who bore his name,—I was offered twenty-five kinds of candied fruit, all made by the delicate hands of his wife; and seven varieties in form and flavor, from the common tomato.
I looked through Boston in vain, the other day, to find a common dish-mop large enough to serve my purpose. There was no such thing to be found. Taking up one of the slender tassels offered me, I inquired into its history, and was informed that it was imported from France. The one I had been trying to replace had been made by some skilful Yankee hand for a Ladies' Fair. Now, what are our poor women doing, that they cannot compete with this French trumpery, and give us at least dish-mops fit for use?
As teachers of gymnastics, women are already somewhat employed. A wide field would be opened, if a teacher were attached to each of our public schools,—a step in physical education greatly needed.
No conservative is so prejudiced, I suppose, as to object to placing woman in all positions of moral supervision. Female assistants in jails, prisons, workhouses, insane asylums, and hospitals, are seen to be fit, and to have a harmonizing influence in every respect. How many more such assistants are needed, we may guess from the fact that our City Jail and Charlestown are still unsupplied. Women of a superior order are needed for such posts; and when will they be found? Not till labor is thoroughly respected; not till the popular voice says, "It is all very well to be a Miss Dix, and go from asylum to asylum, suggesting and improving; but it is justaswell, quiteashonorable, to work inoneasylum, carrying out the wise ideas which a Miss Dix suggests,and securing the faithful trial of her experiments." Many men in Beacon Street would feel honored to call the moving philanthropist sister or friend; but few would like to acknowledge a daughter in the post of matron or superintendent. Why not? There is something "rotten in the State" where such inconsistencies exist. How thoroughly men accept such women, as soon as they are permitted to try their experiment, we may judge from the case of Florence Nightingale and her staff. The very men, whose scepticism kept the army suffering for months, would be the first to send them now; and the soldiers, who kissed her shadow where it fell, would fill the whole Commissariat with women. When her gentle but efficient hand broke in the doors of the storehouses at Scutari, a general huzza followed from the very men who were too timid to break the trammels of office. The woman's keen sympathy with the advancing spirit of her time, taught her what it was fit to do; and, if the rippling smiles of suffering men had not rewarded her when the bedding and stores were distributed, the warm encomiums of her Queen, whose heart she had so truly read, must have done it. Following out this train of reflection, I have often thought it would some day fall to women, and to women alone, to exercise the function of parish minister! I do not mean "parish preacher." I hold pulpit graces cheap by the side of that fatherly walk among his people, which has made the name of Charles Lowell sacred to the West Church. Goback to the history of the first church in every town: see how the minister knew the story of every heart in his parish; how he kept his eye on every lonely boy or orphan girl; how widowed mothers took his counsel about schools and rents; how forlorn old maids trusted to him to make all "things come round right;" how the lad, inclining to wild courses, found no better friend than he. How is it now? The minister has his Sunday sermons, his annual addresses before certain societies, his weekly association. In the old time, such things were done, yet not the other left undone. Now the lonely boy or orphan girl must seek out the minister,—and how likely this is to happen everybody knows; the mother must tell over the story of her widowhood, pained to see how "in course" it falls upon that wearied ear; the spinster must tell again how the boat floated empty and bottom upward to shore long years ago, and so no one was "spared to keep all right;" and the wild lad—alas! how many such do the clergy save now?
As I see such things,—and I do see them often,—as I realize that change in men and times, in manners and books, from which this change is inseparable,—I confess I see a new[27]sphere opening for women. It takes no remarkable gifts, in the common sense of those words; only a kindly heart, a thoughtful head, a tender, reverent care-taking, wholly apart from meddlesomeness. Not many are the ministers now whowill pause to explain to Martha that she is careful and troubled about many things; and that really the visionary Mary, with her dreamy eyes, is choosing the good part. Not many can see Nathanael standing under the fig-tree, and remind him of it at the needful moment. But if, in every religious household, there were a deaconess, called by nature and God to her work,—one to whom the young felt a right to go with questions home could not answer; one pledged to secret counsel, with whom the restless and unhappy might confer,—it seems to me the wheels of life would move more smoothly.[28]How the unlikeliest persons are sometimes raised up to such a ministry, let the following story tell. In the dim and dreary precincts of the Seven Dials in London, years ago, two orphan girls were left lying on door-steps, fed by chance charity, to grow up as they might. One died; and the other was finally adopted by an old man, an atheist, who had been neighbor to her parents. She grew up an atheist also, and married,—saved by God's mercy from what had seemed her likeliest fate. Stepping into the passage of the Bloomsbury Mission Hall to shelter herself from the rain, one night, a shaft, winged by the Holy Spirit, struck to her empty heart.
The next week, a lending library was to be opened in the district. Marian was first at the door. "Sir," said she, "will you lend me a Bible?"—"A Bible!" exclaimed the man. "We did not mean tolendBibles; but I will get you one."
How long she read, how she was at first moved, none but God can know. But, whether from mental distress or from the sad vicissitudes of her needy career, she became very ill, and went to a public hospital. While there, she saw the sufferings of thosewho applied for its charity, and observed that the filthy state of their persons needed a friendly female hand. When she came out, she wrote to the missionary, and told him she wished to dedicate all her spare time to the lost and degraded of her own sex. "God's mercy," she writes, "has spared me from their fate: for me their misery will have no terrors. I will clean and wash them, and mend their linen. If they can get into a hospital, I will take care of their clothes." You may suppose the missionary did not lose sight of Marian, and you may guess how gladly she undertook to distribute Bibles; going, where none of the gentry could go, into dens of misery known only to the police-officers and herself. Spending her mornings in distributing Bibles, and giving the kind and pastoral counsel everywhere needed, she discovered, in the autumn of 1857, a new want, and devoted her afternoons to teaching the ignorant women about her to cut and make their children's clothes. Whysheknew better thanthey, who shall tell? Then camethe November panic and its wide-spread distresses; and, seeing how food was wasted from ignorance, she opened a soup-kitchen of her own. She used what is called vegetable stock: her wretched customers liked it, and she sold it all through the winter for a price which just paid the cost of cooking. Her noble work goes on. The stone which the builders of our modern society would have rejected, is now the head of the corner; and Seven Dials knows her as "Marian, the Bible-woman."
Another mission has been begun at St. Pancras, where, in one of the worst neighborhoods, the most profligate men have gathered together, between church hours, to hear a young lady read the "Pilgrim's Progress," and are thus softened and led to higher things. Would you shut those sacred lips because they are a woman's? Would you quote St. Paul to her, and blush for her career, if she were your own daughter? I will not believe it.
At the parish of St. Alkmunds, in Shrewsbury, the wife of the clergyman, Mrs. Whitman, began by modest reading from house to house; a work which has since been greatly blessed. Gently she won profligate men and women to give up their beer, and the temptations of the "tap;" signing herself the pledge which they alone needed.
A very important work could be done in this city by the establishment of a proper Training School for Servants. One reason why our house-work is so miserably done is, that it is never regarded asa profession, in which a certain degree of excellence must be attained, but rather as a "make-shift," by the aid of which a certain number of years can be got through. The only thorough servant I ever had was one who had been educated at such a school in Germany. Here would be an admirable field for some of the women who have money and time, but no object in life. Such a school must be carried on in connection with a good-sized boarding-house of a respectable kind; and beside the regular superintendents, who will, of course, be hired for the different departments, there must be committees of ladies who should see to the practical working of the institution in turn. This is necessary to secure that thorough working in every department which the best housekeeping demands. Only by intelligent, refined oversight can feathered "flirts" be hindered from taking the place of the tidy dusting cloth; only so will a girl learn to sweep each apartment separately, without dragging her accumulations from floor to floor; only so can soap-suds be kept off your oil-cloths, soiled hands from your doors, and dust from your shirt-fronts. I do not believe a better service could be done to the community than the establishment of such a school, especially in relation to cooking.[29]A good many such experiments have been successfully tried in England, but none so thorough as that I would propose in Boston.
With regard to the lowest class of employed women, such as are employed at home, we have, it seems to me, several distinct duties to perform.
In the first place, we need a public but self-supporting Laundry. By this I mean two large halls, with an adjacent area, built at the expense of the city, and properly superintended, where, for so much an hour, women of the lower class may wash, starch, dry, and iron the clothes they take home. A bleaching-ground would be desirable; but, if it could not be had, a steam drying-room would be the next best thing. Good starch, soap, and indigo should be for sale upon the premises at wholesale prices; it not being desirable that the city should make money out of the necessities of its poor. If suchan establishment could be had, a great many women would be changed from paupers to decent citizens. They are tired of seeking washing; for, in their one close room, scented with boiling onions or rank meat, without a proper area for drying, and compelled to pay high prices for poor soap and starch, they cannot do decently the very work which philanthropy soon becomes unwilling to intrust to them, and for which they are compelled to charge higher than the best private laundry. The city could buy coal, wood, soap, starch, and indigo at manufacturers' and importers' prices, and so give them a fair chance for competition. I hope this project, long since partially adopted in many cities of the Old World, may find favor with my audience.
There is in Boston no place, strange as it may seem, where plain, neatly finished clothing can be bought ready-made. I can go down town, and buy embroidered merinos, Paris hats with ostrich feathers, and lace-trimmed, welted linen: but if I want a plain, cotton skirt for a child, whereof the calico was eight cents a yard; if I want a plain, cotton print made into a neatly fitting dress; if I want a boy's coarse apron,—such things are not to be had, or only so very badly made that no one will buy them. I do not want lace or embroidery or silk, or fine linen; but I do want my button-holes nicely turned and strong, my hems even, my gathers stroked, and, however plain and coarse, the whole finish of the garment such as a mistress of the needle only wouldapprove, such as no lady need be ashamed to wear. So do others. The reasons given to explain the non-existence of such a magazine in Boston are, first, That our women of the middle class are, for the most part, accustomed to cut and make their own clothes; second, That there is a prevalent but mistaken idea, that clothes made for sale cannot possibly fit. With regard to the first point, it may be said, that, as more and more avenues of labor are opened for women, this class perceives that it is not good economy for them to do their own sewing. Hands compelled to coarser or heavier labor cannot sew quick or well, and those training to more delicate manipulation lose practice by returning to it; so there will be a constantly increasing class of purchasers.
As to the impossibility of fitting, that is a vulgar mistake. The human frame is quite as much the result of law as Mr. Buckle's statistics. Any comely, healthy form is a good model for all other forms of the same height and breadth. Who ever heard of a French bonnet or a bridal trousseau that did not fit? yet these things are made by arbitrary rules. Our superintendent could find every measure she would ever need in one of the teeming houses on Sea Street. She must take her measures from life, not books. Nor would I have the sewing done with machines, unless those of the highest cost could be procured and ably superintended. The best machine is as yet a poor substitute for the supple, humanhand; and many practical inconveniences must result from its use. It requires more skill and intelligence to manage man's simplest machine, than to control with a thought that complicated network of nerve, bone, and fibre which we have been accustomed to use.
Capital to start such an establishment as I refer to is all that is needed. How desirable the thing is, you can easily see. In the first place, if good common clothing could be so purchased, mothers need not keep a large stock on hand: an accident could be readily repaired. In the second, it would greatly simplify and expedite many a charitable task. The terrible suffering which followed the panic of November, 1857, you all remember. Purses, always open hitherto, were necessarily closed; no Sister of Charity was willing to tread on the heels of the sheriff: yet the need was greater than ever. Many persons who had dismissed their servants were found willing to give a rough, untrained girl her board; but who was to provide her with decent clothes? They could not be bought, and to make them was the work of time and strength. May I always remember to honor, as God will always surely bless, one woman possessed of wealth and beauty, who did clothe from head to foot with her own needle, in that dreadful winter,three"wild Irish girls," and took them successively into her own family; training them to habits of tolerable decency, until others, less self-sacrificing, were found ready to do their part!
No people in our community suffer such inconvenience, loss, and imposition, in having their clothes made, as our servant girls. If a plentiful supply of calico sacks and skirts or loose dresses could be anywhere found, few girls would ever employ a dressmaker.
I have spoken of Public Laundry Rooms, and a Ready-made Clothing Room. There is a class of women greatly to be benefited by the establishment of a Knitting Factory. It is well known to every person in this room, especially to physicians, that no knitting done by machinery can compete with that done by the human hand, in durability, warmth, or stimulative power. Invalids are now obliged to import the Shetland jackets, which are always badly shaped; or to hire, at our fancy stores, the making of delicate and very expensive fabrics. Men's socks and children's gloves may be purchased; but the first cost from seventy-five cents to a dollar a pair, and the last are of very inferior manufacture. We cannot give out knitting to advantage, because of the dirt and grease it is liable to accumulate where water is not plenty nor ventilation to be had; and very good knitters of socks have not skill and intelligence to manage the different sizes, or to shape the larger articles, such as drawers and under-jackets for the two sexes. Coarse crocheting would answer better than knitting for many articles.
Let a large, airy room be hired, well supplied with Cochituate. Let all sorts of material be kept onhand, and some coarse, warm kinds of Shetland yarn imported that are not now to be had. Let at least two superintendents be appointed from among the women, who workbestfor our fancy stores; let knitting-women be invited to use this room for twelve hours a day, or less, as they choose,—receiving daily pay for their daily needs; and in less than one year you would have an establishment, for which not merely Boston, but all New England, would be grateful. I should hope that neither this nor the Clothing Room would ever offer very expensive or highly ornamental articles for sale. There is no danger that the interests of the wealthy will suffer. What I desire is to provide for the needs of the lowest women and the comfort of the middle-class customer.
The young girls in Beacon Street have now some thing to do. I offer them the establishment of a Training School for Servants, of a public but self-supporting Laundry, of a Ready-made Clothes Room, and a Knitting Factory; all simple matters, entirely within their control, if they would but believe it.
A certain human faithlessness often interferes with the execution of such plans. If my young friends doubt, let them go and talk to Harriet Ryan about it. She will show them, how, having taken the first step toward duty, God always leads the way to the second. To cheer them still further, I will tell them—for I may never have a fitter opportunity—of the splendid success of the industrial schools in Ireland,established in 1850 by Ellen Woodlock,—a name destined to stand honorably by the side of Florence Nightingale; nay, worthy to precede it, in so far as preventive measures are always a greater good than remedial. Mrs. Ellen Woodlock has powers of statement, according to the "London Times," equal to her extraordinary powers of execution; and it is from her own account of the work that I select what I have to offer you.
In 1850, Mrs. Woodlock had placed her only child at school, and began to look for something to do. A lady, who had started an industrial school on a gift of $250 from a clergyman, asked for her help. She proposed to teach young girls to do plain sewing. Very soon, there were more seamstresses than customers; but God did not fail to open a way. One poor, half-blind creature—very poor and very earnest—failed in the plain sewing, and was put to make cabbage nets. She did it so well, that Mrs. Woodlock taught her to make silk nets for the hair. The nets took: other girls were taught; and Mrs. Woodlock went to all the shops in Cork, and coaxed the merchants to buy of her. She very soon began to make nets for exportation. Mrs. Woodlock's fashionable niece arrived from Dublin, with a new style of crocheted net. Her aunt had a dozen made directly; and, by showing these, got orders from all the merchants for the new style. One day, a merchant came into the school, and saw a little girl at work on a mohair net. He asked the price, and found that she wouldmake him twelve for the same money that he had paid for one in London. So you may guess where his next orders went.
Mrs. Woodlock then made interest with the "buyers," or young men who go to London twice a year to purchase goods. They took over her patterns, and returned with orders so large that their principals at once entered into the business. Yellow nets were made for Germany. Many were sent to England and America; and orders came so thick that they had to share them with the convent schools. They paid out a hundred dollars weekly; and alacrity and intelligence beamed where there had been, at first, only hopeless suffering and imbecility. Of course, this point was not reached without much self-sacrifice. At first, the children made awkward work that would not sell. Then the lady patronesses got tired, and dropped off. Worn and worried, Mrs. Woodlock fell ill. If you ever undertake any of the schemes I have mentioned, you must be prepared for all these things: they will certainly happen. No one ever fought a revolutionary war, and established an independence, without one or two defeats like that at Bunker Hill.[30]When they become historic, we call them victories. When Mrs. Woodlock found that she was human and liable to fall ill, she sent for some of the Sisters of Charity, and trained several, so that they could, on an emergency, fill her place well.
But Mrs. Woodlock did not stop here. She used to teach the Catechism in the parish church; and, one day, she gave notice that a new school would be opened in that neighborhood. The next morning, one hundred and fifty girls, between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five, presented themselves. Mrs. Woodlock asked every girl, who had ever earned any money before, to hold up her hand. Four girls did so. They had sold apples in the streets. One hundred and forty-six suffering creatures, who had no way to earn a cent! Think what a class it was! Do you remember what I told you, the other day, of eighteen hundred and eighty women in New York who had never been taught to support themselves? Ten of the best workers from the first school were taken to teach these girls; and, for a salary, the teacher received the firstperfectdozen of nets made by each of her pupils. This plan was not costly, and worked well. There was no lack of faithfulness. Travellers came to see the schools. There was no time wasted in looking for orders: they had more than they could fill. Of course, they must keep these hands employed: so other manufactures must be tried. Mrs. Woodlock thought she would try fine shirt-fronts for the city dealers. What do you think the people said? That it could not be done in all Ireland; that there was nobody to wash and iron themproperly; that they would have to be sent all the way to Glasgow to be boxed in card boxes! Well, the nuns undertook the first washing and ironing,—making apprentices, let us hope, of some of the older pupils; and Mrs. Woodlock found a starving band-box maker, whom she herself taught to make flat boxes. And look now at the blessing which always follows wise work. This flat-box maker has had to take apprentices, has opened another branch of her business in Limerick, and has put money into the Savings' Bank.
Mrs. Woodlock's account of her work would be a great help to any young persons engaged in philanthropic effort. She lays the very greatest stress upon her machinery,—her methods. Every industrial work ought to support itself: if it does not, it is a failure. All her schools earn their own bread,in every sense; and all reforming agencies must always stand second to any institution which does that. See how she carried this thought into her daily life. Mrs. Woodlock had a brother who was one of the Board of Poor-Law Guardians. Seeing the success of her work, he persuaded the other members to employ an embroidery mistress in the Union School for a few months.
When these children knew enough, Mrs. Woodlock took out six, and put them into her industrial school, till she was sure they could support themselves. Then she let them look up lodgings, and continued to give them work from the school. In a few weeks, they got on so well that they began to take their relations and friends out of that terrible poorhouse.Three young girls took out their mother and cousin, and supported them. Eighty girls were brought off the parish by the first working of her schools. A house has also been opened for orphans, where they are trained to support themselves.
Now, my friends, the census, at the end of ten years, will report a great change in the industrial condition of Ireland; and the beginning of that change was Mrs. Woodlock's intelligent moral effort to benefit her countrywomen,—in the first place, to teach one little sufferer to make cabbage-nets. That element will enter into the statistics on which Mr. Buckle bids you so confidently rely. Do not believe him when he says thatmoraleffort can never help anybody but yourself, because it will be balanced, in the long-run, by your neighbor'simmoraleffort. Two and two make four in all statistics, and always will while the world stands; but two and two and one make five, and not four, as he asserts; and the one which he forgets to enumerate is no other than the divine Centre of life and action,—God himself. I value Mr. Buckle's book. I see how clearly he thinks; how much he has read; and how much truer his historical attitude than any ever before assumed. But when a man separates goodness from knowledge; tells you that intelligence may reign alone; does not see that the two are now and for ever one, equal attributes of the divine nature,—then he makes a mistake which saps the very foundation of his own work, and writes fallacy on every page.
What he says is perfectly true ofmistaken, ignorantmoral effort. That does help yourself, and doesnothelp anybody else. It helps you, because it develops your right-mindedness,—your generosity. It does not help anybody else. Ithindersothers who are clearer intellectually: they see and despise the mistakes, and are not inspired by the purpose. Had it been intelligent, they would have seen it to be divine.
Mrs. Woodlock's work was both intelligent and moral. What inspired the pupils was her moral force and disinterested love. They saw this, and were kindled by it; while the community at large respected the intelligence and common sense with which she laid her plans. Intelligence made these plans self-supporting; intelligence gave them solid pyramidal position in the world: but moral energy gave them their prestige, and will win its way by the side of intelligence into the very columns which Mr. Buckle's closing volume must quote.
Do not be disheartened, then, as to the ultimate profit to others of any kindly work you feel inclined to do. Let kindliness inspire, let intelligence direct, your efforts. God has made your success certain from the very foundations of the world.
I cannot close such inadequate survey of this field as I have felt it my duty to offer, without alluding to one other fact, and making one parting suggestion. It cannot but be realized, by all the women to whom I speak, how very casual is the communication between the laboring class in this community andtheir employers. Suppose a housekeeper wants additional service, how can she secure it? If she is not wealthy enough to hire regularly, her "chance" is a very poor one; and she must take the recommendation, in nine cases out of ten, of some one in the charwoman's own rank of life.
Suppose a maid of all work leaves a mistress alone early some busy Monday morning, where can her place be filled? How can any one be found who will work by the hour or the day, in a cleanly, respectable manner, till a new servant can be deliberately chosen? Nobody knows of a washerwoman who is out of work on Monday. The intelligence offices hold no women so distressed that they will go out for less than a week, and that on trial. Yet, somewhere in the city, there must be women pining and longing for that waiting work.
Suppose a sudden influx of visitors exhausts your household staff, and makes a waiting-maid a necessity where none was kept before; suppose a large group of relatives, passing quickly through the city, come for a plain family dinner at a moment when your personal superintendence is impossible,—where is the active, tidy girl who can be summoned, or the decent woman of experience who can order matters in your kitchen as well as you can yourself?
Somewhere they sit waiting—suffering, it may be—for the opportunity which never comes. The intelligence office will get them places; but places they are not at liberty to seek. They need what they call "a chance lift."
I am well aware that wealthy and long-established families may not suffer much from this cause. Old servants well married, or a variety of well-paid servants with wide connections in the neighborhood, or deserving objects of charity personally met and understood, often prevent such persons from feeling any inconvenience; but for young housekeepers, for new residents, for persons of small means and few connections, there is no help.