His cell is small.
His cell is dark.
His cell is cold.
His labor is monotonous and hard.
He is cut off from the light of day, from freedom of movement, from the meeting of friends, from all amusement and pleasure and variety.
His hard labor is the least of his troubles—without it he could not support life. What he most suffers from is the monotony—the confinement—from being in prison.
He longs for his wife. He longs for his children. He longs for his friends.
But first and last and always; highest and deepest and broadest, with all his body and soul and mind he longs for Freedom!
Her cell is small.
Her cell is dark.
Her cell is cold.
Her labor is monotonous and hard.
She is cut off from the light of day, from freedom of movement, from the meeting of friends, from all amusement and pleasure and variety.
Her hard labor is the least of her troubles—without it she could not support life. What she most suffers from is the monotony—the confinement—from being in prison.
She longs for her husband. She longs for her children. She longs for her friends.
But first and last and always; highest and deepest and broadest, with all her body and soul and mind she longs for Freedom!
A man is doing all the housework of one family. He loves this family.It is his family.
He loves his home.
He does not hate his work; but he does get tired of it.
He has to sleep at home all night, and he would prefer to go away from it in the morning; to go out into the air; to join his friends; to go to the shop, the office, the mill, the mine; to work with other men at more varied tasks.
He loves his children; and wishes to do his duty as a father, but he has them with him by night as well as by day; and even a father's patience sometimes gives out. Also he has to do the housework. And even a father, with all his love and strength cannot be a cook, a teacher, and a nurse at the same time.
Sometimes the cooking suffers, but more often it is the teaching or nursing or both—for his wife is rather exacting in the matter of food.
He has a kind wife and they are happy together.
He is proud of his children and they love him.
But when he was a young man he had a strange ambition—he wanted to Be Somebody—to Do Something—to be independent, to take hold of the world's work and help.
His children say, "We need you, Father—you cannot be spared—your duty is here!"
His wife says, "I need you, Husband! You cannot be spared. I like to feel that you are here with the children—keeping up our Home—your duty is here."
And the Voice of the Priest, and the Voice of the Past and the Voice ofCommon Prejudice all say:
"The duty of a father is to his children. The duty of a husband is to his wife. Somebody must do the housework! Your duty is here!"
Yet the man is not satisfied.
? ? ? ? ?
My whole heart grievesTo feel the thrashing winds of MarchOn the young May leaves—The cold dry dust winds of MarchOn the tender, fresh May leaves.
See, "Locked Inside," January No.
Behind the straight purple backs and smooth purple legs on the box before them, Madam Weatherstone and Mrs. Weatherstone rolled home silently, a silence of thunderous portent. Another purple person opened the door for them, and when Madam Weatherstone said, "We will have tea on the terrace," it was brought them by a fourth.
"I was astonished at your attitude, Viva," began the old lady, at length. "Of course it was Mrs. Dankshire's fault in the first place, but to encourage that,—outrageous person! How could you do it!"
Young Mrs. Weatherstone emptied her exquisite cup and set it down.
"A sudden access of courage, I suppose," she said. "I was astonished at myself."
"I wholly disagree with you!" replied her mother-in-law. "Never in my life have I heard such nonsense. Talk like that would be dangerous, if it were not absurd! It would destroy the home! It would strike at the roots of the family."
Viva eyed her quietly, trying to bear in mind the weight of a tradition, the habits of a lifetime, the effect of long years of uninterrupted worship of household gods.
"It doesn't seem so to me," she said slowly, "I was much interested and impressed. She is evidently a young woman of knowledge and experience, and put her case well. It has quite waked me up."
"It has quite upset you!" was the reply. "You'll be ill after this, I am sure. Hadn't you better go and lie down now? I'll have some dinner sent to you."
"Thank you," said Viva, rising and walking to the edge of the broad terrace. "You are very kind. No. I do not wish to lie down. I haven't felt so thoroughly awake in—" she drew a pink cluster of oleander against her cheek and thought a moment—"in several years." There was a new look about her certainly.
"Nervous excitement," her mother-in-law replied. "You're not like yourself at all to-night. You'll certainly be ill to-morrow!"
Viva turned at this and again astonished the old lady by serenely kissing her. "Not at all!" she said gaily. "I'm going to be well to-morrow. You will see!"
She went to her room, drew a chair to the wide west window with the far off view and sat herself down to think. Diantha's assured poise, her clear reasoning, her courage, her common sense; and something of tenderness and consecration she discerned also, had touched deep chords in this woman's nature. It was like the sound of far doors opening, windows thrown up, the jingle of bridles and clatter of hoofs, keen bugle notes. A sense of hope, of power, of new enthusiasm, rose in her.
Orchardina Society, eagerly observing "young Mrs. Weatherstone" from her first appearance, had always classified her as "delicate." Beside the firm features and high color of the matron-in-office, this pale quiet slender woman looked like a meek and transient visitor. But her white forehead was broad under its soft-hanging eaves of hair, and her chin, though lacking in prognathous prominence or bull-dog breadth, had a certain depth which gave hope to the physiognomist.
She was strangely roused and stirred by the afternoon's events. "I'm like that man in 'Phantastes'," she thought contemptuously, "who stayed so long in that dungeon because it didn't occur to him to open the door! Why don't I—?" she rose and walked slowly up and down, her hands behind her. "I will!" she said at last.
Then she dressed for dinner, revolving in her mind certain suspicions long suppressed, but now flaming out in clear conviction in the light of Diantha's words. "Sleeping in, indeed!" she murmured to herself. "And nobody doing anything!"
She looked herself in the eye in the long mirror. Her gown was an impressive one, her hair coiled high, a gold band ringed it like a crown. A clear red lit her checks.
She rang. Little Ilda, the newest maid, appeared, gazing at her in shy admiration. Mrs. Weatherstone looked at her with new eyes. "Have you been here long?" she asked. "What is your name?"
"No, ma'am," said the child—she was scarce more. "Only a week and two days. My name is Ilda."
"Who engaged you?"
"Mrs. Halsey, ma'am."
"Ah," said Mrs. Weatherstone, musing to herself, "and I engaged Mrs.Halsey!" "Do you like it here?" she continued kindly.
"Oh yes, ma'am!" said Ilda. "That is—" she stopped, blushed, and continued bravely. "I like to work for you, ma'am."
"Thank you, Ilda. Will you ask Mrs. Halsey to come to me—at once, please."
Ilda went, more impressed than ever with the desirability of her new place, and mistress.
As she was about to pass the door of Mr. Matthew Weatherstone, that young gentleman stepped out and intercepted her. "Whither away so fast, my dear?" he amiably inquired.
"Please let one pass, sir! I'm on an errand. Please, sir?"
"You must give me a kiss first!" said he—and since there seemed no escape and she was in haste, she submitted. He took six—and she ran away half crying.
Mrs. Halsey, little accustomed to take orders from her real mistress, and resting comfortably in her room, had half a mind to send an excuse.
"I'm not dressed," she said to the maid.
"Well she is!" replied Ilda, "dressed splendid. She said 'at once, please.'"
"A pretty time o' day!" said the housekeeper with some asperity, hastily buttoning her gown; and she presently appeared, somewhat heated, before Mrs. Weatherstone.
That lady was sitting, cool and gracious, her long ivory paper-cutter between the pages of a new magazine.
"In how short a time could you pack, Mrs. Halsey?" she inquired.
"Pack, ma'am? I'm not accustomed to doing packing. I'll send one of the maids. Is it your things, ma'am?"
"No," said Mrs. Weatherstone. "It is yours I refer to. I wish you to pack your things and leave the house—in an hour. One of the maids can help you, if necessary. Anything you cannot take can be sent after you. Here is a check for the following month's wages."
Mrs. Halsey was nearly a head taller than her employer, a stout showywoman, handsome enough, red-lipped, and with a moist and crafty eye.This was so sudden a misadventure that she forgot her usual caution."You've no right to turn me off in a minute like this!" she burst forth."I'll leave it to Madam Weatherstone!"
"If you will look at the terms on which I engaged you, Mrs. Halsey, you will find that a month's warning, or a month's wages, was specified. Here are the wages—as to the warning, that has been given for some months past!"
"By whom, Ma'am?"
"By yourself, Mrs. Halsey—I think you understand me. Oscar will take your things as soon as they are ready."
Mrs. Halsey met her steady eye a moment—saw more than she cared to face—and left the room.
She took care, however, to carry some letters to Madam Weatherstone, and meekly announced her discharge; also, by some coincidence, she met Mr. Matthew in the hall upstairs, and weepingly confided her grievance to him, meeting immediate consolation, both sentimental and practical.
When hurried servants were sent to find their young mistress they reported that she must have gone out, and in truth she had; out on her own roof, where she sat quite still, though shivering a little now and then from the new excitement, until dinner time.
This meal, in the mind of Madam Weatherstone, was the crowning factor of daily life; and, on state occasions, of social life. In her cosmogony the central sun was a round mahogany table; all other details of housekeeping revolved about it in varying orbits. To serve an endless series of dignified delicious meals, notably dinners, was, in her eyes, the chief end of woman; the most high purpose of the home.
Therefore, though angry and astounded, she appeared promptly when the meal was announced; and when her daughter-in-law, serene and royally attired, took her place as usual, no emotion was allowed to appear before the purple footman who attended.
"I understood you were out, Viva," she said politely.
"I was," replied Viva, with equal decorum. "It is charming outside at this time in the evening—don't you think so?"
Young Matthew was gloomy and irritable throughout the length and breadth of the meal; and when they were left with their coffee in the drawing room, he broke out, "What's this I hear about Mrs. Halsey being fired without notice?"
"That is what I wish to know, Viva," said the grandmother. "The poor woman is greatly distressed. Is there not some mistake?"
"It's a damn shame," said Matthew.
The younger lady glanced from one to the other, and wondered to see how little she minded it. "The door was there all the time!" she thought to herself, as she looked her stepson in the eye and said, "Hardly drawing-room language, Matthew. Your grandmother is present!"
He stared at her in dumb amazement, so she went on, "No, there is nomistake at all. I discharged Mrs. Halsey about an hour before dinner.The terms of the engagement were a month's warning or a month's wages.I gave her the wages."
"But! but!" Madam Weatherstone was genuinely confused by this sudden inexplicable, yet perfectly polite piece of what she still felt to be in the nature of 'interference' and 'presumption.' "I have had no fault to find with her."
"I have, you see," said her daughter-in-law smiling. "I found her unsatisfactory and shall replace her with something better presently. How about a little music, Matthew? Won't you start the victrolla?"
Matthew wouldn't. He was going out; went out with the word. Madam Weatherstone didn't wish to hear it—had a headache—must go to her room—went to her room forthwith. There was a tension in the athmosphere that would have wrung tears from Viva Weatherstone a week ago, yes, twenty-four hours ago.
As it was she rose to her feet, stretching herself to her full height, and walked the length of the great empty room. She even laughed a little. "It's open!" said she, and ordered the car. While waiting for it she chatted with Mrs. Porne awhile over the all-convenient telephone.
*
Diantha sat at her window, watching the big soft, brilliant moon behind the eucalyptus trees. After the close of the strenuous meeting, she had withdrawn from the crowd of excited women anxious to shake her hand and engage her on the spot, had asked time to consider a number of good opportunities offered, and had survived the cold and angry glances of the now smaller but far more united Home and Culture Club. She declined to talk to the reporters, and took refuge first in an open car. This proved very unsatisfactory, owing to her sudden prominence. Two persistent newspaper men swung themselves upon the car also and insisted on addressing her.
"Excuse me, gentlemen," she said, "I am not acquainted with you."
They eagerly produced their cards—and said they were "newspaper men."
"I see," said Diantha, "But you are still men? And gentlemen, I suppose? I am a woman, and I do not wish to talk with you."
"Miss Bell Declines to Be Interviewed," wrote the reporters, and spent themselves on her personal appearance, being favorably impressed thereby.
But Miss Bell got off at the next corner and took a short cut to the house where she had rented a room. Reporters were waiting there, two being women.
Diantha politely but firmly declined to see them and started for the stairs; but they merely stood in front of her and asked questions. The girl's blood surged to her cheeks; she smiled grimly, kept absolute silence, brushed through them and went swiftly to her room, locking the door after her.
The reporters described her appearance—unfavorably this time; and they described the house—also unfavorably. They said that "A group of adoring-eyed young men stood about the doorway as the flushed heroine of the afternoon made her brusque entrance." These adorers consisted of the landlady's Johnny, aged thirteen, and two satellites of his, still younger. Theydidlook at Diantha admiringly; and shewasa little hurried in her entrance—truth must be maintained.
Too irritated and tired to go out for dinner, she ate an orange or two, lay down awhile, and then eased her mind by writing a long letter to Ross and telling him all about it. That is, she told him most of it, all the pleasant things, all the funny things; leaving out about the reporters, because she was too angry to be just, she told herself. She wrote and wrote, becoming peaceful as the quiet moments passed, and a sense grew upon her of the strong, lasting love that was waiting so patiently.
"Dearest," her swift pen flew along, "I really feel much encouraged. An impression has been made. One or two men spoke to me afterward; the young minister, who said such nice things; and one older man, who looked prosperous and reliable. 'When you begin any such business as you have outlined, you may count on me, Miss Bell,' he said, and gave me his card. He's a lawyer—P. L. Wiscomb; nice man, I should think. Another big, sheepish-looking man said, 'And me, Miss Bell.' His name is Thaddler; his wife is very disagreeable. Some of the women are favorably impressed, but the old-fashioned kind—my! 'If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence!'—but it don't."
She wrote herself into a good humor, and dwelt at considerable length on the pleasant episode of the minister and young Mrs. Weatherstone's remarks. "I liked her," she wrote. "She's a nice woman—even if she is rich."
There was a knock at her door. "Lady to see you, Miss."
"I cannot see anyone," said Diantha; "you must excuse me."
"Beg pardon, Miss, but it's not a reporter; it's—." The landlady stretched her lean neck around the door edge and whispered hoarsely, "It's young Mrs. Weatherstone!"
Diantha rose to her feet, a little bewildered. "I'll be right down," she said. But a voice broke in from the hall, "I beg your pardon, Miss Bell, but I took the liberty of coming up; may I come in?"
She came in, and the landlady perforce went out. Mrs. Weatherstone held Diantha's hand warmly, and looked into her eyes. "I was a schoolmate of Ellen Porne," she told the girl. "We are dear friends still; and so I feel that I know you better than you think. You have done beautiful work for Mrs. Porne; now I want you to do to it for me. I need you."
"Won't you sit down?" said Diantha.
"You, too," said Mrs. Weatherstone. "Now I want you to come tome—right away. You have done me so much good already. I was just aNew England bred school teacher myself at first, so we're even that far.Then you took a step up—and I took a step down."
Diantha was a little slow in understanding the quick fervor of this new friend; a trifle suspicious, even; being a cautious soul, and somewhat overstrung, perhaps. Her visitor, bright-eyed and eager, went on. "I gave up school teaching and married a fortune. You have given it up to do a more needed work. I think you are wonderful. Now, I know this seems queer to you, but I want to tell you about it. I feel sure you'll understand. At home, Madam Weatherstone has had everything in charge for years and years, and I've been too lazy or too weak, or too indifferent, to do anything. I didn't care, somehow. All the machinery of living, and noliving—no good of it all! Yet there didn't seem to be anything else to do. Now you have waked me all up—your paper this afternoon—what Mr. Eltwood said—the way those poor, dull, blind women took it. And yet I was just as dull and blind myself! Well, I begin to see things now. I can't tell you all at once what a difference it has made; but I have a very definite proposition to make to you. Will you come and be my housekeeper, now—right away—at a hundred dollars a month?"
Diantha opened her eyes wide and looked at the eager lady as if she suspected her nervous balance.
"The other one got a thousand a year—you are worth more. Now, don't decline, please. Let me tell you about it. I can see that you have plans ahead, for this business; but it can't hurt you much to put them off six months, say. Meantime, you could be practicing. Our place at Santa Ulrica is almost as big as this one; there are lots of servants and a great, weary maze of accounts to be kept, and it wouldn't be bad practice for you—now, would it?"
Diantha's troubled eyes lit up. "No—you are right there," she said."If I could do it!"
"You'll have to do just that sort of thing when you are running your business, won't you?" her visitor went on. "And the summer's not a good time to start a thing like that, is it?"
Diantha meditated. "No, I wasn't going to. I was going to start somewhere—take a cottage, a dozen girls or so—and furnish labor by the day to the other cottages."
"Well, you might be able to run that on the side," said Mrs. Weatherstone. "And you could train my girls, get in new ones if you like; it doesn't seem to me it would conflict. But to speak to you quite frankly, Miss Bell, I want you in the house for my own sake. You do me good."
They discussed the matter for some time, Diantha objecting mainly to the suddenness of it all. "I'm a slow thinker," she said, "and this is so—so attractive that I'm suspicious of it. I had the other thing all planned—the girls practically engaged."
"Where were you thinking of going?" asked Mrs. Weatherstone.
"To Santa Ulrica."
"Exactly! Well, you shall have your cottage and our girls and give them part time. Or—how many have you arranged with?"
"Only six have made definite engagements yet."
"What kind?"
"Two laundresses, a cook and three second maids; all good ones."
"Excellent! Now, I tell you what to do. I will engage all those girls. I'm making a change at the house, for various reasons. You bring them to me as soon as you like; but you I want at once. I wish you'd come home with me to-night! Why don't you?"
Diantha's scanty baggage was all in sight. She looked around for an excuse. Mrs. Weatherstone stood up laughing.
"Put the new address in the letter," she said, mischievously, "and come along!"
*
And the purple chauffeur, his disapproving back ineffectual in the darkness, rolled them home.
There is room at the top?Ah yes! Were you ever there?Do you know what they bearWhose struggle does not stopTill they reach the room at the top?
Think you first of the way,How long from the bottom round,—From the safe, warm, common groundIn the light of the common day—'Tis a long way. A dark way.
And think of the fight.It is not so hard to standAnd strive off the broad free land;But to climb in the wind and night,And fight,—and climb,—and fight!
And the top when you enter in!Ah! the fog! The frost! The dark!And the hateful voices—hark!O the comfort that you win!Yes, there's room at the top. Come in!
OUR ANDROCENTRIC CULTURE; or, THE MAN-MADE WORLD
The origin of education is maternal. The mother animal is seen to teach her young what she knows of life, its gains and losses; and, whether consciously done or not, this is education. In our human life, education, even in its present state, is the most important process. Without it we could not maintain ourselves, much less dominate and improve conditions as we do; and when education is what it should be, our power will increase far beyond present hopes.
In lower animals, speaking generally, the powers of the race must be lodged in each individual. No gain of personal experience is of avail to the others. No advantages remain, save those physically transmitted. The narrow limits of personal gain and personal inheritance rigidly hem in sub-human progress. With us, what one learns may be taught to the others. Our life is social, collective. Our gain is for all, and profits us in proportion as we extend it to all. As the human soul develops in us, we become able to grasp more fully our common needs and advantages; and with this growth has come the extension of education to the people as a whole. Social functions are developed under natural laws, like physical ones, and may be studied similarly.
In the evolution of this basic social function, what has been the effect of wholly masculine influence?
The original process, instruction of individual child by individual mother, has been largely neglected in our man-made world. That was considered as a subsidiary sex-function of the woman, and as such, left to her "instinct." This is the main reason why we show such great progress in education for older children, and especially for youths, and so little comparatively in that given to little ones.
We have had on the one side the natural current of maternal education, with its first assistant, the nursemaid, and its second, the "dame-school"; and on the other the influence of the dominant class, organized in university, college, and public school, slowly filtering downward.
Educational forces are many. The child is born into certain conditions, physical and psychic, and "educated" thereby. He grows up into social, political and economic conditions, and is further modified by them. All these conditions, so far, have been of androcentric character; but what we call education as a special social process is what the child is deliberately taught and subjected to; and it is here we may see the same dominant influence so clearly.
This conscious education was, for long, given to boys alone, the girls being left to maternal influence, each to learn what her mother knew, and no more. This very clear instance of the masculine theory is glaring enough by itself to rest a case on. It shows how absolute was the assumption that the world was composed of men, and men alone were to be fitted for it. Women were no part of the world, and needed no training for its uses. As females they were born and not made; as human beings they were only servants, trained as such by their servant mothers.
This system of education we are outgrowing more swiftly with each year. The growing humanness of women, and its recognition, is forcing an equal education for boy and girl. When this demand was first made, by women of unusual calibre, and by men sufficiently human to overlook sex-prejudice, how was it met? What was the attitude of woman's "natural protector" when she began to ask some share in human life?
Under the universal assumption that men alone were humanity, that the world was masculine and for men only, the efforts of the women were met as a deliberate attempt to "unsex" themselves and become men. To be a woman was to be ignorant, uneducated; to be wise, educated, was to be a man. Women were not men, visibly; therefore they could not be educated, and ought not to want to be.
Under this androcentric prejudice, the equal extension of education to women was opposed at every step, and is still opposed by many. Seeing in women only sex, and not humanness, they would confine her exclusively to feminine interests. This is the masculine view,par excellence. In spite of it, the human development of women, which so splendidly characterizes our age, has gone on; and now both woman's colleges and those for both sexes offer "the higher education" to our girls, as well as the lower grades in school and kindergarten.
In the special professional training, the same opposition was experienced, even more rancorous and cruel. One would think that on the entrance of a few straggling and necessarily inferior feminine beginners into a trade or profession, those in possession would extend to them the right hand of fellowship, as comrades, extra assistance as beginners, and special courtesy as women.
The contrary occurred. Women were barred out, discriminated against, taken advantage of, as competitors; and as women they have had to meet special danger and offence instead of special courtesy. An unforgettable instance of this lies in the attitude of the medical colleges toward women students. The men, strong enough, one would think, in numbers, in knowledge, in established precedent, to be generous, opposed the newcomers first with absolute refusal; then, when the patient, persistent applicants did get inside, both students and teachers met them not only with unkindness and unfairness, but with a weapon ingeniously well chosen, and most discreditable—namely, obscenity. Grave professors, in lecture and clinic, as well as grinning students, used offensive language, and played offensive tricks, to drive the women out—a most androcentric performance.
Remember that the essential masculine attitude is one of opposition, of combat; his desire is obtained by first overcoming a competitor; and then see how this dominant masculinity stands out where it has no possible use or benefit—in the field of education. All along the line, man, long master of a subject sex, fought every step of woman toward mental equality. Nevertheless, since modern man has become human enough to be just, he has at last let her have a share in the advantages of education; and she has proven her full power to appreciate and use these advantages.
Then to-day rises a new cry against "women in education." Here is Mr. Barrett Wendell, of Harvard, solemnly claiming that teaching women weakens the intellect of the teacher, and every now and then bursts out a frantic sputter of alarm over the "feminization" of our schools. It is true that the majority of teachers are now women. It is true that they do have an influence on growing children. It would even seem to be true that that is largely what women are for.
But the male assumes his influence to be normal, human, and the female influence as wholly a matter of sex; therefore, where women teach boys, the boys become "effeminate"—a grievous fall. When men teach girls, do the girls become ——-? Here again we lack the analogue. Never has it occurred to the androcentric mind to conceive of such a thing as being too masculine. There is no such word! It is odd to notice that which ever way the woman is placed, she is supposed to exert this degrading influence; if the teacher, she effeminizes her pupils; if the pupil, she effeminizes her teachers.
Now let us shake ourselves free, if only for a moment, from the androcentric habit of mind.
As a matter of sex, the female is the more important. Her share of the processes which sex distinction serves is by far the greater. To be feminine—if one were nothing else, is a far more extensive and dignified office than to be masculine—and nothing else.
But as a matter of humanity the male of our species is at present far ahead of the female. By this superior humanness, his knowledge, his skill, his experience, his organization and specialization, he makes and manages the world. All this is human, not male. All this is as open to the woman as the man by nature, but has been denied her during our androcentric culture.
But even if, in a purely human process, such as education, she does bring her special feminine characteristics to bear, what are they, and what are the results?
We can see the masculine influence everywhere still dominant and superior. There is the first spur, Desire, the base of the reward system, the incentive of self-interest, the attitude which says, "Why should I make an effort unless it will give me pleasure?" with its concomitant laziness, unwillingness to work without payment. There is the second spur, Combat, the competitive system, which sets one against another, and finds pleasure not in learning, not exercising the mind, but in getting ahead of one's fellows. Under these two wholly masculine influences we have made the educational process a joy to the few who successfully attain, and a weary effort, with failure and contumely attached, to all the others. This may be a good method in sex-competition, but is wholly out of place and mischievous in education. Its prevalence shows the injurious masculization of this noble social process.
What might we look for in a distinctly feminine influence? What are these much-dreaded feminine characteristics?
The maternal ones, of course. The sex instincts of the male are of a preliminary nature, leading merely to the union preceding parenthood. The sex instincts of the female cover a far larger field, spending themselves most fully in the lasting love, the ceaseless service, the ingenuity and courage of efficient motherhood. To feminize education would be to make it more motherly. The mother does not rear her children by a system of prizes to be longed for and pursued; nor does she set them to compete with one another, giving to the conquering child what he needs, and to the vanquished, blame and deprivation. That would be "unfeminine."
Motherhood does all it knows to give to each child what is most needed, to teach all to their fullest capacity, to affectionately and efficiently develop the whole of them.
But this is not what is meant by those who fear so much the influence of women. Accustomed to a wholly male standard of living, to masculine ideals, virtues, methods and conditions, they say—and say with some justice—that feminine methods and ideals would be destructive to what they call "manliness." For instance, education to-day is closely interwoven with games and sports, all of an excessively masculine nature. "The education of a boy is carried on largely on the playground!" say the objectors to women teachers. Women cannot join them there; therefore, they cannot educate them.
What games are these in which women cannot join? There are forms of fighting, of course, violent and fierce, modern modifications of the instinct of sex-combat. It is quite true that women are not adapted, or inclined, to baseball or football or any violent game. They are perfectly competent to take part in all normal athletic development, the human range of agility and skill is open to them, as everyone knows who has been to the circus; but they are not built for physical combat; nor do they find ceaseless pleasure in throwing, hitting or kicking things.
But is it true that these strenuous games have the educational value attributed to them? It seems like blasphemy to question it. The whole range of male teachers, male pupils, male critics and spectators, are loud in their admiration for the "manliness" developed by the craft, courage, co-ordinative power and general "sportsmanship" developed by the game of football, for instance; that a few young men are killed and many maimed, is nothing in comparison to these advantages.
Let us review the threefold distinction on which this whole study rests, between masculine, feminine and human. Grant that woman, being feminine, cannot emulate man in being masculine—and does not want to. Grant that the masculine qualities have their use and value, as well as feminine ones. There still remain the human qualities shared by both, owned by neither, most important of all. Education is a human process, and should develop human qualities—not sex qualities. Surely our boys are sufficiently masculine, without needing a special education to make them more so.
The error lies here. A strictly masculine world, proud of its own sex and despising the other, seeing nothing in the world but sex, either male or female, has "viewed with alarm" the steady and rapid growth of humanness. Here, for instance, is a boy visibly tending to be an artist, a musician, a scientific discoverer. Here is another boy not particularly clever in any line, nor ambitious for any special work, though he means in a general way to "succeed"; he is, however, a big, husky fellow, a good fighter, mischievous as a monkey, and strong in the virtues covered by the word "sportsmanship." This boy we call "a fine manly fellow."
We are quite right. He is. He is distinctly and excessively male, at the expense of his humanness. He may make a more prepotent sire than the other, though even that is not certain; he may, and probably will, appeal more strongly to the excessively feminine girl, who has even less humanness than he; but he is not therefore a better citizen.
The advance of civilization calls for human qualities, in both men and women. Our educational system is thwarted and hindered, not as Prof. Wendell and his life would have us believe, by "feminization," but by an overweening masculization.
Their position is a simple one. "We are men. Men are human beings. Women are only women. This is a man's world. To get on in it you must do it man-fashion—i.e., fight, and overcome the others. Being civilized, in part, we must arrange a sort of "civilized warfare," and learn to play the game, the old crude, fierce male game of combat, and we must educate our boys thereto." No wonder education was denied to women. No wonder their influence is dreaded by an ultra-masculine culture.
It will change the system in time. It will gradually establish an equal place in life for the feminine characteristics, so long belittled and derided, and give pre-eminent dignity to the human power.
Physical culture, for both boys and girls, will be part of such a modified system. All things that both can do together will be accepted as human; but what either boys or girls have to retire apart to practice will be frankly called masculine and feminine, and not encouraged in children.
The most important qualities are the human ones, and will be so named and honored. Courage is a human quality, not a sex-quality. What is commonly called courage in male animals is mere belligerence, the fighting instinct. To meet an adversary of his own sort is a universal masculine trait; two father cats may fight fiercely each other, but both will run from a dog as quickly as a mother cat. She has courage enough, however, in defence of her kittens.
What this world most needs to-day in both men and women, is the power to recognize our public conditions; to see the relative importance of measures; to learn the processes of constructive citizenship. We need an education which shall give its facts in the order of their importance; morals and manners based on these facts; and train our personal powers with careful selection, so that each may best serve the community.
At present, in the larger processes of extra-scholastic education, the advantage is still with the boy. From infancy we make the gross mistake of accentuating sex in our children, by dress and all its limitations, by special teaching of what is "ladylike" and "manly." The boy is allowed a freedom of experience far beyond the girl. He learns more of his town and city, more of machinery, more of life, passing on from father to son the truths as well as traditions of sex superiority.
All this is changing before our eyes, with the advancing humanness of women. Not yet, however, has their advance affected, to any large extent, the base of all education; the experience of a child's first years. Here is where the limitations of women have checked race progress most thoroughly. Here hereditary influence was constantly offset by the advance of the male. Social selection did develop higher types of men, though sex-selection reversed still insisted on primitive types of women. But the educative influence of these primitive women, acting most exclusively on the most susceptible years of life, has been a serious deterrent to race progress.
Here is the dominant male, largely humanized, yet still measuring life from male standards. He sees women only as a sex. (Note here the criticism of Europeans on American women. "Your women are so sexless!" they say, meaning merely that our women have human qualities as well as feminine.) And children he considers as part and parcel of the same domain, both inferior classes, "women and children."
I recall in Rimmer's beautiful red chalk studies, certain profiles of man, woman and child, and careful explanation that the proportion of the woman's face and head were far more akin to the child than to the man. What Mr. Rimmer should have shown, and could have, by profuse illustration, was that the faces of boy and girl differ but slightly, and the faces of old men and women differ as little, sometimes not at all; while the face of the woman approximates the human more closely than that of the man; while the child, representing race more than sex, is naturally more akin to her than to him. The male reserves more primitive qualities, the hairiness, the more pugnacious jaw; the female is nearer to the higher human types.
An ultra-male selection has chosen women for their femininity first, and next for qualities of submissiveness and patient service bred by long ages of servility.
This servile womanhood, or the idler and more excessively feminine type, has never appreciated the real power and place of the mother, and has never been able to grasp or to carry out any worthy system of education for little children. Any experienced teacher, man or woman, will own how rare it is to find a mother capable of a dispassionate appreciation of educative values. Books in infant education and child culture generally are read by teachers more than mothers, so our public libraries prove. The mother-instinct, quite suitable and sufficient in animals, is by no means equal to the requirements of civilized life. Animal motherhood furnishes a fresh wave of devotion for each new birth; primitive human motherhood extends that passionate tenderness over the growing family for a longer period; but neither can carry education beyond its rudiments.
So accustomed are we to our world-old method of entrusting the first years of the child to the action of untaught, unbridled mother-instinct, that suggestions as to a better education for babies are received with the frank derision of massed ignorance.
That powerful and brilliant writer, Mrs. Josephine Daskam Bacon, among others has lent her able pen to ridicule and obstruct the gradual awakening of human intelligence in mothers, the recognition that babies are no exception to the rest of us in being better off for competent care and service. It seems delightfully absurd to these reactionaries that ages of human progress should be of any benefit to babies, save, indeed, as their more human fathers, specialized and organized, are able to provide them with better homes and a better world to grow up in. The idea that mothers, more human, should specialize and organize as well, and extend to their babies these supreme advantages, is made a laughing stock.
It is easy and profitable to laugh with the majority; but in the judgment of history, those who do so, hold unenviable positions. The time is coming when the human mother will recognize the educative possibilities of early childhood, learn that the ability to rightly teach little children is rare and precious, and be proud and glad to avail themselves of it.
We shall then see a development of the most valuable human qualities in our children's minds such as would now seem wildly Utopian. We shall learn from wide and long experience to anticipate and provide for the steps of the unfolding mind, and train it, through carefully prearranged experiences, to a power of judgment, of self-control, of social perception, now utterly unthought of.
Such an education would begin at birth; yes, far before it, in the standards of a conscious human motherhood. It would require a quite different status of wifehood, womanhood, girlhood. It would be wholly impossible if we were never to outgrow our androcentric culture.
With the May issue of the American Magazine closes the first set of papers on "The American Woman," by Miss Ida Tarbell. She has to a high degree the historian's power to collate facts and so marshall them as to give a clear picture of the time and scenes in question. I always read her work with admiration and respect, also with enjoyment, personal and professional. The strong, far-seeing mind at work; the direct style; and the value of the subject matter, place this writer high among our present day teachers.
For these reasons I was wholly unprepared for the painful shock caused by reading the opening page in the March number of these articles. Preceding issues had treated of the rise of the Equal Suffrage movement in this country; while not wholly sympathetic, these were fair, and ably treated.
The March number begins: "What was the American Woman doing in the '40's and '50's that she went on her way so serenely while a few of her sex struggled and suffered to gain for her what they believed to be her rights?" And she goes on to show for what reason she kept out of the Woman's Rights Movement, "reasons, on the whole, simple and noble."
Here are the reasons.
"She was too much occupied with preserving and developing the great traditions of life she had inherited and accepted. . . . She was firmly convinced that these traditions were the best the world had so far developed, not merely for women, but for society. She did not deny that women had not the full opportunity they should have; but as she saw it, no more did men. She saw civil and educational and social changes going on about her. She feared their coming too fast rather than too slow.
"And it was no unworthy thing that she was doing. Take that part of her life so often spoken of with contempt—her social life. Those who would pass society by as a frivolous and unworthy institution are those who have never learned its real functions—who confuse the selfish business of amusement with the serious task of providingan intimate circle for the free exchange of ideals and of service,for stimulus and enjoyment.
"It is through society thatthe quickening of mind and heart best comes about—that the nature is aroused, the fancy heightened. It is the very foundation of civilization—society. The church and state work through it. Morals are made and unmade in it. Ideas find life or death there."
The italics are mine.
For so clear-headed a woman as Miss Tarbell to commit herself to statements like these was a keen disappointment to a sincere admirer. I have quoted at length that there may be no mistake as to her meaning. The "society" referred to is unmistakably that business of exchanging entertainments which most of us do pass by as "a frivolous and unworthy institution;" but which some find the sufficient occupation of a lifetime.
That human intercourse is profoundly important no one will deny; we know that contact and exchange does quicken the mind and heart, does give stimulus and enjoyment. It is even true in a large sociological sense that human intercourse is the foundation of civilization. But to call "society" the foundation of civilization does seem like putting a very long train of carts before the horse.
Women who work for suffrage, like other women, and men also, need to meet other people, need relaxation, need the stimulus of contact with differing minds, and get it. Being a suffragist is not like being a leper—or a pauper—or excommunicated. There is nothing about the belief itself to cut off the believer from her kind, and make it impossible to invite her to dinner.
"Society" is of course averse to meeting persons who talk seriously of important things. We are all taught as children that religion and politics must not be discussed in society—and the cause of woman suffrage is often both.
"The selfish business of amusement" is so predominant in "society" that amusing people are the preferred guests; and if some earnest and noteworthy person is drawn into "society" as a temporary exhibit, he is expected to be amusing if he can, and not talk "shop."
It may be admitted at once that Miss Tarbell's main contention is true. It was of course because most women were so occupied in "preserving and developing the great traditions of life" that they could not open their minds to new convictions. They were of course suspicious of change, so is the mass of people at all times, in proportion to their ignorance. The deadening effect of a ceaseless round of housework keeps most women from grasping general issues of importance; and the deadening effect of a ceaseless round of entertainments does the same thing to the few who represent "society." But to have that "society" presented to us as a noble soul-satisfying rightfully exclusive occupation, is a shock.
If it is a natural, simple right form of meeting together it is in no way forbidding to woman suffragists. If it is the "round of gaieties" to which our newspapers give columns—how does it accomplish all those invaluable achievements Miss Tarbell enumerates?
What are the occupations of "society?" Its members are always getting together in expensive clothes, to visit and receive, to eat and drink, to ride and drive, to dance and play games, to go to the opera; and to travel from town to country, from beach to mountain, from land to land, to repeat these things or to hire some one to invent new ones. But these pleasures cannot be in themselves the foundation of civilization! The "exchange of ideals and service" alleged to take place in "society" must be in conversation! It is by this medium that we get our minds and hearts quickened—our natures aroused—our fancy heightened—that the ideas find life and death, and morals are made and unmade.
During which process of "society" does the conversation which promotes the exchange of ideals and service best come about? Is it in the talk of women who are "paying calls?" Is it in the talk at a "tea" or reception? Is it in the talk at a luncheon or a dinner? Is it in the talk over the card-table, or while dancing? Is it in talk at the horse-show or opera? (The pressure of ideas in society is so great that its members do converse at the opera.)
Surely it cannot be "society" which Miss Tarbell means! She must mean human intercourse—the meeting of congenial minds. But no; that is open to the suffragist as well as to any; and no one ever called it a frivolous and unworthy institution.
The meaning is clear enough, but the claims made are to say the least unconvincing.
My own, partly personal and partly professional.
Q. Why don't people send questions to this department?
A. 1. Because it does not interest them.
A. 2. Because they have no problems.
A. 3. Because they see no reason to expect satisfactory answers.
A. 4. Because they do not understand that questions are asked for.
Now if any of the first three answers are correct, there is nothing to be said—and no use for this department.
But if its the last—herein it is stated that the purpose of this department is to seriously discuss real "personal problems" such as do arise in most lives; and to which neither the minister nor Ruth Ashmore do justice.
It is not proposed to furnish absolute wisdom; only comparative.
One question was considered in the January issue; and a very earnest letter of inquiry was answered at great length for this number but proved too long—will appear in July.
What has always been a problem to me is how people can be alive and take so little interest in the performance.
Here is Life—Death—and a discussable Immortality. Here is Love—of all kinds and sizes. Here is Happiness—so big that you can't swallow it; and Pain—an unlimited assortment.
Here are Things Going On—all kinds of things.
And here are we—making button holes in the back parlor—breaking our heads in a sham fight in the back yard!
Question. Why don't people wake up and LIVE! World-size?
Answer ……………………..
Some of you send an answer!
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