THE WOMAN OF TO-MORROWITHE WOMAN OF TO-MORROW
What will she be like, the woman of to-morrow? We know all about the woman of to-day—her virtues, tendencies, shortcomings, her hopes, aims and splendid promise; reams have been written about the woman of the past, in all ages, under all conditions, her limitations, her achievements. But what about the woman of to-morrow? Will she go on steadily, firmly, unswervingly towards the full accomplishment of what we women to-day long for, hope for, pray for, wait for? Will she?
When we look back fifty years and note what has been overcome, what women have achieved in educational, business, philanthropic and sociological lines, we are wont to preen ourselves andto glory in all “we” have accomplished. Fifty years ago the first woman was just beginning to wrest her diploma from the unwilling university. Fifty years ago the first woman doctor was taking her degree. The first newspaper women were making their first attempts at journalism. And scores, yes, hundreds, of avenues, now so long open to women that we do not stop to count them, were not only shut, but nobody was dreaming of pushing them ajar—nobody, that is, but Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucy Stone and their friends—and well ridiculed for it they were, too.
But to-day all American womanhood stands on a broad, high plateau, with eager faces turned hopefully to the future. We look forward confidently and with the surety of success, because everything has been made easy for us. Are we too confident? Is there not danger of our forgetting that we are still a long footpath from the millennium and that there is a deal of work to be done before women, collectively speaking, get there? Do we realize sufficiently the duty and responsibility devolving upon us in regard to the betterment of home and humanity? Do we really understand the opportunities which influencebegets? And since woman’s responsibility goes hand in hand with her influence, which has always been proportionate to her own merit, while environment and education have been important factors in determining this work, then how great must be her responsibility to-day as compared with that of her sister in former ages!
Mary Lyon used for the motto at Mount Holyoke in the days when our mothers and grandmothers used to come under her care, “Freely have ye received, freely give”—although, for that, the words originated with a Greater than Mary Lyon. There is no doubt about our having “freely received”; are we “freely giving”? There was never a period in the world’s history when women’s work counted for so much, when it was so much needed. Ancient history says very little about what women did in the early ages; but we know they did their part. The model women of Hebrew history were toilers. We see, as one bright woman has said, “a mother’s ready ingenuity saving the life of her baby boy, when the father’s strength was a broken reed. We see her commit the tiny ark to the mercy of the waters of the Nile; we see another woman—a sister—running fleet-footedalong the reedy banks of the river, her loving eyes upon the rocking cradle adrift on the eddying stream. We see yet another woman—a king’s daughter—stoop to the river’s edge to lift in her arms the child of destiny. Three women working in unconscious federation—and lo! a race of men is freed and a kingdom builded in the wilderness!”
What the world wants of woman to-day is the utmost development of the positive feminine moral force in her spirit and her life. Woman has been said to be the conscience of the world, and there is profound truth in that. It was the conscience of Blanche of Castile which melted the noblest king France ever had—Louis the Ninth. It was the conscience of the American woman which was the one invulnerable, irresistible, unsilenced enemy of American slavery. That conscience of woman is the tower which society will always need to have developed and regnant within it, and there is no other office so great.
Sympathy in woman comes nearest to the heart of Christ—sympathy for the erring, the sick and suffering. That is one power which she needs to contribute to society. Her sympathyis the heat ray combined with the light ray in the perfect sunbeam, and wherever it goes there flower charities, asylums, and all institutions of human benevolence spring naturally as the bloom of the flowers from the sod which the sun has warmed.
Then, too, there is woman’s courage. We are so accustomed to associate courage with physical strength that we do not always think of it as pre-eminently a womanly grace when the feminine nature has been fully unfolded and trained, but it is. The reckless rapture of self-forgetfulness, that which inspires persons and nations, that which is sovereign over obstacle and defeat, and perils and resistance, has belonged to woman’s heart from the beginning. In the early pagan time, in the Christian development, in mission and in martyrdoms, it has shown; in the mediæval age as well as in our own time; in the Prussian woman after the battle of Jena, when Prussia seemed trampled into the bloody mire under the cannon of Napoleon. Oh, the passion, the forgetfulness, the supreme self-devotion with which woman flings herself into the championship of a cause that is dear and sacred and trampled under foot! It is her crown ofrenown; it is her staff of power! This conscientiousness in woman, this sympathy, this courage and self-devotion in woman, give her her place in the future civilization of the world and glorify the society into which she is born and of which she becomes the mistress.
We are in need of city mothers as well as city fathers; not until the mother-care has reached out into all departments of municipal life and the incentive to good has become as powerful as the incentive to evil; not until the beautiful and the true are clothed in forms as attractive as the vile and false; not until nobleness and purity of character are requisites demanded of those who fill high public positions—not until then will women cease to have opportunity for efficient, practical effort; not until then will women cease to have a share of public responsibility.
According to Dean Swift, the men of his age asked each other if it were prudent to choose a wife who had a little knowledge of history and the capacity to discuss the more important affairs of the time and the obvious beauties of poetry. The general verdict, he says, was against such attainments in women because their tendency was to make wives pretentious and conceited,and not duly subject to their husbands. I know of but one man to-day who would dare express such sentiments, if he believed them—and but few who can be suspected of cherishing such ideas in secret. For we have not many men who belong in the past ages.
Even in the early years of the last century it was supposed that woman’s mentality could be broadened and exercised sufficiently by the receipt book and the sampler, and it was not till the inventions of each succeeding decade lightened woman’s labor that she had greater time for study. It was this development which brought about the beginnings of the club movement, in the late sixties and early seventies, which gathered in women who desired mental improvement and longed for that life which was more than meat and drink—women who needed an outlook upon the world at large and an inlook upon their own intellectual condition. But mere literary work did not satisfy women who conscientiously believed that influence meant responsibility and were clear-sighted enough to see that in organization was the power to combat the ills of the world and to elevate humanity. Thus they broadened their scope, making their objecthumanity-lifting. Above all is it to be seen in the mental development of woman herself and in her awakening to the fact that she has powers and capabilities which can be used for the good of humanity.
This rule, given in “What All the World’s a-Seeking,” ought to be daily read over by all women: The self should never be lost sight of. It is the one thing of supreme importance, the greatest factor even in the life of the greatest service. Being always and necessarily precedes doing; having always and necessarily precedes giving. But this law also holds: That when there is being, it is all the more increased by the giving. Keeping to one’s self dwarfs and stultifies. Hoarding brings loss; using brings ever greater gain. In brief, the more we are, the more we can do; the more we have, the more we can give. And thus it is that one becomes a queen among women. Not honor for themselves, but service for others. But notice the strange, wonderful, beautiful transformation as it returns upon itself—honor for themselves, because of service for others.