'. J'. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2008 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/congressofwomenhOOcongrich The Congressof women u HELD IN THE WOMAN'S BUILDING, WORLD'S Columbian Exposition, CHICAGO, U. S. A., 1893. WITH PORTRAITS, BIOGRAPHIES AND ADDRESSES. PUBLISHED BY AUTHORITY OF THE BOARD OF LADY MANAGERS, MRS. BERTHA M. HONORE PALMER, PRESIDENT. EDITED BY • MARY KAVANAUGH OLDHAM EAGLE, CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE ON CONGRESSES, OF THE BOARD OF LADY MANAGERS. OFFICIAL EDITION. SOLD ONLY BY SUBSCRIPTION. S. I. BELL & CO., PHILADELPHIA, PA. CHICAGO, ILL. 1894 f^Q nob Entered according to Act of Congress in the year A. D. 1894, by W. B. CONKEY COMPANY, In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C. This work being fully protected by copyright, any infringement will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. EXCHANGE sc^ • • • . • COMME/^ORATIVE \ . -v. ; , ^ • • • « • • , Of the many pleasant and profitable days spent together. THE COMMITTEE ON CONGRESSES. By permission, dedicate this work to the President and members of the Board of Lady Managers of the Columbian Exposition. 9889,'58 PUBLISHERS' PREFACE. •rjT^JIJS'.'Objedt 'a£:tJr6 "publication of this book is to present an account of some of the ^ most important assemblages of women the world has ever known. As a part of the Columbian Exposition, the greatest event of its kind in history, there was a daily gathering of women, who, in a great building devoted to their uses, expressed their ideas regarding the social, business and political affairs of humankind and all that pertains to making a greater future for the human race. This book reproduces the ideas advanced by these women, who represented the civilized world. It is the record of most earnest and potential and practical assemblages of women. What is in these pages indicates what women are to-day. The book contains the addresses made by those representing the more active women of two continents. It is a book every thoughtful woman and every thoughtful man should possess, and must, from its very quality and the circumstances of its production, be part of the important data of future histories. No publishers' preface will aid it much. It is a book which will retain its place because it commands a status as describing an important part of one of the most important events in history. It may be that it was even the most striking part, since among the greatest problems of the times is aggressively prominent that of the relations of men and women in the work of the world and in the division of its profits and its honors. MRS. BERTHA M. HONORE PALMER, President of the Board of Lady Managers. PREFACE. THE Columbian Exposition, in its unrivaled physical beauty, has culminated and vanished like the blossoms of a gorgeous Century plant, leaving only a memory of its superb efiftorescence and subtle charm. In order that the efforts made in its behalf may not all be lost, and that a reminder of its aesthetic and educational influ- ence may remain with us, Mrs. James P. Eagle, the untiring and devoted chairman, has collected in permanent form the valuable papers secured by herself and her committee for the Congresses in the Woman's Building. Nothing could be more broadly representative than the catholic presentation given in these Congresses to many important topics from many points of view. The names contained in the list of contributors are in themselves a sufficient guaranty of the great merit of the papers, which were so warmly received at the time of their presentation. I trust that the final and important service performed by Mrs. Eagle in placing these papers within reach of the public, may receive the indorsement which it merits. Bertha M. Honore Palmer. ■President of the Board of Lady Managers. TABLE OF CONTENTS. Pages. Publisher's Preface 6 Preface .,......,....., , „ , g Introduction 13-14 Index to Authors , 1 5-16 Index to Subjects 17-19 Index to Illustrations , . , . . 21-22 Opening Address 25-29 Papers Read Before the Congress 30-815 Presentation of Mrs. Palmer's Portrait 816-819 Closing Address > . . . o . . 820-824 MRS. MARY K. O. EAGLE, Editor. INTRODUCTION. T HE Congresses held in the Woman's Building were inaugurated under a resolu- tion unanimously passed by the Board of Lady Managers on September 7, 1891, which read as follows: ''Resolved, That a special committee of seven be appointed who shall have charge of arranging for Congresses to be held in the Woman's Building during the Fair." The president of the board appointed the following committee: Mrs. James P. Eagle, Mrs. Helen M. Barker, Miss Laurette Lovell, Miss Eliza M. Russell, Mrs. L. M. N. Stevens, Mrs. Susan R. Ashley and Mrs. Jennie Sanford Lewis (now deceased). Mrs. Jno. J. Bagley and Mrs. L. BraceShattuck were afterward added to the commit- tee, and Mrs. Bagley was elected vice-chairman. On August 5, 1893, the board adopted a recommendation to publish the Congress papers in book form to be sold for the benefit of the Woman's Memorial Building fund. The chairman of the committee having conducted the correspondence necessary, and arranged the entire program for the Woman's Building Congresses, having also been present and presiding at each of these daily meetings, except on three occasions, when the executive committee, of which she is a member, was in session, was regarded a suitable person to edit the work of the Congresses which is herein presented to the public: Mrs. Potter Palmer, president of the Board of Lady Managers, made the nomination, which was confirmed by the unanimous vote of the committee at a meet- ing held November 7, 1893, when only one member of the committee was absent. It was considered in the interest of the Board of Lady Managers and the pub- lisher, that this work should not be delayed longer than three months after the close of the Exposition. A contract was entered into with the publisher to that effect. No pains, or money, or diligence has been spared in our efforts to secure the complete representation in this volume of each contributor to the Congress. It is sincerely to be regretted that there are a few women, whose articles should appear in this work, that we have either been unable to reach or unable to secure contributions from on account of previous disposition having been made of their papers, proposed individual publications or the difficulty of reproducing satisfactorily addresses delivered without notes. Over one thousand letters and dozens of telegrams have been sent out in this interest since November loth. With much gratitude we acknowledge indebtedness to the hundreds of women with whom we have had correspondence, for their unfailing courtesy and particu- larly to those who appeared from time to time on the Congress platform. This inter- course has been altogether pleasant and harmonious throughout the entire Exposi- tion, and has been a most flattering revelation of woman's attainments in grace, cult- ure, thought and literature. To Mrs. Potter Palmer, president of the Board of Lady Managers, and to many of the members of the board, we tender special thanks for their counsel, encouragement and co-operation in the difficult and laborious task assigned to this committee. The plan of the committee was to have a leading address, followed by free dis- cussion whenever the nature of the subject invited debate. We publish only the addresses. The courtesy of these pages has been extended to women who prepared papers and were prevented from appearing at the appointed time by bereavements and other good causes, and in a few instances has been accepted. One of the objects of this work has been to mirror the women of the Columbian year — faithfully reflecting their purposes, plans and powers as they stand the chosen representatives of the various states of this Union and of the nations of the earth. As we succeeded in presenting representatives from thirty states and twenty nations we feel justified in believing that this object has been attained. Other purposes were to provide for communion and interchange of thought between women engaged in the same and diverse lines of work and the compilation of valuable literary and historical papers to serve as stepping stones to future prog- ress which has also, to the minds of many, been realized. We have not assumed to direct or dictate the utterances, and will not be expected to indorse all articles admitted without discrimination. The one thought of the president of the Board of Lady Managers and the entire membership of the board, whether acting as a whole, as individuals or committees, has been to serve well, the women of the present and the future. To the charity of the public we trust the imperfections of our work. Editor. INDEX TO AUTHORS. PAGE. Abbott, Mrs. Alice Asbury 645 Aberdeen, Lady Ishbel 743 Adams, Mrs. Mary Newbury 342 Alcala de, Senorita Catalina 398 Anthony, Miss Susan B 787 Arcambal de, Mrs. Agnes. L 148 Baird, Mrs. Priscilla 414 Barlow, Miss Horence 797 Bates, Miss Octavia Williams 664 Bay, Mrs. Lillian Cantrell 260 Bayard, Mrs. Mary Temple 435 Bell, Miss Laura 516 Bjorn, Mme. Thora K 740 Blackwell, Rev. Antoinette Brown 633 Blake, Mrs. Lillie Devereux 32 Boyd, Mrs. Gaston 570 Brady, Mrs. Sue Huffman 306 Brazza di, Countess Cora Slocomb 697 Bristol, Rev. Augusta Cooper 80 Brotherton, Mrs. Alice Williams 67 Brown, Dr. M. Augusta 477 Bucklin, Miss Lorain Pearce 450 Bullock, Mrs. Electa 510 Bullock, Mrs. Helen L 143 Cantrell, Mrs. Ellen Harrell 253 Cappiani, Mme. Louisa 500 Chapin, Rev. Augusta J 393 Clark, Mrs. Laura H 512 Cohen, Miss Katherine M 428 Cohen, Mrs. Nina Morais 113 Cole, Miss Annette 600 Conway, Miss Clara 402 Cooper, Mrs. Sarah B 296 Cope, Mrs. Theresa Elizabeth 531 Corbin, Mrs. Caroline Fairfield 326 Corson, Miss Juliet 714 Craig, Mrs. M . K 198 Crawford, Mrs. Emily 87 Cummins, Mrs. Ella Sterling 184 Curwen, Mrs. Mary T. W 165 Devereux, Mrs, C. A. R 752 Dibble, Mrs. Martha Cleveland 704 Dickinson, Mrs. Mary Lowe 637 Dillaye, Miss Blanche 643 Dodd, Mrs. Anna A 754 Donohue, Dr. Mary E 727 Douglas, Mrs. Selwyn 383 Douglass, Mrs. Jean Loughborough 733 Drury, Mrs. J. Wilson 471 Duniway, Mrs. Abigail Scott 90 Eagle, Mrs. James P 15 and 816 Eastman, Mrs. Annis Ford 612 Edwards, Mrs. Amanda M 760 PAGE. Fairbanks, Mrs. Caroline Fuller 503 Field, Miss Kate 77 Field (Catherine Cole), Mrs. Martha R 776 Foster, Mrs. J. Ellen 668 Fredericsen, Miss Kirstine 237 Fuller, Mrs. Brainerd 491 Gaddess, Mrs. Mary L 221 Gage, Mrs. Marie Mott 737 Galloway, Miss Janet A 337 Garrett, Miss Mary S 443 George, Mrs. Jonnie Allen 388 Gohl, MissCecile 316 Gordon, Mrs. Laura de Force 74 Gould, Mrs. Minna Gordon 660 Green, Mrs. Anna S 649 Greene, Miss Mary A 41 Grinnell, Mrs. Katherni V 628 Hanna, Mrs. John R 53 Hayes, Miss Mary V 474 Henrotin, Mrs. Charles 348 Hinds, Miss Ida K 438 Hitchcock, Mrs. Romyn 556 Holt, Mrs. Charlotte 190 Howard, Mrs. A. L 463 Howe, Mrs. Julia Ward 102 Howell, Mrs. Mary Seymour 679 Hoxie, Mrs. Vinnie Ream 603 Hull, Mrs. Mary Hess 609 Hultin, Rev. Ida C 788 Jenkins, Mrs. Helen Philleo 686 Johnson, Miss Helen Louise 810 Johnston, Mrs. Adelia A. F 555 Keene, Miss Mary Virginia 194 Kenealy, Miss Annesley 354 Ketcham, Mrs. Emily Burton 361 Korany, Mme. Hanna K 359 Lake, Mrs. Isabel Wing 574 Lake, Mrs. Leonora Marie 508 Lankton, Dr. Freeda M 268 Lease, Mrs. Mary Elizabeth 412 Lewis, Mrs. Amanda Kerr 371 Lincoln, Mrs. Mary 1 138 Lipscomb, Mrs. M. A 469 Lock wood, Mrs. Mary S 816 Lord, Miss Eleanor 281 Louis, Mrs. Minnie D 639 Lundin, Mile. Hulda 104 Magnusson, Mme. Sigrid E 521 Manning, Miss Agnes M 107 Marsden, Miss Kate 213 Marshall, Mme. Marie 211 15 16 INDEX TO AUTHORS. PAGE. McDiarmid, Mrs. Clara A 723 McDonald, Prof. Cora M 264 McGee, Miss L. C 249 Meriweather, Mrs. Lide . 747 Messenger, Mrs. Lillian Rozell 227 Meyer, Mrs. Nicoline Bech 243 Meyer, Mrs. Annie Nathan 135 Miller, Mrs. Kate 782 Miller, Mrs. Annie Jenness 695 Mitchell, Miss Alice A 405 Monroe, Mrs. Harriet Earhart 311 Moore, Miss Aimee K. Osborne 308 Morgan, Miss Anna 597 Mott, Mrs. Emma Pratt 544 Norris, Mrs. Mary E. C 674 Ormsbee, Mrs. E.J 590 Palmer, Mrs. Bertha Honor^ 25, 821 Palmer, Mrs. Sarah Eddy 432 Peabody, Mrs. Mary H 205 Peck, Mrs. Maria Purdy 623 Pelham, Lady Arthur 576 Pitblado, Mrs. Effie 793 Pollard, Mrs. Marie Antoinette Nathalie 293 Potter, Miss Jennie O'Neil 682 Potts, Mrs. Eugenia Dunlap 562 Prescott, Mrs. Lydia A 526 Proctor, Miss Mary A 301 Quinton, Mrs. Amelia S 71 Reed, Mrs. Caroline G 240 Reed, Mrs. Elizabeth A. 719 Reese, Miss Cara 328 Rich, Mrs. Ellen M 365 Richards, Mrs. Ellen H 713 Riggs, Mrs. Anna R 813 Rogers, Miss May 586 Roman, Mrs. Sallie Rhett 535 Romney, Mrs. Caroline Wescott 579 Salazar, Signora Fanny Zampini 157 Sawyer, Mrs. Winona Branch 273 Schahovskoy, Princess M 569 Schirmaches, Miss Kathe 181 PAGE. Scull, Mrs. Sarah Amelia 423 Sewall, Mrs. May Wright 771 Shaw, Rev. Anna Howard 152 Sheldon, Miss Elizabeth B 790 Sheldon, Mrs. M. French 131 Sherman, Mrs, Caroline K 764 Sherman, Mrs. Julia Edwards 670 Smith, Miss Marion Couthouy 616 Smith, Mrs. Mary Stuart 408 Smith, Mrs. Wesley 217 Smith, Mrs. Clara Holbrook 332 Smith, Mrs, Virginia Thrall 178 Smith, Mrs. Eva Munson 416 Souville, Mrs. E. M 691 Spence, Mrs, Catherine Helen 458 Spencer, Rev. Anna Garlin 170 Starkweather, Mrs, Louise A 62 Stevenson, Mrs, Matilda Coxe 484 Stevenson, Dr. Sarah Hackett 708 Stone, Mrs, Lucy 58 Stone, Mrs, C, E. Whiton 101 Stone, Mrs, Lucinda H 446 Street, Miss Ida M 286 Sunderland, Mrs. Eliza Read 318 Todd, Mrs. Mary C 39 Trueheart, Mrs, S, C 804 Tutwiler, Miss Julia S 36 Twitchell, Mrs, Eliza Stowe 495 Villafuerte, Miss Virginia 406 Ware, Mrs. Eugene 277 Welch, Miss Jane Meade 30 Wheeler, Mrs. Candace 818 Wheelock, Miss Lucy 323 White, Mrs. Jennie F 123 Wilkinson, Mrs. Laura S 233 Wilson, Miss Alisan 488 Wilson, Mrs. Elizabeth M 203 Wilson (n6e Petrie), Mrs. Ashley Carus 651 Windeyer, Miss Margaret 97 Woolley, Mrs. Celia Parker 763 Wright, Miss Mary P 305 Zacaroff, Mile. Caricl^e 618 Zeman, Mrs. Josefa Humpal 127 INDEX TO SUBJECTS. TITLE. PAGE. Advantages and Dangers of Organizations. . . Rev. Anna Garlin Spencer . : 170 ^Esthetic Culture Mrs. Priscilla Baird 414 An African Expedition Mrs. M. French Sheldon 131 Agriculture Mrs. A. M. Edwards 760 An Appeal of Art to the Lovers of Art Mrs. Mary Cherry Norris 674 Art Mrs. Emily Crawford 87 Art of Elocution Miss Anna Morgan 597 Art of Living, The Mrs. Ellen M. Rich 365 Art Isms Miss Annette Cole 600 Assyrian Mythology. .Mrs. Elizabeth A. Reed 719 Avocations of English Women. . Mrs. Theresa Elizabeth Cope 531 Business Woman in Kentucky, A.. Miss Flor- ence Barlow 797 Certain Methods of Studying Drawing. , .Miss Aimee K. Osborne Moore 380 Changing Ideals in .Southern Womanhood Mrs. Sue Huffman Brady 306 Characteristics of the Modern Woman Mrs. Caroline K. Sherman 764 Charles Lamb Mrs. C. A. R. Devereux 752 Chicago Miss Marion Couthouy Smith 616 Chicago Women. .Dr. Sarah Hackett Steven- son 708 Children of the Other Half, The Miss Lucy Wheelock 323 Cholera in Hamburg, The Miss Annesley Kenealy 354 Citizens, The Making of Mrs. H. E. Mon- roe 311 Closing Address Mrs. Potter Palmer 821 Columbia's Women Mrs. Amanda Kerr Lewis 371 Columbus; or. It was Morning Mrs. Lillian Rozell Messenger 227 Come South, Young Woman ! Mrs. Martha R. Field 776 Compensation Mrs. Alice Asbury Abbott 645 Complete Freedom for Women. . . Miss Agnes M. Manning 107 Congratulation on the Possession of Por- trait Mrs. Candace Wheeler 818 Cookery Mrs. Mary J. Lincoln 138 Cooking as an Art. . . Miss Helen Louise John- son 810 Culture; Its Fruit and Its Price (extracts from) Mrs. May Wright Bewail 771 TITLE. PAGE. Dawning of the Twentieth Century, The Mrs. Mary Seymour Howell 679 De Stael, Madame Mrs. Helen Philleo Jen- kins 686 Development in Eastern Washington Mrs. Jennie F. White 123 Dress Improvement Mrs. Annie Jenness Miller 695 Economic Independence of Woman Mrs. Lydia A. Prescott 526 Educational Value of Applied Arts, The Miss Elizabeth B. Sheldon 790 Education of Girls and Women in Glasgow . . Miss J. A. Galloway 3:37 Education of Indian Girls in the West Mrs. Mary C. Todd 39 Effective Voting, On Miss H. C. Spence 458 Eliot, George Miss Ida M. Street 286 Encouragement of Home Industries Lady Ishbel Aberdeen 743 English Women of the Eighteenth Century, Some Mrs. Caroline Fuller Fairbanks 503 Epic Mrs. E. M. Souville 691 Etching Miss Blanche Dillaye 643 Ethics of Social Life, The Mrs. John R. Hanna 53 Evolution of American Literature Mrs. M. K. Craig 198 Evolution of Home, The. . .Miss Juliet Corson 714 Faith of Islam, The. . Mrs. Laura H, Clark .... 512 Fate of Republics, The. .Rev. Anna Howard Shaw 152 Feast of Columbia, The. .Mrs. Alice Williams Brotherton 67 Financial Independence of Women, The Mrs. Ellen M. Henrotin 348 Finding of the New WorJd, The.. Miss Jane Meade Welch 30 Food for .Students. . . .Mrs. Ellen H Richards 713 Footfree in God's Country. .Mrs. Marie An- toinette Nathalie Pollard 293 Forgotten Foremothers, Our Mrs. Lillie Devereaux Blake 32 George Meredith's Novels Miss Margaret VVindeyer 97 Glimpse of Modern Spain, A Miss Laura Bell 516 Glory of Womanhood, The Mme. Hanna K. Korany 359 17 18 INDEX TO SUBJECTS. TITLE. PAGE. God's Thought of Woman Mrs. Anna Rankin Riggs 813 Goethe and Schiller. .Miss Mary Virginia Keene 194 H Harmonious Adjustment Through Exercise. . Mrs. Minna Gordon Gould 660 Harmonious Culture Miss Ida K. Hinds 438 Henrik Ibsen and Bjornstjerne Bjornson Mrs. Nicoline Bech Meyer 243 Higher Education and the Home Mrs. E. R.Sunderland ^ 318 Higher Lessons of the World's Fair Mrs. Lucinda H. Stone 446 Higher Womanhood, The. .Mrs. Caroline F. Corbin 326 Historic Women of Egypt. .Mrs. Caroline G. Reed 240 Home and Its Foundations, The. .Rev. Annis Ford Eastman 612 Home of the Future, The. . . Miss L. C. McGee 249 Home Side of Progress, The. .Mrs. Clara Hol- brook Smith 332 Homer and His Poems. . . .Mrs. Nina Morais Cohen 113 Household Economics. .Mrs. Laura S.Wilkin- son 233 How Can We Aid ? Mrs. Agnes L. d'Arcambal 148 I Ideal Home for Children, An.. Mrs. Kate O. Miller 782 Influence of Great Women of the Past. . . Mrs. Mary Newbury Adams 342 Industrial Revolution of the Last Century, The Mrs. Eliza Stowe Twitchell 495 Industrial Women Mrs. Electa Bullock 510 Intelligent Treatment of the Body Mrs. Marie Mott Gage 737 International Arbitration Miss Eleanor Lord 281 Ishmaelite of Oklahoma, The.. Mrs. Selwyn Douglas 383 Is Woman the Weaker Vessel?. .Mrs. Sarah Eddy Palmer 432 Italian Women of the Country, The Countess Cora Slocomb di Brazza 697 Japanese, The Mrs. Romyn Hitchcock 556 Justice and Freedom for All Princess M. Schahovskoy 569 K Katharina in the Taming of the Shrew or "The Rights of Men." . Mrs. Emma Pratt Mott . . 544 Kindergarten as a Character Builder, The. . . Mrs. Sarah B. Cooper 296 Kindergarten, The Mrs. Virginia Thrall Smith 178 Labor Dignified, Is Mrs. Lenora Marie Lake 508 Landmarks Rev. Antoinette B. Black- well 633 TITLE. PAGE, Land We Love, The. .Mrs. Mary L. Gaddess 221 Law and Women Mrs. Maria Purdy Peck 623 Legal Condition of Women in 1492—1892 Miss Mary A. Greene 41 Legal Profession for Women, The Mrs. Wenona Branch Sawyer 273 Leper, The Miss Kate Marsden 213 Life and Times of Isabelle of Castile Miss Loraine P. Bucklin 450 Life of an Artist Miss Katherine Cohen 428 Lincoln and Farragut Mrs. Vinnie Ream Hoxie 603 Literature for Young People. . .Prof. Cora M, McDonald 264 Looking Backwards Miss Kirstine Fred- ericsen 237 M Margaret Fuller. .Mrs. Celia Parker Woolley 763 Medical Profession for Women, The Dr. Freeda M. Lankton 268 Marriage Prospects in Germany Miss Kathe Schirmaches 181 Mexico Miss Virginia Villafuerte 406 Monologue as an Entertainment, The. . .Miss Jennie O'Neil Potter 682 Months in Old Mexico, Four. . .Mrs. Caroline Wescott Romney 579 Moorish Women as I Found Them. . . Mrs. A. L. Howard 463 Moors of Spain, The Mrs. Ellen Harrell- Cantrell 253 Municipal Suffrage for Women in Michigan Miss Octavia Williams Bates 664 N Nationalism Mrs. Lillian Cantrell-Bay 260 Need of a Great College in the South Miss Clara Conway 402 Needlework as Taught in Stockholm Mile. Hulda Lundin 104 Nervous American, The. .Mrs. Martha Cleve- land Dibble 704 New Field for Women, A Mrs. Julia Edwards Sherman 670 New Liberty Bell, The Miss Alice A. Mitchell 405 Next Step in the Education of the Deaf, The Miss Mary S. Garrett 443 Next Thing in Education, The Mrs. Mary Lowe Dickinson 637 Nineteenth Century, The. . Mrs. Whiton Stone 101 Norway and the Midnight Sun. . Mrs. A. A. F. Johnston 555 Noted Writers of the South, A Few Mrs. J. W. Drury 471 Not Things, but Women Mrs. C. B. Pit- blado 793 Novel as an Educator of the Imagination, The Miss May Rogers 586 o Opening Address Mrs. Potter Palmer 25 Organized Motherhood Mrs. Lide Meri- weather 747 Our Neighbors, the Alaskan Women Mrs. Clara A. McDiarmid 723 INDEX TO SUBJECTS. 19 TITLE. PAGE. Pacific Northwest, The Abigail Scott Duniway 90 Peace Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Lease 412 Philanthropy for Girls in Paris. ..Mme. Marie xMarshall 211 Piano Playing without Piano Practice. . .Miss Mary V. Hayes 474 Pioneer Women of Oregon Mrs. Elizabetl M. Wilson 203 Poetry of the Stars Miss Mary Proctor 301 Portrait of Mrs. Potter Palmer 816 Portrait of Susan B. Anthony 787 Possibilities of the Southern States Mrs. Sallie Rhett Roman 535 Power and Purposes of Women, The Mrs. Helen L.Bullock. 143 Presentation of Portrait. ..Mrs. Mary S. Lock- wood 816 Preventive Medicine. . .Dr. Mary E. Donohue 727 Progress of Fifty Years, The . . Mrs. Lucy Stone 58 Samoa; Its People and Their Customs Mrs. E. J. Ormsbee 590 Self-Support Problem, A. . .Miss Julia S, Tut- wiler 36 Serving One Another Mrs. Ashley Carus- Wilson 651 Signs of the Times Miss Alisan Wilson 488 Sketch of Home Life in Iceland, A. .Mme. Sirgrid E. Magnusson 521 Spanish-American Neighbors, Our Mrs. Anna A. Dodd 764 St. Catherine of Siena Hon. Mrs. Arthur Pelham 576 Study in Goethe's Faust, A Mrs. Mary H. Peabody 205 Study of Greek Art, A. . . . Mrs. Sarah Amelia Scull 423 Swiss Customs Miss Cecile Gohl 316 Symmetrical Womanhood Mrs. Wesley Smith 217 Talk, A Miss Kate Field 77 Tempted Woman, The Mrs. Isabel Wing Lake 574 Turkish Compassionate Fund, The. .Mme. C. Zacaroff 618 u University Extension . . Rev. Augusta J. Chapin 393 Unveiling of Portrait Mrs. James P. Eagle 816 V Virginia Women of Our Day, The. .Mrs. Mary Stuart Smith 408 Vocal Art Mrs. Thora K. Bjorn 740 " Vocal Art," Extracts From. . Dr. M. Augusta Brown 477 Voice Culture Mme. Louisa Cappiani 500 w TITLE. PAGE. We, the Women Miss Cara Reese 328 What the Women of Kansas are Doing To- day Mrs. Eugene Ware 277 Who Are the Builders Mrs. Jonnie Allen George 388 Wife of Blennerhassett, The Mrs. Mary T. W. Curwen 165 Woman and Household Labor Mrs. Mary Hess Hull 609 Woman and Religion Rev. Ida C. Hultin 788 Woman as a Financier. . Mrs. M. A. Lipscomb 469 Woman as an Investor. . Mrs. Louise A. Stark- weather 62 Woman in an Ideal Government. .Mrs. K. V. Grinnell 628 Woman in Journalism Mrs. Mary Temple Bayard 435 Woman in Music Mrs. Gaston Boyd 570 Women in Politics Mrs. J. Ellen Foster 668 Woman in the Greek Drama. . Mrs. Julia Ward Howe 102 Woman, the Inciter to Reform. . Mrs. Minnie D.Louis 539 Woman, the New Factor in Economics Rev, Augusta Cooper Bristol 80 Woman Who Has Come, The. . Mrs. Charlotte Holt 190 Woman's Awakenment. . Mrs. Anna S. Green 649 Woman's Life in Asiatic Turkey.. Miss Mary P. Wright 305 Woman's Place in the Republic of Letters. Mrs. Annie Nathan Meyer 135 Woman's Sphere from a Woman's Standpoint Mrs. Laura de Force Gordon 74 Woman's Work in Kentucky. . .Mrs. Eugenie Dunlap Potts 562 Women as Political Economists. .Mrs. Brain- erd Fuller 491 Women Citizens and People? Are Mrs. Emily B. Ketcham 361 Women in Sacred Song Mrs. Eva Munson Smith 416 Women of Bohemia, The Madame Josefa Humpal Zeman 127 Women in Modern Italy Signora Fanny Zampini Salazar 157 Women's National Indian Association, The. . Mrs. Amelia S. Quinton 71 Women of the South Mrs. S. C. Trueheart 804 Women Writers of California, The Mrs. Ellen Sterling Cummins 184 Wonders of Nature and Art in Spain Senorita Catalina de Alcala 398 Young Women of the South, The. .Mrs. Jean Loughborough Douglass 733 Zuni Scalp Ceremonial, The Mrs. Matilda Coxe Stevenson 484 INDEX TO PORTRAITS. A PAGE. Abbott. Mrs. Alice Asbnry 645 Aberdeen, Lady Ishbel... 743 Adams, Mrs. Mary Newbury -.. ...342 Albright, Mrs. Franc Luse opp. p. 632 Allen, Mrs. E. W... opp. p. 502 Angell, Mrs. Sarah 8. C .-.opp. p. 370 Anthony, Miss Susan B_. 787 Arcambalde, Mrs. Agnes L ...148 Ashley, Mrs. Susan R 23 Austin, Miss Isabella J - opp. p. 632 B Bagley. Mrs. John J ...28— opp. p. 96 fiaird. Mrs. Priscilla A 414 Ball, Mrs. J.Frank opp. p. 1(54 Barker, Mrs. Helen Morton. 23 — opp. p. .502 Barlow, Miss Florence... 797 Bartlett, Mrs. Edward L. opp. p. 632 Biitps, Miss Octavia Williams 664 Bay, Mrs. Lillian Cantrell .• 260 Bayard, Mrs. Mary Temple 435 Beck, Miss E. Nellie opp. p. 232 Beeson, Mrs. Marie P. Harmon ...opp. p. 632 Bell, Mrs. Mary C opp. p. 232 Biorn, Mme. Thora K 740 Blackwell, Kev. Antoinette Brown 633 Blake, Mrs. Lillie Devereuz 32 Boyd, Mrs. Gaston 570 Brady, Mrs. Sue Huffman -.306 Brayton. Mrs. Ellery M opp. p. .'i02 Brazza di. Countess Cora Slocomb ...697 Briggs, Mrs. JohnS opp. p. 370 Bristol, Kev. Augusta Cooper 80 Brotherton, Mrs. Alice Williams 67 Brown, Mrs. H. F. opp. p. 370 Brown, Miss Lillian Mason - opp p. 370 Brown, Dr. M. Augusta 477 Bucklin, Miss Loraine Pearce -450 Bullock, Mrs. Electa .510 Bullock, Mrs. Hel«n L ...143 Burleigh, Mrs. Edwin C— opp. p. 304 Busselle, Miss Mary E.. opp. p. 434 Butler, Mrs. Thomas J opp. p. 6.32 C Cantrell, Mrs.EUen Harrell 253 Cantrill, Mrs. Mary Cecil opp. p. 96 Cappiani, Mme. Lonisa 500 Carse, Mrs. Matilda B opp. p. 696 Chandler, Mrs. Ellen M opp. p. 568 Chapin, Kev. Augusta J 393 Clarke, Mrs. Francis B opp. p. 370 Clark, Mrs. Laura H 512 Clark, Mrs. Whiting S opp. p. 2.32 Cochran, Mrs. Mary A opp. p. 568 Cohen, Miss Katherine M 428 Cohen, Mrs. Nina Morais ...113 Cole, Miss Annette 600 Coleman, Mrs. Robert J opp. p. 164 Conway, Miss Clara 402 Cooke, Mrs. Susan Gale opp. p. .502 (hooper, Mrs. Sarah B _ 296 Cope, Mrs. Theresa Elizabeth .531 Corbm, Mrs. Caroline Fairfield 326 Corson. Miss Juliet 714 Craig, Mrs. M. K.. 198 Crawford, Mrs. Emily 87 Cummins, Mrs. Ella Sterling 184 Cunningham, Miss Floride opp. p. 502 Curwen, Mrs. Mary T. W ...165 D Dailey, Miss Charlotte Field opp. p. .502 Deane, Mrs. James K opp. p. 164 Delaney, Mrs. A. K opp. p. 632 Devereux, Mrs. C. A. R ...752 PAGV Dibble, Mrs. Martha Cleveland 704 Dickinson, Frances, M. D opp. p. 696 Dickinson, Mrs. Mary Lowe... 687 Dillaye, Miss Blanche 643 Dodd, Mrs. Anna A.. 754 Donohue, Dr. Mary E 727 Doolittle, Jr., Mrs. James B.. opp. p. 696 Doty, Master Willie K opp. p. 762 Douglas, Mrs. Selwyn 383 Douglass, Mrs. Jean Loughborough 783 Drury, Mrs. J. Wilson 471 Duniway, Mrs. Abigail Scott.. 90 E Eagle, Mrs. James P 11 and 28— opp. p. 164 F^astman, Mrs. Annis Ford... 612 Edgerton, Mrs. Rollin A opp. p. 164 Edwards, Mrs. Amanda H ...760 F Fairbanks, Mrs. Caroline Fuller 503 Farnum, Mrs. Anna E. M opp. p. 232 Faulkner. Miss Jean W _ opp. p. 304 Felton, Mrs. Wm. H opp. p. 282 Field, Miss Kate... 77 Field ((Catherine Cole), Mrs. Martha R ..776 Foley, Mrs. M. D opp. p. 434 Ford, Miss Ellen A opp. p. 96 Fosdick, Mrs. Anna M opp. p. 164 Foster. Mrs. J. Ellen 668 Fredericsen, Miss Kirstine ..237 French, Mrs Jonas H opp. p. 304 Frost, Mrs. Ruflus S opp. p 304 FuUer, Mrs. Brainard ...491 G Gaddess, Mrs. Mary L 221 Gage, Mrs. Marie Mott 787 Galloway, Miss Janet A 887 Garrett, Miss Mary S... 448 George, Mrs. Jonnie Allen.. 388 Gillespie, Mrs. Laura opp. p. 502 Ginty, Mrs. Flora Beall opp. p. .568 Gohl, Miss Cecile 316 Gordon, Mrs. Laura de Force 74 Gould, Mrs. Minna Gordon 660 Greene, Miss Mary A 41 Green. Mrs. Anna S 649 GrinneU, Mrs. Kathemi V 628 Guthrie, Mrs. Genevieve..., --opp. p. 632 If Hale, Mrs. Frances E ...opp. p. 568 Hall, Mrs; Daniel opp. p. 434 Hanback, Mrs. Hester A ...opp. p.304 Hanna. Mrs. John R 53 Harrison, Mrs. F. H opp. p. 56S Harrison, Mrs. Mary S opp. p. 96 Hart, Mrs. Mary P opp. p. 434 Hartpencp, Mrs. Walter opp. p. 434 Hayes, Miss Mary V 474 Henrotin, Mrs. Charles 848 Hinds, Miss Ida K 488 Hitchcock, Mrs. Romyn.. 586 Holt, Mrs. Charlotte ...190 Hooker, Mrs. Isabella Beecher opp. p. 164 Houghton, Mrs. Alice opp. p. 568 Howard, Mrs. A. L 463 Howe, Mrs. Julia Ward 102 Howell, Mrs. Mary Seymour 678 Howes, Mrs. Eliza J. Pendry opp. p. 870 Hoxie, Mrs. VinnieReam 608 Hull, Mrs. Mary Hess 609 Hultin, Rev. Ida C 788 Hundley, Miss HattieToney... opp. p. 164 Ives, Mies Frances S opp. p. 164 21 22 INDEX TO PORTRAITS. J PAGE. Jackson, Mrs. A. C opp. p. 304 Jackson, Miss Lily Irene.. ...opp. p. 568 Jenkins, Mrs. Helen PhiUeo 686 Johnson, Miss Helen Louise 810 Johnston, Mrs. Adelia A. F 555 K Keene. Miss Mary Virginia. _ 194 Keneaiy, Miss Annesley ' 354 Ketcham, Mrs. Emily Burton [.]^!"361 Kidder, Mrs. George Wilson opp. p. 434 Kinder, Mrs. Mary Richards opp. p. 164 Korany, Mme. HannaK . 359 L Ladd, Mrs. Mira B. F opp. p. 434 Lake, Mrs. Isabel Wing. _ ".1 574 Lake, Mrs. Leonora Marie... 508 Langworthy, Mrs. E. C opp. p. 370 Lankton, Dr. Freda M . 268 Lease, Mrs. Mary Elizabeth 412 Lee, Mrs. James W... opp. p. 370 Lewis, Mrs. Amanda Kerr _ 371 Linch, Mrs. W. Newton ^ opp. p. 568 Lincoln, Mrs. Mary J... . .138 Lipscomb, Mrs. M. A 469 Lockwood, Mrs. Mary 8 opp. p. 96 Logan, Mrs. John A ...opp. p. 632 Lord, Miss Eleanor 281 Louis, Mrs. Minnie D 539 Lovell, MissLanrette 23— opp. p. 632 Lnndin, Mile. Hulda 104 Lynde, Mrs. William P.. opp. p. 568 M Magnusson, Mme. Sigrid E 521 Marsden, Miss Kate .213 Marshall, Mme. Marie 211 McAdow, Mrs. Clara L ...opp. p. 370 McCandless, Miss Mary E opp. p. 502 Mc( 'onnell, Mrs. W^. B. opp. p. 4.34 McDiarmid, Mrs. Clara A 723 McDonald, Prof . Cora M 264 McGee, Miss L. C 249 McLaughlin, Mrs. 8. W.. opp. p. 434 Meredith, Mrs. Virginia C opp. p. 232 Meri weather, Mrs.Xiide. 747 Messenger, Mrs. Lillian Rozell 227 Meyer, Mrs. NicolineBeck 243 Meyer, Mrs. Annie Nathan 135 Miller, Mrs. Kate O 782 Miller, Mrs. Annie JennesB... 695 Miller, Miss Ora Elizabeth opp. p. 232 Minor, Mrs. Katharine L... opp. p. 304 Mitchell, Miss Alice A.- 405 Mitchell, Mrs. Jennie S ...opp. p. 304 Monroe, Mrs. Harriet Earhart 311 Moore, Miss Aimee K. Osborne.. 380 Morgan, Miss Anna ,597 Mott, Mrs. Emma Pratt 544 Mulligan, Mrs. JamesA .-opp. p. 696 N Norris, Mrs. Mary E.C 674 O Oglesbv, Mrs. Richard J.. opp. p. 232 Olmstaad, Mrs. Charles H opp. p. 232 Ormsbee, Mrs. E.J 590 Opening of the Congress of Women . ; opp. p. 435 Owings, Mrs. Melissa D opp. p. .568 P Palmer, Mrs. Bertha M. Honor6 7, opp. p. 696 and 816 Palmer, Mrs. Sarah Fxidy 432 Paul, Mrs. K. 8. G ...opp. p. 568 Payton, Mrs. Mary opp. i). 502 Peabody, Mrs. Mary H . 205 Peck, Mrs. Marie Purdy 623 Perkins, Mrs. Belle H opp. p. 304 Pierce, Miss Ada_ opp. p. 762 Pitblado, Mrs. Effie. 793 Pollard, Mrs. Marie Antoinette Nathalie 293 Potter, Miss Jennie O'Neil _ 682 Potts, Mrs. Eugenia Dunlap 562 Prescott, Mrs. Lydia A 526 Price, Mrs. Charles opp. p. 434 Proctor, Miss Mary A.. 301 o Qainton, Mrs. Amelia S 71 R PAGE. Reed, Mrs. Caroline G 240 Reed, Mrs. Elizabeth A "."" 719 Reed, Mrs. William... opp.p. 304 Reese, Miss (^ara 323 Reitz, Miss Wilhelmine odd. d 232 Rich, Mrs. Ellen M l."'.'l..... 36.5 Richards, Mrs. Ellen H '...'.'. "llZ Rickards, Mrs. Eliza... "rr"opp.'p.'370 Riggs, Mrs. Anna R _ ' 813 Rogers, Miss May J 596 Roman, Mrs. Sallie Rhett "II .535 Romney, Mrs. Caroline Wescott. .......[/... 519 Rue, Mrs- Parthenia P opp. p. 164 Rnssell, Miss Eliza M 23— opp. p. 434 Ryan, Mrs. Rosine.. opp. p. 96 S Salazar, Signora Fanny Zampini .. 157 Salisbury, Mrs. Margaret Blaine. __ miopp. p. 632 Sawyer, Mrs. Winona Branch 273 Schahovskoy, Princess M ""..569 Scull, Mrs. Sarah Amelia " \'.l 423 Sewall, Mrs. May Wright ""III" 771 Shattuck, M rs. L. Brace I . .23— opp. p. 696 Shaw, Rev. Anna Howard 152 Sheldon, Miss Elizabeth B __'__ 1. 790 Sheldon, Mrs. M.French 131 Shelton, Mrs. Matilda Hart opplp. 502 Shepard, Mrs. Frances Welles opp. p. 232 Sherman, Mrs. Caroline K 764 Sherman, Mrs. Julia Edwards I... 670 Smith, Miss Marion Conthoay 616 Smith, Mrs. Mary Stuart _ 111408 Smith, Mrs. Wesley 217 Smith, Mrs. Clara Holbrook 332 Smith, Mrs. Virginia Thrall 178 Smith, Mrs. Eva Munson 416 Souville, Mrs. E. M ... 691 Spence, Mrs. Catherine Helen I-.IIIII458 Spencer, Rev. Anna Garlin 170 Starkweather, Mrs. Amey M.. opp. p. 502 Starkweather, Mrs. Louise A.. 62 Stevens, Mrs. L. M. N 23— opp. p. 304 Stevenson, Mrs. Matilda Coxe ..484 Stevenson, Dr. Sarah Hackett 708 Stone, Mrs. Leander opp. p. 696 Stone, Mrs. Lucy 58 Stone, Mrs, C. E. Whiton 101 Stone, Mrs. Lucinda H , 446 Stone, Mrs. John M.. opp. p. 370 Straughan, Mrs. Joseph C opp. p. 232 Street, Miss Ida M 286 Sunde.land, Mrs. Eliza Read 318 Thatcher, Mrs. M, D opp. p. 164 Thatcher, Jr., Mrs. Solomon opp. p. 696 Thatcher, Miss Claribel... opp. p. 762 Thatcher, Miss Florence opp. p. 762 Thomson, Mrs. Alexander . . .opp. p. 304 Todd, Mrs. Mary C 39 Trautmann, Mrs. Ralph _. opp. p. 434 Truehart. Mrs. 8. C 804 Turner, Mrs, Ida Loving . .opp. p. 502 Tutwiler, Miss Julia 8 36 Twitchell, Mrs. Eliza Stowe .495 V Verdenal, Mrs. D. F opp. p. 96 Villafuerte, Miss Virginia ..406 W Wallace, Mrs. M. R. M ...opp. p. 696 Ware, Mrs. Eugene 277 Welch, Miss Jane Meade "11 30 Whalen, Mrs, Tliomas A II I...oppIp. 632 Wheelock, Miss Lucy 323 White, Mrs. Jennie F.. ...123 Wilkins, Mrs. Beriah opp. p. 632 Wilkinson, Mrs. Laura 8 233 Wilson, Miss Alisan . 488 Wilson, Mrs. Elizabeth M 203 Wilson (n§ePetrie), Mrs. Ashley Cams 651 Wilson, Mrs. John R opp. p. 502 Windeyer, Miss Margaret 97 Wise, Mrs. John Sergeant opp. p. 568 Women's Building frontispiece WooUey, Mrs. Celia Parker 763 Wright, Miss Mary P 806 Zacaroff, Mile. Caricl6e 618 Zeman, Mrs. Josefa Humpal 127 COMMITTEE ON CONGRESSES OF THE BOARD OF LADY MANAGERS. 2. Mk8^ Jno. J. Bag LEY, V ice-Chairman. 4. Miss Eliza M. Rdssell. 7. Mas. L. Brace Shattlck. 1. Mrs. James P, Eagle, Chairman of Committee. 5. Mrs. Helen M. Barker. 8. Mrs. Susan R. A^ley. 6. Mrs. L. M. N. Stevens, 8. Miss Latjrette Lovell. ADDRESS DELIVERED BY MRS. POTTER PALMER, PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF LADY MANAGERS, ON THE OCCASION OF THE OPENING OF THE WOMAN'S BUILDING. M^X; jsi, .1893. -_ PUBLISHED BY PERMISSION. Members of the Board of Lady Managers and Friends: — The moment of fruition has arrived. Hopes which for more than two years have gradually been gaining strength and definiteness now become realities. Today the Exposition opens its gates. On this occasion of the formal opening of the Woman's Building, the Board of Lady Managers is singularly fortunate in having the honor to welcome distinguished official representatives of many of the able foreign committees and of the state boards, which have so effectively co-operated with it in accomplishing the results now to be disclosed to the world. We have traveled together a hitherto untrodden path, have been subjected to tedious delays and overshadowed by dark clouds, which threatened disaster to our enterprise. We have been obliged to march with peace offerings in our hands, lest hostile motives be ascribed to us. Our burdens have been greatly lightened, how- ever, by the spontaneous sympathy and aid which have reached us from women in every part of the world, and which have proved an added incentive and inspiration. Experience has brought many surprises, not the least of which is an impressive realiza- tion of the unity of human interests, notwithstanding differences of race, government, language,, temperament and external conditions. The people of all civilized lands are studying the same problems. Each success and each failure in testing and develop- ing new theories is valuable to the whole world. Social and industrial questions are paramount, and are receiving the thoughtful consideration of statesmen, students, political economists, humanitarians, employers and employed. The few forward steps which have been taken during our boasted nineteenth cent- ury — the so-called age of invention — have promoted the general use of machinery and economic motive powers with the result of cheapening manufactured articles, but have not afforded the relief to the masses, which was expected. The struggle for bread is as fierce as of old. We find, everywhere, the same picture presented — over- crowded industrial centers, factories surrounded by dense populations of operatives, keen competition, many individuals forced to use such strenuous effort that vitality is drained, in the struggle to maintain life under conditions so uninviting and discour- aging that it scarcely seems worth living. It is a grave reproach to modern enlighten- ment that we seem no nearer the solution of many of these problems than during feudal days. It is not our province, however, to discuss these weighty questions, except in so far as they affect the compensation paid to wage earners, and more especially that paid to women and children. Of all existing forms of injustice, there is none so cruel and inconsistent as is the position in which women are placed with regard to self-main- tenance—the calm ignoring of their rights and responsibilities, which has gone on for centuries. If the economic conditions are hard for men to meet, subjected as they 25 26 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. are to the constant weeding out of the less expert and steady hands, it is evident that women, thrown upon their own resources, have a frightful struggle to endure, espe- cially as they have always to contend against a public sentiment which discountenances their seeking industrial employment as a means of livelihood. The theory which exists among the conservative people, that the sphere of woman is her home — that it is unfeminine, even monstrous, for her to wish to take a place beside or to compete with men in the various lucrative industries — tells heavily against her, for manufacturers and producers take advantage of it to disparage her work and obtain her services for a nominal price, thus profiting largely by the necessities and helplessness of their victim. That so many should cling to respectable occupations while starving in following them, and should refuse to yield to discouragement and despair, shows a high quality of steadfastness and principle. These are the real ^)ieroines ^qf life, whose handiwork we are proud to install in the Exposition, because ■;i^ has lae^rC.prpcluced in factories, workshops and studios under the most adverse con- ditions an(^ with.tlje most sublime patience and endurance. /^ ^. ; :Men;of -tHi? fiflest and most chivalric type, who have poetic theories about the satlctity df the *n6me and the refining, elevating influence of woman in it, theories inherited from the days of romance and chivalry, which we wish might prevail forever - these men have asked many times whether the Board of Lady Managers thinks it well to promote a sentiment which may tend to destroy the home by encour- aging occupations for women which take them out of it. We feel, therefore, obliged to state our belief that every woman, who is presiding over a happy home, is fulfilling her highest and truest function, and could not be lured from it by temptations offered by factories or studios. Would that the eyes of these idealists could be thoroughly opened, that they might see, not the fortunate few of a favored class, with whom they possibly are in daily contact, but the general status of the labor market through- out the world and the relation to it of women. They might be astonished to learn that the conditions under which the vast majority of the " gentler sex " are living, are not so ideal as they assume; that each is not " dwelling in a home of which she is the queen, with a manly and loving arm to shield her from rough contact with life." Because of the impossibility of reconciling their theories with the stern facts, they might possibly consent to forgive the offense of widows with dependent children and those wives of drunkards and criminals who so far forget the high standard established for them as to attempt to earn for themselves daily bread, lacking which they must perish. The necessity for their work under present conditions is too evident and too urgent to be questioned. They must work or they must starve. We are forced, therefore, to turn from the realm of fancy to meet and deal with existing facts. The absence of a just and general appreciation of the truth concern- ing the position and status of women has caused us to call special attention to it and to make a point of attempting to create, by means of the Exposition, a well defined public sentiment in regard to their rights and duties, and the propriety of their becom- ing not only self-supporting, but able to assist in maintaining their families when nec- essary. We hope that the statistics which the Board of Lady Managers has been so earnestly attempting to secure may give a correct idea of the number of women — not only those without natural protectors, or those thrown suddenly upon their own resources, but the number of wives of mechanics, laborers, artists, artisans and work- men of every degree — who are forced to work shoulder to shoulder with their hus- bands in order to maintain the family. There are two classes of the community who wish to restrain women from actual participation in the business of the world, and each gives apparently very strong rea- sons in support of its views. These are, first, the idealists, who hold the opinion already mentioned that woman should be tenderly guarded and cherished within the sacred precincts of the home, which alone is her sphere of action; and, second, certain political economists, with whom maybe ranged most of the men engaged in the profit- able pursuit of the industries of the world, who object to the competition that would THE CONGRESS OE WOMEN. 27 result from the participation of women, because they claim that it would reduce the •"^eneral scale of wages paid, and lessen the earning power of men, who require their present incomes to maintain their families. Plausible as these theories are, we can not accept them without pausing to inquire, what then would become of all but the very few women who have independent fortunes or arc the happy wives of men able and willing to support them? The interests of probably three-fourths of the women in the world are at stake. Are they to be allowed to starve, or to rush to self- destruction? If not permitted to work, what course is open to them? Our oriental neighbors have seen the logic of the situation far more clearly than we and have been consistent enough to meet it, without shrinking from heroic measures when necessary. The question is happily solved in some countries by the practice of polygamy, which allows every man to maintain as many wives as his means permit. In others etiquette requires that a newly made widow be burned on the funeral pyre with her husband's body, while the Chinese take the precaution to drown surplus female children. It would seem that any of these methods is more logical and less cruel than the system we pursue of permitting the entire female population to live, but mak- ing it impossible for those born to poverty to maintain themselves in comfort, because they are hampered by a caste feeling almost as strong as that ruling India, which will not permit them to work on equal terms with men. These unhappy members of an inferior class must be content to remain in penury, living on the crumbs that fall from tables spread for those of another and higher caste. This relative position has been exacted on the one side, accepted on the other. It has been considered by each an inexorable law. We shrink with horror from the unjust treatment of child widows and other un- fortunates on the opposite side of the globe, but our own follies and inconsistencies are too close to our eyes for us to see them in proper perspective. Sentimentalists should have reduced their theories to set terms and applied them. They have had ample time and opportunity to provide means by which helpless women could be cherished, protected and removed from the storm and stress of life. Women could have asked nothing better. W^e have no respect for a theory which touches only the favored few who do not need its protection and leaves unaided the great mass it has assisted to push into the mire. Talk not of it, therefore, until it can be uttered, not only in polite drawing rooms, but also in factories and workshops without a blush of shame for its weakness and inefficiency. But the sentimentalist again exclaims: " Would you have woman step down from her pedestal in order to enter practical life?" Yes! A thousand times, yes! If we can really find, after a careful search, any women mounted upon pedestals, we should willingly ask them to step down — in order that they may meet and help to uplift their sisters. Freedom and justice for all are infinitely more to be desired than pedestals for a few. I beg leave to state that, personally, I am not a believer in the pedestal theory— never having seen an actual example of it, and that- I always suspect the motives of anyone advancing it. It does not represent the natural and fine relation be- tween husband and wife, or between friends. They should stand side by side, the fine qualities of each supplementing and assisting those of the other. Men naturally cher- ish high ideals of womanhood, as women do of manliness and strength. These ideals will dwell with the human race forever without our striving to preserve and protect them. If we now look at the question from the economic standpoint and decide for good and logical reasons that women should be kept out of industrial fields in order that they may leave the harvest for men, whose duty it is to maintain women and children, then by all the laws of justice and equity these latter should be provided for by their natural protectors, and if deprived of them should become wards of the state, and be maintained in honor and comfort. The acceptance of even this doctrine of tardy justice would not, however, I feel sure, be welcomed by the woman of today who, having had a taste of independence, will never willingly relinquish it. They have no desire to be 28 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. helpless and dependent. Having the full use of their faculties, they rejoice in exercis- ing them. This is entirely in conformity with the trend of modern thought, which is in the direction of establishing proper respect for human individuality and the right of self-development. Our highest aim now is to train each individual to find happiness in the full and healthy exercise of the gifts bestowed by generous nature. Ignorance is too expensive and wasteful to be tolerated. We cannot afford to lose the reserve power of any individual. We advocate, therefore, the thorough education and training of woman to fit her to meet whatever fate life may bring; not only to prepare her for the factory and workshop, for the professions and arts, but, more important than all else, to prepare her for presiding over the home. It is for this, the highest field of woman's effort, that the broadest training and greatest preparation are required. The illogical, ex- travagant, whimsical, unthrifty mother and housekeeper belongs to the dark ages. She has no place in our present era of enlightenment. No course of study is too elab- orate, no amount of knowledge and culture too abundant to meet the actual require- ments of the wife and mother in dealing with the interests committed to her hands. The board does not wish to be understood as placing an extravagant or senti- mental value upon the work of any woman because of her sex. It willingly acknowl- edges that the industries, arts and commerce of the world have been for centuries in the hands of men who have carefully trained themselves for the responsibilities de- volving upon them, and who have, consequently, without question, contributed vastly more than women to the valuable thought, research, invention, science, art and liter- ature, which have become the rich heritage of the human race. Notwithstanding their disadvantages, however, a few gifted women have made their value felt, and have rendered exceptional service to the cause of humanity. Realizing that woman can never hope to receive the proper recompense for her services until her usefulness and success are not only demonstrated but fully under- stood and acknowledged, we have taken advantage of the opportunity presented by the Exposition to bring together such evidences of her skill in the various industries, arts and proressions, as may convince the world that ability is not a matter of sex. Urged by necessity, she has shown that her powers are the same as her brothers', and that like encouragement and fostering care may develop her to an equal point of usefulness. The fact that the Woman's Building is so small that it can hold only a tithe of the beautiful objects offered, has been a great disadvantage. The character of the ex- hibits and the high standard attained by most of them serve, therefore, only as an in- dex of the quality and range of the material from which we have drawn. When our invitation asking co-operation was sent to foreign lands the commissioners already appointed generally smiled doubtfully and explained that their women were doing noth- ing; that they would not feel inclined to help us, and, in many cases, stated that it was not the custom of their country for women to take part in any public effort, that they only attended to social duties. But as soon as these ladies received our message, sent in a brief and formal letter, the free masonry among women proved to be such that they needed no explanation; they understood at once the possibilities. Strong committees were immediately formed of women having large hearts and brains, women who cannot selfishly enjoy the ease of their own lives without giving a thought to their helpless and wretched sisters. Our unbounded thanks are due to the exalted and influential personages who be- came, in their respective countries, patronesses and leaders of the movement inaugur- ated by us to represent what women are doing. They entered with appreciation into our work for the Exposition because they saw an opportunity, which they gracefully and delicately veiled behind the magnificent laces forming the central objects in their superb collections, to aid their women by opening new markets for their industries. The Exposition will thus benefit women, not alone by means of the material objects brought together, but there will be a more lasting and permanent result through the interchange of thought and sympathy among influential and leading women of all THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 29 countries now for the first time working together with a common purpose and an established means of communication. Government recognition and sanction give to these committees of women official character and dignity. Their work has been mag- nificently successful, and the reports which will be made of the conditions found to exist will be placed on record as public documents among the archives of every country.- Realizing the needs and responsibilities of the hour, and that this will be the first official utterance of women on behalf of women, we shall weigh well our words, words which should be so judicious and convincing that hereafter they may be treasured among the happy influences which made possible new and better condi- tions. We rejoice in the possession of this beautiful building, in which we meet today, in its delicacy, symmetry and strength. We honor our architect and the artists who have given not only their hands but their hearts and their genius to its decora- tion. For it women in every part of the world have been exerting their efforts and talents, for it looms have wrought their most delicate fabrics, the needle has flashed in the hands of maidens under tropical suns, the lacemaker has bent over her cushion weaving her most artful web, the brush and chisel have sought to give form and reality to the visions haunting the brain of the artist — all have wrought with the thought of making our building worthy to serve its great end. We thank them all for their successful efforts. The eloquent President of the Commission last October dedicated the great Exposition buildings to humanity. We now dedicate the Woman's Building to an elevated womanhood — knowing that by so doing we shall best serve the cause of humanity. THE FINDING OF THE NEW WORLD/ By MISS JANE MEADE WELCH. In the attempt to connect the New World with the Old in remotest times, it is almost impossible to find a clue that leads to documentary history. Nearly every European nation claims a hero, or group of heroes, who reached America before Columbus' time, and every eastern Asiatic race makes a similar claim. Of all these alleged pre-Columbian voyages to America, the only one that rests on actual proof is that of the Norsemen. But Leif Ericsson's chance finding of the North American coast somewhere between Cape Breton and Point Judith, led to no permanent coloni- zation, and did not impress itself upon the mind of Europe outside the Scandinavian peninsula. Hence it should not be mentioned in the same breath with Christopher Columbus' heroic venture. He sailed the Sea of Darkness, on the faith of a conviction, and " reunited two streams of human life that had flowed apart since the glacial age," establishing a permanent connection between the eastern and western halves of our planet. A long chain of circumstances led to his dis- covery of America. The closing of the eastern way to the orient through the taking by the Turks of Constantinople, made it necessary to find a new passage to the Indies. Years were given to the effort to find one by circumnavigating Africa, and one daring captain after another sailed down the gold coast. While these expeditions were going forward, Christopher Columbus, who may have taken part in one of them, was dwelling on the neighboring island of Porto Santo, There, three hundred miles out upon the Sea of Darkness, the idea of sailing due west to the Indies shaped itself in his mind. The story of Christopher Columbus' repeated rebuffs need not again be re- hearsed. As an example of courage he is pre-eminent, and no ingenuity of argu- ment can take from him his glory. Like Newton in the discovery of the law of gravitation, he did a thing that could be done but once. When Columbus landed on the island of Guanahani, he there found a new race of human beings whom he described as " gentle and uncovetous." They were of a red- dish hue, with small deep-set eyes, high cheek bones, straight black hair, and almost no beard. Our double continent was truly the great world of the red men, for with the exception of the sub-arctic Eskimo, they were its sole inhabitants. This conti- nent belonged to them. Their houses, while they varied in degrees of develop- Miss Jane Meade Welch is a native of Buffalo, N. Y. She was born March 11, 1854. Her parents were Thomas Cury Welch and Maria Allen Meade. She was educated at the Buffalo Seminary and Elmira College. She has traveled ex- tensively in America and in Great Britain, France, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland and Germany. Her profession is that of lecturer. She is the regular lecturer on American History at the Buffalo Seminary, St. Margaret's school, Buffalo; Mrs, Sylvanas Reed's school. New York; The Misses Masters' school, Dobbs Perry, and Ogontz school, Pa. She has also lect- ured at Cornell University. She is the first American woman to lecture at Cambridge, England, or whose work has been accepted by the British Association. Her address is Buffalo, N. Y. * [What here appears is a synopsis of the address, the object of which was to present the latest opinions qonceming the origin and degree of culture attained by America's early inhabitants.] 30 MISS JANE MEADE WELCH, THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 31 ment, were essentially the same, whether they were the skin lodges of the most northern tribes, or the pueblos of the Aztecs. They were communal houses, in which dwelt several, sometimes a great many, related families. Upon this communal household was built their political fabric. The lowest political unit in ancient America was the exogamous clan, next came the phratry, and then the tribe. With the exception of the Iroquois league and the Mexican confed- eracy, the tribe was the highest political organization in ancient America. Accord- ing to the scientific definition of civilization, there was no such thing in ancient Amer- ica. The tribes highest in development, social and political, were those in the Cor- dilleras, running from the New Mexican tableland through Peru. Those lowest in development were found, where many of them are still found, west of the Rocky Mountains, in California, and in the valleys of the Columbia, Yukon and Athabascan rivers. Large unexplored fields yet await the investigation of archaeologists and geologists in both North and South America. But the work thus far accomplished has convinced the majority of historians there never was a pre-historic American civ- ilization. That Aztecs, Mayas and Incas were Indians no less than were Algonquins or Iroquois. Many of these groups, particularly Peruvians, Mayas and Aztecs, presented strange incongruities of culture, but, tested by strict scientific standards, they were not civilized. As to whence these aborigines came, and how long they had inhabited America before they were found by the Spaniards, and succeeding Portuguese, French and English explorers, science has not yet been able to yield what is to all minds a satisfactory answer. Discoveries made by geologists in the past few years have altered our attitude toward these questions. It is certain, however, that they had been here a long time. The inhabitants of ancient America were indigenous. OUR FORGOTTEN FOREMOTHERS. By MRS. LILLIE DEVEREUX BLAKE. In speaking of " Our Forgotten Foremothers " I shall begin with that great queen who, in some sort, may be considered not only as the foremother of this nation, but of the whole New World — Isabella of Castile. Her clear intellect first grasped the thought that there might be a continent to be discovered, when her hus- band, her councilors and her courtiers all derided the claims of Columbus as mere idle dreams. Her stead- fastness sustained him through all his vicissitudes, and at last her action gave him the money with which to fit out the expedition. Next after our debt to the in- trepid navigator, this country owes its gratitude to the brave queen. And yet how completely has she been forgotten in all the celebrations and festivities of this commemorative year! Orators speak of the great enterprise of Columbus, poets rhymed in his honor, but Isabella, the woman who made his expedition pos- sible, was scarcely mentioned. When New York City was arranging for the cele- bration last fall, our City League wished to do honor to the queen by some decorations at the stand we occupied. We tried in vain to find a picture of her. The city was filled with so-called portraits of Colum- bus. He was depicted in every possible way, old and young, bearded and close-shaved, smiling with an amiable fatuity of expression, or frowning as if he hated all worlds, both old and new. But nowhere could we find a likeness of Isabella at any price. High and low through the city and up and down the land, we searched in vain. A lithograph of Columbus could be purchased for two and a half cents, but no presentment of the queen at any price, and we finally had one painted — enlarged from a small picture in a book. Thus was this great woman forgotten. Last winter, in New York, we honored the memory of the Pilgrim mothers by giving a dinner on the anniversary of the landing on Plymouth Rock. This M^as the first fime in the history of the country that these noble women had been remembered. Year after year, the Sons of the Pilgrims, in the great New England societies of New York and Brooklyn, have never failed to hold a feast in honor of the Pilgrim fathers, but never before had the mothers been remembered. We wished to remind the world of their virtues, and of their daughters', those noblewomen who have made New Eng- land what it is, who carried the piety, the heroism, the devotion of their ancestors to every part of our country. What fortitude, what self-sacrifice was required of those Mrs. Lillie Devereux Blake was born in Raleigh, N. C. Her father, George P. Deverenx, was a wealthy Southern gentleman, of Irish descent. Her mother, Sarah Elizabeth Johnson, was of old New York and New England families. Mrs. Blake was educated in New Haven, Conn. In 1855 she married Frank G. Q. Umsted, a lawyer of Philadelphia, who died in 1859, leaving his young widow with two children. In 1866 she married GrenfiU Blake, of New York. In 1869 she became deeply interested in the movement for the enfranchisement of women, to which she has since so largely devoted her life. In addition to contributing to many other leading periodicals, Mrs. Blake has published several novels, the best known being " Fettered for Life." In 1883 she delivered a series of lectures in reply to the Lenten discourses on women, by the Rev. Morgan Dix, D. D. These lectures attracted much attention and were published under the title of " Woman's Place Today." Her postoffice address is 149 East Forty-fourth street. New York. N. Y. 32 MRS. LILLIE DEVEREUX BLAKE. THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 38 first women colonists! Many of them were nobly born and delicately nurtured, when, for conscience' sake, they left home and friends and native land, to brave the dangers of a long voyage, the hardships of an hostile country and of an inhospitable clime. We who are the heirs of their labors and sacrifices should rejoice to render our tribute of honor to the Pilgrim Mothers. It may be asked why we chose to celebrate the landing of the Pilgrims on the 23d of December instead of the 22d, the day honored by the men. Simply because the 23d was the actual day and date of the landing. You see men cannot even fix a date correctly without the aid of women. I carefully studied the journal of John Brad- ford, who was a young man on board the "Mayflower," afterward the famous Gov- ernor of Massachusetts. He kept a careful record of the events of each day. On the 2ist land having been sighted, a boat was sent to reconnoiter the shore. On the 22d the day being stormy, the ship lay off the coast, and the only event recorded is that a wife, her name is not given, descended into the valley of the shadow of death. On the 23d, the day we celebrated, there landed on Plymouth Rock thirty-two women accompanied by sixty-nine men and children. There was one advantage in holding our feast on the day after the feast given by the men, and that was it gave us the woman's privilege of the last word. I carefully looked over the speeches given at the New England dinners, but as usual could find no mention whatsoever of anything that women had done. A noted educator spoke of New England as "she," which, considering how all things feminine were ignored, seems a piece of presumption. The most appro- priate toast given was that of one honored gentleman whose theme was "Their Selfishness." This forgetfulness of all that women have done for our country is only of a piece with the usual proceedings at those masculine feasts. Year after year they have assembled to do honor to men alone. Some time ago the late James G. Blaine, in an address at a New England dinner, said: "Men settled and built up the country, men struggled and labored; these good men were the progenitors of a great race," As, if men alone did everything — settled the country, founded the families and reared the children. On that bleak December day, two hundred and seventy-two years ago, one hun- dred and one persons came ashore on the cruel New England coast, of whom only forty-one were men, and yet, with the usual modesty of their sex, in talking of the deeds of these first settlers, their sons have followed the advice given last fall by the leader of one of the political parties and "claimed everything;" whereas, the real heroines and martyrs of those days were the women. What hardships confronted them in the awful winter that followed! Only try to fancy what they must have suffered! Living in a few huts — they could not be called houses — on that ice bound coast. Think of the storms that howled about their frail habitations, the snows that swept over them, the bitter cold that froze them! How helpless they were! On the one hand the inhospitable forest that encircled them, the lurking place of wild beasts and hostile Indians; on the other hand the wide ocean that stretched between them and their former homes. How chill they must have been with only open fires fed with green wood, with no clothing fitted for the rigors of that climate, with not enough food for them and their children! What these women must have had to bear of hardship, misery and home-sickness! No wonder thdy died and their deaths were scarce recorded. Bradford does not mention even the death of his own wife. And then it must be remembered, as Fanny Fern long ago wittily said, "These women had not only to endure all that the Pilgrim fathers had to endure, but they had to endure the Pilgrim fathers also." And these worthy men must have been very trying, as all know that a cold house and a poor dinner does not conduce to any man's amiability, and they were so censorious. A later chronicle records with displeas- ure that a certain Mrs. Johnson was "given to unseemly pride of apparel," in that she wore whalebone in her sleeves. The Pilgrim fathers went a grreat deal further than their sons would like to go today, for they sat in solemn conclave to decide how many (3) 34 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. ribbons a woman might wear. Fancy the city fathers today holding sessions to dis- cuss the width of a sash, and to decide whether or not certain styles of feminine ap- parel are consistent with "a godly walk and conversation." But to return to the first winter. Despite the effort made then, as now, to sup- press the " skirt brigade," some record has come to us of the deeds, the heroism and the noble self-sacrifice of the Pilgrim mothers. A woman's money fitted out the ships that discovered the New World, and a woman's money fitted out the " Mayflower." Mrs. Winston, a lady of position and influence, gave of her substance to equip the ves- sel. Mrs. Carver's steadfastness nerved her husband, the Rev. John Carver, to join the expedition. If it had not been for this grand woman, their "ghostly adviser" would have let the colonists sail without any ordained minister of the Gospel. Then there was Rose Standish, the dainty beauty of the expedition, a lovely, gentle flower of a noble English home, too delicate to bear the hardships of the cruel life they led, and who failed and died the first winter. But above all others should be mentioned Ann Brewster, who was the very guardian angel of the colonists. A woman of mighty energy and of dauntless courage, whose hope and faith never failed, even in the darkest hours, whose sturdy health sustained her even through the most severe privations, who encouraged the well, nursed the sick and comforted the dying, a heroine who never lost her confidence and her cheerfulness, and also in her tireless regard for others, her patience with illness and her fortitude in the presence of death displayed heroism of a higher order than that of the men who faced only the activities of out- door life. Yet the sons and the grandsons of these women have forgotten to do them honor. Their deeds have been unchronicled, their names unrecorded, and men have calmly claimed all achievements and all enterprises as their own. The whole history of" our country has been written from man's standpoint, and women, however great, how- over noble, have been ignored. Abigail Adams, the wise and witty wife of John Adams, who nerved him to action when he would have been indifferent, who gave him the courage to stand by the struggling nation when he would have deserted it, who is more than suspected of writing his speeches, is not mentioned. Mercy Otis Warren, the sister of James Otis and wife of General Warren, has no need of praise for her patriotic action in inspiring both brother and husband to do their duty. At a later period the achievements of men in ridding the country of the curse of slavery are vaunted and eulogized, while Lydia Maria Child, Lucretia Mott and Harriet Beecher Stowe have but scant praise. The heroes of the late war have monuments raised high in their honor; where are the tributes to the heroines? Dorothy Dix, Clara Barton and Mother Bickerdyke, the women who by their devotion sustained the army and nursed the soldiers — who remembers them? Among those of other nations who have come to these shores to make the repub- lic great, the stalwart German women, the thrifty French women, the intrepid Spanish women, where are the records of their deeds? The men of these nationalities have perpetuated their memory by giving their names to mountains and rivers and cities. What are the names of the women whose virtues, whose devotion made them what they are or were ? And we have become so accustomed to this policy of silence that we are prone to submit to it, without even a protest, ourselves even forgetting to give honor where honor is due. We hear much of" " self-made men," when often if we looked into the history of such persons we would find that they should more properly be called " wife-made men," for many and many a man has owed his prosperity, his success in life largely to the energy and intellect of his wife, though she, like her foremother, is forgotten. Probably the culmination of the annihilation of the women of this country was reached in the declaration made by Judge Hoar, of Massachusetts, while presiding at the National Republican Convention in 1880, when he said, " The American people are gentlemen." Today we will not say that the American people are ladies. That would be toe THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 35 poor a way of putting it, but we will ask who are these who are thus forgotten? Are they so unworthy that their brave deeds may not entitle them to recognition? Cer- tainly not! We ask that honor be done, not to the foolish and undeserving, but to the mothers of the race. But turning from the scenes of the past, let us look forward to the swiftly coming time of our emancipation. The forgetfulness of the past is rapidly giving way to the acknowledgments of the present. Already government has honored women by equality of position in the great World's Fair, and the time approaches rapidly when we shall have complete enfranchisement. To recall again the memory of the Pilgrim mothers, we find the contrast between woman's position today and hers two hundred and seventy-two years ago, as great as that between the comforts and luxuries we enjoy and the hardships that the pioneers endured. Where they had cold and dark- ness and wretched habitations, we have warmth and light and the palaces of our great cities. Where our ancestors had oppression and subordination, we have opportunity and almost equality. The end is nearly in sight, and the time will surely come when the deeds and the achievements of the foremothers will be applauded with those of the forefathers, and the daughters and the sons of the Pilgrims will sit side by side in their councils and at their feasts. A SELF SUPPORT PROBLEM.* By MISS JULIA S. TUTWILER. Some schools still make a boast in their annual reports that certain pupils have paid all their expenses during the year by work performed out of school — so many hours in the kitchen, laundry or sewing room. The Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children should expostulate with the ill-judging managers, however well intentioned, of these schools. There is not one girl in a thousand between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five who can do this without danger of becoming a permanent inmate of an insane asylum or a hospital. By all means, if possible, let the mature generation bear the burdens of the rising one until it also is fully matured, thoroughly developed, and carefully trained. We do not allow even our baby rose-trees and infant geraniums to bear blossoms until they are well grown. We do not call on them fbr production until they have had their due period of nutrition from every kindly exterior influence that we can bring to bear upon them. No, it is not desirable that our girls should assume the burden of self-sup- port during these years, with the accompanying dan- gers of physical and mental injury. But what of the girl who will not accept this decision? who says in answer to our remonstrances that she will gladly shorten her life, or even dedicate it to pain and suf- ering, if she may but be permitted to enter upon her inheritance as the heir of all the ages, if we will but give into her hands the key that opens the Gate Beautiful of the wonderful Paradise of Culture? Are there such girls, and are there so many of them that it is a present duty to spend thought upon them and make such provision for them that they may not be degraded by becoming the recipients of charity to accom- plish their end, nor embittered by going through life with the consciousness of powers undeveloped and warped? Let us see. Katie is a farmer's daughter. She has received all the elementary education which the little country schoolhouse or the village academy can give her. She has a bright, eager intellect, whetted by the little it has received to an appetite for more. Her father has other children, and is one of that large class of worthy citizens who is just able to feed, clothe and physic his family and meet the necessary expenses of keeping up his farm or his business. He has no money with which to pay board for Katie, even at the least expensive school or college. If she were living in the Arcadian days of factory-life, when Harriet Mar- Miss Julia Strudwick Tntwiler is a native of Tuscaloosa, Ala. She was born August 15, 1841. Her parents were Henry Tatwiler, LL. D., of Virginia, and Julia Tntwiler, nee Ashe, of North Carolina. Miss Tutwiler was educated at a French boarding school in Philadelphia, Pa., at Vassar College, at a Normal Seminary in Germany, and has visited Europe three times, remaining at one time three years for the purpose of studying and writing. Her special work has been in the interest of the education of girls. At present she is principal of the Alabama Normal College for girls. In religions faith she is a strong believer in Christianity, and is a member of the Presbyterian Church. Miss Tutwiler was a member of three of the World's Congresses which met in Chicago during the summer of 1893 : Tlie Congress of Representative Women, the Edacational Congress and the Congress of Charities and Corrections. Her postoffice address is Livingston, Ala. *The title under which the address was delivered was " Is Self-Support Possible for Girls During the Years of Sec- ondary Edncation. " 36 MISS JULIA S. TUTWILER. THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 37 tineau and Captain Hall visited us and described our institutions, she would take employment in one and earn the money for her further advancement in knowledge. But many things have changed since that time, and Katie must be carefully protected for some years to come. There is something even more important for her than cult- ure, as her wise mother knows. If her brother Jack has the same ambitions, there is no trouble in his case. He has muscle and bone. These are not ill-paid in this favored land. There are railroads to build, mines to dig, crops to gather at all times. Jack can soon earn enough to take a course of instruction at one of the schools whose advantages have been made so inexpensive by the beneficence of individuals or denominations. But Katie's wage earning powers are very small, and she is too young to go from home for the purpose of making larger gains unless she can have watchful guardianship and protection. Is it possible for her to obtain this? Katie will spend one-third as much of the year out of college as in college if she is ever so fortunate as to get there. She will have in some places even more than that proportion of leisure time during the year. In my own state, she will have thirty-six weeks in college and sixteen out of college. Now suppose, instead of clos- ing the college buildings for these four months, we were to keep them open, as you so wisely propose to do with your new University — at least to keep open the dormi- tory and refectory (I have in view the old-fashioned type of college). Suppose a suf- ficient number of college officials to be kept on duty for guardianship and protection, then let all the pupils who need self support engage daily in some profitable industry in buildings belonging to the college and reserved for this purpose. There might also be a night school, for backward pupils who wish to prepare for a particular class, but this feature should be carefully l.ooked after that it may not become an injury, and should never be allowed to occupy more than two hours. No wages should be paid in rnoney. The employes should have board and lodging, and should be credited on their board for next year with the amount of wages which they earn after deducting the actual cost of board and lodging. They should sign a contract, agreeing to these conditions, and to the further one that in case of their not remaining, to obtain pay- ment of their wages in board, these should be forfeited to the college. But the objection may be made that the capital invested in this industrial plant must lie idle for three-fourths of the year. Even if this should be the case, it would not be nearly such poor economy as the prevailing practice of letting thousands of college buildings remain unemployed for one-fourth of the year. Why have not our practical communities in all these years felt a little trouble at this great waste of the capital invested in that plant? But we will not imitate the college in this respect. We will try to arrange our industrial plant so that there shall be no unnecessary lying idle of capital. There are several ways in which this might be done. I will not stop to enumerate them all, but will only make one or two suggestions. Our industry might be operated by relays of pupils, each having three months of work and nine months of study. The companionship of the workers and students will be helpful to both. However, there is one industry in which capital necessarily lies idle during the very months in which Katie has leisure. This is the canning factory. If I have been correctly informed but a small capital is needed to establish a canning factory which will employ twenty girls and have an output of five hundred cans daily. Twenty-five acres of tomatoes and a few acres of corn, strawberries and peas will keep this fac- tory busy for four months. The work is light and well suited to girls. In Michigan there are said to be two factories carried on entirely by women without the aid of even a boy. The pay is much more than Katie could earn by housework or sewing, and she has not yet learned any skilled labor. In Michigan I learned that from one dol- lar to a dollar and a half per day is the usual wages for girls. If Katie can earn seventy-five dollars during the summer, and if the college is one where she is charged only the actual cost of food and fuel, tuition being free, she will be able to pay by far the greater part of her next term's school expenses. A benevolent 38 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. man or woman is often reported to have given five thousand dollars to found two or three scholarships in some girls' colleges. The same amount invested in an industrial plant to be attached to a college would pay for the education of a hundred girls, or rather would enable them to pay for their own education, a much nobler form of benevolence. Now, here are sisters from the East and West and the North and South, and I ask them to tell me whether such a plan has ever been attempted any- where, and if so, with what success? I cannot close without expressing my sense of the great blessing to womanhood of this wonderful opportunity of thus taking counsel together and unbosoming our- selves to each other. So many women have schemes for the helping of their sex, or still better, of their race, fermenting in their brains and hearts, and are brain-sick and heart-sick for the lack of advice and sympathy. Here, for the first time, but not, thank God, for the last time, we have come together from the ends of the earth to this magic city to listen to each other's plans and hopes, and give wise warning or kindly- encouragement. eve's vow. When angels oped at God's command, With weeping, Eden's portal. And our sad parents, hand in hand, Forsook its joys immortal. Our mother's deep prophetic soul, Made wise by pain and sadness, Beheld the coming ages roll. Bereft of pristine gladness. She saw our sickness, grief and tears, Her breast maternal sharing, Each bitter pang through future years Her race should bear — are bearing. To high resolve that hour gave birth Her burning tears repressing. She vowed to ope once more for earth Lost Eden's gates of blessing. And since to realize her vow Hath woman ever striven. Each mother to her child till now This secret task hath given. But man grew jealous as she strove, And barred her pathway ever, Nor understood what depth of love Inspired the high endeavor. Yet still her earnest spirit rose Above his scorn undaunted To struggle on, till should unclose Once more the gates enchanted, And give for sickness, grief and tears, Our mortal lot attending, , Succession sweet of blissful years In life immortal ending. See, strong Evangelists and brave, In sight the gates Elysian! The earnest now of all ye crave, Soon, soon its full fruition! EDUCATION OF INDIAN GIRLS IN THE WEST. By MRS. MARY C. TODD. The social and business reconstruction which, in the past few years, has taken women from their homes all over the country and placed them in various public positions of honor and responsibility, positions re- quiring education, intelligence and good business judgment, has left untroubled but one class. With their patient faces, whose pathetic expression is but the shadow of the down-trodden life they lead, the Indian women have stood aside and have seen other women spreading into larger fields, and pluming their wings for larger flight. Wondering and igno- rant, they have never thought that to them any jj# tt«X * good might come, or any release from the debase- f ^Ft: >^ ment and servitude to which they have been born. Beasts of burden themselves, and accustomed to the slavish position which became theirs at their birth, they have looked for nothing better for their daugh- ters. The rough camp life, the field labor, the un- cleanly and demoralizing ties of "home" (if such it may be called), were accepted. Their sluggish minds looked for no help. But faithful teachers have gradually gathered into the government schools, the young girls; preferring indeed, if they can but get hold of them, children of two or three years of age, hoping that they may grow into civilized ways. Keepmg these children, if their parents will permit, until eighteen years of age, there is but little danger that when released from school life, they will return to savage ways. Those who spend a few years in the schools look with loathing upon the early betrothals and marriages into which they are often forced upon their return to their homes. Many of these young girls beg to be allowed to stay always in the schools, and never to be obliged to go home. For this reason, upon our reservation of school land, a building is being prepared where such as wish may find a happy and civilized home when their school days are ended. In these government schools all the appliances of a thrifty and busy life are at hand. Kitchens and dormitories most beautifully kept; neat tables supplied with wholesome and well-cooked food, all the domestic work performed by these girls from all the western Indian tribes — this is the surprise which awaits those who will visit the government schools. Most delicate and beautiful needle work and well-fitting clothing are the products of the sewing rooms, where, under a skillful teacher, they learn the use of the sewing machine and spend happy days. This training of all kinds has one most excellent effect, and that is the over- coming the shyness and reticence by which their intercourse with white people is Mrs. Mary C. Todd, nee Mary McCabe, was bom in Terre Hante, Ind. Her parents were Virginians. In 1858 she married James H. Todd, of Peru, Ind., and in 1869 moved to Kansas. She is the mother of Mrs. Geo. C. Strong, of Wichita. When a child she attended the Academy of St. Marie des Bois, and afterward Putman Female Seminary, having, as classmate, Mary Hartwell Cathwood, the authoress. Later she was a student at College Hill, Cincinnati. In Kansas she was for a time president of the " Relief Corps " in connection with the "Garfield Post No. 40," and since 1876 has been engaged in literary work, principally newspaper and magazine articles. She has for years been connected with the " Social Science Club," of Kansas and western Missouri, and is a charter member of the " Hypatia," was its president and went as a delegate to the General Federation of Women's Clubs in New York, in 1869. Her postoffice address is Wichita, Kan. 39 MRS. MARY C. TODD. 40 . THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. always marked, and the almost inaudible tone which they always use. They learn from this association with their teachers, to speak; their minds develop, their thoughts grow, and they learn to clothe them in language. Their affections are developed and they become fond of their teachers. The writer witnessed an unexpected meet- ing of a class of girfs of about fourteen years of age, with a teacher who had been absent over a year. While their manifested pleasure lacked the forwardness of many school girls, their pleasure at meeting her was unquestioned, as they followed her about, seeming unwilling to leave her, their conduct, reminding one of the silent and faithful affection of an animal. The western schools established and supported by the government are most of them in Kansas, Oklahoma and the Indian Territory. These are mixed schools, and in every sense industrial schools. Shops for the carrying on of every kind of man- ual labor are provided for the boys, and the large grant of land which lies about every school is farmed by them. The arrangement which the government has recently made with the various tribes for the opening up of their lands for settlement, will go far toward the civilization of the young people. For twenty-five years the government will extend to them its support. At the end of that time it is expected that, from their intercourse with white people, and their school education, they will have become self-supporting. It is hoped that at the end of a girl's school life she may go home to a house instead of a tent; to a permanent residence instead of a nomadic gypsy life; to a family clothed instead of blanketed; to a father and brothers who will serve her instead of exacting servitude. In the past, the years of study and training have been almost lost as the girl returns to the untidy tent upon the bleak and barren ground. What hope is there for her to maintain the tidy and systematic method which she has learned, when surrounded by the sights and sounds and blood-thirsty ways of an Otoe or a Ponca camp? But surrounded by whites, and encouraged and taught by their teachers and native preachers, surely a bright future is before these poor Indian girls. Surely the dor- mant mind will awaken, and the sluggish energies quicken, when she sees around her the homes of intelligent white women. The education of the Indian girl means the uplifting of the tribes in every way, and yet it means also and soon, the losing of the races of red men from off the face of the earth. LEGAL CONDITION OF WOMAN IN 1492-1892. By MISS MARY A. GREENE. The condition of the woman of a nation is an index of that nation's civilization. From the days of Hatasu, who, as queen, ruled over Egypt, sixteen centuries before Christ, down the ages to Isabella, of Spain, the first monarch of a new world, until this year of grace, 1893, when Victoria holds sway over lands which encircle the globe, has it ever been true that that nation which most elevates and honors its women most elevates and honors itself? The legal condition of woman is but a mirror reflecting her social condition. Laws are framed to meet the necessities of the social environ- ment. It is only when the body of the law has failed to keep step with the social development, that the legal condition of a sex or a class works an injustice. In order, then, to understand the legal condition of woman in any country, or at any era, we must study the social condition that existed at the time the laws were framed. At the date of the discovery of our continent, the dawn of a new civilization was breaking upon Europe. This intellectual awakening of the world awakens women as well as men. Women of gentle birth apply themselves with enthusiasm to the study of Greek and Latin, in order to obtain for themselves the learning of the ancients. So it hap- pens that we know much about the women of the higher classes in 1492. But of the women of the lower classes very little is recorded. They were truly and absolutely " the submerged tenth," not worth the notice of his- torians. Here and there a glimpse is caught, which suggests to us their social bond- age. A wedding custom among the German peasants was that the bride's father should remove her shoes and deliver them to the groom, who tapped the bride's forehead with them, in token of his matrimonial authority over her. The woman who married a slave could, by law, be put to death by her relatives, or be sold by them at their will. The civilization of ancient Rome favored the domestic seclusion of woman. The European states, which arose out of the fall of the Roman empire, favored the same idea. Restriction and submission to a higher power was the policy of the middle ages. The laity were to be submissive to the clergy, vassals submissive to their lords, wives submissive to their husbands. In the rude and warlike society of those times, when shut up within his closely fortified castle, the feudal knight poured boiling oil or Miss Mary Anne Greene was bom at Warwick, R, I., in 1857, Her parents were John Waterman Aben Greene and Mary Frances (Low) Greene. She was educated for the legal profession at the Boston University Law School, receiving in 1888 the degree of Bachelor of Laws magna cum laude, and was admitted to the Suffolk Bar in Boston in September, 1888, where she practiced several years. Her principal literary works are articles upon legal subjects, for magazines and papers, such as " The Chautauquan," " The American Law Review," etc. She is the regular lecturer on Business Law for Women, at Laaell Seminary, Aubumdale, Mass., and was invited to address the Congress of Jurispmdence and Law Reform, of the World's Congress Auxiliary in August, 1893. She spoke upon "Married Woman's Property Acts in the United States and Needed Reforms Therein," An extremely fragile constitution obliged her to refrain from the active practice of her chosen profession, since her return to her native state, and hence she has never applied for admission to the Rhode Island bar. Miaa Greene is a member of the Baptist Chorch. Her postoffice address is Providence, R. I. 41 MISS MARY A, GREENE. 42 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. shot arrows from his towers upon his neighbors, or sallied forth to encounter like- assaults at their hands, the safe seclusion of the castle and the quiet occupations of cooking and spinning were, no doubt, the best for the women of the family. As refinement increased, women were able to come out of their seclusion a little, and to participate to some extent in the social life of the men. The growth of chivalry also helped to elevate the women of the higher classes in feudal days. Religion and gallantry were blended together. The love of God and the ladies was enjoined as a single duty. At the institution of the Order of the Golden Shield, Louis II., Duke of Bourbon, enjoined his knights to honor above all the ladies, " because from them, after God, comes all the honor that men can acquire." The laws also recognized this chiv- alrous homage and extended their protection. James II., of Aragon, enacted a law "that every man, whether knight or no, who shall be in company with a lady, pass safe and unmolested, unless he be guilty of murder." With the incoming of the Renaissance and the Reformation, with the new spirit of personal dignity and independence, begotten of a wider knowledge and broader culture, the crudities of chivalry and the restrictions of feudalism began to fade away. Expansion and independence took the place of restriction and submission. Since the condition of the higher classes of women had been tending toward a higher position of esteem and honor under the later feudal system, their advancement could not fail to be rapid under the new order of the new age. This is shown by their educational elevation at the close of the fifteenth century. Spain and Italy had at that time begun to admit women to the higher education of the universities. The Spanish Arabs were devoted to letters, and many of their high-born women publicly contended for prizes in science and arts at Cordova and Seville. The reign of Isabella counts among its many glories a galaxy of women whose scholarship would have been rare in any age. Isabella herself was learned in the classics, and her Latin instructor was a woman, Dona Beatriz de Galindo, who was called La Latina, on account of her rare acquirements. At the same time the Univer- sity of Salamanca had as lecturer in the Latin classics another learned woman, Dona Lucie de Medrano, while at Alcala, Dona Francisca de Lebrija filled the chair of rhetoric. In Italy, a century earlier, Dotta, daughter of the celebrated Accursius, gave instruction in law at the University of Bologna, and nearly contemporary with her was- Novella, the beautiful daughter of Andrea, who delivered her lectures upon the canon law from behind a curtain, as tradition has it, lest her beauty should distract the young^ men who were her pupils. These were the earliest of a long line of distinguished Italian women professors, reaching down to our own day, when Dr. Josephine Catani fills the chair of histology in the medical school of the ancient University of Bologna. The political status of woman in 1492 in Continental Europe was a survival of ancient ideas, of Roman jurisprudence. Even under the repression of the feudal system the capacity of woman to be a sovereign, a judge, an advocate and an arbitrator, was not denied. But the Roman law excluded her from all public offices, not, however, on the ground of incapacity, but simply on the ground of etiquette and expediency, as the Roman code puts it, "because it is not fitting that women and slaves should hold pub- lic offices." The system of civil law, which was built up in the fifteenth century from the ruins of the Roman code, incorporated this idea, so that we find it declared in the laws of Continental Europe that a woman may not be an advocate or a judge. In England, where the influence of the Roman law was slight, the capacity and fitness of women for public office was to some extent recognized, and when Queen Mary came to the throne she placed women in judicial office. Lady Berkeley was made a justice of the peace for Gloucestershire, and Lady Rous, as justice of the quorum for Suffolk, " did usually sit on the bench at assizes among the other justices, chicta gladio, girt with the sword." The hereditary office of high sheriff of West- moreland was held at one time by a woman, and women were held to be eligible to election as burgesses, overseers of the poor, constables, sheriffs and marshals, and THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 4S they occasionally occupied these positions. There is no doubt that women land- owners were allowed to vote as well as to hold public office, but the privilege was so very seldom exercised that instances are very rare. Still, in theory, the single woman or widow had a lawful right to cast a vote, while her married sister was rep- resented by the vote of her husband. The capacity of woman to be a sovereign was everywhere recognized, and even where the Salic law excluded woman from the throne her right and ability to rule as regent during the king's minority was fully admitted. Thus, in France, from 1483 to 1491, Anne of Eeaujen held the office of regent during the minority of her brother, Charles VIII, The royal Isabella, ruling in her own right as queen of Castile and Leon, and as co-equal with her husband, Ferdinand, of Aragon, in the government of the united countries, is a sufficient instance of the legal recognition of woman's right to the high- est and most responsible of all public offices. As our American orator has recently said: " It was a happy omen of the position which w'oman was to hold in America that the only person who comprehended the majestic scope of his (Columbus') plans and the invincible qualities of his genius was the able and gracious Queen of Castile. Isabella alone, of all the dignitaries of that age, shares with Columbus the honors of his great achievement. She arrayed her kingdom and her private fortunes behind the enthusiasm of this mystic mariner, and posterity pays homage to her wisdom and faith." And in less than a century after Isabella, another woman, Elizabeth, of England, the virgin queen whose flag swept the seas, was the mistress and patroness of the first permanent settlement of her race upon our shores, a race which was destined to possess and dominate this northern continent of the New World. Turning to the personal and property rights of the woman of 1492, we look at a darker side of the picture. This branch of the law affects rich and poor, high and low, alike. Only the high-born woman would be likely to hold public office, but every woman has a right to protection of her person and property. The laws of England differed from those of the continent of Europe in form and theory, but scarcely in their practical effect upon the woman. The theory of the common law of England, derived from our Germanic forefathers, was that of a division of duties. As the wife had the care of the household, and the responsibility of rearing her family, it was thought unreasonable to subject her to the annoyances of a suit at law to protect or defend her rights and to preserve her property. This was laid upon the husband's shoulders. He was to protect her and perform these duties for her. The wife in English law was considered as under the protecting wing of her husband, which cov- ered her from legal annoyance; hence, the old law — French term for a married woman, z. femme covert, a.nd her legal condition is her coverture. That this is the true theory of the law is evident from the laws governing the queen's consort of Eng- land. Such women, upon marriage, retained all their property and legal capacity to transact business. For as Sir Edward Coke puts it, " The wisdom of the common law would not have the king (whose continual care and study is for the public and circa ardua re^/ii) to be troubled and disquieted on account of his wife's domestic affairs; and, therefore, it vests in the queen a power of transacting her own concerns without the intervention of the king, as if she were an unmarried woman." The theory of the civil law of Continental Europe, coming down from the Roman code, was very different. These laws are based upon the weakness, frailty and in- capacity of the sex. The husband is made the curator of his wife much as the father is made guardian of his minor child. Upon this theory, also, a woman could not in early times be a witness in court, and long after she was made legally competent to testify, her testimony was held to be of slight worth. Whether the English or the Continental laws be considered, the effect upon the married woman was practically the same in respect to her ownership and control of her property. The husband had complete control of the wife's property, and was able to dispose of it at his own pleas- ure, without her knowledge or consent. She was not capable of making any binding 44 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. contract whatever. The legal custody of the children was in the father, and by feudal law after the father's death, unless he had by his will appointed a guardian, the lord of the manor became the custodian of the person and property of the orphaned child. The consent of the lord was necessary to the marriage of a female ward, and in England the lord could dispose of her in marriage, exacting a heavy fine if she refused to marry according to his commands. Where, as in England, the possession of landed property qualified its owner to vote and hold public office, the husband of a woman who owned land, voted and sat in parliament by right of his joint ownership in his wife's land. This right of the husband has disappeared from American law, except in Rhode Island, where it still lingers only slightly modified by recent legis- iation. The condition of the widow under this regime was truly pitiable. She had no claim whatever upon the personal property of her late husband, not even though she had brought that property to him at her marriage. In England the widow had from very early times a right to the income of one- third of the deceased husband's lands, during her life, and this life interest, known as "the widow's dower," was all that she could claim, unless, indeed, she had been so fortunate as to possess a marriage settlement. By a deed to trustees before her mar- riage, her property could be preserved to her and her heirs, free from any claim of her husband. This device of the English equity courts relieved in some degree the hardships of the common law, but obviously could only benefit the wealthy women of the kingdom. The widow under the civil law of Europe had no claim upon her deceased husband's property. It all went to his heirs. Under the feudal system, at least in England, a widow could remain for forty days in the mansion house of her husband without paying rent. At the end of this time her dower was assigned and she was then turned adrift upon the world at the mercy of her family and friends. If she married again, the lord of the manor could exact a fine from her for so doing, and it was no uncommon practice for these feudal masters to compel a widow to re-marry, in order to obtain the fine to replenish their exhausted treasuries. The single woman under English law possessed all the legal rights of a man. On the Continent, the idea of woman's mental incapacity affected the legal condi- tion of the single woman, as well as that of the wife. She had not the freedom of her English spinster sister. She had very limited contract powers, and could only make contracts to pay in money or in kind for purchases made by her. On the other hand, she had, by reason of this same conception of mental inferiority, less criminal responsibility, and where the English woman suffered the same penalties for her crimes that a man would do, the European woman had but half the penalty. As an old law quaintly says : " A woman shall suffer but half the punishment, where a man suffers the full penalty. * * * * Thus, a woman should not be put in irons, nor sent to the galleys, nor placed in a prison, which might enfeeble her body or wound her, or cause her to lose her memory, for women are frail by nature." Offenses against the person of woman were not severely punished. One could scarcely expect that they would be when the social inferiority of woman was so clearly marked. A husband could chastise his wife by right of his position as head of the family. The degradation of marriage under the Roman law left its stain upon later generations. The monastic ideas of the middle ages sympathizing with the Roman theory, incorporated into the canon law the principle of the inferiority and subjection of woman. At the time that the Renaissance began to elevate woman's social condition, the Reformation began to sweep away the errors that had collected around the original ecclesiastical conception of woman's sphere. The advancement of woman was assured when her intellectual and spiritual equality with man began to be perceived. Her social elevation thus secured, her legal enfranchisement must follow. Let us pause and think how small a portion of this vast globe of ours shared in this great awakening of the fifteenth century. Not more than half of the European Continent saw this light. In Asia, in Africa, in the New World, lying unknown in an THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 45 unknown ocean, in the undiscovered islands of the sea, what intellectual and moral darkness! Can we bear to think of, much less to relate in detail, the social degrada- tion of woman in these dark places of the earth! Even where the heathen civiliza- tion had reached its highest mark, the condition of woman was scarcely one to be desired in point of personal respect and protection. In the interval between 1492 and 1892 the social and legal development of woman was slow. The leaven of new ideas was working, but the mass of ignorance and prejudice, the accumulation of centuries, was not easily permeated. In England the condition of the widow was improved by granting to her a fraction of her husband's personal property, in addition to her dower in his real estate. The power of the lord over the widow and children of his vassal disappeared with the complete abolition of the feudal system in the seventeenth century. On the Continent the contract capacity of woman was enlarged, and greater personal protection accorded to her by law. A few persistent women secured for themselves the benefit of a liberal education. Italy continued to honor women as professors in her University of Bologna. Mary Somerville in England won recognition for her attainments, and here and there other women less known to fame gave proof of their ability and skill. But the gains of three hundred and sixty years were little compared with those of the last forty years. The long, slow process of seed sowing, the ages of germination, have been crowned in our time by wonderful fruitage. The inventions of science, which have brought together into closest relationship the nations of the earth, have also opened a high- way for the advancement of women. In order to get any adequate idea of the legal condition of woman in 1892 we must know of her present and past social condition and trace the history of the an- cient laws affecting her. For these ancient laws, some of which are still in force, are responsible for the present anomalies of woman's legal condition. When enacted, they may have justly reflected woman's social condition, but now they should give place to new laws, framed to meet the existing social environment. To go into minute detail is impossible, and this address would become a mere catalogue were it to be at- tempted. We shall consider first the higher education of woman at the present day; secondly, the professions and occupations open to her; thirdly, her political status; fourthly, her personal rights; fifthly, her property rights, and lastly shall attempt to draw some lessons and conclusions from this historical survey of the legal condi- tion of woman. I. THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN. On the Continent of Europe women are admitted to the universities in Italy, France, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Spain, Roumania, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Iceland, and may in some of them receive university degrees. In Great Britain the following are open both for instruction and degrees: The University of London, the universities of Ireland, and the Scottish universities of Edinburgh and of St. Andrews, the two latter very recently. Women are excluded from the universities by express prohibition of law in Ger- many, Austria and Russia. In the latter country a medical school for women stu- dents, which was for a time suspended on account of political complications, is about to be re-established through the exertions of the czarina. While the conserv- ative universities of Oxford and Cambridge in England do not admit to their lect- ures or degrees, they do permit women to take the university examinations, and we have not yet forgotten the triumph of Philippa Fawcett, who in 1890 over- topped the senior wrangler in the mathematical examinations at Cambridge. Under the shadow of these venerable universities, the colleges for women, Girton Newham and St. Margaret's are distinguished by the high attainments of their students. In our own land there are over a hundred first class colleges and universities open to women. Some of these, like Vassar, Wellesley, Smith and Bryn Mawr, are for women exclusively; some like Barnard College of Columbia University and the 46 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. Woman's College of Brown have an organic connection with a university for men; some like Tufts College have after establishment -opened their doors to women on the same terms as men, while many others, like Michigan University, Boston Uni- versity, Cornell and nearly all the universities and colleges of the Western States, like the youngest of all, the great Chicago University, have been co-educational from their very foundation. Of our older universities. Brown in 1891, and Yale and the Uni- versity of Pennsylvania in 1892, are the latest to open their post-graduate courses and degrees to women. Harvard, the oldest of all, seems to stand alone in its refusal to recognize oflficially the eligibility of women for the Harvard Annex, so-called, has no official connection with the university. Nearly all the universities and colleges of Canada are open to women, and all those of Australia. In India the universities of Calcutta, Madras and Bombay. Opportunities are also increasing in Japan for the higher education of women. Since Oberlin College in Ohio granted, in 1838, apparently the first collegiate diploma ever given to a woman in this country to this time, when in nearly every civilized country women may obtain degrees on the same terms as men, how great has been the advance! And nearly all this advance has been made within thirty years. II. PROFESSIONS AND OCCUPATIONS OPEN TO WOMEN. It naturally follows that the professions should be entered by women. Appar- ently the medical profession was the first sought by her. Sixty years ago the first woman medical student began her course of study, and now countless thousands of •women practitioners of the healing art are scattered over the world, pursuing their profession with most signal success. In the East Indian zetianas, the homes of the helpless foot-bound Chinese, as in the homes and hospitals of Europe and America, they are doing a work that no man could possibly accomplish. The profession of theology has attracted fewer women, and it has been less easy for them to obtain recognition as pastors and preachers, but the theological schools of Switzerland, and some of those in the United States, notably those of the Unitarian and Methodist Episcopal churches, admit women as students. There are ordained women preachers in the Baptist, Congregational, Universalist, Unitarian, " Christian," Prot- estant, Methodist, and Primitive Methodist denominations, and over three hundred and fifty women preachers among the Society of Friends. There are perhaps seven hundred women preachers to-day in the United States. The legal profession was the last of the three so-called learned professions to be opened to women; not because of reluctance on the part of the courts, but because women did not so early apply for admission. Although isolated instances may be cited from the Roman Calphurnia to our own time of women who have pleaded causes in court, it was not till 1869 that a woman was formally admitted as an attor- ney and counselor at law. To the United States belongs this honor. Mrs. Arabella A. Mansfield was admitted without objection to the bar of the Supreme Court of Iowa in that year (1869). About the same time women students were received into the law schools of Washington University, St. Louis, and the Union College of Law at Chicago. There are now not less than eleven law schools in the United States open to women. Twenty-five States and Territories admit women to the bar. As to the rest we cannot safely say that they exclude women, for as a matter of fact no woman has as yet applied, except in Virginia, which has for three years steadfastly refused to grant admission to a lady lawyer. There are probably over two hundred women lawyers in the United States to-day, nine of whom are admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States. The universities of Paris, Brussels and Zurich have within five or six years gradu- ated women from their law departments. The three graduates at Paris have not applied for admission to the bar. At Zurich Dr. Emilie Kempin, although denied admission to the bar, is a lecturer upon law in the university. Dr. Marie Popelin, a graduate in law at Brussels, has been formally denied admission to the bar. Italy, THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 47 Russia and Denmark have also refused the petition of women for admission as advo- cates at the bar. India, Japan and the Hawaiian Islands recognize the woman lawyer. The Royal University of Ireland has recently conferred the degree of Doctor of Laws upon a woman; and in Canada, in the Province of Ontario, women have very recently been made eligible to admission to the study of the law. In England, no attempt to gain admission to the bar has yet been made. Several ladies, practicing as attor- neys and solicitors, are patiently waiting for a change in public sentiment before asking for admission to plead as barristers. Every known profession, occupation and trade seems now to be open to woman in some part of the civilized world. She can be a minister, doctor, lawyer, professor, lecturer, journalist, mechanic, architect, sculptor, painter, merchant, day-laborer. In fact, whatever she chooses to undertake she is permitted to do, if not in one country then elsewhere. In view of this entire revolution in her social status, should "she not logically possess the same civil and legal rights, and be subject to the same civil and legal liabilities as a man in the same position. III. POLITICAL STATUS OF WOMEN. After this preliminary glance at the social condition of women in 1 192, let us look at her legal condition, and see whether her legal emancipation has kept pace with her social emancipation. The political status of women will first be considered. Women enjoy a more or less extended right of suffrage in a majority of all the civilized nations of the world. In the United States they have full suffrage in Wyoming and municipal suffrage in Kansas. In Montana, women have school suffrage, and if tax- payers, they can vote upon all questions involving the levy or disbursement of moneys for public purposes. In twenty more states they have a right to vote for school offi- cers or upon school matters, and in at least six more states they may vote by petition upon certain local matters, such as local improvements, or the granting of liquor licenses; so that there are at least twenty-nine out of a total of forty-eight states and territories of our Union where women enjoy some form of suffrage. In Canada women can vote for all municipal officers throughout the length and breadth of the Dominion, although no married woman can vote except in Manitoba and British Columbia. The women of all the colonies of Great Britain, from Australia to Canada and from Cape Colony to New Zealand, enjoy municipal suffrage, including the presidencies of Madras and Bombay in India, if taxpayers, and the same is true of the rural districts of British Burmah. In England, Scotland and Wales single women and widows vote for all officers except members of Parliament. In Ireland they vote for guardians of the poor. In Continental Europe women are also to some degree enfranchised. In France women teachers vote for women members of boards of education. In Italy widows and wives separated from their husbands vote by proxy for members of Parliament (law of 1882). In Austria they vote by proxy at all elections, including elections of members of provincial and imperial parliaments. In Russia, and in all Russian Asia, women who are heads of households vote by proxy at municipal and village elections upon all local questions. (Law of 1870.) In Sweden,for many years, women have voted at local elections, and since 1862 they have had municipal suffrage. In Norway they have merely school suffrage. In Finland, all women, except wives living with their husbands, can vote for all elective officers save one. (Law of 1865.) In Iceland, as in Wyoming, and also on the Isle of Man, women enjoy full and equal suffrage with men. (1882.) Woman's right to the ballot is recognized even in some very conservative countries, countries so conservative that by the same law which extends the franchise to woman she is herself excluded from occupying the offices voted for. This is the case in Italy, Russia, Sweden, Finland, Iceland and Austria, except as to a few petty positions. The general principle of American law seems to be that where no express excep- tion is made by law, the electors for an office are qualified to fill the office. Thus in Wyoming women are eligible to every public office on the same terms as men; in 48 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. Kansas to municipal offices, and in the states where women may vote for school officers they are generally eligible to election to the office. Many of the states of the Union admit women to public office even though they refuse to them the ballot. A few of the strictly public of^ces now held by women in America are county recorder of deeds, assistant register of deeds, notary public, town clerk (Vermont), county clerk (Missouri), assistant clerk of the Supreme Court of Rhode Island, receiver of public moneys in Mississippi, custodian of the Mississippi state capital, mayor of cities in Kansas, and all kinds of school offices. Many offices connected with the public chari- ties are held by women in this country. Thus they are members of state boards of charities in Massachusetts and Connecticut, visitors, managers and trustees of reformatory and penal institutions, physicians, visitors and trustees of state insane hospitals, overseers of the poor, and police matrons. By act of Congress in 1870 the clerkships of the Executive Department of the United States Government were opened to women, who now make up a large percentage of the total number of government clerks. In England women serve as poor-law guardians, visitors to and physicians in gov- ernment hospitals and insane asylums, as assistant commissioners of the Labor Com- mission, and the position of meteorologist at the Government Observatory at Hong Kong is now held by a lady. In France women are members of the boards of education. In the Austrian provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina women have recently received appointments as government medical officers. The political condition of woman to day may be briefly summed up thus: While she is not yet admitted to the full exercise of political rights, except in Wyoming and a few small islands, still she possesses very generally some right to vote upon local matters more or less closely affecting her as a citizen, and to hold many executive offi- ces. Legislative and judicial offices are not as yet granted to women, except in a very few countries and states, and even where granted are not actually occupied by women. IV. PERSONAL RIGHTS OF WOMEN. With respect to the personal protection of woman by law, there has been a change for the better, as the dignity and sacredness of her person is more com- pletely recognized. Severe punishments are inflicted for offenses against women, but still in many instances they are altogether too slight for the gravity of the offense. The " age of consent," which in many states was placed at the age of ten years, has been raised by very recent legislation to fourteen, sixteen, and in some states, eighteen years. For the better protection of women under arrest, police matrons have been placed in the station-houses of some of our American cities, to take charge of such women during the time of their deten- tion. In New York and Massachusetts, by state legislation, all cities having a stated population, must provide police matrons. Much of the recent labor legislation is in favor of women. The laws forbidding women to be employed about dangerous machinery, those requiring shopkeepers to provide seats for saleswomen, and the statutes requiring the appointment of women factory inspectors maybe cited. As to the law in many states prohibiting women from making a contract to work more hours a week than the time fixed by law, while by the same law a man is free to contract for as many hours' labor as he chooses, one may question whether it does not really work an injustice, since, by interfering with her individual freedom to contract it places her at a disadvantage. An employer prefers to take an employe who is legally free to make agreements for extra work. Therefore, the woman's wages are likely to be decreased and her opportunities for employment lessened by this restriction. A married woman is now protected from the violence of her husband by the legal right given her to prosecute him for assaults upon her. The old theory of the hus- band's right to chastise his wife has disappeared from English and American law. In the famous Jackson case in England the Lord Chief Justice, in setting free a THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 49 woman whose husband had deprived her of her liberty, said, that he did not believe that it ever was the law of England that a husband could restrain his wife of her liberty, and that it certainly is not English law today. In India, under the power of a Christian government, the burning of a widow upon her husband's funeral pyre is forbidden by law, and the day seems not far distant when the seclusion of the zenana and the prac- tice of child-marriages will also disappear. In Japan, where women are more respected than among many Eastern nations, a wife may still be divorced upon the very slightest grounds, even if she talks too much to suit her lord and master. The codes of Con- tinental Europe fail to do justice to woman in respect to her personal protection in the matter of divorce for certain criminal offenses, where the privileges of the man are greater than those of the woman, making it less easy for her than for him to obtain a divorce. This seems to be a vestige of the ancient conception of woman's inferiority. V. PROPERTY RIGHTS OF WOMEN. The subject of the present property rights of women is lastly to be considered. In England and America the unmarried woman is now, as she was four hundred years ago, possessed of all the property rights of a man. She can buy and sell her property, carry on business, bind herself by her contracts of every kind, make a will, and adopt a child if she chooses, just as her brother may do. She can sue and be sued in court, is a competent witness in all cases, and can be executrix of a will, administra- trix of an estate, and guardian of children. On the Continent of Europe the unmar- ried woman is still hampered in some degree by the former legal conception of the essential frailty and incapacity of woman. She is bound by her contracts and may do business as a public merchant. She can make a will and adopt a child. But she cannot, except in Italy and Russia, sign her name as a witness to any legal document; neither can she, with a few exceptions, be a guardian of children, or act as a legal member of family councils. As to the property rights of the married woman, a most radical change has taken place within the last fifty years. Every state in the Union has passed statutes widening to some extent the legal powers of the married woman; and in England, by the Married Woman's Property Act of 1882, all legal restrictions are removed from the wife, who is capable of holding and transferring property, and can sue and be sued as if unmarried. Rhode Island appears to have led in this reform in 1841, which gave to a wife coming into the state as a resident, being already separated from her husband, the sole ownership and control of her property. This was followed, in 1844, by an act securing to the wife her own property, including her earnings, so that it could not be taken for the husband's debts, and providing that in case she survived him it was to be her sole and separate property. Massachusetts followed, in 1845, with a similar statute, and New York, in 1848, passed a much more liberal one. It is impossible to trace the history of or give in detail the law of each state. Only the general features can be presented. In every state of the Union, except Ten- nessee, the wife's property is so far secured to her that it cannot be taken for her hus- band's debts, and if she survives him it becomes her sole and separate property. But many, indeed a majority, of the states go much further than this, and give to the wife the sole ownership and control of her property as if she were unmarried. In nearly all the states, however, the real estate of the wife cannot be sold without the joinder of her husband in the deed, both signing it. In California, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, New York and Wisconsin the wife's deed is good without the husband's signature. All the rest of her property she is free to dispose of as if she were single. In all the states a wife may make a will. In some of these she cannot by any means by her will deprive her husband of the legal share in her property which he would take if she made no will; but in a few, as in Massachusetts, she may cut off her husband's legal claim by securing his written consent thereto. The earnings of the wife belong to her in all but nine states and territories. In (4) 50 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. these the wife's earnings are either absolutely the husband's, or "subject to his con- trol." The wife's power to do business and make contracts varies greatly in the different states. In most of the states she may be a trader and bind herself by any contract made in her business. In fact, there seems to be but four states which abso- lutely prohibit the married woman from doing business on her own account. These are Wisconsin, Vermont, Rhode Island and Texas, and in the two last named the wife has scarcely any more power to make any kind of a binding contract than she had at common law. The power to sue and be sued in court is a necessary consequence of legal permission to make a contract; so in every state where a wife can independ- ently of her husband make a valid contract, the law furnishes a remedy upon such con- tracts by a right of suit by or against the wife for a breach thereof. An interesting question is, How far can husbands and wives have direct business dealings with each other, so that they may sue each other for breach of an ordinary business contract? Under the old English equity system, still in force in our country, also, if a wife loaned money to her husband upon his promise to repay, a court of equity would upon her petition compel him to refund the money. This was the only instance where a wife could sue her husband. A court of law would never allow husbands and wives to sue each other, or even to testify for or against each other. But our modern stat- utes are in many states sufficiently broad to allow husbands and wives to contract as freely with each other, and to sue and be sued, as if they were not married. This is especially true of the states west of the Mississippi, but a number of the older states, as New York, Pennsylvania, Mississippi and South Carolina, grant a like freedom. Although the legal separate existence of the wife is now a fact in our country, the husband is still viewed as the head of the family, the natural guardian of the children, and he alone is liable for the support of the family. In some of our newer western states, all property acquired by either husband or wife during the marriage is the joint property of both, and in such a case the parents are jointly liable for the support of the family. The same is true in a few other states, which hold the parents jointly liable (while not recognizing any joint ownership of property) out of their own separate estates. In but six states of the Union is the mother's right to the guardi- anship of her children recognized by statute as equal to that of the father. These states are Oregon, Washington, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa and New York. In England the wife has full property rights and contract powers. Turning to the condition of the married woman under the codes of Continental Europe, we see that very much progress has been made. The doctrine of all those countries which have for a fundamental law the code Napoleon, is that of the marital supremacy of the husband and the complete subjection of the wife. It is the old idea of the frailty of the sex. It is true that the code recognizes a common ownership of property, but the complete management and control of the same is in the husband. If the dowry of the wife is imperiled, or the husband's affairs are in a serious condition, the wife may have her property set apart for her out of the common purse. The earnings of the wife belong to the husband, and he can pledge her personal effects for his debts. She may be a merchant, but she must first be authorized by her husband to do so, and even then her contracts are not as absolutely binding upon her as upon a man. She cannot be the guardian of her children. In Italy and Russia these features are somewhat modi- fied, and the wife's property is, as with us, her sole and separate property. In Russia she maintains a completely separate legal existence, and can do business, sue and be sued, independently of her husband. The husband is obliged to support the family, however, and the wife is not bound to do so. In Italy she needs merely a general power of attorney from her husband to enable her to act as a single woman in respect to her property, and not even this is necessary for her to be a merchant, nor in case of the minority, imprisonment or absence of the husband. The condition of the widow is much changed in England and America. The ancient law of dower, that is, the life interest in one-third the husband's real estate, has been very generally abolished, and instead thereof the widow or the widower is entitled THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. ^ 51 to an equal share in the estate of the deceased spouse, with full power to alter the same by will. This is the case in many American states, but still in many others the old common law estates of the widow's dower and the widower's courtesy are even now recognized and cannot be cut off by will. In a few states, too, the old rule of law survives which gives to the widower all his deceased wife's personal property, unless she has otherwise disposed of it by will. In every state the widow and children are entitled to support out of the husband's estate for a length of time varying from forty days in Massachusetts to a year in many western states, and during this time of support the widow may remain in the mansion house without paying rent, and even longer than this in some states. If the laws of the state recognize a homestead estate in the dwelling house of the family, this secures a home to the widow until she marries again, and to the family until the youngest child is twenty-one. In Europe, exclusive of England and Italy, the widow has a very limited interest in the property of the husband. Under the French and Belgian codes she only receives the husband's property when all heirs to the twelfth degree have failed. In Germany she has a certain portion of his property set apart for her. In Italy the laws resemble those of the most advanced of our United States in giving to either spouse a child's share in the property of the other, and if no children or heirs sur- vive the widow or widower has the whole estate. In England and America a widow, like a single woman, has the legal freedom of a man, and can be executrix of his will, administratrix of his estate, and guardian of her children. In Europe the widow has not full power to be guardian of her children; she must act under the advice of a special council appointed by the father in his will, if he has seen fit to do so, and the widow cannot discipline the children without the concurrence of the two nearest rela- tives on the father's side. In most of our states a father may appoint, by will, a guardian for his minor chil- dren, but this guardian cannot act as such if considered by the probate court to be an unfit person. In England a father may appoint by his will a guardian to act conjointly with the mother. The Asiatic and African colonies of European and English nations are slowly receiving the benefit of their laws, as civilization and Christianity advance. There are still dark spots upon the earth's surface where the condition of woman is no better than it was four hundred years ago; where she is the slave, machine and plaything of the tyrant man, with no hope for the future, either in this life or a life to come, unless she holds the Mohammedan faith of future salvation by a union with man. In summing up the results of our survey of woman's present legal condition, let us first observe that while theoretically the legal condition of woman is determined by her social condition, yet now, in fact, because of the survival of ancient laws, which are out of joint with woman's present social and intellectual emancipation, the reverse seems to be the case, and woman's social development is hampered by useless legal restrictions. Take for example the law, still existing in some places, that a mar- ried woman shall not do business as a trader. This law is powerless to prevent a married woman from going into any kind of business if she chooses. Its only effect is to encourage her in dishonesty, by absolving her from any legal obligation to pay her just debts incurred in the business. Her employes and creditors are absolutely dependent upon her sense of honor, and cannot compel her in any way to pay them, if she refuses to do so. This law may have been well enough in the days w^hen no woman could attempt with social propriety to carry on business. It is now demoralizing to the woman it protects, and unjust to those who deal with her. The same is true of the laws exclud- ing woman from public ofifice, those rendering her incompetent to be a witness, to make a valid promissory note, and those denying to her the guardianship of her chil- dren. Women are nearly, if not quite, upon a recognized social equality with men in respect to freedom to labor and earn money, and in justice to men and women alike 52 ^ THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. they should be made equally responsible before the law. It is as true as it was four hundred years ago that the condition of the women of a nation is the measure of its culture and civilization. Whether we look at our own land where women may vote, hold office, do business, enter upon any profession as the social equal of man, enjoy- ing respectful consideration and chivalrous treatment; or whether we turn our eyes to our sisters in Eastern lands, shut up in the harems and ze?ianas of the rich, or toiling like slaves in the hovels of the poor, where woman's social condition is so low that to mention a man's wife in his presence is an insult to him, we shall still find it true that the condition of woman is a true gauge of a people's advancement in civilization. And, lastly, another great truth comes before us, that while intellectual culture and other systems of religion have tended to elevate the women of the higher classes, it is Christianity alone that elevates the women of the lower classes. Investigate, as you will the legal freedom of woman under the civilization of ancient Egypt, her intellectual culture in the palmiest days of Hinduism in India, the courtesy and respect shown to her in Japan, and whatever privileges are accorded to her in China; or turn to the honor paid her in the days of chivalry, and the half heathen civilization of the middle ages — you will find that the light shines only upon the woman of higher birth and gentle breeding, and that a heavy, dark cloud of ignorance, superstition, helplessness and hopelessness weighs down the women of the lower classes. But under our modern Christian civilization the working-woman is recognized as the peer before the law of her wealthier sister, with a legal right to •equal advantages of education, to equal protection of person and property, and equal freedom to use her powers for the good of herself and mankind. And where, in fact, woman's equality with man is not yet fully recognized, it is because of the sur- vival of ancient ideas, which are to disappear very speedily. Thus we are more and more closely approaching the time when woman shall be recognized as the full legal and social equal of man, and the ideal of human as of Divine law shall be attained when " there can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither bond nor free, there can be no male or female — for ye are all one man in Christ Jesus." ETHICS OF SOCIAL LIFE. ■>¥^^jf¥«**»2 By MRS. JNO. R. HANNA. However we have come by it, we have a code of morals which forms a standard, to which we bring, all our fellows for trial, and pronounce them innocent or guilty, as the case may be. We make due allowance for ignor- ance, in the long run, although in individual cases some personal pique may give us such a bias that we cannot be just. That standard or code has varied in the past, and there seems to be no doubt that it will continue to change in all future ages. The pivot on which hangs this code conscience does not change. It is an invariable quantity. It simply declares, "Do the Right;" "Do not the wrong." But what the right or the wrong may be in any given case, it does not pretend to decide. That is the result of the evolution of the cen- turies, and is only absolutely fixed at any given moment. All Ethics is social in its nature. Were we isolated beings, there would be no one to injure, no one to benefit. The beauty and the heroism of self- sacrifice could never be seen. Mental qualities now developed by the stimulating contact of mind with mind, and the aspirations of purpose that come from the observation of good deeds, and the spiritual eleva- tion resulting from ennobling association — all would be wanting. The most beautiful thing in the world, real goodness, could never have been born. As all Ethics is social, by its nature, it follows that all acts are to be tried by one standard. The question with regard to each act should be : " Will this act contemplated by me do good or ill to any member of the human race, myself included?" In that wonderful compendium of the resulting wisdom of human experience, the Bible, we find this saying of St. Paul, which has been true in the past, and will remain true forever. Likening society to the human body, he says: "If one member suffers all members suffer with it." There is one underlying constructive principle in character, and only one, and all superstructure must be built upon it. It is the constant purpose to do the right, the good, the true, and whatever contravenes or supplants this purpose, destroys rather than constructs. Man, however, is a swaying creature. At one moment he is actuated by the highest motive; at another he yields to what he knows to be ignoble and unworthy. Mrs. lone Theresa Uanna is a native of New York, and was born in 18.37. Her parents are Lyman Mnnger and Martha 8. Whitney Manger, of New England origin. She gradoated from the Literary Course at Oberlin College in 1859, after which she taught in Grand River Institute, Austinburg, Ohio, and in the Pennsylvania Female Academy. She married Mr. John R. Hanna, of Pennsylvania, in 1851. They removed to Denver, Colo., in 1871. She is one of tlie original members of the Den- ver Fortnightly Club, and is a director for Colorado of the Association for the Advancement of Women. She traveled abroad in the summer of 1891. On May 1, 1893, she was elected a member of the School Board of East Denver. She is an advocate of Woman Suffrage, and was much interested in the campaigns in Colorado, which terminated sacceesfoUy, giving women the ballot Nov. 7, 1893. Mrs. Hanna is a member of the Congregational Church. Her postoffice address ia 500 Fourteenth St., Denver, Colo. 53 MRS. JNO. R. HANNA. 54. THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. So the whole experience of life seems to be for the purpose of unifying him, making him at one with himself and the universe. Then all our acts are religious acts; all have a moral quality. It then follows that what others have proved to be wise courses of conduct, or what we have discovered ourselves in the experience of life to be acts of wisdom, these are as obligatory upon us as are the commandments of the Mosaic code: " Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother," "Thou Shalt Not Steal," "Thou Shalt Not Kill," etc. Now, in the evolution of social life, what wisdom has come to us from the imme- diate past that is yet partially or wholly unheeded? First, in the matter of dress: How notorious a fact it is that Hygeia and Fashion are goddesses who reign over separate and warring kingdoms! One declares that the feminine form should be given perfect and entire freedom; the other, that every physi- ological law may be set at naught so that the prevailing mode be accepted. There is another form of servitude that enslaves well-to-do women. It wastes their energies, belittles their lives, and prevents that expansion of mind and thought that is necessary, if they would appropriate and fill the places now so widely opened to them. It is what is termed the " Customs and Usages of Good Society," and includes the matter of dress above referred to. It also imposes upon women the most constant and unremitting attention to the toilet. Ladies must have — All manner of things that a women can put On the crown of her head or the sole of her foot; Or wrap round her shoulders, or fit round her waist. Or that can be sewed on, or pinned on, or laced; Or tied on with a string, or stitched on with a bow. In front, or behind, above, or below; Bonnets, mantillas, capes, collars or shawls. Dresses for breakfast, and dinners, and balls; Dresses to set in, and stand in, and walk in. Dresses to dance in, and flirt in, and talk in; Dresses in which to do nothing at all. Dresses for winter, spring, summer and fall; All of them different in color and pattern — Silk, muslin and lace, crape, velvet and satin; Brocade and broadcloth, and other material Quite as expensive, and much more ethereal; In short, all things that could ever be thought of. Or milliner, modiste, or tradesman be bought of; From ten-thousand-franc robes to twenty-sous frills. This seems like a caricature on the modern fashionable woman; but it can hardly be called so, and remarkable is the memory of the man who from observation, and not from experience, compiled this list with a poetic jingle that is found in most " choice selections of poetry." If this interminable list of articles of the toilet were left for the possession of the exclusively fashionable woman it would not so much matter; but sensible women, actually busy in the necessary work of the world, are more or less affected by these mandates of fashion. Add to this the series of expensive entertainments, with their wearisome menus, and the visits of ceremony which must be received and returned, and life is made so burdensome and artificial that spontaneity and joy is well-nigh dried up. Most women of intelligence deprecate this condition of things, but do not quite see the way of escape from it. A friend of mine who does not mingle in what is termed general society, and escapes many of its restrictions and limitations, yet feels this bond, and says: "My life is spent in busy idleness;" by which she means that the unreal and unimportant demand the most of her time. ^ THE CONGRESS'OF WOMEN. 55 y^nother respect in which modern society is seen to be defective is in the main- tenance of a double standard of morals, one for men and one for women. It is demanded of women that they be absolutely pure and true; but men may be eligible to the best and most intelligent circles of society and yet not be held to the same high standard. It works evil, and only evil, continually to universal society; but its most painful and blighting effects are visited upon women. There is another double standard in the upper stratum of society, one for men and one for women, which works evil, viz., that of occupation or employment. A young man may start out boldly into the competitions of business life whether he be rich or poor. He may adopt the calling for which he is fitted, employ his faculties as he shall choose, receive pecuniary compensation therefor, and be confident that he is but fulfilling what a wise public opinion demands of him. But let a young woman of wealth, who is surrounded by sheltering friends, attempt the same career, and she quickly discovers that the gates are closed. The capital that would be generously bestowed upon her brother is withheld from her through mistaken kindness. Those nearest and dearest to her will prove so many obstacles in her way rather than helps. Even if a father intend to leave his daughter a handsome fortune, he will in the majority of cases educate her to be so helpless as to be absolutely dependent upon her brothers or male relatives for business guidance and control, which is only a shade less bitter than to be dependent for one's daily neces- sities, rather than teach her intelligently to take care of money herself. On the other hand, she hears the cry from another quarter: "Oh! she is taking away the opportunities of the poor. She is receiving the money that should be given to the less favored." So it results that custom, the most arbitrary of lawgivers, forbids the daughters of the well-to-do to pursue a calling that will reward them pecuniarily. They may do benevolent or charitable work; they may be domestic and interested in the adorn- ment of the home; they may study provided they do it with no practical end in view; and they may become wives and mothers, which latter position is likely to require all their energies. All these things, the charitable work, the little home services, the study and the marriage, are worthy of one's best effort, but they do not begin to afford a wide enough range of choice. No two human beings are alike, and consequently the field of choice should possess an infinite variety. I have seen young women not sufificiently developed in character and power of thought and imagination to be interested in philanthropic work, and who were too wide-awake to be quietly centered at home, who perhaps did not care to study without a definite purpose in view, and for whom marriage was an undetermined factor in life. As the customs of society now are, there is nothing for these young women but impatient waiting for somebody or something to turn up, Micawber-Iike. They become weary, and are perhaps induced to accept a marriage that under more favorable circumstances they would not make, or else they form one of the army of discontented women suffering for an inspiriting occupation, for whom the chances of marriage are daily lessening. Can it be possible that parents who yield to this tyranny of custom never think what it is to be absolutely without a chosen end and aim in life? Suppose your daughter is just out of school, where she has been busily occupied preparing for life. She comes home. She tries to adapt herself to her surroundings. She has lofty ideas and needs the healthy struggles involved in carrying out a chosen line of work to perfect her character and to establish her personality. Instead of this she has nothing to induce her to a sufficient employment of her time and her capabilities. She reads a little. She studies the fashions. She plans her wardrobe. She goes to balls and receptions. She takes a journey, and then she returns to go through the same round again. She gets restless; the monotony is unendurable. She keeps wishing for something new. You think her ungrateful. You feel she has a great deal to make her happy and to be thankful for, and yet she is miserable and makes 56 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. everybody miserable about her. She constantly seeks change. She is going some- where all the time. Her frame of mind, with the late hours and excitement of society life, rob her of her youthful charms, and her spirit loses its sweetness and fastens unerringly the lines of pain and suffering upon her face. It is so strange that parents do not see that their daughters, as well as their sons, are really human beings. You wish your son to make a choice of profession or calling. You strive to assist him in every possible way to do so, and feel dissatisfied with him if he continually puts off this choice and seems to center upon nothing. But it is far otherwise with your daughter. The kind of limitation spoken of is what is most often imposed upon her, and a great part of the viciousness of this whole order of things consists in the absolute dependence in which she is placed. These girls are made to feel that their own judgment is not final in any respect; that they are pensioners on the bounty of their father or male relatives; that the services they render have no money value; and it is the surest of methods to produce weakness of judgment, irresponsibility in expenditure, and incapacity for any useful service. What all about us expect from us that is what we are most likely to give; and we either sink or rise to the level of the opinions of our friends concerning us. We are in a world of material things. Our feet are on the solid earth. It seems to be a law of nature that we desire to acquire something that we can call our own. A young man never makes a success in life until he has some capital of money, profession, or business training. He must be a center, and be capable of gathering and holding something. He does not get a foothold in a community until he accom- plishes this. He does not become conscious of his own possibilities or capabilities until he does it. Neither does the community about him. Now is it so easy a matter to train the young for life that we can afford to throw away the strength and dignity that come from the acquisition of property, simply because the young man chances to be a young woman. Now I hear some one say, " You are leaving marriage out of the question." No, I am but speaking for those for whom a desirable marriage does not yet appear. I would not ignore marriage, but I would have a young girl so trained and prepared for life that she should enter into it only because of the compelling persuasiveness of a genuine love. And I th'ink most women would bear me out in the opinion, that the power to acquire and to properly care for money would rather sweeten the path of matri- mony than lessen its advantages. Anything that is so powerful in the human make-up as the love of possession, the desire to feel "This is mine," and is so inherent in our very nature, we do wrong to cast aside and give no legitimate field of action. Our daughters are crippled and dwarfed, and are not the grand and well-rounded women they might become. Then this extreme dependence we impose upon them causes them to look upon marriage as the only loop-hole of escape from an irksome bondage, and they come to seek marriage as a means to this end. There is something terribly degrading in this attitude in which many of our well-to-do young women of today are placed. In a sneering way it is said, "They are in the market." How much nobler and finer is the attitude of a woman who prepares herself for some useful profession or calling, and finds enough of interest in the busy activities of life to engross her best energies, to expand her powers, and to make her what God intended her to be — a ministering, self-helpful woman. Then when love speaks, and the love of her own heart answers, is she the less prepared for a happy marriage? I think not. Many of us have known the genteel lady of poverty and have seen her willing to beg or borrow without the slightest idea of return, rather than do the useful things of life. A bright friend has suggested that when the stress of need and trouble has come the battle of life is half won; when one's own opinion^, which act as suckers upon the roots of strength and energy, are cut down, an open field is left free and clear. 'THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 57 But can you not see, my friends, that when you allow in yourself, or cultivate in your daughter, the idea that useful labor is degrading, you are preparing for a moral descent in the day of adversity that may include a darker region than the one of unpaid debts. In this brief essay the effects upon the women themselves who cherish these opinions, and are bound by these customs, have been treated. But they have a wider bearing. They reach out into all grades of life and touch every .social center in the land. The discredit that is fastened upon labor for remuneration, if performed by the well-to-do women of our land, extends to the classes of people engaged in such labor, and distinctly builds rather than pulls down the barrier which exists between labor and capital, the rich and the poor. And I believe the difficulties of the labor question can never be solved until this barrier has been melted away by acquaintance, knowl- edge and sympathy. Anything that builds this barrier, that fortifies these walls of separation, is injurious and hurtful. But those philanthropies founded upon the principle that he is my neighbor who most needs me, and which ignore the prevailing artificial conditions and distinctions, are bringing forward the day of "the Parliament of Man, the Federation of the World." Personal contact, and the love and influence that flows from one to another in the social body, is the only agency that really wins, the only key that opens hearts. ^ Of late philanthropic institutions have sprung up, founded on this principle, viz., that of constant and free intercourse of the favored and cultured with the more humble and less fortunate. Hull House, in this city, is a notable and successful example. It is a house planted by two women in the midst of a foreign population, mostly self-supporting, but comparatively destitute of a social life that brings joy and hope. These women in wise and winning ways have reached out socially, and have won their way into the hearts and confidence of the people by proving themselves real friends. No supe- riority has been assumed, but a footing of social equality has been their aim to estab- lish. From the needs of these people, which were many, there has sprung a system of most diverse educational facilities too numerous to mention. Now if it is good for ^' homes" to be founded in less favored neighborhoods to carry social life into them, how much more may be accomplished when the natural homes that cover our land extend a helping hand to the needy and less favored? Now it is quite common for our social life to rest on a commercial basis, receiving so much for so much, and using it as a means for selfish promotion; and interminable calling lists and crowded reception halls are some of the consequences. Wearisome these self-imposed burdens are, and often we feel that we cannot bear them any longer. How much better it would be to bestow ourselves and our hospi- tality on those who need us and whom we can really benefit, and not look for a material reward, but take it in the inward satisfaction such a life would bring. As Browning says: " Give earth yourself, go up for gain above." THE PROGRESS OF FIFTY YEARS. By MRS. LUCV STONE. The commencement of the last fifty years is about the beginning of that great change and improvement in the condition of women which exceeds all the gains of hundreds of years before. Four years in advance of the last fifty, in 1833, Oberlin College, in Ohio, was founded. Its charter declared its grand object, '* To give the most useful education at the least expense of health, time, and money, and to extend the benefits of such education to both sexes and to all classes; and the elevation of the female character by bringing within the reach of the misjudged and neglected sex all the instruct- ive privileges which have hitherto unreasonably dis- tinguished the leading sex from theirs." These were the words of Father Shippen, which, if not heard in form, were heard in fact as widely as the world. The opening of Oberlin to women marked an epoch. In all outward circumstances this beginning was like the coming of the Babe of Bethlehem — in utter poverty. Its first hall was of rough slabs with the bark on still. Other departments corresponded. But a new Messiah had come. Get but a truth once uttered, and 'tis like A star new born that drops into its place; And which, once circling in its placid round, Not all the tumult of the earth can shake. Henceforth the leaves of the tree of knowledge were for women, and for the' heal- ing of the nations. About this time Mary Lyon began a movement to establish Mt. Holyoke Seminary. Amherst College was near by. Its students were educated to be missionaries. They must have educated wives. It was tacitly understood and openly asserted that Mt. Holyoke Seminary was to meet this demand. But, whatever the reason, the idea was born that women could and should be educated. It lifted a mountain load from woman. It shattered the idea, everywhere pervasive as the atmosphere, that women were incapable of education, and would be less womanly, less desirable in every way, if they had it. However much it may have been resented, women accepted the idea of their intellectual inequality. I asked my brother: "Can girls learn Greek?" The anti-slavery cause had come to break stronger fetters than those that held the slave. The idea of equal rights was in the air. The wail of the slave, his clanking Mfb. Lucy Stone was a native of Massachusetts. She was born August 13, 1818. Her parents were Francis Stone and Hannah Matthews Stone. She was educated in the public schools at Monson and Wilbraham Academies, and Mt. Holyoke Seminary and Oberlin College, and has traveled over most of the United States and Canada. She married Henry B. Blackwell in 1855, but she did not change her name, finding that no law required her to do so. Mrs. Stone was a well- known Woman Suffragist. Her principal literary works are editorials in the "Woman's .Journal," extending over twenty-two years. In religious faith she was a Hicksite Quaker or liberal Unitarian. She died October 18, 1893. Her life was a busy and useful one. She lived to see the Columbian Exposition with all its glorious opportunities, and to use them for the good of the cause most dear to her. Mrs. Stone's closing days and hours were blessed and crowned with comfort and tran- quillity, that always rewards a self-eacrificing, noble, Christian life. Almost her last articulate words were : "Make the world better." 58 MRS. LUCY STONE. THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 59 fetters, his utter need, appealed to everybody. Women heard. Angelina and Sarah Grimki and Abby Kelly went out to speak for the slaves. Such a thing had never been heard of. An earthquake shock could hardly have startled the community more. Some of the abolitionists forgot the slave in their efforts to silence the women. The Anti- Slavery Society rent itself in twain over the subject. The Church was moved to its very foundation in opposition. The Association of Congregational Churches issued a "Pastoral Letter" against the public speaking of women. The press, many-tongued, surpassed itself in reproaches upon these women who had so far departed from their sphere as to speak in public. But, with anointed lips and a consecration which put even life itself at stake, these peerless women pursued the even tenor of their way, saying to their opponents only: "Woe is me if I preach not this gospel of freedom for the slave." Over all came the melody of Whittier's: "When woman's heart is breaking Shall woman's voice be hushed?" I think, with never-ending gratitude, that the young women of today do not and can never know at what price their right to free speech and to speak at all in public has been earned. Abby Kelly once entered a church only to find herself the subject of the sermon, which was preached from the text: " This Jezebel is come among us also." Theyjeeredat herasshe went along the street. They threw stones at her. They pelted her with bad eggs as she stood on the platform. Some of the advocates of the very cause for which she endured all this were ready to drive her from the field. Mr. Gar- rison and Wendell Phillips stood by her. But so great was the opposition that one faction of the abolitionists left and formed a new organization, after a vain effort to put Abby Kelly off from the committee to which she had been nominated. The right to education and to free speech having been gained for woman, in the long run every other good thing was sure to be obtained. Half a century ago women were at an infinite disadvantage in regard to their occupations. The idea that their sphere was at home, and only at home, was like a band of steel on society. But the spinning-wheel and the loom, which had given employment to women, had been superseded by machinery, and something else had to take their places. The taking care of the house and children, and the family sewing, and teaching the little summer school at a dollar per week, could not supply the needs nor fill the aspirations of women. But every departure from these conceded things was met with the cry, "You want to get out of your sphere," or, "To take women out of their sphere;" and that was to fly in the face of Providence, to unsex yourself — in short, to be monstrous women, women who, while they orated in public, wanted men to rock the cradle and wash the dishes. We pleaded that whatever was fit to be done at all might with propriety be done by anybody who did it well; that the tools belonged to those who could use them; that the possession of a power presup- posed a right to its use. This was urged from city to city, from state to state. Women were encouraged to try new occupations. We endeavored to create that wholesome discontent in women that would compel them to reach out after far better things. But every new step was a trial and a conflict. Men printers left when women took the type. They formed unions and pledged themselves not to work for men who employed women. But these tools belonged to women, and today a great army of women are printers unquestioned. When Harriet Hosmer found within herself the artist soul, and sought by the study of anatomy to prepare herself for her work, she was repelled as out of her sphere, and indelicate, and not a medical college in all New England or in the Middle States would admit her. She persevered, aided by her father's wealth and influence. Dr. McDowell, the dean of the medical college in St. Louis, admitted her. The field of art is now open to women, but as late as the time when models for the statue of Charles Sumner were made, although that of Annie Whitney, in the judgment of the committee, took precedence of all the rest, they refused to award her the contract 60 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. for the statue when they knew that the model was the work of a woman. But her beautiful Samuel Adams and Lief Ericsson, and the fine handiwork of other artists, are argument and proof that the field of art belongs to women. When Mrs. Tyndall, of Philadelphia, assumed her husband's business after his death, importing chinaware, sending her ships to China, enlarging her warehouses and increasing her business, the fact was quoted as a wonder. When Mrs. Young, of Lowell, Mass., opened a shoe-store in Lowell, though she sold only shoes for women and children, people peered curiously in to see how she looked. Today the whole field of trade is open to woman. When Elizabeth Blackwell studied medicine and put up her sign in New York, she was regarded as fair game, and was called a " she doctor." The college that had admitted her closed its doors afterward against other women, and supposed they were shut out forever. But Dr. Blackwell was a woman of fine intellect, of great personal worth and a Idvel head. How good it was that such a woman was the first doctor! She was well equipped by study at home and abroad, and prepared to con- tend with prejudice and every opposing thing. Dr. Zakrzewska was with her, and Dr. Emily Blackwell soon joined them. At a price the younger women doctors do not know, the way was opened for women physicians. The first woman minister, Antoinette Brown, had to meet ridicule and oppo- sition that can hardly be conceived to-day. Now there are women ministers, east and west, all over the country. In Massachusetts, where properly qualified " persons " were allowed to practice law, the Supreme Court decided that a woman was not a " person," and a special act of the legislature had to be passed before Miss Lelia Robinson could be admitted to the bar. But today women are lawyers. Fifty years ago the legal injustice imposed upon women was appalling. Wives, widows and mothers seemed to have been hunted out by the law on purpose to see in how many ways they could be wronged and made helpless. A wife by her marriage lost all right to any personal property she might have. The income of her land went to her husband, so that she was made absolutely penniless. If a woman earned a dol- lar by scrubbing, her husband had a right to take the dollar and go and get drunk with it and beat her afterwards. It was his dollar. If a woman wrote a book the copy- right of the same belonged to her husband and not to her. The law counted out in many states how many cups and saucers, spoons and knives and chairs a widow might have when her husband died. I have seen many a widow who took the cups she had bought before she was married and bought them again after her husband died, so as to have them legally. The law gave no right to a married woman to any legal exist- ence at all. Her legal existence was suspended during marriage. She could neither sue nor be sued. If she had a child born alive the law gave her husband the use of all her real estate as long as he should live, and called it by the pleasant name of " the estate by courtesy." When the husband died the law gave the widow the use of one- third of the real estate belonging to him, and it was called the "widow's encumbrance." While the law dealt thus with her in regard to her property, it dealt still more hardly with her in regard to her children. No married mother could have any right to her child, and in most of the states of the Union that is the law to-day. But the laws in regard to the personal and property rights of women have been greatly changed and improved, and we are very grateful to the men who have done it. We have not only gained in the fact that the laws are modified. Women have acquired a certain amount of political power. We have now in twenty states school suffrage for women. Forty years ago there was but one. Kentucky allowed widows with children of school age to vote on school questions. We have also municipal suffrage for women in Kansas, and full suffrage in Wyoming, a state larger than all New England. The last half century has gained for women the right to the highest education and entrance to all professions and occupations, or nearly all. As a result we have THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 61 women's clubs, the Woman's Congress, women's educational and industrial unions, the moral education societies, the Woman's Relief Corps, police matrons, the Wom- an's Christian Temperance Union, colleges for women, and co-educational colleges and the Harvard Annex, medical schools and medical societies open to women, women's hospitals, women in the pulpit, women as a power in the press, authors, women artists, women's beneficent societies and Helping Hand societies, women school supervisors, and factory inspectors and prison inspectors, women on state boards of charity, the International Council of Women, the Woman's National Council, and last, but not least, the Board of Lady Managers, And not one of these things was allowed women fifty years ago, except the opening at Oberlin. By what toil and fatigue and patience and strife and the beautiful law of growth has all this been wrought? These things have not come of themselves. They could not have occurred except as the great movement for women has brought them out and about. They are part of the eternal order, and they have come to stay. Now all we need is to continue to speak the truth fearlessly, and we shall add to our number those who will turn the scale to the side of equal and full justice in all things. WOMAN AS AN INVESTOR. By MRS. LOUISE A. STARKWEATHER. I would hesitate to come before you with a paper upon the unsentimental, and to many, the uninteresting topic of finance, but for the fact that woman is such an import- ant factor in the financial world. Coming as I do from a field of strife, where ambition to attain sudden wealth often wrecks the present and embitters the future lives of men and women whose investments of money are at best attended with a certain degree of hazard, I feel a certain sense of duty to woman in calling her attention to three important branches of investments, which, as far as she is concerned, come in the following order: Insurance, banking and loan associations. There is not an incident in the history of war of cruelty or justice meted out in obedience of some law, as cruel, as cold-blooded, or as heartless as is shown in the history of finance of today. True, hundreds have been swept out of existence in a single hour on fields of battle; but the suffering was soon past, the life gone out was cheerfully given for a cause sacred to the giver and revered by those who mourned their dead. Death is far preferable, as there can be no anguish nor suffering as great as that en- dured by the happy, successful man who suddenly finds himself a beggar; a lifetime of work and savings swept before his helpless eyes and hands, leaving him to witness and share the hardships of those dependent upon him, and perchance his failure may not excite the sincere sympathy of those in whose behalf he risked his all. Censure is too often the rule. The world of finance knows no pity for the man who fails; it has smiles only for the successful man without much inquiry as to the modus operandi of his success. Now in this whirlpool of money getting, money losing and money keeping, what of woman? Read the list of the millionaires of the world and do you not find women as well represented as men? Read the records of any banking institution and who do you find as the principal stock owners? Women! Look over the books of any and every suc- cessful Loan and Building Association and who has been the purchasers of stock and builders of homes by this method of Loan? Women! But she is there in name only, as a rule. For many long and weary years she has been clamoring for political rights and political honors, equal suffrage and men's clothing, the pantaloons in particular, if one is to draw a conclusion from the recent dress reform display held here in Chi- cago. It is claimed aloud by some men, and whispered by others, that she has been in possession of the article of apparel just mentioned for all time; be that as it may, my Mrs. Loaise A. Starkweather is a native of West Virginia. She was born March 28, 1858. Her parents were Thomas B. Hall and Sarah A. Hall, of English and Scotch descent. She was educated at Normal Dni versity. Normal, 111. She spent four years as a teacher and six years as a principal of schools. She has traveled throughout the United States and part of Canada. She married Oakley B. Starkweather in Chicago, April 20, 1889. Her principal literary works are newspaper work over the signature, "Antique," for the papers of Alton, 111., Bloomington, 111., and Chicago. She has been superintendent of the Woman's Department of the Mutual Life Insurance Company, of New York, for several years, and has written some of the largest policieB held by women in America. In religious faith she is an Episcopalian. Her postolRce address is 421 Olive Street, St. Louis, Mo. 62 MRS. LOUISE A. STARKWEATHER. THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 63 only wish is that if the disguise of man's clothing would open woman's eyes to her own importance and responsibility in the financial world, I shall not object, but I doubt it. Strange as it may seem coming from a business woman as I am, I do most emphatically assert that woman is the most inconsistent of God's creation. There are women who by inheritance of stock in the great industries and banks of this age might wield a power far more telling, far more vital than anything politics could give, yet they never think of asserting the rights they already have. I shall not take your time in giving a recapitulation of history as to the wealth and power of our revered mater- nal ancestors. The pages of ancient and modern history teem with the facts and you may read if you will. It is my purpose to talk of woman as I find her today, good, honest, earnest and inconsistent! First let us look at the matter of banks and bank stock. Did it ever occur to you that a very large portion of bank stock in the United States is owned by women ? Did it ever occur to those women that they have a vote and voice in the direc- tion and management of a work far more important than the election of a Kansas Senator or a Ward politician? True, there are some women who are holding offices in banks. I met the vice-presidentof a Texas bank and in a conversation upon her duties learned that she always signed papers when brought to her even though she stopped her bread-making or any other household duties to do so; but as to any knowledge of the securities held, money, markets, etc, she had none further than that her money was in the bank's business and she was notified regularly of the dividends, and had money to use as shechose. But as to whether the dividends were larger or smaller than any preceding year she could not say. Some day that woman will be notified that her stock is not drawing any dividends, then maybe she will look after her interests and exercise her right to the ballot. Men are willing to grant woman all the rights she may have in the financial world, yet they look upon her as a legal prey if she per- sists in remaining ignorant in matters pertaining to her property and prosperity. No- where in the business world is woman more applauded than in this department of economics, and nowhere is she more swindled and wheedled out of her property than right here. As I before stated there is no sentiment in finance, but there is commendation to the successful, be that person man or woman. In Suffolk County, Va., two-thirds of the bank stock is owned by women, yet there is but one bank officer a woman, as far as can be learned, and many of these women do not know how to draw a check and can- not discover the difference between a dividend and an assessment and would be as pleased over a notice of one as the other until better informed. Who votes the shares of stock owned by women, do you ask? Some man who by proxy votes as best suits his purpose, and attends to her loans and interests as is most profitable to himself. A rather amusing story is told of one of the wealthy women of St. Louis, whose husband, tired of attending to her dressmakers' and milliners' bills, decided to give her an account at a bank, so she might attend to these affairs herself. So he handed her a bank book with the account opened, and a good round sum at her credit, also a check book, and told her to pay her bills by checks; shortly after he was notified that his wife's account was overdrawn at the bank. He called her attention to the fact and was assured it could not be. She brought him the check book, saying: "See, there are several checks yet I have not used." Is it any wonder that money left in the hands of such a woman is soon mismanaged by some man who sees her ignor- ance. Woman suddenly finds herself in possession of money, by reason of death of her husband or father, and unless she is on the alert, it will soon be dissipated by bad management. Life insurance has made woman rich, and lawyers have profited by her ignorance in financial matters. The judge of the probate court in one of the counties of New York gives a most startling statement of his observation on the bench. It is this: Eighty per cent of the money left to widows and children in that county dur- ing his term of office was dissipated by mismanagement. Women left with money are looked upon as legitimate prey by a class of men who have over their office 64 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. door the word " Investments." Chicago courts of this year disclosed a most appall- ing state of affairs that women should blush to acknowledge. A firm consisting of four brothers closed their doors one morning, and in the investigation following, this fact was brought out: One of the brothers testified that his duties in the transac- tion of the firm's business was to look up widows and women of means, and by a sys- tem of flattery and attention gain their confidence and a full statement of finances. He claimed a few lunches, a theater party, a ride or other attentions of like nature usu- ally gave him the information desired, and he soon had the management of the woman's property, borrowed her money, and the best account he could give was a memoranda stuck in his vest pocket and afterward destroyed. That women should be such weaklings is a matter* of both regret and shame to all the world, and that such a case could be recorded against her good sense and judgment is a great blot upon her. Very few men would say to their wives or daughters: " Here, take care of the bank or store, or factory; I shall take a, trip around the world, and may remain indefinitely. You attend to the affairs and take care of the children's interests." Yet every day we see women thrown in that position, in addition to the grief attendant upon a sudden bereavement. She must take up a work in which she has had no preparation — and too often no knowledge. She must either see her interests ruined or lay aside her grief and begin where, until now, she was not supposed to have ability or comprehension to warrant even her husband's confidence. This very fact has made woman what she is today, and it will make her the rule, not the exception, in business relations of the future. Women soon discover that the mysteries of business are not as impenetrable as she supposed. The time has come. She must occupy chairs in directors, meetings; must keep informed on the subject of money making, as well as money spending; must know her check book from her bank book; her deposits from overdrafts; divi- dends from assessments of stock, and be willing and ready to vote and lend her ideas in this branch, as she has elsewhere in the world with such good effect. Insurance formerly offered to man a contract with two conditions, viz.: First. Payment of a certain sum at a stated time until death. Second. Return to the family a specified sum upon proofs of death being satisfactorily given. It now offers to woman more than that. There are no reforms or changes so marked as in the insur- ance world of today and that of the past. Women are now considered equally as good risks, are carried by companies for the limit of their indemnity, and by this investment may have many opportunities never offered before. For instance, a woman may insure her life and have the policy payable to herself at a certain time. That is, she need not die to win. This policy is as negotiable as a government bond, and may be used in business transactions as are other securities. At the expira- tion of a stated time she may have all the money she has invested in this manner returned to her, together with interest on the same for the time, thereby giving her the same advantages of savings banks with greater security than they can afford, or, if she so desires, she may turn the cash value of her policy into an income for life, thereby providing for the old woman a safe and happy old age, without the worries of business details. This last feature of the investment in insurance is a most import- ant one, for with the continuance of life there is for all of us an old woman for whose care and comfort the younger woman is responsible. Charity, no matter how sweet, is yet a bitter dose to the old. None of us can foresee our peculiarities in the future, and we are too well warned by the fate of old women of our acquaintance to neglect our own declining years. A woman owes it as a duty to herself as well as her child- ren to place herself in that position which will make her not a burden upon any. A son-in-law cannot be expected to love and care for the mother-in-law, unless she is a rich one. A daughter should not be expected to add to her own cares that of help- less imbecility of a husband's relative. We will be as unwilling as the most unwilling of our relatives to take that which is given under such circumstances. Do you know, THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. «5 that by a small saving each year for a period of ten years a woman may place herself beyond the accident of dependence. This is a much happier future to contemplate than the uncertainty of some one's possible care, whether given grudgingly or not. Insurance for women today provides an estate left, in case of death, a savings bank for her money, and a guaranteed annuity for old age; yet there are women who are sentimental enough to not only deny themselves such a provision, but who will induce husbands to cancel any they may have, and too often live to repent their folly. Let me tell you another story — my stories are all true ones, by the way: A woman of more than ordinary business ability in a western town was approached by a real estate man who knew of her contemplation of investing a sum of money she had received. He suggested the purchase of a three-thousand-dollar piece of property that was then rented at ten per cent of the value, or three hundred dollars a year; he showed her that by a few repairs needed this property would bring her four hundred and fifty dollars a year, or fifteen per cent of her investment. Fifteen percent on money invested is always a temptation to man and woman both, and our western woman was not an exception. She purchased the property and the agent then set about the repairs and changes required to secure an advance rent. When the new roof was put on, the sides of the house cried out for paint, and when that was done the fence fell dovyn with shame before the new clothes of the house; and so it went. The house was entirely remodeled; time was lost, as the tenants were compelled to move and new ones must be secured. But they were finally secured, and then came the trials of our woman investor in keeping peace between tenants and agent. She resolved herself into a peace committee and lay awake nights thinking out plans to ameliorate the woes of first one and then the other, all the time paying the agent for services ren- dered in keeping her tenants either moving in the house or out of it. Well, to be brief, she cast up her accounts one day last month, and, during the time, two years, she had made a net profit of one dollar and fifty cents upon her investment. I could give you her name and address that you might verify my statement, but you do not need my case, there are hundreds of your own knowledge that are parallel. Had this woman invested one-tenth of her three thousand dollars in some large and secure insurance company two years ago, the dividends of that company would have been almost forty per cent of her investment, and she need not have added lines of care to her face in the endeavor to keep her money making one dollar and fifty cents in two years, besides providing an income for her future that would not require the services of an agent. A wife has as much need to provide an estate for her children by the means of an investment in some insurance company as has the husband. She ought to have a sum of money to leave her children that they might have the advantages she would have given them had she lived. The husband is more helpless when left alone with the children to rear than a wife; he cannot adapt his hours of bread-win- ning and home-making as can a woman when left alone to face the world. Too often children are scattered or given into the care of unwilling relatives to be cared or uncared for, as the case may be; home ties are broken, affections alienated, ignorance encouraged, and crime often follows the loss of a mother's care or the provision she may have made to complete the plans for her children. Every woman in this great and good republic should insure, for has she not the same right to accumulate a com- petence as has man, and in this branch her rights are equal, her returns as great, and her provisions for self and others just as beneficent as man's. Real estate may decline in value and at best brings but small returns, a failure to pay one deferred payment loses all, if an hour of need comes it is a burden; but insurance is co-operation. If you die your children never needed money more than when death and sickness hampers their grief-stricken efforts; they may draw from the accumulated resources of thou- sands of others a fund carefully secured against loss, says one of the wisest business men of the times. Loan associations have enabled poor women to build a home, they have made her pay for it to be sure, and she has struggled through a term of eight to ten years for this end; had death overtaken her all would have been lost unless she (5) 66 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. carried a policy to cover the mortgage hanging over the home. Without the policy she would have left a debt, an unfinished obligation for those left behind to assume; with a policy the debt is canceled, the home safe, and she has not lived in vain even should she not be able to stand the strain of her duties to those dependent upon her. Did you ever hear of a woman attending the meetings of the directors of a loan asso- ciation and learning anything of its transactions unless she was to become a borrower? I regret that my business has shown me woman's indifference in a matter of so much importance as this of money making. Yet to be truthful I must state facts and urge it upon all to look into your bank accounts, your investments, the money markets and the provision for your old age. An old woman cannot have too much money. The more disagreeable she is the more she will need that which makes all paths smooth and services rendered lighter by a recorripense greater than love can buy or importune. This great branch of business, larger by far than the banking systems combined, opens its doors to woman, making her not only the beneficiary as formerly, but owner of the shares of stock and shares in the profits of the vast amounts invested for her future needs. Her age and sex cut no figure here; she is from the insurance point of view equal to man in all things. THE FEAST OF COLUMBIA. 1493-189^ By MRS. ALICE WILLIAMS BROTHERTON. "Hither," Columbia said, With a smile to her daughters four, "From prairie and gulf and sea Come hither and toil with me. 'Ere the century turns from our door, Let us set a feast for the ancient East Upon the New World's shore." From the rising sun came one, A sturdy colonial dame. With a rugged, cheery face. Tanned by the wind and sun, And a stately, old-time air, Dark eyes with courage aflame Under her powdered hair. Of cloth from the whirring looms. Woven so soft and fine. Deftly she spread a snowy webb; Said, "Here is a gift of mine. But many another thing To grace your halls I bring. Marbles, polished and varied and rare. And granites strong and good; Fish from my sea beat coasts, Masts from my tall pine wood, Yet something better than these I boast. This ancient blade with the battle nicks. Lo! here is a pen. And the musty parchment deed; Framed in our hour of need By stalwart, single hearted men In Seventeen and Seventy-Six." And the people of the land, From the oldest to the least Cried, "Hail to the steadfast band Who saved for us Freedom's land: Hurrah, Hurrah! Once and again, Hail to the Mother of Men! Hail to the East!" Mrs. Alice Williams Brotherton iB a native of Cambridge, Ind., bat has passed nearly all of her life in Ohio. Her parents were Rath Dodge Johnson Williams and Alfred Baldwin Williams, of Cincinnati, Ohio. She was educated in various private schools, in the St. Louis Eliot Grammar School, and in the Woodward High School, of Cincinnati. She married Mr. William Ernest Brotherton, of Cincinnati. She is the mother of two boys and one girl; the eldest son died in 1890. Her principal literary works are contributions in prose and verse to such periodicals as Ttie Century, The Atlantic, The Independent, and "Beyond the Veil," "The Sailing of King Olaf," and other poems, and "What the Wind Told," in prose and verse. In religious faith she is a Unitarian of the non-conservative type. Her postoffice address is Bidgeway Avenne, Avon> dale, Cincinnati. Ohio. ^_ 67 MRS. ALICE WILLIAMS BROTHERTON 68 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. Out of the North one paced With a stately step and slow, As one whose going crushed The crispness of the snow. "I bring my flour for the feast From the thousand mills you know, The tasseled ears are torn From my serried ranks of corn. Take" them and eat The loaves of the finest wheat. Here are copper and lead and iron, Whose bands already environ The world, and lumber to frame The walls of the home. The home that redeems the waste, In whose keeping all life is placed. With these and more I come; Take ye these at their worth, These, my gifts," said the North. And the people shouted, and said, "Hail to the Queen of the Lakes, From whom the nation takes Grateful, its daily bread! Hail to the North! Once more — To her million beds of ore! To the lumber on her shore! And the wheat she sendeth forth The whole world o'er! Hail to the North!" And one from the sunset came. With steps as a panther's free. And dusky cheek aflame. "I am the child of the Western wild, And bring my gifts to thee. Red meat I give you here From the bison and the deer, Herds on a thousand hills Where the sunset shines Are yours for the feast," said the West. "But take with these my best Silver and gold from the mine; And a strange new story to read Of an old world in the new. Over canyon written, and mead, Story the Aztecs knew. Of the great new states to be The years shall write for me. Oh, the old is good," quoth she; "But who shall call it the best? Take the best of my gifts from me," Said the mighty West. THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. Then the land rose up with a shout, "Hail to the Westering Star That leads our conquests afar, Most welcome, oh noble guest! Hail to the Prairie Queen With the eagle's plumes for a crest. Pearls of the gulf in her hand And rails of steel for a girdle band!" Where the moccasined foot has pressed The coming millions shall stand. Hail to the West! Who comes up from the South With a smile on her full round mouth. But trace of a tear in her eye? Who says, twixt smile and sigh, (Oh sweet as her own south wind her words) "These my offerings be, look. The ploughshare beaten from sword. The spear made pruning-hook, And the fruits of my pruned vine Today are thine. Take what my tillage yields — The cotton-boll from my fields. Tobacco leaf and cane, And snowy rice from the brakes Where the balmy east wind wakes And the noontides reign. My wealth of flowers fair To grace the feast I bear. And a tropical fruitage rare: Oranges ripe — a mimic sun Molded in gold is every one; Bananas that melt in the mouth. Lemons sweetened with sun — Take ye these, all and one My gifts," said the South. And the people of the land Cried, "This is the harvest fair After the years of drought. And the rain of blood and tears. No land so fruitful appears, And her wheat shall know no tares! " And her sisters pressed anear And they kissed her on the mouth. And the nation shouted and cried: "Hail to the South in her glad new pride Hail to the South!" Smiled the Great Mother, and said, "Peace. The old issues are dead. And the wars are over and done. In one sky glitter afar Southern Cross— Northern Star. 70 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. We know from rise to set of sun No North or South, no West or East, No first or last, no best or least, For the many in one are one." "Come," Columbia said To the nations of the earth, "See what the rolling years Have wrought in the land of my birth. See what the brain has thought, And the busy hand has wrought. We have gathered from every side All that we hold of worth; Come ye, and see," Columbia cried To the nations of the earth. "Where the savage war-whoop rang, And the red men hunted the deer. The hammers of labor briskly clang And the city's streets appear. Man from Nature has won the land. And held it this many a year. Where art has pointed the way. And industry wrought with the hand, Come sit at the feast with me today In the center of my land." "Come," said the world of the West To the great world of the East, "Join hands across the sea In token of amity. 'Ere the century is done Let us sit down and feast; In all lands shineth one sun. And the world is one." THE WOMAN'S NATIONAL INDIAN ASSOCIATION. By MRS. AMELIA S. QUINTON. The story of the Woman's National Indian Association is, like that of similar movements, largely a personal story. The work had its rise in individual interest in Indians, and this, communicated to and shared by others, originated a philanthropy now of national pro- portions. The motives were Christian, and the in- spiration had its birth from the missionary spirit. The history of the Association, therefore, as is natural, is largely a history of missionary activity. Even the first movement, though for five years wholly devoted to gaining political rights for Indians, was as truly from the missionary spirit as was afterward the plant- ing missions in the tribes. In the present brief out- line of the work reference must be made to the above l^oints; to the condition of things among Indians at tliat date — the spring of 1879 — the home circum- stances of the people aided, their character as then seen, the results of the labors of the Association, and to the important work still remaining to be done. And first a personal reference. A devoted Chris- tian educator in Philadelphia became specially inter- ested in the Indian race through references in the daily press, related the facts observed therein to a friend, and these two secured the interest of others; an organization was proposed by the friend referred to, and effected after two years of preparatory work which was planned, provided for, and done chiefly by these two. It was seeing "the need" which moved the "com- passion," and the kindred impulse to "go tell" naturally followed. Christians were believed to be millennium bringers by the application of practical righteousness to specific needs, and this "faith justified" itself by the events which were its sequel. The appeal of the association for united effort to move our government to grant a legal status to Indians, the protection of law, lands in severalty, and education; appeal was made to the Christian press and ministry, to ecclesiastical bodies and to patriots, and soon sixteen states were included in work to these ends. The first appeal was for covenant-keeping with tribes to which .solemn pledges had been given, and that no treaty should be abrogated or broken without the free consent of the Indian tribe named in it. It was of this association's service that .Senator Dawes, chairman of the Senate Indian Committee, said: "The new government Indian policy was born of and nursed by this woman's association," and it was his own .Scveralt)- Bill which became the law of the land in March, 1887, that granted to the Indians of the United States the rights and privileges asked in the petitions of the association. Mre. Amelia S. Quinton was bom near Syracnse, N. Y. Her i>arent« were Jacob Thompson Stone and Mary Bennett Stone. She was educated in Homer, N. Y., under the tuition of Samuel B. Woolworth, L L.D. She has traveled in every state and territory of the United States but three, and has made several trips to Europe. She is a woman of large experience and much culture, and most gracious manners. She married Rev. James F. Swanson and resided in Georgia several years, and after her widowhood married in London, England, Richard Quinton, A. M. Her special work has been for our North American Indians, in whose interests she organized the Woman's National Indian Association, and has been its president for the last six years. She has for many years prepared the literature of that Association and edited its paper. Mrs. Quinton is a Christiau, and a member of the Baptist church. Her postotfice address is 1823 Arch Street, Philadelphia, Pa. 71 MRS. AMELIA S. QUINTON. 72 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. When it became evident that this great reform would be a success, the attention of the association was given to missionary work, to home building, hospital, educational and other work needed among the Indians on the reservations, and soon ten depart- ments of practical work were shared by interested helpers in nearly all the states of the Union, and with encouraging success. During the last nine years, since these lines of effort were undertaken, the society has established directly or indirectly thirty-three mission stations, transferring these to permanent missionary societies when well established, giving with the mission its land, mission cottage, chapel, and all its prop- erty and improvements. The association has given special education to bright Indians, training them as physicians, nurses, teachers and missionaries to help and lead their people. It has built houses by loans, placing thus about a hundred Indians in civilized and Christian homes, and the loans are being honestly repaid. It has hos- pital, library and industrial departments, and has built twelve missionary cottages, chapels and schoolhouses. During its last year it expended $28,000 sending goods to tribes in special need to the amount of $3,000. A glance at the oppressions of Indians at the beginning of this work shows them to have been practically without legal rights. They were subject to enforced removals from their own land; they were constantly robbed by marauders' and ruffian frontiers- men; they were under agents possessing despotic power, who could forbid trade among them, could suspend their chiefs, and arrest or drive from the reservation any unwel- come visitor. The Indians were not permitted to sell the natural products of the soil even when in a starving condition. They might be banished to reservations where farming was impossible though farming was required, and yet under such conditions were sometimes deprived of arms and ammunition for hunting, their only source of subsistence. Our nation practically prohibited all lines of work natural to the Indian, and then falsified its promises to furnish him means for farming. Today, by the suc- cess of the movement inaugurated under Divine Providence by the Women's National Indian Association, the Indian is lifted out of his old helplessness into the status of a man and citizen under law, is given the privilege of education, and his home and family can now be protected from ruffians and criminals. In the old days, as a rule, the Indian home was a tepee or tent, a wickyup, hogan, bark campooda or dug-out, destitute of furniture and with no garden, field, meadow, wells, improvements, or domestic animals. Today there are thousands of comfortable homes, built of planks, logs, or better materials; many in different places are really tasteful and complete homes, and these are now surrounded with gardens, fields, orchards and other features of civilization, all constituting a wide beginningof the better era which has really dawned for the Indian race. Nor is the change in Indian charac- ter less marked. Under the old order of things the better human impulses were hindered or throttled; manhood and womanhood were humiliated and degraded, and many a character noble by nature, and many a mind finely endowed was stultified into utter helplessness and inaction by tyrannous conditions and the inescapable bondage of the reservation system, the sum of all oppression. Today the Indian, man or woman, who is conscious of the possession of character, the impulse to action felt by ability, the aspiration of power,physical or mental, has freedom to go where he will and make his own life; while he who desires education, development, culture — and there are not a few of these in the many tribes — can find his opportunity, his work, and his reward. Indian women are at last free to express the best that is in them, to embody in deeds the noblest instincts of maternity, and bravely to ask for their chil- dren the protections and privileges which have so lately come to themselves. The results of the great change for the race are surprising when one considers the time involved. Gradually the way was preparing by Providence, and even under the reservation-government civilized industry had a beginning; but the great facts of progress are due to the changes of the last few years. One cannot but be surprised that already more than twenty-four thousand families are engaged in agriculture; that there is provision now made for three-quarters of the Indian children of school THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 73 age; that there are at least twenty-five thousand real Indian citizens of the United States; that the seventy-one military posts formerly set to control them are reduced to ten; and that of the two hundred and fifty thousand Indians of the country two hundred thousand are already self-supporting. The efficiency and excellence of the work done for and by the Indians in the schools has surprised the whole country, and one need but look over the well certified reports of these schools to see that their results compare well with those of schools for any race under like conditions. Those who have visited the schools operating for one month each within these exposition grounds need no added testimony to the natural ability of the Indian, or to his will- ingness to work when the usual motives of civilization are permitted him. Did time permit, many interesting illustrations might be given of the success of well-endowed Indian young men and women who have in a few years obtained a good elementary English education; of others who have graduated from colleges and institutions for special professional education; of some who have been trained by our own associa- tion as physicians and nurses, or been aided in the study of law, and even of art. The first Indian woman physician was thus educated, and is now an honored gov- ernment physician and Christian worker among her own people. The achievements of some of these Indian patriots among their own people would read like epics could they be written. We can here cite but one case: One who followed the wild, free life of an Indian boy — happil}' remote from vicious rough white borderers — till fourteen years of age, when, hearing from beloved lips the story of the Christ, and being won, he followed his Divine star to an Indian school one hundred and fifty miles distant; finished his course there, entered and graduated from college, achieved a three years' medical education, again graduated with honor, and to the persuasions of white fellow-stu- dents to stay east and get rich he made answer: "Do you suppose that I have studied here seven years to stay and make money? No. 1 go to help my people." And back to barbarians, to isolation, to hardships, but to noble service, he returned, expos- ing life again and again in the emergencies of his consecrated labor. In the fifteen years given to work for this race, and in visits to tribes in every state and territory of the Union but three, it has been my happy lot to meet not a few men and women, sometimes in blanket, paint and feathers, who were jewel souls by nature, richly worth the effort of any patriot to save and uplift them into noble man- hood and womanhood; and some of these have by God's grace become jewels in Christ's crown and consecrated workers in His kingdom. Some of them have heard of Him for the first time in dying hours and have .said, "Now I am not afraid," and have with the last breath asked the Divine light for their people. Reproaches that can never be forgotten have fallen from some dying lips for a gospel withheld from be- loved ones; from many tribes now come earnest pleadings for schools and for Chris- tian teachers. Amcng the many noble endeavors of today, what is nobler than redemptive work among these native Americans, to whom we are under so great and so lasting obliga- tion? There are still needed forty mission stations in order to bring the Divine light to all these native tribes, and the presence and effort of a consecrated pair of friends and helpers in each tribe would discover the jewels worth polishing; would detect and go far to remedy wrongs among them; would foster all good impulses; would evolve and strengthen manhood and womanhood, and would inspire toward industry, patriotism and Christian living the worthy men and women of the tribe. With forty- four states it should be easy to provide these needed missions; and, rich in mental, moral and spiritual power, it should be easy for American Christian women to finish the solution of the Indian question. WOMAN'S SPHERE FROM A WOMAN'S STANDPOINT. By MRS. LAURA DE FORCE GORDON. One of the most noted features of the whole woman question is the zeal and persistence with which men of all classes and conditions have from time immemorial been defining and explaining woman's natural sphere. Eloquent divines, grave jurists and profound states- men have all added their quota to the ponderous literature that has accumulated for ages, in which woman's place in nature has been set forth i?i extenso from a masculine standpoint. The fact that it has been found necessary in each generation for the past six thousand years, more or less, to repeat and reiter- ate this definition of woman's sphere — her legitimate sphere in life — is proof that woman is a most rebel- lious subject, or that men have not yet reached a point where they can successfully locate all women. Those who are so much concerned about women remaining in a certain sphere which they have been at such pains to define, and so earnest in their appeals and demands that she should accept, ought to learn something from experience. It is becoming more and more evident that women — most of them — are not satisfied to remain in a state of innocuous desue- tude, or to submissively follow indicated paths along life's highways, for they are continually breaking over the lines drawn by masculine authorities, and are most unruly subjects. Today there are thousands of women everywhere in open organized rebellion against the social and political despotism which denies woman the right to choose her own vocation, or those who should rule over her. Woman is no longer content to remain a subject. The spirit of "divine unrest" which enwraps the century has her in its embrace. This persistent effort by one-half the human race to mark out a line of thought, a rule of action, or sphere of life for the other half, and seek to compel adhesion thereto, is such a wanton disregard for the rights of man, so palpable a violation of the inherent principles of justice from which the love of liberty is born, that nature herself rebels against it, and everywhere we find evidences of her emphatic protests by the placing of masculine brains — if power and capacity of intellect is to be the criterion of sex — into feminine craniums. The rational man evolved from savagery could not estimate worth save by use. This environment made war a necessity, and prowess in arms was his whole standard of merit or superiority. Hence woman, the mother of the race, the builder of the home, was the conservator of peace, and perforce, was relegated to the position of an Mrs. Laura de Force Gordon was bom in Erie County, Pa. Her parents were Abram de Force and Catherine Doolittle Allen de Force, also of Pennsylvania. She was graduated in the public schools of Erie County, Pa., and Chau- tauqua County, New York. She has traveled extensively in the United States, British Provinces and Mexico. She married Capt. C. H. Gordon, of the 3d R. I. Cavalry, but has been a widow for seventeen years. Her special work has been in advancing the interests of women. Her principal literary works are the "Great Geysers of California," a hand-book for tourists, and the publication of a daily and weekly newspaper. Her profession is attorney at law. She has attained great distinction, both in civil and criminal practice. She was officially engaged in the World's Columbian Exposition as a Juror of Awards. Her postoffice address is Lodi, Cal. 74 MRS. LAURA DE FORCE GORDON. THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 75 inferior; but with the advance of civilization, the diffusion of enlightenment, there is no excuse for this relic of barbarism to exist. Starting in the iron age, with the assumption that woman was an inferior, man has found it hard to acknowledge the value of brain power, of intellectual capacity, of inventive genius and artistic skill, unless coupled with brute or physical force. Having assigned woman an inferior place in a lower civilization, all the training, instruction, discipline and education which have since been accorded her have been carefully shaped and permeated by a spirit of authority which would tend to keep her there. AH through the ages there has been a system of repression, suppression and oppression practiced toward women that is incomprehensible. Often the little girl, who dares to express an opinion in opposition to her brother's view of some juvenile sport, is met with the exasperating and insulting reminder of her inferiority, imperiously expressed, "Well, you are a girl. What do you know about it?" Should a girl in the youthful buoyancy of health, and full of latent life and energy, give expression to her exuberant spirits by gymnastic exercises or athletic sports, she suffers a sort of social outlawry, and is stigmatized as a "tomboy," a hoyden, a romp, etc. Even in the family circle, if the conversation is turned upon educational or political topics, in which the young maiden takes great delight, and she ventures a remark or asks a question, she is politely, but none the less insultingly, assured, "Little girls are to be seen and not heard." Under such adverse conditions have women been reared for generations. The repression and suppression of all her natural aspirations toward a healthy, intellectual womanhood have gone on and on, and when the woman ques- tion is under discussion, we are gravely told that woman is by nature wholly unfitted for, and incapable of occupying, a broader or more intellectual field of thought or action. What an outrage to common sense. Both law and gospel have combined against woman to render her position in life unnatural and subservient. From her first hour of consciousness she has been cau- tioned, repressed, and finally oppressed by invidious distinctions and unjust discrim- inations against her. Up to within a few years colleges and universities have been closed against her; society has sneered at learned women; and if one possessed of inventive genius fashioned a new and useful device, even her nearest male relatives and friends advised her to patent it in the name of some man, as it would not be com- patible with womanly modesty to attain such notoriety as a patent to herself would bring. Think of the opposition to women entering the ministry and the medical profes- sion, two vocations that one would think the whole world would accord her the right to enter, and hail with delight her administrations in such Divine work. Instead, how- ever, of encouragement, the pioneers in these fields of labor have had to struggle against fearful odds, meeting insult, derision and always the sneers and ridicule of tyrannical public opinion. In my chosen profession of the law, the statutes of California, as in most states at that time (fifteen years ago), denied women the right of admission to the bar; and after a long and wearying contest with determined and able opponents, we secured an amendment removing the unjust discrimination. The Hastings College of Law, the Law Department of the State University, etc., closed their doors in our faces because we were women. Again, after a long and expensive legal contest, another victory was won for the women of California. But this experience only accentuates the fact that women everywhere have most unequal and disadvantageous opportunities in any given direction. But some will say, "Those women who have distinguished themselves, who have evidenced great mental capacity, are exceptional cases." We might reply: The number of men who have become noted for their brilliant intellectual attainments are but a fraction compared with the whole number of men in the world. But what a con- trast between the educational facilities and other advantages accorded to men and those that are extended (permitted would better express it) to women. The boy is taught 76 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. that all life can yield is his; that he must aim high; must aspire to greatness. He has the fond encouragement of his parents, friends and society, and the whole world approves his efforts and applauds his success. But the girl — alas! the case is far different. I have only touched upon some of the innumerable discouragements that the ambitious girl, striving to cultivate and develop the mental or intellectual force with which God has endowed her, has always had to contend; but what chapters, aye, vol- umes, could be written of the wasted lives, disappointed hopes and blighted ambitions that have fallen to the lot of women through all time. Some may say, "Such has been the sad experience of men also." Yes; but men have failed or fallen in spite of all the encouragement, all the privileges, all the superior advantages and all the aids to success which have been so cordially extended to him, while woman has faltered and failed because of discouragements. If she has succeeded at all in accomplishing anything outside the nursery, the kitchen or church work, it has been as a warrior battling for his rights against fearful odds. Constantly assured that she has not the natural ability or capacity to compete with man in the learned pro- fessions or in scholastic attainments; that she is by the designs of the Almighty wholly unfitted for any work or mission that requires more than the veriest modicum of common sense, and that even to aspire to anything more is to fly in the face of Divinity, as was once said of the invention of the lightning-rod. The conservative, repressive training of the home has been supplemented and emphasized by the religious teachings of the church. In law she has always been a ward, first of her father, and second and always of her husband. Occupying an inferior place in her family, what wonder that her children have grown up with an idea of woman's weakness. Theology has held her morally responsible for sin in the world, and its partner in authority, the law, has decreed that she should not be trusted to manage her own interests financially, and denied her the right to the cus- tody of her own offspring. Such has been the condition of woman for thousands of years, in the sphere which law and gospel, state and church have assigned to her. But a new era has dawned. She has discovered for herself (what man did long ago) that she has a mind of her own, and that such mind, or brain through which it works, is just as capable of expansion, cultivation and development to the highest degree of intellectual power as if it were perched upon masculine shoulders. She has learned that maternity is something more than a mere physical function, and that motherhood implies responsibilities and duties that only the most intelligent can faithfully per- form, and to have good mothers there must first be wise women. She begins to realize that men who have constituted themselves her protectors, and claim to have legislated in her behalf and the best interests of her children, are not to be unquestionably relied on, and that it is just as well to investigate such claims and look after the interest of her offspring herself. She entertains some doubts about this government deriving its power from the consent of the governed. The woman of today has become a discov- erer! The great Christopher, whom we are all honoring above all men, discovered a new world in the fifteenth century, but behold, a greater than Columbus is here. The woman of the nineteenth century has discovered herself. She has discovered that she has a distinct objective existence. This magnificent building, planned by women, designed by a woman, filled to repletion with woman's handiwork and brain work along all lines of human activity, from the primeval domestic wares of the stone age to that beautiful picture (in the exhibit of Spain) of the first woman lawyer admitted to practice that learned profession in her royal kingdom; all these, and the magnifi- cent work done, and active participation of women in all the wondrous exhibits of this beautiful " White City," demonstrate the fact that henceforth and forever "woman's sphere " in life will be defined and determined by herself alone. Her place in nature, no longer fixed by masculine dogmatism, shall be as broad and multifarious in scope as God shall decree her capacity and ability to accomplish. A TALK. By MISS KATE FIELD. Mrs. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: Some weeks ago I received a communi- cation from the Board of Lady Managers. I have a great respect for the American eagle, particularly when it screams for my sex in the gracious person of Mrs. Eagle, the Governor of Arkan- sas, or at least the wife of the Governor. When Mrs. Eagle asked me to appear at some future time in the Woman's Building I replied that if I were in Chicago I should be happy to comply with her request. At the same time, when asked to give the subject of my address, I replied that that would be impossible, and that calling it an address was quite contrary to my desire, as I should depend entirely on inspiration. It is really too hard work to sit down and write a paper. In fact, I think that too many people are now being read to instead of being talked at. The little I have to say is said on the spur of the moment, and if you don't get your money's worth you must remember that I never promised anything. What am I here for? I came first to deliver a talk before the Press Congress. It so happened that at this talk last Friday night an interesting incident occurred which if it had been planned could not have been better done, as far as dramatic effect is con- cerned. I heard Miss Anthony was in the audience, and asking her to come to the platform gave in my adhesion to woman's suffrage. She has labored long for her cause, which is now beginning to be recognized. I said that I never believed in woman's suffrage. I never opposed it, but occupied neutral ground, because I did not believe in universal suffrage. That is highly unpopular, I expect; but I do not believe in it, and as this country is free, I suppose I am entitled to my opinion, however unpopular it may be. Not believing in universal suffrage for men I certainly do not for women. But I have always advocated, and always shall advocate, although I never expect to get it, a restricted suffrage founded on education and character regardless of sex. That is what we can not get; and why? Because of the politicians. It doesn't make the slightest difference which party it is — one is as good and one is as bad as the other. Only a few days ago I read what a Republican convention did in Louisville. They said that the Republican party needed new blood, and with that I surely agree. Much more important was the proposed revision of the naturalization laws. As we are on this subject of immigration I want to state that if we leave the doors open in the East then we should leave them open in the West; and I don't believe in either. The other day in California I was called upon to address a large assembly made up of Miss Kale Field is a native of the United States. She was born in St. Loois, Mo. Her parents were Eliza Riddle and Joseph M. Field. As editor of Kate Field's Washinoton, published in Washington, D. C., she has made a repata- tion for great brilliancy and execntive ability. Miss Field addressed one of the largest audiences that as8einbleainting8 up to the present time are life- sized portraits in pure watercolors. She was appointed judge of Special Handicraft for the Colombian Exix>sition, and has been invited to write the special report on Japanese Bronzes, Japanese Cloisonnes and the Enamels from all nations. In religious faith she is a Protestant, and is a member of the Church of England. Her permanent postoliice address is The Well House, Chilworth, Surrey. 87 88 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. out in such laborious fashion; their delicate essence would have disappeared. All such trifling with the thistledown of fancy had to wait until the medium united to such ephemeral conceits was invented — the stylus and wax-tablets, that could be scrib- bled on and the writing erased in a moment. The stylus and tablets soon became highly ornamented, and had their fashions like our lizard-skin note-books and ivory tablets have. But the medium that lent itself so painfully to literature, lent itself to another art — sculpture — with far more satisfactory results, no less painfully to the artist, per- haps, because all good art is brought out in discomfort. There is no such thing as ease in art. It is effort, mental and bodily, all the time, and the huge figures of the ancient Egyptian kings, priests, doorkeepers, and so on, remain to awe us with their grandeur and an earnestness which we seem to have altogether lost. After all, the greatest artist is Time. I knew of a colossal lion that lay for ages at length on a promontory and looked out over the blue seas, while the suns of centuries burnt his gigantic hide into very nearly the color of the living one, and into his raised and watchful visage grew an expression and a pathos that was most assuredly beyond the power of his sculptor to produce. There is a something about the Egyptian art that appeals to our human sympathies more than the more modern, and the much more materially perfect Greek art, whose most splendid statues leave us plunged in wonder at their knowledge and correctness and beauty of form, but seldom prompt us to wish we knew more of the individual and his thoughts and fancies. Of course this doesn't hold good for such statues as are portraits — of the Caesars, or the great philosophers, for instance. About such people the ordinary rank and file of the world must always feel a vivid curiosity. In pictorial art, the earliest known specimens are all of coarse frescoes, mural decorations. We have some very interesting ones of about the time of Moses, before or since, and they give us a very good idea of how the Egyptian of that period lived his life. We see the farmer among his cattle or driving his geese, the hunter going after game, the warrior returning from battle with his captives, and we see the society functions of the time. One especially perfect fresco shows us an entertainment devoted to the ladies, who are seated in rows, in an elegant hall, and are listening to probably the best orchestra to be had. The ladies fan themselves with the peculiar palm-leaf. They are much draped, and appear to feel the heat, while, gliding about among the company, offering trays of cakes and fruits, are very young girl attendants, whose black ringlets are kept in place by a fillet of white or gold, with a blue lotus lily stuck through it, an effective costume and their only one. While touching upon dress I only mention that we have a little Egyptian figure whose dress is " accordion-pleated " from throat to feet ; it also wears a little "accordion-pleated" cape. So the fashions and arts of dress come round. The frescoes that cover the walls of the exquisite little houses of Pompeii are wonderfully elegant and fanciful in device and brilliant in coloring, exquisitely fine and finished as everything in that jewel-box of a city was even to the delicate mosaics that covered its floors. It is a whole education in art to wander alone through the deserted streets of Pompeii toward sunset, when the purple and red shadows begin to sweep over Vesuvius, that wonderful background to that wonderful town; that mount- ain, that still roars and threatens and shoots up its fiery column, as it did of old, un- heeded, until at last it poured its fiery lava over the town and preserved to us those gems of its arts by which we are now profiting. Here we can see where the Italians acquired their sense of color. It was in the nature around them, in the translucent skies, the glowing light, the sun-mellowed marbles of their homes, the garments dyed with indigenous pigments that could never clash with their native surroundings. Portraiture seems to owe its origin to various motives besides the vanity to which it is most generally ascribed. We all know the pretty fable of the young Ionic girl who parted from her lover in the sunset, and as he went from her she saw his shadow thrown on the wall near by, she took a piece of charcoal and ran it over the shadow's outline, and so kept a faint image of him till he came again — a pretty story that em- THE CONGRKSS OF WOMEN. 89 bodies the universal desire to keep some sort of foothold on this transient existence, to leave a something that will at any rate testify to the fact that such a personage once really lived and labored, or to secure this kind of remembrance for one's beloved. Occasionally one touch of nature will do this. In the cloisters of Westminster Abbey there is an unremarkable stone; cut on this stone in old characters is a very short inscription, "Jane Lyster- — deare Childe." Nothing more. Yet every traveler goes to see this simplest of gravestones, and if he, or more particularly she, has any imagination or human feeling at all she will understand all that was left unsaid those many years ago. I think this inscription touches the high- €st point of suggestiveness in art, the what to leave undone is well-nigh as important as the what to do. Those extraordinarily accomplished artists, the Japanese, have long grasped this fact, and, I believe, more than one treatise exists on how much can be or should be expressed by a single line as the very climax of the art of representation or sugges- tion, I have attempted to give very concisely some notions of what must always be somewhat vague, the beginning of art. You will be able to form your own estimate of what it was, how arrived at, from the examples from all countries gathered together in this magnificent Exposition. You will find admirable specimens of the primitive attempts at ornamental art in the Smithsonian loan collection exhibit down-stairs, "Arts of Women in Savagery." Some of them are perfectly classical in form, funda- mentally identical with the ancient relics of Etruria. All these will well repay a care- ful study. The pictures and statuary from the various countries I need scarcely recom- mend to your attention; the galleries that contain them are here as everywhere the great center of attraction. THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST. By MRS. ABIGAIL SCOTT DUNIWAY. If the illustrious navigator in whose honor we are now holding this wonder- ful World's Columbian Exposition, had so shaped his adventurous voyage as to have first sighted land on the western slope of the two Americas, the history of this continent's dis- covery and development would have been strangely metamorphosed. Then the star of Empire, lured by balmy skies, would have made its way east- ward, loitering leisurely in its course, often halting for generations to enjoy the equable temperature of the Pacific Coast, and never pressing onward to encounter the more rigorous climate of the Atlantic border until compelled to advance by the civilization surging behind it. But the destiny which directs the progress of civilization in every age never for a mo- ment forgot the golden West; and with a wise design of which we, today, are reaping the benefits, the pre- serves of the Pacific Northwest were held in reserve in the nation's youth, that they might become the heritage of the fortunate descendants of the hardy stock of Anglo-Saxons who long ago conquered the adverse climatic elements of the Atlantic seaboard, in blissful ignorance, through all their years of toil, that the balmy zephyrs of the Pacific were playing at hide- and-seek among Sierran vales, or singing summer- laden peans through the mighty trees where rolls the Oregon. And yet, this favored land had not been left for long without a witness. Destiny, as if mindful that some day the children of men might wonder at her apparent partiality to later generations, began as early as the year 1513 to make preliminary preparations for carrying out her plans. Let us turn the search-light of history upon the inland empire of the Pacific Northwest and study its discovery from a landsman's standpoint. In the year 1804 an expedition, led by Captains Lewis and Clarke, started westward from a point east of the Mississippi River into the unexplored and almost unknown wilds stretching across the North American continent. After a summer of wild, enjoyable adventure in the wilderness, the party went into winter quarters in the fall of the same year, on the banks of the Upper Missouri River, in what is now the State of Montana. The following year, after having grown accus- tomed to their adventurous life, they pitched camp for winter quarters at the mouth of the Lou Lou fork of the Bitter Root River, a branch of the Upper Missouri, near Mrs. Abigail Scott Duniway is a native of Illinois. She was born in .1834. Her parents ■were John F. Scott and Annie Boloefron Scott, who were natives of Kentucky, but emigrated to Illinois with their parents in childhood. She was educated, chiefly by her own efforts, after marriage, when surrounded by her own children in the Oregon frontier. She has lectured in all the large cities, and has traveled extensively over the Pacific Northwest. She married Mr. B. ('. Duniway in 1853, in Oregon. Her special work has been in the interest of Equal Suffrage and the diffusion of practical business methods among those women who must help themselves. Her principal literary works are a poem entitled " David and Anna Matron," and numerous serial stories published during a period of twenty years in her own newspaper, The Nero North- west. Mrs. Duniway is a member of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Her postoffice address is 294 Clay Street,. Portland, Oregon. 90 MRS. ABIGAIL SCOTT DUNIWAY. THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 91 what is now the thriving modern city of Missoula. From this point they made fre- quent excursions, and by ascending Lou Lou fork discovered the now famous Lolo trail through the otherwise formidable Bitter Root Mountains. After having suffered severely from cold and hunger the party reached a Nez Perce village in the early sprmg, situated on an open plain contiguous to the south fork of the Clearwater, an important tributary to the Snake River. In passing down the Clearwater the party noted three creeks, the most famous of these being now known as the Potlatch, which fructifies the beautiful and extensive Paradise Valley of Idaho, in the midst of which sits Moscow. The journey of Lewis and Clarke was a series of exciting, laborious and often perilous adventures. But they reached the coast in safety and erected a rude fortifi- cation for winter quarters, which they named Fort Clatsop. They started on their return after a stay of some time, and after a leisurely voyage up the Columbia they reached the Willamette River, called by the natives Multnomah, which was discovered by Captain Clark on the second day of April, 1806. Continuing their journey up the Columbia, they found the Dalles and Deschutes Indians very hostile and inhospitable. Doubtless the premonition of their forthcom- ing fate had dawned upon the tribes, and the instinct of self-preservation, powerful even when hopeless, had been awakened by rumors of a dreaded invasion of which these explorers were indeed forerunners. But Yellept, the head chief of the Walla Wallas, inspired no doubt by the same premonitions, although they affected him differently, received the party with savage demonstrations of joy. He begged them to partake of his hospitality, and urged them to invite all nations to treat the Indians kindly. Setting an example himself, he brought them an armful of wood and a platter of roasted mullets with his own hands, a most peculiar service from the hands of an Indian chieftain, since it is a well-known part of the Indian's unwritten code to delegate every kind of domestic duties to women, including every burden of the camp and fire incident to their primitive modes of life. Colonel Gilbert, in the " Historic Sketches," tells us that Yellept had five sons, who were all slain in battle, or perished miserably from white men's diseases. A num- ber of years after Lewis and Clarke had partaken of his hospitality this noble chieftain saw the last one of them die. Heart-broken, the old man called his tribe together, and, lying down upon the body of his son in the grave, he sternly commanded them to cover him up with his dead. A wail of lamentation went up from his people, but they buried him alive as he had ordered, and the glory and greatness of the Walla Wallas had departed. The modern psychic tells us, upon evidence that to him is demonstration, that the Indians' heaven is located within the earth's aura, and directly above the earth and beneath the American pale faces' " Devochan;" that in this heaven all genuinely " good " Indians find their happy hunting-grounds restored to them in duplicate, with all the modern improvements added. In these Elysian shades the pale face cannot enter to rob them of their homes, or possess their squaws or maidens, or spread among them the diseases and disasters of civilization and death. The swaying pines of the lands the pioneers loved, and left to us as a heritage, chant their eternal requiem. The mighty mountains wear white crowns of everlast- ing snow in their honor, and the broad prairies adorn their lowly graves with regularly returning flowers, as the seasons come and go. The iron horse wakes shrillest echoes now, where erst the bellowing of the belabored ox was heard. Steam and lightning have out-distanced time and conquered space in the years that have flown since they fell asleep. The echoes of the mountains and the rocks are answering back to new conditions, and the sons and daughters of the pioneers are confronted by new prob- lems of which their parents scarcely dreamed. These pioneers, in goodly numbers, found their way to Oregon early in the " forties " and " fifties," making their way across the continent in the dim wake of Lewis and Clarke. The four-wheeled ship of the desert was their vehicle and the rough-ribbed ox their motive power. In peril often, 92 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. in fatigue always, and sometimes through sickness,death and deprivation they struggled onward toward the setting sun. But these early settlers found at length a country that well repaid them for their toil; a country of surpassing beauty and diversity of scenery, soil and climate; a country in which the giant minds that planned their exodus from older lands might have the ample room they needed to extend and grow. After reaching the Territory of Oregon, they settled, often in widely separated fields. For several years they lived in isolation, but also in health, peace and primitive plenty. They made friends with the Indians, and, forming a provisional government, protected themselves and the red man alike within its statutes. But the discovery of gold, first in California and a little later in Oregon, was the lever that worked the change in the provincial habits of these Spartan-souled heroes. By the beginning of the year 1850 the whole world had caught the gold fever. Men left their homes and families and flocked together to the new Eldorado like cor- morants scenting the means of subsistence from afar. They settled California with a heterogeneous multitude from all the nations of the earth, and gradually, as the con- tagion spread, extended their peregrinations into Oregon, where nature had, in many places, been equally successful in storing up and hiding away her precious ores. The entire region lying west of the Cascade Mountains, within the " rain belt," rejoices in two seasons, the wet and the dry. And yet, there is no drought in summer, nor is there any long continued spell of rain at one time in winter. The climate is mild throughout the year. Here is the home alike of the fruit and the grain, the forest and the mineral. If you fancy that you prefer to settle upon government lands there are yet many openings for such homes, where, by going from twenty to one hundred miles away from present railroad facilities, thus following in a much modified form the heroic example of early pioneers, you may, by overcoming com- paratively few of the obstacles they encountered, achieve a like or a greater success. Do you wish a climate with more marked extremes of heat and cold? The exten- sive tablelands of the eastern portion of this great domain invite you to possess them. Here, also', in many places, are the homes of the fruit and the grain. Here are mountain fortresses with intersecting valleys and limpid streams. Here, too, is the home of irrigation, the home of the stock grower and the stronghold of the baser metals, as well as of gold and silver and precious stones. While I do not believe in a one-sexed country, any more than a one-sexed home or government, I do believe that women should have equal chance with men to acquire the homes, that both the sexes equally need, and must jointly occupy. The one great obstacle in the ^ay of women getting homes in the country is their too fre- quent desire to possess lands of area so great that to live upon them means isolation. But if women as well as men, when in quest of homes, would be content with farms containing five, ten, or at most forty acres, bringing with them, to a new country, sufficient means to carry them through the first year or so of settlement, say any- where from five hundred dollars up, there are comparatively few of you, M^ho are often rack-rented in the great cities, and overstrained in every way in trying to keep up appearances, who would not find youselves and those dependent upon you very soon in independent circumstances. When you live in the country, on land of your own, you are free from the exactions of house rent, water tax, and the constantly accruing wood, milk, butter, eggs, fruit and vegetable bills that make your lives a burden. In your city garrets are old clothes enough to keep your families clad in the country till an income grows; and through the care-free lives you may lead under such conditions your broken health returns. Bear in mind that it is difficult at this late day to find room for large settlements, even in small holdings, directly along the established railroad lines. If you would grow up with the country you must first establish yourselves on its frontier. I have at this moment in mind many places where deeded lands, held at reasona- ble prices on easy terms, can be bought in the Pacific Northwest for just such homes. THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 93 I also know of whole townships on the still farther frontier where irrigation lends the magic of its power to such marvels of production as are never seen elsewhere. These lands are from twenty to eighty, and even one hundred miles away, at present, from railroads. But many thousands of acres are there awaiting possession, where many hundreds of ideal home sites could be secured, contiguous to inexhaustible summer range for stock; where alfalfa yields prodigious returns from irrigation for winter's feed for stock; where a farm of forty acres or less would make an independent home. In these places chickens thrive like magic on sunflowers bigger than dinner-plates; hogs grow fat on barley, harvested by themselves, after having thriven to maturity on alfalfa, also of their own harvestings; small fruits, cereals and vegetables yield enormously. The air is as pure as ether, and the scenery is as grand as Heaven. Here can be grown in inexhaustible quantities the sugar beet, the mangel-wurzel, and all the other staples on which man and beast do thrive, except, perhaps, your Indian corn, for which the delicious air of night is too cool to permit its superabundant growth. Adjacent mines abound in all directions, awaiting the toil and money of man for their development. Again, I think of evergreen forests, humid skies and fruit-bearing vales, hard by the sunset seas. But many of these are also away from present lines of railroad, though not more than twenty, thirty, or at most one hundred miles away. Think of it! Only one hundred miles! Why, we of the Pacific Coast went two thousand and three thousand miles away from railroads to get our start! Oh those primitive times! How, amid all these scenes of wonder, do I love to pause and live over again the far-off days when everybody in my great bailiwick knew everybody else; when there were no extremes of wealth or want, but everybody had enough and to spare. Families living hundreds of miles apart made annual visits to each other's homes at convenient seasons. Their vehicles were the same battered, creaking ships of the desert, their teams the same old oxen, grown fat and festive, that, half starved and footsore, had brought them across the continent in the bygone years. Anon, the railroad era dawned upon the land. The shout of its coming was heard in the air, and songs like this floated out upon the breeze: From the land of the distant East I come, A railway abroad, and I love to roam, In my lengthening, winding way. On my ballast of rock and my ribs of pine, And my sinews of steel that glitter and shine, While my workmen sap and sow and mine. As steadily, day by day, They tunnel the mountains and climb the ridges. And span the culverts and rivet the bridges. And waken the echoes afar and anear With the shout of triumph and song of cheer. The State of Oregon, or what is left of it since it married off its three territorial daughters, Washington, Montana and Idaho, to state governments, contains in round numbers an area of 95,275 square miles. Washington, the eldest of Oregon's "three stately graces," possesses about an equal area. Montana comes next, with skirts nearly as ample, and Idaho sits proudly at the eastward gates, holding aloft, as shown on the maps, the rough similitude of a huge arm-chair on her mountains' summits, inviting you to come and be seated. There is much mountainous country throughout the Pacific Northwest — so much that the pure air of heaven, playing at random among the heights, frightens away the cyclones of the flats and sends them howling over the Kansas prairies and the great plains of Texas, leaving our rock-ribbed vales in smiling security. Tornadoes, drought and pestilence, from the same cause, escape us. 94 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. The trend of the main mountain ranges is north and south, with innumerable spurs reaching out in all directions, breaking the country into diversified valleys, well watered and fertile. Every cereal known to agriculture, every fruit and flower of the temperate zones, and many products of semi-torrid climes, find congenial homes in different por- tions of this broad domain. Every mineral known to man abounds within our borders. Our forests are gigantic and inexhaustible, our rivers are big and deep and rapid, and our creeks and rills and lakes no man can number. But don't come to a new country wholly empty-handed, expecting the few who are on the ground ahead of you to furnish you with remunerative employment. Come prepared to take care of yourselves till you can have time to raise a crop. Come pre- pared to help each other, just as did the early pioneers, just as all must do who leave the mark of success upon the age in which they struggle. *' The world belongs to those who take it, Not to those who sit and wait." Once, when I was twenty years younger than now, though not a whit less enthu- siastic, as I was journeying westward across the continent by rail, I perpetrated some stanzas with which to please my friends at home; and now I will conclude the address by their recital here: Ho! for the bracing and breezing Pacific, As surging and heaving he rolleth for aye; Ho for the land where bold rocks bid us welcome, And grandeur and beauty hold rivaling sway! Yes; ho! for the West, for the blest land of promise, Where mountains all white bathe their brows in the sky; While down their steep sides the cold torrent comes dashing, And eagles scream out from their eyries on high. I have seen the bright East where the restless Atlantic Forever and ever wails out his deep moan, And I've stood in the shade of the dark AUeghanies, Or listened, all rapt, to Niagara's groan. Again, I have sailed through grand scenes on the Hudson, .Steamed down the Fall River through Long Island Sound; The Ohio I've viewed, and the weird Susquehanna, Or skirted the Lake Shore when West I was bound. I've sniffed the bland breeze of the broad Mississippi, And dreamed in the midst of his valley so great. Have crossed and re-crossed the bold turbid Missouri, As he bears toward the Gulf Stream his steam-guided freight; And I've bathed my hot forehead in soft limpid moonbeams, That shimmered me o'er with their glow and their gold. In the haunts where the loved of my youth gave glad welcome, And memory recalled each dear voice as of old. But though scenes such as these oft allured, pleased and charmed me, Euterpe came out with her harp or my lyre; Yet when I again reached thy prairies, Nebraska, To sing she began me at once to inspire. And, as westward we sped, o'er the broad, rolling pampas, Or slowly ascended the mountains all wild. Or dashed through the gorges and under the snowsheds. The Nine with crude numbers my senses beguiled. • THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 95 Colorado's wild steeps, and the rocks of Wyoming, Their lone stunted pine trees and steep palisades. And afar to the west the cold, bleak Rocky Mountains, At whose feet the wild buffalo feeds in the glades, Have each in their turn burst sublime on my vision, While deserts all desolate gazed at the sky, And away to the south rose the snow-crested Wasatch, Bald, bleak and majestic, broad rolling and high. I have stood where dead cities of sandstone columnar. Loom up in their grandeur, all solemn and still, And mused o'er the elements' wars of the Ages That shaped them in symmetry wild at their will. I have rolled down the bowlders and waked the weird echoes, Where serpents affrighted, have writhed in their rage. And watched the fleet antelope bound o'er the desert Through vast beds of cacti and grease-wood and sage. I have sailed on the breast of the Deseret Dead Sea, And bathed in its waters all tranquil and clear; Have gazed on the mountains and valleys of Humboldt, Strange, primitive, awful, sad, silent and sere. I have climbed and reclimbed the steep, wind-worn Sierras, Peered in their deep gorges all dark and obscure, Dreamed under the shadows of giant Sequoias, Or talked with wild Indians, reserved and demure. I have trusted my bark on the billows of Ocean, And watched them roll up and recede from the shore, And have anchored within thy fine bay, San Francisco, Where the Golden Gate husheth the Ocean's deep roar. But not till I reached thy broad bosom, Columbia, Where ever, forever, thou roll'st to the sea, Did I feel that I'd found the full acme of grandeur, Where song could run riot, or fancy go free. Then my Pegasus changed his quick pen to a gallop, Euterpe's wind harp waked yEolian strains. And the Nine in their rapture sang odes to the mountains. That preside over Oregon's forests and plains. Hoary Hood called aloud to the three virgin Sisters, Who blushed with the roseate glow of the morn; St. Helen and Ranier from over the border Scowled and clouded their brows in pretension of scorn. The Dalles of Columbia, set up on their edges. Swirled through the deep gorges as onward they rolled, Or over huge bowlders of basalt went dashing. Dispersed into spray ere their story was told. To the north and the south and the west rose the fir trees, With proportions colossal and graceful and tall. Dark green in their hue, with a tinge of deep purple, Casting shadows sometimes o'er the earth like a pall. Bold headlands keep guard o'er the Oregon River, Whose dashings are heard far away o'er the main, As roaring and foaming and rushing forever. He struggles with Ocean some 'vantage to gain. 96 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. White cities sit smiling beside the Columbia, Where, though land-walled, the breeze of the sea she inhales, While wind-worn Umatilla and gale-torn Wallula Keep sentinel watch o'er her broad eastern vales. Then ho! for the bracing and breezy Pacific, Whose waves lave the Occident ever and aye! I care naught for the grandeur of Asia and Europe, For my far Western home greets me gladly to-day Yes, ho! for the west, for the blest land of promise. Where mountains, all green, bathe their brows in the sky; While down the tall snow-peaks wild torrents come dashing. And eagles scream out from their eyries on high. COMMISSIONERS-AT-LARGE OF THE BOARD OF LADY MANAGERS. 1. Mrs. John J. Bagley. Michigan. 2. Miss Ellen A. Fobd, Sew York. S. Mrs. Rosine Ryan. Texas. 4. Mrs. Mary S. Harrison, Montana. 5. Mrs. D. F. Yerdenal, New York, 6. Mrs. Mary Cecil Cantrill, Kentucky. 7. Mrs. Mary S. Lix^KWooD, District of Columbiiu GEORGE MEREDITH'S NOVELS. By MISS MARGARET WINDEYER. It would be a difficult task to criticise George Meredith's novels in such a manner as would seem to his admirers adequate to their marvels, and as would not seem extravagant to those readers who have not had time to study these books, or who have not given their keenest sensibilities to the understanding of them. Able reviewers of England and America have given their doughty opinions upon them in phrases of lit- erary worth, and with a wealth of diction which is not at my command. So to criticise is not my intention, but merely to draw your attention to Meredith's com- prehension of the intuitions, idiosyncrasies and sensi- bilities of women, and to his knowledge of the diffi- culties of their environment, which stand between them and their perfect development. It might be questioned whether he always has pity for women; I think he always has, and paints them with a master hand. As it may enable you to recall as to whether you have read any of Meredith's books or not, I will give a list of them: "Evan Harrington," "Harry Richmond," "The Ordeal of Richard Feverel," "Vit- toria," "Rhoda Flemming," "Beauchamp's Career," "The Egotist," "Diana of the Crossways," "The Shav- ing of Shagpat," "One of Our Conquerors," and "The Tragic Comedians." In these books there are such instances of the insight and self-denial, the tenderness and devotion and faithfulness of women, that they should be more read by women than they are, and, besides this, they are enriched with a humor that is fascinating in its variety; for instance, "The phantom half-crown, flickering in one eye of the anticipatory waiter," or, "Dacier has a veritable thirst for hopeful views of the world, and no spiritual distillery of his own." "To see insipid mildness complacently swallowed as an excellent thing is your anecdotal gentleman's annoyance." "A woman's 'never' fell far short of outstripping the sturdy pedestrian Time to Redworth's mind." "A rough truth is a rather strong charge of universal nature for the firing off of a modicum of fact." One of the Scotch reviewers, J. M. Barrie, I think, says that a course of Mere- dith's novels should commence with "Rhoda Flemming;" but I do not agree with him. Though less intricate in its relationships, it is so painful a lesson upon the danger of family pride that some readers would not read other books by an author who pro- duced so dismal an impression. In this book we have before us Mrs. Margaret Lovell, Miss Margaret Windeyer ie a native of New South Wales, AuBtralia. She was born in 1866 at Sydney. Her parents are Sir William Charles Windeyer, LL. D., Judge of the Snpreme Court of New South Wales, and Mary Elizabeth Windeyer, daughter of Rev. R. T. Bolton. She was educated at home and afterward attended university classes by H. C. L. Anderson. 31. A., at Miss Hooper's school, and passed junior public examination in five subjects in 1882. She has traveled in Europe, Canada £ind the United States. Miss Windeyer was honorable secretary Department Educational in the Exhibition of Woman's Industries held in Sydney in 1888; honorable secretary Woman's Literary Society. August. 1890. to Aagost, 1892; hon- orable secretary Womanhood Suffrage League of New South Wales, December, 1891, till March, 1893; representative New South Wales, World's Congress of Representative Women, Chicago, 1893, and was honorable commissioner for New South Wales at the World's Columbian Exposition. In religions faith she is a Unitarian. Her postoffice address is Roslyn Oar- dens, Sydney, N. S. W. (7) 97 MISS MARGARET WINDEYER. 98 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. who belongs to that company of women at whose head stands Becky Sharp. "Boys adored her. These are moths. But more, the birds of the air, nay, grave owls (who stand in this metaphor for bewhiskered experience) thronged, dashing at the appari- tion of terrible splendour." Mrs. Fryar Gunnett, the Countess of Saldar and Mrs. Marsett, Lady Blandish and Lady Grace Halley are all different species of the siren genus of woman. Rhoda and Dahlia Flemming are sisters. Dahlia falls into the toils of Edward Blanscove, and Rhoda, to save her sister's reputation, she says, but really to save and spare her own and her father's name, arranges a marriage between Dahlia and Nicholas Sedgett. After the marriage has taken place it is then discovered that Sedgett has a wife elsewhere., Poor, broken-hearted Dahlia, doubly wronged, will not marry Blanscove when he urges it. "There was but one answer for him, and when he ceased to charge her with unforgiveness, he came to the strange conclusion that, beyond our calling a woman a saint for rhetorical purposes and esteeming her as one for pictorial, it is indeed possible, as he had slightly descried in this woman's presence, both to think her saintly and to have the sentiment inspired by the over- earthly in her person. Her voice, her simple words of writing, her gentle resolve, all issuing of a capacity to suffer evil and pardon it, conveyed that character to a mind not soft for receiving such impressions." " The Tragic Comedians " contains a highly dramatic love story. Alvan is the hero, the incidents taken from the life of Ferdinand Laysalle. The lesson it teaches is that one should accept what is nearest to perfection within our reach, and not lose by striving for the unattainable that joy, beauty and honor which comes to our hand. Alvan would not accept his bride unless she came to him dowered with the sanction of her parents to her marriage, and she, her mind narrowed and cramped by conven- tional surroundings, lacks the power to seize the highest happiness offered to her. When we contemplate Alvan's scorn of Julia's want of moral courage, the thought that women are what men have made them seems borne in upon one's mind. Men have not sought in woman straightforwardness and moral courage. They have decried both. They have rather desired them to be " educated for the market, to be timorous, consequently secretive, etc." So when to a woman of fertile brain there comes an opportunity for the exercise of power, it is perhaps exerted hy Ji?iesse, by dexterous underhand play, and then are women held up to scorn as not having the honesty of men — so the world says. " Men create by stoppage a volcano, and are then amazed at its eruptiveness." " Diana of the Crossways " is the story of a beautiful, clever, generous, high- spirited girl, who at nineteen is an orphan. She acquires that difficult position known as social success, and finds, to quote our author, that "there are men with whom it is an instinct to pull down the standard of the sex by a bully-like imposition of sheer physical ascendency whenever they see it flying with an air of gallant independence." Then Sir Lukin, the husband of Diana's friend. Lady Dunstane, by his behavior in what he terms " a momentary aberration," closes for her the house that should be her home. We learn how Diana concluded that in marriage was her only safety, and here the reader will find passages surcharged with weighty ideas, and we are brought face to face with that man of men, Thomas Redworth, who has waited to tell Diana that he loves her until he shall be able to give her a home which shall be a worthy setting for such a jewel. Mr. Warwich, "the gentlemanly official" whom Diana married, after two years of wedded life tries to obtain a divorce from her, with Lord Dannisbrough in the position of defendant. The hearing of the case resulted in that the plaintiff was adjudged not to have proven his charge. About a year after this Diana meets Percy Dacier, Lord Dannisbrough's nephew, at the Italian Lakes, and a pronounced friendship results. Six months after, he and she keep watch by the mortal remains of his uncle. Then their friendship is remarked, and we come to the stage where they agree to unite their fates. Her trunks are packed; the tickets for Paris are taken; he waits at the station for her; she does not come, because her friend, Emma Dunstane, has sent for her in the extremity of illness. The author says that THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 99 afterward, on the safe side of the abyss, it wore a gruesome look to his cool blood. A year after, Diana and Percy are friends again. How she betrays a political secret; how cruel, yet how comprehensible, is Dacier's conduct, the reader will learn in chap- ters full of charm. The last is called the " nuptial chapter," and relates how a barely willing woman was led to bloom with the nuptial sentiment. Meredith portrays the modern villain unsparingly, " men who are not free from the common masculine craze to scale fortresses for the sake of lowering flags." He gives some noted and titled examples, and in treatment of such characters we find these words: " Men appear to be capable of friendship with women only for as long as we keep out of pulling distance of that line where friendship ceases. They may step on it; we must hold back a league." "The Ordeal of Richard Feverel " I do not advise many women to read, as it is likely to produce a sense of helplessness, with which will come hopelessness, which we must avoid. But in the main, from reading Meredith's sermon-novels, there comes the wish not to leave the world, but to set it straight. The light of every soul burns upward. Of course, most of them are candles in the wind; and then Meredith says: ^'The less ignorant I become, the more considerate I am for the ignorance of others. I love them for it;" which speech is the essence of the" charity "that suffereth long and is kind," the pity which is akin to love. The author who wrote, "The something sovereignly characteristic that aspires in Diana enchained him. With her, or, rather, with his thought of her soul, he understood the right union of woman and man, from the roots to the flowering heights of that rare graft. She gave him comprehension of the meaning of love, a word in many mouths not often explained. With her wound in his idea of her, he perceived it to signify a new start in our existence, a finer shoot of the tree planted in good, gross earth, the senses running their live sap, and the minds companioned, and the spirits made one by the whole-natured conjunction," must of necessity be able to write a love-passage with tenderness and grace, so I quote the following: " It was not in him to stop or to moderate the force of his eyes. She met them with the slender unbendingness that was her own, a feminine of inspirited manhood. There was no soft expression, only the direct shot of light on both sides, conveying as much as is borne from sun to earth, from earth to sun." Passages such as these lend interest to the life-loves of Evan Harrington and Rose Joselyn, Beau- champ and Renee, Richard Feverel and Lucy, Rhoda Flemming and Robert Eccles. There is such painting of nature in Meredith's novels that we behold the scenes he describes instead of dimly imagining them, and the metaphors he employs have always a quaint conceit, which makes his style so peculiarly his own. This picture of a sunrise from "One of Our Conquerors:" "Now was the cloak of night, worn thread- bare and gray, astir for the heraldingof golden day visibly ready to show its warmer throbs. The gentle waves were just a stronger gray than the sky, perforce of an inter- fusion that shifted gradations; they were silken, in places oily gray," maybe fitly hung beside the sunset picture in "Diana of the Crossways:" "The sunset began to deepen. Emma gazed into the depths of the waves of crimson, where brilliancy of color came out of central heaven, preternaturally near our earth, till one shade less brilliant seemed an ebbing away to boundless remoteness." In "The Egotist," Sir Willoughby is the central figure, who, in his lofty conceit, rejoices in the knowledge that Lastitia Dale pines for love of him. The vicissitudes of his love affairs make a charming book, in which wit is ever sparkling, and although the keynote of woman's subjection is sounded, there is no undertone of tragedy. "One of Our Conquerors" is remarkable for its complete presentation of the Mere- dithan style, and the lessons to be learned from the characters are profound; existing relations between men and women are diagnosed thoroughly, and one comes from the reading with a longing to leave the world a little better than he found it. Metaphors, similes, analysis, all the fraternity of old lamps for lighting our abysmal darkness, are scattered through the pages of this book. I shall close this paper, so unworthy of this interesting subject, with Meredith's own words: "The banished of Eden had to put 100 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. on metaphors, and the common use of them has helped largely to civilize us. The sluggish in intellect detest them, but our civilization is not much indebted to that major portion." THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. By MRS. WHITON STONE. It is the world's high noon — Meridian height Of the great Sun of Progress, in whose light The continents are bathed — blazing, as sign That Thought is principle of Life divine; That Thought is God, and God in thought must shine; That from the heavens, its primal source. Has lit the Past, and on its matchless course Has shone with ever gathering force, Until, in this consummate hour, The Thought of all the Centuries has burst to splendid flower. MRS. WHITON STONE Upon this central spot we stand. Encircled with immensity. Nay — by infinity — Transfixed with wonder at the grand Discoveries of human souls — the plans conceived, The mighty deeds achieved; The engine's lightning speed — electric speech — The flashing fires that far off shores can reach; The current, that in such mysterious way Connects today with the whole world's today; The science, art and music, all expressed In genius of the East, and genius of the West, And soaring higher than Olympian ways. Working great problems out in rounded days. Our modern Sapphos sing to Heaven, nobler than Lesbian lays. Oh, thou great Sun of Progress! All thy glow Is but as shadow in the light we know Will flood the coming ages — Thought will grow. And souls a larger stature gain. And truths divine diviner truths attain; The things today, that we have known. Perchance, shall all have been outgrown In those far centuries' Tomorrows, Yea! even human sorrows: Thou art immortal on thy dazzling throne. Thou wert not meant for Time alone, For Time Is but a measure in Life's song sublime; And thou wilt shine — shine on forevermore Lighting the way to that mysterious door, That radiant door — starred with the mystic seven From out the world's high noon to the high noon of Heaven. 101 WOMEN IN THE GREEK DRAMA. EXTRACTS FROM JULIA WARD HOWE'S LECTURE. In some of the comedies of Aristophanes the women's cause is presented in a light intended to provoke ridicule. The great comedian, it is thought, was moved to present these impersonations by those passages in Plato's republic in which the political rights of women are asserted as precisely similar to those of men, that is, from the point of view of ideal justice. Barring the indecencies which belong to the com- mon taste of the time, and which are largely omitted in translations, the Greek of Aristophanes does not appear to me very damaging to our position as advo- cates of the rights of women. In one of these plays, Lysistrata, the women of Athens, weary of the absence of their husbands in the Peloponnesian war, take the negotiation of the peace into their own hands. Lysistrata, the leading spirit among them, has summoned together the women from various parts of Greece, with the view of wresting the man- agement of public affairs from the hands of the men entrusted with them, and of putting an end to the sinuous and devastating war. Whether intentionally "^ or not, Aristophanes puts very sensible reasoning into MKs. JULIA WARD HOWE. ^^^ mouth of this Icadcr among the women. ******* Aristophanes, despite his satirical intention, preserves for us pictures of the Athenian women of his own time. Quick witted, public spirited, as far as opportu- nity will allow, devoutly attached to married life, a thrifty domestic worker and cal- culator, this is, or was, the reality. For ideal types we must go to those dramatists who deal with the historic and mythic traditions of the past. I have before me at this moment a vivid picture of two such women shown in startling contrast The Siege of Troy is over, and the beacons have flashed from one watch tower to another the signal of victory. The watchman, weary with ten years' waiting, thanks you that his long task is ended, and flies to communicate the good news to Agamemnon's Queen, Clytemnestra, who soon appears upon the stage with boastful words of exulta- tion, beneath which she veils her wicked purpose. A herald arrives in haste to confirm the welcome tidings of the fall of Troy. Clytemnestra parleys with the chorus, express- ing the joy she would be expected to feel in her husband's victory and near return. She says: "What light more welcome to a woman's eyes than this? When Heaven sends back her husband from the wars, to open him the gates? Go, tell my lord to come at his best speed, desired by all; so would he find at home a faithful wife, just Mrs. Julia Ward Howe is a native of New York City. She was born May 27, 1819. Her parents were Samuel and Julia Cutler Ward ; she was educated at private schools in New York, and devoted much time to the study of foreign languages and literature ; has traveled six times to Europe, once to Egypt and Palestine, and twice to (California. She married Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, the eminent philanthropist and teacher of Laura Bridgman. Her special work has been in the inter- est of literary and philosophical culture, and of woman suffrage and higher education of woman. Her principal literary works are "Words for the Hour." "Trip to Cuba," "Later Lyrics," "Life of Margaret Fuller," " From the Oak to the Olive," " Modem Society," and " Memoir of Dr. Samuel G. Morse." In religious faith she is a Unitarian of the Channing or James Freeman Clarke Bcbool. Her postoffice address is 241 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass. 102 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 103 as he left her, watch-dog by his house, to him all kindness, to his foes a foe, and for the Test unaltered." In the female characters put upon the stage by Sophocles we can trace within the influence of his friend Socrates, or the sympathy of view which may have formed the bond between them. My present limits will only allow me to speak of two of these characters, Electra and Antigone. Both of these women are rebels against authority. In both of them high courage is combined with womanly sweetness and purity. Electra is the unhappy eldest daughter of the murdered Agamemnon, con- demned to live in the daily sight of her mother's contented union with her paramour, the accomplice of her bloody crime. In this crowned triumph of evil Electra does not for one moment acquiesce. Her first act after her father's death had been to con- vey her child brother, Orestes, to a place of safe concealment. Her only hope in life is that he will return to avenge his father's untimely end. In her first appearance upon the scene she bewails the tragedy of her house. " And thou, my father, hast no pity gained, Though thou a death hast died so grevious and so foul; But I, at least, will never, while I live, Refrain mine eyes from tears, Nor get my voice from wailings sad and sore; But,lfke a nightingale of brood bereaved. Before the gates, I speak them forth to all." In the Clytemnestra of /Eschylus we are shown the full, fiery sweep of feminine passion, in the height and boast of its rebellion redeemed from vileness by the dread- ful antecedent of Iphigenia's sacrifice, and the unquenchable anger sternly kindled in the mother's breast. In his Cassandra we have the wild sibyl, gifted with superhuman insight and touched with divine fire, but all unable to avert the doom which she fore- sees. And in these gracious and more purely feminine types presented by Sophocles, we admire the union of womanly tenderness with womanly courage. NEEDLEWORK AS TAUGHT IN STOCKHOLM. By MLLE. HULDA LUNDIN. Educational methods of the present day demand that instruction in general shall be given according to a carefully considered plan, which shall be at the same time simple, logical and progressive. It is not sufficient to give out lessons to be committed to memory; these must also be thoroughly explained and illustrated by the teacher. Suitable mediums of instruction must be sought and class-teaching maintained in order to insure thoroughness and inspire interest. It is a mat- ter of great satisfaction that these principles have been adopted in all instruction from books; but if one examines the methods heretofore employed in manual teaching of needlework training whose educational value can hardly be overrated, the strange fact is dis- covered, that as a rule not one trace of the intelligent principles governing instruction in other subjects is to be found here. Therefore, while instruction in all other branches has developed, that in manual training has remained in its old, elementary condition. Man- ual training has been regarded as an outside branch, not subject to the same laws as other educational branches, whereas it ought to stand side by side with them, because it has the same educational aim to ful- fill. The aim of the instruction in Girls' Sloyd (this term embraces in Sweden all kinds of handiwork) is: First, to exercise hand and eye; second, to quicken the power of thought; third, to strengthen love of order; fourth, to develop independence; fifth, to inspire respect for carefully and intelligently executed work, and at the same time to prepare girls for the execution of their domestic duties. The instruction has two objects in view: {a) It shall be an educational medium; (d) It shall fit the girls for practical life. But if the desired aim is to be reached, the fundamental principles of pedagogics must be applied to manual training. Formerly, satisfaction was felt with purely mechanical skill in manual training, when the only thought was to procure even, beautiful stitches in sewing; while the practical skill required in measure-taking, cutting-out and planning a piece of work, was wholly neglected. The introduction of the sewing machine has developed entirely new conditions. We must now tell our pupils something the machine cannot perform, namely: To take measures, to draft patterns, to cut out, to put together and to arrange garments; also to train them to skill in darning, mending and marking at the same time that we teach them to take correct stitches. This desired result is not easily attained, but experience has proved that it is best reached by, first, practical Mile. Holda Lundin is a native of (^hrietianstad (SkAne) , Sweden. She was born in 1847. She was educated at various Swedish schools in her native town and at Stockholm. She has traveled in England, Scotland, Italy, Germany, France, Bel- gium, Denmark, Norway, Ireland and America. As one of the leading educators of today she has an established position. Her principal literary works are "Dressmaking" (for schools) , "Female Sloyd," and "French Schools." She is at present superintendent of needlework in the public schools of Stockholm, and there has introduced many new and excellent methods of training. In religious faith she is a Lutheran. Belongs to Idun (Woman's Club), Woman's Suffrage League, and varioas educational societies. Her permanent postoliice address is Brunkevrgs Hotel, Stockholm, Sweden. 104 MLLE. HULDA LUNDIN. THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 105 demonstration on the subject; second, progressive order with regard to the exercises; third, class instruction. First: Practical demonstration in sewing is accomplished by means of a sewing frame, and in knitting by means of large wooden needles and colored balls of yarn; at the same time blackboard drawings are constantly being made. "With a piece of chalk and a blackboard a teacher can work wonders," I once heard a clever teacher say. Even if this were somewhat overstated, as I readily admit, it is nevertheless true that a teacher who understands the value of these media can, by their help, reach remarkably good results. French schools furnish fine proof of this. As no one is born a master, and as we cannot afford to cast away material at hand, it is necessary, until skill is obtained, to make use of preparatory exercises, but much judgment must be exercised in their use. I consider it to be a great mistake to keep pupils engaged term after term with preparatory exercises which they may not put into practice till long after, and by the time they are needed have perhaps forgotten. As soon as an exercise is well learned it should be applied to something useful, either in the school or at home. In this way the pupil's interest is awakened and strengthened. The child will, in such a case, see a result of its work such as it can understand. And, moreover, the parents' sympathy with the instruction is won. Second. Progressive order with regard to the exercises: The exercises are planned and carried out in the most strictly progressive order, so as to enable the pupils to execute well the work required of them. Nothing is more discouraging to see than a badly executed piece of work. "One cannot expect more of a child" is given as a kind of excuse. This may sometimes be true, but one can expect that a teacher will not give a child exercises beyond its capabilities and before which it must fail. To fail continually has an injurious effect on a child's character. No; let us take simple exercises; let us execute them well, have our aim well in view and not be dis- couraged even if the result looks plain and simple. In other words, in manual train- ing, as in other subjects, there should be a systematic plan, which is simple, logical and progressive. » Third. Class instruction: When instruction became obligatory in our schools, and it was necessary to have from thirty to forty pupils, and sometimes more, in one class, class instruction became an absolute necessity, and it was soon found that develop- ment of the individual was better secured through its means than when each pupil received instruction by herself. Strangely enough, one subject — manual training — remained unreformed, to the great injury of the subject; for, by appealing to the whole class at once, a teacher can secure the attention of her pupils and awaken a lively interest in the work. Her teaching can then be deep and interesting. The teacher finds time to talk about form, size, and reasons for doing this or that. Yes, the pupils even find time to think out why things shall be so and not so, and discover the best way to carry out an exercise. In this way the instruction becomes both developing and educating, and the pupils lay a firm foundation on which to build further in the future. But class teaching is only an effect,and should not be an aim. One must not have the mistaken idea that the teacher is to guide every step, P'ar from it. It is only the new in every exercise which should be explained to the whole class. After the pupils have learned through explanation and illustration what they must do, and how they shall do it, they should work independently of each other. Meanwhile, the teacher should go around the class, and notice whether all the pupils are performing correctly the required exercises. She should at the .same time observe the position of hand and body, also whether the pupils hold their work at a proper distance from their eyes, so that they may not gain skill at the expense of their eyesight. The teacher of manual work should not only instruct, but also educate the pupils as well. Therefore the choosing of teachers is not an insignificant matter. Besides manual dexterity, teachers ought to be possessed of pedagogical skill. Therefore, for the training of teachers in manual training either special normal schools should be estab- lished, or— what without doubt is better— existing normal schools should place man- 106 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. ual training in their curriculum on an equal footing with other branches of education. That is now done in Sweden and in several other countries in Europe. Not only girls, but the younger boys.should be instructed in girls' sloyd. The boys should be taught this because it introduces variety and interest, trains the hand and eye, and renders them able, in case of necessity, to darn their stockings and mend their garments. From the foregoing we deduce the following: First — Practical demonstration in sewing is accomplished by means of a sewing frame, and in knitting by means of large wooden needles and colored balls of yarn. At the same time blackboard drawings are constantly being made. Second, — The exercises are planned and carried out in the most strictly pro- gressive order, so as to enable the pupils to execute well the work required of them. Third. — The instruction in sloyd should — like that in other branches — be given to the whole class at the same time, otherwise the time which. the teacher could devote to each pupil separately would be insufficient to secure the desired results. In order to illustrate the progress from the simple to the more complex in the teaching of sloyd, we give the following class divisions of the subjects which are in use at the present time in the public schools of Stockholm: School age, seven to fourteen for both girls and boys. Class I. — Plain knitting with two needles — a pair of garters. Plain knitting — a pair of warm wristers. Class II. — Plain knitting — a towel. Practice in the different kind of stitches: running, stitching, hemming and overcasting — a lamp mat. The application of the already named stitches — one small and one large needle workbag. Class III. — A needlework case. Simple darning on canvas — a mat for a candle- stick. An apron. Class IV. — Girls. Plain and purl knitting — slate eraser and a pair of mittens. A plain chemise. Class V. — Knitting — a pair of stockings. Drawing the pattern, cutting out and making a chemise. Class VI. — Patching on colored material. Plain stocking darning; buttonholes. Buttons made of thread. Sewing on tapes, hooks and eyes. Drawing the pattern, cutting out and making a shirt or a pair of drawers. Class VII, — Fine darning and marking. Drawing the pattern for a dress. Cut- ting out articles such as are required in Standards II-IV. Drawing the pattern, cut- ting out and making a dress. The time given to needlework: Class I, two hours a week; Classes II, III and IV, four hours a week; Classes V and VI, five hours a week; Class VII, six hours a week. i COMPLETE FREEDOM FOR WOMEN. By MISS AGNES M. MANNING.' I advocate freedom for the woman because it will elevate her politically, socially, financially and morally. It has been well said that without it, on the roll of her country she has no recognized status. She is classified with minors, idiots, Indians and criminals. Man has followed the words liberty and equality through seas of blood in his attempts to wrest their meaning to apply to himself. The woman, however, who stood by his side, who endured his hardships and followed him into all his dangers, who was his patient slave, his uncomplaining victim, for six thousand years, he has never allowed to share either his liberty or equality. In the earlier ages he made no explanation for this wrong. He did what the Sioux and the Apache does today — he condemned her to be a mere beast of burden, performing the menial task he con- sidered beneath himself. Among the Hebrews, a woman who had given birth to a child was excluded from the sanctuary for forty days if it were a son, but if it were a daughter she must remain away eighty days. In Athens the father of a girl ordered in disgust that a distaff should be suspended outside of his door, instead of the garland of olive with which he had hoped to announce the birth of a boy. In Sparta, of every ten children abandoned because the state did not choose to rear them seven were girls. In Rome every newly born child was placed at its father's feet. If he took it up it was the signal of life and care. When too many daughters came, he turned away, and the unwelcome girl was condemned to death. Under the Feudal system, the birth of a girl was considered a misfortune. When Jeanne de Valois was presented to her father, Louis XL, being his first child, he would not even look at her, and forbade all public rejoicing. We know how the Salic law of France came to shut a daughter out from the throne. It was an old barbaric law that had not been enforced since the Franks were converted to Christianity. It was suddenly sprung upon the legitimate heir, a defense- less baby girl. She was defrauded by the relative that should have been the first to protect her. Nature, as if in revenge, gave him only a daughter, and by his own decreed law she could not succeed him. Napoleon divorced the faithful Josephine, but the son he coveted never reigned in France. Fate here, too, placed the grand- child of the wronged Josephine, by her first marriage, on the temporary throne. In England, in every entailed estate, great is the disappointment at the birth of a girl instead of a boy and heir. " In France," says a well-known writer, "If you ask a peasant about his family, he answers: ' I have no children; I have only daughters.*" The Breton farmer says to this day when a daughter is born, " My wife has had a miscarriage." The old religion of our Bible, while it lifted women to the level of the prophets with one hand, branded her as inferior with the other. The harem began with the Patriarchs. They took the vile institution from Babylon. The early kings added to their wives as a man adds to his acres. They were the visible signs of his wealth. Miss Agnes M. Manning is principal of the Webstor School, San Francisco, Cal. She has lived so long in the Golden State that, although not a native daughter, she calls herself a Californinn. Her first signed literarj' work was for the "Oak- land Monthly," when Bret Harte was editor. Some of her poems have been published in a volume of " Californian Writers." She has written sketches of travel, essays, various poems and short stories. She is a member of the Century Club, one of the Board of Directors of the Pacific Coast Woman's Press Association, and also member of the California Botanical Clab. Her postoifice address is 1215 Sutter street, San Francisco, Cal. 107 108 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. No polygamist ever rose above a contempt for woman. Every libertine has it. You are safe in estimating a man's character by his valuation of your sex. In these old days, and for long generations after, no woman's consent to her own marriage was asked. Look at the story of Leah and Rachel. Leah is forced upon Jacob as an extra animal might be, and accepted in the same manner. A woman was only valued for the children she produced. We have a graphic picture of the agony and despair of Rachel, because she knew if she were childless she must descend to a lower social level than her unloved sister. All the progress of civilization has been retarded through unfairness to women. No person, people or race that is discriminated against ever attains the highest possible development. If woman, through her servitude, ignorance and subordination did not help to raise man, she yet had power to often drag him down to her own low standard. She was a clog in his advancement, and he knew it. All literature is full of the biting scorn for the poor creature who was content to take the role he gave her. No man respects the woman that willingly accepts a slavish subordination. No man ever did respect her, and when he enacted such brutalities as that a husband might chastise his wife with a stick of a certain thickness, or appropriate her fortune or her earnings, she was his slave and not his equal. Time, and a certain enlightenment, have made him ashamed of these old savage- ries. In later years he has dropped the tone of the tyrant and taken up that of the hypocrite. He now pretends that he allows her no voice in the making of her own laws, and keeps her in childish subjection for her own good. Fancy any man allow- ing another man to openly defraud him of all real liberty under any such flimsy pre- tence. The theory would be blown to the winds, and men would rise in revolution against it. Yet this is what many men expect women not only to accept — they have forced them to do that — but also to believe. Man likes a willing slave, and so for all the ages he has taken care to have her taught that her highest happiness lies in belonging to him. His needs, his comforts, his pleasures, his surroundings, his ambitions, his hopes and joys are her chief con- cern. He has taken good care to teach her that her prize in life is the chance of min- istering unto him. He has implanted in her mind that her greatest good fortune is to be chosen by him. He has heaped ridicule through the ages on every woman that escaped him. He has taught girls to look on a woman's single life as a waste of herself because he was excluded from it. The highest aim of a woman is to be a wife and mother. He never allowed that the highest aim of a man is to be a husband and a father. Yet all that is high, sacred and beautiful in wifehood and motherhood was meant by a just Lord to be equally high, sacred and beautiful in husbandhood and fatherhood. He has, moreover, denied her any other means of earning her bread. For long centuries he gave her matrimony or starvation to choose between; often she discovered this to be a choice between evils. There have always been in all ages small minorities of men who have opposed the degradation of women. True religion has always opposed it. The Divine Com- mandments were not given to a woman. They were given to Moses to be kept by men. In Christianity you find no doctrine that makes one color of a sin for a woman and another for a man. On the contrary their sins are equal, and must be expiated the same way. " With us," cries the great St. Jeromfe, " what is commanded of woman is commanded of man." The laws of Christ and the laws of emperors are not the same. The old law stoned a woman to death for betraying her husband; or it con- demned her to be expelled with a whip from under the conjugal roof and chased naked through the town, or exposed on a pillar in the public square. On all sides curses and blows were flung at her by men, who called her sin a " fault" only when it was com- mitted by themselves. Among such laws appeared the Master, and, lo! the unfortunate is dragged before him. His answer tore the veil from hypocrisy, and was the first wedge in breaking the heavy chains of woman's bondage. THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. K)9 God does not send sons into one family and daughters into another. He sends them together to grow up in peace and love around one hearth, and to help, not to defraud, each other in after life. Society, however, as man has made it, consistently tries to forget the lessons of Christianity. It deals out very different punishments for the sister and the brother. His sins are " wild oats," errors of youth, and, if continued into age, a man's mistakes; but hers are crimes from the first, and no life of penitence can ever wash away the stain. I advocate the complete freedom of the woman, because I foresee in the coming education of the masses she will need all her freedom to preserve her best interests and the best interests of the home and family. If I have read history aright, I havt, learned this lesson from it, that my sex has not received justice from her brother always because of his superior knowledge. If you are familiar with Greek life as it is given to us in Homer, you are aware that woman, though from our standard she was in a barbarous position, yet she was far higher than she was four centuries after in the time of Plato. Yet during those four centuries the Greeks had made a wonderful advancement. Plato, whose mind and genius were of the greatest that ever existed, saw through the thick veil of prejudice and wrong that shrouded one-half of the human race. He saw what the wise have always seen: that the highest human effort was held back by the degradation of women. We know that the Spartans were inferior to the Athenians in all the arts and refined accomplishments; yet the Spartan women possessed far more influence than those of Athens. If you read Euripides you will understand the scorn with which the philoso- phers of Athens regarded their wives and sisters. Women then despised the freedom they were denied, as many despise it now. A Greek woman taunted her rival that she wanted to be like a man, and go in through the front door of a house. Under our old regime "free nigger" was the greatest term of reproach, but when emancipation came, which of the scoffers remained in bondage? Mr. Horace Piatt, an able lawyer of San Francisco, in an address of much research, recently, dwelt on the gloomy picture of law as it dealt with us in ancient times. Yet the greatest monument that has comedown to us from the Roman Empire is her jurisprudence. Our laws are simply copied from it. Mr. Piatt did not tell us, however, that many of the worst laws of England and Germany against women were added after the Reformation. Many of the old brutal statutes that had well-nigh died out under the influence of chivalry were again revived against her. He told us there was one later Roman enactment in favor of women holding property that was in oper- ation when California was a Mexican province. Our state adopted this law into its code and we have the advantage of it. Mr. Piatt did not tell us, however, how the Roman women wrested this law from their masters. He did not tell us how they held meetings, made speeches, and pushed themselves into the Senate Chamber to resist the infamous decrees that had culminated in one, that no daughter should inherit either property or money from the family. About the year 600 there lived in Rome Anius Ansellus.* He had acquired a large fortune in trade. He had only one child, a daughter, whom he idolized. His great wealth had only one value for him, that it should enrich his daughter; yet he knew that according to law she could not inherit it. Roman citizens were divided into six classes. Five of these classes paid taxes. The sixth class were people too poor to own property, and were excluded from all political rights. They were the middle class, between the freeman and the slave, the citizen and the alien. To belong to this class was to be degraded, yet the law, as if in fine sarcasm, allowed its fathers to leave all their effects to their daughters. Ansellus, because of his great love for his child, renounced every privilege dear to the heart of a Roman, and publicly enrolled himself in this class. He gave up every honor in his own life to baffle the cruel injustice of his country, and leave his large fortune to his daught-er. Mr. Piatt had sought for no such illustration as the story of Ansellus. In telling -"La Caase de la Mannmission des Femmes. 110 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. us of our modern Wyoming, he did not mention that no sooner was suffrage conferred on women than the thieves, tramps and hard characters that infest every new territory vanished. The social evil fled from Wyoming when the first woman sat on the jury. The chief justice gives his testimony that after years of trial, woman's suffrage is a success. There have been less robberies and murders in Wyoming than in any state in the Union. There has never yet been a woman committed to the penitentiary. It surprises me how a man like Mr, Piatt can go so far in his contempt for injus- tice to women, and yet be willing to perpetuate it. It teaches me the lesson with yet stronger force, that we women must make our own laws, and trust to no man's senti- mental ideas of doling out to us a standard of freedom he would not accept for himself. The distinguished president of the Stanford University, in his lecture on sex, as it is treated from a scientific standpoint, shows how the old theories are exploded. Alas, how much of the story of the sufferings of women may be traced to this sub- ject? Even the great Aristotle held that the mother was only the nurse of the child; she was but as the field that nourishes the grain. In yEschylus the doctrine laid down is that the son is not a parricide because it was only his mother that he slew. You all know the story of how Agamemnon was slain by Clytemnestra, and how her son avenged the death of his father. Apollo himself pleaded for Orestes. He said the mother does not generate what is called her child. In Greece the mother has no other part in the marriage of her children than to bear the nuptial torch, and to prepare the peculiar repast for the women. In the marriage of Iphigenia at Aulis, the mother, Clytemnestra, angrily demanded a place near her daughter during the ceremony as a maternal right. Agamemnon had not asked her consent. She asks him anxiously of what country Achilles is, and where he will carry her child. It was an illustrious French physician who first attacked the robbery of the mother. Armed with all the resources of modern science, he claimed for her that she was equal in all things from the first. Nature had always proclaimed the equality of the mother in her child. She suffers for it. She knows neither pain nor fatigue when it is in danger. What mother ever forgets the death of her little one? The newly-made mound that covers it is always fresh in her memory. Neither the mar- riage nor the death of her children divide them from her. For them she has endured through the ages the barbarity of men's laws. Many a husband has held his wife silent under the worst outrage because she knew he would strike her through her children. Almost all famous men declare they owed what they have become to their mothers. Schiller, Lamartine and our own Washington are examples. St. Augustine was con- verted by his mother; St. Chrysostom was educated by his mother; St. Basil was saved, he tells us, through maternal love, and St. Louis was sanctified by his strong and holy mother. Professor Jordan says that the first difference came from the female having the care of the young. The male works to feed her and the little ones. The valuation of the male by the female is measured by this care for herself and young. Nature here stamps the legitimate use of man. He was made to toil for and care for his family. He is a miserable wretch when he shirks this task; he is so made that he finds his chief happiness with wife and child. There is a fiction in law and society that all men support their families, and that all women are supported by them. Never was there a greater fallacy. Fully two-thirds of the women of today earn their own bread. In San Francisco, one-half of the married women of the poorer class help to support their families. In my school of more than one thousand pupils, more than half the mothers support their children. Numbers of them are not widows, but have the sole support of their families because of worthless husbands. No man of the nineteenth century has had a wider influence on its thought than John Stuart Mill. No man's influence of our time will last longer or weigh more with the generations that will come after us. If there is a woman here who has not read THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. Ill Mill on "Liberty, or the Subjection of Woman," I would advise Herat once to beg, buy or borrow this book. Mill demands the liberty of women, not alone for the benefit that it will confer on the whole human race, but because it is her inalienable right. Herbert Spencer, like our Mr. Piatt, has shown the barbarities of the subjugation of women, and then he shirks her enfranchisement. He has shown that the fine intuition possessed by women would be of incalculable value and benefit to man in all his researches, if she were only educated enough to use her God-given faculties. Henry Thomas Buckle declares that so far from the mind of women being inferior to that of men, those men who have gained the greatest victories in science have approached their studies after the manner of women. He avers that the flimsy thing called woman's education has been solely to blame that so few women are distinguished in thought. He points out how men reason from induction. They collect first facts and build their theories from these facts. This is the modern method of scientific investigation, but he says the great achievements in science have not been mastered in this way. Newton discovered the law of gravitation because he had great imagination. He could follow the force that made the apple fall, to great heights — to the moon — and saw how our Earth kept her satellites in order. From this he followed the same law to the planets, and saw how the sun held them in their courses. There was no inductive reasoning in this. It was pure deduction. It was what is sneered at in woman as intuition, that grasped the mighty problem. It was the same sublime power of imagination that taught Keppler his three wonderful laws, that revealed a true knowledge of the plan- etary worlds to us. It is akin to the mind of the poet. Shakespeare had it when he drew forth his creations of real beings, who live through all the generations. Hamlet, Shylock, Othello, Rosalind, Desdemona and Portia are as real to us as they were to the people of three hundred years ago. George Eliot, whom the foremost critics of our age declare to be the greatest creator of character since Shakespeare, who is, in fact, the only writer of our own time that has ever been classed with the master, had it. This woman, whose works will live in literature with increasing value as the ages come and go, showed what might be accomplished by women of genius if they were fully educated. Her mind did not receive the ordinary training of her sex. It was developed and strengthened by the same processes that go to build up scholarship in men. Mr. Buckle also points out to us that it was the womanly intuition or poetic faculty that brought about the greatest discoveries in botany. Everyone who takes up this interesting study now knows that the stamens, pistils, corolla and petals are simply modified leaves. These parts, unlike in shape, color and function, we know are the successive stages of the leaf. No botanist discovered thissecret. It was found by the greatest poet that Germany has known. When Goethe announced his discovery, the botanists received it with scorn. They who had collected their facts and filled their herbariums were the ones to find nature's secret of the morphological generali- zation of plants. What had a poet with his verses and imagination to do with it? Nevertheless, time, that works out her slow revenges, saw the botanists of the whole world receive Goethe's idea and join in praise of it. Nor was that the only one of the poet's discoveries. Wandering like Hamlet through a cemetery he came upon a skull lying on the freshly turned earth beside an open grave. Like Hamlet, he took it up and mused upon it. Suddenly there flashed into his mind the then unknown truth that the skull was composed of vertebras, that the bony covering of the head was an expansion of the bony covering of the spine. This great discovery was stubbornly fought in ELngland, and it was fifty years after it was known in Germany and France before English anatomists would acknowledge that the mind of the poet had soared above all their facts and dissections.* What the world has lost in denying the mind of women free development, only future civilization can tell. Our last lecturer on this subject, Professor Clark, of Stanford University, in his excellent paper, gave us much hope for this future. His eloquent appeal to women to stand by their cause until the last shackle of bondage was removed, must have found • ♦From Henry T. Backle. 112 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. an answering echo in every heart worthy of beating in the nineteenth century. The woman whom such an appeal does not reach should have lived in the feudal age and not in ours. Professor Clark is a product of the modern education of the West, where the boy and girl, working side by side in the same schoolroom, learn to properly respect each other, and understand that brains like souls are sexless. I claim complete freedom for women because, without it, she cannot be the equal of father, brother, husband or son. I claim, with Harriet Beecher Stowe, that liberty for a nation means, liberty for every individual of that nation. I claim for women an equal voice in making the laws that govern her, and an equal chance in developing the gifts with which a just God has endowed her. I claim, in short, an equal right to all that man claims for himself. HOMER AND HIS POEMS. By MRS. NINA MORAIS COHEN. From the storm and stress of political strife, the grand old man of England turns to Homer for rest. In an age so supremely subjective as our own, the objective out- look of the antique life, its heroic action as opposed to the introspection of our time, carries the sharp salt breath of the boundless sea to the dweller in crowded cities. Let us also turn to Homer seeking that fair- flowing fountain of the young world for a draught which shall help to banish the "obstinate question- ings" of the world grown old. Our talk today shall be of the poet and of his winged words — what is known of his personality and of his works. We shall review briefly his stories, linger a moment upon some of his beauties, and give our attention especially to the Homeric criticism which aims to decide whether Homer is, or is not, the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey. For over two thousand five hundred years tradi- tion told its tale of a blind minstrel of Asia Minor, who begged his way from door to door singing his immortal verses. These verses, committed to mem- ory by professional singers or reciters, became the supreme treasure of intellectual Greece, and their text was as familiar to the ordinary Greek as that of the Bible to the English peasant. The poems entered into the curriculum of common-school education; they were the authority upon the genealogies of families; to them vexed questions in theology and custom were referred; the current stock of quotation was mainly drawn from them. Learned men dis- cussed in hair-splitting debate such questions as these: "Why did Nausicaa use clear water instead of sea water to wash her clothes?" "In which hand was Aphrodite wounded?" Alcibiades did not scruple to strike a schoolmaster who did not possess a "Homer"; and Alexander, it is well known, slept with a gold-encased copy under his pillow. The poems were inextricably interwoven with the life of the most cultivated nation that ever existed. What did this people know of Homer? Of his actual life nothing was known in historic Greek times, nor is known today. The word "Homerus" means fitted together, and is used generally to denote a hostage in war, and not a fitter of verses. Gladstone thinks Homer an appellation and not a genuine name; but upon this, as upon almost all other points of criticism, the doctors disagree. The date of Homer's existence was greatly debated among the ancients. Aris- tarchus, a very distinguished critic of the Alexandrian school, places him as early as 1044 B. C, while Herodotus, the historian, thinks 850 the proper date. Could the question of time be settled it would be of vital import as bearing upon the historic Nina Morais Cohen is a native of Philadelphia, Pa. She was born December 6, 1855. Her parents were S. MoraiB, LL. D., minister of the Jewish Congregation Mecko6 Israel, of Philadelphia, and Clara E. Weil Morais. Her father is an Italian from Leghorn, her mother an American. Mrs. Cohen was educated in Philadelphia. She married Emannel Cohen., of the law firm of Ketchel. Cohen & Shaw, Minneapolis, Minn. She is a contributor to various joarnals. In relig- ions faith she is a Jewess. Her postotfice address is care of Mr. Emanuel Cohen, Minneapolis, Minn. (8) "3 MRS. NINA MORAIS COHEN. 114 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. authority of Homer; for, were he but a generation or two later than the events described in the poems, his exposition of the social life, religion, morals, learning and general character of the Greeks would be possessed of a supreme historic value. In regard to this value of Homer, modern critics form a sliding-scale of disagreement. Gladstone believes Homer to have lived at a very ancient date, and accepts his dictum, in gen- eral, as a final test of the Greek status. Prof. Evelyn Abbott, at the other pole, regards the Homeric life as almost entirely imaginative. If it be true that the author of the Iliad composed his verses several centuries after the Fall of Troy, that tale would, for obvious reasons, be much less authoritative as a standard of Greek life than George Eliot's" Romola" is of life in Florence during the Revival of Learning. Eight biographies of Homer were known in historic Greece, but by general ver- dict they are all spurious. We know that " Seven cities now contend for Homer dead, through which the living Homer begged his bread," and so vigorous did this conten- tion grow that the people of Smyrna displayed Homer's monument, and the people of los his grave. The general belief is that the poems were brought in historic times from the Ionian cities of Asia Minor into Greece proper; some cities, however, claim that the poems, being very ancient and originally composed in Greece, were carried into Asia by the Achaeans fleeing from the Doric invasion, and were afterward reim- ported by them. Gladstone brings many arguments to bear in support of this view, the most important being Homer's thorough acquaintance with Greece proper, both on the coast and in the interior, and his slight descriptions of the Asiatic country. The tradition of Homer's blindness seems to have arisen from a mention thereof in a so-called Homeric hymn to Apollo, which is considered spurious. In support of this popular notion it may be observed that the minstrel of Scheria in the Odyssey, praised most tenderly by Homer, is blind; that color is rarely mentioned in the poems, and when mentioned not very appropriately. But the descriptions of sea and shore, of movement and action, render it almost impossible that Homer should have been blind, at least until of a very mature age. That he honored the office of bard is like- wise shown in his characterization of the same blind minstrel. Minstrelship in his day was one of the very few learned professions, and it was held in great honor. The bard was usually retained by some noble house; but this does not seem to have been Homer's position, as he left no traces of any patron's influence upon his work — such traces as may be seen in the writings of Horace or Tasso, or even of later recipients •of noble patronage. Thus Homer speaks of Demodocus, the Divine minstrel of Scheria: "Then the henchman drew near, leading with him the beloved minstrel, whom the Muse loved dearly, and she gave him both good and evil; of his sight she reft him, but granted him sweet song. Then Pontonus, the henchman, set for him a high chair, inlaid with silver, in the midst of the guests, leaning it against the tall pillar, and he hung the loud lyre on a pin, close above his head, and showed him how to lay his hands on it. And close by him he placed a basket, and a fair table, and a goblet of wine by his side, to drink when his spirit bade him. So they stretched forth their hands upon the good cheer spread before them. But after they had put from them the desire of meat and drink, the Muse stirred the minstrel to sing the songs of famous men." On another occasion Odysseus, the hero, thus honors the minstrel: " Lo, henchman, take this mess, and hand it to Demodocus, that he may eat, and I will bid him hail, despite my sorrow. For minstrels from all men on earth get their meed of honor and worship; inasmuch as the Muse teaches them the paths of song, and loveth the tribe of minstrels." Homer's works are traditionally believed to be the Iliad (the story of Ilium or Troy) and the Odyssey (the adventures of Odysseus on his return home). Several hymns, smaller epics and other works formerly attributed to him, are now generally considered spurious. " Sing, goddess, the wrath of Achilles" are the opening words in the poem miscalled the Iliad. It is essentially the tale of the Wrath. At the open- THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 115 ingof the poem the Greeks (then called Achaeans) are sitting before Troy in the ninth year of the siege. The story of the seduction of Helen is not set forth by Homer, nor any of the now famous events preceding the ninth year; neither is the conclusion of the struggle pictured, nor the oft-foreboded death of its chief hero, Achilles. The action is confined to a few days, covered by the Wrath and its sad termination. The story of the Iliad is as follows: In the distribution of spoil after the plunder- ing of the town of Chryse, Chryseis, the daughter of Chryses, the priest of Apollo, had fallen to the lot of Agamemnon, chief of the Achaeans. The father of the maiden came to her captor with a ransom, which, being refused, the old man prayed to Apollo to revenge his wrong. " So spake he in prayer, and Phoebus Apollo heard him, and came down from the peaks of Olympus wroth at heart, bearing on his shoulders his bow and covered quiver. And the arrows clanged upon his shoulders in his wrath as the god moved; and he descended like to night. Then he sate him aloof from the ships, and let an arrow fly; and there was heard a dread clanging of the silver bow. First did he assail the mules and fleet dogs, but afterward, aiming at the men his piercing dart, he smote; and the pyres of the dead burnt continually in multitude." After nine days of the plague, a council of the nobles is summoned, and Agamem- non is by them advised to return the maiden. Now the chief of these advisers is Achilles, fleet-footed, golden-haired Achilles, like unto the gods. Agamemnon enraged at this advice threatens to take from Achilles his captive maiden Briseis, whom Achilles loves. Words wax hot between them and Achilles is about to draw his sword when the gray-eyed Athene catches him by his golden hair, being visible to him alone. Terribly shines her eyes as she forbids him to take any action. So Achilles must needs submit to the loss of his maiden, but he nurses his resentment in his breast, and weeps anon, and sits upon the shore of the gray sea, gazing moodily across the boundless main. His mother, the sea-nymph Thetis, arises like a mist from the depths at the prayer of her son, agrees to petition Zeus that the battle may go against the Achaeans, so that they may bitterly rue the injustice done to Achilles. This petition Thetis makes, and here we are introduced to the Olympic Court, which is divided in interest between the Achaeans and Trojans, and which aids and frustrates the various heroes, and even participates in the combats. Interesting indeed is the theurgy of Homer; distinct, picturesque and full of subtle individuality are his char- acterizations of gods and goddesses. But we must perforce confine our attention t*o the main action. Achilles sulks in his tent, and his wish is fulfilled. The Achaeans meet fearful reverses. During the retirement of Achilles the several books are filled with accounts of the doings of the various chiefs, with descriptions of wounds in all conceivable forms, with pictures of Troy and Trojan life; yet so rapid is the movement of the poems, so vivid the individuality of each chieftain, that these details rarely drag. Even the famous catalogue of the ships is enlivened by bits of gracious description and fitting epithet. After serious losses Agamemnon sends ambassadors to the tent of Achilles with ample apologies, full of restitution and promises of large gifts. Achilles, with mar- velous eloquence, refuses all. The Trojans continue to gain upon the Achaeans, driv- ing them behind their ramparts, and setting fire to their ships. All the noted chieftains are wounded and disabled. At this juncture Achilles' dear friend, the companion of his boyhood, whom he loves with a love passing that of woman, Patroclus, begs Achilles to join the combat. Achilles refuses, but he allows Patroclus to don the famous armor of Achilles and to lead the Myrmidons into the battle. The Trojans, thinking that Patroclus is Achilles, are driven back in flight; but the valiant Hector, leader of the Trojans, fights with Patroclus and slays him. When the news is brought to Achilles he tears his hair, lies in the dust moaning terribly, and swears never to taste food until he has revenged his friend. His mother and her sea-maidens rise from the deep to comfort Achilles. Again Thetis proceeds to Olympus with a petition to obtain from 116 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. Hephaestos (the smith-god) a most wondrous suit of armor. Clad in this glittering mail, the light of his shield shining afar off, as shines the light of the moon, the infu- riated Achilles shouting his terrible war-cry, his teeth gnashing, his eyes blazing, dashes his steeds into the fight. Everything yields to him; the Trojans flee within their gates; the River Scaman- dros rears his furious wave against him. But the gods fight for Achilles, and Hector, in the sight of his aged parents, is slain, mutilated, bound to the swift chariot of Achilles, and his fair head trailed in the dust. Now Achilles had sworn to give the corpse of Hector to the dogs; but the gods put into the heart of old Priam the thought of going in person to Achilles to beg the body of his son. He proceeds to the tent. What happens Homer shall tell: "But they were unaware of great Priam as he came in, and so stood he a-nigh and clasped in his hands the knees of Achilles, and kissed his hands, terrible, man-slaying, that slew many of Priam's sons » * * * So Achilles wondered when he saw god-like Priam, and the rest wondered likewise, and looked upon one another. Then Priam spake and entreated him, saying: ' Bethink thee, O Achilles, like to the gods, of thy father that is of years with me, on the grievous pathway of old age. Him haply are the dwellers round about entreating evilly, nor is there any to ward from him ruin and bane. Nevertheless, when he hear- eth of thee as yet alive, he rejoiceth in his heart and hopeth withal day after day that he shall see his dear son returning from Troy land. But I, I am utterly unblessed since I begat sons, the best men in wide Troy land, but declare unto thee that none of them is left * * * * Yea, fear thou the gods, Achilles, and have compassion on me, even me, bethinking thee of thy father. Lo, I am more piteous than he, and have braved what none other man on earth hath braved before, to stretch forth my hand toward the face of the slayer of my sons. "Thus spake he, and stirred within Achilles desire to make lament for his father. And he touched the old man's hand and gently moved him back. And as they both bethought them of their dead, so Priam for man-slaying Hector wept sore as he was fallen before Achilles' feet, and Achilles wept for his own father and now again for Patroclus, and their moan went up throughout the house." So Priam takes home the dear son's body; and Hector's aged mother, Hekuba, and his sweet young wife, Andromache, make lament; and Argive Helen wails for him who was ever gentle to her and reproached her not — her at whom all men shud- der. And the Trojans make a lofty pyre, and mourn nine days, and on the tenth they hold the funeral for Hector, tamer of horses. So closes the Iliad. Let us turn now to the fascinating adventures of the steadfast, goodly Odysseus, that crafty man of many devices. The plot has been admirably told in a simple man- ner by Charles Lamb, in his "Voyage of Ulysses." But in simplicity of narration, and in absorbing interest, the text itself is supreme; and apart from any poetical value, the story is a never-failing delight to the imagination of old and young. As the Iliad treats of war, the Odyssey deals mainly with domestic life; " the one," says Bentley, " is for men, the other for women." In the opening chapter Odysseus, after a wandering of ten years, is held an unwill- ing guest by the loving nymph, Calypso, on her Island Ogygia; but the gray-eyed Athene, his protectress, prays Zeus to restore him to his home. Calypso, commanded by the deathless gods, allows Odysseus to build a raft which she stores with provis- ions, and then reluctantly she sends him on his way. During the time of Odysseus' long absence from Ithaca, his son Telemachus has grown to manhood, and his wife, the wise and gracious Penelope, is besieged by suitors in marriage. Now Penelope, still longing and hoping against hope for the return of Odysseus, tells her suitors that she will choose among them after she has woven a web that shall be the shroud of her father-in-law, the aged Laertes. This she weaves in the day and ravels by night until the trick is discovered. The suitors then wax clamorous; they remain about the house of Odysseus and devour his goods. When the story opens Telemachus resolves to submit to the waste of his substance no longer, and impelled by Athene he fits out THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 117 a vessel and goes in search of his father. He visits the courts of Nestor and Mene- laus; sees the beautiful Helen restored and repentant, and hears many stories of the war. After vain seeking he returns to Ithaca. Meanwhile Odysseus on the raft of Calypso is wrecked by the sea god Poseidon, whose anger he had incurred when he had put out the one eye of Poseidon's son — the Cyclops, Polyphemus. Saved by the aid of his patron Athene, Odysseus is tossed upon the rocky shore of the Island of Scheria, bleeding and exhausted. Upon this island dwell a colony of cultivated Phoenicians. The daughter of the King Alcinous is the lovely Princess Nausicaa. She is in the dawn of womanhood, and into her gentle heart comes the dream of married love; so she wishes to wash her linen for her bridal day. But she does not acknowledge her thought even to herself,and under the plea of washing the linen of the king she drives with her maidens to the shore where sea and river meet. After trampling the clothes in the clear wave, the maidens play at games and so disturb Odysseus asleep among the leaves. Naked and bloody, soiled by the wave and the earth, he appears like a wild beast before the maidens, driving them back in a fright. But his ever ready tongue wins the heart of the princess, and giving him clothing she tells him to follow her to the city behind the wain, yet not to keep close to her after they reach town, lest the gossips should talk. So Odysseus throws himself upon the hospitality of King Alcinous and Queen Arete, and having rested and bathed his glorious limbs, he tells to his wondering listeners his adventures from the time of the F'all of Troy. He speaks of his hail -breadth escape from the one-eyed giant Polyphemus whom he had blinded, an escape made by suspending himself to the wool on the belly of a ram; of the gift of the bag of the winds by King yEolus, pierced by his curious fol- lowers, and of how the freed winds then blew them to and fro upon the wide sea; of his life on the Island of Circe, on which his men were turned into swine; of his adventures in dread Hades, where he converses with the ghosts of the dead heroes; of his sail through the Sirens' Pass, when he is bound to the mast lest he should be beguiled to destruction by the entrancing song; of his passage through the fearful Straits of Scylla and Charybdis; and of other enthralling adventures ended by total loss of men and ships and his imprisonment on Calypso's Island. Then he begs of his host to give him safe convoy to his home in Ithaca. This request is granted, and many guests-gifts are bestowed upon the man whose speech wins all hearts, and the princess, his savior, may cherish only his words, but worthy words they are: " May the gods grant thee all thy heart's desire; a husband and a home, and a mind at one with his may they give — a good gift, for there is nothing mightier and nobler than when man and wife are of one heart and mind in a house, a grief to their foes, and to their friends great joy, but their own hearts know it best. " So Odysseus is taken by his friends to Ithaca, and there, disguised as a beggar, he goes to the hut of the faithful swineherd Eumaius, and learns all that has occurred during his absence. At this point Telemachus returns, and the father revealing him- self to the son, they lovingly embrace, while pitifully falls the tears beneath their brows. Then the two, with the aid of Athene, devise a plan for killing all the suitors. Odysseus goes to his home still in the guise of a beggar, receives the insults of the suitors, talks with Penelope, and is nearly betrayed by his old nurse who discovers a familiar scar while washing his feet. The suitors make trial of their strength by attempting to draw the bowjof Odysseus, but no one can draw it until Odysseus takes it in his hand and easily sends the arrow through the twelve axe-rings. Then he turns upon the suitors, and by the aid of the gods all are slaughtered, and Odysseus is re- venged. The wise Penelope, however, refuses to believe that the stranger is her husband, and tries to prove him by ordering the nurse to bring out the goodly bed ofOdysseus, which he made for himself. But- says Odysseus: " Verily, a bitter word is this, lady, that thou hast spoken. Who has set my bed otherwhere? Hard would it be for one, how skilled soever, unless a god were to come, that might easily set it in another place, if so he would. But of men there is none living, howsoever strong in his youth, that could lightly upheave it, for a great marvel is wrought in the fashion of the bed, 118 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. and it was I that made it and none other. There was growing a bush of olive, long of leaf, and most goodly of growth, within the inner court, and the stem as large as a pillar. Round about this I built the chamber, till I had finished it, with stones close set, and I roofed it over well and added thereto compacted doors fitting well. Next I sheared off all the light wood of the long leaved olive, and rough-hewed the trunk upwards from the root, and smoothed it round with the adze, well and skillfully, and made straight the line thereto, and so fashioned it into the bed-post, and I bored it all with the auger. Beginning from this head-post, I wrought at the bedstead till I had finished it, and made it fair with inlaid work of gold and of silver and of ivory. Then I made fast therein a bright purple band of ox-hide. Even so I declare to thee this token, and I know not, lady, if the bedstead be yet fast in his place, or if some man has cut away the stem of the olive tree and set the bedstead otherwhere. So he spake and at once her knees were loosened, and her heart melted within her, as she knew the sure tokens that Odysseus showed her. Then she fell a-weeping, and ran straight toward him and cast her hands about his neck, and kissed his head." Absorbing are the plots of these poems, and wondrous the literary dexterity with which they are handled; yet these features are the least of those which make them a joy forever. In the drawing of individual character, Homer has never been excelled; and while in range he is at least equaled by our Shakespeare, it seems to me that the English poet never breathed the breath of life into so god-like yet human a creation as Odysseus, skilled in devices. Both poets are eminently objective; each is at home equally in the hut and the palace, but Shakespeare, living in a more enlightened age^ has given us no sweeter specimen of girlhood than the Princess Nausicaa of the Odys- sey, nor of wifely dignity and grace than the wise Penelope, nor of gentle loveliness than poor Andromache. Achilles, noble but resentful, may be compared in these qualities with Coriolanus, but the beauteous golden-haired Achaean is infinitely more lovable than the stern Roman. Old Adam in "As You Like It" is but a silhouette of the well-rounded picture of Eumaeus, the swineherd of Ithaca. Even the gods and goddesses of Homer are endowed with pulsating life, and forever remain with us the gray-eyed Athene, the ox-eyed, white-armed Hera. Of the form in which these images of genius present themselves, it may be said that Homer wrote in the most beautiful language that was ever spoken by human tongue; of it he had supreme command. He fitted sound to sense as no other poet has done. "No one who is a stranger to Greek literature," says Professor Jebb, "has seen how perfect an instrument it is possible for human speech to be." In clear- ness, in flexibility, the Greek is unrivaled, having by force of its particles the power of expressing delicate shades of thought, untranslatable except by tedious circumlo- cution. The measureof the poems iscorrespondent to our iambic hexameter, of which the most notable example in English is Longfellow's "Evangeline" — " Silently, one by one, in the infinite meadows of Heaven, Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels." This is a classic measure, foreign to the genius of our English tongue, and no satisfac- tory translation of Homer in the native meter has ever been made. In fact, while translations are legion, no adequate rendition as a whole, in any form, has been pro- duced. The necessities of English versification so pervert the simple directness of Homer's style, so retard his swift-winged flight, that a sympathetic presentation in prose best conveys to mind of the English readers the characteristic traits of Homer's style. Such a version is Leaf, Myers & Lang's of the Iliad, and Butcher & Lang's of the Odyssey — the translations used in this paper. Yet it will readily be seen that to those who read Homer in translation, the charm of his literary style must, in a large measure, be missing. Matthew Arnold, in his delightful essays on translating Homer, expresses the hope and the belief that an English poet, capable of handling Homer in his native meter, will yet be born. "The perfect translator," says Arnold, "must be rapid in movement, simple in style, plain in language, natural in thought, eminently noble — in grand manner." THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 119 But while the full enjoyment of the flavor of his style is reserved for the scholar in keenness of wit, in tenderness of pathos, in fitness of epithet, in loveliness of senti- ment, in grandeur of simile, Homer appeals to the unlearned as well as to the scholar. I wish that I had the time to read to you such passages as the parting of Hector and Andromache; the meeting of Odysseus with his old father, or with his neglected dog, who moans and dies upon once more beholding his beloved master; or that I might show you the glorious Hector bursting through the Achaean gate, his face like the sudden night, shining in wondrous mail, with two spears in his hands. Would that I might take you to the shore of the unharvested sea, where the dark wave singeth about thestorm,and roareth on the long beach, while the main resoundeth. And again to this same echoing beach, where the sea-wave lifteth up itself in close array before the driving of the west wind; out on the deep doth it first raise its head, and then it breaketh upon the land, and belloweth aloud, and goeth with arching crest about the promontories, and speweth the foaming brine afar. I would show to you the assembling of the people like thronging bees from a hollow rock, ever in fresh procession, flying among the flowers of spring, some on this hand and some on that. So much for Homer and the poems ascribed to him — so much for Homer, the poet, as he appeals to a lover of poetry. His value to the student of comparative religions and folk-lore, to the archaeologist and ethnologist, to the historian and sociologist, we shall not even touch upon. For we have set our faces toward the long vista of Homeric criticism, and of this criticism Seneca said in his day, that life was too short to enable one to arrive at a just conclusion. But we will pause for a passing glance and be not tempted to consider too curiously. The first authentic point in the literary history is the fact that the poems were publicly recited by the rhapsodists at the festivals of Athene in the sixth century, B. C. Of the manner of their perpetuation from the prehistoric days of Homer, noth- ing positive is known. A tradition tells that Homer left a school of disciples, and there seems to have existed a society or guild called the Homeridae in Chios. But whether these were a literary society, or descendants of Homer by blood, or really custodians of his verse, does not appear. When the rhapsodists come upon the historic stage as the authorized reciters of Homer, Solon orders that they should " proceed with promptings," thus implying that the prompter held a recognized text Pisistratus, the enlightened tyrant of Athens who followed Solon, is generally credited with having caused a commission of learned men to collect and put in proper order the songs of Homer. On the one hand, it is claimed that this commission merely gave forth what would be termed in our time a correct edition. On the other side, it is contended that the commission collected "stray songs," vaguely known as Homer's, making additions and subtractions which they deemed suitable to the con- struction of a harmonious work of art; in fact, that Pisistratus made our Homer. The latter view is weakened by the recorded custom of promptings in Solon's time before cited, and by the statement of Hipparchus, the son ol Pisistratus, in a Platonic dialogue. Hipparchus there tells us that the rhapsodists took up each other in order " as they still do." This leaves no doubt as to Plato's opinion, and to the current opinion in Plato's day concerning the traditional character of the text. The first study of Homer that can really be called critical was made in the Alex- andrian Age. Then arose a school of Separatists (about 170 B. C.) who believed that the Iliad and the Odyssey were by different authors. Zenodotus, the first chief of the great mu.seum, wa.s also the first critic of the Homeric text, and he was soon fol- lowed by Aristarchus, the greatest of ancient critics, to whom is ascribed the present division of Homer into books. Aristarchus discovered a number of spurious passages in the poems, but he had no doubt that Homer was virtually their author. At the end of the eighteenth century there was found in V'enice, in the library of St. Mark, a manuscript of the Iliad, dating from the tenth century. Around this transcription were marginal notes, called "scholia." These were textual criticisms by 120 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. Aristarchus and other learned grammarians. The finding of the "scholia" gave a new impulse to Homeric criticism, and led to the famous Recension of the Iliad by the German scholar, Frederick Augustus Wolf, in 1795. Previous to Wolf, the idea that Homer was not the sole author of epics ascribed to him had been suggested by Bentley, Rousseau, and others in modern times, and, it is said, by Josephus, Cicero, and others in ancient times. But no serious attempt at proof had ever been made until Wolf, in his revolutionary Prolegomena (preface to his edition of the Iliad), shook the literary world to its foundations, and inaugurated a new era of literary criticism. The celebrated Wolfian theory, is in the main, as follows: Alphabetic writing, according to Wolf, was not known to the Greeks until about 600 B. C. There is no evidence that the laws were written until that time, and certainly a prose literature, which calls for writing, was not in existence previously. It is true that many verses were older, but verse was the original form of extemporaneous oratory or chanting, and the profession of rhapsodist was that of one who recites from memory. In Homer him- self, there is but a single mention of a message by characters, and that is the case of Bellerophon, "who bore tokens of woe, graven on a folded tablet, many deadly things," to the King of Lydia. This was in some form a written message to the king, in which the writer requests him to slay Bellerophon, and it was not until the tenth day of Bellerophon's visit that the king asked to see "what token he bore." Now, this token on the folded tablet does not by any means imply alphabetic writing, and throughout the rest of the poems we hear of no communication as passing between any of the chiefs in Troy and their families at home. Even if letters were known, nobody read, and wooden or leaden tablets were unable to contain lengthy works. If the poems were not written, it is impossible that the text could have been preserved from cor- ruption during several centuries. Besides, there are manifest discrepancies in the poems themselves. In one case a chief, who has been killed in an early book, is made to attend the funeral of his son in a later book, and there are other discrepancies of time, place and style. Then, too, the exploits of all the chiefs have nothing to do with the story of the Wrath of Achilles, and are manifestly inserted to glorify local heroes. These are the main grounds of the Wolfian theory. The conclusion is that the Iliad is a series of short songs put together in a later age. In regard to the Odyssey, the opinion of the Wolfian school is that it is of different authorship altogether from the Iliad. Wolf's theory has been violently attacked, learnedly defended, and largely elab- orated. Grote, the historian of Greece, makes two distinct works of the Iliad: One he calls the Wrath of Achilles, mainly by Homer; the other the Iliad, composed of float- ing songs. Lachman, a celebrated German scholar, finds in the Iliad all the joints of sixteen small works. Mr. Walter Leaf has recently issued his edition of the Iliad, compiled by getting together twenty-six passages from different books of the poems. He, of course, has scholarly reasons for considering all the rest spurious. "The Nation," in reviewing this work, declares that "in a century after the promulgation of the Wolfian idea (that is, in 1895), ^^e number who believe in the theory of genu- ineness of Homer's works as traditionally received, will be so small that first-class scholars will not consider it worth while to waste time in endeavoring to convince them of its untenableness." A singular feature in all these later criticisms is the fact that the very noblest portions of the poem are considered not Homeric. The embassy to Achilles, con- taining the finest eloquence of the poem; the meeting of Achilles and Priam, contain- ing the noblest pathos — these and other passages of like significance are relegated to floating songs of unknown poets, and the Iliad becomes to the layman a Hamlet with- out the Prince. But the Wolfian theory and its progeny have not gone unchallenged by eminent scholars. The English critics are its choicest defenders. The answers to the theory are mainly these: First. Writing may have existed at the time of Homer, for the Greeks were in THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 121 close communication with the Phcenicians as early as iioo B. C. The Phoenicians were skilled in writing, and the quick-witted Greeks would not be slow to imitate so useful an art. Second. Even if writing were unknown, transmission by memory was not at all impossible. Rhapsodists were a professional class, trained purely for the purpose of memorizing, and the public recitations in which each might criticise the other, insured the integrity of the text. Extraordinary feats of memory are not unknown in our own times. Macaulay could, without effort, recite half of "Paradise Lost;" Dr. Bathurst is said to have known the whole Iliad in Greek when a boy. If such performances are possible by non-professional reciters in an era when writing has weakened the power of memory, they certainly were not impossible in a trained and picked class of mem- orizers who could not depend on writing. Third. There are discrepancies, it is true; but they are only such as might occur in long poems by a single author, especially if not written; and while some interpola- tions may be granted, they are not sufficient to disturb the general integrity of the text. Fourth. The plots are essentially bound together by an underlying unity; the style and turn of language and thought in both poems are those of the one master; and if the author of the Iliad and he of the Odyssey are not the same, then nature must have produced bountifully the supreme poetic inspiration when the world was young. This is, in very small mold, the modern Homeric question; its bibliography is enor- mous, although the controversy is really in its incipiency. Its solution will be aided by archaeological researches, by studies in comparative mythologies and folk-lore, by philological investigation. The work ofSchliemann on the Hill of Hissarlik (his Troy), which promised so much in confirmation of the Iliad, is now being taken into question. His so-called tomb of Agamemnon is said to be that of a barbarian woman of a much later age. I shall conclude my paper with two charming fragments of translation. The first, by Dr. Hawtrey, gives to the English ear the swing and meter of the Greek hexameter. Helen has been called by Priam to the walls of Troy to tell him the names of the Greek chieftains. She says: "Clearly the rest I behold of the dark-eyed sons of Achaia; Known to me well are the faces of all; their names I remember; Two — only two — remain whom I see not among the commanders; Castor, fleet in the car, Polydeuces brave with the cestus— Own dear brethren of mine— one parent loved us as infants. Are they not here in the host, from the shores of loved Lacedaemon, Or, though they came with the rest in ships that bound through the waters, Dare they not enter the fight or stand in the council of Heroes, All for fear of the shame and the taunts my crime has awakened? So said she; they long since in earth's soft arms were reposing, There in their own dear land, their fatherland — Lacedaemon." ' I The other is a noble blank verse rendition by Tennyson of one of the loveliest passages in the Iliad: "So Hector spake; the Trojans roared applause; Then loosed their sweating horses from the yoke, And each beside his chariot bound his own; And oxen from the city, and goodly sheep In haste they drove, and honey-hearted wine And bread from out the houses brought, and heap'd Their firewood, and the winds from off the plain Roll'd the rich vapor far into the heaven. And these all night upon the bridge of war Sat glorying; many a fire before them blazed; 122 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. As when in heaven the stars about the moon Look beautiful, when all the winds are laid, And every height comes out, and jutting peak And valley, and the immeasurable heavens Break open to their highest, and all the stars Shine, and the Shepherd gladdens in his heart; So many a fire between the ships and stream Of Xanthus blazed before the towers of Troy, A thousand on the plain; and close by each Sat fifty in the blaze of burning fire; And eating hoary grain and pulse, the steeds Fixt by their cars, waited the golden dawn." DEVELOPMENT IN EASTERN WASHINGTON.* MRS. JENNIE F. WHITE. By MRS. JENNIE F. WHITE. The theme assigned me for this address is "Art and Educational Facilities for the Women of Eastern Washington." These are both influenced much by the surround- ings and conditions of life. What a country for art is our loved Washington! Here are the well-known Palouse or Yakima valleys, responding to the invita- tion of man with fruit-burdened tree, rich green grass and waving golden grain, bursting forth so wonder- fully prolific as to astonish their owners, and in many places retaining a moisture beneath the surface which sustains them in the greatest degree of abundance in fruitage and harvest, even though for months not a drop of rain falls. Where still uncultivated the prairies are dotted with flowers of every hue, which succeed each other in order, spreading a perfect carpet of golden butter- cups first in the springtime, followed by purple, pink, Scarlet or blue, each in its season predominating, though hundreds of varieties can often be found in a day's collecting. Through these valleys wander ever beautiful riv- ers, carrying the bright sparkling waters from the mountain rills and snows. Gradually rise the foot hills, or suddenly the rocky bluffs, while far away and above tower the ever snow-capped mountain peaks, and when one of our glorious sunsets floods all in golden glory; when clear across the sky flames the crimson, gold and amber, touching the edge of every cloud into a radiant, dazzling brilliancy, while every shade from these to deepest purple may be traced, so softly blended; then these snowy peaks are capped with living, blazing gold, as if the dear old mountains sought to express to man their knowledge of the pure gold and silver hidden below. Dead indeed would be the soul not stirred as by a master's power; poor indeed the talent not inspired by such scenes, ever changing, yet always grand, bold, sublime. Washington has been ever courteous to her daughters in many ways. There are no schools from which they are excluded within her boundaries, and there was a time when they voted in all elections, united with their brothers in the work of caucus and copimittee, sat on juries and served in positions of trust not usually open to v,^omen; yet we believe our women are as gentle and womanly, as good and true as any in the whole wide world, and we try very hard indeed not to ape airs masculine. Today we vote at school elections and serve on school boards; but the greater Mrs. Jennie F. Drake White was born in .Maine. Her parents were Joseph T. Drake and Betsy Lonnf ellow Chapman Drake (arelativeof the poet Longfellow). She was edncated in the seminary now known as Ricker Classical Institute, Houlton, Me. She has traveled extensively in America and Eastern Canada. She married Robinson G. White in 1879, and is the mother of one son. Her principal literary works are nuraeroos poems, essays, addresses and sermons. Her profession is that of a joarnalist, at present a member of the editorial staff of the Spokane Daily and Weekly Chronicle. In reliRious faith she is a Universalist, and occasionally supplies the pulpit of that church, though she is not a minister. Mrs. White is still young, being little more than thirty years of age. and is now at work on a novel bearing on social conditions, which critics declare will win notice, being quite unusual in lines of thought. Her postoifice address is Chronicle office, Spo- kane, Wash. *The title of the address as read was : ".A.rt and Educational Facilities for the Women of Eastern Washington.'* 123 124 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. privileges or responsibilities have been removed from our hands. Many hesitate about coming to the great Northwest with their families, fearing the loss of educa- tional advantages in our savage wilds. They are greatly surprised when they arrive. No state in America has more beautiful, commodious and improved school build- ings than we have in the new State of Washington, or better conducted schools within them. A hamlet is started on some quiet hillside near a running stream, a few cots, a mill, a store, a schoolhouse, and, later, when the children are provided for, a church, and in a year quite a little village, with electric lights, water plant and other modern necessities, has appeared as if by magic. The High School of Spokane is a beautiful brick structure, with neat play- grounds and green sloping yards. A photograph of it may be seen in the Washing- ton school exhibit, as well as an excellent model carved in wood by the pupils. In every part of the city stand similar buildings, though not so commodious, and other cities of our state are equally well provided. We have agricultural colleges, business colleges, church colleges, and in aU of them excellent teachers in every department. In giving you a brief sketch of the departments of art and educational work in which Washington women are interested, I will present my own city of Spokane as the type, and you will please remember that we have many other cities which to a greater or less degree are repetitions of what is really the leading city of Eastern Washington, though not the oldest. That art is highest which is most free from things material, hence the goddess of music leads them all. And we are great music lovers in the Northwest. At the con- cert given as a test of the ability of six young ladies to represent us as state singers from Washington at this great fair, in this yet greater Chicago, our large opera house was packed to the doors and hundreds were unable to enter. The young ladies rendered classical selections in a manner to win* storms of applause. Numerous floral tributes crossed the footlights, and when Miss Berry of Walla Walla sang, a shower of roses and lilies fell around her from boxes and balcony. The state has a host of charming singers, and Palouse City is the happy possessor of a ladies' brass band, which is the pride of Eastern Washington. They play with much skill and accuracy many difficult selections, and are highly applauded in every locality. Their uniforms are neat and becoming, and they are cultivated ladies, every one of them. Our Conservatory of Music is conducted entirely by women, with the best teachers obtainable in vocal and instrumental music, physical culture and voice training. We have a Mozart Club, which employs a professor of high musical ability as instructor, and which presents the compositions of the old masters in a manner to win applause from a critical audience, and which for variety occasionally favors the pub- lic with light opera. We have a school of oratory, also classes in elocution and movements, excellently managed by women. Spokane is also very proud of its Young Ladies' Seminary, where all departments of modern education are taught, with teachers who have had the advantage of foreign travel and years of study in Germany in painting and, music. The citizens of Washington are fortunate in all lines of education, and the ad- vantages offered their children, and especially so in the knowledge that their daugh- ters can have such care and instruction at home. If the work continues as it is now so well begun, St. Mary's will ere long rival the famous schools of the East, to which our daughters have been accustomed to go for finished education. Several art studios are owned by women who teach in every department of draw- ing and painting. An art league is in active work, with excellent teachers in land- scape painting, china decoration, wood carving, molding and art needlework. Lessons are given by the League, which numbers more ladies than gentlemen by far, at low prices, to those who desire to learn and who cannot afford private lessons. The paintings in the Washington State buildings are largely the work of her daughters, as are the collection of three hundred varieties of wild flowers done in water colors, and well worth the time of looking over. THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 125 A kindergarten is also sustained in each of these schools, and private kindergar- tens in different parts of the state are preparing the little ones for the next step in life's advancement, aiding as well in building up healthy, robust bodies for the spirit's dwelling-place. Each of these is duplicated again and again. Walla Walla» having the best of educational privileges; Yakima being ornamented by school build- ings which are a credit to the enterprise of her citizens. Ellensburgh has, in connec- tion with the other departments of knowledge, which are her pride, our State Normal School, Pullman our Agricultural College, and all the lesser towns and cities their fair proportion of honors educational. In women's clubs Spokane has the Cultus Club, with membership limited to twenty- five, holding weekly parlor meetings devoted to the study of literature, music, art, science and theology, giving entertainments frequently and having as its aim mutual improvement and social enjoyment. The Spokane Indians use the word "Cultus,'' meaning " no good," or " know nothing." The Spokane Sorosis, named for the New York Club so well known to you all, contains a larger membership studies parliament- ary usages, the constitution and national laws, and includes literature, history, art, science and questions of the day in its discussions. The Daughters of Rebekah and the Eastern Star Lodge are large, well organized societies, while Daughters of Veterans, young ladies' institutes and similar societies add much to social pleasures, and the aid ever derived from intelligent conversation, well written papers and discussion, such as are of frequent occurrence at regular and special meetings prevailing under the direction of each of these. In literature we have many prolific writers of prose and poetry, whose bright original style in both lines of literature promises to bring them recognition even beyond the confines of the West. Several woman journalists are connected with the editorial staffs of our daily papers, and contribute also to journals and magazines of the East, where their writings are gladly made use of. That we have no great writers, as yet is to be accounted for by the fact that we are too young; but, where every- thing else is so great, even our trees, our rivers and our vegetables, surely our writers, when fully developed, will measure up to the average. Allow me to close with a poem rendered by the poet of our Washington Press Association, who is a woman: " Dear is this West to us; Dear as a cause becomes to men who fight With odds against them for a righteous end, 'Till, from the blood they shed, springs greater love. We each to the upbuilding of this land Have freely given our manhood's fullest strength. The strenuous push of youth's hot energy. And ripened judgment of our later days. At first, we came planning our own success; Thought but to build that we might enter in; Possess the land. But zeal, lit at this brand. In all our hearts mounts to a higher flame. Which of us all would now betray his place? Or which be recreant to his chosen trust? We who preach hope when our own hearts despair, And hold them firm, though coward prudence Whispers our defeat, are pledged to courage. We bear the colors and they hold us true. From our high hopes failure has gleaned new pain Since we have hoped for more than selfish gain. And yet this land for which we toil and pain Is not our home. -To every one of us Home is some other place, and at the word Springs a swift vision, to each. different. 126 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. Yet all seen through the golden haze of time, That mists our eyes with tender memories. To me a village street — above the road The May flushed maples meet in Spring's caress. To you a low gray farmhouse, at whose door A dear old face smiles at you through its tears; For each of us that dear, familiar face, We dare not think if we may see again. Home is with them, and we are exiles here, To build for others who come after us; To whom this fruitful land shall be sweet home; That is our part, and no ignoble one. Then let us build, that, in the coming years. When youth, untempted, strong in self-belief, Puts our life-work to its untarnished test, We may stand up and dare to meet The searching inquest of those clear young eyes. ^ THE WOMEN OF BOHEMIA. By MRS. JOSEFA HUMPAL ZEMAN. You have heard how in the beautiful forests of Bohemia there blossom millions of sweet scented violets, modestly hiding their drooping heads beneath the velvet moss; they live their short life quietly, yet steadily, per- forming the duty assigned to them by their Creator; they live and breathe the sweet breath that fills the air, invigorating the wearied passer-by with new a strength for his daily toil; intoxicating the nightin- gales, who, bursting in songs of joy, soothe and inspire souls, who, like Keats, need new vigor to enliven tneir k fainting hearts. And like these violets that blossom B in the bosom of our forests, so the women of Bohe- ^ mia live quietly, hidden within the sacred walls of ^ ' their homes, unostentatiously performing their duties; and yet their influence has filled the air with the sweet scent of encouragement, and inspired our men to deeds of heroism. Our women always have lived closer to the men than the women of the western na- tions. They have been their true helpmates in home and national life, and not unfrequently have their words, their faith, their example, poured fresh vigor t^-- into the fainting hearts of the worn-out warriors. As ^ ^ far back as legend and history can reach we find our w„= ,^c.,r.» .^„v.n*T ,rMAv women participating in national welfare. The third MRS. JOSEFA HUMPAL ZEMAN. r , i i^ i t -i i • • ruler of the Czechs was a woman, Libuse, and it is said that under her rule the nation prospered, and today she lives as an embodiment of all that is desirable in a good king; as noble, just, kind and wise queen ! Later, Drahomira was another brave queen, and among the first Christian women. St. Lud- mila is a good illustration of the interest that women have shown in public life as far back as the eighth and tenth centuries, A. D. In the times of the great tribulations that came to Bohemia during the Hussite wars, when whole armies of Catholic soldiers swept into the quiet regions of Bohemia, tearing away from the hearts of the people that which was most sacred to them— their religion and their mother tongue — it was then that our women showed their heroic nature, sending their husbands away to war, and they themselves marching with them. They carried stores, nursed the wounded, and frequently stepped into the place of their husbands and sons when the cruel shot swept these out of their places. Thou- sands of women left their homes, their friends, and went into exile, when, after the fall of Bohemia on the White Mountain, in 1620, after the long Thirty Years' War, Rome and the Hapsburgs were victorious; and all those Bohemians who would not become Mrs. Josefa Hampal Zeman is a native of Bohemia. She was born Jannarjr 9, 1870. Her father waa a prominent Bohemian leader and speaker, who came to this conntry in 1873. She was educated in the pablic schools of Chicago, and later spent two years in studying at the High School of Pisek, Bohemia, where her parents returned, and since 1800 has been studying at the Woman's College, Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio. She has traveled extensively in Austria, Germany, England and America. She married a Bohemian editor, Robert Zeman, in 1887. Her special work has been in the interest of the women of her own nationality, philanthrophic and educational. All her literary works have been published in the varioas Bohemian journals. She is a Christian and a member of the Presbyterian Church. She is a regular contributor to all the leading Bohemian journals. As a lecturer she is intelligent, sparkling and attractive, and the only Bohemian woman speaker in America. Her postoffice address is No. 513 Arcade, Eoclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio. 127 128 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. Roman Catholics were exiled, their property confiscated and given to foreigners, who filled the land like ravens, preying upon helpless, suffering Bohemia. In the Middle Ages our women were queens of the castle, and often were very learned. Many wrote in Latin, Greek, and some even knew the Hebrew. We have traces of literary efforts done by these women as early as 1502, and all through the so-called "Golden Age" of Bohemian literature in the sixteenth century. The "old embroideries" prove the high artitsic talents of women, for the designs are all made by women copying the creations of nature in their beautiful embroidering. The blending of colors and choosing of design, all testify to a great development of aesthetic tastes and love of nature "for its own sake." It is, however, this century that best unveils to us the hearts of our women. Standing by the side of our poets, they went from village to village, from house to house, awakening the people to new life and new courage, carry- ing with them literature, and teaching the peasants how to read and write. This is the time that Mme. Bozena Nemcora formed her little salon, and, like Madame De Stael, gathered about her the best sons of Bohemia, inspiring, helping and teaching them. She was the "good star" of the brave men who tried to resurrect the nation from a death of more than two centuries. During those days of tumult and strife, when the Bohemian language was almost forgotten, when it was a shame to be a Bohemian in his own fatherland, when there was no literature left — for the Roman clergy had burned all that came within its grasp, because the best class of literature was written by the "Bohemian Brethren," a Prot- estant sect — it took more than courage to stand up as a patriot, and Madame Nemcora, braved the storms. She is the first one who cultivated novel writing, and her "Babicka" or "Grandmother" has been translated into German, Russian, Polish, French, and by Frances Gregor into English (published by McClurg, Chicago). It is a classic in the language. Her literary productions would fill a small library. She is to Bohemian, what George Sand is to French, and George Eliot is to English. Around her, during the first half of this century, in the time of revolutions and upheavals in society, gathered nearly thirty women, who began to cultivate " Belles-lettres " and help in the- patriotic efforts of the men. Up to this time the girl's sphere was limited. She had been brought up like the girls of other nations, to regard household duties as her proper sphere. The Bohemian housekeeper was well known, the Bohemian cook was famous, and so each young woman was carefully trained in these arts. Fancy work, fine embroidery, a little music, French and German were about all the arts which were opened to the girls. The women of lowest class, the "laboring" women, were, how- ever, allowed "equal rights" with the men, and could work in fields, in winter spin, and in the cities these women often worked with the masons, carrying brick and mortar and doing such rude work. The life of the "laboring class" of women is a hard one indeed; but they don't complain, they remain loyal to their homes, and often from these lowly homes come the greatest men, and many of these men have thanked their mothers for their success in life. The " Middle Class " consists of the families of the professional men, merchants, officials, and such as have income enough to keep their families in comfort. In this class the women, as a rule, do not help the men to earn the living. The daughters in these families, in addition to the elementary education received in the public schools, receive a supplementary one, which is to put a sort of varnish over the other. They are taught a little German, French, music, a little painting and a good deal of fancy work. But all this is done, not with the view to enabling them to earn their own living, but rather of giving them some accomplishments to help them to win a husband. These women expect to be supported by some man, since there is no way open to them by which they may earn their living. The " Nobility " of course, live like the same class everywhere else: besides, we have, with very few exceptions, no nobility that is really Bohemian. Since 1870 the condition of our women has changed, and there are now certain professions opened to them. These are the teachings (there are twelve hundred teachers in Bohemia now), nursing, type-writing, telegraphing, clerking and THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 129 some trades. There are only two physicians, and these studied in Zurich, and are not allowed to practice in Bohemia, although the government has acknowledged their ability by appointing them to be regular staff physicians in Bohemia among the Mohammedan women. These openings for self-support to young women have been made by the organ- ization of "The Bohemian Women Commercial and Industrial Society," organized by our great novelist, Mme. Karolina Svetla, in 1870. This organization has a school in Prague, where the girls are taught, in addition to various branches of higher studies, all kinds of handiwork, mainly dressmaking, millinery, bookkeeping, type-writing, cutting and various fancy works. The school can only accommodate about five hundred students, and hundreds of promising girls must be turned away because the society has not funds enough to enlarge its school. A similar school is also sustained at Briinn by the women of Moravia. The school is something like Drexel Institute in Philadel- phia. This society has also founded the first and best Bohemian " Woman's Journal," whose editor is the famous poetess, Eliska Krasnohorska, the founder of " Minerva," a society composed of the best men and women in Bohemia, under whose auspices a Gymnasium for girls was established in 1890. The Gymnasium is the first school of its kind in Eastern Europe, and has now been copied by the German and Austrian women. The students are to be prepared for admission to the University. The funds for sup- porting the school are raised by Madame Krasnohorska, the indefatigable author and worker in the cause of women. The school now numbers more than eighty students. It is a task of great importance and very difficult, since, with the exception of the University of Zurich, no university in Northern Europe opens its doors to women. There are not less than one hundred and eighty societies of women in Bohemia, and yet out of all there is none that we might call a " suffrage club," although the Society of Bohemian Teachers in Prague has given considerable attention to this subject, hav- ing arranged for lectures, and many of its members write articles upon the theme. Bohemia, like all of Austria, has not universal suffrage, and only those who have prop- erty can vote. In many towns and cities the women vote also; in others they are represented indirectly. In some towns they may even vote for the delegates to the state Diet; but not for those of the Reichsrath. Although in some cases they may vote, they themselves are ineligible to office. Some towns have a committee of women appointed to oversee the work in the primary and industrial schools for girls. As I have said before, since the "Mediaeval Era" of the Bohemian literature, women appear in the ranks of authors, and today some of the most popular authors of drama, poetry and novels are women. The Bohemian women exhibited and donated to the Woman's Building three hundred and twenty books, all original, not one translated, written exclusively by women. This is a good showing, when we remember that the nation is continually in a fierce struggle for self-preservation; that until recently no avenues of higher education were opened to women, and that the nation is comparatively small, of only five million inhabitants. The German women had only five hundred copies, and the French women only .seven hundred. But not only do the Bohemian women write poetry, novels and drama; they have made some very successful attempts in scientific and educational literature, some having written well in history, hygiene, physiology, geology, travels, and as art critics. There is one remarkable fact which I wish to note in closing, and that is that all the students of the University of Prague are very friendly to the attempts made by women pleading fur admission. The women of Bohemia have done this work quietly; they are pressing toward the same mark to which the women of the whole civilized world are directing their desires and ambitions; but whatever they do, for whatever they may long, they never forget their obligation to the nation, and are first patriots and then women. They stand in the ranks of soldiers, fighting for the sacred right of Bohemia, bearing the heat and smoke of the battle, ministering to the wounded, and yet performing their duties as wives, mothers and sisters. They cannot point to glorious buildings, clubs and enterprises, for every penny is needed by the country, and no one can under- (9) 180 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. stand the difficulties and burdens that are laid upon the shoulders of our women. It is harder for them to get a penny than for people of this country to secure dollars. Their efforts may appear small, but to those who know the hard situation in Bohemia they speak of zeal, enthusiasm and perseverance, such as only a Slavonic woman, endowed with her splendid physique, could accomplish. We are only in the dawn of the morning. Before us lie the whole possibilities of a splendid day, and I can only say that the Bohemian women are on the march, and they will keep step with the ranks of all womanhood marching on to progress. AN AFRICAN EXPEDITION. By MRS. MAY FRENCH SHELDON,*F. R. G. S. During the month of January, 1891, in order to put to the test a long-cherished and carefully-considered plan, I made preparations to leave England, and essay to organize, equip and personally lead and command an . independent caravan of blacks — solely at my own expense, without the assistance or companionship of white or black men or women above the rank of ser- vitors — through a much-reviled section of East Africa among alleged hostile as well as some peaceful tribes. " For what good?" " Why?" " What prompted you?" are inquiries confronting me on all sides. Inbrief: Having listened unwillingly to the officious opinions volunteered by all classes and conditions of men and women, as to the utter absurdity of my pro- ject; denounced universally as a fanatic, entertaining a mad scheme, if not mad myself — principally mad because the idea was unique, a thorough innovation; there was no precedent on which to predicate action or draw deductions upon which to formulate a feasible line of procedure; it never had been done, never even been suggested, hence it must be beyond the conven- tional pale of practicability; and above all, having ever flouted in my face the supercilious edict that it was outside the limitation of woman's legitimate pro- vince, I determined to accomplish the undertaking. Success resulted. I seriously contemplate a second expedition, animated by innumer- able desires to investigate personally and independently the mooted difficulties of an African expedition, and craving the opportunity to study raw natives before tampered with or tainted by so-called civilization, and thereby be enabled to interpret Natives as Naturals, with a mind that repudiates the idea that all aboriginals are savages to be subdued, coerced, forced into an alien's mental, moral and civic condition under the vaunted pretense of wresting the benighted ones of creation from degradation, and having always resented the verdict, given from the white man's standpoint, that all natives, irrespective of environment, and without weighing circumscribed opportun- ities, are inherently deficient in mental scope, devoid of the best and ennobling traits of human nature as exemplified in white races. After eight years of study to acquaint myself with the methods of procedure pat- ent to almost all would-be colonizers, civilizers and treaty-makers, I resolved to make a peaceful, unprejudiced attempt. Then, too, the inadequate accounts of the women Mrs. May French Sheldon was born in Bridgewater, Pa., May 10, 1B47. Her parents were Col. Joseph French, a civil engineer of note and a grand-nephew of Isaac Newton, and Elizabeth J. Poonnan French. The daughter was educated in New York and abroad, and in 1876 married Eli Lemon Sheldon, American-bom, bat later a bcmker and publisher in London, England. Mrs. Sheldon is widely known as the translator of "Salammbo" and as the author of a number of successful novels, short stories and essays. She is the owner of the publishing house of Saxon & Co., of London, which issues "Everybody's Series." She has studied art and produced a number of portrait busts, and lias also made a study of medicine under Euro- pean specialists. In 1891 she undertook an exploring expedition into Africa, unattended by any white man or woman, and succeeded in circumnavigating Lake Chala, an exploit which has attracted universal attention. Her exhibits of objects of interest from the region visited received medals in three departmenta of the C/olnmbian Exposition. She has been electee) a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society of Great Britain, and is a meml>er of the Writer's Club, of the Anthropological Society, Washington, and of similar organizations of note. 131 MRS. MAT FRENCH SHELDON, F. R. 132 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. and children, the home life, have ever been portrayed from a superficial, biased point of view; for the white man has, by his own confession, been denied a full and com- plete acquaintance with the more intimate lives of the East African women. It is a conceded fact that a caravan going into the interior or up country in Africa is like a migratory community; and, with forethought and great discrimination, must be provisioned and armed for the entire term of the expedition, whether for three months or three years. Sufficient goods, consisting of iron, brass and copper wire of different sizes, beads of all colors, styles and sizes, cotton cloths, ten or twelve varie- ties, to barter with the natives and itinerant Arab traders for food and to purchase the right of way, called toll or hongo, as well as blackmail, through a sultanate; also a nameless variety of all sorts of articles varying from penknives to music boxes, vel- vets and brooches, shawls and fancy blankets to trumpery trinkets for tribute and gifts to natives of importance or merely as souvenirs. Then, too, there must be a good supply of medicines and certain tinned goods and little luxuries and camp- ing outfit, for one must live under canvas. As a community, a caravan on Safari must have order and laws of its own for the safety of the every individual and the whole; it must in itself form a body politic to enforce these laws and each and every one conform to or assist in the preservation of order and discipline. The first manifestation of insubordination or mutiny has to be promptly quelled and as promptly chastised. Responsibilities, anxieties and hardships grew apace, yet I was not willing to shirk or relegate to hirelings any part of the same which legitimately belonged to a leader. My caravan consisted of one hundred and thirty-eight slaves, porters and subsequently recruits, raising the number to two hundred, coming from every tribe throughout Africa, and, with few exceptions, only a brief time removed from their primitive condition, but called collectively Zanzibaris. A Zanzibari porter proper never carries a load on his shoulders or back, and his head seems provided with a thickness of scalp for his accustomed duty peculiar to his race. The loads are carefully apportioned and weighed so as not to exceed fifty-six to sixty pounds. The native porters have been denounced as untrustworthy, lazy, vagabondish^ unfaithful and doing nothing without full compensation. This much am I con- strained to say — that when I looked with considerable amazement over all the* strange black and every conceivable shade of brown faces of my caravan, discerning much brutality imprinted thereupon, with few exceptions, I marveled if I should always be able to control them and make them subservient to my commands, and for a moment was somewhat dubious as to my ability; however, after experience with them, when I had to trust my life to them, they proved faithful, uncomplaining, chival- rous, and marvels of patience, endurance, and consistent marching day after day. Useless to deny that constantly obstacles arose on all sides, and many a time I quaked silently under the forecast of possible defeat; but I soon learned that several honest failures need not necessarily mean defeat, but to the contrary developed cau- tion and latent resources which eventually made success more secure. My aim was ever to protect the natives, to meet the men of tribal importance in their own sultanates,as a woman of breeding should meet the highest officials in any land, under any circumstances, and be civil and polite for favors granted; to extend amity to those who are amicable, and avoid disturbances with those who might decline the friendship of a white woman. Having at heart the desire to study the natives' habits and customs in their homes; to know the women as wives, mothers and sisters; to know the men as husbands, fathers, brothers and lovers, and see the children as they were; in fact, to obtain an unprejudiced insight into the general social condition, and consider the future possibilities of these people, it would have been more than rash to have entered Africa as a freebooter. It seems to be the popular thing for travelers to demonstrate how exceedingly difficult and hazardous have ever been their expeditions; they delight in depicting in graphic language thrilling adventures and hair-breadth escapes from the dangers which THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 133 have beset them, and especially do they portray in gruesome colors the hopeless depravity of the African. I found the people and conditions very much what I aspired to make them, and certainly the natives are not so black as painted, and are peculiarly amenable to gentleness and kindness, and tractable through their vanity and love of power. They are all of one piece of a common humanity. In their homes and villages the universal evidences of personal familiarity or fel- lowship had something very quaint and unlooked for in its various manifestations. A group of dusky natives equipped for war. while holding their palavers and reviewing their plan of action, would loll one upon another, with hands clasped over the shoul- ders or on the hips of the forward man. The women, too, when convened socially with their swarthy companions, although men and women alike perfectly nude, unencum- bered with any clothing, if quantities of metal and bead belts, fringes, chains, necklaces, bracelets and anklets are excluded from the semblance of such, exhibited a certain fearless freedom, and yet I never witnessed a single indelicate or indecent action. They have but few manners of evincing affection — spit upon each other in lieu of kissing — and the only embrace I ev^er witnessed exchanged between brother and sister, man and wife, friend and friend, lover and sweetheart, was a clasping of the hands over the shoulder of the one addressed, a little apparent pressure applied, and a slow draw- ing of the unclasping fingers apart, and in a cat-like way stretching them wider and wider until the muscles grew quite tense; then a gradual drawing together and reclasp- ing, all the while clinging to the shoulder. They loan their ornaments and charms or medicine necklaces or armlets. They share food, and without let or hindrance participate in their brewed drinks called pombe and tembo. Men, women and children among many tribes carry, slung over their shoul- ders, a gourd ladle, ever ready to help themselves to the beverage as they circulate about from boma to boma. The land is fertile, crops prolific, food in abundance; except when the tsetse fly is a plague, their cattle, sheep, goats, and in some parts donkeys, thrive. They also have vast bee ranges, and make honey and butter, and pound in wooden mortars, with wooden or stone pestles, banana and maize to an impalpable flour. Chickens thrive, but only the eggs, not the fowl, are eaten by the natives, and these, also, when very high, and a spoiled egg with African gourmets is decidedly 2i pot au fell. Blacksmiths — fundis — or craftsmen in metal work, have attained great skill, and their products perfection, and throughout Chaga Land the renowned blacksmiths all have been or are celebrated chiefs or sultans, whose deftness in foiging spears, knives, pipes, agricultural implements, tools, bells, and most delicate little charms, necklaces, armlets and leglets, as well as various metal ornaments, has given the sultans a dis- tinctive prestige in other spheres of tribal significance. The men are great hunters, and skilled in tanning hides. The women do all the agricultural labor, and herd the cattle and flocks, which are as a rule stall-fed. The fertility of the soil makes their duties far from arduous, and they are happy and content. By a strange reversion of the conventions of civilization, the men do all the needlework, and embroider their own and the women's bead and metal belts and ornaments, and also do the fighting; and the women are the unmolested purveyors between hostile tribes when they are at war. The young men are great dandies, dawdling about the villages with their hair coiffured in marvelous fashion, their skins .stained with yellow clay, and sometimes painted in splotches. Many and various are the dances to signalize certain fetes, or merely to give vent to youthful exuberance. Some exclusively indulged in by one sex or the other, whereas others are participated in together. Marriage is first by purchase; then by mock capture, which is followed by an atrocious practice. Polygamy existent among them is to my mind a geographical incident — a matter of topographical environment or necessity in a land where there are no workers except slaves or wives, and not prompted by the licentiousness of Oriental countries. A man accumulates more land or more cattle than his first wife can attend to without becoming a toilsome task, he takes another wife, and so on. The 134 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. established wife or wives are far from being jealous of one another; to the contrary- are delighted to welcome a new wife, and make great preparations for her home- coming, realizing that the work of all will be commeasurably lessened. Each woman has her own personal boma, or hut, and is not housed as in harems of other peoples. Also every wife is allotted a certain amount of property, and each child also has property given on birth. No change of times or circumstances deprives either of their titles. Their individual families are small, and the mother has supreme right over her children. Women are permitted to enjoy exactly the same moral freedom and standard as the men, only declassed when she may be indiscreet and holds a liai- son with porters in a caravan, or with an enemy of her tribe. Women when ill are doctored by the old women of the tribe, who are very skill- ful; however, as a rule they enjoy immunity from the sufferings of their civilized sis- ters. The men are doctored by men, and magic doctors are supported. In true Spartan fashion, the deformed, the disabled, the infirm, are quietly sent to la la (sleep) — no matter the sex. This is common to many people exposed to the elements and the attacks of wild beasts, or surrounded by inimical tribes, and deemed a mercy often pathetically enjoined, and even earnestly besought by the victims. Emblems of war, likewise of peace, play an important role. Observance of the same, especially the peace emblems, have much to do, if not all, with my attaining immediate admis- sion among tribes disposed to be forbidding, and at times hostile. Familiarity with several of their dialects permitted me a better understanding of the people by sparing me the delusion of misinterpretation or careless and garbled reports. Moreover, the Africans are eloquent in gestures and facial expression. An observer can comprehend without a word there. Their dialect, however, is musical, circumscribed, epigram- matic, full of metaphor, and, above all, ceremonious. They are far from being inept. To the contrary, are quick to imitate; without, however, wise discretionary powers to guide them as to what to avoid or what to adopt. After deliberate contemplation it appears to me the true method of civilizing Africa is by the establishment of industrial manual training stations and medical and nurses* posts, and the presence of practical, honest, sober, decent, industrious white men and women, whose daily life will carry the highest precepts of enlightenment. Africa is no place for impractical zealots of any kind, nor should the natives be made the wards of an enervating philanthropy, robbing them of self-support, and ennobling individual responsibility. My geographical work consisted in circumnavigating Lake Chala, situated on the northeastern slope of the African Olympus, Mount Kilimanjaro -30° 22' south lati- tude, 37"^ 17' east longitude, 3,000 feet above the sea. My pride in the triumph is pardona- ble considering that no less an explorer than Thompson writes respecting the inacces- sibility of this sheet of water, cupped within the escarped walls of an extinct crater. " I went all around it, and although I am not deficient in enterprise or nerve, I saw no place I dare descend, not even if I could have swung from creeper to creeper like a monkey." In fine, without bloodshed, without loss of but one man, who was killed by a lion, by peaceful, tactful, humane measures, it has been my privilege to traverse the coun- try of thirty-five African tribes, and return to the coast with all my porters, leaving behind a record women need never blush to consider. Conclusion: It was worth while if my venture may be instrumental in bringing about peaceful, humane methods of would-be colonizers, and banish forever the military attitude of aliens, when intruding themselves upon the Arcadians of East Africa. In due course I propose to return and lend my efforts to a " common-sense " method of colonization, and substantiate the principles many explorers look askance at, and criticise as too Utopian for Africa. WOMAN'S PLACE IN LETTERS. By MRS. ANNIE NATHAN MEYER. I am going to begin by telling you something very pleasant. An officer of the A. A. W. told me the other day that when the association first began to hold con- gresses, twenty-one years ago, they had great diffi- culty in keeping the annual reports down to anything like the necessary economical limit. All the speakers ^^^^t^^ were so very anxious to see themselves in print, and j^^^^^^fcl^ so unaccustomed to it, that any attempt at condensa- f V *'°" ^^^ fiercely resented, while to omit a paper was tHv|H||k ^B to offend deeply. "We have difficulty with our re- w V ports now," she continued, " but it is a difficulty of another kind. A difficulty in securing a sufficient number of the addresses to make a respectable show- ing ; for the women who address the annual con- gresses today are loath to give their papers for the report, because they can command their own price in the leading magazines." We know that women are writing a great deal today, and are doing some very good work. They are doing so much that it would be absurd to attempt to treat this subject fully. I shall merely, therefore, look at certain phases of the subject. I am interested particularly in the question: Has woman something specific, something sui gen- eris to contribute to literature? One of our women writ- ers tells us: "Once let woman wield the pen and thoughts will be put into books that have never been put there before, or at least some of the old things will be told from a side never before dreamed of. Unfor- tunately I am so constituted that when I encounter an interesting theory I always ask myself. Is it true? It is so easy to be philosophical and learned if one does not hap- pen to be hampered by knowing very much about one's subject. We are told by Browning, Sludge the medium: " Don't let truth's lump rot stagnant for the lack of a timely helpful lie to leaven it." But I think on the contrary, with Ameil, that "An error is dangerous just according to the amount of truth it may contain." Much as I would be interested in believing that woman, with the pen in her hand, has turned a new page of life before us, candor compels me to admit that if there is such a thing as sex in literature, I have not succeeded in discovering it. I look about me and observe that the very subjects upon which one would naturally expect women to throw a new light have really inspired the masterpieces of men. No woman, burning with the sense of wrong, could have painted the injustice of the social code of morals more forcibly, more tragically than Thomas Hardy did in his " Test of the d'Urbervilles." No woman, eager to reconstruct and ennoble our ideal of marital obligation, could have held up its pitiable sham and conventionality with more inspired pen than was wielded by Henrik Ibsen in his "Ghosts and Doll-house." Annie Nathan Meyer was born in New York City, 1867. Her parents were Robert Weeks Nathan and Annie Florence Nathan. Mrs. Meyer is a remarkably bright and attractive young woman, having mach worth and great influence. She mar- rieti Dr. Alfred Meyer of New York. Her special work has been in the interest of woman's education, having been largely instrumental in founding Barnard College. Her principal literarj' works are. " Helen Brent, M. D.," "Woman's Work in America," and various essays and stories appearing in periodicals. In religions faith she is a Jewess. Mrs. Meyer is a mem- ber of A A. W. Her postoffice address is 749 Madison Avenue, New York, N. Y. 135 MRS, ANNIE NATHAN MEYER. 136 . THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. Could any woman have depicted more sympathetically the hard, dull life of the faith- ful woman of the fields and prairies than Hamlin Garland and Major Kirkland and Bret Harte have done it? There was a little anonymous story that appeared in the *' Century" a couple of years ago — I think it was called " A Common Story" — and I remember every one, myself included, was certain that only a woman could have written it, because only a woman could possibly have had the necessary insight. It revealed the love story of an old maid, and it struck a note that must have vibrated in every woman's heart. Yet this story was by that gifted young man, Walcott Bales- tier. I have heard various receipts for discovering the sex of an author, but have seen them all go down ingloriously before the simple strategy of the nom de plutne. It was generally conceded that no one but a man could have painted the rugged solemnity of the Tennessee Mountains and the primitive poetry of the lives of the mountaineers as Charles Egbert Craddock did. At least it was conceded, before Mary Murfree modestly appeared before the startled eyes of the editor of the " Atlantic Monthly;" and I am sure that the claims of a certain man to the novels of George Eliot were immensely strengthened by the current view that it would be absurd to abscribe the simple, vigorous strength of "Adam Bede" to the hand of a woman. When we turn to those that would theorize about woman's place in the republic of letters, what ideas do we find current: First, and I think this reasoning is not entirely un- familiar to you; we hear them say: " Woman is the heart, and man the mind. Woman stands for the emotions and man for the intellect." Therefore we should find that women may write charming love stories, but that it will be impossible for them to reveal any intellectual grasp; impossible for them to probe down into the deeper problems of life. What do we find as an actual fact? We find the men critics showering anathe- mas at the authors of "Robert Elsmere" and "John Ward, Preacher," for bringing into the domain of a novel serious problems and non-emotional material that properly belong rather to the domain of philosophy or theology. Then, of course, we are told that women lack the broad sympathy that is so necessary to the novelist of today. As Mrs. Browning's Romney tells Aurora, "Women are sympathetic to the personal pangs, but hard to general suffering." And yet, think of the exquisitely tender delin- eation of the forbidding New England old maid by Mary Wilkins, and those two great stories that immortalized the wrongs of two races, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and "Romola." Then we are told that it is easy for women to write on fashionable soci- ety or of the village sewing circles, but in the very nature of things women are limited in their scope. It is impossible for them to depict the rough pimitive life of the fields and mines, and yet right here in America we have Mary Hallock Foote, Octave Thanet, and Miss Elliot, the author of "Jerry," and so many others who seem to have gone straight down to the soil for inspiration. Then, of course, women have not had what are called "experiences." How can a woman in her sheltered innocence know anything of certain phases of life, or if she does possess sufficient imagination, how will she treat it? Surely she can only give us what some one has called: "The moral harshness of copy-book maxims," and yet with what passion and fireMrs. Humphery Ward has given us the Parisian episode in the life of David Grieve; and think of Elizabeth Stewart Phelps' powerful and pitiful story, "Hedged In," and the breadth and insight of Olive Schreiner. I am sure no one has dealt with the character of a guilty woman more exquisitely, more tactfully, more sympathetically, and yet with more powerful irony and pathos than Mrs. K. Clifford did with her Mrs. North in her story, "Aunt Anne." While her Mrs. Walter Hibbert is a capital hit at the timid atti- tude of the average "good woman." Iheard the other day that Mr. Brander Mathews so keenly misses the sense of humor in woman that he has resolved the next time he marries to marry a man. No, I am not going to get angry about it, it hits Mrs. Mathews so much harder than it hits me; nor am I going to assist Mr. Mathews to prove his cause by taking his skit too seri- ously. But I cannot resist just a reference to the delightful quality of the humor of THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. ' 137 Agnes Repplier, Mary Wilkins, Sarah Orme Jewett, Mrs. W. K. Clifford, and Mrs. Craigie, who is generally known, by her pen name of John Oliver Hobbs. The humor of the last is so subtle, so whimsical, and so utterly pervasive that I have a suspicion in my mind that Mr. Mathews, in his ignorance of t\\& nom de plume, \\2iS thinking of taking a certain Mr. John Oliver Hobbs as that second wife. Let me here say something in connection with that terrible tirade that was launched forth by a certain Molly Elliott Seawall, a writer herself of novels of no common order. She said: "If all that women have ever done in literature was swept out of existence, the world would not lose a single masterpiece." I was amused the other day by a lady saying that it was our own dear president, Mrs. May Wright Sewall, who was the author of this attack. "Do you think," I said, when I had recov- ered from laughter sufficiently to speak, "that the president of the Woman's Interna- tional Council could say such things without suffering impeachment?" I am not discouraged by such remarks, although I think it absurd to say that women had produced no masterpieces, yet I am perfectly willing to admit that they have produced no genius of the very highest rank, the rank of Dante and Shakespeare and Milton and Goethe. But do you know the same thing precisely has been said of American literature? It is not interesting that they say both of American literature and woman's literature, if I may coin the phrase, that it has produced some clever and delightful writers, but no genius of the very highest rank. Mr. James Bryce has a good deal to say oi this on his work on America, and he puts a good deal of the onus on the shoulders of our hurried, interrupted, unrestful life. But he thinks that America in time will Settle down to create the highest kind of literature. That the time will come when America (and the same thing is true of woman) will no longer feel the necessity of proving her right to be. I am cheered by the words of Emerson: "The scholar of the first age received into him the world around; brooded thereon; and uttered it again. * * * It came into him life; it went out from him truth and poetry." Well, woman is still in her first age. She is slowly awakening from a long sleep, and is just beginning to look about her and see the world around. She is still brood- ing thereon. I am sure the time is not far distant when she shall translate life into forms of perfect truth and poetry. COOKERY.* By MRS. DAVID A. LINCOLN. It is not my purpose in this paper on cookery to give you any new recipes, or to discuss methods of making the latest variety of cake, or the most fanciful combina- tion for dessert. Indeed, when I think of the vast amount of information which is now offered on this subject, from the household column of the local papers to the scores of household magazines; from the dainty collections of recipes compiled by our church fair committees; on through the legions of cook books of all sizes, shapes and styles, some of them devoted to one branch of the culinary art, and others encyclopedias of it, it would appear that noth- ing more could be said or written. But, on the other hand, when I remember the self-styled "competent cooks," who spend their time alternately ruling in our kitchens or lounging in the intelligence offices, warily waiting for new victims to their skill; when I recall the multitude of housekeepers who prepare the daily meals after a stereotyped or hap-hazard plan, with no knowledge of the principles of culinary science, and whose ambition as cooks is satisfied so long as the food they provide can be eaten by hard-working hus- band and ravenous children; when I hear school-girls fret and resent any suggestion from mother that a portion of their holiday time be spent in helping in the kitchen; when I see young ladies willing to assume the highest office of woman- hood, and yet boasting of their ignorance of household duties, caring more to learn the latest and craziest design of decoration, or how to fashion dainty raiment, than for any true knowledge as to how to perfect their own physical condition and keep the health of those entrusted to their care on the highest plane of development; when I think that such ignorance and indifference can exist, notwithstanding all that has been taught, is it not enough to make one long for the wisdom of a Solomon, and for strength to enable her to use every opportunity to convince women of the importance of a better knowledge of cookery; an occupation which is not to be regarded as igno- ble labor or drudgery, but as one of the highest and most essential arts? It is encour- aging to note the interest in this subject of cookery, which seems to be widespread and constantly on the increase. Magazines devoted to the household, and especially to culinary art, are springing up all over the land. Nearly every paper has its column Mrs. Mary J. Lincoln was born in South Attleboro, Mass. Her father was the Rev. John B. M. Bailey, of the Con- gregational Charch. She lost her father at seven years of age and was reared by her widowed mother, a "woman of model character and much ability, who trained her three children in early youth to be useful and economical. She indelibly impressed upon them that character and education were the finest garments in which they could be clothed. Mrs. Lincoln was educated at Wheaton Seminary. The summer after she left school she married Mr. David A. Lincoln, who was already established in business. Her natural ambition to do well whatever she undertook led her to study with care the prepara- tion of every dish she pl&ced on her own table, and fame as a teacher of cooking came to her gradually and unexpectedly. She first taught in Boston, afterward at Lasell Seminary. Mrs. Lincoln has delivered many lectures and published many books on the subject of cooking, all of which are full of merit. Her postoflBce address is Wollaston, Mass. (Comfort Cot- tage). * The full title of the article was "Extracts from Cookery, or Art and Science versus Drudgery and Luck." 138 MRS. DAVID THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 139 of " household hints." " Cooking Clubs " are formed among experienced housekeepers as well as among those just assuming domestic responsibility, and even among the little children. Many ladies who have been unusually successful in some special culinary work pose before the public as teachers of cookery, or offer their work for sale. Private cooking schools and training schools for teachers are heard of in nearly every large city. Now, what does all this interest in cookery mean? Does it mean that we are tired of the good old ways of our mothers and grandmothers? That we are disgusted with the miserable compounds offered us by inefficient cooks who demand the wages of skilled workers? Is it simply a desire for new combinations of food that shall tickle our palates? For surely we have not many new food materials.* Are we actu- ated mainly by a desire to emulate those who have become experts in the art? Or are we merely seeking our own interests and thinking of the work only as a means of getting a living? We think that it means that many of our people have awakened to the fact that eating is something more than animal indulgence, and that cooking has a nobler purpose than the gratification of appetite and the sense of taste. Cooking has been defined as " the art of preparing food for the nourishment of the human body." There is no such thing as "luck" or "guesswork" in good cookery, and though good results will sometimes follow hap-hazard work, a person cooking successfully in this way really has learned certain facts, and follows, though unconsciously, certain laws. In a general way we all know that we need food to keep us alive; but how many of us understand the threefold purpose of food, which is, to generate heat, to give us strength, and to furnish material for growth and repair of bodily tissues? To render this threefold service, our food should consist of such materials as will give out heat, and are similar to or capable of being changed into substances which can be built into the various tissues of the body. Hence, a knowledge of the composition of the body and of food substances is indispensable. Without it we cannot properly select our food. Our choice of food may be partly determined by instinct or appetite, and possibly might be wholly so were it not that by the law of inheritance, or our own indiscretion, the vigor and promptitude of operation of this natural guide have been greatly impaired. We must, therefore, summon reason and intelligence to our aid in selecting proper food. A knowledge of the needs of the body, and of the elements of our common food substances, will help us greatly in combining our food so that our daily diet shall supply the daily need; for a substance which fulfills only one of the purposes required in our food will not support life. A man cannot live on water or salt, yet he would soon die without them. If our clothing be torn, we do not repair it with sand. So, if the muscles are worn out by hard work, we cannot replace them by eating sugar or fat. If more fat be taken than the oxygen will burn, or than is needed for storage, we may suffer in many ways. Many articles of food do not contain all the necessary elements, and few foods contain them in the right proportion. It is neces- sary, therefore, to have different kinds of food, and to prepare them rightly, so that one kind will supply what another kind lacks. We need not so much a great variety of foods at each meal, but a variation in our daily bills of fare, and just here is where many of our American housekeepers err. Our choice of food must also be adapted to the state of one's health, and to the various circumstances of age, occupation, climate and means. It is also well for every woman to know why we need to prepare or cook our food. First, it is to save time and energy. Some one has said: "Man is the only animate object that has both to seek and prepare his food." Plants have their food prepared for them, and, provided they are surrounded by it, they take it in continually and make it into food for the animal. Animals wander about and seek their food, but take it very much as they find it; and some of them have nothing else to do but to eat and build up this plant food into their own flesh, ready for man. Savages take all their food with little or no preparation, and go for long periods without any while hunting, then gorge themselves to the 140 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. utmost limit and sleep until digestion is complete. But civilized man has to seek his food and carefully select and prepare it. The higher he is in civilization, the more time and thought must be given to its preparation, that he may have some of the large amount of energy that would be spent in making this food into a part of himself, to use for some other purpose. Many food substances can be eaten in their natural state, but the greater part of them require to be changed or especially prepared before they can be eaten, and all foods require to be in a state of solution before they can be made into our bodies. This change in food is made first by cooking, or the combined action of heat, water, air and other agencies; and, second, by digestion, or the muscular motion of the walls of the alimentary canal, combined with the solvent action of several digestive fluids. Cooking develops and improves the flavor, changes the texture, odor, and taste, and by tempting the appetite, increases our enjoyment of food, and thus aids the second change or process of digestion. The end and aim of all this changing of food is solubility, for only in a state of solution can food penetrate through the walls of the digestive canal, and become a part of the body. By this it neqd not be inferred that we must take all our food in a state of solution, but we should understand the process of digestion and how to make food digestible, or soluble. If we study diges- tion, we find that the process varies with the different kinds of food, the albuminous foods being digested in the stomach by an acid fluid, and the starches in the intestines by an alkaline fluid. The fats are only separated from the others in the stomach, but in the intestines they are converted into an emulsion. Both of these processes of the changing of food are really one process, and may be regarded as a kind of cooking, for cooking means " changing by the application of heat." In all the processes, heat is the permanent factor, and food is cooked, or prepared for us, first, by the heat of the sun, then by our application of artificial heat, and lastly by internal, anfmal heat. Water is equally necessary in these changes, and it is therefore highly impor- tant to understand the effects of water and heat on the different food substances, and how best to use them. When we know what substances we need to use as food, and the proportion of each, and how to prepare them, great care should be taken that each shall be the best of its kind, not necessarily the highest priced, but that from which we can get the most nourishment and which has the fewest objectionable qualities. We may not be able to detect all the tricks of adulteration, but we can easily learn how to select good flour, sweet butter, sound fruit and vegetables, and the name, location and food value of the different cuts of meat. Another point which should receive especial attention is the preservation of food. Science has taught us much on this subject. Care must be taken not to expose food to the action of bacteria, unpleasant odors, or contact with unclean substances. Scrupulous neatness in personal habits of those who prepare food, and cleanliness of all utensils used, and of storage places, are no minor matters. All labor in the preparation of food, which does not tend to make the food more digestible, or is done solely to give variety, or to cater to an unnatural appetite, is unprofitable. Except in cases of illness or convalescence, if a person has a fickle appetite, and he cannot enjoy a meal of good, wholesome food, simply and carefully prepared, you may be sure that the trouble is somewhere else, and tempting the appe- tite is not the true remedy. Women would lessen the labor of cooking greatly if they would cease making mixtures of food materials which require much time and labor in their preparation, and also the expenditure of great digestive energy. Why should we take anything so simple and delicious as a properly roasted or boiled chicken, and expend time and labor in chopping it, mixing it with so many other things that we cannot detect its original flavor, then shaping, egging and crumbing it, and making it more indigestible by browning it in scorching fat? Butter and cream are the most wholesome forms of fat, and fat is necessary to a perfect diet, and is digestible if not too closely enveloped THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 141 in starch, or if not subjected to so great degree of heat as to change it into acid and acrid substances. Pure sugar, taken in suitable quantities, is easily digested, and enters quickly into the circulation, giving us its carbon for warmth. Eggs eaten raw, or properly prepared, that is, cooked at only a moderate degree of heat, are palatable and easily digested; but when hardened by intense heat they become difficult of digestion. Knowing this, why should we overtax our muscular strength by beating butter, sugar and eggs together, mixing them with milk and flour and baking them as cakes, or rolling and frying them as doughnuts, when these same perfect food substances might be as palatable if prepared with far less labor? Why should we subject food materials to the intense heat necessary to cook them when prepared in these compounds, when less heat would suffice, if they were more simply prepared? Or why make them indigestible by uniting so closely substances which must be digested separately; or by over-heating the albumen and scorching the sweet globules of fat, or entangling them in starch and albumen? Why will women be so foolish? I cannot say, unless it be that we are still slaves to the ways of our mothers and grandmothers, or to the latest freak of fashion, and think we cannot keep house without our patchwork quilts and an unlimited supply of cakes, gingersnaps, cookies, wafers; tarts, doughnuts and pies, or dare not invite a friend to luncheon without serving croquettes, patties and some novel ice or cream. I hope I shall see the time when this subject of food in all its various phases, from the chemistry of its formation to the physiological changes in its effects, shall be a science by itself, and taught in all our schools made a leading feature of the curriculum. A beginning has been made in this direction by the teaching of cooking in our public schools. For seven years classes have been successfully conducted in Boston in school kitchens especially fitted for the purpose. New Haven, Providence, Phila- delphia, Pittsburg, New York, Milwaukee and other cities have followed in the good work. Recently some of our Massachusetts legislators are considering the question of introducing cooking into the high schools of every city of twenty thousand inhab- itants. Many objections have been urged against the teaching of cookery in the pub- lic schools — want of time that should be devoted to other studies, home the best place for such instruction, etc. But in many homes no such instruction can be given, for there is no knowledge of anything but the mechanical part, and often not the best of that; and where it can be given there certainly is no study that could be more effect- ively carried on by the combined and happy working together of the school and the home. Girls should be taught the magnitude of this responsibility, and while they are still girls, for no one can tell how early in life it may be thrust upon them. The com- fort, purity and influence of the future homes of this country are in the hands of our school-girls. It is for them to determine, that out of the love-lit center husband and children shall go, not with the lagging step and downward look of disappointment, doubt and ill-regulated passions, but full of the sweet courage and hopes that spring from the noblest human aspirations. It has been urged that cooking-schools only increase the work of the already over-worked housekeeper; that many new and costly utensils are required, and that the new dishes are too expensive, too elaborate, etc., etc. I admit that these objec- tions might well be raised if the teacher's only aim has been to show you how to make novelties and unwholesome combinations, or to outshine your friends in your enter- tainments. But no teacher who is in earnest in prompting this reform would make these objects paramount. I have for a long time felt, instead of teaching my pupils how to prepare elegant dinners of many courses, and to compete with chefs and cater- ers, I should spend more time in teaching them to prepare the essential dishes per- fectly, and until they can do that to give no time to elaborate menus. Cooking is only one of the duties of the housekeeper, but it is the most important one; for the body plays so important a part in this world that its preservation in comeliness and health is one of our first duties. But alas! How many of us allow its 142 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. outward adornment to be the chief aim in life. The preservation of the body, the temple and instrument of the soul, can be secured only by observing the laws of hygiene in all our habits, especially in the choice, preparation and eating of our food. I do not advocate devoting all our time and thought to this subject of cooking. We should avoid the two extremes: on the one hand that of indifference, which follows a mistaken interpretation of the Biblical injunction, "Take no thought what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink;" and on the other hand, the untiring vigilance which examines every particle of food, weighs to the fraction of an ounce each portion, and analyzes every sensation after eating. Between these two there is a happy middle ground, where all may safely roam. I think that all will agree with me that if we would have our food serve its highest purpose it should be prepared by those who can combine culinary taste, mechanical skill, imitation, invention and general intelligence with scientific principles. But if these words of mine fail to impress you with the importance of a correct understand- ing of the preparation of food, allow me to remind you of the mythological, Biblical and practical requirements which Mr, Ruskin considers necessary in a good cook. He says: "Cookery means the knowledge of Circe and Medea, and of Calypso and Helen, and of Rebekah and of all the queens of Sheba. It means the knowledge of all fruits and balms and spices, and of all that is healing and sweet in fields and groves and savory in meats. It means carefulness, inventiveness, watchfulness, will- ingness and readiness of appliance. It means the economy of your great-grand- mothers and the science of modern chemistry. It means much tasting and no wasting. It means English thoroughness and French art and Arabian hospitality. It means, in fine, that you are to be always and perfectly defined ' ladies,' which in its true signifi- cance means 'loaf-givers;' and as you are to see imperatively that everybody has something pretty to put on, so you are to see still more imperatively that everybody has something good to eat." POWER AND PURPOSES OF WOMEN. By MRS. HELEN L. BULLOCK. We are all doubtless aware ere this that Columbus discovered America. America's uncrowned queen, Miss Frances E. Willard, once said, "The greatest discovery of the nineteenth century is the discovery of woman by herself." This wonderful Woman's Building, in which are represented fifty woman's organizations, with its woman's library, and these congresses, have demonstrated the truth of this statement. Even the new revision of God's Holy Word has, in at least one instance, inspired woman with new courage for her work by giving a truthful and unbiased interpretation of the eleventh verse of the sixty-eighth Psalm. In the old version it reads: "The Lord gave the Word; great was the company of those that published it." In the revised version, so ably and critically trans- lated, the same verse reads, "The Lord giveth the Word and the women that publish it are a great host." Even the little colored girl in the mission school in benighted Africa has made a discovery in this century which solves the problem regarding the reason for there being more women then men in the world. She wrote a composition on "Girls," in which she said: " The Bible which the missionary gives us says, that in the beginning God made the world and then He made a man, but, not being quite satisfied, thought he could do better, so he tried again and made a woman. He saw that she was so much nicer than man that he has made more women than men ever since." Rev. Dr. Black says: "Whatever difference of opinion may exist concerning the range of woman's intellect, there can be no question as to her superior moral and religious status. In all ages of the Christian chxirch women have constituted a large proportion of its membership, and in the realm of philanthropy women predominate, therefore it is for the best interests of humanity everywhere to utilize woman's power and influence in the most effective possible manner, especially in all the activities of religion and philanthropy." The first law ever enacted in the interest of woman's education was in New York, in 1818. Through the earnest efforts of Mrs. Emma Willard, Gov. Dewitt Clinton was induced to urge the passage of a bill to make appropriations for schools for women as well as for men, and it was done. Only by actual experience are all our grandest theories demonstrated, and realiz- ing all the barriers which have been placed in the way of woman's progress, we can Mrs. Helen L. fiallock was born in Norwich, N. Y., April 29, 1838. Her parents were Joseph Chapel, of Connecticut and Phebe Chapel, of Maseachnsetts. She was edacated in Norwich Academy'and by private tntors, studied mosic with S. B, Mills of New York City and others, and has traveled in all parts of the United States, sometimes eleven thousand miles in a year. She married Mr. Daniel S. Bullock. Her special work at present is in the interest of the Woman's Christian Tem- perance Union. For the past eight years she has made pnblio speeches and four years been national organizer. Her department is narcotics, organizing and rescue work for girls. She is president of the " Anchorage " in Elmira, a rescue home for girls. Her principal literary works are, " Improved Musical Catechism," and "Scales and Chords." Mrs. Bullock was a teacher of piano, organ and guitar music for thirty-five years. She is a member of the Baptist church. Her poetoiBce address is Elmira, N. Y. 143 MRS. HELEN L. BULLOOK. 144 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. but acknowledge that we get but a faint glimpse of her power by what she has in the past been able to accomplish. First in the home — we have only to point to Queen Esther, who risked her life to save her people by coming unbidden into the presence of the king. She knew the danger of incurring her husband's displeasure, but trusted in the God of Heaven to move upon his heart, and give her power over him, which would save her oppressed people. All through the ages illustrious men without number have attributed their great- ness to the power of mother love, thus the true woman manifests her power in the home, according to the depth of her affection and the strength of her character. Lucy Webb Hayes, true to her total abstinence principles, bravely bore the criticisms of the aristocratic devotees of fashion, lifted a standard in Washington society which caused an arrest of thought, and abandonment by the best and most conscientious of our leaders in social life of the dangerous custom which has sent thousands of our brightest men and women to a drunkard's eternity. From that day the power of her influence has been felt for good throughout the entire social fabric of this nation. Across the Atlantic our Margaret Bright Lucas, and Lady Henry Somerset, with tongue and pen, have stirred the social circles of England on the same moral question, thus banishing the wine and ale from dinner-table and banquet-hall in thousands of homes. In 1821 Mary Lyon became assistant principal of an academy of Ashfield, Mass., a position never before occupied by a woman. Later, at Derby, N. H., she gave the first six diplomas received by young women for a three years' course of study. She saw the need of a seminary for women, and pleaded for an endowment. The public was apathetic and her appeals fruitless. In 1834 she determined to found a permanent institution designed to train young women for the highest usefulness. She laid her plans before a few gentlemen in . Ipswich, Mass. They were pronounced visionary and impracticable; her motives misunderstood and misinterpreted. The domestic feature of her seminary was regarded as unwise; but the peculiar features of her plan became its success, and within two months she collected Si, 000 from women of Ipswich, She obtained a few large gifts, but chose to gain the intelligent interest of the many with their smaller sums, and in 1836 the corner-stone of Mt. Holyoke Seminary was laid. Three years later the school opened, filled with eager students, who knew that twice their number were waiting to take their places. As the preparation required to enter this seminary was in advance of what had generally been regarded as a finished education for girls, it was feared that students could not be found to fill the building; but on the contrary, two hundred students were refused the first year for lack of room, and nearly four hundred the second vear. Although Latin and French were taught from the first, she waited ten years before she could get Latin included in the course, such was public opinion on woman's edu- cation. She lived, however, to realize much of the fruitage of her seed-sowing, and Mary Lyon and Mt. Holyoke Seminary will never be forgotten by the thousands who were lifted to a higher educational plane by her heroic efforts. Within the last generation (1852) we have pointed with pride to Maria Mitchell, who was the first woman to receive the title of LL.D. from Hanover College. She was astronomer in Vassar College for twenty-three years, and was the first woman elected to the Academy of Arts and Sciences. Alice Freeman Palmer was for six years president of Wellesley College, and has since been one of its trustees and a member of the Massachusetts board of education. When girls were first admitted to the public schools of Massachusetts in 1822, no one would have dreamed that in sixty-six years a woman would have been president of one of its most noted colleges and a member of its state board of education. Mary H. Hunt has shaken the physiological world from center to circumference, made liquor dealers and tobacconists tremble for their deadly merchandise, has turned on the light of science, and through the W. C. T. U. set in motion influences which have convinced the legislatures in thirty-nine states, as well as our representa- THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 145 tives in Congress, that the hope of this nation is in teaching total aostinence in the public schools. The celebrated Henry Thomas Buckle says: "When we see how knowledge has civilized mankind, when we see how every great step in the march and advance of nations has been invariably preceded by a corresponding step in their knowledge; when we, moreover, see what is assuredly true, that women are constantly growing more influential, it becomes a matter of great moment that we should endeavor to ascertain the relation between their influence and our knowledge." Notwithstanding all the di.scouragements in the way of woman she holds a high place in the literary world. Our Elizabeth Barrett Browning, whose poetic gems enrich the choicest library, our Charlotte Bronte, whose name is familiar in every home of culture, and our George Eliot, whose rare literary worth was quickly recognized and acknowledged when the world thought her a man, have few equals as writers. Pardon a little personal experience to show you how prejudice against woman's work has reached all classes. A few years ago, from sense of duty to her profession as a teacher of music, your speaker published some musical studies, and a catechism, and one of the largest pub- lishing houses in New York bought the copyrights, but modestly asked that the pre- fix of "Mrs." be omitted before the initials of the name of the author, that the public might suppose they were written by a man, and thus the sale of the same might not be hindered by the prejudice against woman as a musical author. Caring only for the advancement of her life work, the author was glad to escape publicity, and quickly consented, never dreaming at that time of the injustice of robbing woman of the little crumb of encouragement which even that humble effort would afford. Prejudice hindered woman in the medical profession, although all will admit her natural fitness and power of endurance as a nurse. Elizabeth Blackwell found the doors of medical colleges closed to women, but after severe trials and repeated efforts she gained entrance to the Geneva Medical School, where she graduated with the highest honors of her class in 1847. ^^e also traveled in Europe, visiting hospitals and medical institutions in order to acquire a fitness for her calling, but on locating in a metropolis of America was ostracised by the profession solely on account of her sex. Since she opened this door, thousands of brave, cultured women have entered and today stand in the forefront of the profession, skillful, conscientious, disarming preju- dice and winning their way to the hearts and homes of the people. In the philanthropic world Grace Darling and Ida Lewis risked their own lives on the stormy ocean to save those imperiled there. A multitude of earnest conse- crated women have left home and friends, being maligned and persecuted, have taken their lives in their hands, going forth at the call of God to protect the homes which are the foundation stones of the nation, and open up avenues of usefulness and development to women.hitherto unknown. Josephine Butles, of England, and Amer- ica's Mary A. Livermore, Mary Clement Leavitt, Susan B. Anthony, our loved and revered Frances E. Willard, and hosts of others, are today in the field toiling for the uplifting of humanity and to save the homes of this world. The enemy scoffs and the narrow-minded question the right of woman even to save souls outside the sacred place she calls home, but she hears the voice as did the Maid of Orleans, " Daughter of God, go on, go on; I will be thy help," and she will never waver or turn back. The work of Lady Huntington stands out before us as an enduring monument of woman's power in the church. Leaving her high position with its many social pleas- ures and advantages, she bravely met rebuffs from associates of her own rank and made the watchword of her life, "My God, I give myself to thee." She established sixty-four chapels (selling her jewels to build one of them), organized a mission in North America, and maintained a college for the education of ministers in Trevecca, Wales. Doddridge, Whitefield, Berridge, the Wesleys and Doctor Watts were among her chosen friends. Wesley justified female preaching on the same ground on which he defended lay preaching. The following are his words: "What authority have I to forbid the doing (10) 146 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. what I believe God has called them to do? He encouraged such grand women as Sarah Crosby, Mary Fletcher and others. After Wesley's day female preaching became common among the Friends, and Elizabeth Fry began her ministry in 1810, after feeling for twelve years that God called her to this work. The results of her public labors were marvelous, and her own family of eleven children were never neg- lected. Hers was a model household, and her work for unfortunate women in New- gate was the beginning of prison reform which commanded the respect of the world. Seventeen European sovereigns honored themselves by honoring her. When she first entered the prisons their condition was most revolting, and it was considered unsafe to do so without a guard. The thought of reforming these inmates of both sexes, and all grades of crime, huddled together like wild beasts, seemed the apex of madness. The keepers remonstrated with her, but the love of Christ constrained her, and with no protector save Daniel's God she was locked in the prison with a band of fiends in human shape. As her sweet voice rang out in those grand old hymns she awed them into silence. So heartfelt and eloquent was her appeal that hope sprang up in the hearts of these degraded creatures and hundreds were saved. Industries and schools were introduced into prisons, sanitary conditions improved, and the criminal jurisprudence of the civilized world was revolutionized in some of its aspects through her instrumentality. In London the Elizabeth Fry Refuge stands today as a fitting memorial of her life and labors. The first Methodist Episcopal Church in America was started in New York City by Barbara Heck, whose unwavering fidelity to Christ gave her the moral courage to sharply rebuke the sins of the converts of Wesley who had come to America and grown cold in the cause. But you hear little of Barbara Heck; it is the old story of Betsy and I killed the bear, but, friends, Betsy is coming to the front. Again we turn the pages of history and see what she has accomplished in the government, even while surrounded by walls of prejudice and hindered by ridicule and criticism. Let us catch a glimpse of the won- derful Maid of Orleans. She believed God had called her, and by her modest and wise replies to the many insults of learned priests and powerful nobles, she won their confidence and obedience. This noble woman died for her country in the most ignominious manner after rendering it such unprecedented service; and not until twenty years afterward was tardy justice done her memory. It is now over four hun- dred years since this great event of the world's history, and most impressive services and festivals annually commemorate the great victories won by this brave, godly woman. Many beautiful monuments have been erected in honor of her work. Queen Victoria has proved herself a wise ruler of a great government, and none the less a faithful, true wife and mother, Isabella, Queen of Spain, born 1451, was pro- claimed queen at twenty-three years of age, and at once applied herself to reform the laws, to encourage literature and arts, and to modity the stern and crafty measures of her husband by the influence of her own gentle and elevated character. She intro- duced the first printing press into Spain, and clad in armor, personally directed the operations of the army that besieged Grenada. She established the first field hos- pitals and appointed surgeons to attend her army. But for her cheerful endorsement of Columbus, and her ready self-denial, we might not be able to celebrate this four, hundredth birthday of America, And now having spoken of the power of woman, let us consider for a few moments her purposes. For what does she desire higher education except to prepare her better to fulfill her mission to help the world upward? For what does she desire to enter various avocations heretofore denied her? I answer that she may honorably maintain herself and those dependent upon her in an occupation for which God has naturally fitted her, and in which, for this reason, she will best succeed. Why does she desire to enter the ministry? For the same reason that her brother desires to save souls in the way that he can reach the largest number, hoping thereby to best glorify God. For what reason does she desire to aid in governing the nation? Aside from her natural and God-given right, I believe the highest purpose of woman in her desire to THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 147 stand side by side with man in the government is to purify it, protect the home and make the world better and more Christ-like. Is she not in a great measure robbed of her power to do this? I saw in Pomona, Cal., a beautiful Woman's Christian Temperance Union banner which impressed me deeply. Painted on white satin was the picture of a charming young mother, holding with her left arm her little boy as high as possible above the serpent coiled about her feet, with head raised ready to strike her darling. In her right hand she held a dagger with which she was trying to destroy the deadly serpent, but that hand was chained to the ballot box below, and she was powerless to save her beautiful boy. So are the purposes of woman thwarted in protecting her home and the children which God has given her; but a better day is dawning, and our noblest brothers are already convinced that to best uplift humanity and advance Christianity is to confer upon woman her right of suffrage. To Mrs. Potter Palmer, Mrs. James P. Eagle, and the brave self-sacrificing women who have so grandly served on this board of managers, thus advancing the interests of the womanhood of the world, we owe more than we can now realize; but as the years go by we shall see more of the far- reaching and wonderful results. Your power has been felt, and your purpose for the advancement of woman has been served. Gerald Massey beautifully describes the struggles of woman during this century: Our hearts brood o'er the past, our eyes With smiling futures glisten; Lo ! now its dawn bursts upon the sky; Lean out your souls and listen. The earth rolls freedom's radiant ways, And ripens with our sorrow; And 'tis the martyrdom today Brings victory tomorrow. 'Tis weary watching wave by wave, And yet the tide heaves onward; We climb like corals, grave by grave. Yet beat a pathway sunward. We're beaten back in many a fray. Yet newer strength we borrow; And where our vanguard rests today, Our rear shall rest tomorrow. HOW CAN WE AID?* By MRS. AGNES L. D'ARCAMBAL. All along the seacoast of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, out on rivers and down into the lakes, our government has built the lighthouse for the safety and relief of the storm-tossed ships. Within every lighthouse theie are lifeboats and life preservers, and lights and life lines to throw out to the drowning crew and traveler. So upon the shores of the stormy ocean of vice, which surges in and through the great city of Chicago and all other cities, we find life-saving stations for the help and restoration of poor, perishing souls. Here, too, are lights and life lines thrown out by lov- ing, strong arms to draw in to rescue the weak and erring girls. When a vessel, its crew and passengers, are wrecked, thousands and thousands of people hear and repeat over and over the tale of dreadful disaster. " That fearful shipwreck, the loss of life and prop- erty." The daily press reports and the people tell with exactness just the number of souls on board, and mourn that freight and vessel have gone down — lost. Alas! who knows of the hundreds of thousands of weak and erring girls that are going down, down, lost, perishing in this sea of vice that rolls in and about us on every side. The press may tell a part — • MRS. AGNES L. D'ARCAMBAL i i ^1 i i i Mi- , , 11 1,-1 1 doubtless would be wilhngtotell more — but the people draw the veil, saying, " It is too horrible to read of such things in our daily papers." Many good people condemn the papers and the reporters for 'giving to the public " these horrible details." Even those who deem themselves the Christian people of the city may read; but they rush by the wrecks with upturned faces, but few lips dar- ing to speak and few arms outreached to rescue, even a girl, though she be but a child. Yet it is characteristic of this age in which we live to employ all forms and oflfices of Christian charity and sympathy, indeed to the most elaborate and far-reach- ing organizations and societies. We have homes for the foundling, homes for the aged, the blind, the deaf and the dumb, homes for sailors and soldiers, homes for the inebriate, homes for the incurable, asylums and hospitals everywhere. And so broad and wide and strong are the arms of this great spirit of loving kindness to all the human family, it still has place and thought for the dumb animals and the fowls of the air, their rights are made incorporate among the laws of our land. Generously are all these homes and asylums supported by a generous people. All are proudly mentioned from the pulpit and by the press. Only one stands out in the loneliness of its unpopularity — the refuge for erring girls — the home for fallen women. This one true Christian charity, as it were, stands alone, unpopular, almost an orphan, for few venture to adopt this child of sin and sorrow. I assure you, kind Mrs. Agnes L. Harrington d'Arcambal is a native of Bnrlington. Vt. She was born March 8, 1832. Her parents wer© William and Eliza Harrington. Has traveled thronghont the United States. She married Charles L. d'Arcambal, a native of France. Her special work has been in the interest of suffering humanity. She has been for twenty-five years a voluntary worker in several lines of charity. In religions faith she is a Christian. Her postotfice address is Detroit, Mich. ♦The original title of the address as read was : " How Can We Help the Weak and Erring Girls and Women?" 148 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 149 friends, that it is with gravest feelings of a deep responsibility that I stand before this congress to speak on this important subject: *' How can we help the weak and erring girls?" I wish I could tell of this work; how it was made the loving, consecrated work of a man over two thousand years ago; "a man who went about doing good," and whose loving service to humanity stands out so plainly the work of his heart — the pardon and purification of lost wornen. It is through the divine history of this man that hearts have been inspired to enter the vineyard, and with loving hands and kind words reclaim many a weak, sinful girl, and draw her away from sin and hell up into a purer and better atmosphere of light and life. The reformation of women, " How to help the weak and erring," is a work and subject that has many sides, and is fraught with the deepest interest to the entire human family. We all acknowledge that " prevention is better than cure," yet we all realize that humanity is and has ever been prone to err. So we must find some way to reach these unfortunate creatures. With many years of experience behind me in this kind of work, I realize that to be successful and to bring about good results there must be intelligent organization and co-operation. I find where homes or houses of refuge have been founded they gradually grow into favor and usefulness. I know there come many struggles, often sad disappointments, sighs and tears to the women who are brave enough to associate themselves with this reform work for their own sex. No worker can be half-hearted or faint-hearted who enters the places where they find these poor abandoned girls. Eyes they must have to see and realize the depth of sin and degradation of their living hell. Ears to hear, not the scoff and jeers, but the sad confession of some sin-sick soul. Hearts of pity and grace from God and the divine love and patience of the loving Saviour, the gentle Jesus who dried the sinful woman's tears and bade her sin no more. When this Son of God began His ministry in His native town. He took this text: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor. He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted and preach deliverance to the captive and the restoring of sight to the blind; to set at liberty those who are bruised." He is the preacher, and His preaching has inaugurated all the sympathy, all the love, all the humane movements of our modern world. All the leading spirits of this reform have avowed again and again that the reformation of these unfortunate women is a religious question, and that unless the worker in this uninviting, unpopular field is sustained by the religious sentiment of the community, and upheld by the faith and prayers and sympathy and co-operation of both Christian men and women, they may as well lay down their arms. I hold that we as workers hav^e a right to expect from every Christian com- munity intelligent sympathy with the work, and the moral support of an educated public sentiment, and the creation of an atmosphere of hopeful feeling in which the rescued and the reformed may breathe and live again. This work demands tenderness, humanity and self-sacrifice. You and I as Christian people carry in our hands and hearts the power to give life and bring it unto these abandoned creatures. God's command is: "Love thy neighbor as thyself." This is the true inspiration of all work for the outcast. There is no soul so far steeped in sin that it cannot be saved by Jesus. Some who hear my voice and know of my work may find fault with me for stooping to aid these poor outcasts of society. But listen. There arises the story of Christ and the abondoned woman, and His words, "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone." Herein is the inspiration of this work. I must tell you, for I am sure it will interest you, the story of a poor, innocent girl. Twenty-five years ago — twenty-five years tell many hopeful results, for even at that time I was as zealous a worker as I am this day; our poormaster often called to ask my assistance, some child was sick, or some poor family might be tided over and kept from the poor house if a little help were given them, therefore I was not surprised to receive a call from him at any hour. This time he came in haste, and asked me 150 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. whether I would go down to a saloon on Water street, where a young woman lay dying. Poor thing, dying of consumption, and in such a place. He said to me: " Can you go soon? You will know better than I how to say a word to the poor girl. She evidently does not belong to the class that frequents saloons." I readily promised to go, provided myself with a few lemons and a glass of jelly, and got all the Christ-love possible into my heart, for I well knew what it must be and what it meant to go into- " a saloon on Water street." As I neared the building I saw a coarse looking man standing in the door. The blinds had not been removed, and evidently he was expect- ing me, for the poormaster had promised to send me. I asked, " Is there a sick woman here?" He replied, "Yes, good woman, hurry up those stairs. Poor thing, she don't belong here. No such sort as the other girls. But my wife is awful tender hearted; she found this girl at one of the hotels, where she was trying to wash dishes to pay for her board. Poor thing; dying by inches. My wife brought her over here, and we gave her the best little room we had upstairs, and my wife has been a mother to her. But, poor bird, it is all up with her. I wasn't going to open up this place or take down these blinds. Can't do it. She was a good girl, only everybody deserted her because she was sick and couldn't work. I reckon she is true, and would keep her virtue even if she starved. Please, good lady, hurry up to her. I hear that dreadful cough." I hastened upstairs, and in a little room several gaudily dressed girls stood around the bed — girls with the marks of dissipation on their faces so plainly that there was no mistaking the kind of life they were leading. Over the sufferer bent a plain but motherly woman, whose strong arms were pillowing the head of a beautiful girl,, for she could scarcely be called a woman. Her jet black hair fell in long curls in one rich mass over the pillow. For an instant all was silent. The coughing ceased, but only for an instant. The girls who were watching the woman wipe the blood-stained lips of the beautiful sufferer cried, "She is dying"" The woman looked up and said^ " Silence; she breathes." As she held a cup to her lips she said, " Darling child, take a drop of this, it will soothe you; drink, dear." Oh, what a scene. I shall never for- get it to my dying hour. I stepped forward, for I had not been noticed by the girls or the woman, they were weeping and wringing their hands. One of the girls had just remarked, "That woman (meaning me) will never come. Oh, Daisy is dying; do- hold her up ! Open wide the windows, bring a fan, call somebody — get help!" I moved toward the bed, untied my bonnet and handed it to one of the girls. I then and there realized where I was — in one of the low dens, a house of prostitution — realized through the creatures before me. A dying girl, whom the poormaster and the man of the house told me was innocent and a helpless creature. The woman who was- partner in the house had, from the goodness of her heart, brought the girl to her home^ th^t "the child," as she called her, might die in a comfortable bed. Another fit of coughing, and the sufferer turned her eyes toward me and motioned to me, reaching out her cold, cold hand. She cried, " I am dying! Oh must, must I go to hell?" She sank exhausted on the pillow and the arm of the woman, whose rough cheeks were being washed with the flowing tears. She, too, had seen me, and said, " Daisy wanted you, and the poormaster said you would come." I offered to relieve the woman who was so tenderly caring for this poor stranger under such strange circumstances. The poor child looked up at me for a moment. Oh, those big, brown eyes. Can I ever forget them. And her words, "lam dying, and must I go to hell?" Holding that tired head close to my own I whispered, "No, no, dear child; I hear the Saviour calling you. Jesus and the angels are waiting your coming. There, don't move and fret about that. It makes you cough, and I want you to listen. Hark! Listen! Keep very- quiet. Hark! don't you hear that voice whispering, 'Come home, poor wanderer, come home.' Please, Daisy, drink a drop of this lemon water. Don't move. We'll help you. There, hush, dear girl, the Saviour calls." The poor girl believed. A faint " Yes " came from her lips; one slight struggle for breath, and her hand, holding fast to- mine, she whispered so low and faint, yet clearly audible, " I do hear the sweetest music " — and she was dead. Dare you, my hearers, or I say that Daisy did not hear THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 151 the sweet music of Jesus' voice. Dare you pass judgment and tell me I committed a sin or gave a false impression when I told the poor dying girl — dying in an atmos- phere of prostitution, and in the presence of those abandoned creatures — dare anyone say that Jesus was not there, with a band of waiting angels, to wing the spirit of Daisy to the heavenly home? The woman and the girls stood weeping and crying, "What shall we do; what shall we do?" A moment's silent thought and I answered, "Seek pardon here and now. While Jesus is waiting to hear you, ask him to wash your sins away. He is calling to you now to give up this fearful life." Two of the girls promised over the dead body of Daisy to seek another home. A Christian burial was given poor Daisy, and through her great sorrow and suffer- ing two souls were led to seek pardon and entered into a new life. To save the souls of the sinful, to lift the fallen and say to the outcast, " There is hope for you in the love of Jesus," this is something that all can do, and, moved by this Christ-love, will do. I believe that those who have gone on before and are now in Heaven are gathered from all lands and all nations and classes, from the sinful and from the moral, for, for such the blessed Jesus died. THE FATE OF REPUBLICS. By REV. ANNA HOWARD SHAW. The study of the rise and fall of great republics shows a remarkable corre' spondence in them all. They all had like beginnings, having been established by a body of people whose views were in advance of the age and the people among whom they dwelt; who were driven forth from their native country or became voluntary exiles, wandering into new lands, establish- ing a new system of government, the central idea of which was civil and religious liberty. About this central idea, by industry, perseverance, indomitable courage and patriotism, republics have grown more rapidly and attained to their period of glory in much shorter time than any other form of government. They have also decayed and come to their ruin more rapidly than other equally great nations, until states- men are beginning to ask. Is it possible for a republic to become a permanent form of government? Re- publics have also grown along like lines, and have come to their ruin from similar causes. The lines of growth correspond with those elements in human nature where men are superior to women. Point out a line of strength which is peculiarly masculine, and }'ou will find a corresponding line of marked prog- ress in all great republics — business enterprise, and inventive genius, the aggressive spirit and warlike nature, are the lines of strength in all of the great republics of the world. On the other hand, Republics have decayed along the lines of our human nature in which men are inferior to women. Those of morality and purity, temperance and obedience to law, of loyalty to the teachings of religion and a love of peace. No republic, ancient or modern, ever died from the lack of material prosperity. Rome, Greece, Carthage, the Dutch Republic, all manifested evidences of decay while rich and powerful. Vice followed in the wake of great wealth, corruption close following on vice, then barbarism, the final fate of all. When we find a uniform result in any system of government, it is the part of wisdom to seek for the cause, and if the result is disastrous to the best interests of the nation, it is then the duty of patriots to remove the cause, regardless of prejudice or precedent. It is an axiom in political economy " that in a republic, the class which votes affects the government in the long run along the lines of its nature." Following this law, it will readily be seen why republics into whose structure men have built their own nature, have manifested in all their lines of growth the strength of the masculine character; and on the other hand, since women have been excluded from all Anna Howard Shaw is a native of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England. Was born February 14, 1847. Her parents were Thomas Shaw of Manchester and Nicolas Stott Shaw of Alnwick, She was'educated at Abion College, Michigan, and took degrees from the Boston University in theology and medicine, and has traveled extensively in the United Slates, Canada and Europe. Her work is in the interest of women in all her broader fields of usefulness. In religious faith she is Methodist Protestant, is a clergyman and member of the New York Conference. For eight years after her graduation in theology she was pastor of two churches in Massachusetts, of the last one, at East Dennis, pastor seven years. Since then she has been lecturing, traveling more than 40,000 miles each year. She is a most eloquent and logical orator. Her postoffice address ia HomertoD, Philadelphia, Pa, 152 REV, ANNA HOWARD SHAW. THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. I53 participation in governmental affairs, the peculiar characteristics of their nature have never been developed in the nation's life, therefore republics have always become weak and have ultimately come to their death through the decay of the moral and spiritual side of their life. The question before us then is this: Is there anything in the nature of woman, differing from the nature of man in such a manner, that if women were permitted to vote it would enable them to affect the government differently from the way in which men affect it? In a speech made in Kansas some time since a United States senator said, " The nature of woman is as different from the nature of man, as the East is from the West." From which fact, he drew the conclusion that women ought to be dis- franchised. He further states that, "If women were permitted to vote, the result would not be changed, as the>' would affect the government just as men affect it." In his speech the senator made a strong plea for the superiority of his sex on the ground of their reasoning and logical powers, and said: "Women cannot reason, but arrive at their conclusions intuitixely." On reading the senator's speech one is led to inquire what woman's head he borrowed to enable him to arrive at his conclusions from the premises with which he started. If in a republic every class that votes affects the government in the long run along the line of its nature, and the nature of woman differs from the nature of man as the East differs from the West, how can any reasoning or logical mind conclude that the votes of women would affect the government exactly as those of men? Reason, or intuition, or by whatever mental process women reach their con- clusions, they would claim the result of woman's voting to be as different from that of men as the East is from the West. We need no argument to prove that the liquor class is able to affect the govern- ment, and that it influences it because of its power in the caucus, at the ballot box and in halls of legislation. Recent laws tn many states show us how men interested in many forms of gambling and vice are able to affect the government through the power of the ballot. In one of my old parishes in Massachusetts, a body of men interested in cranberry culture were equally successful in defeating another body of men engaged in the fishing industry, because the cranberry men elected their candidate to the legis- lature, who through his ability to exchange votes, secured the passage of a bill in the interests of his constituents. Had women owned the property, in whose behalf legis- lation was secured, they could have done nothing but watch the shiny herring swim up and down the stream which was dammed by legislative enactment, until the last trump had sounded; because, not having votes, they could have sent no represent- ative to the legislature to look after their special interests. If in a republic liquor men, gambling men and cranberry men having votes are able to affect the govern- ment, and to affect it along the line of their nature, then women, if they have votes, could affect it along the line of their nature; and if women differ from men, as the East does from the West, then the effect of their participation in government would differ less from that of men in like manner. Wherein does the nature of women differ from that of men in such a way that if they voted they would be able to affect the government. It is universally admitted that w^omen are more moral than men. The great moral factor of the world is its womanhood. Men recognize this fact even more than women, as, in all their argu- ments against the extension of suffrage to women, they claim it would degrade them to the level of men. In the congressional debate over the admission of Wyoming territory into the Union as a state, every gentleman who opposed it based his argu- ment upon the woman suffrage plank in its constitution, urging that women are " too good and pure to vote." For the first time in history goodness and virtue were made the basis of disfranchisement. In response to this sentiment Mr. Carey, the United States delegate from Wyoming, declared this very characteristic of womanhood had compelled both great political parties in that territory to nominate their best men in the caucuses, since the women defeated the immoral men at the polls. Said a woman in Wyoming: "We are not particular to hold offices ourselves, but we ar^ very par- 154 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. ticuiar who do hold office." Women are more temperate than men; yet when the state has a temperance question to settle, the ballot is placed in the hands of every distiller, every brewer, every saloonkeeper, every bartender and every male drunkard, and is kept out of the hands of the women, the great temperance factor of the world, which, to our intuitive natures, is a mark of very poor statesmanship. Women are also more religious than men; nearly three-fourths of the church members are women, ^nd nine-tenths of the spiritual and philanthropic work of the world is done by them. Yet when it comes to building up the life of a republic this spiritual factor is counted out. And this men call statesmanship. It is charged that women, if possessed of political power, would seek to unite church and state. This statement is wholly with- out foundation; knowing as we do that such a union would be disastrous to both church and state, women would oppose it even more than men. Yet we answer the gentle- man who claimed that, "there is no place in the politics of this country for the deca- logue and the golden rule," that if it be true, then there is no place in God's universe for the politics of this country. He has no place for the politics of any country in which there is no room for the decalogue or the golden rule. What we need more than the settlement of any of the problems which are at present agitating the political mind is an infusion of the golden rule into politics, and of the decalogue into the laws of the land. This cannot be accomplished either by putting the name of Deity into the Constitution, or by the union of church and state, but by bringing to bear upon the government the influence of that class of people who are the spiritual strength of the church. Again, women are more peace-loving than men. This has led some to say that' women ought not to vote because they cannot bear arms This claim is usually made by men who, in the hour of their country's need, sent substitutes to the army, or fled to Canada; or else, by the young men who have been born since the close of the war. The class who never make the statement that the ballot and the bayonet go together, are the heroes maimed in battle or broken in health, and prematurely old because of exposure and suffering in their country's behalf. They know the value of women in war time, and that women do go to war. Had it not been for the forty thousand women who went to the hospitals, visited the camps and battle-fields to care for our wounded heroes, there are thousands with us today who would never have seen home or friends again, but who would be sleeping in unknown graves. These heroes remember not only the services of the women in the field, but the great sanitary com- mission, sending its millions of dollars' worth of those things which were made for health and comfort, to hospital and fields during those terrible years of suffering. But, best of all, they remember the Grand Army of the Republic that staid at home, who, when the citizen soldiers laid down the implements of peace, to take up the weapons of war, took those implements of peace and went to the workshop, the factory, the counting-room, the store and the farm, filling the places of men and earning the live- lihood for the family, when prices were such as had never been known in the histore of our time; and when the news came flashing over the wire that they who had gone forth would never more return, the broken-hearted wives, forgetting the agony of their own loss, gathered their children about their knees, and asked God that they might be both father and mother to their fatherless little ones; and alone and single-handed all over the land women have reared to manhood and womanhood the children left by their dead heroes as their only legacy. Then some man who never struck a blow in behalf of his country exclaims: "Women must not vote, because they cannot fight." In the face of the loyalty of America's Womanhood the darkest stain on the escutcheon of our country is its utter forgetfulness of their services. From the begin- ning of its history to the present hour, by no act of Congress or of any state legislat- ure has there ever been any public recognition of the services of its women. By no monument of granite, or marble, or bronze has it ever commemorated the memory of their patriotism. They are as utterly forgotten as if they had never lived, suffered or died for their country. THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 155 When a committee appealed to Congress, asking that when the negroes were enfran- chised the loyal women might share their freedom, Congress answered: "It is the negro's hour, women must wait." The negro's hour struck, again women asked for liberty, and were again assured that Congress had weightier measures to consume its time and attention — it had the South to reconstruct, and the North to bring back to a sound business basis. The severest form of punishment it could devise for the crime of treason was disfranchisement, reducing traitors to the level of loyal women, who had given all they had for their country, and this is the only recognition that Congress has ever granted them. I have traveled in many countries, and in every one, save in these United States, I have seen stately monuments erected in grateful memory of the patriotic services of women. We had a faint hope of at least a part in one, when we learned that a national monument to the Pilgrims was to be unveiled at Plymouth, Mass. On the great day, scores of women gathered to witness the ceremonies. We were told that this government had taught the nations of the world the great principle that, "taxation without representation is tyranny." We sighed as we remembered the taxes we had paid, and yet were still refused representa- tion. We were also told that in this country under God the people rule, and yet the constitution of every state in the Union, at that time, declared it was the males, and not the people who rule. The orator again assured us that the powers of this government were just, since governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed; but they recently hung a woman, in one of these just states, who had never given her consent to the law under which she was executed, nor had the consent of women, her peers, ever been asked regarding it. Then we were told that as the voice of the peo- ple is the voice of God, and this was repeated both in Latin and in English, that there might be no doubt in regard to it, that the laws of our land were the crystallized voice of Deity. The speaker, forgetting that in the compass of the people's voice there is a soprano as well as a bass, and that if the voice of the people is the voice of God, we will never know what His voice is until the bass and soprano unite in harmonious sound, the resultant of which will be the voice of God. After many other statements of a similar character, which are true in spirit, but had never been practiced by any nation, the monument was unveiled, and our hearts sank with intense disappointment when we read the inscription, "Erected by a grateful country in honor of the Pilgrim Fathers." We had again witnessed the evidence of a country's easy forgetfulness of its debt to women. We felt just as we do when we gaze on that picture so familiar to you all; a ship in the background, between it and the shore is a man carrying what seems to be a woman in his arms, on the beach kneel a company of people, and farther up the beach stand another group with uplifted hands, thanking God for their deliv- erance. They look like men and women. You wonder what company of people it is, and read the inscription beneath the picture to learn, that it is not a company of men and women at all, but is a representation of "The landing of the Forefathers." You instinctively exclaim how kind the forefathers were to carry each other ashore, and how much some of them resemble mothers, but they were not mothers, they were all fathers, every mother of them. There never was another country which had so many parents iis we have had, but they have all been fathers — pilgrim fathers, Plymouth fathers, forefathers, revolutionary fathers, city fathers and church fathers, fathers of every description — but, like Topsy, we have never had a mother. In this lies the weakness of all republics. They have been fathered to death. The great need of our country today is a little mothering to undo the evils of too much fathering. Like Israel of old, when the people were reduced to their utmost extremity, in order to save the nation, there was needed a ruler who was at once a statesman, a commander-in-chief of the armies and a right- eous judge, who would render justice and be impervious to bribes. God called a woman to rule, and Deborah tells us in her wonderful ode that the great need of the nation in this hour of its extremity was motherhood applied to government, when she exclaims, "Behold the condition of Israel when I, Deborah, a mother in Israel, arose." 156 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. "Then was there peace in Israel" and prosperity and success, as "Deborah ruled the people in righteousness for forty years." Women are more law-abiding than men. It is universally accepted that the class of people who best obey the laws are best fitted to make them. It is also stated that everything in a republic depends upon the obedience of the citizens to law. I visited the penitentiary of a state whose senator made this statement, and asked the warden how many prisoners he had. He replied, "Eight hundred and eighty-nine, of whom eight hundred and eighty are men and nine are women," so that in the State of Kansas the women are a hundred times more law-abiding than the men. In the United States the same year there were sixty-eight thousand and five prisoners, of whom fifty-three thousand were men and only five thousand and five were women, showing that in the whole United States there were ten times as many men criminals as women. It has been claimed that the small number of women prisoners is due to the fact that women have no part in politics, for in the thought of some people politics and prisons are synonymous terms. If, however, this statemen. were true of women, then where they are most in politics they would be most in prison We have but one state to which we can turn for statistics. At the close of the census in 1890 Mrs. Clara Bewick Colby, of Washington, consulted the statistics of crime, and learned to our great satis- faction that the only state in the Union in which there was not a woman criminal in jail or penitentiary was Wyoming, the state where women had voted for twenty-one years. It has also been charged that on account of her emotional nature woman's mental condition would be unsettled if she engaged in anything so exciting as public affairs. But Mrs. Colby also learned from the same source that the only state in which there was not an insane woman in public or private asylum was the State of Wyoming, where women have been voting for twenty-one years. She also learned that Wyom- ing was the only state in which but few men were insane — only three — and concludes that the exercise of suffrage makes women so peaceable to live with that very few men go insane. The same authority points to the fact that Wyoming is the only state in which during the last two decades the per cent of marriage has increased over the per cent of divorce. If, then, in a republic the class which \otes affects the government in the long run along the line of its "nature, and women are more moral, more temperate, more religious, more peace-lov^ing and more law-abiding than men, then if they were per- mitted to vote they would affect the government along these lines. It needs but a glance at the world's history to show that these are the lines of weakness in republics, and that they have all died because of their immorality, licentiousness, intemperance, their disregard of their own laws, the violation of the statutes of God and by their warlike nature, and they can only become strong by the incoming of that class of people who are strong where they are weak. Then shall the voice of the people become the voice of God, and for the first time in history the voice of God shall be crystallized into the laws of a republic. WOMEN IN iWODERN ITALY. By MADAME FANNY ZAMPINI SALAZAR. Social customs, family habits, popular prejudices and individual opinions differ GO utterly from the north to the south of Italy that to give a fair view of the subject I should exhibit two different studies of my country- women, if I did not feel it my duty not to trespass on your kind attention. So I must try to generalize my study and mark briefly the differences existing between one and another part of modern Italy, the north being far in advance of the south. Since national culture began to offer means to educate the minds of the people, some women earnestly profited by this light of the soul, and today we have groups of learned, enlightened women who seriously strug- gle for the elevation of our sex in Italy. Here also we must take into consideration the difference of these groups in the different provinces, and notice how the north is still in advance of the south as far as these groups are concerned. This may be explained by the fact that the south was for long years the prey of ignorant rulers, while the north was governed by more intelligent sovereigns, though no less tyrannical and oppressive, who did not, however, consider it im- proper to offer means of culture to their people. And while this happened in the north and south, in the two extreme parts of Italy, the central portion was no better off under the dominion of the popes, whose religious mission, unfortu- nately, changed into a political one. Since 1870 this political aim has increased and spread all over Italy, the priesthood regarding it as a duty to keep control, not only over souls and religious matters, but in other concerns in life, and above all in politics. Feeling that men escape such control, priests concentrate all their efforts to keep women under their influence. Allow me an explanation. If such influence was exercised in good faith and for pure religious purposes, all that is best might come of it. But unfortunately the strangest anti-patriotic feeling rules their behavior. The ardent dreams dreamed by our patriots, in prison and in exile, during the long years of sub- jection, and realized in the union of Italy, with Rome for a capital, leaves them worse than cold and indifferent — dissatisfied and angry. Hence a perpetual struggle to regain temporal power makes of the purest of human feelings, religion, a question of politics ; not in view of the welfare and the popularity of the nation, but for the meanest ends of worldly ambition. Men influenced by women, though often unconsciously, are kept from taking any part in elections; and these being left mostly to ignorant and Signora Fanny Zampini Salazar is a native of Italy, danghter of Demetro Salazar. She traveled in England, stodying the industrial institutions for women in that country, made a report to the government of Italy which was favorably received and an appointment was given her for like service in America. At one time she published a paper, The Queen, in the interest of Italian women, for whom she has been a zealous worker, endeavoring to raise both the industrial and intellectual standards. Among her published works are, " A Glance at the Future of Woman in Italy," " Life and Labors of Demetro Salazar," " Guides to Physical and Moral Health of Italian Children," "Old Straggles and New Hope«." She was sent as an Italian representative to the Congress of Representative Women, which met in Chicago in 1898. She was also elected one of the judges of awards of the Columbian Exposition. She is a graceful writer, a jmoet charming lecturer, bat above all • noble woman, devoted mother and faithful wife. 157 .MADAME FANNY ZAMPINI SALAZAR. 158 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. ambitious people, are used for mean personal ends of obtaining power, fortune and influence. The results are what lately created shameful scandals and made the hearts of true Italians bleed with sorrow at these disgraceful facts. And while the priest- hood, in hope of repressing progress and reconquering Rome, work in every way, extending their influence even over persons whose position and interest ought to keep them far from their reach, the Italian government, for a sort of counteraction, has no religious culture in public schools. The result is a relaxation in morality to the great detriment of religion and politics, regarded in the highest sense of their noble meaning. Women consider themselves pious if they follow religious practices, and men good citizens if they look on, complaining if all does not go right in the country, but seldom rising to the consciousness of their great responsibility as pertains to their political duties. All this has its origin in and is the consequence of the general indif- ference to all that concerns politics. Uncultivated women cannot understand what noble influence they might exert for the welfare of their country, and the elevation of the family and of society. The few who realize such a duty and try to accomplish it are wearied by misunderstand- ings, opposition and unfair criticism. Men are more easily led, in general, by the so-called feeble women who rule over them, and who seem to be entirely subjected to their will. Strong, earnest, noble-minded women, whose interest in educational, social and political matters, combined with their culture, makes their conversation much prized in society, though admired, are feared, and are kept carefully apart because of a strange sort of prejudice about their becoming too influential in the country. Of course, men wish to keep their predominance, and though willingly disposed to accept privately woman's seasonable advice and moral help, they take great care not to make her conscious of her power, and in society they make much more of light, wel -dressed, insignificant women, whose influence they fear not, being unconscious in this case that such negative influence leads them down to the lower level of such charming, empty-minded, useless creatures. Again, the great difference to be found in the various social classes makes it difiicult to define a woman of typical character in Italy. We have aristocracy, from which class little is to be hoped. In this class a few, a very few, exceptions are worthy of notice for giving their lives a really noble aim. In general, old prejudices, ignorance, pride, a sybaritical conception of life, considered with the most selfish views of satisfactions of a mere material order, reign supreme in that part of society which might so easily do so much good. The middle class has good elements, cultivated persons actively busy in some sort of serious aim in life. We have there a group of intelligent, learned women, gifted with modern ideas, and trying to their utmost to contribute to social progress. They do not turn to the higher classes for help; none or very little, indeed, would come to them from that source; but they look to the common people hopefully for the future moral regeneration of Italy. We have, indeed, all to hope from this much neglected and greatly oppressed social class. The Italian people have the best human instincts; with a little culture and much love anything may be made of them. But allow me to observe that we must not judge the Italian people by some specimens of poor emigrants, stupefied with the long struggle with want and sorrow before they make up their minds to break the old home- ties of the beloved fatherland. In general, Italians belonging to the popular classes are full of heart and kindness, frugal, simple, much attached to their families and the place where they were born. They only need the enlightenment of culture to rise, strong and powerful, in the full consciousness of their most sacred rights, to a nobler life. But here, again, priesthood and prejudice, political fears and negligence neutral- ize the few efforts made in favor of their elevation. They are flattered when their service is required, helped occasionally by the humiliating charity offerings, and kept down in the dark regions of ignorance and poverty. Badly fed, badly paid, oppressed by heavy taxes, often without work — no wonder their life is a hard struggle to keep it up in sacrifice and suffering, unconscious of any right to a brighter one. I have THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 159 often tried in the southern provinces and in Rome to arouse humanitarian feelings in the idle upper classes, speaking and writing about all that had been done in England for the moral and intellectual elevation of women and the people generally; but I only obtained praises and nice words, without ever being able to begin, even on a small scale, something practical in the way of associations of cultivated persons to promote popular classes, artistic societies in favor of these neglected portions of our country-people. The press in Italy encourages such a movement; but the fearful indifference of the public, and the opposition of the officials, of the clergy, and other prejudiced per- sons are still to be overcome. This work, I consider, must be undertaken by women, and I am glad to be able to say that we have begun to undertake it in the northern provinces, and I trust that persevering through all difficulties it will bring its fruit in time. In Bologna, the ancient university town, where learned women taught one day in the character of acknowledged professors, in Milan and in Turin, associations exist and are being established with the view of promoting woman's progress and culture. In Bologna ladies have been at work for the past two years; and, indeed, it is there I noticed the most important group of intelligent women actively busy in promoting the interests of their moral and judicial condition. What struck me in Bologna was the solidarity of these cultivated women so earnestly at work together. It is there that the noble influence of one of our greatest Italians, Mazzini, is deeply felt, for a nobly- gifted Englishwomen, whose soul was given to Italy in marrying Mazzini's best friend, Aurelio Saffi, has perseveringly been at work in the sunny years of her happy youth, and the sad ones of her widowhood, always endeavoring in all ways to elevate those with whom she comes in contact. She has established at Forli women's associations, the objects of which are to promote culture, sisterly help in need, and to find work for all. In the fullness of a richly gifted nature, Giorgini Saffi honors our sex in Italy, andsimply goes on with her noble work, blessed by all that know her. Nor did this work prevent her from educating most highly her sons, and giving always the example of a beautiful life spent for the welfare of all those around her. I fully believe that the higher level of the women at Bologna is due to her influence. In Milan we have a very remarkable group of intellectual women, but which is disintegrated, each working in her own way, very few of them following together the same high purpose. But these few, who are just beginning to aggregate, have felt the need of establishing an association to promote the interests of their sex. When I was there lately Pauline Schiff, a learned university teacher of German origin, published the program of an important association, to which many gave their names. In Milan are some very excellent schools and institutions for girls. I met there a most remark- able woman, Alexandrina Navizza, whose life is entirely devoted to good works, and who has no end of trouble to go on with them, because she would have nothing to do with the clergy, and is full of human pity and sorrow for unfortunate girls whom she tried to help and save from disgrace. In Turin is also a very interesting group of cul- tivated women, actively busy trying to unite their efforts to establish some useful association of like character to those at Milan and Bologna. In Rome we have two societies, but of quite a different order, most conservative in their aims and views. One was lately established by the persevering efforts of a brilliant, earnest, learned young professor and deputy, Angelo Celli, who succeeded in interesting a band of cul- tivated ladies of the aristocracy in the fate of poor women struggling in want of work and help. The society is called " Work and Help," and was organized two years ago under the patronage of our Queen Margherita. It is now prospering, and much good comes of it. Poor women find work and help during times of sickness or want, their young children being cared for during hours of work m a sort of nursery school estab- lished by the daughters of the ladies who aided Professor Celli to organize the society. Still, useful as it is, no attention is given to intellectual culture or recreation as is done for similar institutions in England. The other society in Rome was established 160 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. in 1873, twenty years ago. It was established for the purpose of promoting the edu- cation and general culture of women, but it is such a mystification that it deserves honest criticism. I think nothing could better reveal the subjection of our women to prejudices and old ideas than this association of theirs, which pretends to promote woman's culture by a weekly lecture, mostly regarding ancient history, and carefully excluding any and all of the modern questions regarding social, educational, legal or political matters. In place of awakening the mind to examine these most important subjects, it seems that the aim of this society is to put it to sleep by the constant repe- tition of that which we all can read or have more or less been learning at school. Now and then, very rarely, some beautiful and interesting lecture is given, but in gen- eral they are very dull indeed. Fashionable ladies go because the Queen goes, but I have often noticed how uninterested they seem to be in the lecturer's old-fashioned theme. Another strange feature of this society is that lady lecturers are excluded from giving lectures there, though we have now in Italy a large number of successful lady lecturers. I believe that this society, infused with modern spirit and purpose, can be made a powerful factor in the promotion of woman's culture and education. Three years ago Prof. Angelo de Gubernatis, with the purpose of associating all who were willing, and offering them a study of the progress made by women of Italy, organized in Florence an exhibition of woman's work, and also arranged for a course of lectures along this line, to be given by ladies. These lectures were published in book form, and some of them are worthy of notice because of the originality of thought and ideas. But the exhibition and lectures were a source of great trouble to the professor, mainly because he could not obtain the patronage of persons in high position who obstinately refused to recognize the question of woman's development in Italy. Considering woman's education in modern Italy, I have not much to say. We have public schools for elementary work, higher schools for girls, but a lack of com- petent teachers for them, and normal schools for those wishing to become teachers; but no proper training college for them, and the course of study is defective in nearly every department. Our present minister of instruction, Ferdinando Martini, is for- tunately a high-minded man of modern ideas regarding woman's culture, and he is studying a project for the entire reform of education for both sexes. His work is very hard, for in Italy much is expected from the government because of the great lack of individual effort. Women are now admitted to the universities, lyceums and gym- nasiums, but there are none of these exclusively for women. This, with the indiffer- ence of the parents as regards the education of girls, or their opposition to mixed schools, leaves little profit from these institutions to girls. Schools of art are open to- girls, but the same objection obtains here also, and the young men who attend these schools are not always as refined as they should be. In the way of education we have still much to do, as, in general, not all understand that culture is one thing and edu- cation another, and that both are demanded. We easily find such a thing in some private schools, established by refined and cultivated women, whose personal influence has a good effect upon the pupils. Two such institutions in Naples I visited with great interest. One is a daily school, kept by the Misses Vittori, daughters of a most superior woman, who, having lost her husband, and been left with a young family to support, very courageously determined to do it with her work. She studied to obtain her degrees, and was soon entitled to a principal's position as inspector of girls' schools. With this she had also taken private pupils to teach, and withal, she succeeded in bringing her children up nobly, and they are now the crown of her old age, one of the girls being a distin- guished pianist, and the others are very good teachers. Their school is considered one of the very best in Naples. The other private institution is a boarding-school for girls, situated in one of the most beautiful and healthful country places, a few miles from Naples. There are Froebelian kindergartens, and from the elementary to the higher classes, and normal classes for those wishing to become teachers. This school has THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 161 been very courageously started by the six daughters of Garibaldi's friend, Dr. Occhi- pinti. It is, indeed, just opened, but the oldest girl has a very good head, and sound, practical ideas on education, and truly she deserves full praise and encouragement for having taken upon herself such a difficult enterprise. It is prospering, however, many families sending their children as day students, and a few boarders have already been admitted, and I left my own dear daughters there, being sure that they could not be bet- ter off elsewhere. The Misses Occhipinti are religious, but Italians before all, having been raised under Garibaldi's noble influence. I am sure that in time this school will be one of the first in Naples. This school is called, by royal permission, after our Queen, "College Queen Margherita." The two very best schools we have in Naples besides those named, are due to the private enterprise of foreigners. They are Mrs, Julia Salis Schwabe's School and Seminary, which takes girls from childhood in the kindergarten to the seminary, which they leave with the degree of teacher. Still, before seeing this splendid institution prospering as it is now, Mrs. Salis Schwabe had to overcome no end of difficulties and opposition. I am proud to remember the help given her then by my dear father, who was always ready to encourage all intellectual pursuits. The other is an International College for girls, where they receive a most complete education, and are also taught to speak the principal modern languages. We have also in Italy several professional schools for the working-classes, and these answer their purpose, though I think they ought to provide for more mental culture, and not limit their aim to manual work. This I generally regard as the prin- cipal defect in most of our Italian schools, the little or no regard that exists for the moral culture — that culture which tends to elevate the soul and give it a high concep- tion of life, and of the high and sacred duties that make it full and worthy to be lived. The teaching of mere reading, writing and other branches is nothing if with it the mind is not led to think and consider life's problems, its duties and its rights, to make it noble and beautiful. Some new and well-organized institutions answer such an end, for they are the work of noble hearts and highly gifted Italians. One is the Suor Orsola College in Naples for girls, entirely reformed by the Princess Strongoli Pignatelli, a learned, high-minded woman, whose life is entirely devoted to good works. She is one of Queen Margherita's most esteemed and beloved ladies of honor. Besides having reformed this college, where girls receive a complete homely educa- tion, and whose hearts are guided to high principles by the constant care of the dis- tinguished lady principal, Princess Strongoli Pignatelli has also established in Naples, together with Contesse Sansa Verino Vimercati Tarsis, another college for poor orphan girls. A beautiful college for the daughters of public teachers was also lately organ- ized by one of our greatest Italians, Ruggero Bonghi, This college is near Rome, in a pleasant, old-fashioned country place, and is fairly prospering. Her Majesty, the Queen of Italy, patronizes it, and it bears her name, "Margaret College of Savoy." In Naples we have three remarkable old colleges for girls, bound to old-fashioned, con- ventual systems of education. But to give you an idea of our customs, I only state that while the entire staff is composed of ladies, most of whom reside in the colleges, the institutions are superintended entirely by gentlemen. Two of these are distin- guished young writers, the Duke Richard Carafa D'Andria and Benedetto Croce, The superintending of the schools by ladies has never even been thought of. That women are competent to take part in public affairs of any kind is still a hard thing to establish in Italy, Even when obliged to work but few ways are opened to their activity besides teaching, and the only reason is the strong prejudice existing against women. They are not considered fit to work, and are not much trusted. If they follow the superior studies and obtain a degree they are actually prevented from competing with men in any but the medical profession. A young Turinese lady, Miss Lydia Poet, having followed successfully the university courses, obtained some years ago her degree in law. Well, men got so frightened at such competition that they managed to exclude her from the practice of her profession, stating that it would demoralize the Tribunal if women were allowed to work therein. The press tried to explain the injustice and (U) 162 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. illegality of such a proceeding, and quite a fuss was made about it, but nothing resulted. No other woman took the law course, and the noble girl, who had a right to the profession she had chosen, was obliged to give it up, though privately she works in the law office of her brother, who considers her a most useful aid. As medi- cal doctors women could have a large practice and a most important field of action; but here again prejudice is against them, although our Queen gave her moral support to the profession, naming as her honorary medical attendant a Turinese lady. Miss Mary Valeda Fame. This learned and well-known woman would have a brilliant career anywhere else, as she was also appointed medical assistant at the principal hos- pital in Rome by one of our greatest doctors, Bacelli; but she could not overcome public prejudice and she must be satisfied with her small, though very select, practice. Music is a profession allowed to women in Italy, and several struggle on as music- teachers, and a few rise to the summit of art as opera singers or concertists. I may name as one of the leading concertists Miss Castellani, and also a sweet young girl just at the threshold of her career, Margaret Brambilli, who promises to rise high. We have in Italy very good conservatories, where, besides music and singing, a proper literary education is given. The most noted of our conservatories are at Naples, Rome and Milan. In Italy women may occupy positions in the post, telegraph and telephone offices, but the competition for these positions is so strong that they are most difficult to obtain. So the highest public position a woman may hope to obtain in Italy is something connected with the educational work, the highest position therein being inspector or principal of the highest government schools. These positions are much sought after notwithstanding that at the yery best they seldom pay more than one thousand dol- lars per year. However, we have now a remarkable number of women who are fairly struggling for economic independence by their own work. The larger number of these are wait- ers, some of whom succeed in making a living, though a very modest living at the best. Publishers seldom pay more than from one hundred dollars to four hundred dollars for a book, which they sell in no less than a thousand copies in one edition, thus receiving about eight hundred dollars for it, even when the book has little or no success; but when three or five thousand copies are sold, the publishers' profits are immense. Printing is not costly in Italy, and so we have rich publishers, but I know of no writers who have made a fortune with their pen. My esteemed and dear friend. Miss Alice Howard Cady, of New York, who came to Italy last year, worked hard to induce our lady writers to send their books to the World's Fair. They thought their productions did not deserve such honor, for one of the characteristics of my charming country-women is a remarkable modesty or shyness. So several of them wrote to Miss Cady in that sense, that they were flattered and interested to be con- sidered worthy of notice, and felt grateful to Miss Cady, etc., etc. The latter suc- ceeded, however, in gaining her point and winning their confidence and friendship. Only to aid Miss Cady in her noble efforts, I published an appeal to Italian women employed in literary, scientific, artistic and educational work, explaining their patriotic duty to join in an exhibition wherein women from the world over would send their intellectual productions. However, lately, in my tour through Italy, I found that many women had not sent their books, simply because of that timidity which they could not overcome. Still many others gave me their books, which I had the honor to present to the beautiful library in this building. Because of the fact that the pro- ductions of Italian women are not as fully represented as they might have been in this great international exhibition, you must not judge us by our display. Besides, woman's intellectual work is not encouraged in Italy, not even by those who should regard it as a duty, and so, without encouragement or organization to that end, one band of distinguished, cultivated women could not manage to send all their intellectual productions. THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 163 As for industry, the beautiful, artistic lace work my country-women do will prove this to the fullest advantage. Much honor is due to your noble country-woman, Countess Cora di Brazza, for it is to her intelligent efforts and spirit of organization that we owe all that is to be admired in the Italian section of the Woman's Building. The rich historical laces of our royal family she obtained herself from the Queen, and many others from personal friends. But her perseverance in organizing schools for, and teaching lace-making herself, so as to give easy and beautiful work to our Italian peasant girls, is, indeed, worthy of all praise. Many noble ladies have lately become interested in this industry in Italy, foremost of whom was the late lamented Countess Marcelio, who revived the old lace manufactories in Venice, and the Countess Maria Pasolini, one of the few ladies in the aristocracy remarkable for her culture and her interest in the girls of the working classes. As for women's papers, we have a few nicely written, but of a light literary kind, and several stupid ones, devoted exclusively to French fashions. Having dared, sev- eral years ago, at my own expense and alone, to establish a review for promoting the intellectual, moral, and legal interests of women, after fourteen months I was com- pelled to give it up, although I had the good fortune to interest the Queen and a large number of intellectual women. But the review did not please the clergy, that so ener- getically opposes woman's promotion, and they managed things so well that the paper had to come to an end. So tired was I that I would then and there have given up my work but for the promptings of duty to the contrary. This led me, lately, to publish a book, in which is an account of the struggles during the best twelve years of my life, spent in endeavoring to raise the intellectual standard of the women in Italy. Indeed, I am happy and proud to say that I owe to that book my presence here, as the Italian Minister of Instruction asked me to write a similar report of woman's institutions in America. This book, besides containing the lectures I have delivered on the subject of woman's intellectual development, also contained my report to the Italian govern- ment of woman's culture and work in England. It also cleared away many misunder- standings, and was considered by eminent writers of both sexes to contain a true conception of the true ideal of womanhood we have yet to attain in Italy. During my last tour in Italy I had the pleasure to observe a great change in the general public opinion regarding the woman question. Many ideas, not understood ten years ago, are now perfectly admitted. So I look forward hopefully to the future, trusting in the reviving of education to promote the much needed reforms in our laws to control the fearful injustice that oppresses womankind in Italy. This leads me to say a few words about the legal condition of women in Italy, and for this I have only to repeat what I said four years ago on this subject in England: *'If we look at the civil and penal code of Italy concerning women, and at the laws concerning their rights, their culture and their work, we easily see that a general opin- ion of their moral weakness inspired these laws. It is commonly believed in Italy that a woman is morally, intellectually, and physically inferior to man; that she can not stand by herself in life, nor presume to be respected and considered if she is not sup- ported by the protection of man." What this protection often means is misery to reveal! Italians, both men and women, have very distinct characteristics, of which we must also take notice to understand better their present condition and the reforms required for their social and intellectual progress. Above all, they are intensely pas- sionate people, and family links are very strong; this much more in the south, where woman's individuality rarely exists. Woman lives the life man makes for her. As a child, a girl, she blindly obeys her father; and as a woman, her will submits entirely to her husband, whom she regards as the absolute master of her body and soul. If she does not marry, old as she may become, she remains always the obedient child of her father or brother, and never dares regard herself as a free human being. This is the worst of all — the general want of a consciousness of one's own individual rights. Very often I tried to arouse such feelings in some naturally intelligent women of our 164 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. southern provinces. They looked at me with wide-open eyes, as if I spoke some unintelligible language ! In the northern provinces the chains exist too, but of a dif- ferent sort, lighter, because women have a relative liberty, and easier to bear because more apparent than real, more in form than in substance. So all reforms pertaining to women in Italy must tend to simultaneous training of mind and heart, the intellectual and moral faculties, bearing in consideration the eminently passionate instincts of the race, which, well developed and controlled, would make splendid characters of our people. Humanitarian feelings are latent in the souls of Italians, and intelligently developed would become the best agent for the development of the people. It is, I fully believe, by kind, affectionate, earnest interest and sympathy in each other that life could be made easier and brighter for all throughout the whole world. To accomplish this most sacred duty, and see Italy as great and powerful as our fathers wished it to be, we cannot trust in the help of those who are satisfied with everything, when all their personal concerns prosper. We must rely on the efforts of the pure and enthusiastic souls of our young people, principally our sweet girls, whose ideal of life is noble and high, who feel in their hearts the needs of modern times, and wish to live a true life, uncorrupted by the homage to appearances. The need of elevating life is felt all around the world; we are near a great change. The cry of woman for freedom and her rights appeals to all those God blesses with a right mind and a kind heart; and I cannot help but believe that to us women, the mothers of the race, a great part is reserved in this grand work; and I think we are all willing to undertake it, feeling what a sweet and holy mission is entrusted to us, a mission that will highly bless our lives, even among the difficulties we have to overcome and the sorrows we are called upon to bear and endure. United all around the world in this glorious effort, we must feel sure of winning gloriously at last in the name of the purest and highest ideal of human brotherhood. The dream of the age lies in the enfranchisement of the human race, and when life shall be built on truth, in respect to holy natural laws which govern the great mystery of our existence, and all human beings shall be equally considered, socially and legally, without any privilege for one sex or one class above another, then human kind will be great, and the nations will for them be great, and the world reconquer then its Paradise Lost! MEMBERS OF THE BOARD OF LADY MANAGERS. 1. Miss Hattie Toney Hundley, 2. Mrs. Anna M. Fosdick, 8. Mrs. James P. Eagle, Alabama. Alabama. Arkatuat, 4. Mrs. Rollin A. Edgerton, Arkansas. 5. Mrs. Partiienia P. Rue, California, 6. Mrs. James K. Deane, California. 7. Mrs. Robert J. Coleman, 8. Mrs. M. D. Thatcher, anklin, the printer, lightning-rod man, stove man, newspaper man, author, statesman and diplomat, an all-around Yankee, a 200 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. typical American. A new spirit is born, the old eliminated, and with the period of Franklin we can begin to lay claim to American literature. To him can be traced the humor of our American authors, the birth of the " short story " in " Dogood Papers." His services were required along other lines than that of authorship, else we should have seen in Franklin an American Swift or Smollett, Pre-revolutionary writers can be summed up in a few names. Men were busy making history then, and not literature, yet in the pamphlets of Tory and Whig we see the germ of our future authors. For some time after the Revolution our people were absorbed in the work of fram- ing the Constitution and in restoring order, and were too busy in the details of nation- forming to devote attention to literature. We should like to dwell upon the spirit of those days, but in a limited paper like this we can only point out the leading authors in American literature. Charles Brockden Brown, who belongs to the early part of the nineteenth cen- tury, might be brought up as our first novelist of note. PVeneau, Trumbull, Hopkin- son, Barlow, Thomas Paine, Jefferson — all contributed their share in laying the foun- dation of American literature. We shall be disappointed if we expect to find any such legends in our early literature as the Arthurian or Carlovingian, for our people did not nurse their children to sleep with song of fairy, or quiet them with story of valiant knight. Our ancestors were stern, practical men and women; Indians, wolves and wild-cats were realities and not myths, and the Puritan religion forbade the little Franklins from believing even in Santa Claus. The "doubting Thomases," Paine and Jefferson, the Prometheus Franklin, dealt with reality and cared little for romance. Yet we must not think that the germ of romance in Brockden Brown, or the ideal of Trumbull, was lost in political and military heroism, or in Franklin's utilitarianism. Though America had not the myths of the Old World she had her peculiar legends, and these Washington Irving invested with all the romance of Scott, and enlivened them with a humor known nowhere but among Americans — American authors. "The Legends of Sleepy Hollow" make up for the lack of an heroic people in our aborigines. Cooper introduced the Indian into romance, but it was not the matter of his words so much as the form that made them popular. Neither the Indian or the negro is heroic, although Harriet Beecher Stowe at an opportune moment succeeded in introducing the latter into her novel, and Helen Hunt Jackson with the Indian worked upon the sympathies of her readers without appealing to their reason. Edgar Allan Poe in this new life of American authors stands not only as a typi- cal Southern poet, but as one of whom the world loves to hear. He was a master of verse, but he lacked that inspiration that will give him a seat "with those saints who see God." The weird charm, the strange fascination of Poe's verse is without rival. "His heart-strings are a lute; none sings so wildly nor so well." For a while after Irving and Poe's period our country was so torn with sectional hate that there was no motive for high literature. The John C. Calhoun, Wendell Phillips and Garrison oratory; the Harriet Beecher Stowe romance; the Bryant, Father Ryan and Whittier poetry, were engaged too much in stirring up jealousy and hatred to inspire lofty thought. Harriet Beecher Stowe, Bryant, Father Ryan and Whittier, and even Longfellow, based their writings upon events that are not universal in sig- nificance, and, like Wigglesworth's writings, will meet their doom. Rodman Drake, our American Keats, in his "Culprit Fay," kept alive the ideality and sincerity of the poet of this period. From this great strife there was born an ethical spirit, and Emerson, an almost Christ-man, arose in strange contrast to the Garrisons and Calhouns of the day. The Alcotts, the Fullers, Thoreaus and Channings followed as disciples of Emerson. Theories and speculations of all kinds set men's minds wild in those days, and as Irving worked up the follies and superstitions just anti-dating him, so do we have Hawthorne evolved from the extremes of his age. As was Franklin evolved from THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. ::0i the extreme Puritanism of the days of witchcraft, so was Hawthorne evolved from the extreme Puritanism that overshadowed the North prior to the Civil War. Like Frank- lin, he could transcend the party spirit of his age; like Irving, he worked his people's follies into a moral; and Hawthorne, the master artist, remains the interpreter of his people in all that is high and holy for all time. With the Civil War came the interregnum of authors that war naturally brings. After the war men were again busy reconstructing the nation — making the nation, but not literature. With the Centennial of 1876 was ushered in a new era, and while up to that period we had American authors. North and South, yet ours was not a national literature. The past is a book with seven seals, and there arises in the pres- ent a new generation to begin a new page in our literature's future work. The Cen- tennial of 1876 reached out the hand of brotherhood to North, South, P^ast and West; the New Orleans PLxposition strengthened the bond of affection; the World's Fair at Chicago riveted it with the everlasting ties of love, and our people will now turn their attention to their own country, its tales and traditions, and, as Hawthorne and Irving, point them with morals worked from the souls of the people. We have traditions of the fore time, ruins of an old civilization, and buried temples; we have Nature in her freshness and beauty; we have pure domestic life molded by freedom; we have the spirit of the ages, the spirit of him who taught the equality of man and the elevation of woman. The South, with an institution no longer retarding her progress, is again being heard in song and romance. Of Southern birth and education, the daughter of a slave-holder, I am ready to admit that slavery burdened literary growth, especially as we smarted under the sense of wrong done us by those who were as responsible for slavery as we. But now that feeling is sealed in the book of the past, and never since the days of Washington has there been as strong love for the Union and for the Stars and Stripes as is now felt in the South. The South will ever remain the picturesque part of the Union; its peculiar scenery, its picturesque laboring class, will give themes for poetry and romance. Despite many changes, our relations in society are greatly the same, with deferential black men and superior white men, with our ideas of dependence of woman still lingering, and, strange to say, the newcomer adopts our customs instead of intro- ducing new ones. George Cable, Joel Chandler Harris, Thomas Nelson Page, Gottschalk, Thalberg, Henry Grady, James L. Allen, Father Ryan and Sydney Lanier could have been born under no other than our peculiar Southern institutions, and the South will continue to enrich American literature with song and story. The South is not what it was before the war, as far as the old life is concerned; but its men and women are more than they were. Sorrow and sorrow's reflux of energy, the strong natures made better thus are awakening us to a new life; and as we turn over the pages of Eastern magazines, and see there recorded names from the South and West, we feel that now ours is a national literature, to the roll-call of which men and women answer from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the great lakes to the Gulf. The sunny Southland yet tells of desolation. As the traveler passes through the broad plantations, ruins and negro cabins strangely impress him in their loneliness and emptiness. No young lovers promenade the broad piazzas with admiring negroes in the background. The cedars along the broad walks stand with breaking limbs, untrained and dying; the Doric pillars of the broad piazzas are stained by loose, untrained vines, and only a few negroes or white people are seen here and there. At night the jassmines and magnolias make fragrant the air, the warbling of mocking birds, the chirping of katydids -all remind the listener that much yet remains to inspire Southern literature and art. The West, too. has joined the national brotherhood, and with her Egglestons, Ridpaths, Bret Hartes, Rileys and Monroes prophesies a glorious future in literature for the West. 202 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. We would like to enlarge upon this era of good feeling of our Howells, War- ners, Holmes, and all others of our authors, men and women; but the time is too short, and we can only breathe the wish that now the practicability of the East, the senti- ment of the South, and the vigor of the West are combined, that no one section will be overbalanced by the other, but that with the strong warp of the North, filled in with the sparkle of the West, and shot with the beauty and colored with the warmth of the South, our nation may weave a garment fit for divinity to wear. A nation is a moral person, and to the authors is the soul of the people committed. We are imper- fect; our mathematics as yet form but broken arcs, but time will shape them into perfect rounds. The heroic here is often too hard, the high too lofty, but the effort ascends to God, and will bless us by and by. I have attempted to show you the qualities of each section, and now that we are united it remains for the future to decide the possibilities of American literature. Columbus found a new world, and Galileo found new heavens, and we with the micro- scope lay bare the secrets of nature, send messages upon the lightning with heaven's own bolt, bind the ends of the earth together; our knowledge of the conservation of energies makes eternity confirm the conception of the hour and time is no more. Foreigners look in vain for the standing-army of the United States, for our nation marshals her hosts in the hearts of her people, proclaiming that earth did rise and heaven did bend. America, sitting in the barge of state in Columbus fountain, facing the statue of Liberty, shows woman's elevation ever is man's, too. This consumma- tion of science united with spirit Homer foretold mystically in his conception of God in man. Isaiah foretold Christ's reign on earth; Dante saw on top of Mount Purga- toria where a woman led him up, for when woman rises man follows. On our own new America we go not back to the mythical past for the Golden Age, but as Christ taught us Heaven is now, and the Golden Age of Love is ours, which began in the night of the Nativity, was hastened when Capt. John Smith and Miles Standish brought the gos- pel of liberty to our shores, was confirmed when the shackles of slavery fell from every hand in our Union, and when R. E. Lee signed the treaty of peace that binds North, South, East, and West in bonds of union that Puritan and Cavalier, not even Washing- ton and Franklin, could understand; for they read not the liberty of the Gospel as did our Christian heroes, Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee, who have left with us the pattern of heroes of the greatest Christian drama that has ever been acted upon the stage of history. PIONEER WOMAN OF OREGON. By ELIZABETH M. WILSON. The early history of Oregon's settlement confirms what has been so often said, that " man cannot advance in the march of progress except by the side of woman." If he thinks to march ahead without her, he is com- pelled to halt and wait for his inevitable partner. Turkey has tried to advance without woman; witness her rank among the nations of today. The remarka- ble recuperation which was shown by France after her exhausting wars was explained by the fact that the French woman is an integral part of the nation. She is part of all that contributes to the wealth and prosperity of France; above all, she is there the gen- eral bookkeeper and accountant. She knows where the money goes. The policy of the Hudson Bay Company, the first white men who went west of the Rocky Mountains to stay, required their employes to leave the English Bessies iand Jessies, the Scotch Peggies, the Irish Norahs, to pine unmated in the old home, while they attempted a travesty of home mak- ing with only such help as could be found in the sav- age wigwam of the native inhabitants. Not so the American settler. When he started on the long path the wife of his youth was beside him, and together they faced the trials of the new life. When in the spring of 1835, ^rs. Parker and Whitman were sent by the American Board to inquire into the feasibility of establishing missions west of the Rocky Mountains, Dr. Whitman left his. coadjutor when the journey was but half completed, being already convinced of the practicability of the scheme, and when next, in 1836, Dr. Whitman rode abroad, Mrs. Whitman rode by his side. So firmly con- vinced were the missionary boards of the necessity of sending their appointees thus fully complemented, they refused to appoint single men to the work, but required that they should finst be made whole men. Reinforcements to mission workers in the field were often followed by wedding bells. Of the results of the work of the early mission settlers I have personally little evidence. Once while at White Salmon we all went up the mountain-side to where on a small plateau were a number of tepees, the occupants of which were going through the ceremonies of the .Smohallo excitement or belief. I soon wearied of what to me was utterly meaningless, and went into a tepee where sat an old smoke-dried crone. She was glad to sec me and seemed to have some burden on her heart that I must hear. After much repetition on her part, and bewilderment on mine, I gathered that in spite of her appearance she was not like them. I did not quite know at what she was aiming till I caught the name of "Jason Lee" repeated over and over again. Then she asked me to listen, and with her teeth tightly closed, she sent through them some vocal sounds, which at last I caught to be two or three measures of Greenville. I began to sing " Come ye sinners, poor and needy,' she accompanying Elizabeth M. Wilson is a native of South Argyle, N. Y. Her ptarente were Rev. Jae. P. and Amanda Miller. She mar- ried Joseph G. Wilson, jadge of the Sapreme Court of Oregon. She is a member of the Congregational Church. Her jmstoffice address is The DaUes, Oregon. •203 ELIZABETH M. WILSON. 204 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. me with what sounded like singing on a comb. She enjoyed it and so did I. Her story I translate to be this: That at one time she had been in the Salem School or under the teaching of Jason Lee; that she had glimpses of a higher life than savagery had given her; that in the years following she had held on to the little she had, stoutly refusing to countenance by her presence the Smohallo incantations. The wigwam smoke and the wild life had well-nigh obliterated the little she knew; but to the name of Jason Lee she held on as to a watchword. Most truly she seems to be one feeling for God's hand in the darkness. In thinking of the long past, why is it that the more prominent happenings seem all tinged with sadness? There were bright and beautiful days then, days of long sunshine. The few holidays that frontier life afforded were, by contrast, very keenly enjoyed. Yet if I am to tell of incidents of those early times one might think there was little but doing without things, in common times, varied by the days of sickness and death. " Not all the preaching since Adam can make of death other than death." Yet to the new settler it sometimes came in a manner that, with the inevitable home- sickness, no matter how stout-hearted they were, gave an added pang to those who looked on. In September of 185 1 I was riding on horseback through the then quite unsettled counties of Polk and Yamhill. Somewhere in the north part of Yamhill County we saw the cabin of a new settler. It might be miles to the next house, and uninviting as the prospect was, we thought it better to beg shelter for the night. My escort rode to the man, who was still with his plough, and I dismounted at the cabin, where two little children, perhaps two and four years of age, were looking at me through the rude fence, and said to them: "Please tell your mother to come out." They did not speak, but looked at me. I tried again in what might be the vernacular. "Go call mammy," but with no better results. I then went in, and, taking them by the hand, said: "Take me where mamma is." The little thing led me around the house to the other side of the inclosure, and stopped by a new-made grave! In February, 1855,1 was going on the steamer Canemah to Oregon City. A very young couple, married that morning, were accompanied by the bride's mother, a poor widow, who had reached Oregon a year or so before, stripped by death and disaster of every- thing but her children. The oldest daughter, not much over sixteen, was now mar- ried to a youngster, and they were going to the Cascades, where he had work in a saw- mill, and his wife was to cook for the mess. He was a promising looking fellow, and I fully believed the answer that he made to the again bereaved mother, when, with quivering lips, she said: " Be good to my girl." The bride had evidently felt that to be truly married she must be attired in what she supposed to be bridal array. All the cash possible had been spent in the thin Swiss dress with its bit laces and ribbons. Her appearance brought a hardly concealed smile to those who were in the cabin, but in that terrible winter rain-storm it was likely to bring worse to her. I began talking with her and when she said it was the first time she was ever on a steamboat, I could easily say, "Then you don't know what a place it is to take cold, with its hot fires and cold air rushing in when we are obliged to open the doors," and soon showed her where behind a portiere, the only retirement possible, she could change her thin, open-sleeved gown for something warmer, and at the same time in better accordance with the cus- tom of travelers. 1 became very much interested in their hopes and plans, and it was with a sense of personal bereavement that, the following fall, I read the name of the young husband as being hanged by the Indians in his sawmill, having first witnessed the butchering of his wife. From the Cascades' frozen gorges to where the Columbia plunges jubilant to the sea, by many a bright prairie and pleasant valley, they still live who shared in the early, if not the earliest, work of saving to our country the fair heritage of Oregon. Give them, from your older and richer civilization, a kind, sisterly thought as they sit waiting in the lengthening shadows. A STUDY IN GOETHE'S FAUST. By MRS. MARY H. PEABODY. It is a notable fact that within very late years much attention has neen given to the study of Goethe's poem of " Faust." It has not been idle reading but serious inquiry, an acknowledgment that in this drama there lies something which is of general value, which appeals to experience and can bear exposition. People who have scarcely known the poem, who have a fragmentary idea of a part of the story of Faust, through its renditions upon the stage in opera or in play, now catching a hint of its power as edu- cation and philosophy, turn to this masterpiece of literature, eager to know more of its meaning. Liter* ature is often popular because of its pleasing form, its melodious movement, its appeal to single lines of sympathy, the presentation of single elements of life in tragic or happy aspects. These lighter forms, lovely in their places, are like graceful melodies which are easily repeated from mouth to mouth; but the poem of Faust is like a symphony, whose inter- woven parts are so many that even to know the leading theme and idea of the work one must listen carefully and more than once. For this reason, to read the entire poem of Faust and know it all is to study it; and the interest now aroused in the drama as one of the world's greatest literary works, by intelligent sign of progress. The drama of Faust is a drama MRS. MARY 11. PEABOnV. people, has a significance as a ot life. But so it is with the work that men do. They see the word within, which must be said, yet they know not for whom they labor. Emerson said: " Without a thought of fame must true work be done." The test of fame is time, and from that crucible now comes to us the poem of Faust, and we are reading it, and reading it now, for reasons which lie in the character of the work itself. The poem of Faust stands in literature with striking individuality as the only great writing which within itself endeavors to present life as a whole, in a universal aspect. It uses the entire scale, the whole sphere of life. It presents within its limits all passions of human nature, bad and good; it shows men and women equally, in all relationships, lowest and highest; it is in its fullness the picturing of all lives — it is the poem of humanity. Because of this recognition of life as a whole each reader reads as for himself, yet he comprehends that his own part comes from the very largeness of the writing — from the fact that there is no effort to teach separate and particular lessons, but only through the outer form of the poem to carry onward the strong lines of its broadly human intention. The elements of the poem of Faust are nature on the one hand and the soul of man on the other, and the meeting of the two upon the planes of daily action in ordinary human life. In this drama the outer form Mrs. Mary H. Peabody was born at Hartford, Conn. Her father was Dr. S. Saltmarsh, who married a Miss Sanford, of Philadelphia. The daughter was educated principally at home, and finally at the school of Mr. Emerson in Boston. She married Mr. D. W. Peabody, who was a lawyer in Nashville, Tenn. Her special work has been in the interest of the kinder- garten and the studies of history and literature. Mrs. Peabody has been engaged in instructing parlor classes, clubs and kindergarten training classes. She is regarded as "Having clear views in her department of work, and has a method of utter- ance that gives her writings both strength and grace." In religions faith she is of the New Church, and is a member of the Society at Cincinnati. Her postoffice address is No. 128 East Sixteenth Street, New York City. 205 206 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. is varied, frequently abrupt in transition, and therefore broken as to harmony of its literary movement. It is as though one twining a wreath had set together rose, weed and thorn, blossoms and fruits, that nothing should be left out, giving externally appearances ill-sorted or beautiful as the case may be, out within, as the student dis- covers, there flows a current of life strong, clear, unbroken — one movement of power which resolves itself into a single principle, moving with a single purpose from center to center, from heart to heart of all forms of life. This interior idea, upon which rests the writing of Faust, is the idea of the relationships of things one to another, of the relation of thought to action, the relation of man to nature, to God, and, supremely for its emphasis and culminating force, to the relationship of man to man here and now in human life. Under the dramatic guise of figures, who move on both sides of the mystic hori- zon of earth, as human beings and spirits, high and low, evil and good, with Faust, Mephistopheles, Margaret, Helen, Homenculus and Euphorion as leading characters, this majestic drama inclosed at its heart a single thread of light, clear burning to illuminate the whole. If we call it by its simplest name, that line of noblest teaching is human duty — the Brotherhood of Man. And this is the reason why, in these clos- ing years of our age, this- poem of Faust is for the first time being studied by us. In these years, when the conflict of conditions is stirring the whole world to collision, argument, rebellion and agreement; when polity and economics, the having and the not having of life, are forcing us to higher planes of thought; when justice from man to man is the demand of the hour, this wonderful drama, which has lain biding its time, now opens its pages, and with its devils and its men, in the light of two worlds at once, presents to us our own question of the relationship of man to man, the question of that clear-eyed daughter of the gods — whose name is Duty; relationship truly bal- anced—justice among men. That Goethe foresaw our needs and wrote for us, we know, of course, was not the case. In youth something pressed upon him to be done. To satisfy himself, he reached outward after all of life above, below, and here. He drew the circle of his desire, " the near and far," set Faust therein to mark its center, and part by part, as he lived his own life, he set his figures in their places and bade them play their parts as revelation of the thoughts that arose within him. Perhaps not until he was old did he know, himself, what task it was that had been set for him; what it was that he had done. Faust represents Humanity, and as years went on, Goethe, rounding out his work, reached backward, introducing the scenes which now stand as the opening parts. Catching sight of his own thoughts in the ripeness of his maturity, he inserted "The Dedication," " The Prelude on the Stage," and '* The Prologue in Heaven." These three are the keys by which we may interpret all that follows — and this brings us to our especial subject of to-day, the briefest study of " The Prelude on the Stage." In this scene three men are present — the manager of a theater, the stage jester and a poet. The manager wants a new play for his theater. He wants something not ordinary, but, on the contrary, exceptionally good. He tells the poet that he wants to amuse and attract the crowd. They are of all sorts and kinds, these people. They have read not a little, they are interested in life, expectant as to the theater. The play must appeal to them all, for it is but just that they who support him, and whom he hopes to see crowding to his doors, should have something to reward them for their coming. In such a case what can be done? So the manager goes on talking of his needs and his scheme. He is shrewd and business-like as to the people and the play, and he is evidently intelligent as to his chosen author, for when he has gone over the ground of his requirement, acknowledging that the task is by no means a light one, he turns to his companion and says, that the poet alone among men is he who can accom- plish the great task of pleasing men of such varied character. The manager has spoken with a certain degree of caution, leading to the greatness of the work, before he really offers it. But even so, he has not won the interest or the heart of the poet. Turning from the subject in an outburst of repulsion, " Speak not to me," he cries, THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 207 of these throngs of people; these crowds of yours. What men may or may not wish, is to him nothing, he says. This surging mass of humanity, even to see, in him, " puts out the fire of song." He cries for sweet silences and the visionary forms of the inner world. Shall the fair thought, he asks, and the high expression that comes to the poet as a precious gift — shall this be put to low usage, for the amusement of the vulgar crowd? Closing, he says he does not care to work for popularity and the passing moment. He would leave his labors for posterity. The manager is silent and the jester comes forward. "Posterity!" exclaims he ''If everybody should work for the future, what would become of present pleasure." This is but a passing word, but to the student of the drama it touches one of the prin- ciples of the play— the present moment, its value here and now — an idea and principle which is carried through the poem. The jester has much to say, and, becoming serious, in a few lines of fullest meaning he moves inward to the heart of thnigs, and, facing the poet with utterance of deep-felt truth, by what he says in this first speech of his, sets before the reader the great motive of the whole Faust poem. He remarks first that in any case the people, it is to be noticed, will have their " fun." Then, re- verting to the words spoken by the poet, in answer to his expressed aversion to "the crowd," he says that to his mind the presence of any fine young fellow has in itself a human value and should be of worth to everyone. Brief as this word is, and quietly spoken, it strikes the theme of personality. Upon the reader's imagination rises like a statue the jester s " fine young fellow ' — one of the crowd, it is true; still a son of man, a fellow mortal strong to labor, with eyes to see and heart to love. The poet in his self-protection may shrink therefrom, yet none the less the man is there, and as his jester shows he stands a claimant upon respect, if not upon regard. Having thus set his young man upon the stage as a figure for suggestion, typical of the crowd, the jester goes on, and with the privilege of speech allowed to professional fools, with gentle audacity he takes it upon himself to instruct the poet. Without calling him narrow-minded or small-hearted the jester states a principle, saying that in society whenever a man gives out his own nature and power to others in a happy, cheerful way, allowing free utterance of his own best in genial fashion, he does not become irritated by the varying conditions and moods of the crowd, but rather he grows to be himself the greater, because, by contact with human nature, he widens the circle of his own knowledge and sympathies, and, the jester says, such a one, meaning if he is great enough, can even from the people draw inspiration. "So, then," he says, returning to the question of the desired play, he bids the poet "take heart and give them sterling coin, not counterfeit of high feeling." The manager is encouraged by this direct address from his jester, and hastening to speak as if, upon this higher ground, the matter were even now quite settled, he tells the poet to be sure to have plenty of inci- dents in the play, so that each who listens shall find something for himself and all shall be amazed and delighted. He says there is no need to compose a drama altogether smooth in its unity — only to bring his facts and scenes, and have, among them all, enough to please the varied audience. But this assumption of success is of no use. The poet, still untaught and untouched, replied that they cannot understand him. That to make a trade of his art is impossible. He is an artist and loyal to himself. Such stringing together of scenes to amuse people; such pretence of literary art is not for his gifted hand, although he says, smilingly, he perceives that it is a principle with them. The manager docs not allow himself to be ruffled by this sarcasm. He shows himself quietly determined to get this play written; and going back to the crowd again for argument, he, in his turn, thrusts at the poet. He described the people as they come, already wearied with knowledge orgayety, yet eager for something to lift them out of themselves. Men and women— there they are; and now does not the poet recognize their faces? As he writes, dramatist that he is, does he not in reality work for these same people? Does he not desire full houses also, and if he should look his audience over, follow its feet as it dispersed, would he not find it much the same in one case as the other— "half coarse, half cold?" 208 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. Then, directing his attack still personally, dropping the crowd, the manager says that as to glory it depends not upon the audience, but upon the poet. The more he gives the more he wins of fame. The writing of this play is opportunity; and now what has the poet to say? For reply the poet bursts into passionate speech. He bids the manager go else- where for obedience to a low demand. What! he cries; shall he use his gift of nature, the highest gift to man, the very utmost of human expression — shall he degrade this gift for the enriching of the manager's purse? In his earnest words we hear the voice of Goethe himself — the voice of the artist speaking for his noble birthright, for the privilege of a high holding of his poet power. He is not speaking arrogantly, but with the loyalty of true reverence for a power which he felt was given. Accepting the poetic gift as from above, Goethe stands like the East Indian, who in earliest centuries looked upward and rejoiced in the down- ward flight of song; and while the drift of this entire scene, taken as a whole, is to reconcile all degrees of life in human action, it is evident that, both by the appeal of the manager to him as the only man who could do that great work, as well as by the poet's first feeling against it, Goethe meant to give utterance to his recognition of the beauty of the great gift of poetry. The poet continues: From whence comes his empire over human hearts? How does he conquer the elements of life? Is it not because of the secret accordant power of his own heart, which passes with its great beating pulse to the utmost confines of life, to know, to feel it all and to express it? When even nature's threads grow strained or slackened, when all creation is out of harmony, when her myriad voices jangle together, when depression and confusion reign — who then has power to touch again the order of existence, to recall wandering forces of life and bid them move once more with rythmical vibration under the cen- tral fire of life above? "Who is it," he cries, "wakens the heart of man at will? Who scatters every fairest April blossom Along the strewing path of love? Who braids the plain green leaves to crowns, requiting Desert, with Fame in Action's every field?" Who is it brings the very gods to earth in unity with man but he, himself — the poet. The passion of his words have filled the air. The jester, wise man that he is, comprehending that it is at once justice to the poet and to the people, and success for the manager to work with nature, and not against the laws of things, now accepts the poet as he shows himself, and, uniting himself harmoniously to this ardent soul,, without yielding in the least to the principle for which he, with his young man, has been pleading, now begins a diplomatic reply. Still leading to the manager's desire, and urging the writing of the play, he says: since these things are so, as the fine forces of life do act together to result in expression; since they are far-reaching and come by inspiration — if poetry comes, like love, unsought, then let this poet power be acknowledged; let it express itself, and let that expression be their play. " Let us, then," he says, " such a drama give." Let the poet be true to himself; let him reach out after that life universal, which it is so given him to feel, and let what he can grasp and bring be the play of which they are in need. The audience will find itself reflected in such a writing; each will select from the whole the part to which it can respond, and though " Few may comprehend, where'er you touch there's interest without end," the people will be moved to "weeping or to laughter," and without knowing why will still " enjoy the show they see." The jester ends contentedly, for having met and accepted the poet's own estima- tion of himself, he feels that the case is won, the play will be written, and here, argu- ment and persuasion being at an end, he yields to himself, falls into a bit of phil- osophy, and gives to the reader another of the vital threads upon which the Faust THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 209 drama is to be woven. It is Goethe himself speaking again, when the jester says in a meditative way that there are two great classes in an audience which are typical of the world at large — those who grow, and those who do not. There are those who, grown to a certain point, have stopped there, marked out certain lines as sure and fast, sat down within them, and with steadfast rejection of new ideas have never been pleased with progress. While on the other hand are those who are alive to each breath of thought, who drink in all truth as they can find it, seeking eagerly for means of growth, and those, he concludes, as are known to the poet will be ever grateful. The poet has been met upon his own ground; still the task before him gives no hint of inspiration. His heart fails, and like many another, weary in the service of art, he for the moment forgets to look upward and onward, and with a purely human impulse turns to the remembered days of youth when, as he says, he had nothing, yet had all things. "When like a fount the crowding measures. Uninterrupted gushed and sprang." Illusion was his, and as for truth, vigor of love and hate, If he must write, give him his youth again. The jester listens. We can almost see his gentle, quizzical smile as he, quietly surveying the whole of life, replies to this natural, yet inferior attitude of the poet. Touching him gently, pointing this and this way, with intention to lead his artist to a nobler, greater state of mind, he says that youth was very well in its place and season; it was well for love and dancing, and for combat and the winning of prizes, but he says (and again we know how the words indicate Goethe's own feeling), to play upon the harp of life itself, to play with strength of love and skill of hand, "With grace and bold expression," comes only from experience. He shakes his head. "They say age makes us childish, but 'tis not true." This is the jester's closing word. A powerful man he has shown himself to be. far- sighted, large of heart, adaptable in temperament and a master of philosophy touch- ing the doctrine of growth and the brotherhood of man. As the jester ceases speaking the manager begins, bringing the business and the scene to a close. They have talked quite long enough, he says. 'Tis deeds that I prefer to see. They can be more useful if they will drop compliments, talks about inspiration and all that, and without further delay let the poet go to work. The man- ager is not making himself disagreeable, however. Having gained his point, he now desires to aid the poet in every way that he can. So, although he says to him briefly: " If poetry be your vocation. Let poetry your will obey," he still recognizes the mood of the poet, who stands despondently silent, weighted with the sense of what he has to do; and as if to reassure him, even while he urged him forward, the manager, too, drifts into philosophy, and touches a point in life which well appeals to us, according with experience and with that upward progressive spirit, which is one of the leadings of today. He says: " Tomorrow will not do. Waste not a day." Then most kindly, with true sympathy, he bids his author be resolute and courageous, and above all trustful to the power within. He bids him look abroad for incentive and thought, and so looking, to seize upon every impression, catching and holding and using what first may come. " You'll then work on because you must." Evidently the manager had himself battled with discouragement, and had learned the value of (14) 210 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. impressions used and trusted as the first way out of the cloud. And we do work on " because we must." Pushed from behind, beckoned to from the beyond, so has the world written its poems and solved the problems of its days. The manager continues, not waiting for reply. The poet has no lack of material. As to the German stage, it is open as a fair arena for thought of all degrees. It wel- comes what may come, however unlike what went before; so without restriction the poet may take the universe: " And all you find be sure to show it." " The stars in any number, Beasts, birds, trees, rocks and all such lumber; Fire, water, darkness, day and night." And he finished his counsel and direction with those notable words, that thus within the little sphere of their stage shall appear that greater one, "The Circle of Creation;" and all things brought thus into their guiding hands, in the action of the play, shall move as they shall direct, "From Heaven across the world to Hell." The phase opens a line of thought which can only be expressed by the interpre- tation of the entire drama. To speak of it briefly is to show only its significance as the suggestion of what is to be looked for in the play. A careless reading seems to imply that the action of the play beginning nobly, on the heights of Heaven, is to end in destruction. Such a course would be true enough to much of life as we see it, and as the first part of Faust ends with the death of Margaret and the grief of Faust, and as man}^ have never looked into the second part, it has been a popular impression that the name of Faust is synonymous with evil and damnation. But there is a second part to this drama to which the first is but introduction; and here, following to its close, the reader is led along an upward pathway, which is opened step by step by the struggle and the upward movement of Faust, as upon the earth, among men, he works out his salvation. The opening scenes are an introduction to the drama. Their completion lies in it close. Putting the two together we have Goethe's " Circle of Creation," and com- prehend what he meant when he said to his friend Eckermann that this much consid- ered and questioned line was " not an idea, only the course of the action." In this scene the manager was talking to two highly intelligent people, and this closing phrase is the gesture by which he shows them his idea. He lifts his hand and sweeps a part of his circle from heaven to earth, and that, for his companions, is enough. A circle is a mathematical figure; it belongs to nature, not to invention. It can not be altered; if perfect, from whatever point it begins to that point it must return in its completion. If the elements of this play begin above, and if the play itself, as the poet insists, is to be a unity, showing the Circle of Creation in its imagined perfection, although such art may surpass most human living, it is evident that the progress of life must carry the elements of existence downward to earth and upward again toward heaven. This is the progress of the P^aust drama. The theme of the relationships of man to nature, to the invisible world and the visible, to man and tc woman in society, government, ideal culture and art, in all aspiration for the beyond and all right usage of the earthly and human; this theme is pursued as Faust passes from scene to scene to the close. As we turn the page the curtain, falling on this " Prelude on the Stage," rises directly upon "The Prologue in Heaven. ' " Who e'er aspires unweariedly," says Ariel in the opening of the second part, " is worthy of redeeming." With late years we have had the rendering of this theme in the exquisite music of Robert Schumann. Lending it to Goethe's words the two in harmony show this Circle of Creation in the power of its re-ascension; but even without that, in the drama alone, the closing pages are linked to those of the introduction, and by them we comprehend what was in Goethe's mind when in the empty theater he set his manager, his poet and his wise man, the jester, to call into being and announce to us this drama of life. "PHILANTHROPY FOR GIRLS IN PARIS."* By MADAME MARIE MARSHALL. Every young girl, from the university down to the unfortunate girl that is left friendless and destitute, must be taught enough of domestic work that she may not be only an ornament in society, unable to provide her- self with the most elementary and necessary things of material existence, to wit: a good wholesome food that will keep aloof that disease so common among you, dyspepsia. We have heard that the highly educated girls take an interest in that part of a woman's education so neglected nowadays; let me tell you about that no less interesting class of girls, friendless and destitute, for whom there is no other way to escape starvation or a life of shame than to take up domestic service, even though they have not the remotest idea as to what will be expected from them. Something should be done to help the helpless, and to that effect I began in Paris two years ago an experiment that bids fair to succeed. Many of our girls in large cities are wonderfully ignorant of any kind of domestic work; the reason is: worthless parents, careless of their children's welfare, spend their time at the drinking shops or in places fully as disreputable, while the little ones are sent at an early age begging in the streets, until the habit becomes a second nature, and from such childhood grow into girlhood so pitiful to witness that I am wondering there has not been more attempts made to open to these unconscious victims of degenerated parents small shelters, where, in groups of not more than fifteen, at most, the girls could be trained as in a family for domestic work, and then placed out in worthy families, where their life would become like an Eden compared to that of earlier years. Being connected with the Society of. Prevention of Cruelty to children in Paris, I came across such cases of child misery that I was for a long time anxious to find a way to better the condition of the girls who are so unprotected in our fair land; yet I am happy to say great efforts are tending to make laws more favorable to our sex. The class of girls of which I speak must be also trained morally and religiously, without any sectarianism, if we want the material training to bear good results; then they will become honest, intelligent women, loving the work that will enable them to go through life with head and heart uplifted. Mme. Marie Marshall is a native of Paris, France. She was bom in 1849. Her mother moved to California to practice maternity clinics. She studied in Paris and California, and iias traveled in the United States, France and England. She married in San Francisco, and is the mother of a son now an ordained minister of the Gospel. She spent fifteen years of her youth in California, and lately eighteen years in France. Her special work has been in the interest of the poor and the work- ing class in Paris, especially the young girls. Her principal literary works are referred to above. Her profession has been teacher and principal in the pablic schools of San Francisco and Paris ; she studied art, painting and singing, teaching the latter, and lately for the benefit of a " Domestic training school for destitute girls." In religious faith she has been converted from Catholicism to Congregationalism. Her poetoffice address until May, 18W. is care of Mr. F. A. Booth, 19 East Sixteenth Street, New York (^ity. MADAME MARIE MARSHALL. ♦The fnll title under which the address was delivered wan, " Philanthropy and Charity for girls in Paris.' 211 212 THE CONGRESS OF VVOxMEN. Many an appeal have I read in Paris about the necessity of starting a school for young domestics; yet when I began this new work I met with what one usually meets, e. ^., incredulity, indifference, and perhaps a little ill-will; I was advocating a new system; the Old World has not yet put off its old mantle of routine. My fifteen years spent in the United States, teaching in the public schools, where I had the honor of being a principal, had given me ideas that could not always meet with a thorough understanding on the part of some of our best women in philanthropic and Christian work, because they bore in themselves a fragrance of independence perhaps too strong. As I said before, I only began my work two years ago, January lo, 1891. The incident that made me try it, with no help but my own modest resources, and a Guide that never fails whoever will follow Him, has been related in the report to Congress of Philanthropy; I will therefore only speak here of the advantages which I think can derive from my system: Homes and not Institutions. In France our institutions keep the girls entirely away from the world in a great many cases, up to sixteen, eighteen and twenty-one years of age, letting them out exactly as unfit for the world as the young brood taking its first flight from the nest — unsteady, bewildered, as it meets the broad immensity for the first time. Many a fall is due only to the insufificient preparation and complete ignorance of the dangers to be encountered. Domestic training schools have been started in this country, as well as in others; but whenever they bear only the character of institution they prove failures. In spite of what many say to the contrary an institution will never take the place of the home; each individual in a home can be morally and mentally trained with the greatest care. "Saving by guarding against evil," will prove far better work than rescuing, even though rescuing must not be neglected. The family training affords many an opportunity to point out all dangers to the young girl; she is not shut up from the world, neither is she allowed to go through it unprotected; she is made wise and strong by being shown the consequences that await all those who, for one reason or another, have not shunned the flattering words, the tempting gayeties that may be offered to the poor girl now fallen, through igno- rance more than evil desire. Can that be so easily pointed out to our girls shut up and trained between the high walls of tradition and conventionalities centuries old? Certainly not; and as the number of the friendless and destitute increases with distressing rapidity in our large centers, I believe we must elevate the standard of domestic service by elevating the moral character of those who volunteer to accept that humble calling. Let us remember the noble characters whose names have been synonyms of loyalty and devotions to their masters. Every year the French academy delivers one or more rewards, " Prix Montyon," to some humble, faithful, noble hearted man or woman servant who will surely receive a still better reward at the hand of the Master who came here below to serve all mei? When domestic service will be better understood because better taught, then will those honored exceptions become a thing of the past, and the young girl will have a heart to honor both herself and masters by accomplishing her modest duties with a love that can only receive its impulse from above. I expect to return to Paris and make most strenuous efforts toward carrying out my domestic work for destitute girls as a preventive work, and on the plan explained here; should I find resources and sympathy not answer my expectations, I want every Christian man and woman here to know that I am ready to do the same work wher- ever there are girls to be saved from danger. You only have to call on me at 38 Rue NoUet, Paris, France, or until May, 1894, care of Mr. F. A. Booth, 19 east Sixteenth street. New York, THE LEPER. By MISS KATE MARSDEN. When I first turned my attention to the condition of lepers my idea was to go and work for them in India; but to do that it was necessary that I should have help and experience. With the view of getting help I obtained an introduction to her Majesty, the Queen, and I thank God for it, as it has given me the e7ttre to for- eign courts, and without that my efforts would have been fruitless. With the view of getting experience as to how lepers are treated, I decided to visit some leper settle- ment. I had first seen lepers during the Russo-Turk- ish war when I was on hospital duty. I have seen them in the Holy Land and at Constantinople. While at Constantinople I accidentally heard of an herb which was said to be a cure for leprosy, and I also heard that it grew only in Siberia. Had it been Kamtchatka or the North Pole I would have tried to reach it. In the Caucasus I again heard of the herb and again in St. Petersburg, but was told by very high authorities, and even by the Empress herself that there were no lepers in Siberia. I, however, felt that I must find the herb, and persevered; by the help of many friends I was able to start on a journey of fourteen thousand miles, there and back. It is hardly necessary to speak of the start from Moscow except to say that I remember with gratitude the kind friends who evinced interest in my project by making me presents. One lady knowing I was very fond of plum pudding sent me forty pounds; another sent me tins of insect powder, and, said the lady who sent the little gift, " the more use you make of it the better for you." With regard to food one of the principal articles was soup frozen in blocks, which were hung outside the sledge. On arrival at a post station bits were chipped off and thawed as required. From Zlataonet part of the journey was accomplished by sledge, some varieties being about equal to a plow cart void of springs or other conveniences, while others were still less comfortable. The roads were very bad and very much resembled the waves of the sea, owing to the large amount of heavy traffic which was passing over them on its way to the annual Siberian Fair. On account of the extreme cold I was so enveloped in furs that I could scarcely move. I wore three pairs of fur boots reach- ing over the knees and several fur coats; only a few inches of my face were visible. Getting into my sledge was not an easy matter with all these incumbrances. Indeed, I generally tumbled in full length, and had to be arranged, poked here and there, until I fitted into some nook among the luggage. At first, every night we stopped at a Miss Kate Marsden was born in The Parade Edmonton, London, England. Her parents were J. T. Marsden. Esq.. solic- itor, and I. M. Marsden. She was educated near London and has traveled over moat quarters of the globe, bat uspecially through Russia and Siberia. Her special work has been in the interest of the poor, outcast lepers, for whom she has endared great hardships in the dreary wastes of Siberia. She will soon return to that cold, cheerless count r>-, where she expects to remain three or four years, working to alleviate the Buffering of this wretched and forgotten class of afflicted humanity. Miss Marsden is a noble, self-sacrificing Christian woman. Her principal literary work is " On Sledge and Horseback to Out- cast Siberian Lepers." Her profession is that of a Sister of Charity. In religious faith she is a Protestant. She is a mem- ber of the Church of England. Her postoHice address is Redcliffe Gardens, South Kensington, London, England. 213 MISS KATE MARSDEN. 214 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. post station. These are very tiny, very dirty houses, the rooms heated beyond endur- ance, and often crowded beyond endurance also. Every possible chance of air enter- ing is prevented by stuffing windows with paper. For a bed you take a fur coat, throw it on the floor and yourself upon it. Sleep comes if you can only manage to forget that the walls of the room are almost covered with very suspicious-looking dark objects. In the morning you wake with a dreadful headache, half suffocated by the heat. After trying this sort of resting for some nights, you find it is preferable to sleep in your sledge, traveling all the time. On my way through Siberia I stopped at intervals to visit some of the prisons, and used often to meet gangs of prisoners walking through the snow, their leg chains clanking dismally as they moved slowly along. Friends had provided me with testaments to give these poor people when I should meet them, but I remembered that our Lord fed the hungry and then taught them, and so with the testament I always gave a little brisk tea and a few pieces of sugar, and if I could possibly get any, some soup. My friend, Miss Field, who had accompanied me from Moscow, was obliged to turn back on account of ill health, and I went on alone to Irkutsk. Here I again heard of the herb, and also learned for the first time that there were lepers in Siberia. At Irkutsk I formed a committee from which I obtained assistance and information. This committee consisted of His Excellency, the Governor General, His Grace, the Archbishop of Irkutsk, His Eminence, the Bishop, the Cathedral Priest Vuangradoff, His Excellency, the State Councillor Sievers, the Inspectcr of Medicine, the Aide-de Camp of the Commander of Troops, Captain Luoff, the Mayor and myself. I found that the lepers were living in the forests in the northeastern part of the province of Yakutsk; that for sixty-four years they had been pleading for help, but owing to want of funds no sustained help had been given. I heard that I should have still a v^ery long journey before I could reach and visit these poor lepers, but I also heard that the lepers were living in the utmost misery and I determined to reach them and help them. The journey from Irkutsk to Yakutsk was made principally by water. I traveled by cargo boat on the river Lena, one of the largest rivers of Northern Siberia. On this boat quarters were rather cramped, and I slept in a space that was cleared for me of about five feet three inches, and as I happened to be longer than that, I was not very com- fortable. At length the friends of the cargo came out — black beetles and other crawling things. I am afraid I used to feel rather a cruel satisfaction when I lay down at night and realized that I was probably crushing with the weight of my body a good many of the black beetles that would otherwise have crawled over me while I slept. I found that dinner was more enjoyable if you didn't attempt to see how it was cooked; the tea was not strong, generally about three tea spoons full for a dozen people, but still we had enough to eat, and after all this only lasted three weeks and then we arrived at Yakutsk. There was some little difficulty at Yakutsk in convincing the officials that I had really traveled so far, overcome so many difficulties, and was prepared to overcome many more, simply to find an herb and to help those who were in misery. They thought I must have some political object in view, and Yakutsk is the country of political exile. At length, however, I was able to form a committee in Yakutsk as I had done in Irkutsk and Moscow, and to obtain assistance and advice as to the best way of reaching the lepers. These poor outcasts were living in the depths of the densest forests, sometimes alone, sometimes in large numbers herded together in one small hut. Each community looked after its own lepers and met once a year to examine any member who was suspected of being afflicted with leprosy. This disease is so dreaded by the Yakout (a devil and a leper are synonymous terms in their lan- guage), that it sometimes happens that a man who is not a leper, but is afflicted with some skin disease, is turned out to live in the forests. The lepers live on food of the coarsest description, rotten fish and the bark of trees. This is taken once or twice a week to within a certain distance of the hut, and the leper has to walk or crawl, accord- ing to his condition, to get it. When he becomes too weak to get the food, he dies of THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 215 starvation. If there are many lepers in a community, men, women and children are herded together in one hut. This happens in a country where there is a short summer of three months of tropical heat and nine months of winter, when the thermometer goes down to sixty and seventy degrees below zero, and the lepers, therefore, do not stir out for days together. As I learned more and more of their misery, I felt that God had given these poor outcast lepers into my hand; that I must go to them. God had guided me thus far, and would guide me rightly to the end. In order to find them in the forest I learned that I must ride long distances on horseback through a very difficult country. Thirty brave Yakout men volunteered to accompany me, and at last I was able to leave Yakutsk for my long ride. I had with me some Roman Catholics, some belonging to the Greek Church, and I am a Protestant, but we had not a single discussion, and although I was entirely in the hands of these thirty men for two months, I was always treated with the greatest respect and consideration. I had never been on horseback before except for a few minutes, and as there was nothing obtainable but the native wooden saddle, there was nothing for it but riding like a man. I had great difficulty in keeping on, but managed it with a great deal of bumping up and down. We trav- eled first in the day time, but owing to the heat of the summer in this part of Siberia, and the worrying of mosquitoes and other insects, we were obliged to travel at night at last. We soon left post houses behind, but I carried a tent with me, and when we stopped it was put up and I rested as well as I could, but it was not very comfortable, for inside the tent we were obliged to have a fire to keep off the mosquitoes, and I dared not undress for fear of being dangerously stung. Although I slept in gloves and boots the mosquitoes somehow stung me so that sleep was almost impossible. After a few days' riding in the native wooden saddle I became so sore all over that I could not get on or off my pony without assistance, and I was in such pain from stings and bruises that it was not easy to rest. Part of the way lay through dreary marshes and part through dense forests. We were sometimes caught in heavy thun- der storms, and when we came to a place where it was possible to stop a fire was made, I was lifted off my horse, laid before the fire, and turned first on one side and then on the other and gradually dried. Our food was cooked in an iron pot, and when it was ready we all sat on the ground round it, each man dipping in his spoon in turn, but I made it a rule never to look at the man who was dipping in his spoon before me, and then I managed very well. We had taken provisions with us from Yakutsk, brown and black bread in fish- skin bags, tinned and preserved meats, etc., but everything that was capable of break- ing was broken with the constant bumping. Our food consisted for the most part of bread reduced to a powder, of which we made a sort of paste, well flavored from the fish-skin bag, tea, and sometimes a wild duck. We had great difficulty in obtaining water, and had often to squeeze it out of the marshes, and were once even obliged to take water from a lake in which lepers had bathed. There were many bears in some of the forests through which we passed, but we were never attacked. One night we had to pass through some miles of burning earth. The earth is mostly peat, and dur- ing the heat of summer, from some unexplained cause, combustion takes place and spreads for miles. Only one little baggage horse, frightened by the flames, broke loose from the rest and galloped away, disappearing in the smoke. We did not see him any more, only heard for a time the thumping of the packages he was carrying, which had fallen both on one side and, knocking together, frightened the poor little horse still more. Through the providence of God we passed through all these dangers unharmed. It is in this inhospitable country that I have been describing that the poor lepers lived, and it was in some of these dense forests that I found at last the lepers I had come so far to help. I forgot the difficulties of the journey and the comparatively little injury I had undergone when I saw their misery. I found one woman living alone, and I shall never forget seeing the look of hopelessness in the woman's eyes change 216 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. to one of gratitude when I touched her and told her I had come to befriend her in Christ's name. I found another woman, who had been living with a mad leper, com- pelled to do so because they both belonged to the same community. I found mothers separated from their children, husbands from their wives. In some cases the leper huts were crowded, and in this crowded condition they had had small-pox among them, and only filthy sheepskins, the cast-off sheepskins of the Yakout, for clothing. The ground in this northeastern part of Yakutsk is perpetually frozen, and only thaws during the summer to a depth of three feet. During this time, by the help of fires, the lepers have to make a number of graves sufficient for those whom they think will die during the winter, and outside the leper hut you see the big crosses that mark the graves, or holes prepared for graves. Where a Yakout dies the body has, by law, to remain unburied for three days, so when a leper dies in these crowded huts the body has to remain for three days among the living. I saw altogether seventy-three lepers, but the official report records about two hundred. I returned to the town of Yakutsk after a trip of two thousand miles, not having undressed or washed for two months. I had found the herb, but it is not a cure for leprosy, it only alleviates the suffering. On my return to St. Petersburg I was graciously permitted to have another interview with Her Imperial Majesty, the Empress. I appealed in Christ's name for help, and five devoted Russian Sisters from the hospital of the Princess Shahovsky, in Moscow, have already gone to Yakutsk. I asked that a collection might be made once a year in the churches for the help of lepers on the Sunday when the Gospel of the healing of the leper is read, and this has been granted, and by that means the village to be erected will be maintained. I believe that improper food and bad sanitary surround- ings greatly predispose the people to leprosy, and by improving these I believe it would be possible to stamp out the disease. I wish to establish a settlement of ten small houses, a couple of hospital wards, a school and church. The lepers cannot come here to plead for themselves, and I come as their substitute to plead for them; to ask you to help me to build this colony, and to help me to return to them, to dress their wounds and teach them proper sanitary conditions. In my book "On Sledge and Horseback to Outcast Siberian Lepers " you will find official documents that vouch for the truth of all I have told you as to the mis- ery and helplessness of these poor outcast lepers. Before concluding I wish to give Mrs. Eagle my heartfelt thanks for her unfailing help to me during my stay at the Exposition in Chicago. SYMMETRICAL WOMANHOOD. By MRS. WESLEY SMITH. Said the poet Goethe, to his friend Eckermann, in the seventy-seventh year of his age: "Had I earlier known how many excellent things have been in existence for hundreds of years, I would not have written a line, but would have done something else;" and Lord Byron, early in his literary career, wrote: "All that can be done has been done." And when these serene stars, in the blue heaven of thought, thus falter, how shall we, who as yet but look upward, dare give our message. Writes Oliver Wendell Holmes, our genial auto- crat: "An author does not always know when he performs the service of the angel who stirred the waters at the pool of Bethesda. It gives many read- ers, a singular pleasure to find a writer telling them something they have long known or felt, but which they have never found anyone to put in words for them." And so, be it mine today to plead for some old-fashioned virtues, and to repeat some old, old truths of life and love and womanhood. Mother Nature loves a trinity; her handiwork, material and immaterial, is largely made up of three- fold creations. A geometrician would tell us that the triangle is often the keynote of her handicraft. Men and women are the highest type of this visible trinity. With a three-fold nature have they been endowed, mental, moral and physical ; intellectual, spiritual and corporeal; a mind, a body, and a soul. The word sym- metrical, Webster tells us, means " each part in proportion to the other." How shall our trinity be beautiful, or our triangle perfect, unless each of these sides be sym- metrically developed? It is the unfortunate fashion of the hour to adopt some theory, some hobby, some fashion or fancy, "and forsaking all others, keep only to it, so long as the hobby shall live." It may be physical culture is the modern woman's fetich, and she drapes her- self fearfully and wonderfully, passes much of her time in weird and mystifying motions, and assures you that she shall never grow old. Intellectuality is perhaps her shrine, and she soars in the empyrean of mind over matter, cares not for the adornment of her bonnet or the cut of her gown, pities you because you have not read Ibsen and Tolstoi, laments that you cannot rise to her higher plane and frowns upon all trivial conversation as to dress, disease, or domestics. Again, sweet charity may engross her time, and she founds a home for distressed cats and wandering dogs, or Mrs. Wesley Smith is a native of the United States ; she was bom in Chicago. Her parents were Edson li. O'Hara and Tcnsley O'Hara. She was educated at Park Institnte, Chicago, Kenwood Seminary, C'hicago, and the Convent of Loretto Abbey, Toronto, and has traveled in the United States, Germany, France, England, Holland and the Bahama Islands. She married Hon. 8. Wesley Smith, M. D., of New York City. Her special work has been in the interest of literature, charities of all creeds, clubs, congresses and organizations of women and literary sucieties. Her principal literary works are addresses, orations and papers for public reading. In religious faith she is Protestant, and is a member of the Episcopal Church. She is a most graceful and attractive woman, an elocationist and writer, though not a professional. Her pemut- aent postoffice address is No. 24 West Thirtieth Street, New York City. 217 MRS. WESLEY SMITH. 218 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. makes little pinafores for the chilly children of Greenland, and sometimes forgets that charity means loving kindness, the womanly courtesy to the maid-servant and the gentle word to the man-servant. The perfect woman shall cherish all of these, hold fast that which is good in each, and remember that she owes an equal allegiance to every part of her being. She who neglects health — some rational means of physical culture, or the like — shall reap a whirlwind of weariness and wretchedness; she who aids not beauty by all reasonable means has lost one of the strongest levers whereby to move the world. She who fails to expand her intellectual faculties unto the highest, cannot seek recognition or honor among men. The woman who slays love does ill, for, like the wounded lion, it shall turn and rend her, and leave her at last desolate, and stricken, and alone; while for her who knows the grace of a heavenly spirit, " her deeds shall drop as the rain, her speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass." All these things are lovely when rightly proportioned and nicely adjusted to the eternal balance. The ancient Greeks, that most perfect race physically and mentally the world has ever known, had engraven upon the arch of their academies, that he who ran might read, this motto: " Do nothing too much," and to we moderns this message comes today with timely warning. The history of the world is rich with the tales of famous women who would have been beyond cavil had they but remembered, a woman to realize the highest must cultivate harmoniously her threefold being. Elizabeth, Queen of England, of whom Laud writes: " I am proud that such a woman has lived and reigned and died in honor;" she who was rich in mind and estate, but who lacked the gentler side, whose heart was not attuned to love and whose life missed those sweet chords in its music which only a fond affection can bring. Cleopatra, who could charm the colossus Caesar, whose intellect was broad and great, whose beautiful body was a fit temple for a noble soul — but, alas! the casket was empty of the jewel, else the world's story had been nobler. Madame Recamier, whose gracious heart and lovely spirit made all men her knights, but who failed in that mental force which should have thrown her power into the world's work and aided its upward and onward march. Madame de Main- tenon, whose piety was deep and sincere, but cultivated to such an excess that the god-like virtue of tolerance was forgotten, and the reign of Louis, the grand monarchy sullied with one of the darkest political crimes in history, the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, whereby eight thousand faithful subjects were exiled or imprisoned. George Eliot, the brightness of whose descriptive pen we may never see surpassed^ but whose intellectual faculties were allowed to exhaust and warp her nature so that her days were largely those of an unhappy invalid, and discord rang within them. " 'Tis strange that a harp of a thousand strings Should keep in tune so long," sings the poet, and we shall only hear life's harmony aright when the bass and the treble and the medium register shall sound aloud together in one triumphant sym- phony. Lord Lytton writes the praises of " a various, vigorous, versatile mind," and Goethe observes: "The object of life is culture, not what we can accomplish, but what can be accomplished in us." Let us divide our threefold being into a sexagon — from our physical nature we shall have health and beauty, from our mental endowment knowledge and sentiment, from our spiritual side morality and piety, and cultivate each unto the utmost, but each in its due proportion. The peach that grows toward the sun's warm kisses becomes first ripe and mellow and fragrant, but unless Phoebus travels on to touch its other side, is soon o'er-ripe and blackened and decayed. And so with us, if we let not the genial sun of culture shine upon us equally from all directions, we shall grow blackened with the vice of narrowness and littleness and scrupulosity, and fail our perfect fruitage. The world today is, oh, so largely, what we women make it. Let us strive ear- nestly until all womanly vices shall cease to be. THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 219 " Oh! lift your natures up; Embrace high aims, work out your freedom, Knowledge is now no more a fountain sealed; Drink deep, until the habits of the slave, The sins of emptiness, gossip and envy And slander, die. Better not to be at all Than not to be noble." Woman cannot reign until she is worthy to be a queen. It is not by crying like a fretful child for more, that we shall attain all things, but by bearing our duties and our work so bravely, so wisely, that men shall gladly call us unto the high places to aid, until we stand — . *' Two in the council, two beside the hearth, Two in the tangled business of the world, Two in the liberal offices of life." The meanest pool by the wayside can hold the stars in its bosom, and give back the gleam of the sunlight, and receive the showers from heaven even as the mighty ocean. To all of us it is not given to climb the mountain, and few may wear the laurel, but who shall say what constitutes success, who deny she has achieved her highest mission, who has been simply a good woman. Says Victor Hugo: "There is in this world no function more important than that of charming. To shed joy, to radiate happiness, to cast light upon dark days, to be the golden thread of our destiny, the spirit of grace and harmony, is not this to render a service?" It is so pleasant to dwell upon the ideal side of life, to lay far-reaching plans and dream great deeds, but be you the most orthodox of Christians or the broadest of ethical culturists, we shall yet agree that the truest and most searching test of char- acter lies in " the trivial round, the common task," along life's wayside. The great Creative Power takes as infinite patience and care in fashioning the facets of an insect's eye, as in marking the course of a Niagara or building a Matterhorn. And George Eliot preached to us a great gospel when she wrote: "The growing good of the world is partly dependent upon unhistoric acts, and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who have lived faithfully hidden lives and lie in unvisited tombs." It is more satisfying to efficiently perform our duty of the hour than to hope that large opportunities may yet be ours. It is better to live today nobly than to muse on a radiant tomorrow. You cannot dream yourself into a character, you must hammer and forge one out. It was of some fair woman who held herself worthy of being symmetrically devel- oped unto a perfect whole that Longfellow said: " When she had passed it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite music;" and of her, also, Mrs. Hemans wrote, it was a life-long happiness *' To have met the joy of thy speaking face. To have felt the spell of thy breezy grace, To have lingered before thee, and turned and borne One vision away of the cloudless morn." In the twilight time we see her — that fair woman yet to be. She stands serene and beautiful, looking forward to meet the coming years, with calm eyes that tell of inward grace and the peace of God upon her forehead. She is robed in the white gar- ment of modesty. About her throat she wears a circle of rare gems, and these are the pearls of truth. Her feet are shod with the winged sandals of a willing heart. Her eyes beam love and courage into the soul of Him who is her other self. Her cool, white palms are made to lay soft touches on some sweet baby brow, and to clasp the hand of manhood when it falters, so that they two shall climb together up the white heights of God. 220 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. She shall cherish both the meanest flower that blows and the highest stars in heaven. She shall do all things possible with honor to herself and to her Maker. She passes on life's highway, gathering here the rose of beauty, and there the stately lily of a faithful soul. She stoops for the green mosses of love that grow all about her feet, and will yield her ever fragrant favor. She lingers long in the grateful shade of the tree of knowledge; of its wide-spreading branches she gathers the leaves to weave a garland for her forehead. She plucks the olive branch to bear within her hand. She treads the beaten path of life, and in her wake the way appears a little greener where her feet have trod, until she stands at Heaven's gate and the angel saith: "Come in. All hail, fair woman yet to be; love bless thee, joy crown thee, God speed thy career." Jf^m THE LAND WE LOVE. By MRS. MARY L. GADDESS. Is there a man or woman in America who has not at times, with deep feelings of emotion, exclaimed, " I love my native land?" Its hills and dells, its mountains high, Whose summits almost touch the sky, Its broad, clear rivers on whose breast, The commerce of a world might rest. Its balmy air from orange grove, Where in a dreamy trance we rove, Its prairies wild and canons deep Where mammoth trees as watchmen keep -, For ages guard about the spot,. « Once seen, never to be forgot. % This land, this bright and happy land, W With ocean girt from strand to strand, / We call our home, wheree'er we rove, : We thankful say — " that land we love." It has been asserted, next to the love of the Father of us all, the deepest, purest, grandest emotion the human heart is capable of experiencing is affec- tion for their native land. In all centuries and climes MRS. MARY L. GADDESS. ,,.. i ,,• ,• , it r t • J this has been the mcentive to deeds or darmg, and has taught men to defy chains, dungeons and torture; has taken the agony from mar- tyrdoms, shed undying luster over many a battleground and placed a halo above many a weary brow. Thousands of names are deeply graven upon history's pages. Switzerland sings of her Tell till the mountains reverberate from their fastnesses the remembered name; Scotland of a Wallace who bled, but left a memory which still lives in the hearts of his countrymen. America has her soul-stirring names, as every land beneath the sun; but there are myriads who will never be known till the great roll-call on the other side the river, who have worn no laurel wreath, and lie in nameless graves, who laid down their all for their country — and it is a land to be proud of. With broad arms stretched from shore to shore, The proud Pacific chafes her strand; She hears the dark Atlantic roar. And nurtured on her ample breast How many a goodly prospect lies In nature's wildest grandeur drest, Enameled with her loveliest dies. Mrs. Mary L. Gaddess is a native of Baltimore, Md. Her parents were, Oliver P. Merryman, of one of the oldest fam- ilies in the state, and her mother a talented English lady. She waa educated at Baltimore Female College, and after leaving school took special lessons from the best teachers, giving i>articalar attention to elocution. She has traveled extensively. She married Virginias Gaddess, of Baltimore. Mrs. Gaddess is a contributor to numerous periodicals, and is a successful lecturer on literary subjects. Her principal literary works are Cantatas, and " Woman of Yesterday and Today." Her lect- ures number twenty-five. In religions faith she is a Methodist by birth and education, but for years a communicant in the Protestant Episcopal Church, a member in good standing in both. She is a member of Grace M. E. Church, Baltimore, and the Ascension Protestant Episcopal of the same city. Her postofiioe address is 821 North Arlington Avenne, Baltimore, Md. 221 222 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. Rich prairies decked with flowers of gold, Like sunlit oceans roll afar; Broad lakes her azure heavens behold, Reflecting clear each trembling star; And mighty rivers, mountain born. Go sweeping onward, dark and deep, Through forest, where the bounding fawn Beneath their sheltering branches leap. And cradled mid her clustering hills. Sweet vales in dreamlike beauty hide; Dear land, we truly love thee well; May happiness and peace abide; Thank God for giving us this home. This bounteous birthland of the free; Surely it was His hand that led The mariners across the sea. In simplest language, then, I will tell the oft-told story of the finding, like a gem upon the bosom of the water, America, the land we love. With piercing eye and vision clear He waited long in doubt and fear, Laughed, jeered at, both by friends and foes, Poor, burdened by a weight of woes, Yet still declared "across the sea He knew another land must be." They pointed to the ocean dark, Told of its perils to their bark; And soon the caravels would be Engulfed beneath " that great black sea." Then called him " mad, a dreamer wild," From common sense and ways beguiled. From land to land he journeyed long. Repeating still the same old song, Till years had flown, and sad of heart He saw the hopes of youth depart. Did he despair? Thank Heaven, no! After his wanderings to and fro He found a friend to hear his plea And listen to his "theory." While wise men doubted or delayed, A woman's heart was not dismayed. But pledged her jewels to supply The means when others would deny. Nothing of good was ever done. But at great cost was victory won; Long hours of toil and days of pain Succeed and fail, again, again. Tis only he who will not yield To any foe who wins the field. The conquerer too often wears The martyr's chaplet unawares. THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 223 'Twas even thus long years ago, Columbus feared not friend nor foe, But ever watched for "time and tide" To bear him to the other side. Fair India! was his destined goal — The one great hope of Jiis^^^/ soul. And when at last as ever, " Fate Will bring all things to those who wait," His dream came true, he murmured not O'er the past trials of his lot. When skies were fair, one August day From old Palos he sailed away. With compass set, and ropes all taunt, (An argosy, with bright hopes fraught). Days passed, with rudtler broken, lost! By angry seas and tempests tossed. They anchored in Canaries Isle, And rested there a little while. Then off, across the treacherous main, •* Fearing they'd not see home again," This weary-hearted little band Set out to find the " Western land." From sun to sun, for many days. The adverse winds blew different ways, The crew in muti?iy declared "That no one his wild visions shared." Alone he stood, with lifted eye! And prayed for succor from on high! (Still raged the storm), while o'er the wave His cry went up, " Oh, hear and save!" At length, when hope was almost dead. And every buoyant dream had fled, A light shone out across the sea — The promised land it proved to be. Four hundred years ago, 'tis true. This happened I relate to you; Yet down the cycles of the years, That voyage made in hopes and fears, 'Mid dangerous seas, has proved to be The greatest one in history. Columbus year we celebrate! What was it made the man so great? Others had dreamed as he had done, And yet no continent had won! All who will read his life may see The man's great faith and constancy! Firm ever in his cause he stood And waited, knowing it was good. His way he trusted unto heaven. And the reward at last was given. 224 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. To all the nations, near and far, America, the guiding star, Has proved to be a light indeed To other lands in time of need. Her grain has fed their starving poor, And vessels carry from her shore Abundance! for this fruitful land Can scatter with a liberal hand. God was the guide across the sea, Or else a miracle 'twould be; Those tiny caravels at last Could anchor safe, all trials past. Upon our shield we ever must Inscribe our faith, "/;^ God we trust." As Bethlehem's babe was found afar, By shepherds following a star; So by that light shed o'er the sea, (A little light 'twas said to be), A wondrous land was opened wide To shed great light on every side! Today she stands both strong and free, God's people and God's country. Many followed where Columbus had opened the way, among the number one who published an account of his voyage, describing the lands visited; and this being the first written account, and the name of Columbus not even mentioned, it was named after him, Am-a-ree-go-ves poot-chee. It would tax your patience to repeat the story we have heard so often of expedi- tions sent out from the Old World one after the other. We can only faintly imagine the trials and sufferings of the pioneers, hard work the lot of all, forests to be cleared, buildings for shelter and defense erected, and ever at their sideatreacherous foe eager to turn the plowshare into an implement of warfare. Poor, miserable cattle, inferior implements, food of the poorest kind and frequently not sufficient of it, multitudes of wants and no means to supply them. Yet the perseverance and intelligent industry of the people, combined with their inventive genius, constantly smoothed the way by devising means to produce greater results with diminution of manual labor. Thus by degrees forests were converted into flourishing farms, villages into towns, towns into cities, and as they grew their founders began to question the utility of connection with the mother country which had proved a hard task mistress. Duties increased until the burden grew intolerable, and in 1774 a congress of thirteen colonies con- vened in Philadelphia, declared they would no longer remain under the control of England, ahd established principles of liberty in the New World, and on July 4, 1776, Thomas Jefferson, of Virginia, wrote the Declaration of Independence, which stated: " We hold it self-evident that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Then giving an account of the various reasons which had led up to that issue, closes with these words: "And for the support of this Declaration, with firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor." Men starting out with such a platform could not fail; yet we know of the long years of strife that followed^ — wars within and without, mistakes many, failures and imperfections not a few. In many a campaign barefoot soldiers marked with blood the ground over which they marched. When the Revolution broke out there were nearly three millions of people in the col- onies, but the government of the states was held very loosely together, and it was not THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 225 until some years after the peace that a strong one was formed. And notwithstanding the terrible record various wars have left on the pages of her history, from that time it has been steadfast, solid progress in things material and immaterial, business, morals and intellect, until today, one hundred and seventeen years after, she stands a power among nations. Waves of sadness and billows of gladness have rolled alternately over human hearts, while threatening storm clouds have lowered, but the bright bows of promise and hope ever gilded the horizon, eloquent and prophetic of the magnifi- cent future which has dawned already. Daniel Webster said with regard to it: " There is no poetry like the poetry of events, and all the prophecies of this land lay behind the fulfillment." We recall the parable of the grain of mustard seed, which is indeed the least of all seed, but it has become a tree so great the birds from all lands rest amid her sheltering branches, and her roots are deeply hidden in the century of strong, true hearts that open the ground, planted and nourished the seed. Their sons, honest, brave men, still safely stand with that same Declaration their bulwark and stay. Well may we be proud of America, " the land we love," stretching from the blue Atlantic to the broad Pacific, from the Arctic to the Antarctic oceans. Snow-clad mountains towering three thousand feet above sea level, mighty cataracts, giant geysers, vast prairies, broad rivers flowing between fields heavy with golden grain. And deep in the bowels of the hills Is coal and mineral wealth untold. New riches every year unfold As nature opens wide her gate That stood ajar so long, we wait Expectant, thankful, glad to say This is the land we love today. Placid lakes that would bear on their bosoms the leviathans of the centuries, cities whose magnificence vies with those across the ocean, and sixty-five millions of people brave and true as ever God's sunshine smiled upon. On every sea her vessels float, and in every land her people are found. She is at peace with all the world, and plenty and prosperity and strength surround her. To our great festival, this Columbian Jubilee, from all lands visitors have come to rejoice with us. Welcome, welcome, welcome, one and all! Without doubt each heart and voice will unite in the Nation's Hymn and say: "Long may the land be bright With freedom's holy light, Protect her by thy might. Great God, her king! " How wonderful the discovery he had made Columbus never knew, for he believed it to be a part of India. The gold he sought in large quantities he never found, yet the land teems with mineral wealth. It has filled the coffers of many nations, and when famine gaunt and grim stalked among less favored people we could throw open immense granaries, and blessings of plenty and abundance bestow cheerfully and gladly, for are we not all brothers? So lavish is Nature from the Western prairies and Southern cotton fields, her Northern pines and Eastern granite hills, we can gather the richest products and bid all to come and share our abundance, while her starry flag floats proudly above them as an emblem of that country, able and willing to protect the stranger within her gates. The pulse and pace of this land has been so niarvelously quickened during the last century, time will not permit me to even men- tion the thousands of noble ideas that have enriched the world and startled it into wondering applause, while as a manufacturing people we have won first rank. All forces seem to be at our bidding and the nations wait in awe, whispering what next? Steam and electricity, says one, have compressed the earth till the elbows of (15) 226 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. nations touch. We recognize with heartfelt joy the pleasant amenities of this occasion. Looking around we fancy old-time fairy tales have come to be true. The stories of Arabian knights no longer a myth, for nothing could be more wonderful than this reality. In the distance we hear the beating pulsations of the heart of the great city, which phcenix-like rose from its own ashes to become the eighth wonder of the world. Only a year and a half ago this place about us was a wilderness. The White City now standing before us, more beautiful than artist's dream or poet's fancy could portray, rivaling in dazzling glory the tales we have read of Babylon of old, wonderful in conception, no less magnificent in execution, it stands a completed picture, worthy of the land and the century of progress it so nobly demonstrates. In New York harbor stands the colossal statue of " Liberty Enlightening the World," the largest ever erected in modern times; its total height is three hundred and five feet eleven inches. It cost over a million francs, which were paid in France by popular subscription and presented to the United States. Many of us have seen it standing as guard over the city. Beyond that we need not devote time now to describe it, wonderful and elegant in detaib although so large in size. A fitting emblem at the gateway all must pass to enter this free and happy land, ours by inheritance, as they would desire to make it theirs by adoption. The years have taught us many lessons, and to one and all we would say: Leave behind you Old World superstitions and ideas of anarchy and confusion. Liberty can never here mean license. Let all learn what Columbus began to teach four hundred years ago — that indomitable perseverance and courage, with faith, in the right, will at last bring success; and no better motto can we give to each man, woman and child who visits America this Columbian year, than that we bear on our nation's coin, "In God we trust." Then nation and people and land shall be blessed, Prosperity dwell with us ever a guest, Each century add to the stars in her brow. From thirteen they've grown up to forty-four now. So bright is their luster that over the wave They call us "the land of the true and the brave." Long, long may the red, white and blue testify: "America's honor was not born to die." Proclaim far and near, from the lakes to the sea, This national birthday, July Fourth, '93; At peace with the world doth America stand. To welcome the world as it comes to our land. Then throw out your flags to the breeze, let it tell The tale of this country we all love so well: "The Star Spangled Banner, oh, long may it wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!" "Columbia the gem of the ocean has proved. And favored of God seems the land we love." COLUMBUS— OR " IT WAS MORNING." By MRS. LILLIAN ROZELL MESSENGER. (Copyright, 1893, by Lallian Rozell Messenger.) Fame's voice sublime, a magic siren song Sung to the youth about his sea-girt home. The sea's wild grandeur early was first page. Earth turned to him. To him the firmament Was not blue space and blank, but handiwork Of the Invisible his soul had learn'd To love — beside his mother's earnest love — Beside her knee, as lights burn'd low at eve, And her sweet love made earth and heaven one. When science taught him first, Columbus saw Through nature's silence all — God's mighty truth Reach'd to the clouds; and law and order His. The Pleiades, Arcturus and Leo, Orion bold, and all that starry chase Would nightly woo his thought and wonder-flight; When truth and wisdom, from the deep-toned years Wearing the phantom veils of hope, lastly O'er-arch'd his world with highest majesty, And beauty inexpressible. In awe He dwelt upon old ocean's shifting page, 'Tween Venice and his sea-kiss'd land, full oft His father, mother, sail'd with gleaming prows When galleys splendid borne on sunset waves To this ocean queen, bride of War and Fame. Throughout long years he oft intently thought Of one lov'd scene which burned in holy fire Upon his brain, a holy flame as 'twere, That lighted Mem'ry's altar, tower and dome; In depths of night, when on the solemn deep, Alone, his mother bent above his couch To watch his slumber light, in sweet concern Of happy love, as storms march'd o'er the waves With lightning spears, and dark and thunder cloth'd: She, trembling in pathetic solitude Lest some hid terror seize his little life. Mrs. Lillian Rozell Messenger is a daaghter of Dr. F. O. Rozelle, and a native of Millersbnrg, Ky. She moved in early life to Arkasas, moving later to Washington, D. C, where she still resides. She married North A. Messenger, an editor of Tascambia, Ala., who died four years later. Mrs. Messenger's education was completed at Forest Hill Seminary, near Memphis. It was here her poetry first attracted pablic attention. Her principal works are " Fragments from an Old Inn," " The Vision of Gold." "Disappointment," "Importuning," "Halloween," "The Southern Cross," and "Colnmbns; or, It Was Morning," first read on July 4, before the Woman's Building Congresses of the Columbian Exposition. Mrs. Messenger is a dramatic reader, and has met with singular success in her own state and elsewhere. She delights in mosic and painting as recreations. Her postoffice address is No. 25 Lafayette Street, Washington, D. C. 227 MRS. LILLIAN ROZELL MESSENGER. 228 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. In sea-hunting his father bore him oft To distant waves, when galleys swiftly sped With high emprise, and splendors from the East. 'Twas then the boy heard marvels of strange lands, Saw stranger peoples and their curious wealth, Heard Wisdom speak from Persia and the Ind Of Eastern lore, and sages not a few. Yet solitude, and isolation strange Had borne the lad, first, love of truth, the same That maketh man as gods, the love of sea, Whose stormy waves his first playfellows were; Deep love of nature, through whose veil he gazed On God's eternal truth and secret laws. The father had quick wrath, so earnest he Lest youth should fail; he oftener thrust the boy Unto the sea, and strange and cruel men, To lonesome lands, and thence to Venice proud. For thus he thought to harden this brave youth. Whose nobler soul and larger mind surpass'd By hundred years his puny world and age. Visions for him had thrown a golden scale Unto his gaze, wherein he saw his world Weigh'd strong in light, and error sink in cloud. Musing, he said: this world is but the deep, And where, as in a cradle, truth, and love — Man's guardian spirits — rock this little life. Till muffled to sleep. Why should I pause. When faith and soul and nature call me hence, To turn that page which men have never seen. What is my body? What is every life But one fleet airship? He alone then takes Some guidance — plants my pole star — stilleth waves, And shows me once by His own light on them That nether world — all worlds my vision sees; Deep calleth unto deep, and I shall on! Meanwhile Columbus' brain held surer thought And visions vast, that ray'd the beamy wings Of tireless faith with their undying light. To Isabella's larger heart and mind He would unfold his scheme: I'll pierce this realm With my sword of truth, ay, England, and France, And Italy, unto the utmost sphere! The unknown deep hath won my youth, and well; It bore my love, Felipa, in soft folds. To mystic death, and now, God will, it shall Give me that virgin world men disbelieve. Yon deep allures me on, and she, our queen. May light a path o'er undivided waves To newer Eden lands, henceforth her own. Such image looms before my waking soul, Columbus, meek and brave, his sovereigns sought; The king was kingliness, and Isabella THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 229 Most queenly fair, and stately shown; her hair Of sunny waves just rippled o'er her brow So sadly pale, yet tinged with faintest flush Of proud delight, and dewy violet eyes, Mute melodies, or homes of lofty thoughts. The queen spake: "Gold nor wealth hath now our realm To venture thee, most brave and noble one; But these, my jewels, seeming yet to hold The sunshine of my past, and years of joy, Or brave and daring hist'ries of my race, And memories too precious for one life — These shall command the way; a power within Nerveth my hands to lift that veil which hides Yon stars that burn in Truth's fair sky, and o'er Thy world unknown." . Columbus scarcely heard, For th' music of his hopes and her sweet voice And blessing prayers and thrilling faiths that grew, For it was morning now; and Error paled. From evening lands, at morn, half hour ere rose The sun o'er Spain, he loos'd the falcon birds Of fate, of Heaven-born hope — his vessels three — And sail'd and sail'd, to one vast far Unknown. Three days the Lord and Prince of Righteousness Entomb'd did close his eyes for sake of Death, For sake of Man; three days may mean more time — Fullness of Fate — than twice three thousand years. Three vessels frail were yet to bear to men Earth's other half of life, unclaim'd, unknown. It was morning when they sail'd; and sail'd away Three vessels brave from Spain, true land of love, Of wild romance, and song, where Beauty dream'd In Nature's arms, and beamed from woman's eye. Alhambra's splendid towers paled from sight. Like phantoms thro' a dream; the " Moor's Sigh " (That mount o'er which he pass'd to alien worlds) Rose distantly against the blue, with dreams Of glory 'cross its brow, solemn and grave As th' exil'd Moor's glance, when he in tears Forever bade Alhambra's halls farewell. So beat Columbus' heart with hope insistent. Had silver clouds on those blue mountains clove The heavens then, with blue-white ships a-sail From hidden realms, an angel at each prow, Calling through golden trumpets, " Hail the day!" He had felt no surprise, but follow'd on. Since man first left his Eden vales, his step Hath wander'd to the West, his morning land. The East but holds his life's embalmed past, The West, the glory of his dream-ideal. Soon trackless waves come tumbling out of space, 230 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. Like oceans fresh from Chaos, on before The vessels three; when raged the deep and all Mad demons of the winds howl'd forth in glee, Columbus sent his prayer across the storm On wings of faith, and touch'd the realm of Peace — Deep call'd to deep, alluring him still on. Last, brilliant birds, and musical, in throngs Flew near, fleet messengers of hope to him. On waste of waters, over which had flown No form or breath of spirit-life save his. Since morning stars first sang in golden choir — The Maker's voice called forth. Let there be light. Sublime, he rose, to speak and cheer his crew; With lofty mein he bared his brow to Night, Brooding o'er boundless seas, and parted thus From deeps abysmal by the trembling ships; He fed their minds with hopes of richest Ind. And Faith's true bravery, when Silence wrapt Them and the world as in an endless tomb; While pleasant winds from starry head-lands bathed Their brows, and fled, the demons of despair. Lo! suddenly their deap calm broke in joy, And blissful shout of land. Now Night's thin veil Just hid from gaze a new and virgin world. While stars their golden shadows cast they watch'd, As Wonder, like a rainbow, clove the dark. Yet perfumed-laden winds bore them no tales Of flower'd homes, and Beauty's summer land. And it was morn, when rose their gorgeous world; As though the sun, more brilliant than when robed For common days, at midnight shone, and smote Mankind in awe; so to their wondering gaze The New World rose august in youth and bloom. The epic grand Columbus gave to man, • Look'd on the gladsome wave all beautiful, Crown'd by Heaven's smile, serene in Heaven's calm; Here, Death pass'd on, o'ercome by Beauty's gaze, Nor touch'd this Eden, throned on purple waves. October's golden haze, an autumn dream, Stole o'er the virgin woods and dreamy world. Columbus and his braves knelt on the sod; They heard God's rosy, fragrant silence breathe; They kiss'd the earth, and lifted souls in prayer. To muse alone he left his joyful crew. And went some paces deeper in the glow Of fragrant woods. Approaching this deep joy, He would all earthly sandals leave. Hard by A velvet plot of moss, that ne'er had thrill'd To human touch — this took his weary form. While thrilling thought, and lofty hopes yet breathed Their music to his soul. THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 231 Down tangled heights The crystal waters fell o'er mossy cliffs, From broken urns of sea nymphs who had lost Their way and fled from sight. A hoary limb Midway the lucid pool, and, tendril twined, Let fairies cross to wayward paths in joy; And od'rous breadths of land kiss'd tuneful lips Of flowery waves. Arcadian vales were fed By pearly streams and purple winds, and clouds That held no gloomy thoughts of cold or storms. Thro' spicy groves came lissome dusky forms. Night-phantoms fleet, with wonder-sparkling eyes; Dusky sons, whom beauty in shadow veil'd And stealthy, to view the pale-faced men. Borne on white pinions of the clouds, they thought. In awe Columbus mused: "Alas for her, My loved one lost! the cruel waves that claimed Gives now me this for bride, my fair world-bride! Ah, would that she, our queen, they two might smile On me this hour, as doth th' morn and heav'n." List'ning, he turned to note strange, lovely birds, And heed his New World's song from scented groves An' cooler depths of green, where sunbeams slept Or held lost moon-rays of fair evenings gone. The air was balmy soft, enticing life. As though of roses made, or lover's sighs, low breath'd In moonlight yester eve. Silent he gazed. Like one of old on Patmos Isle, Seeing hid realms not lawful earth could see. "Now doth there pass before my prophet soul. Some vision swift, prefigured as a dream. Soft glowing on the rose-gray mists of sleep. Of this New World's fair future! blest of peace, Blest of all nations' praise — of Liberty, Whose flag shall take the azure dome and stars; Whose mighty mountains, streams and forests grand Shall move to Freedom's hymn, and ope new gates To larger life, to highest truth for men? " Saw he the mighty ships? Heard he the roar Of vasty cities, labor's thunders loud; As Toil and Art wore garments radiant In Time's fresh loom for this fair virgin world That, like a star, should light the voyageur From stormy Wrong to God's wide seas of Peace? He dwelt on spirit truths that dome this life; Of ancient lore, of inspiration new. For he had delved in wisdom old, once hid By seers Iberian, the Greek, and Egypt's wise, Who called the stars and grouped the Zodiac, And with the Hebrew learn'd the steps of God In solitudes of space, afire with worlds. What means that fable old of Orpheus, Of Amphion sweet, if not to symbol forth, This fair world shall to heavenly place be built 232 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. By harmonies of wisdom, and the pow'r Of Justice — these two, flowing into Love, Gives back our earth complete into His hands. Long, long alone he wrestled, planned and dreamed, Of what this giant young world held for man; Saw with prophetic, deeper sense, more plain Than he of Bethel fame, new angels come And go along the secret steeps of God, With banner'd thoughts, and hymns, he only read And heard of his New World's fair destiny. By joy and thought oppress'd beyond all speech, Still from the eternal, hearing melodies Shipward, he grandly moved and faced the sea. MEMBERS OF THE BOARD OF LADY MANAGERS. 1. Mrs, Mary C. Bell, Florida. 4. Mrs. Charles H. Olmstead. Georgia. 7. Mrs. Richard J. Oglesby, Illinois. 2. Miss E. Nellie Beck, Florida. 5. Mrs. Anna £. M. Farnnm, Idaho. 8. Mrs. Frances Welles Shepard, Illinois. 10. Mrs. Virginia C. Meredith, 11. Mrs. Whiting 8. Clark, Indiana, Iowa. 8. Mrs. Wm. H. Felton, Georgia, 0. Mrs. Joseph C. Stranghan, Idaho, 9. Miss Wilhelmine Reitz, Indiana, 12. Miss Ora Elizabeth Miller, Iowa, HOUSEHOLD ECONOMICS. By MRS. LAURA S. WILKINSON. When the woman's branch of the World's Congress Auxiliary was formed, and a committee was appointed to take charge of Household Economics, I was asked to act as chairman. I am here today to report what has been done in our short history, and what are our hopes and aspirations for the future. The National 4 Columbian Household Economic Association is a ^ direct outgrowth from one of the committees of the World's Congress Auxiliary. The objects of this association are, as the consti- tution announces, "To awaken the public mind to the importance of establishing a bureau of information, where there can be an exchange of words and needs between the employer and employed in ^v^xy depart- ment of home and social life. Second, to promote among its members a more scientific knowledge of the economic value of the various foods and fuels, a more intelligent understanding of correct plumbing and drainage in our homes, as well as need for pure water and good light in a sanitarily built house; also to secure skilled labor in every department of woman's work in our homes." The work of the association was to be done through seven committees. It was not our intention to confine our work to Chicago, and for this reason we adopted the name of "The Columbian Association of Housekeepers." Since, the word " National " was added to it, and by the end of the first year, our secretary's book showed that we had members all the way from San Francisco to Boston, and Texas to Duluth. The Columbian Association of Housekeepers has held meetings regularly since its organization in 1891. No special program is prepared beforehand; but the secretary announces on her postal what will be the most interesting feature of the meeting. Essays have been read, plans discussed, in hope of solving the vexed question of " domestic service." We had one small excitement, when at one of our meetings it was announced that all women who belong to the Columbian Association of House- keepers were to be boycotted by the hired girl. Exactly why, we never have been able to understand. But, in point of fact, we could not find anyone who had refused to work for a member of the association. The one thing that has been most persistently discouraged in our meetings has been that of relating of personal experiences with the family domestic. As some one has most wittily said: " Wc have avoided those experience meetings where each one • Mrs. Laara Starr Ware Wilkinson is a native of Deerfield,Ma88. She wa« born June 20, 1843. Her parent* were Edwin Ware and Harriet 8. Ware. She was educated in Deerfield schools «uid Mrs. David Mach's school, Belmont, Mass. She has traveled in England, Italy, Switzerland, Germany and America. She married John Wilkinson, Esq., of Syracuse, N. Y., November 20, 1867. Her special work haa been in the interest of domestic economy. DuriuK the World's Fair she was chair- man of the Congress of Household EVsonomics, and organized the National Columbian Household Economic Association, which proposes to have a vice-president in each state, and a chairman of Household Economics in each county in each state. In religious faith she is a Unitarian. Her postoffice address is No. 482 La .Salle Avenue, Chicago. 23;^ MRS. LAURA S. WILKINSON. 234 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. is eager to relate her own personal grievance, and never willing to listen to another's tale of woe." Our aim has been to consider the condition of the girl at service, her limitations, her hours of labor, and constantly to ask ourselves if we, in her place, without a special training, could do as well. Failing in our efforts to improve the intelligence offices, we next turned our attention to what could be done toward establishing schools where instruction could be given for housework, and to see what could be done to induce girls to take a three months' course of training before she went out to service. We found that there were no such schools. To establish one would demand trained teachers, salaries, buildings, etc. And then, where could we find the girl to take this preparatory course when every kitchen is open to her to learn at the employer's expense? We have brought the topic before the association, committees have been appointed; but the fact is slowly but surely being impressed upon our minds that the fault lies with the housekeeper. Recognizing this, we decided to have a course of lectures on domestic service. These lectures were given by Prof. Lucy M. Salmon, of Vassar Col- lege, who brought before us, in a most historical and scholarly way, the condition of domestic service as it now is and has been since earliest time. This was a most valu- able course of lectures for those who had made a sociological study of the question, but few women and fewer housekeepers realize the importance of adjusting themselves to the condition of the era they now live in. Not succeeding in arousing enthusiasm for our school of household science, we next turned our attention to what could be done in the way of establishing a house- keepers' emergency bureau, which is, as its name indicates, to supply temporary help, the employe returning to her home each day. A committee of ladies have charge of this work, look up the references of those who apply for the work, and a book of regis- tration for employer and employe is kept at the office. On these books are found women wishing and willing to do all kinds of work; sewers, menders, housekeepers, teachers, stenographers, caterers, nurses, scrubwomen and daily governesses, etc. The monthly reports for the housekeeper's Emergency Bureau constitute one of the most interesting features of our regular meetings, and we have many testimonials testifying to the ability of those who constitute a corps of workers for the Bureau, and we have also had many complaints because we cannot find trained girls. But who will give the time to the work? We need more helpers in our work. Owing to a continual storm, the attendance was not large at anyone meeting; but it was a most enthusiastic audience, and it was voted that another convention should be held the same time and place the next year, it being the sense of the meeting that the Conventions of Housekeepers should be a yearly occurrence. Early in 1893 the chairman of the food supply committee began her market reports. When these reports were read at our regular meetings, they proved so accept- able that it was voted that the association print them in pamphlet form for distribu- tion. These reports make a general survey of the condition of the markets, both East and west, and contain many valuable hints in regard to purchasing food, as well the most practicable suggestions all the latest improvements in prepared foods are mentioned; and it is usually the case that these preparations have been tested by the one who prepares the report, so that they go out with the recommendation of the association. The question of what is the advantage of becoming a member of the National Columbian Household Economic Association, is constantly asked. The first is, because it brings those women who are most interested in the real study of economic problems in closer relation with each other. We aim to put everything upon a scientific and hygienic basis, to understand what is the true economy of time, material and strength, to find out the best ways of per- forming our daily routine of housework, and to thoroughly understand what is good housekeeping. It is not to be learned in any one course of lessons in cookery. THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 235 While the cooking schools have played a most important feature in the revolu- tionizing of the preparation of our daily food, still, they have not solved the prob- lem. They have rather added to the complications. However, we wish to do full justice to the work that these schools have done. The difficulty in this department of women's work is that many of those women who are the best housekeepers do not join with us and give us the benefit of their long years of experience. If one has found a better way of doing some part of housework, why not share this knowledge with those who are wasting their strength and time by going on in the old way? It is the little things that count in the wear and tear of housework, and the trouble is, so many have not the time to give to the investigation of some shorter and easier way. It is the reporting of these small items which add to the usefulness of an association like ours. We do not endeavor to suddenly change the existing order of things in our kitchens. The work of the association is not in any sense revolutionary. We do not establish, or try to establish any set rules as to how this work should be done; but, what we do hope to bring about is a more intelligent understanding of the existing condition. First, we must fully understand the case before we can suggest any changes, or make any efforts to remove the cause of dissatisfaction. Each woman in her home, not comparing her method with that of another, has little or no chance of getting out of the dull routine. That there is this routine we think no one will ques- tion. Spasmodically, in our newspapers and in our magazines comes up this outcry of what can be done to obtain a better class of domestic service in our homes. This wave of inquiry goes over the country periodically; but dies down with little or no sat- isfactory answer. The justice of the remarks, the correctness of the criticisms made upon the queer way women conduct their household affairs is justly merited. Occasionally, remedies are suggested; but, very little advance is made, and the interest dies down at the end of the year to be taken up by another set of writers before the next ten months have run their course. It is the hope of this association that the next ten years will bring about quietly and steadily a better state of affairs. For this reason we have adopted the constitu- tion and by-laws. We have carefully considered every line in this long constitution and by-laws, and we feel convinced that no one can question the importance of the objects for which we are organized. This is said to be an era of women's clubs. But we find it would be easier to organize art clubs. Browning clubs, classes in the study of mediaeval art, or even the study of Sanscrit, than to start housekeeper's clubs in our various towns and villages. The explanation for this state of affairs is, women are willing to let housekeeping drift along in the old way, not recognizing that housekeeping is one of the fine arts, and can only be acquired by study and patient work. In summing up the year's work last October, one thing which we had pledged ourselves to take hold of, was to establish a school for household science. We had made a study of the plans outlined in the Pratt Institute, of Brooklyn, N. Y. We found this the best of any we had heard of, but with our limited means could do nothing to establish such a school; yet nothing short of that would be satisfactory to us. In the meanwhile, Armour Institute was started on Thirty-third street, with Dr. Gunsaulus as president, and we soon learned that Armour Institute was to be modeled after Pratt Institute. Dr. Gunsaulus has recognized the importance of a school of household science, and added that to their curriculum, and in their institute will be given the opportu- nity for our young girls to become fully instructed in scientific housekeeping. The Columbian Association of Housekeepers is recognized on their advisory council. 236 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. We know what has been taught in the domestic department of Pratt Institute, and will be in Chicago in the Armour Institute. Those of us who remember all the opposition when training schools for nurses were started take heart, and ask why not do for domestic service what has been done for the sick? We must stand by our own convictions, and ask women to come forward and furnish the money for the dormitories, where the girls can live while receiving instruction. When we recognize the fact that the girls in domestic service need the same thoughtful consideration as the girls in shops and offices, then shall be found college settlements springing up to help the servant girls, by establishing clubs and study classes. It will not break up our homes to have our cooks and our maids come at regular hours to do their work and depart. But it will occasion a more systematic arrange- ment of all housework, and will ultimately end in establishing a system of co-operation differing from those plans of co-operation which have been tried and found wanting; because, in this new era of co-operation, skilled labor will be demanded in each depart- ment, and the work will be done by those who really like the work. Each department will be filled by the workers choosing the work. Women, as a rule, do not object to housework, but to its many complications; and to be mistress of one occupation demands a long training, while in every home the woman at the head must know how to do fifty things equally well. In point of fact, she does not, and becomes discouraged. She cannot do the things she likes to do, and has to waste her time and strength in doing those things for which she has no aptitude. It is my conviction that two -thirds of the trouble in having housework done is because the majority will not make a study of the dainty ways of doing the work. There is always a great enthusiasm to receive lessons in cooking; but few or any are willing to learn to wash the dishes and cooking utensils in the most skillful and artistic way. Artistic way of washing dishes I know will cause a smile; but still, it can be done, and if the methods are carried out it is not drudgery, but a delightful occupation. The simple rules embodied in the kitchen garden manuals, if put in practice in our kitchens, would establish a new order of things, and housework would be done with the least possible friction. When business methods shall have been established in the kitchen as in the shop, none will be selected for any line of labor save those educated in that line. A bookkeeper in accepting a situation in a store, takes no thought of the duties of a porter, and as little should a person employed as cook those of a chambermaid. LOOKING BACKWARDS. By MISS KIRSTINE FREDERICSEN. Woman's demand for her rights is generally considered as a revolutionary move- ment. I, for my part, do not object to revolutionary movements; I believe that the world cannot do without them. But truth must have her say; and, to my mind, the Woman's Rights' move- ment may as correctly be called conservative, for, in a certain sense, it means going back to a more simple arrangement of the relation between the sexes, which have been artificially separated by a differentiation, carried too far. This is the lesson I read on the pages of history, and which I would like to impress on the mind of my kind audience. The subject of which I will treat to this end, is the influence on the position of woman of the general evolution of mankind, especially of the development of industry. I remember, when quite a child, I saw a picture in some cheap almanac, which struck my eye and set me thinking on the strange fate of woman. Two pictures of family life were there: First, an Indian chief adorned with beads and feathers, march- ing proudly onward, followed by his wife, who carried heavy burdens — the children, the tent that sheltered the family, and a great many other articles belonging to the household. The other picture was meant to show modern family life. Here it was the wife who marched in front, and who wore the beads and the feathers, while the hus- band worked hard, wheeling the babies and carrying the dinner-basket for the family picnic. To my childish mind the last situation was as little becoming to woman as the first, and since then I have often had occasion to reflect on the two phases of woman's life depicted on that rough sketch; for, although caricatures, these pictures showed one side of the change which historic evolution has brought to woman. In the barbaric age, man did not think it fit for him to do anything but hunting and fighting, and woman had to do outside as well as inside work, to dig the ground, to build the houses, to look after the cattle; in fact, all those things are done still by women, not only among Indians and Greenlanders, but, to a certain extent, also by women belonging to civilized peoples, as, for instance, by some of the inhabitants of the smaller islands in my fatherland, Denmark, where the men are occupied, not, to be sure, by hunting and by war, but by ploughing the sea and fighting the storm. Now these women are by no means subjugated. On the contrary, they are very independent, really much more so than their sisters in the city. As far as I under- stand the story told by a lady — I believe, Miss Alice Fletcher, in Washington, at the Miss Kirstine Elsebeth Fredericsen is a native of Denmark, Earope. She was born Febraary 6, 1845. Her parents were Johan Ditlev Fredericsen and Maria Hansen Fredericsen. She was educated at home under the care of a tutor till her sixteenth year, when she began studies in Copenhagan. She has traveled in England and America. Her principal literary works are editorial work, " Woman's Society," " Object Lessons," " Book for Teachers," " Mental Life of Childhood," and an " E?>say on Education," for which she was awarded a gold medal by the University of Coi>enhagan. Her i>oetoffioe address is Kastanievy 4, Copenhagan, Denmark. 237 MISS KIRSTINE ELSEBETH FREDERICSEN. 238 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. first International Woman's Congress — this was exactly the impression she brought back from an inquiry into the life of the Indian women of this country. If you take work out of the hands of woman, it may be a relief to her, but, at the same time, it means taking influence away from her. The Pilgrim Fathers of New England, who would not let the women cut their hair short, because they would keep them modest and womanly; who chased Anna Hutchinson out into the wilderness because she spoke out frankly opinions of her own; who forbade unmarried women to live in a house of their own — those harsh Puritans were obliged to pass exceptional laws of freedom for the women who did the spinning and the weaving, because they could not do without their help. It is told in the Saga of one old Danish king, Erode, that he once got into great trouble; he had offended his daughter so that she left him with all her damsels, and neither he nor his men could have their clothes mended till he had softened her heart. What makes woman independent and influential is real usefulness. But mankind does not stand still; evolution made the men lay down the sword and take up the spade and the hatchet, and later even more refined instruments of work. Woman by this change was thrown back upon her household. She had the first opportunity to make a home for herself and her family. She did it; but, while she had her hands full of work in the house, she still kept an eye on what was going on outside. Only little by little was she outdone by the men. In the middle age the women of Germany fought bravely for their right to artisanship, but had to give it up. Laws were passed forbidding more than a limited number of women to work together with one man; laws against a widow taking up her husband's work on the same conditions as he had it; finally it was denied a woman to take out a license as artisan of any kind. In Denmark and Sweden the noble born ladies not only very often managed their estates, but to a large extent busied themselves with the establishment of new indus- tries — cloth manufacturing and even shipbuilding, much of which was considered patriotic work. No law was passed against this kind of woman's work, but custom, strong as the law, little by little, compelled the ladies to take care of their own clothes instead of other people's, and to manage their kitchens instead of their farms, forests and lakes. The next historic transition was made when machinery took the place of hand work. To nobody has the wonderful inventions of modern times brought greater change than to woman. She never need be the household drudge, the slave of the spinning wheel — the spinning Jenny has relieved her of that — and even as the spin- ning, the weaving, the baking, the sewing, and so much more has been monopolized by machinery, so, very likely, will the washing and the cooking. Of course this has had some good effect on the life of woman, especially on her education P'ormerly only the hand and not the brain of the girl was trained. In Poland down to this day the girls in the public schools are taught nothing but sewing and knitting. Only thirty years ago some highly honored members of the Danish parliament most ear- nestly maintained that a woman was not able to teach, even to girls, the art of writing, nor the principles of true religion. Going back to the beginning of the eighteenth cen- tury, it was forbidden by law for Danish women to teach boys more than four years old. All this is changed now. Everybody acknowledges the necessity for unmarried women to go outside the home to earn their living, and consequently the necessity of their training for their work. This is largely the effect of industrial development. But still I hold that modern evolution in some degree will tend to degrade woman if she does not look out sharp. A striking example from the very last times illustrates this: Not more than twenty years ago the head industry of Denmark — butter making — was under the direct supervision of woman; she had the honor, if not always the profit of it. It is not so since machinery has come in, since it is no more the farmer who makes the butter, but the butter factory that buys the milk and makes it profitable. To be sure, woman works in the factory, but she only does the lower work, the super- vision has gone out of her hands; if she wants it she will have to fight for it. THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 239 This is only a single example, for civilization has a general tendency to subvert woman either into the handmaid of labor or into the queen of the drawing-room. Only a few days ago I found in an American paper that civilization was claimed for a new place — Yellowstone Park, I think it was — on the ground that the ladies there changed their dresses three or four times a day. Is not this a false civilization? Has not Henrik Ibsen been applauded by the public, as well as by the critics, when he showed us in Hedda Gabler that the last kind of woman is no more likely to find true happiness than the first? The gifted and accomplished Hcdda Gabler ends in suicide, because she cannot bear to live without influence. Take then a simple-minded woman, like the one old Pestalozzi paints, "Gertrud, who teaches her children." In her humble way, just by teaching her children, she succeeds in reforming not only her own house- hold, but a whole village. And does not history, as well as poetry, teach us that the pioneers of new womanhood are the women who work and gain their influence through personal exertion? In the long run it is neither birth nor money, nor what can be bought for money, but personality which conquers the world. And, as in private life, so in public. Woman, when she demands her rights, is only taking back what belongs to her. Who cared for the sick, the poor, the children in olden times, if not the women? Only when all these cares were put under public supervision was woman shutout from them, and now has to fight her way back to the duties which her mother heart and her womanly feeling cannot let alone. Even political rights, for the first time in civil- ized life, have been taken out of her hands by modern constitutions. In 1661, when the last Danish parliament, according to the old constitution, was held, votes were passed for women owning property. Since then thousands and thousands of men, who had no rights formerly, have come in as voters, but no woman's vote is now laid upon the scale in the old countries. As the New England women taught the Puritans that they could not do without free and equal women, so is the Western woman of America of our day teaching the world that womanhood must not be shut out from public life if we do not want it to be crippled, one-sided and poor. It is for the woman of civilization — nay, any woman, wherever she lives, if she knows how to reign — to make her influence felt for good, as the society lady does, and at the same time to work, to make herself real useful, as the factory girl does — it is she who is the pioneer of modern womanhood. HISTORIC WOMEN OF EGYPT. By MRS. CAROLINE G. REED. Eve, the beautiful mother of our race, with every function, physical and mental, in perfect order to transmit health and immortality to her posterity, must have trodden in its pristine verdure the soil of the wonderful land of Egypt. Three hundred and thirty-four years after Menes, the first king of Egypt, the succession of women to the throne of Egypt was made valid, and nearly a thousand years later Nitocris, " the beautiful woman with rosy cheeks," while floating in her barge from Philae to Memphis, beheld with pride the glory and pomp of her own people. Three hundred years after the reign of Nitocris history discloses a woman who should become the mother of nations, Sarai, the beau- tiful wife of the rich Chaldean Satrap Abram, jour- neying from the plains of Chaldea by way of Haran and Damascus toward Egypt, the seat of learning then at the zenith of its glory. So beautiful was Sarai that the princes and courtiers of Egypt reported her charms to their sovereign, who brought her to his court. In the retinue of Sarai at her departure, as one of her bondswomen, presented to her by Pharaoh, was Hagar, a magnificent Egyptian woman, who like MP« r-Apr„,»i.7 .^AiTiTi. uKxrr, ^^^ mlstrcss was to become the mother of mighty MRS. CAROLINE GALLUP REED. . autit !• r i i- nations. All of the Israelites from that day to this have looked to Sarai as their mother, and all of the Arab races and the Bedouins of the desert and the Ishmaelites of the East rejoice in being called the sons of Hagar. A century later the famous Queen Hatasu, as she gazed from her terraced palace, and lifting her eyes northward, could see, glittering like constellations, the points of the obelisks which she had set there in honor of her father. Two-and-a-half centuries after Hatasu, in the grandest era of Egypt's glory, we see descending from the porch of the palace of the great Rameses a princess of the blood royal with her train of maid- ens to bathe in the river of Egypt. There, amid the flags on the banks, she beheld a Hebrew child, a weeping infant boy, hidden by his sister Miriam to escape the edict of the monarch who had commanded every Hebrew male child to be destroyed. The heart of the royal lady was touched with compassion. She sent Miriam for a Hebrew nurse, and his mother pressed her child to her breast again. Adopted by the Prin- cess, taught by his mother in the knowledge and faith of his own people, Moses became the deliverer and lawgiver of his people. It was Miriam, the prophetess, the sister who had watched over him amid the rushes of the Nile, who stood by hi.m on Mrs. Caroline Gallap Reed was born in Albany County, New York, Augusts, 1821. Herparents were the Hon. Albert Gallup and Eunice Smith Gallup, both descended from the founders of Connecticut. She was educated at the School of St. Peter's Church, Albany, N. Y., and at the school of the Misses Carter, Albany. After four years at the Albany Female Academy, graduated in 1839, and has traveled several times in Europe and in the East, spending the winter of 1891 and 1892 in Egypt. She married in 1851 the Rev. Sylvanns Reed, a priest of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Her special work has been in the interest of the Episcopal Church, the care of her family and of the Reed School, New York City, which was founded in 1864, and has graduated many of the most accomplished women in this country. She has written many essays on various topics. Her profession has been for thirty years that of a teacher and head of a school. In religious faith she is a member of the Anglican branch of the Catholic Church. Her postoffice address is East Street, New York City, N. Y. 240 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. . 241 the eastern shore of the Red Sea, and with all the women of Israel came out with timbrels and dancing to take up the great autiphon to the Song of Moses and the hosts of Israel. Then came the Greeks to Egypt with their graceful women and modern customs, and later on, Cambyses the Persian, with his beautiful wife, true heir to the throne of Egypt, and for two hundred years the Persians had dominion, until Alexander con- quered Darius at Issus. The Ptolemies brought their learning and gayety to Egypt, The Cleopatras became co-regents with the Greek kings of Egypt for half a century. It was by the seductive charms of Cleopatra VII., when Caesar and Antony in turn were her captives, that Egypt became a Roman province. About this time there arrived in Egypt a family party journeying from Bethlehem. They were Joseph, a just man, the young and gentle Mother Mary, and her perfect child Jesus. They had fled to the land of Egypt to preserve the life of the Divine Child, and that Child sanctified the land by the first steps He ever trod. Roman matrons, pagan and Christian, dwelt in Egypt for two centuries. The Empress Helena built religious houses throughout Egypt near to the ancient temple of Osiris, Horus and Pan, lifting the cross of Christ amid the emblems of heathenism. The privacy and seclusion of the Moslem women have not prevented them from influence and intrigue in the politics of the past twelve centuries. In our days, in the triumphal pageant of the Suez Canal, the Empress Eugenie vied with Cleopatra in pomp, and luxury, and the cicerones descant upon the places visited by her with as much pride as upon those associated with Cleopatra. And what shall we say of the gentle and beautiful wife of Tewfik — his only wife? Only one who has seen her in her great palace surrounded by her maidens can fully appreciate the life of the highest woman in Egypt today Of high breeding, and with the various accomplishments of European women of her rank, familiar with modern literature, of most affable manners and sprightly conversation, she might pass for a Parisian of the highest social talent. Her description of the devices to which she resorted to see the performers at the opera over the screens, without showing her face, was most amusing as well as historic, as an incident of Oriental customs. The Harem of the opera is as impenetrable as that of the palace or the home, As the screens were high, they could only see by standing and holding their cushions above their faces and peeping between the cushions and the screens. She talked with maternal pride of her sons, then at school in France, and exhibited their photographs. P"ar from envying the European princesses and American ladies, she said: "Oh I could know well but twenty or thirty men at most, and I am content with the affection and society of one. " There must indeed be a power in custom and education which could make such a woman happy and contented to have a fancy ball in the superb salons of her own royal palace, with music and flowers and feasting, filled with the beauty and chivalry of all nations, and, though herself dressed for the ball in the costume of Mary, Queen of Scots, to view the scene through a screen embroidered with palms and flowers. She saw her husband and his nobles talking and dancing with English, French and American ladies, but none of the ladies could enter the sacred precincts of her presence. The only man allowed to enter the house of a modern Egyptian woman is the physician, and then, whatever the occasion of his visit, the eunuch is always present. In a visit to the Khedive with Lady Greenfel, whose husband, Sir P"rancis, is at the head of the P^gyptian army, a line of Egyptian women stood in the antechamber to speak to her as she passed. Each had a petition for place or promotion in the army for husband, brother or son. Not to the wife of Tewfik within her own palace, but to the wife of the English commander were the appeals of the Egyptian women made. The prominent and presiding women of a few years ago were Lady Baring, now Lady Cromer; Lady Greenfel, the young, beautiful but unconventional wife of Gen. Forrester Walker, and Lady Charles Beresford. The Civil Service, the Army of (16) 242 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. Occupation, the Egyptian army and navy were there to guard the interests of Egypt. Young Englishmen of noble families dance and flirt with English girls at private balls and clubs. Social rivalries and social mistakes in a system not yet crystallized con- ventionally make as much gossip as when Caesar and Antony and the Romans entered upon the social platform before the Ptolemies had departed. While I was in Egypt a censor came from England to review the armies and to define some lines of military and social etiquette, which caused unreserved comment. But the highest power had spoken, and though a Briton may scold yet he obeys. When the Duke of Cambridge, the commander-in-chief of the English armies, repri- manded a young officer who forgot to order his company to salute, saying, "You spend time in dancing which should be spent in studying your tactics," all the army approved. When he said to the pretty wife of the general commander of the Army of Occupation, who drove upon the parade ground with a young girl in a pony cart, " Madam, you are the wife of the highest military officer in Egypt. You represent the women of England, and you should sustain the dignity of the situation. In this pageant on this day only Lady Baring should precede you. Your equipage, with all the pomp you could command, with your runners and your mounted postilions, should have been next to hers, and preceded Lady Greenfel and all others. You must acquaint yourself with the rules, responsibilities and duties public and social of your position; and, Madam, if you flirt, which I suppose you must, let it be with your hus- band's equal, a major or a general — let it not be with your husband's aid-de-camp.'" I did not hear it, but authority and all Cairo affirm that her ingenious reply was, " I do not know what your grace can mean!" At the time of my visit there were sojourning in Egypt very many American ladies, some who had filled at home the highest position which society and the gov- ernment can give. One had entered the White House at Washington a young girl, and taken position, not as wife or daughter, but niece of the President of the United States. No authority ever gave a reprimand to her, no censor ever found a flaw in her administration. Egypt is now trodden by women, and one who has just departed this life. Miss Amelia B. Edwards, has done more to discover and reveal to others the interesting story of this land than any other woman who ever lived. HENRIK IBSEN AND BJORNSTJERNE BJORNSON. By MRS. NICOLINE BECH-MEYER. It is said about great men that they create their own age or a coming age. In one sense of the word this is not true. Man cannot create a leaf on the tree, much less a coming age. It is the eternal spirit of life, existing from times unknown, that spirit which con- stitutes the light of our eye and the strength of our hand, which is leading humankind along inexplicable roads toward one and the same aim — fulfillment of all promises, perfection of all possibilities. The spirit of humankind, being at the same time contents and form, must work through outward forms; undividable as it is, the spirit of all mankind works at the same time, through the single individual. There are times for rest and for consummation of what was given; and there are times where burning tides of spirit sweep across the world, where it makes way for itself and bursts forth through man and woman. Thus our great men and women are created by the accumulated forces of past and present genera- tions. Hence we in great poets, philosophers, musi- cians and artists find the standard progress of their age. " He was ahead of his time," some say. Not so. But the hidden forces of the time were to such a degree personified in one individual that it seemed to those hitherto blind as a revelation. Great minds have ears which hear the voices of by-gone ages and catch the unspoken prophecies of times to come; they have eyes which look through the covers of their own time and through the curtain of the future. Time and eternity is through them brought together in unity. There are times where the pressure of the spirit is so powerful that no single individual could give vent to it; then we see two or more kindred spirits raise side by side, revealing the same facts, though each in his own way. So in the Roman nations in the days of the renaissance, and the same again in Germany, when Goethe and Schiller represented the spirit of their time. The Norsemen, those contributors to the common treasury of mankind, unequaled among occidental nations, had for centuries appeared to be asleep. It seemed as if the creating spirit of mankind had left the icebergs and taken its abode in warmer climates. Those northern people who, in "the old and the young Edda," gave to the world Nicoline Bech was bom on the heaths of Jutland, where her father was a teacher. She was educated in her home by studying the Bible, the old Gothic sagas and the folk-lore of the Northern nations. Later she went to Copenhagen and regis, tered in Natalie Zahle's college for public teachers. She took a diploma with the higheHt degree. She there took up her pen as writer to the best Scandinavian illustrated weekly, " Nutiden." She became engaged to Axel Meyer, of Copenhagen. The young man went to Kansas, and about a year after she followed him. They were married in Stockton, Rooks County, Kan- sas. In the seventh year of her married life some of the leaders of the reform party in Denmark wanted Mr». Bech-Meyer to come home and lecture about the United States. She went with her children, her husband moving to Chicago. For half a year she remained in Denmark, lecturing. Her books, "Sketches from Kansas" and "Divided Opinions," s novel, were published in Copenhagen. Toward the fall of 1891 she with her children set sail for Chicago again, where she engaged in writing for several jwipers: " The Parthenon," "The Union Signal," "Goodform" and " The Sculptor News." In 1893 her native country entrusted her with the honor of representing Denmark at the Woman's Congress and at the Peace Congress. Her postofiSce address is Chicago. 243 MRS. NICOLINE BECH-MEYER. 244 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. what the Bible and Homer was to the southerners, were through climatic and geo- graphical conditions so excluded from the rest of the world that it seemed as if all they could do was to preserve the treasures from the childhood of the nation. Den- mark, being the country closest connected with the continent, had its great minds of the eighteenth and nineteenth century, none of whom, however, being wide enough to become universal, except Hans Christian Andersen. Norway, during its " four hundred years of sleep," seemed to have lost its power of production; but those who looked with eyes undimmed by the cover of time would have seen a work going on deep in the life of the nation. The folk-lore bursting with tales about brownies, hobgoblins, spirits of icebergs, waters and mountains, the sagas of their warriors and kings, were there, though unknown to the world. When- ever the eternal spirit was revealed to man through man, it has been in the garb of the nation in which it appeared. In the childhood of the race the outward forms attracted the eyes more than the contents. Thus the early literature became object- ive more than subjective. It was descriptive and picturesque, as in Homer. With the growth of the nations the subjective element appeared, until it, as in the German school of philosophers and poets, threatened to run into abstraction. The present time brings the dawning idea of universal unity, of the oneness of soul and body, of man and woman, of nation and nation; therefore, the great minds of our age must represent the objective and subjective element as inseparably one. The ancient times, with their intense love of life and beauty in outward forms, must-be united with the search for eternal principles revealed in those forms. And when it comes to that, where could we expect to find the intense desire for individu- ality — that is, the one as a world, the world in one — more than in the nation which, during centuries, had the echoes from the Edda's sounding in its ears. When at last the spirit burst forth, astonishing the world, locating itself in old Norway, there were such uncontrolled forces to gather, such walls to be broken, such floods of light to be dealt out in all directions, that one individual would be insufficient as medium. And the nation saw Henrik Ibsen and Bjornstjerne Bjornson arise side by side. Through their work is sounding the words from the Edda: See, it is rising, The sunken land; Green as a springtime, It grows from the ocean. * * * * Harvest shall come From fields unsown. Weak and strong together inhabit Abode eternal. Do you understand this? * * * * As children we only saw half of a table; only a corner of a room at a time was brought to the consciousness of our mind. Growing up, we slowly commenced unit- ing fragments, and with surprise we saw a whole grow out of them. Thus with the evolution of the human race. At a, time only body was acknowledged; at a time only soul; humankind has been divided into races, into nations, into men and women and children. The leaders of the spiritual life of this generation would, according to the laws of evolution, have to represent the unity of one and the unity of all. Therefore, it is said about the newest literature, that its peculiar feature is its striving to solve individual and social problems, while the greatest minds of the German school mainly were dealing with philosophical problems. Ibsen's mission might be defined as the seeking to find " God in one; " Bjornson's as the seeking to find " God in all." Thus the two are completing each other. Ibsen's book, " Brand," was the first work to carry his name all over the brother countries. THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 245 Brand is a preacher who, in his search for truth above all things, leaves the orthodox church, refuses a sure income, sees his child die and his wife suffer through all the hardships to which they are exposed in his self-chosen working place. "Noth- ing or all " is his motto. If you wish the name of soul. You must be an entire whole. « 4K « « Not in fractions, not in halves; Be a whole, or thou art doomed. * * * # ^ It is not martyrdom to perish In suffering on a cross of wood; But are you willing thus to die? Willing in suffering of flesh, Willing in agony of mind. Willing to conquer in the strife? Your will shall be your crown of life. He came seeking individuality in a society where public opinion was the opinion of each single individual, where everybody acted as the rest acted; hence there at times was almost bitterness in his view of society. In the poem, " The Miner," he says: Down below, down below. That is where I want to go; There is peace from chaos sleeping. Break my way, thou heavy hammer, To the treasures safe in keeping. Hammer blow on hammer blow, Till the hours of life are waning; Here no morning star is shining; Here the sun of hope is hidden. « * « « And in the song, " On the Heights:" Now I am stalwart; I follow the call Which tells me the heights to explore. Here on the mountains is freedom and God; Down below they are groping in darkness. * * * * * Sorrow and joy are really expressions of the same kind of feeling; they are both born of the longing for life in its fullness. They are lying close together, the element of sorrow being an intense desire to embrace joy and become one with it. Goethe has felt this when he said: •' Wer nie die kummervollen Nachte Auf seinem Bette weinend sasz, Wer nie sein Brod mit Thranen asz, Der kennt euch nicht, ihr himmlischen Machte!" (He who never through the live-long nights) (Sat weeping on his bedside,) (He who never ate his bread with tears,) (He does not know ye, ye heavenly powers!) Thus he who has the clearest conception of the ideal set before us; he who with a burning will wants to see this ideal established among us— he will feel with the deep- 246 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. est sorrow how far from perfection both he and the rest of humankind still is standing; with sorrow; and with bitterness if he realizes that society at a given time is deaf to his expostulations. But never was Ibsen despairing; never did he in his war against privileged fractions and halves reach the point where he lost his faith in life and truth as the triumphing powers at last. He who sees the ideal in its beauty, but despairs of its ever being realized among mankind, will lay down his weapons and prefer death to a life without meaning. From the time when Henrik Ibsen in " Brand" showed colors, he never has ceased to declare the same over and over again: the necessity of each individual being an entire whole, if we ever want a society which represents an entire whole. He is solemnly earnest in his way of working, and his force is so great that he is always above his subject. Whenever bis muse happens to carry him into sunnier regions it moves us strangely; a smile on a very earnest face has a beauty of its own never to be resisted. The poem, " Thanks," shows how far he can reach in peaceful, heart-felt lyric: THANKS. Her sorrow was each trouble Which met me on my way; Her happiness the spirits Which came to me to stay. Her home must be located On liberty's main. Where the verses of the poet Their force and freedom gain. The character and features That silently step in To take their seats around me, Are her family and kin. Her aim it is to lighten All darkness in a glow, To be my strength in stillness That the world should never know. But just because she always Not even thanks awaits, I sing her now and print her A song of thanks and praise. As the storm purifying the air, and the sun afterward calling forth life, thus do the two Norwegian poets complete each other. To the present generation is revealed a wider understanding of the word love. Punishment, condemnation, temptations, are words slowly dying out of the lan- guage of intelligent men and women. This universal love is the Alpha and Omega of Bjornson's teachings. In him was personified the hope and strength of a new human belief, from the moment when he in his first youth sang out: Lift thy head, thou youthful lad; Even if hopes are crushed, be glad; Others greet thee in the sky. Fraught with blessings from on high. ****** Lift thy head and look around; Don't you hear the joyful sound — How it with a million tongues In the air around thee sings? THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 247 Lift thy head and sing it out; Thou canst not kill the springtime sprout. Where there is power to burst and grow, Next year's spring sun will it show. At the same time he says, in one of the poems in " Arne": He who was longing for twenty years Over the mountains high and steep, He who knows that he never will reach, Feels himself smaller year after year. Hears a bird on the mountain singing. As it sits on the birch-tree swinging. Once I know that it shall go forth 'Way over the mountains high, Perhaps thy door is opened now. O Lord, my God, thy home is fair; Still, for awhile leave thou it shut. And let me strive in my longings. It is the never-ceasing thirst of a soul craving for knowledge, for light, in which to solve the problems of life. Before us is an ocean of wisdom, its invisible sources are located in eternity; the life of the oldest human being will only be sufficient for a few draughts. Though Bjornson claims to be intently national in his works as well as in personal inclination, he yet, without realizing it, is compelled to represent internationalism. He intends to say, Norway first and last; but his soul reaches too far, and he could not be a true medium for the spirit of his age, were not internationalism to leave its traces in his work. One of the most beautiful national songs ever written in any language is to be found in his novel, "The Fisher-girl." I shall guard thee, my land; I shall build up my land; I shall love it through life in my prayer and my child; I shall work for its good; I shall look for its wants, From its borders and out to the fisherman's yarn. We have plenty of sun; We have plenty of soil; Only we, only we could have plenty of love. Here is creating power Through the work of the hour; We could lift up this land, if we lifted as one. ****** This home-land is ours. And we worship it for What it was, what it is, what it will be again; And as love shall grow forth From the soil of our earth. That shall grow from the seeds of our love, in it laid. When we get this kind of national hymn instead of boasts about conquering nations, and nonsense about being the first and the only ones, then the first step toward internationalism is taken. The subjective national hymn, appealing to the will and work of the single individual, to the creating love instead of the contemplating love, is in its nature so wide-reaching, that it, even without realizing it, will sow the seeds of internationalism, 248 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. will carry us toward those higher regions where the earth is our fatherland, all man- kind our countrymen. Cosmopolitanism is the feeling with which the wayward soul regards the different nations, they are all of equal value to him, for the reason that he has home nowhere. Internationalism is a feeling growing out of the deepest love to the spot where we are born — through loving that, we slowly reach farther toward loving the whole earth. In correspondence with that tendency to internationalism, which Bjornson does not — or at least did not some years ago— acknowledge himself, Bjornson is an ardent friend of the Pease-cause, in favor of which a great deal of his talent as orator has been used. In their view of that omnipotent power, love between man and woman, Bjornson and Ibsen are true representatives of the present generation. This age, which has understood the identity of soul and body, does not loose itself in contemplation of outward forms, as forms alone, but seeks at every place the contents of those forms. The objective element has ceased to be the ruling one in the analysis of love. In Bjornson's and Ibsen's works true love is measured by the degree of strength it gives to the self. Reasoning thus, Norah came to the conclusion that her marriage with Helmer had on both sides been without true love. Ibsen's bitter satire on love between man and woman, as practiced in publicly sanctified engagements and later on in marriage, awoke such hissing wrath in his father- land that he for ten years lived abroad. Norwegian society was not yet ready to understand that it was not love between man and woman which Ibsen denied and attacked, it was the social ideal of this love, Bjornson, believing, full of hope, optimist in the most beautiful sense of that word, as he is, attacked this established ideal by painting one completely different. His " Flags are hoisted in city and at port," teaches the new social moral, that ignorance is not identical with innocence. He wants mothers to teach their boys and girls about the laws of life, that they may no more need to go to playmates or servants to get questions answered in a way which may injure them for lifetime. We must have mothers who bend their knees in reverence to the laws of nature, the beautiful and sacred; mothers who realize that nature is good and pure and true in all her ways; first then will the houses of prostitution be things unknown among us, buried with mis- takes of the past. Some six or seven years ago Bjornson traveled in Denmark, lectur- ing about his favorite subject, true love between man and woman. He only recognizes that union between man and woman which rests upon a unity of soul and body; no decree of society, neither clerical nor civil, can establish such a union, nor can it destroy it. They who look forward to those reforms of society, needed so sorely, yet so little acknowledged, will especially appreciate one feature common to both Ibsen and Bjornson, We may pile up before us every book written by them, not on one page, not in a single expression, will we find charity lauded. Those two men never bent their proud heads to money, never changed their opinion for the sake of wealth or rank; to them the charity of society is only a simple duty as long as it is a deplorable necessity. They both believe in a ruling justice in life, the justice involved in the fact that certain causes have certain effects as sure as a splash follows the stone thrown into the water. By the power of this justice Ibsen was at last acknowledged by his countrymen; by the same justice the heart of the Norwegian nation went out to Bjornson from the time when his first idyls from Norwegian peasant life appeared. Around these two representatives of the best in our own age, those prophets of a still better future, gather all who believe in the old prophecy: " Your sons and your daughters shall see sights, and the spirit shall descend to all mankind," The structure of future society shall have the word " justice " written over its portals with flaming letters; charity shall be buried deep in the ground, and the two Norwegian poets, nay, poets of the world, shall be counted among those who wrote its funeral march. When Ibsen's teachings about " God in one," and Bjornson s about "God in all," have reached their aim, then the poet, be it woman or man, shall arise among us, who shall sing about "All in God," THE HOME OF THE FUTURE. By MISS L. C. McGEE. The significance of the fact that the high school is practically sending forth only young women from its halls, and that the women of the world are not only seeking, but acquiring, practical information of the varied and complex concerns of life, points to nothing less than a reorganization of society, and that the high school is second to no other formative agent in this work. These two facts have led me to formulate the following as the most important, as well as the most portentous, of their results, namely: I. Women of ability are actively taking upon themselves the greater half of the responsibility of the future. 2. Thinking women, by the conditions which their own activity is bringing about, are debar- ring themselves from the fruition of their own crea- tion and their own rightful heritage — the home. 3. The success or failure of this whole speculation of the public school and self-government very largely depends on woman's ability to marshal the forces which her magic has called into being. To appreciate the truth of the fact that women are assuming the greater half of the responsibility of the future, it is only necessary to observe her in the various walks of life that she has, of her own free choice, chosen to enter. That she is honorable, caoa- ble, deserving and successful is no longer denied. Thatthe majority of such women have gone out from the home as professional women or women of affairs, earning distinction along every line of activity and of thought, is one of the many surprises of the century. But that she has thus gone out from the home is to be the regret of the future, not that she has not the ability to uphold the usefulness and dignity of professional life, but that she is, with her whole energy and might, engaging in the performance of service which lies beyond the confines of the home. That the service is grave and true service does not nec- essarily justify its performance by women. Do not mistake my meaning; not for a moment do I wish to imply that the home should be a limitation upon a woman's activity, but rather, if home service under existing conditions is her limitation, it is her privilege, and hers alone, to reorganize the home on a basis that is true and broad enough to offer ample and adequate activity for her varied and magnificent capacity. It is not so much that she fails to realize her own high womanhood outside of the home, but rather that her seeking fields of activity elsewhere is an eternal disadvantage to the home as a social institution. That will be a sorry day when the home is entirely left to woman without capability and without ambition, when it is left to women who do Miss Lacy Castina McGee was borB-in MartinsbarKh, Iowa, in IH.'iO. Her parents were S. and 8. J. McGee, .\merican- born citizens, her father being of Scotch-Irish and her mother of French origin. She wasgradaated from the Iowa Wesleyan University (Mount Pleasant) in 1880, taking the degree M. 8. In 1890 she was graduated from the University of Michigan, taking the degree Ph. M. She has spent four years in the Rocky Mountains. During her three years' residence in the Uni- versity of Michigan she did special work iif philosophy, English and history. Her principal literary works are essays, philo- sophical and literary. Miss McGee is now assistant in the Omaha high school, where she occupies the chair of senior, Eng- lish and elocution. The Omaha high school is one of the largest in the West, having about one thousand pupils. She is a member of the Episcopal I'hurch. Her postoffice address is No. 210 Twenty-fifth Street, Omaha, Neb. 249 ' MISS LUCY CASTINA MCGEE. 250 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. not consciously form a part of the bone and sinew and brain of national life; and yet the high school is helping to bring about just this condition, for as things are moving at present, the high school has too many women among its graduates — not too many for the sake of womankind, nor for the sake of the home and the world, but too many as compared with the number of young men among the graduates. It must originate from some strange misconception among the mothers of the country, that the daughters only are encouraged to look over into the promised land from the eminence furnished by the high school. This points, it seems to me, to a fact already in existence, namely, that women of ability are already debarred from their own rightful heritage, and so they are uncon- sciously making provision to further forego its privileges and its rights. Let us pre- dict, for the sake of the welfare of posterity, that this phase of woman's development is only ancillary to this period which is believed to be transitional in all vital respects, . and that it is merely a passing phase And, furthermore, it is reasonably safe to eagerly anticipate that the conditions which have been largely due to woman's activity will be so ordered and controlled that when she does return to the home, it may be enriched by the broadening and deepening and ennobling experience she has enjoyed among strangers in a foreign land. You will say to all this that the university is, on the other hand, sending only men from its halls, and that these are they who keep the intellectual current moving, and who see to it that the world goes on to a higher and better condition. It is true, and I am sorry it is true, that the university is crowded with men instead of with women. However, there is encouragement in the fact that from one- half to one-third of the students in the state universities are women. The majority of these women are to be teachers, who will, by their influence, principally in the high school, cause a mighty wave of reaction when it is brought to the notice of the large classes of girls that are graduating every year, that the high school is only the " light from which the dome of the university is brought to view." The exodus from the high school to the university will, in the future, principally consist of young women. Young men must have preparation for college. As a rule, young men are clever, but they are not clever enough to enter a university without serious preparation. The great majority must get this preparation, if they get it at all, in the high school. They are not now in these schools. The business world embraced in early life may enable them to amass an abundance of wealth in the course of years, but it will not give the necessary preparation for the university; neither will the accumulation of wealth, or the success in business, suffice for a lack of mental grace and development. I have no quarrel to make with the business world, for it is the commercial world that is to carry the gospel of good-will and honest dealing into every community in Christen- dom, and it is the mercantile ship that is preeminent in genuine missionary work. My protest is against the sentiment that young men do not need the advantage that gen- erous education gives to thinking human beings, and that business success is the mantle whose elegance and richness cover a multitude of faults. The significance of this state of affairs is altogether unsatisfactory. That women must be educated has been settled once for all. History has shown that an abso- lutely unequal education on the two sides of the world is altogether undesirable. I do not, however, wish to intimate that conditions can ever again be such as they were, or even nearly as bad, as when women were floating on a sea of blissful ignorance. For when this movement that is now apparent among women reaches its acme, and woman finds man in the mental degradation that results from unrealized capacity, her remembrance of past waves and winds will make her pitiful for her belated brother, and she will not hinder or retard his efforts to get back into the current of thought and intellectual endeavor. If my insight into womanhood is correct, the educated woman, the woman of advantages, sets higher ideals for herself than does the uneducated. This ideal of the woman who is in touch with the thought current which pulsates through the realm of THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 251 the higher activities of life, includes educated husbands, educated fathers, educated brothers, and above all, educated lovers. Where are these to come from? The high school of the country does not give evidence that the supply will meet the demand. Any woman who has self-respect, to say nothing of aesthetic taste, would intuitively refuse a partnership with one of whom she might, under many circumstances eas- ily imagined, be ashamed. A woman who is once ashamed of her lord and master's static intellect has already committed conjugal suicide. In this respect the conditions were different when women were yet embryonic, for if women were coy, sweet tem- pered and pretty, admirable traits surely, the catalogue of requirements was adequate. That will not do any longer. The seriousness and earnestness and womanliness with which she has taken hold of life takes woman, once for all, from the playhouse, and puts her in the workshop. With the educated woman on the outside, although her personal endeavor be rich with results, the home will sustain endless disadvantages; for it is altogether a plati- tude to say that upon the intellectual and moral character of the mother largely depends the welfare of the home, as well as on the state and society. The edu- cated woman in the school can only educate, cultivate what is already in the child's mental make-up; even the vigor and conscience of a well equipped teacher cannot create a new make-up in the child. The home, then, as an institution, meeting the demands of an advancing civilization, must be the resultant of equally good types of constituent elements. It is unquestionable that men do and are to hold the places of distinction. So let it be. They are naturally fitted for leadership in executive, legislative, judicial and commercial activities. They have the brain and the virile character which emi- nently qualifies them to direct the affairs and the thought of the world. But man as man is on the precise plane with woman as woman. Man as man is not what the future demands. Men who actively and consciously make special preparation for the per- formance of life's duties are they only who can serve a struggling humanity. Only , the men who are willing to absolutely devote themselves to the principles which underlie this complex civilization; only men who can't meet the century in its chal- lenge not only for deep insight, but for the most outspoken convictions resulting from that insight — only these men will be qualified to take hold vigorously of the problems which are already crying for solution. Duties assumed, though faithfully and expeditiously performed by the women of the world, can never elevate the race as a race. There must be a full and rich manhood, as well as a complete womanhood, to constitute the home of the future. The public school system is an organic part of this stupendous American specu- lation — the speculation of self-government. This speculation is not, however, of the same sort as the South Sea scheme, based on the " vain imagination of the heart." On the contrary, our speculation of the public school, of self-regulated life — one could not exist without the other — is based on the deepest needs and the broadest sympa- thies and the most exalted aspirations of the human soul. Such a speculation as this means a trial at living under the highest conditions yet furnistied for man by man. If this speculation is to be more than a South Sea scheme, the foundation of the whole inclusive scheme of self-government must be made adequate to bear up the whole enormous structure which we'are assisting to construct. It matters not what one's religious, social or political views may be, every law-loving man agrees that the home is the basal unit of our institutions, and that the man best equipped for the per- formance of either public or private duties is the man directly from the home influ- ence. The faithful performance of these duties means more here and now than at any other place or time since the beginning of human history. To be a true citizen of a nineteenth century republic is to be the center of myriad responsibilities. From the individual extends ten thousand threads which touch at their ends the state, the school, the home, the church, society. Each of these is a part of the individual, and the individual is a part of each of them. Never before have there been such demands 252 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. made of womanhood and of manhood. To be a man in the democratic sense of the term, means that he shall have intelligence enough to see the right and courage enough to do it at all times and under all conditions; and to be a woman in the nine- teenth-century sense of the term, is to have understanding enough to see the needs of a people struggling with the problem of self-regulation, and to have the heart to throw the whole force of her womanliness on the side of continual and ceaseless effort to reach the goal that the human soul sets for its own realization — self-government founded on law-abiding conduct and noble thinking. This goal of self-government, which implies intelligence and right disposition, is not alone an American speculation. Not a state in Christendom but has felt a heart- throb in response to " be a man! " It is the one thought of the century — this thought of a united brotherhood, living and working together in sympathy and love without the imposition- of priestcraft or kingcraft. This kingdom of man will not, however, be at hand, until men and women more fully appreciate the fullness and richness of such a brotherhood. But since the American democracy is leading the way in the solution of some of the most momentous problems now to be conceived from the human point of view, it is all important that our wrong should be made right, that our right be maintained. It is imperative that, first of all, men and women get into the thought movement, get into the way of right and true thinking about our needs, and about the meaning of our speculation, for the ills of democratic life are directly or indirectly traceable to undeveloped heart or brain. Educate the boys and girls till they appreciate the meaning of this complex life of ours; until they realize that they are personally responsible for the success or failure of this idea, that to be manly, to be womanly, is of first importance, and that all else will be added unto them; educate them till they understand that as modern conditions grow in complexity and gravity that there must be a rise in manhood and womanhood to meet the demand; educate them till they feel in their deepest selfhood that the highest freedom is identical with the law of the spirit of man; educate them to this extent and prosperity will rejoice in blessings ten-fold better than we now enjoy. There is, however, no way to salvation other than that it be wrought by individual effort. The rectitude of the individual life is the salvation of the world. Then, until all men and women share alike in rational, self-regulated life all possessing common power of self-direction, all claiming common rights,^all recognizing common obligations — not until then is an institution that we have erected safe. When the new generation of thinking women — the dearest chil- dren of the public school speculation — silently concludes that: " Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers " should be written " Be not unequally yoked with the unedu- cated, for what communion hath light with darkness," the basal unit of the race — the home as an institution — will for the first time become a spiritual boon to humanity, which will, by virtue of its own essence, make for righteousness. THE MOORS OF SPAIN. By MRS. ELLEN M. HARRELL CANTRELL. When Columbus, the man of destiny, standing in the vestibule of the Old World, drew aside the mysterious curtains that veiled its threshold, and set out on his career into unknown space, the peoples around him strained forward their eager vision to follow his dazzling course, while we, who stand here today in the culminated glory of his conception, look backward, with an in- terest scarcely less vivid, to pierce the obscurity from whence he emerged. There we find storm and light- ning, blackness and gloom, marking the extinction of a nation, which, perhaps, more than any other, has held us with its spell of romance; namely, the Moors of Spain. Beginning with the records of the patriarchs: they have been the theme for mediaeval and modern writers; have been sung by troubadours, chronicled by historians, dramatized by poets, and may yet sup- ply a subject, not inappropriate to this occasion, since they form the environment of Columbia's embryo hero, who, like the mythical Arabian bird, developed a new nation, from the ashes of the one just extin- guished. Prophet, poet, and painter have, in turn, brought before us for contemplation a certain group, which, though draped in the mists of antiquity, still appears in vivid outlines, appealing to our deepest emotions by its pathos, and which serves as an exponent of the histories of successive nations, more especially that of Spain. I refer to the dual group of fugitives, Hagar and Ishmael, the outcast wanderers in the desert of Shur and the wilderness of Beersheba. The prophet tells us, that of Ishmael it was foretold before his birth, by the angel of the Lord: " He will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him, and he shall dwell in the presence of his brethren;" and later, in response to Abraham's prayer — '* O that Ishmael might live before Thee," the Almighty God established with him this covenant — "As for Ishmael, I have heard thee: Behold, I have blessed him and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall be beget, and I will make him a great nation. But my covenant will I establish with Isaac, which Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time next year." When Ishmael, the son of Hagar, the bondwoman, was thirteen years of age, a Mrs. Ellen Maria Harrell Cantrell is a native of Virginia. She was bom in 1883. Her parents were Rev. Samuel Har- rell, native of North Carolina, member of the Methodist Conference, and Ellen C. Collins, of Cork, Ireland. She was edncated chiefly by her mother, was gradaated from the Nashville Female Academy, Tenn., December, 1848, and has traveled only in the Sonthern States, bnt is familiar with the known world as geographer and historian. She married William Armoar Can- trell, M. D., in 1852, at Little Rock, Ark. She is the mother of eight children, seven of whom have reached majority and of whom one died in infancy. Her principal literary works are stories for magazines and fugitive newspaper articles and edi- torials as associate editor of the "Arkansas Ladies' Journal," afterward the "Southern Ladies' Journal." In the social world Mrs. Cantrell has always held 'a prominent place as a finished musician, a polished local writer, and lady of refine, ment. In religious faith she acknowledges the Holy Trinity and Jesus Christ as Redeemer and Savionr. Mrs. Cantrell is a member of the Episcopal Church. Her postoffice address is No. 619 Scott Street, Little Rock, Ark. 263 MRS. E, M. H. CANTRELL. 254 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. great feast was made in honor of Isaac, the babe, on the day of his weaning, and Sarah saw Ishmael mocking. All the tenderness, pride, jealousy and resentment of a woman's heart rose in rebellion against this alien boy, whose ancestral Eber blood was tainted by that of Egypt, and she cried out: " Cast out this bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac." An English poetess, whose womanly endurance, resignation, and religious trust made her the fitting lyrist for this pathetic incident, and whose lovely countenance adorns these walls, gives this sympathetic lament: " Nor was thy way forgotten. Whose worn and weary feet Were driven from thy homestead Through the red sand's parching heat; Poor Hagar, scorned and banished, That another's son might be Sole claimant on that father. Who felt no more for thee. "Ah, when thy dark eye wander'd, Forlorn, Egyptian slave. Across that lurid desert And saw no fountain wave; When thy southern heart, despairing, In the passion of its grief, Foresaw no ray of comfort. No shadow of relief, "But to cast the young child from thee That thou mightst not see him die. How sank thy broken spirit — But the Lord of Hosts was nigh! He (He too oft forgotten In sorrow as in joy) Had will'd they should not perish — The outcast and her boy. "The cool breeze swept across them, From the angel's waving wing, The fresh tide gushed in brightness From the fountain's living spring; And they stood — those two — forsaken By all earthly love or aid, Upheld by God's firm promise. Serene and undismay'd." The illustrious painters, Correggio, Vanderwerf and Lanfranco, supplemented this word-picture with paintings which, once seen, cannot fail to linger in the memory with a plaint as penetrating as that of the poetess. The boy and his mother were res- cued by Divine compassion, and in the course of time, we are told, his mother " took him a wife out of the land of Egypt," Twelve sons were born of this union, who became the twelve princes of Arabia. Their descendants led the life of nornads or wanderers, as predicted, for thousands of years, maintaining their freedom, their faith and their peculiar customs against the assaults of great military empires. Neither the Babylonian and the Assyrian, nor the Egyptian and the Persian kings could reduce these wild sons of the desert to a state of subjugation. The Arab devoted his life to his horse, his weapons, his women and his poets, who sang the feuds of the tribes and THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 255 the praises of their heroes and their fair women. Prizes were awarded for these poems, which were written in golden letters and suspended in their chapel of worship, the Caaba at Mecca, which contained the black stone — the object of the religious devotion of the Arabs from a very ancient period. This stone they believed to have been handed down from Heaven to Abraham by the angel Gabriel. Beneath a canopy of molten brass outstretched in eternal serenity, lay the desert " dreary, vast and silent," which, changed in a moment by wild tornadoes to a scene of fury, was reflected in the aspect of her children. Alternating from mysterious tran- quillity to reckless rage, their faces showed a corresponding conflict of calm and tem- pest. Their fine, Oriental features and melancholy eyes gave silent token of their sense of isolation, and completed the spell of their wild and vigorous minstrelsy. For thousands of years Arabia was a land of religious freedom. All religious sects, Jews, Fire-worshipers and Christians were tolerated within its borders; Jewish colonies were formed by emigrants, who found entrance after the destruction of Jeru- salem by the Romans, and who made many proselytes. About the year 600 A. D. Christianity had penetrated to the heart of Arabia, through Syria on the one hand and Abyssinia on the other. Besides these two, other religious sects, remnants of more ancient ones prevailed. It was left for Mohammed to teach a new faith, which should dispense with idolatry on the one hand, as with Judaism and Christianity on the other. These various sects became a unit by the acceptance of the new faith, and under the banner of the crescent Mohammed led them to the conquest of the ancient world. The introduction of the doctrine of Mohammed forms the grand epoch in Arabian history, and brings it into close connection with that of Spain. The creed of Mohammed was contained in the well-known symbol of Islam, "There is no god but God, and Mohammed is the prophet of God;" and his express precept was "to prop- agate by fire and sword, throughout the four quarters of the globe the new Unitarian faith of Arabia." Like a match dropped on oil, this appeal to mankind for spiritual and tem- poral authority, fired the fanaticism of the Arabs, and like a mighty conflagration they swept over the northern states of Africa, and formed a new and powerful empire, which took the name of Saracen. This name is by mediaeval Christian authors supposed to be derived from Sarai, the wife of Abraham, by others from the Arab saraca (to steal), or from the Hebrew sarak (poor), but the opinion which now pre- vails is that it came from the Greek sareknoi (eastern people), from which the Romans derived their word Saraceni. As they spread over Morocco, then called Mauritania, they took the name of Moors, from mauri, meaning dark. When the Arabs or Saracen conquerors invaded Spain, they were, naturally enough, called Moors, so that in Spanish history the terms Arabs, Saracens and Moors are synonymous. In the short space of eighty years after the death of Mohammed, they had passed like a fiery tornado over Northern Africa, and had extended their domains from Egypt to India and from Lisbon to Samarcand. In the meanwhile, Christianity, falling like drops of fertilizing rain, was making a fruitful harvest in Northern and Southern Europe. In Spain, the cross confronted the crescent. Visigoths or Western Goths, who were in possession, defied the Moors for its dominion. The treachery of one man betrayed the Gothic cause. Count Julian, a Visigothic noble of Spain, irritated by the treatment he had received from his sovereign, the tyrant Roderic, secretly dis- patched a messenger to Musa, the governor of Africa and invited the Moors into Spain, Roderic, more familiarly known as "The last of the Visigoths," whose tragic downfall has supplied the theme for poets, romancers and historians, was hated by his people, and during the battle, which continued seven days on the banks of the Guadalete, a portion of his forces, as had been previously arranged, deserted to the Moors. The Goths were finally routed with immense slaughter, but the victory of the Moors was purchased at the expense of sixteen thousand lives. The renowned rock 256 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. of Gibraltar, England's bulwark of pride since 1779, still preserves the name of the Saracen hero who took it — Gibel-al-Taric, the Moorish substitute for the original, classic Calpe Most of the Spanish towns submitted after this, without opposition, and before the end of a year the whole of Spain passed under the sway of the Moors, except a solitary corner in the northern part, Asturias, now Oviedo, where Christianity preserved a foothold. It required nearly eight hundred years to regain it from the Moslem sway. Once entered on their career of conquest, the Saracen hosts had almost simulta- neously spread over Syria, the valley of the Euphrates, Persia, and Egypt, thus fulfill- ing their destiny in becoming a " great nation." Nor was their progress brilliant only in the arts of war. The Arab " stood in the presence of his brethren" as a learner, for learning was mostly in the hands of the Jews and Christians. The caravan trade first opened channels of communication and more extended contact with the world which they conquered, and the great cities of the East and West supplied instructors. The ancient seats of civilization throughout the East, Northern Africa, Spain, and the Mediterranean Isles bestowed upon them the rich legacy of letters, which they trans- lated into their native language. Thus the mind of the Moor became loosened from the fetters of the religion which had enthralled it, and became illuminated with the reflected light of the word, just as Europe has been rescued from the dark supersti- tions of Romanism by the electric spark of the Protestant Bible. In natural science, physics, medicine; in botany, mathematics, astronomy, alchemy and the arts, they equaled and often surpassed the Chinese, Jews, Gentiles and Christians, whose pupils they were. Seats of learning were located, as the demand for them arose, at Samar- cand and Bokhara beyond the Oxus, at Ispahan in Persia, at Bagdad on the Tigris, at Alexandria and Cairo in Egypt, at Fez and Morocco in Western Africa, at Cordova, Seville, Toledo, Granada, Salamanca and Alcala in Spain, and even in Sicily. The Moors " studied everything and wrote on everything they studied." The libraries became phenomenal in their growth. The library at Bagdad was enriched by thou- sands of volumes and precious manuscripts. It rapidly rose to splendor, and was the center of enlightenment until Cordova, in her beauty, rivaled and eclipsed her. Bagdad, on the Tigris, with its gorgeous palaces and splendid mosques, was the liter- ary metropolis of the East, and Cordova, upon the Guadalquiver, of the West, while Cairo, upon the Nile, divided the prestige of each as the metropolis of Egypt. The library of El Hakem II., of Spain, was stored in his palace at Cordova, and is said to have numbered six hundred thousand volumes. What wonder that the light that shone from the Moorish schools should have attracted the more poorly supplied scholars of Christian Europe, and that the fair surroundings of the Spanish university towns, where schools were attached to every mosque, beguiled them from their coarser northern homes! Cordova was the Delphi of the peninsula, while the sterner Goths retired to the rugged Asturias. The Crusades aided in awakening the mind of Europe by emphasizing this contrast of the culture and refinement of the East with that of the barren North. The genius of the Moors was poetic, and their songsters outnumber those of all other peoples put together. The " Poema del Cid," the oldest as well as the finest ballad of the Iberian muse, gave birth to the latter songs of Spanish chivalry. In romance, the store was more meager, but where has any later achievement eclipsed the splendor and charm of the "Arabian Nights' Entertainment?" For a hundred years it has been a European classic, one of the few books that delights all classes and all ages. Haroun-al-Raschid, Caliph of Bagdad, is almost as familiar to children as Santa Claus. Aladdin's lamp will serve to illuminate the day-dreams of the young as long as girls covet dancing slippers and boys long for racing ponies. In architecture the Moors have given expression to their religion. The shifting tent of the Bedouin gave place to edifices resembling those built by Christian archi- tects from Constantinople, who imitated those of Greece and Rome, and more ancient predecessors, with one noticeable distinction — the fanciful ornamentation known as THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 257 the Arabesque, which differed from that of the Egyptians and others in entirely excluding the figures of animals (the representation of which was forbidden by the Mohammedan religion), and confining itself entirely to foliage, flowers, fruits and tendrils of plants and trees, curiously and elaborately intertwined, which Schlegel de- scibes as "the oldest and most original form of fancy." The mosque at Cordova, with its thousand columns of vari-colored marble, jasper and porphyry, forming a perfect grove, is the finest type of a Moslem temple in Europe. The royal residence at Seville, the Al-Kasa (house of Caesar), enchants the beholder with its colonnades, courts, halls and porches, whose delicate ornamentation has been said " to have the effect of old point lace, and whose walls, tilings and ceilings show the harmonious mingling of ivory, amber, turquoise-blue or v'iolet-purple, and look like the inside of sea-shells." The most conspicuous, the most romantic, as well as the most venerated pile of Arabian architecture is the Alhambra of Granada. That name calls up such pictures of beauty and such scenes of historic interest, as only the pen of Washington Irving could depict. To him we are indebted for a faithful representation of this Oriental palace in a Christian land — an elegant memento of a brave, intelligent, graceful peo- ple, whose Paradise was an earthly one, and that Paradise beautiful Granada, with its mountain crest rising gravely and grandly above the lovely plain below, where gilded palaces, fountains, rivers and gardens, pillared avenues and arcades, galleries and balconies, blossoms and perfume, music, moonlight and charming women, did indeed form an Pllysium! But Moslem ambition awoke from this seductive thralldom. At Constantinople, which they had vainly besieged for six years, the Saracens had been sternly repulsed by the terrible liquid fire, called "Greek Fire," u.sed by the inhabit- ants for defense. Foiled at this point, the Moors boldly scaled the Pyrenees and cast their rapacious eyes on the fair land of France, which now promised the only pathway to the Euxine — the object of their dreams and hopes, as the last step toward universal empire. Can we think of it without a shudder! We, who are here today as grateful disciples of Him who gave His presence and benediction to the marriage feast; who rebuked the pecuHar form of idolatry practiced by the Jewish kings, that had provoked God's wrath and precipitated their ruin; who made the religion of Mohammed a mockery and a crime, by His awful condemnation, and who has lifted our sex from the degradation of the harem to the exalted position we occupy here today! On the plain between Tours and Poitiers the contending armies met, the Moors led by Abd-el-Rahman, the P>anks and the German tribes by Charles Martel, the illus- trious mayor of the palace of the Frankish king. After six days' skirmishing, the enemies engaged in that fearful battle that was to decide the fate of Christendom. In the light skirmishing, the Moorish archers maintained the advantage, but in the close onset of deadly strife, the German auxiliaries of Charles, grasping their ponder- ous swords with "stout hearts and iron hands" — for they fought for faith and home — stood the shock like walls of stone, and beat down the light-armed Moors with ter- rific slaughter. Was this the battle-ground of the man of flesh and the man of Spirit? Amid the clash of the contending armies do we not hear, resounding through the ages, the echo of Sarah's imperious cry: "Cast out this bondwoman and her son, for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son! " Were the thirteen years of Ishmael's ascendency in the house of his father Abraham a prototype of the thirteen centuries of Moslem supremacy? The Arabs " folded their tents and silently stole away" in the night, fugitives before the wrath of Christian knights, leaving their camp rich with the plunder of Southern Europe to reward the victorious Franks, and 375,0(X) of their slain on the battle-field. The spell of Islam was broken, and " the most brilliant life of the most brilliant of civilizations went down to its setting! " Long mercifully deferred, the doom of Ishmael had sounded! (17) 258 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. Twenty-seven years elapsed before the Moors were wholly dislodged from the Pyrenees, but in 1492 their capital, Granada, was taken by Ferdinand and Isabella, and the great peninsula was again under Christian rule, prepared to enter on the " heritage of the West," and to make gracious response to that eloquent appeal of Columbus: " I ask but for a million maravedes; Give me three caravels to find a world. New shores, new realms, new soldiers for the Cross! " In a picture gallery in the palace of Generaliffe hangs the portrait of Boabdil, the last of the Moorish kings of Spain; in the tower of Comares, in the Alhambra, are the rooms where he was imprisoned by his father, from the gallery of which his mother lowered him with scarfs, to escape the cruelties of a parent who hated and repudiated him; the gate through which he departed from the Alhambra, when about to surren- der his capital to Ferdinand and Isabella, was walled up at his request. A tablet on the walls of a small mosque relates that on this spot Boabdil surrendered the keys to the Castilian sovereigns. From the summit of one of the Alpuxarras Mountains the unfortunate Boabdil took his last look of Granada; there is the rock where he stood and turned his eyes away from taking their farewell gaze, still called " el ultimo suspiro del Moro (the last sigh of the Moor), and there it was that the reproach of his mother embittered his heart. " You do well to weep as a woman over what you could not defend as a man." "Woe is me!" was the mournful cry of the dethroned monarch, as he led his for- lorn troops through the mountain pass, over the beloved Andalusian plains, away to the desert sands of Africa. " Winding along at break of day, And armed with helm and spears. Along the martyr's rocky way, A king comes with his peers; Unto the eye a splendid sight. Making the air all richly bright. Seen flashing through the trees; But, to the heart, a scene of blight. Sadder than death were these. "For brightly fall the morning rays ; Upon a conquer'd king; The breeze that with his banner plays. Plays with an abject thing. • - Banner and king no more will know Their rightful place 'mid friend and foe: Proud clarion, cease thy blast! Or, changing to the wail of woe. Breathe dirges for the past. "Along, along, by rock and tower, That they have failed to keep, By wood and vale, their father's dower, \ The exiled warriors sweep. The chevroned steed, no more elate, As if he knew his rider's fate. Steps languidly and slow, As if he knew Granada's gate Now open to the foe! THK CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 259 "Along, along, till all is past That once they called their own; Till bows the pride of strength at last, And knights, like women, moan. Pausing upon the green hillside, That soon their city's tower will hide, They lean upon their spears; And hands that late with blood were dyed Are now wash'd white with tears, "Another look, from brimming eyes, Along the glorious plain; Elsewhere may spread as lovely skies, Elsewhere their monarch reign; But nevermore in that bright land, With all his chivalry at hand, Now dead or far departed! — And from the hillside moves the band, The bravest broken-hearted." ,^- mi NATIONALISM. By MRS. LILLIAN CANTRELL BAY. The leading thinkers and writers on social questions seem to agree that optimism is no longer suitable for the age, and that the laissez faire (let alone) principle will not meet the issues of the day; and that charity in laws may soon be a fundamental doctrine that will become a matter of public conscience. It is even maintained that President H arrison in his last message recommends measure after measure, which, whether so intended or not, are in perfect harmony with Mr. Bellamy's plan of nationalism, as his leading recommendations add additional strength and power to the general gov- ernment and take away certain rights and privileges from the states and citizens that have never been questioned heretofore. Mr. Bellamy desires to na- tionalize everything and everybody, and make the powers of the general government absolute and su- preme. He argues that large syndicates are handling immense revenues, and hundreds of thousands of men, with an efficiency and economy unattainable by the individuals; hence the larger the business the simpler the principles to be applied — that railroads, tele- graphs, expressage and other public necessities, now formed into corporations, should be controlled and operated by the government for the benefit of all and not a few; that the people will never be contented until the government displaces all monopolies and becomes one grand co-operation, and that this country, which has unlimited power of production under existing con- ditions, permits its power to be broken and made inefficient by fractional efforts. Social reforms are as varied as the flowers of the field, or, if you please, as the resources of the evil one. We hear of societies based upon communities of wives and upon celibacy; upon the Word of God, and upon the denial of God; upon Christian communism, and the naturalism of Rousseau; upon the slave-based military systems of Sparta and the modern ideal of social and industrial equality; upon the military sys- tem and religious brotherhoods of the Middle Ages; the Jesuitism of Loyola, and the Shakerism of Mother Ann Lee, which are diverse and varied in their forms and con- ceptions, and yet all were suggested by either the religious or social condition of mankind and must be called communism, which is nothing more nor less than dis- content created by the succe'ss of the few and the misery and want of the many, brought about by the principle and practice of competition in war, politics, finances, capitaliza- tion and industry, which makes might the basis of right. Against this triumph of might, against right and humanity, the Socialists in Europe and the Nationalists in America raise their protest. Lord Lytton, in his Utopia " The Mrs. Lillian Cantrell Bay was bom in Little Rock, Ark., and is the dansrhter of Dr. W. A. Cantrell and Ellen Harrell Cantrell, She was educated chiefly in Little Rock, finished her course of study at St. Mary's Hall, Burlington, N. J., and has visited the eastern and northern cities of the United States. She married Joseph Lovell Bay, and has an interesting family of children. Mrs. Bay is a lady of unusual gifts of mind and person, is a favorite in social circles, has many devoted friends and admirers of her virtues, and is rarely excelled as an amateur pianist. In religions faith she is Protestant Episco- pslian. Her pontofiice address is Hot Springs, Ark. 260 MRS. LILLIAN CANTRELL BAY. THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 261 Coming Race," says: "The primary condition of mortal happiness consists in the extinction of that strife and competition between individuals which, no matter what form of government they adopt, render the many subordinate to the few, and annul the calm of existence. The social dream of co-operation, like the clouds of sunset, has changed form and name since the time of Plato to Bellamy, and there is some reason to believe that the clouds are becoming the reflection of an actual future; that all the various social reforms, nihilism in Russia and nationalism in America, must present some perma- nent idea, some just complaint, as the rock lies beneath the torn seaweed and the shivering foam on the beach. What, then, is the message, the soul of good, the impel- ling spirit and inspiration in these things that seem so evil? Nihilism in Russia alone has given to prison, to Siberia, and to the executioner genius enough, self-sacrifice enough, and love enough to have inspired an hundred epochs in the history of the world. It may be said. What is the use of pursuing the impossible, however bright the dream may be; but the answer is, That we have never yet discovered what the impossible may be in social problems, and that we cannot say, in the light of past experience, what may or may not be true, as the history of the world is a history of derided dreams. A large number will thrust the subject aside as disagreeable or dan- gerous, and say: " It is no business of mine;" which may mean, " It is not to be helped, and that it is natural for the weakest to go to the wall." These weird reformers reply that it is not nature, but that " Man's inhumanity to man Makes countless thousands mourn." Mr. Bellamy presents a bright picture of a .social democracy, giving to all the greatest advantages and the highest civilization, and obliterating corruption, degra- dation and poverty, which, he says, is demanded by increasing civilization and the laws of evolution, in order to prevent the people from being handed over to the rapac- ity of a feudal system of capitalists, and that we must either choose nationalism or despotism. I must acknowledge that the personal history of Edward Bellamy is unknown to me. It is inevitable in the world of letters that an author must be at rest in his mau- soleum before the doors of his earthly home are thrown open and the public admitted to the hallowed hearthstone. There are instances where authors are permitted to read their own biographies, and to enjoy the doubtful pleasure of " seeing themselves as others see them;" but if Mr. Bellamy occupies a place in this coterie I am not pos- sessed of the evidence. There is thus only one other way for me to become acquainted with him, and that is his writings. We judge a tree by its fruit. In this instance the fruit hangs very high, by almost like the apples of Hesperides, in the region of Allegory, and surrounded: — the mists of a century of time in advance of us. It promises to be luscious to the taste, having for us all the enchantment that distance is said to lend. Mr. Bellamy has, in his most interesting book, "Looking Backward," stationed himself on the heights of the twentieth century, and through the magical medium of a dream has looked back on the nineteenth century with the eyes of a philanthropist who would see us all bestowed in an earthly elysium, where fraternity and equality go hand in hand, "the one being a flower growing on the soil of the other;" where love enters all the doors and poverty has been relegated to parts unknown, and where plu- tocracy has been banished to its own Plutonian shores. This is a delightful dream, a beautiful vision of a possible better condition than existing surroundings, free from selfishness, and where the relations of mankind are perfectly harmonious. It is really the dream of a noble and very sympathetic type of man, guided by the hope that the greatest good will eventually prevail. Mr. Bellamy's " Looking Backward " has not only attracted the most marked attention of the literary world, but has also been subjected to the most vigorous criti- cism and condemnation. 262 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. M. Emil de Loveleye, the eminent French critic, says: "As for Mr. Bellamy's dream, it will, I fear, always remain an Utopia, unless man's heart be entirely trans- formed. His ideal is pure communism, and as such raises my invincible objections." And Mr. Vinton, in his "Looking Further Backward," has drawn a gloomy picture of the outcome of nationalism as advocated by Mr. Bellamy, However, all seem to admit that he has instilled heart into the usually dry subject of political economy, and has woven poetry around the dread problem of social reform, which wrecks lives and embitters souls, and that he has offered a pleasing remedy instead of a raven prophecy. It has been suggested that " Looking Backward," like " Uncle Tom's Cabin," may be one of those unexpected incidents which occasionally bring mighty causes and forces into play, and with astonishing results. The plan is beautifully conceived and quaintly sketched with the skill of a mas- ter, but I very much fear that the time for the lion and the lamb to live together and not covet each other's strength or flesh will be deferred to our millennium instead of the twentieth century. However it may be, public opinion says that [f. at least demands attention and is worthy of investigation; that it may be garnished with a multiplicity of ornamental towns, columns and entablatures, a wild mingling of the Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Romanesque and Gothic styles of architecture, and yet suggest many needed additions to the edifice of our government. I believe in looking at bright things, at pictures of places that I may never hope to see, at grand mountains that I may never hope to climb, and in hoping that the survival of the fittest will be the survival of the most gracious spirit and the most tender heart. Duty, assisted by anxiety, compels us to ask: "What is there in this weird propo- sition to which generation after generation comes in such questionable shapes? " Is it a curse, or a blessing in disguise, or some angel in the process of development? We seem to be driven to the necessity of saying, as Hamlet said, "Thou comest in such a questionable shape that I will speak with thee;" or as Carlylesaid of the dingy, soiled and ragged toiler: " Thou wert our conscript, on whom the lot fell, and, fight- ing our battles wert so marred." We know that glorious dreamers, unselfish martyrs, untamed lovers of liberty and noble-minded women, as well as dynamite fiends and incendiary hags, have been led to the executioner's block, or doomed to pass their lives in the dark mines of Siberia, toiling with broken hearts under the lash of heart- less masters. It is said that the barricades have their Christs, in whom we can detect aspirations, emotions, instincts and ideas essentially beneficent and good, the despair- ing anguish of nature's longing for justice and right. Oscar Wilde, with real insight, touched a right note when he said: "I love them not, whose hands profane Plant the red flag upon the piled-up street For no right cause; beneath whose ignorant reign, Arts, culture, reverence, honor, all things fade. Save treason, and the dagger of her trade. And murder, with his silent, bloody feet, * * * And yet, and yet, These Christs upon the barricades, God knows, I am with them in some things." John the Baptist, clad in his camel's hair blanket, and feeding upon locusts and wild honey, was a most startling character, and the victim of unfortunate circum- stances; although he was a forerunner of our Saviour, who, also, by the way, came to be Saviour only after Calvary and the cross. We might do worse things than remember that it was a murderer who said: "Am I my brother's keeper?" and listen to these weird reformers why teach us the Divine lesson of inculcating self-sacrifice; or condemn or dread them us we will, no selfish thoughts taint the simplicity of their aims. THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 263 We consider Nationalists as dreamers, for " Looking Backward " and all similar Utopias are but dreams to our practical people; but such dreams are a mirage, which could not appear in the sky unless as a reflection of a former reality somewhere on earth. Mr. Bellamy would be insane, indeed, did he conclude that even the main features of his plan will be adopted, or that the world can grow up on the basis of a book. The growth must be natural, but the forecast of that growth can be either hopeful or disheartening, " You will get well," says Dr. Bellamy, and the world opens its heart to the good and gentle tidings. LITERATURE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE. By MISS CORA M. MCDONALD. In this glorious year we are often reminded of that immortal day on which the Pilgrim Fathers gained a foothold upon the solid rock of America. The story of the hardships of these pioneers of our civilization, of their comfortless homes and their limited resources, is familiar to us all. Upon the best table in the best room was their library, the Bible, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Young's Night Thoughts, Milton, Baxter's Saints' Rest, Fox's Lives of the Martyrs, Addison's Spectator, and Watts' Improve- ment of the Mind. And yet from these homes of pri- vation, the mind nourished by a few choice books, came the sublime men and women of our colonial age. Have modern luxury and an exhaustless supply of varied literature produced nobler manhood and womanhood? Far be it from my purpose to argue that the former days were better than these. Present advantages mean enlarged opportunity and power, but the voice of the past can teach us how to use wisely the inheritance of this teeming age. Then, in determining what the young ought to read, we should consider carefully the results of past effort, to learn the principles that govern this important factor in the formation of character. Let us glance at the situation of our youth in regard to literature. In the homes of many the text-books of the children form the larger part of the books possessed. Not repression in childhood, but skillful guidance develops self-control, correct habits, and true morality. A forcible writer says: " The evils of a pernicious literature are pressing hard upon us with every click of the printing-press. Its corrupting and blighting power is felt in our schools and in society. Its baneful effect is seen in the disrespect of our youth for parental authority, in their treatment of the aged, in their wrong ideas of life, and in their general spirit of insub- ordination." What can we do to stay its power ? This work must begin in our homes with the babe at its mother's knee, in the lullaby that cradles the child to rest. It must continue through childhood and youth, until our children shall go forth from home and school with fixed habits and cultivated tastes. Noteworthy steps, indeed, have already been taken by educators to make books more potent in bettering our American life. What we now need is masters of books, guides to the library; those who understand the art of leading the young spirit, those who have the ability to kindle intelligence and awaken thought. Miss Cora Martin McDonald was born in Talmage, Ohio. Her parents were John McDonald and Fannie A. Coy McDonald, of New England. She was educated in Salem, Ohio, Oberlin College and Wooster, Ohio. Received the degree of A.M. from the University of Wooster. She began teaching when eighteen years of age, and soon gained first rank in her chosen profession. She was principal of the Defiance Ohio High School for eight years, the Boone Iowa High School three years, and the Cheyenne Wyoming High School three years. Miss McDonald now occupies a chair in the State university of Wyoming, and also the principalship of the Academic Department. She has written many papers on educational subjects, contributed largely to the "Wyoming School Journal," and has lectured successfully in Wyoming on educational themes. In religions faith she is Presbyterian. Her postoffice address is Laramie, Wyo. 264 MISS CORA MARTIN MCDONALD. THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 265 In this century, as never before, God is revealing to the nations woman's place and work in the world. She will lead the children aright, she will influence them through those institutions which are the glory and the hope of America — the home and the public school. She will direct the physical, the intellectual, the spiritual energy of her life toward the rising generation. In the home, in the Sunday-school, and in the day school, she will feed the mind upon pure and noble thoughts, thus giving it a habit, a tendency, which shall determine character and destiny. And now, in the full- ness of time, God has given her such agencies of self-improvement for the guidance of others as the Chautauqua Circle and University Extension. Early disadvantages no longer form a barrier to her usefulness. Through physical culture, hygienic reform in dress and fashion, intellectual ambition awakened by opportunity, she becomes young at fifty; is beginning the study of foreign languages at seventy. With our greatest American author, James Russell Lowell, she sings: " One day, with life and heart, is more than time enough to find a world." No longer will she entrust the education of her child to the teacher alone, but she will co-operate with that teacher to secure the best results. Instruction in science has awakened in the mind of many a boy and girl a train of thought, an interest in nature, which has led to research, and has redeemed the life from devotion to degrading literature and its attendant evils. The educational progress of this century is in no way more manifest than in the introduction of elementary science into the lower grades of our leading schools. It has been stated that " childhood is the era of scientific acquisition." Every day the child gathers facts, makes discoveries, and deduces generalizations far grander and far richer in practical import to him than any made by Newton or Cuvier. These dis- coveries stimulate and ennoble him, not only in the same way as the Newtons and Cuviers were ennobled, but relatively to a far higher degree. The instructor must first have accepted Dame Nature's invitation to Agassiz: " Come, wander with me," she said, " Into regions untrod. And read what is still unread In the manuscripts of God." Let us commune with Coleridge, Ruskin, Wordsworth and Bryant. We would not banish Mother Goose from childhood lore, but we plead for the use of sim- ple stories from the world's mythology and from the Bible, interesting incidents of history, the gems of poetry and the ideals of fiction. So bright, so attract- ive must the stories seem, that curiosity will be awakened to be gratified only by reading. Suitable books are now prepared with a view to this instruction. The fairy tale can cultivate the imagination, the fable illustrate and impress truth; the carefully chosen story from mythology may become a teacher of ethics, and certainly will develop a taste for classic and historic literature. Let us begin this work in the simplest manner, with the little child, and continue until he pursues, as special studies, those branches of knowledge to which he has been so gradually and delightfully introduced. It is now admitted that the correct use of language is to be learned through asso- ciation with pure English, spoken and written. Is our speech in the home chaste and accurate? So will be that of our youth. Then let them study standard English, com- mitting to memory often " grand and ennobling thoughts, clothed in beautiful language; thoughts that will incite them to noble aspirations; thoughts that incul- cate virtue, patriotism, love of God, of father, of mother, kindness to dumb animals, and that give correct rules of action." In the child's reading aloud, too much time is often given to " mere imitative reading, and not enough to logical analysis to ascertain the meaning of the words and sentences." The skillful hearer will ask many questions, and the well-trained child will question, too. Shall we avoid an answer, reply indifferently or ignorantly? 266 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. Let us not permit our children, or those whom we can influence, to waste time in committing for declamation selections of no literary value; but let the recitation, essay, and oration exert an elevating influence. Our boys will imbibe the spirit of patriotism while their hearts are thrilled with the fervid oratory of such men as Fox, Chatham and Everett. The thought has been thus forcibly expressed: "The boy who feels the greatness of Burke and of Webster is more apt to acknowledge the power of the 'Oration on the Crown.' He who has been thrilled by the sublimity of Milton will grow enthusiastic over the pages of Virgil and Dante; and when the vast world of Shakespeare's thought has been opened before his vision, he will see more clearly what is immortal in the Iliad and the Odyssey." History should be impressed through historical and biographical literature, rather than by memorizing dates and facts, which robs the narrative of vitality and creates a distaste for historical works. Biography has been called the soul of history, and is a powerful force in character culture. Generalities are, for practical purposes, dead things, but particulars contain the germs of life, and stimulate to action. The biographies of distinguished men record the important history of their times, and are interesting to the young. The works of Cooper, Parkman, Irving, Longfellow, Whittier and Choate, the "Statesmen Series," and Coffin's books will make United States history attractive. What better introduc- tion to Roman history than Macaulay's " Lays of Ancient Rome," or Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" and " Coriolanus? " Walter Scott's novels should be to our youth a continual source of pleasure and profit. They have " Ivanhoe," "The Talisman" and " Quentin Durward " for Louis XL, Charles the Bold and the Wars of the Roses; " Kenilworth" and the " Abbott " for Elizabeth and Mary Queen of Scots; "Wood- stock," " Old Mortality " and " Peveril of the Peak " for the Stuarts. Bulwer's " Harold," his " Last of the Barons," and Thackeray's " Henry Esmond," will also instruct and delight them. Why not have them read Kingsley's "Hypatia" for a knowledge of the fifth century, and Victor Hugo for the battle of Waterloo? Why not Thackeray, Dickens and George Eliot for the age of Victoria? What historian has given us a more faithful picture of New England than Haw- thorne in the " Scarlet Letter," Holland in " Bay Path," Longfellow in " Miles Standish," or Whittier in "Snow Bound?" "Evangeline" will impress the pathetic story of /eligious persecution in Acadia. There seems now to be a general awakening to the importance of Bible knowl- edge for the young. The worthy president of John Hopkins' University deplores the ignorance of Scripture history among college students, and urges the movement to place the study of the Bible in the university or college curriculum. Our American colleges are beginning to put the Bible into its " rightful place of honor as the center of the highest culture." If the secular world thus realizes the importance of the Bible, what a stimulus to us, who see in it not only " the greatest of all classics and the foremost book in the world's literature," but infinitely more, the revelation of God to men. Shall we plan a course of reading for the young and exclude the only guide to true wisdom? Shall they not learn that we may enjoy a communion with God which is as " real as ever communion was with friend? " That here we find our " proof of God, of duty, and of destiny." " We may enter in, may shut the door; let the outer darkness gather; but all is light. The invisible becorhes visible, and we adore, treading where science never trod, in realms, the door of which no science can unlock." Would you impress youth with the ruin that crime brings to him who commits it? Persuade them to read " Macbeth," Hawthorne's " Marble Faun," or Mrs. Browning's " Drama of P^xile.' Would you inspire them with ideals of manhood and woman- hood? Let them study the lives of David Copperfield and the gentle Agnes. Fiction, through the presentation of beautiful character, awakens sympathy; refines and ennobles. " Ben Hur " and the " Mill on the Floss " are types of the novel which we cannot commend too highly. THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 267 Poetry cultivates the imagination, and fills the soul with pure, bright pictures. Homer, Dante, Shakespeare! How they outweigh kings and warriors and millionaires. Poetry is power, truth, beauty, pathos, exaltation. The utility of the ideal! How the glowing theme expands as we try to compass it. In a lecture given recently at Oxford, on mediaeval universities, Gladstone said he feared that under pressure from without they should lean, if ever so little, to that theory of education which " would have it construct machines of so many horse-power, rather than form characters, and rear into true excellence that marvelous creature we call man, which gloats upon success in life, instead of studying to secure that the man shall always be greater than his work, and never bounded by it; but that his eye shall boldly run, in the words of Wordsworth, " Along the line of limitless desires." Mr. Emerson replied to his daughter, who inquired whether she should study botany, Greek, or metaphysics, that it was of no consequence what she studied; the question was with whom she studied. We recall Garfield's tribute: "A university education might have been received while sitting on the same log with Mark Hopkins." Unconscious tuition! The old theme, you say. Yes, old as humanity; and yet our chief source of inspiration. Let us dwell upon it until we are filled with a sense of its real grandeur. Foreign nations acknowledge the greatness of our land, but they deny our claim to superiority in literary productions. They tell us that American writers are not original; that America lacks historical associations, and that we are too hurried, too practical a people to excel in literature. Is this true? America has had less than three centuries of existence, and much of that time has been spent in clearing forests and subduing enemies. Has she not already given the world a greater number of worthy authors than any other nation in the same period of its early existence? Bry- ant and Longfellow, Whittier, Lowell, Holmes, Hawthorne, Bancroft, Cooper, Mrs. Stowe, and Emerson— who can say that coming generations will not award to these first rank? But, grant that we have not yet produced one truly great writer, the future is radiant with promise. When centuries have passed and time has lent enchantment, the romantic' and thrilling incidents connected with the discovery and colonization of our country will furnish themes as grand as any ever presented to epic poet. What historic associations more sacred, more inspiring, than those that cluster about Plym- outh Rock, Bunker Hill, Valley Forge, Yorktown and Gettysburg? The nations of the earth are coming to our shores and mingling with our people. Into the blood of coming generations will be infused the best elements of every race, giving rise to a new'nation superior in intellectual vigor to any that has existed. We believe that the poet of the future will be an American. What may we not expect from woman in this land of her emancipation? Now that her opportunities and priv- ileges are enlarging, may she not give to us golden thoughts in enduring form that will be a worthy expression of the highest civilization? What a heritage of patriotic literature in soiig and story will this year bequeath to the youth of America! What is this wondrous exhibition but the volume of the nineteenth century, opened on American soil that the world may read its radiant chapters? Upon its gilded pages are science and art, prose and poetry. Here is indelibly inscribed an immortal tribute to woman's worth and power, and here, engraved in letters of light, is the characteristic of the coming heroes and hero- ines: " Whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all." THE MEDICAL PROFESSION FOR WOMAN. By F. M. LANKTON, M. D. You know the story, how Eve ate the fruit of the "tree of knowledge;" not because she was particularly fond of apples, but in the literal wording — "when woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant for the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave to her husband and he did eat." We have always had a secret satisfaction in the knowl- edge that it required Satan himself, the strongest of known powers for evil, to tempt Eve in the first place, and he, in his Satanic ingenuity, could do so only through her desire for wisdom, not curiosity, the story says, knowledge, which is quite a different matter. There is no thirst equal to that of inheritance, and this desire for wisdom, for growth, could no more be extinguished than could the covering of the seed deep in the earth deprive it of life. It finally struggles upward to find its proper elements of light, air and sunshine — its world; finds, too, that the depth of cover- ing and obstacles overcome have served as truest friends, giving firmness of root and greater possibil- ities of broader development. We, in the year 1893, with its privileges of education, its progressive con- ceptions of equality and justice, can have but a faint idea of the struggles and martyrdom of the early crusaders along these lines. Susan B. Anthony says: "Even little children were taught to believe that I had hoofs and horns." We say, God bless her! To such women, strong of purpose, strong to bear the scorn of the world, if need be, with eyes fixed upon the future, with hearts stayed upon the God of justice, they pressed firmly on through the forest of public opinion, and the brambles of public prejudice, over the rocks of cruel criticism, blazing the pathway for us to follow. It was natural that woman should choose the line of education which nature had best prepared her by taste and natural talent to follow. But where were the schools to give her this edu- cation? We can scarcely believe that the first school for the higher education of women was established in 1819 and 1820, Mount Holyoke and Oberlin in 1837. There were the same fears for the influence upon women of these schools and seminaries, as we find later in regard to their entrance into the medical profession. There has been no line of effort or pathway of progress more difficult to follow, than for woman to obtain entrance into this one of the learned professions. Her natural ability as nurse, com- panion, friend; her deftness of touch, quickness of perception, patience through long suffering; these and many other qualifications which made her peculiarly fitted for the position were as naught to overcome custom, that dragon to progress, and prejudice, Dr. Freeda M. Lankton was bom in Oriskany, N. V., August 10, 1852. Her parents were Elizabeth Tremain Lodmer, of Southampton, England, and Eber Lodmer, of Nova Scotia, a Baptist clergyman. She was educated in the public schools of Rome, N. Y., later by private teachers, and graduated from the State University of Iowa. She married Mr. Byron F. Lankton, of New York, in 1870. Her special work has been in the interest of fallen womanhood and the sick and suffering. Her principal literary works are papers for medical journals and societies, "The King's Daughters," and W. C. T. U. Conventions. Her profession is that of physician and snrgeon. Dr. Lankton is a member of the Presbyterian Church. Her postoifice address is Omaha, Neb. 268 F. M. LANKTON, M. D. THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 269 that most difficult of all foes to overcome. Said one of the prominent professors in the medical world, now holding a chair in one of the eastern colleges: "History, physiology, and the general judgment of society, unite in a negative of woman's fitness for the medical office." In the "Buffalo Medical Journal," 1869, is found among its edi- torial, the following: "If I were to plan with malicious hate the greatest curse I could conceive for woman; if I would estrange them from the protection of women and make them so far as possible loathsome and disgusting to men, I would favor this so-called reform, which proposes to make doctors of them." This was in 1869, less than twenty-five years ago. We trust this editor has taken the position of the wise man, who always changes his mind when he finds that his conclusions have been based upon false conceptions. We hope that he is alive today to see that his prophecy has failed utterly of its fulfillment. The curse which he feared has proved a blessing both to men and women. Why should the office of physician make women "loath- some and disgusting to men?" The modesty and sense of propriety, which, in their opinion, should forever keep us from the halls of medical colleges where we may study with all grave and reverend feeling the mysteries of these bodies of ours, which are truly "fearfully and wonder- fully made," and which can only inspire us with awe, and a more firm belief in the wisdom and love of our Creator. While this type of person is filled with consterna- tion at the thought of woman as student and physician, there seems never to have entered his masculine brain the possibility of woman's objection to lay bare all her secrets and sufferings, and to receive the administrations necessary at his hands. Custom has so long given him these privileges that he cannot easily adapt himself to any change. It was said, too, that the result of woman's medical education would be a lowering of her moral nature. This also has proved untrue. It is said, also, that woman has not sufficient physical strength to endure the demands of the life of the physician. This also is fallacy. In reply to questions sent out to large numbers of women in the profession, the universal answer has been " health better than before entering the profession." Many of them add: " I attribute it to the constant tonic of fresh air." To be sure it is a laborious life, so is that of the society woman, with far less mental compensation. Work seldom kills; to each of its victims can be counted ten killed by discontent, born of too much time, and too little definite aim and purpose in life. It is well known that the Blackwell sisters, Eliza- beth and Emily, were the pioneers in medical education. This was in 1845. There was no college willing to admit a woman, and not until 1849 did the elder sister grad- uate. A Boston journal at that time published an article in which we find this sen- tence: "The ceremonies of graduating Miss Blackwell at Geneva may well be called a farce. The profession was quite too full before." Even this criticism did not put a stop to the whole business, as evidently this cynic expected it would. Think of the crowded condition of the profession having added to its numbers one lone woman. It was the beginning of a new era. What had been done could be done again. It is interest- ing to note the courage and perseverance of these women. Dr. Susan B. Edson was the entering wedge to open the doors of the Cleveland HomcEopathic College. She grad- uated in 1854. Says the " Woman's Tribune: " This college would not sell its scholar- ships to women." It was owing on the construction of its new building which it could not pay, and the creditor insisted on having a scholarship before he turned over the keys of the building. This scholarship he sold to Miss Edson, who became thereby entitled to enter. They had a faculty meeting over her, and decided that she could not enter the following year, but she informed them that she should be there. "Well," said the president, " it will not be very pleasant for you." "That is your lookout," said Miss Edson; " If the men who come here to study medicine cannot treat a woman decently here, they are not fit to treat them elsewhere. If I live I shall be here." When the authorities found that she could not be frightened away, they admitted a few others who applied later. Dr. Edson was for years the physician of President Garfield and his family, and " was in constant attendance upon him during his last 270 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. illness, though he was under the surgical care of six other physicians." She also *' introduced to the United States the first Chinese baby of rank born in this country." There are now thirty-six medical colleges which admit mixed classes, and five med- ical schools exclusively for women, besides a school of pharmacy for women at Louis- ville, Ky. All this since 1849, when one woman was too great a crowd for the Boston editor. He has probably gone long since, to the country where, if present indications are at all reliable, he will find the majority of its inhabitants women. What are the qualifications necessary for a woman to be successful in the profession? We can only give a few of them. First, energy and courage, self reliance, great perseverance, firmness, love for sci- entific truths, dignity above and beyond all true womanliness. There was never greater mistake made than in thinking one's influence greater, or that it is in any sense neces- sary, to become masculine or mannish when entering upon any line of public work. The exact reverse is true. We can neither afford to create prejudice nor offend good taste by being ill-mannered or ill-bred. To hold the confidence and respect of both good men and good women we must not only avoid evil in all forms, but even the appearance of evil. Each one must prove her ability by doing better work than her brother practitioner to receive the same credit. Does she lose a patient, nine out of ten of the neighbors and friends will say, or think, if too courteous to express their opinion, you should have known better than to have employed a woman. Does her brother physician lose half a dozen in the same neighborhood, there are grateful words of how he stood by them to the last; of how peculiar were the complications of dis- ease, and the impossibility of understanding the dispensations of providence. Unjust, do you say ? Yes, but it will grow less so as the years go by. For already it is becom- ing noticeable that women do not lose their patients as frequently or in as large a per cent as do men. This is easily accounted for when we pause to consider the facts and reason to natural conclusions. Men too frequently drift into the profession. The father, or brother, or uncle, is a doctor, and it is easy to read with them, and so they drift, as we say, into the medical profession, without thought of special fitness, or special taste, or qualification. Not so with the woman seeking this avocation. Truly to her must there be a distinct call, an overwhelming must. There is no ease or drift- ing to her. She must be the woman who has the pride of excelling, the pride of standing at the head, who will have the best and do the best or nothing. Who has the courage of her convictions, who knows no defeat. This is the type of woman who comes into the profession because nature, which is our most imperative councilor, has been her teacher; because she knows that suffering womanhood can be better understood by women than it ever can be by men. Theory and experience are widely different in practical results. The woman understands at once, from a woman's knowl- edge and woman's standpoint, what the man fails to get from books or theory, and cannot experience in himself. The prejudice against women among the men of the profession is fast dying out in college and class room; at the bedside and in our med- ical societies we are accorded every help and encouragement, every courtesy and equality. It is only occasionally that we meet one of the ancient type, and he impresses us with a feeling of amusement rather than one of resentment. It is said that women are nervous and fail in emergencies. This is a libel upon the sex. No greater acts of heroism have ever been shown to the world than those performed by women. It is my experience and observation that sex has nothing to do whatever with the matter of coolness in emergency. I have seen extremely nervous men in the profession, and women who, for calrhness, might have stepped from the pedestal of the marble statue. Knowledge is the basis of self-reliance. The man or woman who knows what to do and does it, knows also that they have nothing to fear either from public criticism or self-accusation, whatever the results may be. In a medical journal we read, not long since, two articles, both upon women as physicians and surgeons. The editor must have had a fine sense of humor, placing them, as he did, upon consecutive pages of his journal. The first stated certain facts THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 271 regardint; some operations performed, then added words of praise and thanksgiving that "the time had come when women coming to the hospital or clinic could there meet women as physician and surgeon, standing side by side as equals with the men in the profession, thus taking away much of the fear and dread which every woman must feel in being in the hands of men only during her unconscious helplessness. Now woman was there as operator or assistant, with deft touch, kindly encourage- ment, gentle womanly ministration, although thoroughly scientific and strong to do her duty." The pages following were also in regard to her position as physician. The writer, a man, as in the former article, said that " while women had proven them- selves capable, they had also proved to be utterly heartless, and without pity or sense of care and gentleness;" that they were " far less cautious in inflicting pain," and ended by a most solemn warning to all women to "avoid the sex professionally, unless they expected and wish rough handling." Here were two men speaking from their respective standpoints — the one of elderly years and long experience, a firm friend of woman, and one who has done much to place her in the position which she holds today in the profession. The other, a young man, with probably a rival whom he wished to annihilate. Possibly he had met one who did not honor her calling. Even among the disciples of our Lord there was one who failed utterly in his professions. We do not take him as a type, however, of the other eleven. Women do not ask favors, they expect criticism. They do not ask leniency, but they do ask justice and fair dealing. Taking the same course of study — passing the same examinations, standing, with but few exceptions, at the head of her classes, compelling by her hard- earned success the admiration of both faculty and classmates — woman demands only fair play, at the hands of both the men in the profession and the public at large. She should have, too, in all state and public institutions where women and children are confined, the first positions as physician in charge. The conditions unearthed in some of our insane asylums, so monstrous as to defy, almost, our belief in possibilities, would be made impossible did we have women as physicians and attendants, as we should have. In our police stations, our jails and prisons, wherever we find women degraded, poverty-stricken or diseased, there should we find women by their side as physician. We are so frequently told that women do not stand by each other, do not trust each other, and then when we ask that she may be placed in positions where she may prove this assertion untrue, they are refused her. These congresses, meeting as they have, day after day, and month after month, have been one great object lesson of the fallacy of this saying. Believing most thoroughly in womanhood and womankind, proud of my sisters in the profession and the business world, you will accept kindly, I trust, one bit of criticism which I have to offer, some of our business and professional women; that is, in regard to the use of our names. Think of Susan B. Anthony as " Susie," or Harriet Beecher Stowe as " Hattie " Beecher Stowe. Would our peerless Frances Willard seem quite as dignified as " Fannie?" Had Abigail Adams lived in our day we hope she would not have been "Abbie," or that Martha Washington would have been "Mat- tie." We have grave fears, however, and feel thankful that they got safely into another world before losing the plain but dignified names which always convey a sound of strength and sturdy independence. Personally, we see no necessity for the women in the profession to use the whole name unless they so wish. The initials only are suf- ficient for men — why not for women? Let me make this plea, then, for greater appre- ciation of the small things which go to make up the success of our business life, one of which, by no means the smallest, is a more dignified standard for the names which we bear, and which we all hope to hand down to posterity as honored, worthy a place among those remembered as having done something to lessen the sum total of human suffering, and to have made broader the pathway and brighter the light shining upon woman's work. That work, in its many departments, has received an impetus by these congresses, held during this never-to-be-forgotten year, which in their results can never be measured. W^e have taken great strides in learning, in this world-wide touch with 272 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. humanity, that " all mankind is kin," learned that we have one common interest, and that "from one blood was made all nations of the earth." To this great American republic, founded upon principles of justice and freedom for all good, must we give the no small honor of first placing woman with equal education, equal rights and equal privileges in the medical profession. Here, with a purpose unfaltering, a will unchang- ing and a faith undying, does she stand, to work for the betterment of humanity and add what she may to the sum of human happiness. THE LEGAL PROFESSION FOR WOMEN. By MRS. WINONA BRANCH SAWYER. The Constitution of the United States is to woman as an Emancipation Procla- mation, in that it erects no barriers, imposes no limitations, sanctions no discrimina- tions on account of sex. Tacitly implying the per- fect equality of man and woman as citizens, alike entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, its v^ery silence concerning the status of woman is an eloquent pleading in her behalf. Even in those countries where woman had been esteemed most happy, we find her debarred by the salic law, restrained by the canon law, coerced by the common law, subordinated by the civil law, misrepre- sented and robbed of freedom of will by the fictions of the statutory law. Whether enthroned as the idol of chivalry in one country, or bartered as chattels in another; whether affronted by poligamy, or tormented with a condition between indifference and contempt; whether immured by asceticism, or given the free- dom of social expulsion; whether crowned with a halo of a Madonna, or dishonored with the stigma of a Magdalen, in every land and in every age she has been the one legislated against, the one excluded from the benefit and deprived of the protection of the law. The Renaissance and Reformation, which indeed widened existing horizons, sketched no line of demarcation between the zenith of man's prerogative and the nadir of woman's proscription, but the great wave of Revo- lution — a self-consciousness and self-assertion of individuality — which had been gath- ering momentum for generations, culminated on the shores of the Western Continent. Our country is pledged to a mission of justice to the individual. There is no forcing back the waters of this tide, no "thus far and no farther." Those who attempt to close the flood gates, to repairthe old-time dykes, are wasting precious time which might better be improved in accommodating themselves to the requirements of the age. The under- tow of this current has been undermining and sweeping away the accumulated debris of custom and tradition. The prejudices of race and religion have gone, and the dis- qualification of sex is disappearing by the free opening up of all professions to meri- torious applicants. That " custom is law," is recognized as one of the fundamental maxims in ancient jurisprudence. For many ages advocates and judges tried to make all litigation rest on this "Procrustean bed." The deformities and failures which resulted from their efforts, gave rise to a new code based on principles of justice and denominated equity. Mrs. Winona Branch Sawyer is a native of New York. She was born in 1847. Her parents were Rev. Wm. Branch and Elizabeth Trowbridge Branch. She was educated at Mt. CarroU Seminary, 111., Class of 1871. She has traveled in all part« of the United States. She married Mr. A. J. Sawyer in 1875. She is engaged in literary parsoits and in aiding, self-sastaining young men and women to obtain a start in life. Over twenty-five sach yonng i)eople have been members of her family. Her principal literary works are addresses, lectures, essays, fiction and newspaper correspondence; her profession, attorney at law. She was admitted to the bar of the District Conrt in 1887; to the Supreme Court in 1889. She began the study of law under her husband's instruction. While not actively in the practice she assists her husband in the preparation of his cases. PostoflSce address, Lincoln, Neb. (18) 273 MRS. WINONA BRANCH SAWYER. 274 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. In no department of law is the change more marked than in its application to woman. The common law measured her with the "regulation girdle" of home-maker and home-keeper. She was commanded and compelled to fill her prescribed limit of obedience and servitude. She was subordinated and coerced, lest she outgrow the standard. Thus saith the old law: "The husband hath by law power and dominion over his wife, and may keep her by force within the bounds of duty, and may beat her, provided the size of the cane be no larger than his thumb." The civil law gave to the husband the same or a greater authority over his wife. What to do with woman has ever been one of the knottiest points of the law. At first, jurists thought to evade the issue by attempting to reduce woman to a ghostly nonentity; but, like Banquo's ghost, she would not "down" at the command of her Macbeth. Next she was concealed beneath the garb of legal fictions, and under the guise of vested rights smuggled through the departments of the blind goddess. One link after another in the myriad chains which fettered her freedom and inde- pendence has been broken, until she is now not only recognized in legal procedure, but admitted into the very halls of justice, as an officer of the court, and permitted to participate in its proceedings. She may not only advocate her own rights, but may plead the rights of others. She has left in the rear her former colleagues — infants, idiots and the insane — and almost overtaken her rivals of the fifteenth amendment. Perhaps you recall some early morn after a night of storm and darkness, how the first gleams of light struggled through scarcely perceptible rifts in the clouds, closing and reopening as the billowy curtains of the night were swayed by the lingering tempest. Anon a roseate hue would tinge the receding clouds, then spread and change until the many colors were blended into clear effulgent light, and the golden sun looked from the dazzling sky. Then the whole stretch of earth became eloquent with voice of man and bird and the hum of industry. * Such has been the breaking of dawn to woman, after her long civil night. The Sapphos and Cornelias, the Esthers and Hortensias, were only fitful gleams amid the surrounding shadows of superstitious customs. From the age of chivalry, which tinged her career with the rosy light of sentiment and love, the changes were rapid. Great rays of light, like Queen Elizabeth, Madame de Stael, Hannah Moore and Florence Nightingale gleamed above the horizon. The legal fictions and the guardians of her person and property melted away like the mist, and the present cent- ury ushered in a day of life and activity for woman in every department of art, science, literature and the professions. This achievement has not been instantaneous. No " open sesame " has mirac- ulously placed within her reach this accumulated wealth of all vocations. No alchemy has transmuted the base elements of ignominy and degradation, to the noblest types of respect and equality. Woman has not obtained a place in the pro- fession by " demanding her rights," as Shylock contended for his pound of flesh, but like Portia, by unfolding the harmony and the correllation of legal and equitable claims. The present century recognizes that the sphere of women is no longer a mooted question. Merit has no sex; and the meritorious lawyer, man or woman, who deserves success, who can both work and wait to win, is sure to achieve both recognition and reward. Of the three so-called "learned professions" which are necessities of civilization, the legal profession has been perhaps the most reluctant to swing open its portals to admit in fellow ship the former "pariahs" of legal procedure : nevertheless these majestic gates have in hundreds of cases responded to the reiterated taps of a woman's hand. In some states requests for admission to the bar were unheeded, and the dockets are tarnished by the lawsuits which ensued ere the struggle for recognition was ended. Even supreme courts and legislatures have been importuned for opinions and special enactments, that woman might waive the custom of a proxy, and stand iii suo jure, in the presence of the ermine. The woman lawyer has ceased to be a novelty. The THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 275 United States inaugurated her reign, and like all American inventions, no matter how ultra and radical the innovation may appear, the indorsement of the inaugurator is a sufficient guarantee for its propriety and legality. Since June, 1869, upward of three hundred women have been admitted to practice law in the various state and federal courts, and at least one-third of these are in actual practice. It is a^ impossible to give the exact number of women lawyers ir^ the United States, as it would be to state the actual number of practitioners among men. Twenty-two states have reported seventy- four women lawyers in active practice. Four states, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana and Maryland have statutory prohibitions comprised in the words " male citizens." In the remaining eighteen states and territories there is no agitation of the subject at pres- ent, but nothing in the laws to prevent their admission. That the proportion of women engaged in the law is less than in the other profes- sions is, in a measure, due to the peculiar requirements of the law. Woman may be the weakest in this profession, but in it she lifts with the longest lever the social and legal status of her sex. A certain sentimentality concerning sex, supplemented by her innate dread of criticism, are the two monstrous lions that intimidate her at the entrance to the Palace Beautiful. Also it is no trifling education that is needed for successful competition in this profession. The ramifications of the law are infinite, and the successful lawyer must be versed in all subjects. The law is not a mere conglomeration of decisions and statutes; otherwise " Pretty Poll " might pose as an able advocate. A mind unadapted to investigation, unable to see the reasons for legal decisions, is as unreliable at the bar as is a color-blind person in the employ of a signal corps. The woman lawyer who demands an indemnity against failure must offer as collateral security not only the ordinary school education, but also a knowledge of the world and an acquaintance with that most abstruse of all philosophies — human nature. She must needs cultivate all the common sense and tact with which nature has endowed her, that she may adjust herself to all conditions. She must possess courage to assert her position and maintain her place in the presence of braggadocio and aggressiveness, with patience, firmness, order and absolute good nature; a combativeness which fears no Rubicon; a retentiveness of memory which classifies and keeps on file minutest details; a self- reliance which is the sine qua non of success; a tenacity of purpose and stubbornness of perseverance which gains ground, not by leaps, but by closely contested hair breadths; a fertility of resource which can meet the " variety and instantaneousness " of all occa- sions; an originality and clearness of intellect like that of Portia, prompt to recognize the value of a single drop of blood; a critical acumen to understand and discriminate between the subtle technicalities of law and an aptness to judge rightly of the interpre- tation of principles. No more is required of woman than of man, for it is said: "God made her to match the men," not rival them, but perhaps not one in ten of the men who enter the legal profession succeeds, and not one in fifty of these attains any degree of eminence. It is premature to attempt to judge of the effect of women lawyers on the bar, for as a class they are yet minors. The universal verdict concerning their reception by their brothers-in-law is that of courtesy, kindness, and cordial welcome. P2ven if woman's achievements were placed at issue with those of the Alexanders, the Caesars, the Hannibals and the Napoleons of the other sex, woman would not enter a nolle pros., nor lose her case by default, for it must be remembered that there are conquerors who do not inscribe the record of their conquests on the landscape, with sword and spear, nor write their victories with blood. In the enlargement of her legal privileges woman has invaded and conquered realms unknown to the Macedonian madman; by her identification with economic and political questions she has been an important factor in a type of civilization unimagined by the dread arbiter of Rome; in a successful campaign against civil disabilities and the allegations of incompetency she has executed vows more ennobling than the oath of the Carthaginian general, and in the uplifting of her sex she follows a diviner star of ambition than that which set 276 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. at St. Helena. Contact with the world shows woman that she has not yet learned her strength. Acquaintance with history demonstrates that even such men as Webster, Clay and Douglas did not escape shipwreck on the troubled sea of worldly ambition. It is particularly fitting for woman to enter the legal profession in view of her former status under the law. Where she has been most ignored, there should she vin- dicate her worthiness. Before that bar which at one time recognized her individual- ism, save when a criminal, should she demonstrate the dualism of sex. She who has suffered wrong should stand where wrongs are corrected. In civil actions a large percentage of clients are women. In questions which involve foreclosure of mortgages, probating and contesting wills, collecting claims, settling estates, clearing titles, marriage and divorce laws, the custody of children, management of public schools and many others, it is not equitable for one sex to settle matters in which both have a vital interest. In regard to the demand for women lawyers, it must be confessed that in the great mart called the world, where all classes of exchangeable things are regulated by the one universal law of " demand and supply," the " calls " for Helens and Cleopatras and Eugenias exceed the demand for Portias and Deborahs and Hypatias. Woman her- self must create a demand for her talents, by a broader education, by giving less atten- tion to petty details of life and more attention to those of vital importance, by out- growing the chrysalis of the butterfly, to enter the realm of a bold thinker. Insofar as women prepare themselves for lives of increased usefulness, broadening in every way, they receive recognition. There is not encouragement for all women anxious for employment or a liveli- hood to enter the legal profession, for, as with men, it requires peculiar ability, both natural and acquired, to insure success. Evidences of misfits are too frequently seen in all professions. No woman, there- fore, who has no predilection for law should seek the profession. An eminent writer has said: " It requires two workmen to make a lawyer, the Almighty and the man him- self. The legal mind is the workmanship of God, and no power beneath His can create it. Not possessing it, no one ever became a successful lawyer; with it, no one ever failed if he earnestly tried." Of the law it is said: "There can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world; all things in heaven and earth do her homage, the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempt from her power." While America's sons sit at the feet of this divine Law, let not the daughters be unmindful of the peculiar position which they occupy. While old cus- toms are crumbling and hoary usages are tottering with decay, woman, emerging from the bondage and solitude of their ruins, offers in evidence her broken chains, mute witnesses that she has both felt the "power" and participates in the "care" of that law; therefore, her homage is due, and her voice needed with that of man to complete the harmony of the world. In England there is a bird which builds its nest on the ground, but its note is never heard except when on the wing. "The skylark to the first sunbeam gives her voice; and, singing, soars." So above woman is an azure waiting to be filled with the melodious rapture of a new day. As long as she was confined by customs and laws in the obscurity of " vested rights," her voice was never heard; but no sooner were the gates of a day of civil free- dom unlocked than from press, pulpit, rostrum and the bar resounded her voice. If progress is to be real, men and women must go forth hand in hand along its many paths, and together advocate and promulgate principles of equity, while they bear aloft the standard of a universal jurisprudence as perfect in its application as is the law in theory. WHAT THE WOMEN OF KANSAS ARE DOING TODAY. By MRS. EUGENE WARE. Owing to the fact that the state of Kansas had its birth at a time of a great crisis in the life of our nation, and as the women of the state have been an important factor in its growth and development, and as Kansas has always been the battle-ground where the political and ethical questions which have interested the people, have been and are being fought and decided by pub- lic opinion and by legislation; and inasmuch as these conditions have made Kansas women, like the Israel- ites of old, " a peculiar people," it may not seem pre- tentious to follow the footsteps of my sisters over the ground they have trod, reviewing the progress they have made, and discussing the work in which they are today engaged. When the vast area is considered which we acquired as a state, with its western portion almost a Sahara (although it is gradually being transformed into an irrigated garden); when we consider that from 185 1 to 1865 its eastern boundary was torn by con- tending factions, and overwhelmed by civil war; when we consider that from then until now we have been in turn the victims of grasshoppers, drouths, floods and cyclones, or the prey of strange politics and poli- ticians, who, though with us, are not of us; when we consider that the state has been infested by cranks, "isms" and seisms; by those who thought they had bright ideals and purposes, and by those who had purposes without ideals; when we consider all these obstacles to suc- cess, what wonder is it that we have been called " poor, bleeding Kansas," and regarded with successive pity, admiration and dislike? In the midst of every calamity the Kansas women have remained undaunted. Shoulder to shoulder, singly and together, they have fought with poverty and mis- fortune; have fought for principle and improvement, and have kept through it all their faith in Kansas. As one corps of workers grew weary or faint-hearted another took up the struggle, working perhaps on an entirely different line, but all to the same pur- pose, to make the state a grand factor in the uplifting of humanity, a power for good which should be felt wherever the name of Kansas might reach on this broad earth — a synonym for principle and right. In the early days, before the war, there came out from Puritan, liberty-loving New England, colonies of men and women who were inspired to make a home in Kansas, a "home of the brave and the free;" men and women whose one desire was to secure liberty of race, of action, and of opinion. How much these early pioneers suffered for the sake of this great cause will be known only when the Omnipotent Lover of Freedom makes up the jewels for His Mrs. Eagene F. Ware is a native of Straftsbory, Vt. She was born June 19, 1849. Her parents were George Hantington and Abigail Galnstra. She gradnated from Yassar College in 1870, and has traveled through the United States, Canada and Enrope. She married Eagene F. Ware (" Ironqaill ") of Kansas, and is the mother of four children. Mrs. Ware is a woman of rare culture and refinement; devoted to the best interests of society. In religious faith she is a Christian, and amember of the Baptist Church. Her postofiice address isTopeka, Kan. 277 MRS, EUGENE F. WARE. 278 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. crown. The history of those early struggles was most ably written by the wife of our first state governor, Mrs. Charles Robinson. Vivid are the pictures she presents of the midnight ride, the attacks of the Indians, wolves, and of fell famine; the burning of the prairies with perhaps the little shanty itself, and most of the earthly belongings of its occupants. These things, and many greater than these, which brave women experienced without flinching, or yielding their purpose to make Kansas free, show the fortitude and heroic spirit of the pioneer Kansas woman. When " home they brought her warrior dead, she nor swooned nor uttered sigh." Silently, quietly, she took up the duty that came nearest to her, caring for the home, nursing the sick, scrap- ing lint and making bandages, yet in the midst of all cares, at all times, she gave the impetus which kept brave men from wavering. Thus, when Kansas became a state, the strong sentiment which possessed each soul was that of patriotism and freedom. These were the principles which the first Kansas teachers, who were also women, sought to instill into the minds of their pupils. Is it remarkable that Kansas children, born of such mothers, and instructed by such teachers, should feel that they live for a purpose, and that their mission is to promote in every way possible, the welfare of Kansas and mankind? After the war the influx of immigration added great numbers to the already accli- mated New Englander, and brought the hospitable, genial-hearted Southerner, the energetic New Yorker, and the staunch, sturdy people from the North and West. These additions to our population had the effect of making the state thoroughly cosmopol- itan. We entertain every difference of opinion and belief. We arc orthodox and hetero- dox, suffragists and anti-suffragists, temperance and anti-temperance. Christians, agnostics, and theosophists. The result of all this comingling of forces is to rub down the rough edges of eccen- tricities and pet hobbies, and to teach a wholesome respect for the opinion of other people, and to give a capacity to perceive that they may be right and we ourselves be wrong. This process is now going on. The church and missionary associations are largely the work of women, and the fact that today there are about three thousand church organizations in Kansas, and over two hundred and fifty thousand church members, shows how zealous and devoted has been the labor in that direction. The number of moral and social reforms and charitable institutions which these same women have established — non-sectarian in character — proves how little there is of religious bigotry and intolerance, and gives the secret of the marvelous growth of the churches in our progressive state; for the motto under which the women work is: " In things essential, unity; things doubtful, liberty; and in all things, charity." The temperance workers feel that their labors are nearly ended since the prohibi- tion amendment has been added to the constitution, and prohibition has become a law. Women who came into all the dangers and privations of a new territory came to help make Kansas not only a free state, but a free woman's state. These were aided by the best talent of the East, who canvassed the territory, that when Kansas should become a state the same privileges should be accorded to women as to men in the laws which were to govern both. Though they were unsuccessful, their efforts have given us the most favorable laws regarding the rights and property of women of any state in the Union, except perhaps Wyoming. The Woman's Club is a living, breathing, influencing institution in Kansas. Else- where it is a great power, but with us it is an inspiration. There are reasons for this. Kansas is yet young — only thirty-two years old — and, although making rapid strides in many directions, she is as yet almost destitute of the fine art galleries, vast libraries and opportunities for intellectual research which are only acquired by wealth and age. Some years ago when the Chautauqua movement was started it was seized upon by Kansas women as a vital opportunity which should not be lost. They became also THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 279 interested in university extension, and club extension; and clubs sprang up as if by magic in almost every city, town hamlet and school district throughout the state, like the "walls of corn" pn its rolling and verdant prairies. We have Mothers' Clubs, Ethical Clubs, The Woman's Press Club, and The Authors' and Artists' Club, which includes both sexes; also the annual Chautauqua Assembly, and last, but not least, the Social Science Club. Each year since this last society was formed, the circle of its influence has ex- panded; the contact of bright minds, the interchange of ideas, the discussion of literary, artistic and practical questions has had a broadening effect which has gone beyond the boundaries of the state. The members of the society form a state acquaintance which of itself is an education. Today there are on its enrolled list nearly a thousand names which represent the culture and intellect of the women of the state, with tastes so diverse and lines of study so varied that they can say with Browning — "I have not chanted verse like Horner's — No Nor swept string like Terpander, no; nor carved And painted men like Phidias and his friend. I am not great as they are, point by point; But I have entered into sympathy with these four, Running these into one soul, Who separate, ignored each other's arts; Say, is it nothing that I know them all?" This year — the year 1893 — the Social Science Club took one step onward. Em- boldened by its marked success and accumulation of membership and energy it merged itself into a Social Science Federation, taking in all the local clubs who may wish to join. In isolated places where there is no club the Social Science Federation is prepar- ing to send out delegates to help organize such a society with a plan of work adapted to the taste and mental requirements of the persons sought. In this way the club woman hopes to bring a mental stimulant to every careworn, tired housewife, who has nothing to look forward to but the monotonous routine of farm life, and its lonesome cares. To such a woman a reading club, debating circle or literary society of any kind is a godsend. It takes her outside of herself and outside of the economy and care with which her life is filled and leads her into the green pastures of thought and imagination and beside the still waters of hope. To save the intellect from stagnation, as well as to awaken lofty thoughts and purposes in a dormant mind is a mission only less than that of saving a soul, if per- chance it does not often save the soul. Outside the club, however, there is an ever-increasing list of women in the state who are making a name and fortune for themselves by original literary effort. We who follow are still traveling in the same path as did the pioneer Kansas woman, but with this difference, which, better than I can give, is summed up in the words of a noble Kansas man, who is a noble friend of Kansas men and women. I refer to Noble L. Prentis, Esq: " But the worst is over; gone are border ruffians and drouth and privation; gone danger and difficulty. The sunflowers are growing on the roof of the abandoned dug- out and within the roofless walls of the old sod house. The claim is a farm with broad green, or golden, or russet acres now. The family is sheltered in a stately man- sion now. Having brought Kansas about where she wanted it, the Kansas woman is devoting her attention to culture, to literature, to music, to art. She discusses all the artists from Henry Worrall, a Kansas artist, to Praxiteles; all the musicians from Nevada to the piper who, according to Irish tradition, played before Moses. She be- longs to the Kansas Social Science Club, and traverses the field of human knowledge and investigation, from the hired girl to the most abstruse problems of society and government. In the summer she goes to Long Branch and Saratoga, and is accom- 280 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. panied by her daughter, born in Kansas, a girl who has caught in the meshes of her hair the light of the Kansas sun, and in her eyes the violet shadow that girts the Kan- sas sky at evening. With this beauteous companion she goes about the world, blessed with that calm serenity which characterizes people who have an assured position; who do not want the earth, because they already possess all of it worth having. But if you would disturb this dignified repose; if you would see the frown of Juno, and hear some- thing like the thunder of Jupiter, just intimate to her that Kansas is not the best country in the world, or that it was ever anything else. " And today in Kansas song and story stands Kansas woman. She has climbed through difficulties to the realms of the stars. Below her lower the dark clouds, and mutter the reverberating thunders of civil strife; below her are the mists of doubt and difficulty; below her are the cold snows and bleak winds of adversity; above her God's free heaven, and before her Kansas as she shall be in the shining, golden tomorrow." INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION.* By MISS ELEANOR L. LORD. Apropos of such disturbances of the national equanimity as the New Orleans lynch- ing affair or the Behring Sea difficulties occasioned, the subject of international rela- tions becomes one of sudden and special interest to the general public. Of all the multitudinous prob- lems that confront the present generation, the war problem has been, perhaps, the slowest to awaken popular feeling to anything like rebellion against war- fare and its consequences. The speculations of the- orists have been confined in their influence to very narrow circles; and the possibility of the abolition of war, and of the downfall of the standing army, has scarcely dawned upon the world at large. The expe- riences of recent years, however, have here and there afforded opportunities for theories of peaceful arbi- tration to be put to the test of practice; and the time cannot be far distant when public opinion will be called upon to declare the final verdict of success or failure for international arbitration as a working system. As it is understood today, international arbitra- tion is limited in meaning, implying: (i) The par- ticipation of sovereign states of acknowledged inde- pendence and autonomy; (2) a formal agreement ::n the part of the litigants to submit their difficulties to the decision of an arbitrating body or individual; (3) the consent of the latter to undertake such decision and to render an award after a thorough and impartial exam- ination of the facts in the case; (4) an agreement on the part of the contracting parties to accept the decision as final and conclusive. Before passing to the application of pacific principles to international relations in the present century, it may be well to review briefly changes which the last nineteen hundred years have witnessed in the attitude of civilized nations toward war. The Christian religion, as taught by its Founder and His disciples, placed especial empha- sis on the principles of brotherly love, forbearance, forgiveness of enemies, and peace and good will toward all men. All the records of the early church which have come down to us of the first two centuries of its existence would seem to show that the inconsistency of warfare with the tenets of the new religion had made a strong impres- sion upon the sect. There is a saying current among the early fathers that Jesus, in disarming Peter, disarmed all soldiers; and it is a remarkable fact that so large a num- ber of Christians refused to serve in the armies of Rome. It is to be remembered, however, that comparatively few individuals experienced anything like " conversion," Miss Eleanor Louisa Lord is a native of Salem, Mass. She was born Jaly 27th, 186(5. Her parents were Henry Clay Lord and Katherine Holland Lord. She was educated at the public Krammar and high school, of Maiden, Mass., at Smith College (Class of '87), Fellow in History Bryn Mawr College, 1888-89. She is a woman of wide culture and commanding appearance. Her special work has been in the interest of histor}- and economics. Her profession is instructor in history in Smith College, Massachusetts. Miss Lord is a member of the ('ongregational Church. Her poetofflce address is No. 46 Auburn Street, Maiden, Mass. MISS ELEANOR LOUISA LORD. *Published by permission of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 281 282 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. in the sense of a readjustment of themselves to a new. standard of life and thought. When whole armies were converted en masse, as in the days of Clovis, there seems to have been no question of exchanging their arms for the weapons of spiritual warfare. It was the church, as an organization, that throughout the Middle Ages uttered the sole remonstrance against the practice of private war. When in France the atrocities of feudal warfare became so great as to threaten the very foundations of society, it was the church that came to the rescue with the " Peace of God," and, five years later, the " Truce of God," by which fighting was forbidden from Thursday morning to Monday morning of each week, on all feast days and in Lent, leaving, practically, about eighty days in the year when war was allowable. During the eleventh and twelfth centuries numerous associations were formed, which were the prototypes, on a small scale, of modern peace societies. There was not as yet, however, any conception of international peace. The word international could hardly have had any meaning. To the Pope, the head of the church, the world looked for judgment in political quarrels. Although the sacredness of their high position would seem to have pecu- liarly fitted them for the position of universal arbiters, the Popes lacked one indis- pensible qualification of an umpire — impartiality. Mediaeval methods of grappling with the war problem ended then in practical failure; and the cause of universal peace was forgotten in the horrors of the Inquisition and the bloodthirsty wars of the Reformation. The conception of Henry IV. of France, of a grand Christian Republic of fifteen states, and his scheme of international arbitration were too far in advance of his time not to have been regarded either as the dreams of a visionary fanatic or as a subtile attempt at the aggrandizement of France. Here it will be observed that the character of the peace movement has changed. It is no longer religious, but political in its aims. Efforts toward recon- ciliation no longer originate with the church, but with monarchs and statesmen. The opening of the nineteenth century brought with it a return to the religious point of view, and to the primitive notion that Christianity is the basis of all international law. Europe entered upon the century worn out with conflict, and in desperate need of peace. Russia, Austria and Prussia accordingly in 1815 formed what is known as the Holy Alliance, agreeing by sacred compact to respect the great principles of right and justice, and to repress violence — promises which fell far short of fulfilment. In 1818, at the conference held at Aix-la-Chapelle, the four nations that had con- quered Napoleon, joined later by France, formed themselves into the Great Pentarchy, in the interests of permanent peace. The Holy Alliance forms a link between the peace policy of the past and that of the present. The unsatisfactory results of the Grand Alliance dealt the death blow to the theory of the balance of power as an efficient and practicable system. Henceforth all efforts toward amicable adjustment of international affairs are to be based upon other principles. The work of the nine- teenth century in view of this end takes on three forms: I. The organization and work of peace conferences and associations for the pro- motion of arbitration. 2. Legislation favoring arbitration. 3. The practicable application of the principle. Peace societies began to be established early in the century. Their object was to unite all the advocates of peace for concerted action. Conferences have been held from time to time at London, Brussels, Geneva, Paris and elsewhere, for the inter- change of sympathy and the discussion of plans. About 1873 efforts were made to bring the subject of arbitration before the legislative bodies of the different countries. Signor Mancini presented a similar resolution to the Italian Parliament the same year. From time to time petitions and memorials have been presented to the various governments of Europe and America. More attractive to the practical observer is the record of actual cases of settle- ment by arbitration during the present century. Their number is surprising. I have carefully examined the records of seventy- five cases, and there are half a dozen more of which I have hitherto been unable to find more than a statement of the dates and THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 283 participants. The questions which have proved susceptible of arbitration fall under five main heads: i. Boundary disputes. 2. Unlawful seizure of vessels or other property. 3. Claims for damage for the destruction of life or property. 4. Disputed possession of territory. 5. The interpretation of treaties. The most noteworthy cases of arbitration are two or three of special character, which hardly come under the five heads named above. The first is the Luxembourg question, which was settled in 1867. The jealousy manifested by France toward Prussia during the peace negotiations which terminated the Austro-Prussian war, found expression in Napoleon's demand for territorial recompense to reconcile France to the changes in Europe effected by the peace of Prague. Prussia was now in pos- session of military strength equal to that of France herself, and her recent exploits and successes were looked upon by France as the precursor of efforts toward self- aggrandizement. Napoleon's eye fell upon the grand duchy of Luxembourg, which was under the sovereignty of the King of Holland, but a member of the German con- federation until the dissolution of the latter in 1866. The fortress of Luxembourg was still occupied by the Prussian troops. The negotiations begun by Napoleon with the King of Holland for the annexation of the duchy to P"rance failed on account of the objection of Prussia, whereupon F'rance demanded the evacuation of the fortress by Pr-ussia. A warm dispute ensued, and, as the excitement spread through F^urope, war seemed inevitable. The Queen of F^ngland, however, offered her services as arbitrator, in accordance with Article VH. of the Treaty of Paris, 1856. It was finally agreed that the question be settled by a conference of the great powers of Europe. This conference met at London May 11, 1867, and decided that the fortress should be dismantled and its neutrality guaranteed by the signatories of the Treaty of Paris. The duchy became the property of the House of Orange. War was averted for three years only; the jealousy of P>ance found its outlet in the Franco-Prussian war. A rebellion of the Island of Crete (then under the rule of the Turks) occurring in the same year, resulted in an uninterrupted struggle of two years. The great powers of Europe pursued, for the most part, the policy of non-intervention. But Greece manifested a friendly interest in her neighbor's welfare, and some sympathy with the cause of the oppressed Cretans. Incensed at what was deemed the instigation of Turkish subjects to revolt, the Porte launched at Greece an ultimatum charging her with aiding and abetting the rebellion. The Greek minister replied haughtily, and diplomatic relations were broken off. A threatened engagement between a Turkish and a Greek vessel was prevented by the French minister in Greece, but the incident brought matters to a crisis, and roused the attention of all Europe. The Prussian government proposed to France to call a conference of the powers at London. After much diplomatic correspondence the plan was adopted and the conference met Janu- ary 9, 1869, but it barely escaped disintegration at the outset. Turkey, as a signatory of the Treaty of Paris, was admitted, with deliberative powers. Greece claimed the same privilege, but was refused in spite of indignant remonstrance. After several sessions, a declaration was drawn up in favor of Turkey. This conference has been variously judged, some blaming its members for assuming the functions of judges when they had merely been invited to deliberate and advise; others praising with much warmth the work of the conference in averting a war which might have involved all the powers of Europe. Both criticisms are just in part. This much may be safely said: Although its results were important, the conference can hardly be held up as a type of a well-managed commission of arbitration. The circumstances which led to the famous ''Alabama" case are too familiar to need rehearsal here. The apathy of Great Britain toward the depredations of the Confederate cruiser gave great offense to the United States government, which pro- nounced t:ngland responsible for all these acts, and guilty of a breach of neutrality. Diplomatic correspondence became more and more bitter, complicating rather than clearing up the matter. After four years of weary, fruitless negotiation, settlement by joint commission was suggested by Mr. Reverdy Johnson. The proposition was 284 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. accepted by the British minister, but failed to pass the United States Senate. The conditions of the protocol were pronounced insufficient to secure just reparation to the United States. It was probably only the strong aversion to war by both the liti- gants that prevented an outbreak. When, in 1871, it was finally agreed to submit the vexed question to arbitration, owing to the insufficiency and vagueness of international laws, much time was wasted in the discussion of legal points. That the temper of two nations so high-spirited as Great Britain and the United States stood the test of a long and irritating negotiation until the vexed question was finally settled, is worthy of high commendation. These three arbitrations, involving as they do questions of national honor, are instructive precedents. It is difficult to analyze the present situation of the world as to peace and war. The history-making events of today will not be properly understood until they have been looked at in perspective. In spite of the progress of arbitration during the last half century, to venture an opinion one must carefully have studied the general trend of social revolution. The character of warfare and ifs causes have greatly changed. The brutal struggle for self-preservation is no more. Wars of conquest belong to the days of Caesar and Alexander. Wars undertaken for the gratification of personal ambition have hardly been possible since the First Napoleon. With the change from unlimited to constitutional monarchy, the people have too strong a voice to allow a war to be undertaken rrerely for the aggrandizement of an ambitious monarch; the populace of today does not clamor for war unless under strong provocation. Broadly speaking, we may infer that wars arising from trivial disputes tend to become less and less frequent. On the other hand, the great underlying causes of strife tend to become fewer, but far more deep-seated, reaching to the very vitals of national life. Whether war will finally vanish from off the face of the earth, no man can tell. It seems probable that conflicts will become fewer and more intense; but not until the deep- lying causes of strife are removed will the evil be banished forever. Fifteen years ago much was said about the establishment of an International tribunal or of a court of arbitration. According to recent reports of the Peace Asso- ciations, the present aim of the movement is to persuade the nations to sign arbitra- tion treaties. The most serious obstacle to the introduction of international arbitration as a permanent institution has been the indecision of its advocates as to the method of conducting cases. The most popular and successful plan has been the appointment of a mixed commission, small enough to be easily managed, large enough to work rapidly and systematically, unhampered by diplomatic " red tape." Still, such a com- mission is temporary — unsuited to a scheme of permanent arbitration. A permanent mixed tribunal would insure impartiality. Such a scheme would imply the abolition of standing armies or a uniform reduction in their numbers. The question has been raised by doubters, how will such a tribunal be able to enforce its decisions if the army be banished? Some have suggested that each nation furnish its quota of soldiers to form a kind of international police. Such an institution, however, would seem an inconsistency, if a tribunal, aiming to substitute reason and justice for the sword and bayonet, be obliged to use them in the execution of its decrees. There is apparently some confusion in the public mind between an International Court and a Permanent Commission of Arbitration. The former should mean a Court of International Law, and to be effective, should be composed of the most eminent jurists and statesmen of whom the world can boast, men who know the laws of nations as they now exist, and who are capable of interpreting and codifying these laws. There is urgent need of a complete and precise code of International Law. A Court of International Law would find its authority in the majesty of the law, and the moral support of the nations ought to be a sufficient guarantee for the acceptance of its decrees. Any government which refused to abide by the decisions of so august a body would suffer eternal disgrace in the eyes of the world, to say nothing of the material loss of commercial good-will. The expense of such a court, shared by the participating nations, would be comparatively light. THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 285 When a dispute arose the plaintiff would at once carry the case to this great Court of Appeals, which would investigate the said case on a purely legal basis. This would take the place of special arbitration, but should any question not susceptible of legal interpretation arise, a Commission of Arbitration could easily be formed from the panel of the international jury. There might still remain a few great questions incapable of pacific solution until the moral consciousness of the nations becomes much more highly developed than it is today. Is there no solution but the standing army? The question is largely eco- nomic in character, and its discussion would occupy a much larger space than can be spared here. The peace question is only one of the many tangled problems with which this generation has to deal. It may not be solved by the next generation or the next. Whatever is done, the world looks to America for leadership. " Nothing impressed the delegates sent from the United States to the late Peace Congress at Paris more seriously," says the secretary of the American Peace Society in his annual report, " than the sentiments of various European countries that it is the duty of the Great Republic of the West not only to keep abreast with the world's endeavor to abolish war, out to lead the nations in the better way of Universal Peace." GEORGE ELIOT* By MISS IDA M. STREET. Thought flows over the world in waves. These thought-waves have different manifestations in government, society, religion and literature. Indeed, literature may be called their index, giving often a perfect reflection of their manifestations in society and religion. Jus- tin McCarty says that each reform or era of reform has its accompanying wave of writers as well as states- men, Whipple believes that every change in the habits, opinions, manners, governments, and religions of society calls for and creates a new epoch in litera- ture, and Bascom has made the presence of these literary waves the basis of his philosophical survey of English literature. Moreover, there have been borne on every new flood of thought that has swept over the world, some individuals who have personified the predominant idea of their era; men whose ante- cedents, education and temperament have made them typical of the mass of their cotemporaries; men whose actions or whose words have voiced the peculiar theo- ries of their times. They have not only been promi- nent for their intrinsic genius but types of their era — either in action, in philosophy, or in literature. The present century has been what the Germans would call a Sturm und Dra?ig period. It began in revolutions, and at times seems likely to end in the same turbulent fashion. The overpowering rush of new ideas has been made mani- fest by the excitable French in bloody revolutions and the establishment of futile republics, by the phlegmatic and dreamy Germans in new and startling philosophies, by the conservative and practical English in peaceful political reforms and fresh and highly imaginative literature. At the close of the last century this dogmatic, arbitrary tenor of mind was repre- sented in religion by a lifeless set of mere forms; in statesmanship, by the despotism of the Bourbons in France, and the domination of the aristocracy in England; in lit- erature, by the servile imitation of Boileau and Pope. The movement peculiar to this century is the exaltation of man and law. This movement might be more accurately compared to a tide than a flood, for it had its ebb and flow, its spring and neap tide, its law of action and reaction. Starting from con- ventionalism in the eighteenth century, there has not been one grand sweep on to a Utopia of perfect liberty in the close of the nineteenth. Although we have not yet Miss Ida M. Street is a native of Oskaloosa, la. Her parents were William B. and Carolina M. Street. To her mother, who was a woman of wise judgment and untiring energy, is due her large intellectual attainments. She took an A. B. Degree at Vassar College in 1880, and won the Western Association of Collegiate Alumniae Fellowship in 1888. This was the first fel- lowship given by the association and was placed at Michigan University. She took an A. M. Degree in this university in 1889. She has contributed essays and short poems to the Neio Englander and other periodicals. The more important of these are an Essay on Coriolanus, a Study of Browning's Dramas, and the Christian Spirit in United States History. She holds high rank as a professional teacher and is a young woman of rare culture and accomplishments. Her present postoifice address is Omaha High School, Omaha, Neb. MISS IDA M. STREET. * The title of the address as delivered was: "George Eliot as a Representative of Her Time." 286 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 287 seen the close of the century we can distinctly trace the ebb and flow of the great idea — liberty — and see that it has limitations and a law of control. The first political wave appeared in the French revolution in 1792, when the Bourbon dynasty, representing the tyranny of the feudal system, was overthrown. The tide rose to a destructive height in the Reign of Terror. License was found to be a greater tyrant than an absolute monarch. Popular feeling, especially in England, revolted from the new movement. This high tide was followed by an ebb in the emperorship of Napoleon I., and the new movement seemed utterly defeated and con- servatism to be again in the ascendency after the battle of Waterloo. It was during this period of reaction when the old dogmatism was again dominant, and the new ideas were fermenting in secret, that George Eliot was born and attained maturity. The new movement broke forth again in the French revolution of 1848. With minor tides of success and defeat, political freedom has since steadily advanced in France, and by reflex action in England also. The American Revolution of 1776 had shaken England out of some of her old ideas, when by the constitutional monarchy, inaugurated by William III. she had already placed herself one step in advance of other European countries. For this reason and because of the natural conservatism of English people, the danger of bloody political revolutions was not great in England, but her peaceful reforms indi- cated the growth of the liberating impulse. The labor trouble and plots that were brewing under the arbitrary policy of Castlereagh were counteracted by the liberal policy of Canning. In 1829, England emancipated the Catholics. In 1832 she passed the Reform Bill which gave the large towns representatives in Parliament, and two years later restored to them their right of self-government. This was the most import- ant step in her political reform. In 1833 she abolished slavery, and struck a blow at monopolies in commerce by opening the East-India trade to all merchants. In 1846 the protective corn laws were repealed and the principles of free-trade established. In 1867 the new reform bill and national education made the last* steps to political freedom. All these changes were permeated by that spirit of democracy and charity toward one's fellowmen, that is the best element of the nineteenth-century movement. Lecky says: " Men like Bacon, Descartes, and Locke, have probably done more than any others to set the current of their age. They have formed a certain cast and tone of mind. They have introduced peculiar habits of thought, new modes of rea- soning, new tendencies of inquiry. The impulse they have given to higher literature has been by that literature communicated to the more popular writers, and the impress of these master minds is clearly visible in the writings of multitudes who are totally unacquainted with their works." The minds of men at any one era might be represented by a placid lake, into which the theory of some great thinker, thrown like a pebble, creates ripples, at first small, but gradually widening to the farthest shore. If several pebbles were thrown about the same time, the result would be more or less confusion of ripples upon the water. This was somewhat the condition of thought in the middle of the century. This religion of humanity is the keynote to the most liberal thought of the cent- ury. The ideas expressed by Comte have been, in one form or another, either par- tially or wholly believed by almost every prominent man during the last fifty years, and published in every popular magazine. Even the conservative element — the mys- tics, as Hegel would call them — who still held to their belief in a Supreme Power outside humanity, dwelt more often than formerly on Christ's second commandment and preached more frequently from the text of " The Good Samaritan." The bitter contest between science and religion has now settled down into an amiable compromise in which religion has adopted science; but we are principally interested in the Sturm und Drang period when this conflict was one of the straws of the popular current. The great age of ihe earth, as told by geology, was an agitating missile thrown by science, but probably the largest pebble from that source was Dar- win's theory of evolution. This may be considered both as a result and a cause. It 288 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. was an outgrowth of the system of investigation and method of thought used by Dar- win and his scientific contempories. It has been also a great impetus to the growth of the materialistic, as opposed to the spiritualistic, theory of the origin of man. A belief in the law of evolution does not now necessarily imply a disbelief in a Divine Creator, but for a long time it did. The fallacy lay in the supposition that law was itself a creator, and not a method of action. The scientists of the century have done a missionary work in discovering and explaining laws of nature; but they have made the mistake of deifying law, as the positivists have man. A third pebble was John Henry Newman, and the Oxford movement. The Tractarian gospel was a protest against the formalism of the Established Church. It wished to convince churchmen that they did not belong to a mere national institution, but to a living branch of that great Catholic Church which Christ had founded eight- een centuries ago. They wished to make the dry bones live, to turn formal devotions into joyous acts of faith and piety. Coleridge had partly paved the way for this movement in calling attention to the writings of the earlier Anglican divines and in his transcendental philosophy. Both Newman and Coleridge were as far as possi- ble from the materialists in most points; they only agreed in opposition to the old dogmatism, and belief in a divine element in man. They differed on the source of this divinity — Coleridge and Newman deriving it from God, the materialists from nature. Coleridge, being more of a philosopher, turned to Unitarianism; Newman, a devotionist, to Roman Catholicism. The apparent result of Tractarianism was the rise of Ritualism, and a great revival in the charities which had become a neglected fringe upon the garment of the church. The practical outcome of Positivism and Ritualism was the same — a greater devotion to the needs of humanity. Another pebble in the pool of English thought was the iconoclast, Thomas Carlyle. He was not the founder of any philosophy, but as a fearless disciple of truth he demolished many idols of dogmatism. He might be called the grand Eng- lish skeptic. If, like a reckless pioneer, he sometimes blazed the wrong tree, yet he most effectively cleared out the underbrush, and gave those who came after him a chance to see his mistakes and avoid them. He carried with him a healthful mental breeze that has cleared the fogs from the brain of many a young student. To this period, skeptical in religion, scientific in method, philosophical in thought, fond of prose, drama and the novel in literature, belongs George Eliot. We now wish to show that in antecedents, education, temperament, and in her writings, she repre- sents the mass of her contemporaries — is a type of her era. Her birthplace was in the Midlands, where the good, old-fashioned agricultural and Tory element was just beginning to feel the encroachments of the manufacturing towns, but had not yet lost the rural characteristics. Mr. Gross says of her: " Her roots were down in the pre-railroad, pre-telegraphic period — the fine old days of "leisure — but the fruit was found during an era of extraordinary activity in scientific and mechanical discovery." Her father was a Tory of the best type — conscientious in his business, thorough in his work, and naturally conservative. She has represented him in Adam Bede and Caleb Garth. And what she says of Caleb Garth was no doubt true of her father: "Though he had never regarded himself as other than an orthodox Christian, and would argue on prevenient grace, if the subject were proposed to him, I think his vir- tual divinities were good practical schemes, accurate work, and the faithful comple- tion of undertakings; his prince of darkness was a slack workman." Her mother was a shrewd, practical woman of much natural force, and with a dash of Mrs. Poyser's wit. This love of old and aversion to change, link her with her countrymen. The average Englishman of the middle of the century had his origin in such communities as those described in Adam Bede, Silas Marner, Felix Holt and Mill on the Floss. To fully understand the average man of the century, we must know not only the French influences that worked upon him, but the good English soil from which he sprung; not only the liberal thought of his later life, but the narrow conventionalism, of his childhood. • THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 289 Her middle-class birth also makes her a representative of a numerous class of Englishmen. The well-to-do farmer, the intelligent artisan and tradesman, form the bulk of her characters. The very aristocratic or the very poor, enter upon her pages but as supernumeraries. In this she is in perfect sympathy with her age. The great struggles of the century have been to emancipate the middle class and place them, socially, mentally, and politically, on a level with the highest. They have become in reality the ruling power in England. In looking at her life, we see, then, a child of middle-class parents, born and bred in Middle England among a rural old-fashioned people, and surrounded by conservative influences. Upon this foundation of conservatism is engrafted a capability of intense feeling. She says of herself: "I can never live long without enthusiasm in some form or another." This capability for feeling is the main element of a religious character, if, as Adam Bede says, " Religion's something else besides notions and doctrines. It isn't notions set people doing the right thing, it's feelings." With this emotion, there was in her mind, as in Dorothea's, "a current into which all thought and feeling were apt sooner or later to flow — the reaching forward of the whole consciousness toward the fullest truth, the least partial good." "She yearned toward the perfect right, that it might make a throne within her, and rule her errant will. The keystone of the intel- lectual faculties is the reason, and George Eliot had a thoroughly logical mind. In one of her letters she speaks of a book that is full of " wit " to her. " It gives me that exquisite kind of laughter that comes from the gratification of the reasoning facul- ties." This book — Mr. Hennel's Inquiry Concerning the Origin of Christianity — was the awakener of her skepticism. It expressed the reaction of reason against the arbi- trary or miraculous system of explaining the facts in the New Testament, He attempted to show that, leaving out of account miraculous agencies, Christ's life could be explained in a logical way. His proof in detail is not conclusive to us, but its significance lay in the fact that men were beginning to dare to apply reason to the fundamental facts of Christianity. George Eliot expressed this daring when she said: " To fear the exam- ination of any proposition appears to me an intellectual and moral palsy, that will ever hinder the firm grasping of any substance whatever. For my part, I wish to be among the ranks of that glorious crusade that is seeking to set Truth's Holy Sepulchre free from a usurped domination." Carlyle was the leader in this crusade that fear- lessly said: "Two and two make four, in religion and society, as well as mathematics." Her logical faculty is as strong an element in her as her emotions, and her life from this on is a struggle between religious feelings and intellectual skepticism. Of other writers in this era, Tennyson mirrors the same struggle in "In Memoriam," and Mat- thew Arnold in his futile attempts to be an agnostic. It was truly the, " Strum und Drang'' period, and these men and women of the time were tossed about between the buffets of dogmatism and skepticism till their poor weather-beaten boats were almost unseaworthy. George Eliot's life in London as Mr. Chapman's assistant on the "Westminster Review," and her union with Mr. Lewes strengthened her skepticism, and, at least out- wardly, identified her with positivism. Let us next consider how far she agreed with the main ideas of Comte's theory. She believed there was a law governing human society; that nothing came by chance; that every event had its logical cause in preceding events; that every act had its reason in the nature of the individual. Mr. Irwine says in Adam Bede: — "A man can never do anything at variance with his own nature. He carries within him the germ of his most exceptional action; and if we wise people make eminent fools of ourselves on any particular occasion, we must endure the legit- imate conclusion that we carry a few grains of folly to our ounce of wisdom." In the delineation of her principal characters, she follows a natural law and not a false criterion of perfection. " The blessed work of helping the world forward, hap- pily does not wait to be done by perfect men; and I should imagine that neither Luther nor John Bunyan, for example, would have satisfied the modern demand for an ideal hero, who believes nothing but what is true, feels nothing but what is exalted (19) 290 * THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. and does nothing but what is graceful. The real heroes of God's making are quite different; they have their natural heritages of love and conscience, which they drew in wath their mothers' milk; they know one or two of those deep spiritual truths which are only to be won by long wrestling with their own sins and their own sorrows; they have earnest faith and strength so far as they have done genuine work, but the rest is dry, barren theory, blank prejudice, vague hearsay." In her fictitious world the heroes and heroines grow by a series of misfortunes and mistakes to know their weaknesses and conquer them. " No man is matriculated to the art of life till he has been well tempted." Heroism consists in facing the results of mistakes, not succumbing to them. George Eliot's princes of darkness are not intrinsically bad, but are fallen angels like Tito Melema, Hetty Poyser and Rosamond Vincy — fallen through a persistent course of self-indulgence. But, as Mr. Farebrother says, "You have not only got the old Adam within your- self against you, but you have got all those descendants of the original Adam, who form the society about you." How to conquer the external Adam is the problem of social regeneration. In solving this problem the positivists have deduced from experience the same law that the Christians have by revelation, that self-interests must be sacrificed where they interfere with the interests of all. We are too closely bound together to have separate interests. " So deeply inherent is it in this life of ours that men have to suffer for each other's sins; so inevitably diffusive is human suffering that even justice makes its victims, and we can conceive no retribution that does not spread beyond its mark in pulsation of unmerited pain." Our duty, however, is not to extol nor condemn this religion of humanity; simply to ascertain as accurately as we can its place and value as a regenerator. The general theory of monotheism is that there is a Divine being, a God, who created the universe and man. Man is dual, consisting of an earthly or bodily life connecting him with the material universe, and a spiritual or soul life connecting him with his Creator. The generally accepted religion of the Western World — Christianity — ^has two laws, love thy God and love thy neighbor. These two were meant to be equally binding, but gradually, in the course of centuries, the second fell into disuse. The church imagined it was fulfilling the first law, but it is hard to love a being of whom one has no imme- diate knowledge. The idea of God became more and more indistinct. Theologians created gods from their own minds, whom they set up for worship, and these became the deities of the Christian Church. This error would have been avoided if the second law had been rigorously obeyed; for man was originally created in his Maker's image, and the love of one's neighbor, and the self-denial necessary thereto, would have taught man some of the most important attributes of divinity. The spark of divinity which God had placed in man — the soul — was smoldering for lack of fuel, and that once out man would be forever alienated from his Creator. Man had lost faith in the divinity within him, and was by his theology putting his God further and further away. Since the time of Luther there had been no widespread reformation among Christian nations, and they had reached such a state of religious torpor that one was necessary. The reformation of the nineteenth century has been to revivify the second commandment, " Love thy neighbor." The folly lay in ignoring the first law, love thy God. Dogmatism said, " There is a God;" and skepticism, reacting from that, said, " How do you know? We know nothing but what we can prove." They denied in toto the Divine authority of both commandments, but deduced the second from human experience. God has two means of revelation — his material creation and the spiritual nature of his creature, man. Communicating through the spiritual natures of the first races of men, he had by inspiration, so-called, produced a Bible or written law, and after- ward, through his special prophet Christ, a more advanced Gospel. This had been accepted by the church as sole authority, and its correlative nature had been ignored. Without this key or safeguard against misinterpretation, God's written law became a THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 291 blind guide. In the course of time man so tortured its meaning, so overlaid it with his own misconceptions, that church Christianity became null as a means of regenera- tion to the average man. The reformers very naturally took the other extreme, and, ignoring God's written law, exalted his natural law. They would believe only in such a good as they could learn from nature. As far as it goes, nature is a more accurate expositor of God than the revealed word, but it is incomplete, since it cannot reveal man's spiritual nature nor its own origin. The Bible and nature were meant to be complements, and by adopting one and denying the other the reformers made them- selves liable to error. The natural scientists were the more liable because their investi- gations ceased at animal nature, and it was easier there to deny a Creator than for the sociologists, who carried their studies on to man's social and higher nature. Thus arose materialism, which would naturally become popular with a large class of people who were ready to accept any religion that released them from obedience to a spir- itual law. Each new thinker in this new movement took a step in advance, and we shall now see how George Eliot advanced upon Comte. She belonged to the class of investi- gators who were studying the higher nature of man. She believed in its spiritual exist- ence, and in studying and expounding its laws she drew nearer the truth that it must have a Divine origin. She believed in a Divine element in man that had its own laws and could live at least partly independent of material. "Justice is like the kingdom of God — it is not without us as a fact, it is within us as a great yearning." George Eliot not only had faith in the Divine element in man to help him make this decision: " You must have it inside you that your plan is right;" but she believed in its partial ijidependence of material causes; in this she advanced upon Comte. She believed, also, that this divinity grew, and by its growth became human regeneration. The method of its growth was by sorrow and by love. " It would not be well for us to overleap one grade of joy or suffering; our life would soon lose its completeness and beauty." She believed in the self-regenerating power of love, not to the recipient, but to the lover. With Romola, Dorothea and Milly Barton, to love was a " Divine necessity;" they had a " sublime capacity " for it. Dempster's love for his mother was the only hope of regeneration in his degraded nature. The love of the best we know is Carlyle's idea of hero-worship: "We needs must love the highest when we see it." Through the best human love. Browning leads his men up to a Divine love. And George Eliot also, in Adam Bebe, says: " Our love at its highest flood rushes beyond its object and loses itself in the sense of Divine mys- tery! " And: "The growth of higher feeling within us is like the growth of faculty, bringing with it a sense of added strength; we can no more wish to return to a nar- rower sympathy than a painter or musician can wish to return to his cruder manner, or a philosopher to his less complete formula! " This belief in the power of human beings, to save each other from soul destruction by leading them to a Divine love, is a great advance upon Comte, because it implies a God and His direct communication with at least some of His creatures. There comes a time in the life of all when the human helpers fail. Janet's last temptation came when she was alone, and it was an impulse rather than a resolution that finally caused her to dash the brandy bottle down. Romola, after she lost faith in Savonarola, fled again from duty, until some unseen power floated her to the pestilence-stricken vil- lage, and she learned God's love afresh. To what then has George Eliot's conscien- tious study of humanity led her, and how far from the materialists and Comte? To a belief in the divinity in man that is directly dependent on a Divine source. That she does not altogether believe her own conclusions seems to be proven by her life. That she had learned to depend on human love, without looking suflficiently at the Divine love beyond, seems to be the secret of her marriage to Mr. Cross. She dreaded lone- liness. She felt no companionship with an unseen power, though she might believe in its existence. She had worked out her problem carefully and slowly, but in doing 292 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. so she had exhausted her strength and was not sure of her conclusions. Like Amos Barton she could think herself strong but not feel herself so. Thus George Eliot, living in a period of change and upheaval, represents the con- flict. By her antecedents and early surroundings she is joined by the bonds of love to her countrymen, by her intellectual development she is linked to the democratic, active spirit of her mature age. Her innate love of truth, her fearless avowal of it, and her contempt for dogmatism, are common attributes of her contemporaries. By her capability for deep emotion, and by her lingering affection for the old, she more truly represents her countrymen than more skeptical thinkers do. Like the mass of the people through all the conflict she held latent in her the capability of evolving a new religion. In her faith in the truth of feeling she foreshadows the present era, which ' would guide, not repress emotion by reason. If she had lived after the struggle of opinions were over, and a new peace and joy were lighting the world with promise, we know not how much more perfect her life and philosophy would have been. FOOT FREE IN GOD'S COUNTRY. By MRS. MARIE ANTOINETTE NATHALIE POLLARD. As we look out on the ocean, and think of the thousand islands that gem its bosom, we know that they are created by the gradual accretions of the minutest particles. Far down in the deep waters the coral insect rears its superstructure. Year after year elapses, and its labors are visible only when the tempest tosses the foam over the hidden reef or the waves expose in their ^^^ deep hollows its white edge. But by and by it lifts ^dHnfe itself above the waters, and catches upon its rugged ^^^^^^^ horns the wreck of some shattered vessel, the soil, ^^HP^^^^ broken branches and seeds from some far off beaten g^^^^^^M, strand, to re-create in the wilderness of waters an •5^ i^jf^m oasis with its fruits and flowers, a resting-place for Iff ], ^ man on the wild bosom of the deep. So that which once gave terror, the reef with its trembling billows which hymned the dirge of many a gallant crew, they now seek as they cross the trackless waters as an asylum of hope and safety. So, too, grows up out of the bewildering and chaotic sea of intemperance and corruption the enduring edifice of temperance reform. Intemperance has in it crimes darker than mur- der, and a deep more hopeless than despair. It is as wide as the habitable earth, began with the birth of man, and may not cease until his race perishes from the globe. Strangest of all strange things in human conduct, man created it himself, fosters, nourishes, extends and builds it up of his own eager, voluntary effort, without which it would perish in a day. Bringing to him no semblance of good; bringing none to anything that he loves, values or cherishes; blasting, burning and consuming his best and proudest moments; consuming him in his form, his mind, his heart, his hope, his health and home, in his soul and in his hope of Heaven. If this visitant from another world should recover from his astonishment, he might inquire further: "Why does not the government prohibit its production and sale?" Well, it derives a profit by permitting it to be made and sold; and besides, the government receives every year S75,ooo,OCX) for the manufacture and sale of liquors. The states receive $25,000,000 for licenses, making Sioo,ooo,ooo. As there are one hundred thousand men who die drunkards every year, this is equai to Si,oco to the government for every man who dies a drunkard — a sort of partnership with the devil, you know. Yet this does not pay one quarter the cost for caring for criminals? Besides, the majority of our people think it would be wrong to prohibit it." "What good comes of it?" " None at all. It never did any good." "Did it always produce evil, as now?" "Always, everywhere; just as we see it here." "Explain, then, why all men do not agree to prohibit it?" " I can not." " How can Mrs. Marie Antoinette Nathalie Pollard, lecturer, poet and authoresH, was born in Norfolk, Va. Her parents were the Countess de Boussoumart and Col. Pierre Joseph (iranier. At Norfolk, Va., Mrs. Pollard received her traininK under the careful guidance of a Koverness. At the age of fourteen she married James R. Doweli. After the close of the Civil war she married Edward Albert Pollard, author of "The Lost Cause." Her postoffice address is Safe Deposit Company, East Fourteenth Street, New York, N. Y. 293 MRS. MARIE ANTOINETTE NATHALIE POLLARD. 294 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. men be found so abandoned as to sell it? " " They are not the worst men among us. They only supply a common want of our people, which our laws permit." "Why do men drink it? " " Because many of them have an uncontrollable appetite for it; many because it is a mere fashion, a common custom." " What, a fashion to drink this dreadful liquid?" "Yes." "I do not understand that." " Nor do I." "Are men born with this uncontrollable appetite?" "A very few inherit it." " How is it formed? " " Simply by drinking." " Explain this." "Well, a natural appetite in a healthy nature of this world, when it is fed, lies down like a full animal and goes to sleep until awakened by its own voice. This appetite for drink is created by that which feeds it, and the more it is gratified the more ravenous it becomes. It can never be allayed or gratified, but goes forth roaring and devouring, until the unhappy wretch whom it inhabits perishes." " Is there danger that every man who tastes this may thus create that appetite ? " " Very great danger." "And yet, among you mortals of this wretched world, your laws encourage the production and furnishing of this diabolical fluid, and your fashions and customs compel its use." Its evil lies in the passion and will of man, and away below the reach of law and written constitutions, but within the grasp of a power that alone can control heart and soul. The evil burns deeper, its fiery breath blasts wider. There seems no power in man's effort to stay it. How beautiful the work of woman comes in. God has called you my sisters. Will you heed His voice? Will you stand up and say, as David did, " I will walk within my house with a perfect heart; I will set no unclean thing before my eyes?" Remember, it is line upon line and precept upon precept. Remember that intemper- ance deprives men of their reason and fosters and encourages all kinds of immorality. It destroys the peace and happiness of millions of families. It takes a boy of beauty and makes him a bloated, loathsome, worthless man. It takes a young girl, lovely and lovable, and makes her a degraded being, at whom passers-by point with the finger of scorn. You remember these lines: " Hated and shunned, I walk the street, hunting for what? For my prey, 'tis said. I look at it, though, in a different light. For this mighty shame is my daily bread, my food, my shelter, the clothes that I wear. Only for this I might starve or drown. What made me the guilty thing I am — for I was innocent once, you know? It was drink — that horrid word says all. What had I to gain by a moment's sin to weigh in the scales with my innocent years, my womanly .shame, my ruined name, my father's curses, my mother's tears? The love of drink. Was it worth it? The price was a soul paid down. Your guilt was heavy, the world will say; and heavy, heavy your doom must be, for to pity and par- don woman's fall is to set no value on chastity." Oh, women, who have suffered as only a woman can suffer, who have felt as only a woman can feel, who have hoped as only a woman can hope, come forth! Come without law! Come without man's help! Come in defiance of both, and kneel down on the cold, bare stones, if need be, amid hearts harder and colder than marble, and lift your voices and souls in undoubting faith to the God of Heaven, and men will feel their hearts thrill as if under the touch of His finger. Stay thou, O, Lord! the tide of death! Rebuke the demon's blasting breath, And speed, O speed, on every shore The day when strong drink slays no more. The clouds and storms of life are lessened by our love of God, and the nearer we live to Him, the lighter our burdens seem. Next to God man believes in the good- ness and purity of woman. He believes that God does and will hear her prayer, and when she comes to Him in his haunts of sin, in her purity and faith, and asks God to touch his heart and change his will and power, God does touch and change him. There is not a living man, save some abnormal or diseased wretch, who can and will hold out against this persistent pleading and imploring. Man may be affronted and THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 295 talk of his constitutional rights of property; but the constitution written by God on the hearts of men is the paramount law. We are told that the public sense of decency is offended by the appearance of processions of praying women on its streets. Let it be offended. The public sense of decency always was and will be when the public vices and crimes are rebuked by plain truths spoken according to the Scriptures. Popular religion veils her decorous face, and pulls her skirts away, and fears that the cause of religion will suffer from such scandalous proceedings on the part of pious temperance men and women in the name of God, Poor thing! Let popular religion not be alarmed, for God is quite equal to the management of His own affairs. This temperance movement is one of the deep throbbing movements of the human race; with unanimity and persistency, faith and prayer, on the part of the women of this land this huge evil can be dealt with as an offense against law and private morals. I would ask you to sum up, if you can, the amount paid in a single day for drink alone. Now let the mind go out, extend the vision and the sum to all the cities, towns, villages, hamlets and waste places in the republic, and put the sum total in figures and multiply it by the days in the year, and you have a sum greater than the revenue of the United States Government. And paid for what? For that which is related to no good and which is wholly and utterly bad. Add the yearly waste for drink of all the years of human life on this continent and, if the mind can carry it forward, estimate the cost of drink for all the years of modern Europe, and you reach a sum which can hardly find expression in words and figures. Give me what is thus expended in fifty years, with wisdom to rightly use it, and what would I not do? I would feed and clothe, nurse and house every wretched child of wretched mortal man and woman on the broad earth. I would build up school- houses on all hillsides, in all the pleasant valleys, on all the smiling plains known to man. I would hire men to do good until they should fall in love with goodness. I would banish that nameless sin, for every female child should be placed above want and be made mistress of herself, to be approached only for her purity; and man should come to seek and love woman for that alone. Drunkenness should be no more, for I would buy up the art and wish to produce that which could cause it, until the appetites and habits of men were healthy and pure. Men should be taught the science and art of self-government, and their labors and energies taxed alone for their self-good. Then, indeed, would fair opportunity come to all the sons and daughters of men unwarped and unfettered by starvation and want; uncrippled by crime and unstained by vice; with healthful, vigorous natures, pure desires and passions; with the broad, peaceful, beautiful earth opening its paths to their innocent feet without snares and pitfalls to go and do as they will. This is a dream, you will say. I know it is. Such boundless wealth is not to be placed at the disposal of any mortal born, nor will mortal ever be endowed with such wisdom in its disposal. But could the fatal waste of these unknown millions of human beings at once and forever be stayed, and the little streamlets and drops of this waste turned and converted even to the ordinary means known to human advancement, my dream would be no longer a dream, but a hope of wondrous inspiration, leading the races of men to its happy realization, and then, and not until then, can we be foot free in God's country, America. THE KINDERGARTEN AS A CHARACTER BUILDER. By MRS. SARAH B. COOPER. Dear friends and co-workers, I bid you a hearty God-speed! This is the era of woman It has been found not in keeping with the Divine plan to attempt to carry on this world with half its forces. As some one aptly puts it, the flag of humanity has been at half-mast. The vessel has been drifting about, with half its crew down in the hold with the hatches nailed upon them. The laborer has been at his work with one arm bound up very tenderly, but firmly, in a sling. This is not God's plan. Male and female created He them for the work of life. The way to make a noble race is to make nobler women. The way to make nobler women is to expand their sympathies, enlarge their energies, and elevate their aims. Nothing can do more to conserve -such an end than a great convoca- tion like this, and so I bid you again a hearty God- speed, as I betake myself to my theme, thanking you with all my soul for the privilege of presenting a plea in behalf of the little child. I have said, this is the era of women. I might say. also, this is the epoch of childhood. I am to speak on " The Kindergarten as a Character Builder." I believe, dear friends, there is a vast range of " unmapped country within us, awaiting discovery; a vast domain of unexplored territory, as yet unpre- empted and uncultivated, toward which the eye of Frederick Froebel, that great edu- cational Columbus, was directed with a steady and divining gaze. He saw with true spiritual insight what eternal continents of truth, what priceless stores of hidden- away possibilities there are in the human mind. He saw the rich loam of faculty, needing only the clearing away of underbrush and briers, the letting in of soft sun- light and of gentle showers, to beckon forth the sleeping germs. Frederick Froebel saw it all in prophetic clarity of vision, and having consecrated himself to the Heaven- inspired work while he lived, with a perfect faith in its ultimate triumph, he bade a brave farewell to the few true friends who stood by him in his work, knowing that what is excellent, as God lives, is permanent. And so it has proved; for to-day the great educational principles which he discovered and laid down are going forth in every direction, conquering and to conquer. The kindergarten is his enduring monu- ment. Mrs. Sarah B. Cooper is a native of Cazenovia, Madison County, N. Y. She was born in 1836. Her parents were Samuel Clark IngersoU and Lanra Case Ingersoll, both of old Revolutionary stock ; she was educated in the Oneida Conference Sem- inary, graduating with high honors. Sabeequently she attended Troy Female Seminary under Emma Willard. She has traveled in nearly every state in the Union. She was married in 1855 to Halsey Fenimore Cooper, former teacher in mathe- matics in Cazenovia Seminary. She has had four children, only one of whom is now living, Harriett Cooper, who is asso- ciated with her mother in the kindergarten work, and who possesses rare executive ability. Mrs. Cooper originated the Golden Gate Kindergarten Association of San Francisco, which has trained over sixteen hundred little children. Over $450,- 000 have been given her for this great work. Mrs. Cooper gave thirty-six addresses in Chicago at the World's Exposition. She is a member of the Congregational Church and has taught a Bible-class for forty-four years, and has one of the largest Bible- classes in the world. She is vice-president of the Pacific Coast Woman's Club, and also of the Associated Charities of San Francisco ; is a member of the Century Club and of the Congregational Ministers' Club. Her postoffice address is 1902 Val- lejo Street, San Francisco, Cal. 296 MRS. SARAH B. COOPER. THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 297 The kindergarten concerns itself more with the development of faculty than with the mere imparting of knowledge. It recognizes the fact that all true education is learning transformed -to faculty. It does not ask so much, "What does the child know ? " as, " Has the child learned how to learn ? " it looks less to mere acquirements than to the capacity to acquire. It is teaching the little child to teach himself. It is controlling the little child that he may learn the art of self-control. The senses are sharpened, the hands are trained, and the body is made lithe and active. The gifts and occupations represent every kind of technical activity. The children must work for what they get. They learn through doing. They thus develop patience, persever- ance, skill and will power. They are encouraged by every fresh achievement. What they know they must know thoroughly and accurately. Every element of knowledge is transformed into an element of creation. The mind assimilates what it receives, just as a healthy organism assimilates its food, and is nourished thereby. In his occu- pations in the kindergarten the child is required to handle, reconstruct, combine and create. " Let the very playthings of your children have a bearing upon the life and work of the coming man," said Aristotle. It is early training that makes the master. This universal instinct of play in the child means something. It should be turned to good account. It should be made constructive in its income instead of destructive. This restless activity of the child is the foundation of the indefatigable enterprise of the man. This habit of work must be formed early in life, if we would have it a pleasure. Activity is the law of healthful childhood. Turn it to good account! The perceptive faculties in a well-endowed child are far in excess of the reflective faculties. He sees everything. He wants to know about everything. He will find out if he can. Sensi- ble mothers understand this fact, and keep their household goods well out of the way of the young "heir apparent." Just as old Dolly Winthrop said, in "Silas Marner":- " If you can't bring your mind to frighten the child off touching things, you must do what you can to keep 'em out of the way. That's what I do wi' the pups as the lads are allays a-rearing. They will worry and gnaw — worry and gnaw they will, if it was one's Sunday cap as hung anywhere so as they could drag it. They know no differ- ence, God help 'em; it's the pushing o' the teeth- as sets 'em on, that's what it is." That's exactly, what it is with the restless child. It's the pushing of the teeth — the intellectual molars and bicuspids, so to speak. They are getting ready to masticate their mental food. Bodily vigor, mental activity and moral integrity are indispensable to a perfected life. The kindergarten is the best agency for setting in motion the physical, mental and moral machinery of a little child, that it may do its own work in its own way. It is the rain and dew and sun to wake the sleeping germ and bring it into self-activity and growth. The heart as well as the head comes in for its share of training. The kindergarten regards right action to be quite as important as rare scholarship. It works for both, knowing that ignorance and lack of character in the masses will never breed wisdom, so long as ignorance and lack of character in the individual breed folly. What we need to do is to bring more happiness into childhood, and then we shall bring more of virtue, for " virtue kindles at the touch of joy." The kindergarten is the "Paradise of Childhood." Froebel insisted that education and happiness should be wedded, that there should be as much pleasure in satisfying intellectual hunger as physical hunger. And should not this be so? Is it not more or less the fault of methods that it is not so? Just here I wish to say that the moral and religious influences of the kindergarten can scarcely be overestimated. The kindergarten does not attribute every mistake of a child to total depravity. To be perpetually telling a little child, even a very naughty child, that there is no good thing in him, that he is vile and corrupt, is one of the very best ways of making a rascal out of him if he has any spirit in him, and of making a little hypocrite of him, if he is mean-spirited and weak. And this holds equally true of all children, whether they come from the palatial homes of the rich or the wretched homes of the poor. There is more ignorance than depravity when a little 298 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. child goes wrong. He must stumble and fall many times before he learns to walk uprightly, either physically or spiritually. He must learn to climb the stairs of moral difficulty as he learned to climb the household stairs. As we patiently wait for the body to unfold and do its best, wisely guiding it all the while, so should we patiently wait for the soul's unfolding. All education is a growth, not a creation. And to all growth belongs the element of time. We are none of us born with the "trade of con- duct" learned. The primal ideal of all government should be to teach a child to govern himself at the earliest possible period. And to learn how to govern himself a child must be indulged in self-government. The true teacher will be aiming all the time at the child's enfranchisement — not in making him an unwilling slave. Above all, the true kindergarten aims at the cultivation of the heart and soul in the right direction, and leads them to the Creator of all life and to personal union with Him. The law of duty is recognized by the little ones as the law of love. It is the aim of the kindergarten to lead the little ones to their Heavenly Friend. They are taught to love Him, They are taught to love one another, to help one another, to be kind to one another, to care for one another. No one can love God who does not love his fellows. The child in the kindergarten is not only told to be good, but he is actually helped to be good. The very foundations on which true character rests are laid in the kindergarten. Habits of virtue, truth, purity and usefulness are here inculcated; and what is charac- ter but crystallized habit? As to the moral effect of the kindergarten, a little three-year-old can best tell the story. A bright little blonde lassie of three years, belonging to one of our kinder- gartens, was holding tightly the hand of her lady guardian, as they wandered among the marvels of the Mechanics' Institute Fair. It was high carnival with the little kin- dergarteners. This nervous little midget was wild with delight at the wonderful things , to be seen on every hand. Just then she was delving into the mysteries of the chicken incubator. Suddenly one of the regularly deputized policemen, who do duty during the fair, passed by. He did not escape the vigilance of " little blue eyes." "See, there's a perlice ! " she ejaculated, with resonant, ringing tone, pointing her little finger deprecatingly as she spoke. "There he goes," she added,. with increased fervor. " Why, he needn't be a watchin' of us, 'cos we don't nip nothin' now, seiice we went to the kindergarten! " The poor little dear — she had no idea that a " perlice " could have any other pos- sible vocation than to be watching her and the other little Barbary Coasters, who had been wont aforetime to " nip" fruit and vegetables on the sly, as a sort of filial duty imposed by thriftless, shiftless parentage. And now, dear friends, although I have overstepped the limits allotted me, I can- not clos,e without a brief reference to this beneficent kindergarten work in San Francisco. Fifteen years ago there was not a single free kindergarten west of the Rocky Mountains. There are now over sixty in San Francisco alone, including those in orphanages and day homes. Branching out from San Francisco as a center, they have extended in every direction, from the extreme northern part of Washington Territory to Lower California and New Mexico, and they have planted themselves in Oregon, Nevada, Colorado, and in almost every large city in California. The work in San Francisco has been phenomenal. No city in the Union has made more rapid strides in this work among the little children than San Francisco. This is owing very largely to the fact that persons of large wealth have been induced to study the work for them- selves, and have become convinced of its permanent and essential value to the state. Foremost among those who have given largely to the support of these kindergartens is Mrs. Leland Stanford, who has, from first to last, given $174,000 to the support of these beneficent schools for the neglected children of San Francisco. Over eight hundred children have been under training in the Stanford kindergartens the past year. Mrs, Senator Hearst, and others of generous mind, also support these schools. THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 299 Over $450,000 have been given me to carry on the kindergartens of the Golden Gate Association. The kindergarten gets hold of the little child just as early in life as possible — the earlier the better. It believes, with Lord Broughham, that a child can and does learn more before the age of six years than it does or can learn after that age during his whole life, however long it may be. For this is the root-life of the human plant, and the root-life must forever determine what the stem and blossoms shall be. In short, the world is beginning to recognize the fact that a general education, that has not in it some provision for a special education and training in some particular industry, is practically a failure. Technical and industrial education for the people is no theory. It is a question of civilization. It is a national question, and touches the very exist- ence of the state. The kindergarten lies at the foundation of this sort of education. All honor, then, to those who foster these blessed schools for the little children! Governor Stanford struck the key-note when he said, that he believed the surest foundation on which any educational structure could rest was the rock of thorough kindergarten training, begun at the earliest possible age. At the age when moral and industrious habits are most easily formed, the taste improved, and the finer feelings which give fiber to the will are cultivated. On the bed-rock of such training the true university may rest — a university such as the Stanford University is outlined to be — a university embracing the science of human life, in its varied industries, arts, science, literature, government, political economy, ethics, moral unfoldment, hygiene — and in short all that goes to make up a perfected human life; a university where the school and the workshop clasp hands, where body and mind are educated together, where the mechanical and classical student will strike hands together, where the artist and the artisan will eat at one common board. Democracy means equitable opportunity. Liberty of growth and equality at the start is the law of all true democratic life. And the primal aim of all education, from the kindergarten straight through to the university, should be the unfolding of all that is in the human being — the equip- ping of the young for maintaining themselves in honest independence. Some one has said there are three ways of earning a living: by working, by begging, or by stealing; and those who come to years of responsibility, and do not work, are doing one of the other two things, dress it out in whatever pretty guise you please. I believe it was Florence Nightingale who said: "If to three R's — Reading, 'Riting and 'Rithmetic — there be not added something that will give the mind a practical turn, we shall soon have a fourth R, which will stand for rascality." The true mission of education is the developing of vigorous, capable, and cultivated human beings, and launching them on their life career, well armed and equipped with facts and principles as a propelling power on the track of an instructed industry. We have all too many sad travesties of highly educated folks, whom old Dame Poyser describes as being "too high learnt to have much common sense." Hence, we must go back to the method of Providence in educating the race, and begin with labor and experience, which are sure to lead up to science and art. Throw open the kindergarten and the schools for industrial and art training to every child, and with the heart pure, the head clear, the hand skillful and ready, we shall hear no more of the vexed question: "What shall we do with our boys and girls?" Our fair land shall take its place in the very front ranks of nations distin- guished for their industrial achievements. There must be more of genuine human sympathy between the top and the bottom of society. The prosperous and the happy must clasp hands and heart with the toil- ers and the strugglers. The living, loving self is wanted. The heart must be the missionary. The life must be the sermon. All mankind must be brothers. The chil- dren must be taught these great principles and aided in putting them in practice. They must be made to feel and to know that it is what they put into life and not what they get out of it that measures their worth to the world. "Then shall our sons be as plants grown up in their youth, our daughters as corner-stones polished after 300 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. the similitude of a palace." They shall be the fathers and mothers of a great race; and long after you and I shall have finished our earthly work, the breath of God still breathing upon the great sentient human soul, shall lift them higher and higher in their purposes and work, as they press forward in their beauty and their strength "clear as the sun, fair as the moon, and terrible as an army with banners." POETRY OF THE STARS. By MISS MARY A. PROCTOR. Let us go backward in imagination six thousand years, and stand beside our great ancestor as he gazed for the first time upon the going down of the sun. What strange sensations must have swept through his bewildered mind as he watched the last departing rays of the sinking sun and saw it slowly fading from sight. A mysterious darkness creeps over the face of nature and the beautiful scenes of earth are hidden beneath the shades of night. Now came still evening on; and twilight gray Had in her sober livery all things clad; Silence was pleased; now glow'd the firmament With livid sapphires; Hesperus, that led The starry host, rode brightest; till the moon, Rising in clouded majesty, at length, Apparent queen, unveil'd her peerless light, And over the dark her silver mantle threw. As the solitary gazer watches the silver crescent of light hanging in the western sky the hours glide swiftly by and the moon is gone. One by one the stars are rising, slowly ascending the heights of heaven, and solemnly sweeping downward in the still- ness of the night. How many bright And splendid lamps shine in heaven's temple high, Day hath its golden sun, her moon the night, Her fixed and wandering stars, the azure sky. The galaxy, or" milky way," appears against the dark background of the sky like a shining zone of brilliant light. A broad and ample road, whose dust is gold, And pavement stars, as stars to thee appear. The first grand revelation to mortal sight is nearly completed. A faint streak of silver light is seen in the east; it brightens; the stars fade; the planets are extinguished; the eye is fixed in mute astonishment upon the growing splendor of the heavens till the first rays of the returning sun pierce the gray mists of morning, and the sun rises glorious and triumphant from its imprisonment in the dark caves of night. Are we surprised that this mysterious daily disappearance and reappearance of the orb of day should have inspired feelings of awe, and an eager desire to compre- hend these wonders in the minds of those who first watched and those who have Miss Mary A. Proctor was bom in Dublin, Ireland ; is the danghter of Richard A. Proctor, the astronomer. She was edacated in a convent in Norwood, Surrey.England, and has traveled both in Enroi)e and the United States. She is a teacher of astronomy, lecturer and author. Following the lectures in Chicago she arranged for a lecture course for the season of 1893-4 in Eastern states, and she expresses thanks to the Woman's Congress for favorable introduction to the public. In religious faith she is an Episcopalian. Her present address is No, 293 Forty-sixth Street, Now York City, N. Y. 301 MISS MARY A. PROCTOR. 302 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. watched during the long lapse of six thousand years? To trace the efforts of the human mind through the long and ardent struggle to solve these mighty problems; to reveal the weary years of patient watching; the struggles to overcome insurmountable obstacles; to develop the means by which the rock-built pyramid of science is slowly rearing its stately form from age to age, until its vertex pierces the very heavens — these are tasks of no ordinary difficulty. Music is here, but it is the deep and solemn harmony of the spheres. Poetry is here, but traced in letters of light on the sable gar- ments of night; architecture is here, but it is the colossal structure of sun and system, of cluster and universe. Eloquence is here, but " there is neither speech nor language — its voice is not heard." Yet its resistless power sweeps over us as we ponder on the mighty periods of revolving worlds, the wonders of the infinity of space and the hidden mysteries of the vast expanse of heaven. Let us pause and listen to the deep and solemn music of the spheres, as heard by the first watchers of the sky; let us read the poetry written in the stars; let us contemplate the architecture of the celestial vault, though " its architraves, its archways, seem ghostly from infinitude." Let us listen to the surging eloquence of these glorious suns, now swiftly rushing through infinite space: How distant some of these nocturnal suns! So distant, says the sage, 'twere not absurd To doubt, if beams set out at nature's birth Are yet arrived at this, so foreign, world. Though nothing half so rapid as their flight! Let us gaze in awe and wonder ! Who can satiate sight In such a scene — in such an ocean wide Of deep astonishment? Where depth, height, breadth, Are lost in their extremes; and where to count The thick-sown glories in this field of fire, Perhaps a seraph's computation fails. With resistless energy the tide of time has flowed on, breaking in noiseless waves on the far-distant shores of eternity. Science has partially lifted the dark veil which has enshrouded in mystery the celestial scenes which greeted the vision of genera- tions during the past thousand years, and erected temples devoted to the study of the heavens. Look over their magnificent machinery; examine the far-reaching eye of the telescope as it reveals the hidden mysteries of space, and then go backward in imagination to the plains of Shinar and stand beside the shepherd astronomer as he vainly attempts to grasp the mysteries of the structure of the heavens. The sentinel upon the watch-tower is relieved from duty; but another takes his place and the vigil is unbroken. He commences his investigations on the hilltops of Eden; he studies the stars through the long centuries of antediluvian life. The Deluge sweeps from the earth its inhabitants, their cities and their monuments; but when the storm is hushed and the heavens shine forth in beauty from the summit of Mount Ararat the astronomer resumes his endless vigils. In Babylon he keeps his watch, and among the Egyptian priests he inspires a thirst for the sacred mysteries of the stars. The plains of Shinar, the temples of India, the pyramids of Egypt are equally his watch- ing places. When science fled to Greece, his home was in the school of the philoso- phers, and when darkness covered the earth for a thousand years, he pursued his never-ending tasks amid the burning deserts of Arabia. When science dawned on Europe the astronomer was there toiling with Copernicus, watching with Tycho, suf- fering with Galileo, triumphing with Kepler. Six thousand years have rolled away since the grand investigation commenced. We stand at the termination of the vast period, and looking back through the long vista of departed years, mark with honest pride the successive triumphs of our race. THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 303 Midway between the past and future we witness the first rude efforts to explain the celestial phenomena. May we not equally look forward thousands of years? And, although we cannot comprehend what shall be the condition of astronomical science at the end of a period so remote, yet of one thing we are certain, and that is, the past, the present and the future constitute but one unbroken chain of observations, con- densing all time to the astronomer into one mighty now. Thus far our attention has been directed to the examination of the achievements of the human mind in the earlier stages of astronomy. Since those days the astrono- mer has invented the telescope. With its far-seeing powers he has discovered the laws which regulate the celestial movements, and defined the nature of the universal force which sustains these distant worlds. Sweeping outward from the sun he has reached Neptune, which guards the frontier limits of the solar system; gazing backward from this planet, which is more than three billion miles distant from the sun, he has exam- ined the worlds and systems embraced within the circumference of its mighty orbit. An occasional comet, overleaping this boundary, and flying swiftly past us, plunges into space, to return after its long journey of a thousand years and report to the inhabitants of earth the influences which have swayed its movements in the invisible regions whence it has winged its flight. Yet the whole of this gigantic scheme is but a small portion of the universe of God, one unit among the unnumbered millions which fill the crowded regions of space. An infinite void peopled with suns like ours, with myriads of stars sprinkled like golden dust over the dark canopy of night. The smallest telescopic aid suffices to increase their number in an almost incredible degree, while with the full power of the grand instruments now in use, the scenes presented to our gaze are truly magnificent. What wonder if the overwrought soul should reel With its own weight of thought, and the wild eye See fate within yon depths of deepest glory lie? Worlds and systems, clusters and universe, rising in sublime perspective and fad- ing away into the infinity of space beyond, until even- thought itself fails in its efforts to plunge across the gulf, which separates us from this eternity of glory. Where are the limits of that boundless ocean? Whereunto doth it lead? In vain do we strive to peer into these hidden mysteries. Were we to float on through all eternity we could not approach any nearer to those distant shores. Camille Flammarion has conceived the fanciful idea of an imaginary journey through space. Distant shores of worlds likeours revealingthemselves; heavenssucceedingheavens; spheres afterspheres poised like our own earth in space. Even when carried away with the rapidity of thought the soul would continue its flight beyond the most inaccessible limits the imagina- tion can conceive. Even then the infinity of an unexplored expanse would remain ever open before us. The infinity of space would oppose itself to the infinity of time; endless rivalry to endure through endless ages. The spirit, overcome with fatigue, would be arrested in its flight at the very entrance of the portals of infinite space as though it had not advanced a single step. Let us take an imaginary journey through space and, gazing through a telescope, travel from star to star till we reach the milky way, then pass on leaving behind us in grand perspective a series of five hundred suns, ranged one behind the other in line, each separated from the other by a distance equal to that which divides our own sun from the nearest fixed star, each star a sun like ours, a fiery orb aglow with energy, possibly the center of a system such as ours and pursuing its sidereal voyage through space. Such is the vast scale on which the universe is built. If, in examining the mighty orbits of the remoter planets, and in tracing the interminable career of some of the far-sweeping comets, we feared there might not be room for them, we are now reassured. There is no interference here; there are no perturbations of the planets of one system for the suns of another. Each is isolated and independent, filling the region of space assigned and moving within its own limits in perfect safety. 304 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. We have now reached the boundaries of ten millions of stars. Look to the right, there is no limit; look to the left, there is no end. Above, below, sun rises upon sun, system upon system, in endless and immeasurable perspective. There is a new uni- verse as magnificent and glorious as our own, a new milky way across whose vast diam- eter light takes a thousand years in crossing. Floating on the surface of this deep ocean, in this far distant region, the telescope has detected a large number of mys- terious looking objects, resembling the faintest clouds of light. So distant are these objects that their light is hundreds of thousands of years in reaching us; so extensive are they that the entire field of view of the telescope is filled by them many times. Sirius, the brightest and probably the largest of all the fixed stars, with a diameter of more than a million of miles, and a distance of only a single unit, compared with the tens of thousands which divide us from some of the nebulae; yet this vast globe, at this comparatively short distance, is merely a point of light in the field of view of the telescope. What, then, must be the dimensions of these objects, which at so vast a distance fill the entire field of view even when many times repeated. We find ourselves lost in the contemplation of these multiplied infinities amid which our little lives are cast. In the presence of these sublime mys- teries the senses and imagination are alike enthralled, and the wild dream of the Ger- man poet becomes an inspired reality. God called up from dreams a man into the vestibule of Heaven, saying: "Come thou hither; see the glory of my house." And to the servants who stood around His throne, He said: "Take him and undress from him his robes of flesh, cleanse his vision, put a new breath into his nostrils, but touch not with any change his human heart that weeps and trembles." This was done, and, with a mighty servant for his guide, the man stood ready for his infinite voyage, and from the terraces of Heaven, without sound or farewell, at once they winged their flight into endless space. Sometimes with the solemn flight of angel wing they fled through reaches of darkness, through wilder- nesses of death that divided the worlds of life. Sometimes they swept over frontiers that were quickening under the prophetic motions of God. Then from a distance that is counted only in Heaven, light 'dawned for a time through a sleepy film. By unut- terable pace the light swept to them, they by unutterable pace to the light. In a moment the blazing of suns was around them, in a moment the rushing of planets was upon them. Then came eternities of twilight that revealed, yet were not revealed. On the right hand and on the left towered mighty constellations, that by self-repetitions and answers from afar, that by counter-positions, built up triumphal gates whose archi- traves and archv/ays, horizontal, upright, rested, rose at altitudes by spans, that seemed ghostly from infinitude. Without measure were the architraves, past number the arch- ways, beyond memory the gates. Within were stairs which scaled the eternities below. Below was above, above was below, to men stripped of gravitating body. Depth was swallowed up in height insurmountable; height was swallowed up in depth unfath- omable; and suddenly, as thus they journeyed from infinite to infinite, a mighty cry arose that worlds more billowy, systems more mysterious, other heights and other depths were coming, were nearing, were at hand. Then the man sighed and stopped, shuddered and wept; his overburdened heart uttered itself in tears, and he said: " Angel, I will go no farther, for the spirit of man acheth with this infinity. Insuf- ferable is the glory of God. Let me lie down and hide myself in the grave from the persecution of the infinite, for end I see there is none." Then from all the listening stars that shone around issued a choral voice, saying: "The man speaks truly. End is there none that ever yet we heard of." " End is there none?" the angel solemnly demanded. " Is there, indeed, no end, and is this the sorrow that kills you?" But there was no answer, that he might answer himself. Then the angel threw up his glorious hands to the heaven of heavens, saying: " End is there none to the universe of God; lo! also, there is no beginning." ^^s^ 1 ^^^^'Jl^m^^ MEMBERS OF THE BOARD OF LADY MANAGERS. 1 Mrs. Jennie S. Mitchell, 2. Mrs. Hester A. Hauback, 3. Miss Jean W. Faulkner, Kansas. Kansas. Kentucky. 4. Mrs. A. C. Jackson, 5. Miss Katharine L. Minor, 6. Mrs. Belle H. Perkins, Kentucky. Louisiana. Louisiana. 7. Mrs. Edwin C. Burleigh, 8. Mrs. L. M. N. Stevens, 9. Mrs. William Reed, Maine. Maine. Maryland. 10. Mrs. Alex. Thomson, 11. Mrs. Bnfos 8. Frost, 12. Mrs. Jonas H. French, Maryland. Massachusetts. Masscu;husett$. WOMAN'S LIFE IN ASIATIC TURKEY.* By MISS MARY PAGE WRIGHT. Life is monotonous and sad for woman, especially because: (a) They are held to be essentially inferior to man. (d) They are ignorant, most of them being unable even to read, in spite of the recent and much lauded efforts of the sultan to establish schools for girls (the standard of education in these schools may be inferred from the recent act of the censor of the press in for- bidding the publication of a certain text-book on chemistry, because he interpreted the symbol of water, H'^O, to mean " Hamid II." — the reigning sul- tan — is naught.) (c) Because of the miseries of polygamy, the seclusion of Moslem women in their harems, and {e) The subjection of Armenian wives to their mothers-in-law. The Turks are indeed extremely urbane, and Mrs. Gen. Wallace, as wife of the American minister to the Sublime Porte, would naturally only see such agree- able phases of life as appear in her beautiful pictures • of the Orient; but neither she, nor any other diplo- matic officer's wife, lives or travels much in the interior of the land. To the missionary long resident in the interior, the prevailing feeling of the women seems to be expressed in a phrase often upon their lips, " Blessed are you American women; you can read, you have souls, but we are only cattle;" or in the eager questions of a girl who said: *' Is it true, teacher, that American girls can have money of their own?" " Yes."" " Can American girls and women sit down and eat at the same time with their husbands, brothers and fathers? And don't they have to stand behind their chairs and wait on them; and when they have done, then they have a chance to eat and not before? And, teacher, is it true that American girls have the same privileges of appearing on the streets and of coming and going that boys have? Is it true that American women are to have all that and Heaven too? The Turkish music in the Midway Plaisance, with those monotonous minor strains, well expresses the tone of life in a land where Kismet (fate) is held to be supreme. Miss Mary Page Wright was bom at West Jersey, Stark County, 111., February 17, 1818. Her parents were Rev. Samuel G. Wright, who was a home missionary for fifty years, and Minerva Hart Wright. She was educated at Adrian College, Adrian, Mich., and at Rockford College (then a seminary), where she graduated in 1871. In 1874 her election as superintend- ent of public schools for Cofifey ('ounty, Kansas, furnished the Supreme Court the test case in the decision that sex is no dis- qualification for that oflBce. She has traveled a few weeks in Europe, and extensively in the interior states of the Union, and in Turkey. Miss Wright is a teacher, and was for eight years missionary to Turkey in Asia, under the direction of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (Congregational). Her only literary works are miscellaneous con- tributions and the "Woman's Journal Advance,'' "Kansas Magazine " and missionary papers. Postoffice address, Rogers Park, 111. ♦The above is but a synopsis of the address delivered by Miss Wright. She was assisted by Miss Gertrude E. Wiloox, of Chicago, who api>eared in the costume of a rich Armenian bride ; her mouth concealed, as custom requires of Armenian MISS MARY P.\GE WRIGHT- (20) ao5 CHANGING IDEALS IN SOUTHERN WOMANHOOD. By MRS. SUE HUFFMAN BI^ADY. As out of the side of the mountain issue the streams, and out of the lap of the prairie bubble the springs whose mingled waters make the great river and the greater sea, so from the homes of a country comes its civili- zation; and the one will be broad, strong, progressive and satisfying in proportion as the influences flowing from the other are pure, patriotic and humane, born of kindly hearts and cultured minds. In order to attain a definite perception of the theme upon which I address you, it will be necessary to draw a faithful picture of the representative type of Southern womanhood as she appears in the three most marked epochs of her history — during the period of the old South, during the transition period succeed- ing the civil war, and as she stands and acts and looks today. A proper understanding of the first of these divis- ions necessitates a brief reference to the status of civ- ilization in the Southern States in ante-bellum times. During the expansion from Colonial days to the period thirty years distant, this section numbered among its settlers the strongest strains of many stocks — Saxon, Celt, Teuton, Puritan and Cavalier, supplemented and strengthened by the blood of the heroic and pictur- esque Huguenot. The manhood and womanhood resulting from such a combination of racial ingredients present to the world types of intellectual greatness, moral grandeur and domestic refinement of which all America may feel justly proud, and which the older civilizations must regard with wonder and respect. Not mine, but some bolder, surer pen may trace the divergent civilizations of Plymouth Rock and Jamestown, with the relative merits and defects of each, whose better elements as intermingled today shine forth in the rounded achievements of the most perfect expression of government the world has ever known. Nor shall I, to the discredit of the one, make unfriendly and exaggerated pictures of the excellencies of the other. It is only with one side of the shield that it is my pleasant task to deal on this occasion. I believe the highest expression of the civilization of the old South is typified in the leading men of that period who have made their impress on the pages of the nation's history. Men such as they must, in the very nature of things, have had home influences that inspired them to noble efforts, gave direction to their impulses, sweet- ened their toils, sanctified their sacrifices and illumined their successes. These influ- MrB. Frank Brady ia a native of Richmond, Madison County, Ky. She was born May 12, 1859. Her parents were Philip A. and Caroline Huffman. She was educated at Fort Worth High School, Galveston Female Academy, and Sam Houston Nor. mal Institute, Huntsville, Tex. At a competitive examination for the Sam Houston Normal Institute held in 1879 she obtained the remarkable average of one hundred throughout. She graduated from that institute in 1880, and was awarded the Pea- body medal. She is a woman of thorough learning and rare accomplishments, to which are added many personal charms. She has traveled all over the United States and in Canada. She married in 1882 Mr. Ed. F. Warren, who died in 1889; in 1892 she married Mr. Frank Brady. She organized and graded the public schools of Fort Worth, and also those of Decatur, Tex., being the first superintendent of those schools, and the first lady superintendent in Texas. Mrs. Brady is a member of the Christian Church. Her postoffice address is Fort Worth, Tex. 306 MRS. SUE HUFFMAN BRADY. THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 307 ences were exercised under the sacred guise of mother, wife or daughter, and in this triumvirate of holy relationship let the women of the old South be portrayed. Let her stand forth modestly, but seen of all eyes, as the rose-tree in the garden of that civili- zation which changed conditions have swept into the past. I am well aware of the popular misapprehension that has existed in the North in regard to the South, and in the South in regard to the North; but I am equally as well aware that today I speak to the best informed, the most aspiring and the most cultured body of women in Christendom. Remembering the intelligence which makes you seek truth in every direction; remembering the breadth and force of character which made such an assembly as this possible; remembering the spirit of kindness which you have generated and disseminated to every quarter of the globe, I ask you to listen to a truthful portrayal of the characteristics of the better class of women in the old South. Remember that there were two distinct civilizations at work in this Union ; that the wheel of progress was constantly turning in the North, fed by new forces from the Old World, while the conservative .South proceeded along' slower lines of develop- ment; remember how widely separated were the two peoples — that no iron bands linked their commercial relations; that the lightning had not been harnessed into hourly service; that the press of the country was the principal means of communica- tion, and that it was occupied mainly with the enumeration of exasperating political differences. Would that I had the power of presenting, as it should be presented, the beautiful and pathetic picture of the dutiful, painstaking wife and mother, who was the heart and soul of the old South-land. Instead of being a kind of Oriental queen, served and worshiped by her subjects, she was at the beck and call of everyone about the household. She not only attended to the minutest details of plantation life, but in time of pestilence and suffering she was the ministering angel. The limits of her charity were only bounded by the extent of her knowledge. That distinguished son of the South, Thomas Nelson Page, says: " She was mistress, manager, nurse, counsel- lor, seamstress, teacher, housekeeper, slave — all at once. What she really was, was known only to her God. Her life was one act of devotion — devotion to God, devotion to her children, devotion to her servants, to her friends, to the poor, to all humanity." Certainly her physical endurance, her moral responsibility, her unflagging tact, were ever taxed to the utmost. I feel that her characteristics have never been more beauti- fully painted than by one who came from the extreme East, and who spent twelve years studying the South, her conditions and history. I allude to A. D. Mayo of Bos- ton. He says, in speaking of the Southern woman: " She did so prevail in her own sphere of usefulness that the best manhood of the South fell down and worshiped at her shrine. She was the house-mother, the queen of society, the peace-maker of the neighborhood, the saint of the Church." Passing over those four years during which, owing to the collision of two separate and distinct civilizations, the whole country was bathed in blood, let us view the environ- ments of the Southern woman at the close of that period, and see how she met and coped with the appalling difficulties that confronted her. The outside world has had no conception of the complete wreck of private for- tunes during the great struggle. History of recent date is beginning to throw some light upon the almost incredible privations of multitudes of Southern families, but its portrayal must necessarily have the weakness of the echo when compared with the actual suffering and despair of that day. Strange to say, the blow fell heaviest upon those who were the least prepared to withstand its severity. During the days of recon- struction, as during the war, the women carried the heavy end of the burden. How fresh in the memory of all is the magnificent struggle made by the women of New England, on the bleak Atlantic coast, in the two centuries succeeding the landing of the Mayflower. Their toils, their hardships, their trials and sacrifices, were almost incredible, and the bravery and heroism with which they were encountered have never been surpassed in the annals of history. The difficulties that confronted the women of the South in the reconstruction 308 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. period were equally great. But how were they met? Just as bravely, just as patiently, and with the same womanly devotion to duty that has thrown a halo of heroism and sacredness around the memory of their Puritan sisters. At first completely dazed, it took them some time to realize the terrible situation. But when the awakening did come, with a marvelous rebound of energy and ambition they shouldered the sad and hopeless burden of personal bereavement, and entered bravely the hand-to-hand fight with poverty. In the dawn of the great change — loss of fortunes, loss of homes, loss of loved ones — all paled before the great problem of the hour — self-support. This had, during the old regime, devolved wholly upon the male members of the family. But a new era was at hand. The whole bassal structure of society was shaken to its foundation. Many of the strongest men bent before the storm of humiliation, suffering and despair that swept over the country. So, to the exhausting duties, and crushing sorrows of household life of the women was added the task of comforting and encouraging the returning soldier. No pen can ever picture the utter sacrifice of self made by the women of this period in behalf of father, brother and son. Often the boys were slow to be reconciled to the evil fate that robbed them of the accus- tomed luxuries of home, and of the old glory of the fighting days. The girls not only displayed a wonderful capacity toward adjusting themselves to circumstances, but exhibited the marvelous power of wrenching the best things out of the most uncom- promising surroundings. The boys were conceded all advantages, particularly those of education. The promising son was kept at school while the whole family practiced the most rigid economy, often denying itself the common comforts of life. The girl who was fortunate enough to be sent away and educated must not only come home and teach the younger sisters, but also save money to send the brother to college. This, too, was often accomplished under the most trying circumstances. Neither the chill and sleet of winter nor the blazing heat of a midsummer sun ever made her waver in her noble undertaking. It will be remembered that for nearly fifteen years the majority of academical schools for girls were closed. Many of the colleges lost their endowments and many of them found their buildings in ruins and their teachers scattered. The educational pedant would open his eyes in wonderment at the circuitous routes and incomprehen- sible ways in which the women of this period secured advantages. The history of the efforts of some Southern girls to obtain an education would read like fiction. But the greatest struggle is yet to be mentioned — that of breaking down the bar- riers that had so long barred women from the fields of useful labor. I' believe the proudest hour of my life was when I read, upon the establishment of our first normal school, that girls would be admitted as students, that they were to be allowed to fit themselves for at least one useful vocation. But, thanks to the spirit of the age, not only the teaching profession, but hundreds of other occupations are opening their portals, bidding them enter, save themselves from a life that is not only dependent, but aimless, and therefore hopeless. The last thirty years have been one continuous school of toil, economy and sacri- fice, but it has sent out graduates who eat the white bread of independence, and who carry in their hands the lantern of hard-earned experience, lighting the way to higher, truer, broader views of life. The sorrows of the woman of this period and their magical uprising have left their indelible impress upon the brow of the nineteenth century. The prodigious mental and moral force and the executive ability generated by this curriculum of hardship and responsibility, illumine and strengthen the charac- ter of the wide-awake womanhood of today. All honor, I say, to the women of the transition period. They have passed through the fiery furnace of trial, have come out unsullied and strong, and now, with wings unpinioned, they are ready for the loftiest flights of the new American civilization. To the people of the Southern States the last thirty years have been essentially an age of action rather than of study and of thought. No sooner had they emerged THE CONGRESS OE WOMEN. 309 from the condition of absolute poverty in which they were plunged at the beginning of that era, than they discovered that the material interests of the country demanded immediate attention. Waste places must be made to bloom again, railroads had to be built, rivers spanned, and all the wheels of agricultural, manufacturing and commer- cial development set in motion. Little time was there for thought of any art save the art of making money. How admirably they have succeeded in material development is patent to all whose eyes have rested on the waving fields, the com- fortable homes, the prosperous towns and cities that dot these states from center to boundary line. Eollowing in the wake of industrial progress came the great educational wave that has swept over the entire South. Nothing ever wrought more marvelous changes in the same length of time to any race of people than this new impetus that has been given to the minds and thoughts of its youth. While it has been the means of elevat- ing and rendering more useful the boys of the South, to the girls it has been a precious beacon light, beckoning them on to an entirely new life filled with hope, ambition and consolation. They are the children, as it were, of two civilizations. From the old South they inherit gentleness of manner, purity of heart, and nobility of soul; from the transition period they bring persistence, obstinate and marked indi- viduality making them strong and self-reliant. So, from this blending of character colors, the Southern girls, when brought beneath the search-light of this new and progressive civilization, which you in your wisdom and foresight have been so long laboring to effect, are destined to give forth a brilliancy that betrays the presence of the flawless jewel. Yes, the new woman's day has dawned in the South-land. And though the prod- uct of the evolution has not yet assumed the exact counterpart of the progressive woman of the East, still it has bidden every daughter of the South throw aside the veil of helplessness and walk forth into the sunlight of independent labor. She has already had an opportunity to test her strength. New chances are daily offered to her; and in every state we find her ready and willing to Seek Dame Fortune's golden smile, Assiduous wait upon her, And gather gear by every wile That's justified by. honor; Not to hide it in a hedge, Not for a train attendant, But for the glorious privilege Of being independent. But what has brought about this great change? The marvelous development of the natural resources of the country and the increase of wealth have enabled the South to turn somewhat from the practical affairs of life and give more time and attention to intellectual culture. Old institutions have been revived, new ones of great merit have been established, and a complete reformation has been wrought in the educational world. A growing interest in solid instruction is everywhere noticeable. In New Orleans, in the Sophia Newcombe Institute and in the Converse College in North Carolina, we find as good work as is being done in any of the colleges for men. The public high schools of the country are accomplishing wonders, and in all of these, the girls lead in numbers and they lead in rank. Nor is this! demand for a higher and more thorough education the only mark of progress. A decided effort toward purifying society by means of temperance and other organizations, indicates that the morals of the country are not being overlooked. A new interest is taken in the affairs of the church, and in all the various charities which many women so willingly, tenderly and gracefully perform. 310 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. The charge has been made upon all lines of industry; the defective stones in the walls of society have been assailed; and more beautiful than all else, women are stand- ing by one another, while the spirit of kindness beams on every face and pervades every meeting. History presents no more striking contrast than is seen in the condi- tions, aims and ambitions distinguishing the women of the old South and those of the new. The former were educated principally with an eye to the beautiful, but the intervening change has forced the latter to devote more attention to the useful. The women of the old South no doubt possessed, in a latent state, the same energies, but the times and conditions did not call them forth. No matter tjow active their minds, or how willing their hands, they were not permitted to enter the field of useful labor. In the new South the bars of all professions and industries are thrown down, and women roam at will the pleasant fields of all forms of activity. In the old time the young girl looked to matrimony as the only condition to save her from a life of dependence. The girl of today basks in the rays of an age of relief from such helplessness, and while she considers the life of the woman who is happily married a beautiful one, at the same time she realizes that there is no wail on earth so pitiable, no cry so hopeless, as that which arises from the wives of unhappy homes. How I wish it were in my power to picture, as she should be pictured, the ideal woman of tomorrow. I can only say that I would have her given the fullest develop- ment of which she is capable. I would see her have the most complete equipment, the broadest and best training that the strongest institutions in the country can afford. I would have her realize that this is an age of individual achievement. I would place in her hand a banner bearing the inscription: "Success. Eternal Vigilance. Devo- tion to Duty." And then, not waiting for others to command, let herself give the order to advance. Thus panoplied, let her invade the realms of learning, seize its choicest treasures, destroy the fortifications erected by wrong, build in their place the stronghold of the right, and fight the best fight of which she is capable for her- self, her country and her God, Let her be a woman who will strjve, who will persevere, who will persist and gain strength from every lost endeavor. Let her be able to grapple hand to hand with destiny, to laugh at defeat, to be undaunted by opposition and strong enough to brave the darkest hours of adversity Teach her to hold fast, to hold hard, and to look upon poverty and misfortune as ordeals sent to test the sublimity of her soul. Such are the examples which the Nation needs — such the light that will electrify her people. SYNOPSIS OF "THE MAKING OF CITIZENS".* By MRS. HARRIET EARHART MONROE. Ignorance and sin are a menace to any government, particularly to a republic. The object of education is to make good men and women. The studies are only a means to this end. The means have hitherto been made more prominent than the end, and this the Patriotic League hopes to change. There is for the individual, the state, the republic, a great benefit within reach, which can be best secured by the joint action of teachers and pupils, through the sympathetic organi- zation of the great school forces of the world. We believe good influences prevail in this land, and if the schools take the morals of the community more in hand, great good will result to the state. The tem- perance and reform societies stand at the mouth of the great stream of sin bearing countless thousands into eternity. They save a small percentage, but if teachers and pupils join together at the head of this stream to prevent youth from getting into wrong channels, the percentage of sorrow will be much lessened. It is therefore proposed to connect the teachers and pupils of the schools of this country by a strong common tie, and to organize them for thor- ough joint work under the title of a Patriotic League. The object of this society shall be: First. To secure a higher order of citizenship by more carefully looking after the moral and civil training of the young men in school. Second. To provide in every town and country schools for the organization of the pupils over ten years of age; for the purpose of looking up all school children of school age out of school, and seeing that they are not prevented attending school by reason of poverty, and, as far as possible, securing by this means the education of every citizen. Third. To strengthen the weak, to help raise the fallen, and to give aid and countenance to every local or general influence which may tend to elevate the morals or minds of citizens, each member looking first to his own morals, and then to those of every human being who comes near him. Fourth. To provide through a competent organization for the systematic giving for great educational measures, or in cases of great public calamity. If, in cases like the Johnstown disaster, or the famine in Russia, every teacher gave five cents and every pupil one cent, they would be the almoners of the world, and the good of this Mrs. Harriet Earhart Monroe is a native of Indiana, Indiana County, Pa. Her parents were Rev. David Earhart and Mrs. Mary W. Earhart. She is largely self-educated. Her early school days were spent at Eldersridge and Zelianople Academiee, Pennsylvania, and she has traveled throoghoat Europe and the United States. She married in 1865 ; was left a widow in 1873. Her energies have been especially devoted to educational work, having been fifteen years the honored president of the "Atchison Institute." Among her literary productions of note are: "The Art of Conversation," "Past Thirty," and "Heroine of Mining Camp." She is now a professional lecturer. In religious faith a Lutheran. Her postofiice address is 1706 Vine Street, Philadelphia, Pa. MRS. HARRIET EARHART MONROE. *The full address, of which what here appears is a synopsis, was entitled : Pablic Schools." 311 ' Best Methods of Making Citizens in the 312 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. would not be so much for those to whom the benefaction was given, as for the enlarge- ment of mind and soul which would result to the givers. Fifth. To Americanize every young foreigner in this country by seeing that he learns to read and write in the English language, and that he understands common morality, and comprehends the sacred and far-reaching influences of the ballot. Sixth. To see that all be encouraged to strive for higher education, and that each year at least one boy and one girl from each district or ward be encouraged to attempt a complete collegiate course, the general object being to tone up the average educational standard of every community. Seventh. To introduce manual training into every school, and to give special attention and watchful help in this line to the children of the foreigner, of the poor, and of the vicious. Eighth. To pledge each member to be noble in his own life, to use no intoxicating liquors, to be active in his efforts to stop others from using them, and to shun all forms of gambling, as gambling and the use of intoxicating liquors are among the sins which most debase citizenship. With these common objects in view, it is hoped that the society will be made a bond of union between the fellow of the university and the most indigent pupil of the pri- mary grades of the public schools. It is believed that the educators of all classes, com- ing together for the consideration of the best means of accomplishing these results, will do more for the improvement of the morals of the entire country than any method that has yet been tried. It is earnestly hoped that the constitution of this society will be found broad enough to satisfy the Jew, the Roman Catholic, and the Protestant, and unite them in a common purpose of fitting the youth committed to their care for nobler achievement and higher destiny. Atlantic City, N. J., with about thirty thousand people, has two grand educators — County Supt. S. R. Morse, and Prof. W. A. Deremer, at the head of about fifty teach- ers in the public schools of the city. At the beginning of last school year a number of articles were written on the subject of patriotism, for the county papers, with particular reference to the schools of the county. The statement was repeated in many forms, that the state pays for the public schools with the expectation that they will make good citizens. The same statement was reiterated in the schoolroom, until each pupil was fully imbued with the dignity of the idea that he was to be a helper in fitting himself for intelligent citizenship, and also that he was to look after all other children who ought to be in school. To carry out this idea the following principles were kept steadily in view. Principle I. Form the public opinion of the school. Principle II, The state is not able to provide a school police, such as is found in Germany, but we have in our midst the best police in the world in our own children, if they are properly organized. Make them feel that they are their brother's keeper, an thus develop a public spirit. Principle III. Have the parents co-operate through their children at school. Tell the parents through the pupils the conditions, and ask the children to bring money, or a pound of some household necessity. Principle IV. Secure the co-operation of organized charities if they exist, then adopt personal visitations to families, and provide for careful distribution. Pupils were requested to report to the teacher any child who was kept out of school from poverty, or because he was obliged to work. They were earnestly requested not to mention to others what they were doing, lest they start up an army of beggars. Pupils were also requested to report any children of criminals, foreigners, or colored people who were out of school on account of their condition. In Atlantic City, two hundred children between the ages of seven and fifteen were found out of school, and seventy destitute families were discovered. The teachers then said to their pupils, " Please tell your parents just what we are doing. Explain to them that we desire to Americanize every young foreigner and to THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 313 make a good citizen of every child in his town; then ask your mother to give us any clothes which you may have outgrown, or you can spare, to clothe the destitute. Tell her we will visit every case, and see that her bounty is judiciously used." The response to this was that more clothing was furnished than can be used in two years, if two hundred destitute children should be found each year. The next duty devolved either on the principal or on his most trusted and worthy teachers. Every indigent family was visited, and about this dialogue occurred: " Mrs. Smith, we greatly regret that your son John is out of school; would you be willing to have him attend, provided we clothe him? " " Indeed, Madam, I would be glad to have John in school; he needs schooling badly enough; but I need his wages, small as they are, to provide food for my fatherless children." " If we pro- vide the equivalent for John's wages, will you let him attend school four months?" The poor woman knows that if the state does not take care of John now, it may have to do so later, and she gladly consents. The result of this organized effort was that seventeen wagon-loads of provisions were provided for the seventy destitute families, the two hundred children were clothed, and nearly every child not an invalid, between seven and fifteen years of age, was in school four months. There were some pathetic scenes for our land of plenty. More than one boy was found who had not been the happy owner of a complete suit at one time. When he had owned a coat, he had had no shirt or vest, and when in summer he had worn a calico shirt, he had had no coat. More than one shed happy tears at seeing himself or herself clothed neatly from head to foot. After all this care to have every child in school of proper age, you may be sure the teachers made good use of those four months to instruct in ethics and civics. The League will insist on the principle that when the state incarcerates a criminal who might have been a good citizen, if taken young, a gross, rankling act of injustice has been committed. Patriotic League, Teacher's Department— The Pledge. I hereby promise my God and my country to keep in mind that the object of my school is to make good men and women for society and the state. To that end I shall do what I can. First: To lead a noble life myself and to secure the best moral development of those committed to my care. Second: To inspire a deep love of country in my pupils, and to instruct them in the principles of good citizenship so as to make them incorruptible in the use of the ballot or in office. Third: To make good citizens of the children of foreigners, of the poor and of the vicious. Fourth: To organize my school as helpers in this work, and with the aid of my pupils, see that poverty keeps no child in my district or ward out of school. Fifth: To carry out the lines of work of the Patriotic League, and to make my pupils feel that together we are responsible for the morals of our community. I invoke the help of my Heavenly Father to carry out this work. Name The Patriotic League, Pupils' Department — The Pledge. I hereby promise my God and my teacher to be one of the helpers for improving the citizenship of this country. First: I will use no intoxicating liquors of any kind myself, and I will discourage others from using them whenever I can. I will do what I can by my influence (and my vote when I have one) to put down the traffic in liquors. Second: I will not gamble and will do all I can to keep others from gambling. Third: I will act as a Leaguer to assist any family in my ward or district that is in a suffering con- dition and to see that no child is out of school because of poverty. I will find out and report all cases to my teacher either of destitution, or of foreign families whose children are out of school, but I shall be careful not to speak of them to others. Fourth: I will be faithful in trying to understand the principles of the government of the United States, so as to fit myself to be a good citizen, and I will look after young people who are not as fortu- nately placed as I am, to see that they have civil and moral training. Fifth: I will endeavor to obey the laws of the school, accepting them as a discipline in fitting me to be a good citizen of the Republic, Sixth: 1 shall take an active part in the literary work of this society. Seventh: I will pay the dues and assessments which my League shall decide to be necessary to help the purposes of this society. I invoke the help of my Heavenly Father to carry out this great work. 314 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. Patriotic League — Pupils' Department, Whereas, The government of this state generously provides for the education of all youth within its boundaries; Resolved, That we, the pupils and friends of education of do hereby organize ourselves as a Patriotic League, subject to the conditions of that order, for the pur- pose of seeing that the design of the state, namely, the education and training for noble citizenship of all youth within our midst, shall be faithfully carried out. Pupils' Department — Constitution. Article L Organization. — A Pupils' Patriotic League shall consist of any convenient number of pupils not less than ten. Article IL Membership. — No pupil is eligible for membership who drinks intoxicating liquors or gambles. Any pupil, not ineligible, may become a member by signing the pupil's pledge and paying an initiation fee of not more than five cents. Article III. Officers. — The officers shall consist of a chancellor, vice-chancellor, scribe, corre- sponding scribe and treasurer. The chancellor may be a school director, trustee, teacher, or any friend of education, but all other officers shall be students. The officers, as above, shall constitute an executive committee for the arrangement of busmess. Article IV. Committees. — The department committee shall be on civics, attendance, promotion of temperance and suppression of gambling, providing for the poor, and other benevolences, and college education. (Discuss benefit of collegiate education, also ways and means of providing for indigent students who desire collegiate education, etc.) These committees shall consist of not less than three persons nor more than nine, and shall be nominated by the executive committee. Article V. Duties of Committees. — It shall be the duty of each department committee to hold a Erivate session before each regular session of the league, to confer upon the topic of its department, to ear reports of local and personal work, and to decide who shall represent the committee and report for it at the general session. In case of failure on the part of any committee to fulfill the above require- ments, such committee shall be discharged and another committee appointed. Article VI. Meetings. — Each Pupils' League shall convene once a month on a fixed day and hour during each month of the school year. For regular meetings members need receive no notification, but for a called meeting, the scribe shall see that each member is notified of the proposed meeting. Article VII. Badge. — The badge of this society shall be a small shield of such color and material as may be agreed upon by each Local League. Article VIII. Examinations. — Each Pupils' League shall, at its January meeting, hold a public examination on the Constitution of the United States. After which a champion shall be selected for the county contest as arranged for by the by-laws of this League. Article IX. Representatives. — Each Pupils' League shall, at its last meeting before the close of the year, elect a member to represent it at the annual meeting of the Teachers' County League, and shall report to that body in writing all that has been accomplished by said League. Article X. Amendments. — This constitution and the accompanying by-laws, may be amended at any. regular meeting, provided notice of an intention to amend shall have been given at a previous meeting. By-Laws. I. Duties of Officers. — The chancellor, or, in his absence, the vice-chancellor, shall preside at every regular meeting. II. Treasurer. — The treasurer shall have charge of all money belonging to the society, and shall keep a record of the name and address of each member of the organization. He shall make disburse- ments on an order from the secretary. He shall also preside at the meetings of the executive com- mittee. THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 315 III. Scribe. — The gcribe shall preserve a full and true record of all proceedings of the society, notify members when absent of any action taken in reference to them, keep a correct list of the full names and residences of members, and also act as secretary of the executive committee. IV. — All officers shall serve until their successors have been elected, and have entered upon the duties of their offices. V. Assessments.^An assessment of a local organization will require the action of the full executive committee. Assessments can not be made above twice a year. They must never be made except in cases of great public need. No assessment shall exceed one penny for each pupil. VI. Civics. — At the lirst meeting in December, the chancellor shall present to the League one hundred printed questions on the Constitution of the United States. The first meeting in January shall be a public one, open to all parents and friends, and a public examination shall be held, after the manner of the old-fashioned spelling schools, choosing sides, and the said one hundred questions shall be put by the chancellor, as a test of knowledge of the Constitution. If more than one person is found who can answer satisfactorily every question, the League shall proceed to elect by ballot one person, to be known as "champion." For the February meeting shall be substituted a convention of the various champions of the county, at the county seat (in the County Court room if it can be procured). Then the champions shall answer before a committee of three judges (not citizens of the county) the aforesaid one hundred questions. Each champion who shall answer every question satisfactorily shall receive a gold medal to be provided by his own League. No person can be champion two successive years. VII. Order of Business. — The order of business, for the first meeting after the summer vacation, shall be as follows: 1, Secretary's Report; 2, Address — On some patriotic subject, not to exceed fifteen minutes in length; 3, Music; 4, Nomination and Election of Officers; 5, Treasurer's Report; 6, Enroll- ment of New Members; 7, Announcement of Department Committees, and full explanation of their duties by the Chancellor; 8, Patriotic Quotations; 9, Music; 10, Adjournment. For the usual meetings, the order of business shall be as follows: 1, Secretary's Report; 2, Trea- surer's Report; 3, Enrollment; 4, Reports of Different Committees in writing, in the following order: Civics, Discussion; Temperanceand Gambling, Discussion; Benevolences, Discussion; College Edu- cation. Discussions are limited to ten minutes, unless time is extended by Chancellor. 5, If the time permits, any member may tell what book he has been readmg and has round helpful and profitable, or the different members may volunteer patriotic quotations; 6, Music; 7, Adjournment. "What constitutes a state? Not high raised battlements or labor'd mound. Thick wall, or moated gate; Not cities proud with spires and turrets crown'd; Not bays and broad, arm'd ports, Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride; Nor starr'd and spangled courts, Where low-brow'd baseness wafts perfume to pride. No; men, high minded men; Men who their duties know, But know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain." -Sir William Jones. SWISS CUSTOMS. By MISS CECILE GOHL. Miss Cecile Gohl being a professional lecturer, business reasons forbid the print- ing of her address in full. The following is but the introduction, specially adapted to the World's Fair, and a synopsis of the subject matter. INTRODUCTION. Switzerland, your tiny sister republic, has long been reputed as one of the show-places of the world, attracting tourists of all countries to admire our pro- fessional beauties, the Alps. This year, however, the pendulum has been pleased to swing the other way, and, behold! Chicago has become the show-place of the globe — for just one season. All Europeans who can afford it are flocking Chicagoward, and all loyal Americans are supposed to stay at home doing the honors of this wonderful country to the foreigners. Considering the poor business outlook for Switz- erland under these circumstances, she could easily have spared a mountain or two to represent her as loan exhibits in Chicago. She might even have been coaxed to send the " Jungfrau," if America, with her superior engineering skill and powerful machinery, • had assumed charge of the transfer and given a guar- antee to return the exhibit in good condition. My country is very little, but it has standing exhibits so very large as to realize even Chicago's standard of greatness. Old as the "Jungfrau" is, she enjoys the reputation of everlasting beauty; and besides, she would have made herself eminently useful as a refrigerator in the dog days in Jackson Park. You could not have set her up here, for fear of dwarfing the show; you would have had to place her in the lake. Suppose Mount Washington or Pike's Peak had heard of, or caught a glimpse of, the "Jungfrau" on her journey, and had asked her to stay on this side of the ocean and become, at her option, "Mrs. Pike's Peak," or " Mrs. Mount Washington," there would be, for once, a prospect of a well-matched, solidly-based international marriage. SYNOPSIS. American travelers in relation to the Swiss custom of tips. Switzerland a crazy quilt. Diversity of races, languages and religions. The engine an enemy to old customs. Superstition, inherited and developed. The village quack and his working method. Quack cure vs. faith cure. Einsiedeln. Customs connected with birth, marriage, death. Easter customs and sports. Ascension Day and ascent of mount- ains. Swiss people like whipped cream and belieVe in whipping of children. Trav- eling schools. Maiden Sunday. Moving to the mountains in the merry month of May. Kuhreihen and Jodel. The magic power of a simple strain. Poetic nature and prosy business on the Alps. The great Canadian cheese eclipsing the record of Miss Cecile Gohl is a native of Switzerland. She was educated in Switzerland and spent ten years as a teacher in Sweden. She has traveled in Germany, England, Sweden, Canada and the United States. Her principal literary works are contributions to the Swedish and American press. Her profession is that of teacher, linguist, journalist and lecturer. In religious faith she is Unitarian. Her postoflace address is No. 457 Twenty-first Street, New York City. 316 MISS CECILE GOHL. THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 317 Swiss cheese. Wrestling match. The Swiss a singing, shooting, athletic people. Cultivation of patriotism. Little Helvetia and great Columbia. HIGHER EDUCATION AND THE HOME/ By MRS. ELIZA R. SUNDERLAND, Ph.D. There is a widespread fear that the higher education of women will in some way prove inimical to domestic life. This fear has been voiced to me recently from two very different sources: First, by an intelligent Japan- ese gentleman, a member of the nobility of Japan, spending some time in this country for the purpose of studying our institutions, with a view to their intro- duction into Japan; second, by one of the lady man- agers for the Columbian Exposition, who asked the above question, accompanied by the request that I answer it from this platform, as one of the living questions now pressing for consideration. There are two possible bases for answering the question: one a historical study of results, the other a theoretical study of tendencies. The time is as yet too short for an adequate answer to be possible from the historical standpoint. At the beginning of this century the highest educa- tion offered to the women of America was to be had in Dames' Schools, and consisted chiefly in reading, writing, and working the "Sampler," which was their only diploma. About 1820 Boston, Mass., decided that girls might be admitted to the boys' lower schools for an hour in the afternoon, after the boys were dismissed; a dangerous innovation, as it proved. The camel's nose once within the tent, it was only a question of time when the whole body would be within the sacred inclosure. In 1822 or 1823 the town meeting of Northampton, Mass., decided that the public schools should be opened to girls, but the school committee simply ignored the ordi- nance by making no provision for a larger attendance, and, since the boys filled the space already provided, the new law remained a dead letter till the citizens insured its exe- cution through a lawsuit to compel the committee to provide room sufficient to accommodate the girls as well as boys. Thus, in these movements in Boston and Northampton, we have the entering wedge to primary education for girls in the country generally. The earliest hint of anything better than this primary instruction is to be found in the once famous Troy Seminary, of Troy, N. Y., organized, I believe, somewhere in the thirties, and the even more famous Mt. Holyoke Seminary, in Massachusetts, Mrs. Eliza Bead Stmderlaiid was bom April 19, 1839. Her parents were Amasa Read, a Quaker, and Jane Henderson Read, a Scotch Presbyterian. She was educated at Mt. Holyoke Seminary, Massachusetts, and at the University of Michigan, taking from the latter a B.L. and later Ph.D. degree. She has traveled extensively through this country and in Europe. She married in 1871 Rev. Jabez T. Sunderland, a Unitarian minister. She is at present Professor of History and Political Economy in the Ann Arbor High School; addresses each Sunday a Bible-class of university students, frequently reaching a hundred members, and occasionally fills her husband's pulpit, as well as other pulpits and platforms. She is a mother and home-maker, teacher and assistant pastor. Mrs. Sunderland stands as a living proof that "Higher education does not unfit women for domestic life." She has three children— two daughters and a son. In religious faith she is a Unitarian. Her postoffice address is Ann Arbor, Mich. ♦The title under which this address was delivered at the Congress was, "Does the Higher Education Tend to Unfit Women for Domestic Life." 818 MRS. ELIZA R. SUNDERLAND. THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 319 founded in 1836. Yet, measured by the curriculum of Harvard or Yale, the courses of study offered in these schools could not be designated as "higher education." Of colleges proper open to women, Oberlin was founded in 1833, Antioch College in 1852, Cornell University in 1862, Vassar College in 1865, and Michigan University opened its doors to women in 1870. Here we have a few centers for the really higher education of women. But how are the girls to obtain the preparation for this higher education? Public high schools were generally closed to girls till about the middle of this century. Boston did not establish a permanent high school for girls until 1852, two hundred years, almost, after she had established a Latin school for boys, and more than two hundred after the founding of Harvard College. In 1891, twenty-one years after the first women entered Michigan University, there were but 445 women enrolled to 1,975 men. The fact is that over these first colleges and universities opened to women there lowered a dark cloud of doubt and distrust on the part of an unsympathetic public, which had already decided as to the legitimate sphere of women. Ail these facts are of value as showing that the higher education of women is yet in its early infancy, and, therefore, can not, in the nature of the case, furnish data for a historical estimate of results. The other possible basis for an answer to our question must be sought in a study of tendencies. Is there anything in the nature of the higher education incompatible with domestic life? Domestic life means home life, life with and for the few. What are the requisites for such a life? Briefly, "taste and training;" and since taste is largely a matter of education, of habit, it might, perhaps, be as correct to use but one word and say train- ing. What training? That depends upon the time and place. In the time of our Revolutionary foremothers a training for domestic life meant a practical knowledge of baking and brewing, of spinning and weaving, of laundrying and dyeing, of dress- making and millinery, besides all the housewifely arts which a wide hospitality called into constant requisition. An appalling array of requirements, these — how was it possible ever to master them? It was easy enough in those days, when every mother was a notable housewife and every daughter had it for her supreme ambition to equal if not surpass her mother; when a girl's education consisted in just this, was begun almost as soon as she could walk, and lasted right on till the wedding day, with only the slight break, quite insignificant, of attending the Dame's School long enough to learn to read and write and work the samplers. At the present time how stands the case? Under our modern principle of divis- ion of labor much of the baking and all of the brewing, spinning and weaving; much of the laundrying, most of the dressmaking and all of the millinery, have been rele- gated to experts outside the home; and for the demands of hospitality, the occasional reception has taken the place of the old-time informal and frequent visiting; and florist And caterer take the place of deft maidenly and matronly fingers, while for all other requirements of the home hired help is expected to bear the burden of all prac- tical execution at least. Is there anything left for the mother and daughters to do? Yes, much; for in the new times as in the old not a little of personal service must be given by the mother and daughters of each .home, if the home is to be more than a boarding-house. For them the price which must be paid for efficiency is personal knowledge of what con- stitutes good work and practical acquaintance with details. How are the girls of the present day to get this knowledge and training? The especial pride of the nineteenth century of America is the free public school, its pass- port to social position and success in life is a diploma, standing for so much of book knowledge appropriated by ihe holder. But this diploma means — oh, how many years of work! The little maiden of five years trudges away with her big brother of seven to enter the primary school, and if for twelve years of her life she is able to appear 320 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. daily in classes with lessons learned, she may hope for that crowning glory of Ameri- can youth of both sexes, the high school diploma. "If she is able to appear in classes daily with lessons learned! " A large "if," that; an "if" which means weary hours of lamplight study to supplement the too short daylight hours; an " if " which means little time for play, none for home work. And what is the relation of this school-life to the home-life — of the times of our great-great-grandmothers — we will say? That home-life meant for girls and misses quiet, seclusion, doing duties and sharing burdens for others. This school-life means a crowd, gregariousness, working for public applause and public honors in the school- room and on commencement day. That home-life meant physical activity, many sided, manual training on many lines, developed muscular systems. This school-life means sedentary habits, lack of muscular vigor, distaste for muscular exertion, inef- ficiency in the practical affairs of life. That home-life meant home, the center of thought and effort, as of daily life. This school-life means the outside world as the center of thought and effort, home the eating and sleeping place. That old time life meant that home duties took precedence of all other demands. In this new time life school duties and responsibilities stand pre-eminent; duties to the home and its inmates, and even to personal health, being ruthlessly pushed aside if they come in collision with school requirements and class grades. And when these school years are ended, and the maiden of sixteen, seventeen or eighteen turns for the last time from the doors of the high school, bearing proudly her much coveted diploma, is she then ready to take her place in the home and enter upon as careful and thorough training for domestic life as the schools have given her in book lore? Let the great army of young women seeking places as teachers, clerks, bookkeepers, typewriters, dressmakers' apprentices and factory girls answer; and a still louder answer, if we will listen for it, may be heard from the urgent and wholly unfilled demand for intelligent help in the home. The fact seems to be, and we may as well face it first as last, modern school-life and training does unfit the girl for domestic life first, by monopolizing the time once given to training for domestic life; second, by accustoming the daughters of rich and poor alike to the excitements of a gregarious public life through all their formative years, thus rendering distasteful to them, by its very strangeness, any work or pleasure to be had in the privacy of the home. But all this is primary and secondary education. The girl who has finished these stands only on the threshold of the higher education. For the girls who take this there follow four or six years more of study now entirely removed from home influ- ences and surroundings, as well as freed from domestic duties and responsibilities. How will these added years affect the problem of woman's relation to domestic life? Can they do otherwise than emphasize and exaggerate the evils already pointed out? and must not the A. B. or A. M. or Ph.D., after her four or five or six years given in college halls to Latin and Greek, science and philosophy, literature and mathematics, be even further removed still from both inclination and training for the quite unliter- ary and the relatively lonely work of superintending and serving in the various rela- tions of domestic life? It would seem to follow that higher education for women must prove a public calamity, since its results must be to remove the picked young women of each community from domestic life, thus relegating home-making — and homes are the recognized corner-stones of society and the state — to second or third rate talent. But suppose we close the college doors to the women of the future. Have we then averted the evils we fear? We must not forget that the result of our study has been to show that the higher education, at most, only emphasized evils already exist- ing; that it is the primary and secondary education, not the higher, which lies at the root of the trouble, that the primary and secondary schools take not a select few, but the daughters from all our homes, rich and poor, cultured and uncultured homes alike; take them during the most plastic and formative period of life, and, by heavy exactions on time and strength, continued through many years, prevent the formation of tastes THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 321 and aptitudes essential to a happy and successful domestic life. And are we prepared, therefore, to condemn our whole public school system of co-education, and to relegate our daughters back again to the Dames' Schools of the beginning of the century? No one could be found foolhardy enough to answer in the affirmative. Some other rem- edy than this must be found, and that remedy when found will not consist in revolu- tion, that is, overthrow, destruction, but in evolution, that is, adaptation. We shall need to remind ourselves as well as the croakers that secondary educa- tion for girls dates back only to the middle of the century, and that the higher educa- tion of woman, as offered in any adequate form, can be measured by a quarter of a cent- ury. It is not strange that so potent a factor introduced into woman's life should prove a disturbing element, and should require readjustment. The new thing always, for the time being, takes precedence of the old, if it does not supersede it. So wonder- ful was the new world opened up to women through books and education, the world of history and literature, science and art and philosophy, that the old world of domes- tic life seemed by comparison meager indeed. And if sharing the boy's studies had brought such enlargement of life, might not sharing his occupations, or, at least, his life of public and organized activity, bring equal good? It was in the nature of things that the experiment must be tried. We are living in the transition period, and are interested observers of the experiment. What will be the outcome? The first result could not have been other than an over emphasis of importance put upon the public life in store or office or teacher's chair (for these were all new), and an under empha- sis put upon the old life of home service. And it was well that it should be so. Domestic work had fallen under the ban of being an occupation adapted to the capac- ities of the uneducated and dependent classes. So that wife and daughters might with their own brains and hands plan and execute the work of the entire household, from cooking the food, through spinning, weaving and making the clothes, to caring for the children and nursing the sick, and yet this wife and these daughters before the law were supported by husband and father, and any money they might need for their own personal expenses was regarded as a gift, not as a wage earned. Moreover, as with all work done by uneducated and dependent classes, the value put upon it was low if it had to be obtained from strangers. Is it strange that when the public school had fitted a girl for earning an independent competence she should have gladly turned her back upon the often galling dependence of the home. And this is but one side of the movement; the other side is that the home being thus deprived of its accustomed workers, the household machinery creaks, bringing widespread discom- fort, and the world is awaking to the fact that housework as well as other work demands brains and skill and that these must be paid for in the home as well as in the shop and schoolroom. ^ Thus far the experiment has progressed. The world has begun to recognize the supreme importance of skilled work in the home, while on the other hand it has in efficient operation an instrumentality expressly adapted to insure that skilled work shall not be had there. Such is the dilemma. Readjustment must be made. What is the outlook for it? I turn, as I believe the world ere long will turn, for an efficient agent in such readjustment to the woman made by the higher education. She alone has reached the vantage-ground from which she is prepared to see domestic life in its true perspective in relation to all of life. She has learned from her sociological studies that the moral fiber which makes possible a free government must be devel- oped in the home; and from her scientific researches that moral and intellectual as well as muscular fiber are dependent upon pure air, cleanly surroundings, healthful food, adequate and appropriate clothing, regular habits, and a cheerful environment of comfort and hope, all of which it is largely the work of the house-mother and her assistants to furnish. Moreover, these college-bred women are prepared, by years of close logical thinking, to undertake the task of readjusting woman's life to the life of society as a whole in the light of nineteenth-century needs and possibilities; because they are able to recognize society as an organism of which women are organic parts, • (21) 322 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. and they well know that the good of no one organ can be found apart from the good of the whole. What will be the steps of readjustment? I think I see at least five. First of all there will be a remodeling of primary and secondary school-life. The school was and is designed as a means of education; but what is it to be educated? "To have passed successful examinations upon a certain number of books," answers the average mem- ber of the school board and the average teacher; " hence everything must bend to this mental feat." " To have gained command of all one's powers, mental, moral, and physical," answers the woman who has climbed all the rounds of the educational lad- der and stands at the top, " and to gain such command requires brain work and hand work, work for self and work for others, work with others in the school and work alone in the home, theoretical work and practical work, and the two sides of the coup- lets should go hand in hand, to attempt to separate them means a one-sided develop- ment unworthy the name of education. Hence the curriculum of the school must be so remodeled as to leave time for the training of the home to go side by side with it." Second: There will be needed a remodeling of the curricula of secondary and higher education to make them touch more closely the life and needs of men and women. Anatomy, physiology and psychology, heat and light, air and its movements, chemistry and germ theories, if studied first in the laboratories of the schools, should be tested anew in the practical laboratory of the home and of society. The nation and its history are only the family and its history writ large; political economy domestic economy magnified. Third: With the home and its needs thus made the practical objective point of a large part of college study, the home will rise into new importance, and the home keeper to a new place of honor; since only the owner of the cultured brain can aspire to the rank of a scientific as well as practical housekeeper, and such housekeeping will be seen to be as worthy an object of ambition as club work, reporting or teaching. Fourth: Housekeeping alone will not fill all the time or satisfy all the aspirations of every cultured woman, and unless the home is to lose many of its brightest lights, it must be demonstrated that the brains of a cultured woman put into a household may save time for other work — the club, the magazine article, the book to be written, the profession to be followed while yet the home suffers no loss. But to make all this possible another step must be taken in the process of readjustment; namely, Fifth: Under the wise guidance of the woman of higher education, the woman of secondary education will come again into the home, not as a drudge but as " help," and very efficient help — yes, come out of not a few stores and offices and even school- rooms into the domestic circle, there to receive full recognition and adequate compen- sation as trained workers, they having had, as a part of their education, the training which will make domestic work easy and pleasant. If, then, the higher education of woman tends at all today to unfit women for domestic life, it seems to me to carry with it the promise and potency of a revivified and reglorified domestic life in a not-distant future; a domestic life which shall be recognized as not a slavery, but the broadest freedom; not a drudgery, but the noblest service, because the once household drudge — drudge because dependent and ignorant — is now the independent, self-poised, scientific mistress of a position of rec- ognized importance. THE CHILDREN OF THE OTHER HALF. By MISS LUCY WHEELOCK. " Oh, child! oh new-born denizen Of life's great city! On thy head The glory of the morn is shed Like a celestial benison — Here at the portal thou dost stand, And with thy little hand Thou openest the mysterious gate. Into the future's undiscovered land! " f. MISS LUCY WHEELOCK. Every child born, in palace or hovel, stands at this same mysterious portal. For every one the future waits. There is no manger so lowly, no cradle so humble that around it the glories of the waiting world do not shine. As to the holy Child of old, so to every child today, the world comes with its gifts. The W -f^ ^^^^^^^^. gentle Mary is there representing the family life. The ^ ^^S^^^^^^^^^^S^I^ humble shepherds come first, foreshadowing the lot Mf JfJMH^^^^^^UH^ of man as destined to live among the common people, W^iwi^^^BIHHP^^'^ to live only by using his own powers, and by con- forming to the laws of life, that there is no receiving without giving. And yet, the glory of Heaven had shone upon these same shepherds, showing that the radiance of the Divine may illuminate even the most humble life, and the celestial music may accompany the every-day talk. Kingly power is represented in the group around this early cradle. The golden treasures of the world's wisdom are laid at the feet of the child standing at life's portal. Every poet, from the time of blind Homer, has sung his songs for him. Every work written in any tongue may be his. The canvas of a Murillo or a Reynolds he may possess in the true sense of pos- session. "The world belongs to those who take it." The incense of the lives of the saints, of the good and holy men of all ages is wafted to him as a sacred gift. The faith of a Luther, of a Savonarola, or of a Joan of Arc may be his inheritance. A long procession of heroes and heroines, the great and mighty of the earth, may march across the stage of his life, each bringing the inspiration of his or her deed as a magic gift to allure to noble livi*ig. Such is the possible heritage of every child born. But alas! how often by lack of right environment, and by a false system of training, the heir fails to take possession of what is truly his. To defraud a man of his estate is a grievous sin. But to defraud a human being of his Divine possession of himself and of his powers, of his joyous inheritance in this world of blessing, is an evil with which human law may not interfere, and of which too seldom we, any of us, take cognizance. We have easily comforted ourselves by assigning too much importance to heredity and too little to environment. To take a child of the slums and put him for half a day Mies Lucy Wheelock is a native of Vermont. She was born Febraary 1, 1859. Her parents were Edwin Wheelock and Laara Pierce. She was educated by her mother at home and in Chaunoy Hall School, Boston, Mass. She has traveled through her own country as far west as the Mississippi River and one summer in Europe. She is an enthusiastic and successful worker in the kindergarten. Her principal literary works are educational articles, children's stories, and lessons and translations of German tales. Miss Wheelock is a Christian, and a member of the Congregational Church. Her postoffice address is Chauncy Hall School, Boston, Mass. 323 324 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. into an atmosphere of peace and good-will and joy, such as the kindergarten offers, is to make the dinginess and misery of the tenement house impossible for that child when growth shall have come. The child of the slums becomes vicious and wicked because effected by the false maxims of his environment. " The world owes every man a living," is a motto of the tramp, the thief, the pickpocket. The child brought .up with no other influence must inevitably look upon the world, not as his natural God- given inheritance to use and enjoy, but as an estate to which others have defrauded him of his natural rights. He must gain by craft and crime that which others have appropriated. Those whom we call great are so because they most fully accept the truth that their lives belong not to themselves, but to the race. 'The child standing at the portal of the future, wherever his feet are placed, finds himself confronted by the institu- tional life of man, offering varied relationships. To lead a human being to master himself and his relationships is to educate him. The kindergarten takes hold of the family relationship and idealizes it for the child. One of Froebel's finger-plays names the fingers for the different members of the family. The children sing: "This is the mother, kind and dear; This is the father, with hearty cheer; This is the brother, strong and tall; This is the-sister who plays with her doll; And this is the baby, the pet of all. Behold the good family, great and small." As they sing the different fingers are raised, and when the little one takes its place the idea of a perfect whole is gained. The finger family would be incomplete without the little one. The hand would be imperfect. Eagh is needed in its place to make the whole. The moral is obvious. Each member of the human family is needed in its right place to make a beautiful home. The little one, pet of all, must stand in its turn and help as the little finger does, when its work is needed. There are many other family songs which impress the same lesson. The mothers everywhere testify to the influence which is felt in the home. " My Johnny is a different boy since he went to the kindergarten," says the mother. " He talks so pretty, now, and he runs so quick to get the coal." The reflex influence of the plays of the kindergarten on the home is not the least important of its effects. One mother was convicted of her own unworthiness, when she heard her Jennie singing, "This is the mother, kind and dear," " I haven't been a good mother," she confessed with bitter tears; "but I'd like her to sing it truly of me." This confession was made to the kindergartner, for the heaviest doors open to, and the kindest hearts are reached by the kindergartner, who goes into the poorest home as the friend of the children. That is her only passport to favor and it serves. The charity visit is rarely productive of good, but the visit of a friend is always wel- come. The home atmosphere is often changed, too, by the pretty colored things which are brought into it. Jennie carries home the red and white mat she has woven. The mother is delighted to see what " her Jennie" can make. She likes to show it to the neighbors when they drop in. But there is not a place worthy of this bright, clean mat. Perhaps the wall is washed to make a clean background for it, or the mantel is dusted. " My mother dusted the mirror," one child reported, "and she put my card in the frame." When the wall has been washed and the mirror dusted, the window must be cleaned, so that the light may come in better, and the stronger light shows the doubtful spots on the floor. So the floor is washed, and, at length, the dingy room becomes clean. The "divine discernment" is bred within children, who are taken from dinginess and strife and surrounded for a portion of every day with an atmosphere of peace and THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 325 good will. The slums will not hold them, when the power comes to forsake the life of the tenement. The kindergarten to many children seems like a real heaven with blooming flowers and sunshine and singing birds. The warmth and light and kindli- ness of the place first attracts, and then the love for it all comes "The kindergarten is the largest step forward yet taken in the race with poverty;" though the kinder- garten plays, the fancy is so filled with shapes of joy that the poorest and hungriest boy gains the power to create his own environment. In fancy he roams the daisy fields, or the green forests. Or, perhaps, the heat of the summer and the squalor of his surroundings are lost, as he personates the fish diving and darting along the clear, rippling stream. The songs and talks and plays have made " his mind a mansion for all lovely forms," and have given him a new environment, A new earth has been created around him, and he looks toward a new heaven. This heaven he finds within himself, as he is guided constantly to happy companionship, not only with the forms and voices of Nature which are pictured and presented to him, but with his fellows. He learns that there is a larger family than that dwelling within the attic room, of which he is a member. In the kindergarten he is a part of an embryo community, where all the duties and rights of citizenship are taught by daily intercourse. The law of this community is the Golden Rule, and all actions are measured by its golden standard. But every community must have its industrial life, and this child society is no exception. By making work beautiful it becomes interesting and a love of work grows up within this circle of children, where the hum of industry is as pleasant as the hum of the traditional bee. Idleness, which is the cause of crimes and woes manifold, finds an arch enemy in the kindergarten, where diligence in business is the ruling principle. The value of this training to work and to love work cannot be ignored by those who see the need of a better industrial development in our country. The kindergarten, too, constantly contradicts the old dictum of Plato, that the useful arts are degrading. The work of the blacksmith, the cooper, the farmer, the miller, the clothier are represented in the games of the children. It is a joy to be a blacksmith and to hammer well, because we can then set a shoe for ahorse. Without the horse the farmer could not carry his grain to the miller, and the flour could not be ground and the children could not be fed. So the beauty and the honor of the work are made to depend on what it gives to others, and in his representative play the four- year-old may gain the great truth as a life possession, which we name the interde- pendence of mankind on the solidarity of the race. " Everybody has to have everybody," exclaimed the child on whom this great thought had dawned through his play. Can any minister or teacher phrase it better? Can there be any better thought for the child, standing on the portal of the future, to carry with him into the undiscovered land? If everybody needs everybody, some- body needs him. If he accepts this universal relationship, he has already become an heir to his true kingdom He has come into possession of his own. THE HIGHER WOMANHOOD.* By MRS. CAROLINE F. CORBIN. The women of this generation have been busy with the intellectual and econom- ical development of the new era. In so doing they have acted under an inspiration as true as that which fashions the rocky crust of the earth before it clothes the crags with verdure or brings forth the flowers which embellish the plain. But when the birth throes of the new advent are over, the stir and excitement of it all past, and humanity shall settle down to the fully developed conception of woman as no longer a slave or an inferior, but the equal of man, a creature with her own needs, her own prerogatives, her own destiny, not indeed identical with man, but in every respect of equal worth and dignity, then will it be seen that even from the begin- ning the emotional and spiritual nature of woman has been God's crowning gift to the race; that even as a serf or slave, in Bedouin tent or Asian harem, fettered, circumscribed and despised, she was still the fountain of life, the helpmate and inspiration of man, the sybil, the seer, the prophetess, the exponent of that divine principle of love on which the progress and culmina- tion of the race wholly depended. The germ of her great destiny was there, biding its time in darkness and obscurity. The magnetic impulse of the woman soul was even then the promise of God to the race, of its future development and flowering, and that without it the career of man, even in the material and intellectual phases of life, must have been abortive, impossilDle. I look abroad over the marvelous scenes of this Exposition, scenes never before equaled in fairy tale or dream of the Arabian Nights, which Shakespeare's fancy but faintly outlined in that wondrous scene of " cloud-capped towers and gorgeous palaces and solemn temples," which is such a description of our beloved Exposition and its final destiny, as no other hand but his could have written. I look, I say, upon this wondrous scene of enchantment which men claim as their unaided achievement, and I ask, is it in truth the work of man alone? I go back to the quiet homes, the studios apart from the noisy scenes of life, the work shops, the forges, and seeing these indom- itable toilers at work, these Cyclops, these peers of the ancient Hercules, I ask whence came the inspiration which fires their imagination, which nourishes their fancy, which expands heart and soul to these new and grand conceptions of form and life and achievement; and I find in the inner recesses of each man's heart the energizing force Mrs. Caroline Fairfield Corbin ie a native of Connecticut. She was born November 9, 1836. Her paternal and maternal ancestry are well known New England families. She was graduated from the Brooklyn Female Academy, since known as Parker Collegiate Institute of Brooklyn and Long Island. She has traveled extensively in this country and Europe. She married, in 1861, Calvin R. Corbin, Esq. She has had six children. Her special work has been in the interest of reform in the relations between men and women. Her principal literary works are " Rebecca, or Woman's Secret," " The Marriage Vow," and other works. In religious faith she is a Trinitarian Christian, and a member of the New England Congregational Church. In her early years Mrs. Corbin advocated Woman's Suffrage, but deeper study and experience convinced her that the doctrine implied a low materialistic idea of the value and destiny of women, and she has in recent years written many pamphlets in opposition to the political rights of women. Her postoffice address is 597 Dearborn Avenue, Chicago, 111. MRS. CAROLINE F. CORBIN. •The article as here given includes but the conclnding portion of the address delivered in the Woman's Building. 326 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 327 of passion some gentle face of woman, some tender ministry of love which tempers the nerves of steel to greater endurance, and exalts and warms and quickens the whole nature. There is no worthy work of man which lifts itself to heaven over the broad earth today which has not behind it, giving it life, force and inspiration, the fecund, nourishing soil of womanhood. Nor, as the ages go on, and woman achieves grand and glorious successes in the outer world, shall we ever find that they can do this unaided by man. In every woman's work that is worthy of exalted fame, will be found the evidence of that strong support, that steady guidance, that supreme aspiration that man alone can minister. In conclusion, I wish to give you the strong figure and example of what I have tried to say in this discourse. Go with me to the Midway Plaisance and look at the Samoan houses, the village of the South Sea Islanders, the huts of the Esquimaux and Laplander, and then stand with me in the Court of Honor, amid all its sublime and unearthly beauty, its gorgeous flower-encircled domes and its matchless fountains, its colonnades and porticoes, the grandeur of its Peristyle, the airy grace and beauty of its architecture, the stately columns, the majesty of its Statue of the Republic; meas- ure, if you can, standing under the blue of the sky, with the blue of the lake spread out before you, the progress, the achievement which humanity has made from the Midway to where we stand. I tell you as one who speaks from the inmost councils of nature and God that one undivided half of all this achievement belongs to woman. It is immutably, indefaceably here, and it is an exhibit of woman's work beside which every other exhibit of woman's hand-craft in this Exposition, noble and beautiful as many of them are, is paltry and insignificant. WE. THE WOMEN. By MISS CARA REESE We, the women of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, estab- lish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do here and now, in the glory of this great Columbian revelation of our strength, pledge heart, soul and mind in consecrated and contented service to our homes, our country and our God. To illustrate the virtues of her generation, and to set the seal of indestructibility on the works that now do praise her throughout the land, there is need that woman now tarry awhile, and within the cloister of her soul reflect on that beginning which must necessarily find its birth in this triumphal close of the woman's century. No woman worthy of the name regards her personal existence as the chief fac- tor to be considered in all that tends to yield to national life its happiness and prosperity. No aggre- gate of women may claim the right of consideration as the great center in the adjustment of the affairs of the universe. There are leaders, there are followers. Those who follow today will be the leaders of tomor- row. Advance is general, development sure, whether gradual or spontaneous. In the belief that forces set in motion can never be recalled, shackles unbound can never be replaced, and that what may apply to one aggregate of women may apply to all — allowance made for laws, customs and beliefs, inherited or acquired, which may hasten or retard — we, the women of the United States, with the grip of the universe on heart and hand, pause, in this the hour of triumph, and question with a thrill of pain, "What of the Future?" Years of effort have found culmination in a proper and befitting display. Never in the history of nations has there been such revelation of woman's capability and deeds as in this gala year. But com- mencement is almost over. Work has passed examination. Carefully prepared speeches have been delivered. The world has seen, heard, and applauded. With the end comes a beginning. Conservative women, and there have been quite a number who have distributed their time to good advantage in the sessions of these various congresses, discern in the new beginning signs of coming defeat. The desire for supremacy, the wild rush for leadership, the greed for gain, the love of notoriety, the clamor for political recog- nition, are straws to them that point the way to loss of womanly dignity and refine- ment, the collapse of domestic tranquillity, and the moral weakening of the home. Miss Cara Reese was born, raised, and is working out a successful career in Pittsburgh, Pa. She is the only daughter of Abram and Mary Godwin Reese, both natives of Pennsylvania. Miss Reese has been educated in the public and private schools of Pittsburgh, and graduated from the Institute Department of Bucknell University, Lewisburg, Pa. Higher education was continued under special teachers, not forgetting the accomplishments of music and art. Her chosen profession is active newspaper work. For over six years Miss Reese has been identified with the interests of the Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette. Miss Reese is particularly happy in public addresses. She is a member of the Shady Avenue Baptist Church, Pitts- burgh. Is kind-hearted and womanly in disposition, and happy and contented in her chosen sphere. Her postolfice address is Commercial Oazette, Pittsburgh, Pa. o2o MISS CARA REESE. THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 329 The enthusiasts "pressed down, shaken together and running over" with things seen and heard from their seventh heaven, predict another end. " We are living in the dawn of the millennium," they say. " What need of further conquest." "Behold the dawn of a magnificent future," cries .the suffragist; "save Kansas, and we, the women live to rule, henceforth and forever." With some hesitation, a representative of the wage-earning women of the day ventures to define a pathway through the chaos resultant from the general upheaval that is everywhere bringing women up to light and civilization, thankful, bewildered, dizzy or inflated with pride as the case may be, and, but for a growing conviction that a proper and rational settling of the condition of affairs would be a long and tedious process without laborers in the field, both tongue and pen would have maintained silence. The new era is at hand, but not that of the perfection that bringeth into the king- dom, nor that, it is hoped, that means the reversal of the positions of men and women, nor that which may herald destruction or defeat. But an era, God grant, of equal rights, woman with woman, the home with the world, domestic tranquillity with the public wel- fare, God with the minds he has created. The day has gone by for the expression of that sentiment which surrounds the business woman with the halo of a glorified inde- pendence, and places her on a pedestal in the market-place, the envy and admiration of the stay-at-homes, a spectacle to beget jealousy, covetousness, heavy-heartedness and despair in her purseless sisters, and in the end the lever, perhaps, that overturns some happy home. The day has gone by for the expression of that sentiment that ignores the practical side of the life of wife and mother, and pleads only for that Divine calling, which, with its ceaseless panorama of pots and pans, cradles and tubs, butch- ers, bakers and mantua-makers, supposably heralds an estate but little lower than the angels. The new era finds women divided into two great classes, wage-earners and home- makers. Upon the proper adjustment of these depends future serenity. The limit of tension is now at hand. Relations have been strained to the utmost. Surface indica- tions prove the wage-earning class the stronger. The flaunted dollar is proving the magnet to draw the wife from the husband, the mother from her children, and fair young girls from the safe shelter of the home. Nay, more. The signs of the times prove that husbands, fathers, sons and brothers are not averse. The husband makes room for the desk of his wife, the father finds place for his daughter's typewriter, brothers skirmish for positions for their sisters, the small boy greedily fingers the pennies that mother has earned, and the home goes to destruction. What need of detail? Thousands of roomers in the large cities, cramped housekeeping in apart- ment flats, bear silent testimony. The dusty parlor, the cluttered kitchen, the half made beds, the hurried meals are familiar objects today in the homes where the women have gone over to the hustling world, while for her pains, the thrifty stay-at- home, who has planned and worked and ordered affairs in true gospel fashion, must smother a sigh as within her own household she hears the commendation bestowed on the money-making women on the other side of the wall, and her home-loving daughter creeps to her room disheartened and discouraged at the thinly veiled hint of father or brother — go thou and do likewise. The unappreciated home-makers of today, and, oh men and brothers, how many there are! watch the career of the wage-earning woman with hungry eyes. The wage- earning woman sighs for the comforts of home, but views home-life with distrust. Both are discontented, and in that discontent lies the leaven that will work future destruction. This discontent, so universal and so widely recognized as the one evil that threatens the success of the women of the future, owes its strength to the sharply defined line that exists between the earner and the home-maker. Not the dividing line of caste, as formerly. Everywhere the working woman is compelling the atten- tion and respect of the women of so-called leisure. She finds cordial recognition in the homes of wealth. She is an honored guest at public functions. Her opinion is ^ 330 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. asked on affairs of moment. Her name graces committees and boards. She is sought after, consulted and socially accepted. But the still sharper division, all the more distinct in that it is largely imaginary, with pocketbook and independence on one hand and unappreciated home work on the other. All honor to the woman, who, when necessity compels, will bravely take up the burden of business. All honor to that consecration that will force woman from the home in order to better protect that home. All honor to her who feels that she could not give a satisfactory account of her stewardship in the great day if her talent be not put to usury. But there are other things to be taken into consideration before such a line of action becomes universal. On entrance into the business world woman becomes conversant with much that was to her a sealed book before. Knowledge at first startling soon becomes commonplace, womanly reserve wears away, feminine graces vanish, the cold practical atmosphere in time dulls the sensitive nature, and the woman worker becomes a money-making, fame-seeking machine; an ingrate, often forgetful of friends and favors; a cold, selfish, calculating automatum, and above all a chronic discontent. On two things the woman-heart thrives. Love and ambition. The first the nat- ural woman prefers. The second is an educated preference, against whose craving the first becomes flat, stale and unprofitable. The first means limited homage; the sec- ond the plaudits of the world. Into the circumstances that have led up to the edu- cated preference it may be best not to inquire. Years of suffering and sacrifice, of oppression and suppression, had driven the woman of the past to the wall.y In her desperation she turned and fled to the world, her one eager thought to secure com- fort for those nearer and dearer to her than life itself. Now the aim is largely selfish, and as she views the passiveness with which her labors are accepted by those who should be her protectors, and notes the tendency to effeminacy in those who should be the strong ones of earth, discontent is keeping pace with her every stride, and play- ing havoc with homes and happiness. Satan finds mischief for idle women to do is applicable no longer. The women are being educated to death, organized to death and worked to death, and the stronger the pressure in any one the greater the discon- tent and dissatisfaction. To no class of women, perhaps, is this state o^ affairs more apparent than to those connected with the daily press. Brought into intimate relationship with all classes and conditions of women; those in all stations of business, from the shop-girl to the head and brains of some mammoth establishment; from mistresses in homes of hum- ble degree to those of princely scope; and standing as they do on the outside, view- ing with unbiased mind the movements in all departments of life, noting now the advance and now the backward step, impartially they weigh the condition of affairs and sum it all up in the words, "social unrest." Social unrest! Oh, women of America, aim for suffrage if that will bring con- tentment. Pray for the millennium if that will bring a reign of peace. Educate, organize, but ever hand in hand and heart to heart for home, country, and God. Home for the wage-earning woman as well as for the wife and mother. Home for her who, out in the busy world, is so fast losing those graces which, like fragrant blossoms, should twine about the woman's soul. ,. Home for the young girls with their pure hearts and innocent minds. Join hands. The business woman needs the sym- pathy and counsel of the home-maker, not her wail of discontent The home-maker needs the broadening glimpse into the sunlight and shadow of life which the business woman can give, not the aggravating taunt of independence or boast of fame and for- tune. Each is responsible for domestic tranquillityj and domestic tranquillity generally assured, the public welfare will take care of itself. In this growing discontent woman is fast losing that happy, sunny disposition, once her greatest charm. The " sweet " woman of today is the artificial one. The " lovable woman " is the one with the stereo- typed smile and caress; and while now and then a thoroughly happy and contented woman is found who may be placed in the category of "motherly," she comes like angel visits, few and far between, and does not belong to the younger class. THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 33X Seek contentment. Crave not worldly rush. Better the pinch of occasional sac- rifice than the loss of womanly dignity and reserve. Be natural. Be what James Whitcomb Riley, the Hoosier poet, in his " Neighborly Poems," beautifully accords to his friend, Erasmus Wilson: Jest natchurl, and the more hurraws You git, the less you know the cause — Like as ef God Hisself stood by, Where best on earth hain't half-knee high, And seein' like, an' knowin' He 'S the Only Great Man really. You're jest content to size your height With any feller-man's in sight. Courage, women of America. You have fought great battles, you have won great victories. Now look to the homes and firesides. The present is yours, the future belongs to God. HOME SIDE OF PROGRESS. By MRS. CLARA HOLBROOK SMITH. It is granted that we have eclipsed all other national efforts in the mammoth placing of our exhibits side by side with those from the Old World; I long to know if it will be the world's verdict that America leads in all that is largest and latest. Some phases of these evidences of progress call out many questions as we compare our national life with the life of advanced cultured nations which have preceded us, but whose glory now has departed. The statement on the cover of Dr. Strong's oft-quoted book, says our country is God's last opportunity for the human race. If this is true, are we to progress far beyond any of the nations that have preceded us, or is it in the Divine plan for all natural life that it is " thus far and no farther?" Is the new Jerusalem to come from the sky, or is it to be an earth renovated? Professor Drummond seems to banish the sky idea, and says: " It means a new London, a new Chicago, a new Jerusalem, all of the cities lifted by spiritual thought and effort to the plane of a heavenly city. In the light of the history of past nations, are we nearing the age of ripeness that precedes decay, or are we nearing the renovation period? „»c ^T.„. „^xT.„^„^ e,„^„ In this White City have we delineated the highest MRS. CLARA HOLBROOK SMITH. i i ■ • i r i i • that has preceded us m art, or is the art or the classic days of Greece the limit of human ability in that direction. Historical research proves conclusively we have not equaled that period in liter- ature, and it leaves us with the mortifying certainty that there have been but five men produced in the past two thousand years that could equal the twenty-eight men pro- duced in the two centuries between 500 B.C. and 300 B.C. — only five. Neither can we boast of our orators, when Rufus Choate asserted that if Demosthenes were here today the only ones who would be able to follow and comprehend him would be the lawyers and judges of the supreme bench. In your thought can you place one of our states- men by the side of Pericles? If we then are still on the lower rounds of the mental ladder, is it not time the homes of the land were questioned and challenged? No cult- ure can go beyond the capacity of the one to be cultured. We are generally beating all around the bush. We study very carefully the condition of the house in which the home is to be located. We talk glibly of sanitation, of hygiene of foods chemi- cally considered. The wise home-makers have placed on exhibition all the latest implements— the model nursery, the kindergarten, the kitchen-garden, the gymnasium, Clara Holbrook Smith is a native of Illinois. Her parents were Col. J. C. Holbrook and Eliza McDill Holbrook, who was a daughter of Rev. Dr. D. McDill, minister, editor and writer of many books. She was educated at Monmouth College, Monmouth, III. She has traveled in Canada, Mexico, and over the whole of the United States. She married Henry C. Smith. Her husband being an invalid, and she herself a sufferer, she was led to investigate physical laws. These studies revealed to her that her four children had the birthright of invalidism. After years of research through the works of such scientists us Dar- ■win, Lionel Ribot, Maudesley, Galtin, Balfour, Brooks, and others, she recognized the law that thwarts heredity, and has spent much time in securing departments in all institutions of learning for the teaching of scientific home making and parentage. Mrs. Smith is a Christian and Congregationalist. Her postoffice address is Lordsburg, Cal. 332 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 333 and the methods of the various organizations that are endeavoring to remove evil from the pathway of the child. All grand, all helpful, all necessary, but it often all looks to me like " locking the barn-door after the horse is stolen." Yes, we are beating around the bush; but the enemy lies coiled in the very center. The child is stung with evil before it reaches the outer circle where these implements for culture of body and soul stand ready for the using. We must probe deep, to the very heart of things, and commence at the very foundation, before we can hope for any special advance physically, mentally or morally, beyond the present showing of our nation. We have made provision for the training in every profession save the profession of home-makers and parentage. This is all left to chance. The fate of the nation is left to blind chance. The seed of this nation was sown by the church. We had a right to expect wonderful things from such a sowing, but the enemy from the first has been sowing tares from the poisoned weeds of Europe's humanity. Our country must now look very carefully to the quality of her sowing, or expect to reap the fate of the cultured nations of the past ages. The home was God's first plant for a nation. Male and female created He — man in His own image — and gave them the high privilege of entering into His last creative act with Him. He gave of all seeds to man, and said, " plant." Man has learned to plant with care, according to the last laws given by science, to insure the largest growth, the most perfect specimen, the choicest varieties. He has also learned in the last days that human development the most precious, the one upon which all happiness and progress depends, is governed by the very same scientific laws. There is no progress for any nation beyond the home-line of possibility. I want to give you my thought from two standpoints: First. The two laws governing development. Second. Outside aid to development. I start from the very foundation of the human race — the fathers and the mothers. Could they expect fine results to come by chance? In the light of today's revealments a person is criminal who does not look after the purity of the blood that he imparts to another human being. Every institution of learning that fails to provide this instruction for its students, male and female, in dif- ferent departments, fails to provide a foundation for a higher mental capacity in the coming generations. Higher education is a theme much harped upon at present, but every effort, save in a few exceptional cases, will prove futile for lack of capacities upon which to expend their knowledge. We are far behind the oft-quoted classic Greece in this respect. We have only advanced to Solon's time. That wise old law- giver exclaimed: "We can not legislate against luxury, but we can establish athletic schools that will develop physique and give a martial character to the amusements of our young." We have in this decade of years advanced this far. When will we attain to the wisdom of Lycurgus? He prohibited parents from giving theic daughters in marriage until they had attained a certain degree of proficiency in certain exercises. He went furtherthanthis in his wise recognition of the future needs of the nation. He prohibited marriages among any who were not matured, any who were diseased, or who were deformed, and they looked upon the throwing of a sickly or deformed new-born babe into a ravine to perish as an act of mercy. Exercises for development were compulsory. The pure blood thus engendered fed the nervous tissue, fed the white and gray matter of the brain. The brain thus richly nourished, and in its turn its muscles exercised by ques- tioning, developed the twenty-eight men of the two centuries named whom we cannot equal or surpass today. Lycurgus did well for what we are pleased to term an igno- rant past, but his laws after all produced but one Socrates. I claim that an intelligent present, through the use of two laws, could soon pro- duce one who could answer the questions of Socrates. We have grown quite familiar with one of these two laws through the pens and voices of many, the prenatal law. Rightly understood and used it has the power to modify the effect of poisonous blood. 334 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. But the other lawi so powerful, I alone am presenting. Probably because others have not dug so deep and waded through so many pages of scientific volumes, small of print and large of terms. This law has the power to eliminate all the poisoned matter, vicious tendencies that come down from the ancestral spaces. Frederick the Great understood human cultivation. The emperor's body-guard was composed of colossal, stalwart men that had been gathered from their own and kidnapped from other nations. He bid them seek wives that could match them in physique, and establish homes for the rearing of future guards. If homes can be established that will insure splendid physique, why not homes to insure splendid mentalities and splendid morals? With this thought in view, I will give you the cor- ner-stone on which every home must be built. That I may not be accused of senti- ment, please note the fact that this corner-stone is the result of a life-time of study, of the labor of scientific men investigating natural law. Let me quote from one of them: " Marriage is scientifically unnatural when not based upon a supreme affection." There is no substitute for a supreme affection. There can be no home without it. There may be a place where two persons dwell together, but no home. We will go to the laboratory of the "why." We must have a scientific analysis or we will again be accused of sentiment. We have advanced as far as the Laws of Lycurgus in our consideration of these truths. Their following means perfect health, and perfect health insures pure blood. But the microscope reveals to us the fact that our blood changes with our emotions. Thus the blood that becomes vitalized under the great happiness of the emotion of love, becomes an absolute poison under the emotions of dislike, fear or hate. This poison under the extreme emotion of fear or hate is strong enough to throw a child that may imbibe it into convulsions, and has been known in some instances to kill instantly. A home started on scientific principles, based upon a supreme affection, as shown by chemical analysis of the blood to be absolutely necessary, built on conditions of superb health, as shown by the results of following the Laws of Lycurgus, with obedi- ence to the law of prenatal influence, offers opportunity for the highest earthly possi- bilities. But here let us stop a moment. This is the horror of it all. In one fatal moment, a disobedience to the initial law may cancel all the splendid preparation that has been the work of years. This law, the strongest law of all, that has the power to counteract all that comes from the ancestral spaces, that has power to annul the grand conditions, the resultant of preparation of previous years, is com- pletely ignored in almost every home. So strong is the law, that a spiritualized con- dition would overcome even unfavorable tendencies, and make favorable conditions. It is a new supply of life from the Creator of life. So much has been spoken and written on the weeding and watering and removal of stones from the pathway of these human sprouts after they have come to light, I will leave these points for the present, also all comment on hygiene and sanitary laws, upon which so much of the happiness and usefulness of the members depend, and will pass on to the outside aids to the home culture. If we were governed by wise statesmen, they would from national policy go as far as the government of ancient Greece. In the interest of good citizenship they should decide who should make a home. With our understanding of the necessary mental condition to produce the best results, government should present to every young married couple a house in which to com- mence their home-life. Then their thoughts could enter upon the wise administra- tion of the laws governing a well-regulated home, and not be wasted in a struggle for finances with which to build a house, in addition to the finances necessary for the bread and butter of their daily living. Every child should be looked upon as a ward of the nation. If accident or incapacity prevents parents from furnishing the mental and manual training necessary to develop the child into a good citizen, government should come to their aid. If from lust, avarice, or appetite parents are incapable of performing their duty THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 335 to their children in this respect, these wards of the nation should be transplanted to governmental homes of training. Vienna, Austria, presents us a fine object lesson in its care for its destitute orphans. The mayor of the city appoints the child a father, if it is a boy, among the good citizens of good standing, or a mother if it is a girl. These little ones are then boarded out at the expense of the city. But it is the duty of this appointed father or mother to look after the child's welfare during its growing years, and see to its proper placing in life when it is old enough to become self-sup- porting. This is an expense to the city, but is it so great an expense as it will be if the child grows into a criminal? If you are unscientific, you will condemn my next statement. The " Destroyer " of a home, whether it is a home that now exists or a home that could have existed, should be put to death. The law of Leviticus, when interpreted by science, is none too severe. It is a law given by a God of love and God of mercy. Through the investigations of the blood it is shown that the Bible statement of they twain are one flesh is not figuratively, but literally, true. The law is written in our members. One Adam and two or more Eves, one Eve and two or more Adams should be put to death. The law of creation is a jealous law. Break the Divine plan, male and female, by a separation of interests, and the deterioration of both commences. There is an invis- ible current now unnamed between minds masculine and feminme that makes a com- plete, rounded world. A study of the mental action of each apart and then together makes this very apparent. Sever the current by a manner of life that does not con- tinuously touch the best in life of the other, and physical force predominates; it is then that deterioration of all faculties commences. The rounded mental world cut in twain by a separation of thoughts and interest shrinks back and uplifts into the ungainly capital letters I-I; stiff, angular, unbending, ungainly, repulsive, decided, imperative, narrow I, I. How much sweeter the word "we." We have to round our mouth to pronounce it. Two letters, w-e; two in one. How much better when blended — two persons into one. The patrician's home in Greece furnished the gifted ones whom the nation delighted to honor; but the record of the twenty centuries between, show the com- moner as the leader of all the advanced work and thought of the world. The home of wealth offers every advantage that could insure sharpened instruments in the battle of human progress, but the lack of necessities which spur to action, renders the instru- ment useless. Whatever point the child of wealth may have had from good trainers, soon becomes rusted and dulled in the luxurious atmosphere. The world had but one Marcus Aurelius. This emperor, sleeping on the soldier's hard cot in the open halls of the palace in preference to the enervating influence of the luxurious palace chambers, his plain living and high thinking, offers an object lesson that would be well for the patrician to study. He used his position and wealth as stepping-stones to higher statesmanship and purer philosophy. Following the expression of Plato, he made his "body and soul draw together like two horses harnessed to a carriage." His body, not tied to luxury, could match the speed of the noblest impulses of the soul. If government could take the boy today, as in the days of old, from the home of wealth, place him in barracks for daily drill and upon the ground with only the canopy of heaven over-head at night; or the girls at the same tender age of seventeen years, and place them with nurses who would fol- low the same vigorous training, then would our thoughts turn again to the patrician home for leaders along the line of all advance. But it is to the homes of the middle class that the nation turns on an expectant look. Here is where our thoughts must center to estimate progress. It is while viewing these homes that the heart throbs and bounds with its limitless expectations. Here is where we can boast. What other nations can show such an aggregation of intelligent homes as can America? And for them, what is the promise? The educa- tors have commenced to instill into the minds of the students the relative value of the 336 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. body, and are providing to culture it into an abundant reservoir of brain food. There is a wise sifting process among them that is separating students according to the bent of inherent qualities, thus culturing natural tendencies. They are laying great stress upon the development of faculties by which we apprehend the unseen. This invisible force that they can draw to themselves and harness to their work to speed it forward, as the electrician seizes the electricity and harnesses to his invention, is made a plain, practical fact to the youth of today. They are teaching the students that from the effects of electricity, from the effects of the spirit that when we work as industriously as Edison to secure his power, we can obtain this power of the spirit Dr. Doremus, of the chemical department of Columbus College, claims it will be but a question of time when we will be gathering our food supply first-hand from the air instead of second-hand through the vegetables, or third-hand through the animals. It was after he had gathered the invisible gases from the air and demonstrated to the large audience their uses. We saw the effects, but we did not see the gases. It was after he had made them visible in vapor, more visible in the liquid, and then so solid they could be pounded with an iron bar. It was after he had gathered from the unseen on a hot summer evening a bushel of snow with which he pelted his audience. These evidences of the invisible things which we can grasp and use for our progress are going to illuminate the doubtful minds and show the reasonableness of our claims for the power of the Spirit invisible of the Holy One of God. These thoughts are brought to the home-makers with a plea that they study natural laws and follow them. With a plea also that they in numbers petition the directors of our institutions of learning until they secure departments for the teaching of these truths to students. With a plea that the faculties by which we apprehend the unseen forces be constantly cultivated that more and more the Spirit may domi- nate our emotions which regulate the blood of our veins. This paradise of thought will be a home garden that will grow a race like gods. The Court of Honor, now unsurpassed in beautiful effects, with all its uplifting forces, will be as the daily envi- ronment of all these coming statesmen, poets, classicists: that will work the era on the new Chicago, the new London, the new Jerusalem; those heavenly cities that are to be in the coming millennium. Sin eliminated, flesh renovated, spiritualized. Thus saith science; thus saith God. EDUCATION OF GIRLS AND WOMEN IN GLASGOW. By MISS JANET A. GALLOWAY. As may be known to my audience, Glasgow is the commercial and industrial cap- ital of Scotland, as Edinburgh is the historical and official capital. In some respects there is a resemblance between Chicago and Glasgow, though the latter is so much the smaller of the two cities, for it is a place of only about eight hundred thousand inhabitants. Like Chicago, one source of Glasgow's strength lies in its commerce and manufactures, and its position as a great center of trade, of export and import; and, like Chicago, it is also rapidly develop- ing into a nucleus of intellectual activity and educa-. tion, with its university and public schools and free education. The University of Glasgow has been in existence for several centuries, and has done good work. It has an average attendance of two thousand students. It has numbered many men of renown among its professors. In the present staff the name of Lord Kelvin, formerly Sir William Thomson, pro- fessor of natural history, is of world-wide reputation for his discoveries and his inventions, especially in connection with electricity and scientific instruments for marine purposes; and those of Principal John Caird, and his brother-professor Edward Caird, are well known in the domain of philosophical thought and research; and those of professors Gardner. Mac- Eweln and McKendrick for eminence in medical, surgical and physiological science. But it is only quite recently that free education has been established, and it is still but a short way beyond what might be called the experimental .stage. The education of girls in Glasgow can be given on three different lines — those of the board school, the endowed school and the private or proprietary school. Of course some girls are educated at home by private governesses, but the number of these is so small as scarcely to require separate mention. For board or public school purposes, Glasgow is divided into two districts, one being Glasgow proper, with a population of about one hundred thousand children (97,108) of school age, the other being Govan, with about twenty thousand children These public schools work under the act of parliament passed August, 1872, by the name of the Scottish Education Act, the chief object of which was to exchange the denominational system, which existed until then, for a really national system of educa- tion. It established in every parish and borough in Scotland a popularly elected school board, the principal duties devolving on which are the provision of sufficient school accommodations, the imposition and levying of tax payable by householders under the name of school rate, and the management of all schools supported by that rate Miss Janet A. Galloway was born in Stirlingshire, Scotland. Her parents were Mr. Alexander Galloway and Mrs. Anne Bald Galloway. She was educated partly in Scotland, but chiefly in England, Brussels and Dresden. She has traveled over Great Britain and Ireland, and France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland and Denmark, Sweden and part of the United States of America, including the Eastern States, Pennsylvania, Illinois and North Carolina. Her special work has been in the interest of the higher education of women. Her profession is that of Honorary (i. e., unpaid) Secretary of Queen Margaret College University at Glasgow. In religious faith Miss Galloway is a member of the English Church, the Episcopalian. Her postoffice address is Queen Margaret College, Glasgow, Scotland. (22) 337 MISS JANET A. GALLOWAY. 338 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. within the respective school board districts. School boards must also see that all children of school age residing within their districts receive at least elementary educa- tion, even if it be necessary to use compulsion to secure their attendance at school. The number of ordinary public schools under the Glasgow Board is sixty-seven (67), with a staff of 780 teachers fully qualified (342 masters and 438 mistresses), and 595 assistants, besides pupil teachers and monitors. Under the Govan Board there are nineteen (19) schools. A child beginning her education enters first the infant department, receiving kindergarten instruction and lessons in elementary reading and spelling, class singing, arithmetic and drawing; efforts are made to train the senses and the memory, to form in the child habits of attention, and to cultivate her intelli- gence and physical powers, besides preparing her for more advanced work. She then passes on through the six successive "standards" or grades of work, which constitute the primary school, and at the end .of this course she is expected to be proficient in read- ing and writing, in composition, and in arithmetic as far as compound proportion, vul- gar and decimal fractions, and simple interest. In the upper standards special sub- jects are added, such as geography, history, needlework, drawing and elementary science. After the fifth standard is passed the choice of specific subjects is enlarged, and a girl can receive instruction in domestic economy, including cookery; French and Latin and Greek and German; mathematics, physical geography, physiology, etc., taking such of them as her teacher may consider advisable. Some, but not all, of the schools under the board (Glasgow) give secondary education, and at the end of a course given there, a pupil may be examined for the Leaving Certificate, either in the lower or the higher grade, or in honors. The subjects included in this examination are English, with modern history; geography, French, German, Latin, Greek, mathe- matics and bookkeeping with commercial arithmetic, from which the pupil can choose. The examinations are general and not on prescribed books. The Leaving Certificate has been hitherto accepted by some universities (including Oxford, Cam- bridge, Edinburgh, Glasgow and St. Andrews), and also by the general Medical Council and some other bodies, in lieu of such preliminary examinations as are held under their directions. Should a girl attending the public schools not be able to take the full course of instruction in the usual classes on account of being obliged to discontinue her attendance during the day in order to engage in business pursuits, she can take even- ing classes after she has passed the sixth standard. These are held in twenty-four of the Glasgow Board schools, and include ordinary commercial art and science subjects. In these the courses are arranged to extend over four years, but the scholars may spread their classes over a longer period, if they find it necessary to do so. The school board awards special certificates to the students who complete these courses. For evening instruction, as well as for the special subjects taught in day schools after the sixth standard, a small fee is payable; but so very ample provision of bursaries is made by the Educational Endowment Board that no child of average intelligence need have any difficulty in obtaining such a bursary as will practically assure for her a free education. If a girl requires to be trained as a teacher under the school board, the usual course is to begin as a pupil teacher or monitor. There are employed in the schools of the Glasgow Board three hundred and eighty-eight pupil teachers. They have to be apprenticed as pupil teachers, and to take a course of instruction lasting over four years (or it may be less, if they have taken the Leaving Certificate) in the Pupil Teachers' Institute, receiving at least twelve hours' instruction per week during the first three years. The subjects taught are most of those taken up in the higher school classes, but given with a view to teaching purposes; also instruction in school management. At the same time they serve as teachers in the board schools, giving instruction to the younger children, for, on an average, of about twenty-two hours per week during their four years' apprenticeship, receiving payment for their services at the rate of from forty to one hundred dollars for from the first to the fourth year. THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 339 Yearly examinations are held during these four years. At the end of their apprentice- ship they are examined by the government inspector for admission to the Normal schools. If successful in passing, the candidates receive a further course of instruction in the schools named, continuing over two years, which includes school management and other subjects, and after their final examination they are available for a situation as assistant teachers in board or other schools. Of endowed schools there were a considerable number in Glasgow previous to 1882. But as these had chiefly been founded by private benefactors in order to pro- vide for the education of poor children, under various conditions specified by the founders, and as the institution of the school board had made the existence of these unnecessary, an act of parliament was passed in 1882, entitled the Educational Endow- ments (Scotland) Act, appointing commissioners to review all these foundations, and to make arrangements for the alteration or abolition of many of the schools, and the application of most of the money bequeathed to them to the purposes of education in the shape of bursaries and scholarships. One large bequest, however, remained, that under the Hutchesons' " Trust," which was too large to be abolished, and for it the commissioners formulated a new scheme, appointing a board of governesses, to be elected by various public bodies, and making regulations for the continued existence of two schools, one for boys and one for girls. They also fixed the amount of the fees to be charged, and the subjects to be taught, and made provision for the remission of the very moderate fees in the case of two hundred "foundationers," and for the maintenance and the clothing of a few of them, besides offering a number of free scholarships and bursaries for secondary and higher education to be held in the schools; also for some bursaries for university and higher education in other institutions. The staff of the girls' school consists of a head master and twelve men and fifteen women teachers, and the organization comprises a preparatory school and a higher school. A girl can enter the preparatory school at the age of seven, and can continue her edu- cation after passing from it to the higher school until the age of eighteen or nineteen. The course of instruction begins at the stage that corresponds with the school board's "standard two," extends over nine years, and is divided into two parts of almost equal duration, the plan of study for the first five years being divided with a view to laying a solid basis for the higher work which the school makes its special province. Besides the usual branches of an English education a special study is made of modern lan- guages, a three years' course of oral instruction in French, and a two years' course in German, given in the preparatory school, followed up by further continuous study of both in the higher school, and mathematics, drawing and science also receive special attention. The pupils of the higher classes are prepared for the government Leaving Certificate, and those who intend to adopt teaching as their profession have, if they so desire, opportunities of becoming acquainted with the organization of the whole school, and of handling various classes under the criticism and guidance of the head master. The yearly fees range from twelve dollars and fifty cents in the lowest class of the pre- paratory school to forty dollars in the first or students' class of the higher school; but after the bursary system was established fee-payers in the higher class became grad- ually fewer, until now the two highest classes contain none but scholars and bursars. Private or proprietary schools are numerous in Glasgow and of considerable vari- ety as to grades of instruction and fees, some being for kindergarten work and young children only, others carrying their pupils up to preparation for university classes. These are much more expensive than the public schools, and much smaller, but they are preferred by some parents as giving more attention to manners and individual training than it is possible to expect in a large public school. Some of them have a master at the head of the school, others a mistress; there is generally a staff of visit- ing teachers, chiefly masters, and a staff of governesses, who remain during the whole of the school day. There is, however, especially one exception in Glasgow to this general rule, viz., a girls' school worked by a company of shareholders, many of whom are parents of the pupils being educated there. This school is taught entirely by ladies. 340 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. As regards higher education, a girl on leaving school can continue her work along various lines. For higher instruction in art provision is made in several institutions, the principal of which is the Government School of Design. There she can either prepare herself for work as an artist, or learn designing of patterns for textile fabrics, or architectural, mechanical, engineering or other drawing, ceramic painting, modeling, etc. Domestic arts can be learned in the School of Cookery, which includes also a school for laundry and other household work; and there are a variety of classes for dressmaking and millinery on different systems. The West of Scotland Technical College provides instruction for women as for men in many scientific and practical subjects. University education for women is given by the University of Glasgow in its de- partment for women. Queen Margaret College and the various university degrees are open to women as to men, the same subjects of instruction and examination being given to both sexes, and the same degrees conferred. This, however, is a concession which was made by parliament in the summer of 1892. Previous to that time no degree of any Scottish university would be conferred on a woman, nor could the universities provide for her instruction. To meet the desire of women for higher education, while waiting for the often asked for, but not then granted, opening of the universities, associations for the higher education of women were formed in the different university towns. In Glasgow one was founded in 1877. Before that date some of the professors of the universities had from time to time given short courses of lectures to women in public halls, etc., but in that year a full organization was formed and classes were held in connection with it on university subjects, taught by university professors and graduates, some of the courses of lectures being given in the university and others in rooms rented for the purpose outside. After six years of existence this association was incorporated as Queen Margaret College, the name being taken from Queen Margaret of Scotland, the first patroness in Scotland of literature and art. A suitable building with extensive grounds was presented to the college by Mrs. Elder, widow of John Elder, a well- known engineer and shipbuilder, on condition that Sioo,ooo should be raised as an endowment. These buildings have since been considerably increased by the addition of science laboratories, etc., and are situated about ten minutes' walk from the uni- versity. And by donations from various residenters in Glasgow and its neighborhood, with the addition of a bazaar which brought in about $55,000, the cost of these new buildings v/as met, and an endowment fund of upward of 1^125,000 was collected. From its incorporation in 1883 the college went on gradually building up on uni- versity lines. By degrees a full curriculum in arts, including modern languages, was- established, with courses of lectures of the same scope and length (one hundred lect- ures each) as those of the university for the master of arts degree; then several classes were instituted; and in 1890 a school of medicine for women was'added to the college, which is now complete as to classes, hospital and dispensary work, the same as those provided for men at the university. The lecturers were university professors or gradu- ates, the dean of the medical school being a university professor (Prof. Young, M.D.),. and the fees and regulations were the same as those of the university. When, there- fore, in 1889, the act of parliament was passed, called the Universities (Scotland) Act^ which appointed commissioners to revise and altar where necessary the constitution and regulations of the Scottish universities, and when the ordinance of those commis- sioners was published, in 1892, which permitted the universities to provide for the education of women and to admit them to the degrees, Queen Margaret College was in a position both as to nature and completeness of the courses it offered to its stu- dents, and as to the state of the buildings and endowment fund, to offer itself to the university to become university property, to be taken under the government of the university and to be especially recognized as giving preparation for the degrees. On this offer being made by the council of the college it was accepted by the university^ which accordingly adopted Queen Margaret College as its department for women. THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 341 The college is now governed entirely by the university court and senate, and all its lecturers are appointed by the court. The average number of students in the college is about two hundred, of whom about fifty are in the medical school. They receive full preparation for the university degrees in arts, science and medicine. The course of work for the master of arts degtee, after the preliminary examina- tion (preparation for which usually occupies one or two additional years) has been passed, takes three years, and duration of study is the same for the degree of bachelor of science; the degree of doctor of science can only be taken five years after that of bachelor of science, after further study and examination. The course of study after the preliminary examination for bachelor of medicine and bachelor of surgery is of five years' duration, and the degree of doctor of medicine and master of surgery can only be taken after two years' further study, after the bachelor degree has been obtained. The women students of the University of Glasgow do not study with the men students, having their classes in their own college, but they are examined together. A woman can thus now in Glasgow obtain a full university education, and has every facility for preparing herself for her life-work, whether for a professional career as a teacher, a literary woman, a scientist or a doctor, or for home life — to which she will bring the culture and the large and practical views derived from a university edu- cation. The progress made in Scotland in general, and in Glasgow in particular, in educational matters during the last few years has been great, and still goes on. And although in the old country we do not move so rapidly as in the new, the movement continues, if slowly yet surely — the New World and the Old advancing hand in hand and working together in the great field of intellectual progress and culture. INFLUENCE OF GREAT WOMEN.* By MRS. MARY NEWBURY ADAMS. In our subject, " Influence of the Great Women of Yesterday on the Civilization of Today," we admit that greatness in womanhood is an ancient quality. We cannot look upon the recently unearthed statuary without this faith. She had a strength that was big with the future of mankind. She ventured, she dared, she had courage to begin things. She had faith in her work because she knew she worked for the good of her kind and from inborn instincts. Let us know definitely what we mean by the word great. In primitive times they represented greatness by size. Their images of gods and goddesses were large, to indicate power and influence. The Egyptians in their art represented the women as of equal size with men to indicate the equality of influence and position in government and religion, and when thousands of years ago Egyptians wanted to leave an enduring rec- ord of their belief of the supremacy of man and woman over all material things, over the earth, they built the statues of Memnon on the Nile. Human, beings mountain high, great, and big. Another method to express greatness and power was for God to speak from Mt. Zion or Mt. Sinai, a high place. Then, greatness was for a patriarch with many wives and much cattle, a terror to other tribes, whose one supreme will must be a law to the many. But this was not the matriarchal idea of the great person. Womanhood called a mind great that could think, one that could reason, one that could invent, one that could have foresight, save the grain today to plant next season, plant the clover to keep the bees and the cows close at hand; one was great who built the hut before the winter and storm came, or who carried the stone hatchet in case the wild beast is met. The mind that could collect experience and plan a better future, this mind could command respect for its strength in judgment, and was called great by women. One with energy and courage to make successful an idea, be it for a basket, a canoe, or a treaty between enemies, or a migration to inau- gurate new habits with the selected best, these were the great women who had an idea and could carry it out. Disciples of Minerva and Juno, people from Ephesus and Athens, women from Asia Minor, from the Isles of the Sea, from the' halls where taught the white-robed Hypatia; when these spoke of great women it was quality of mind and tastes they referred to. Among the worshipers of Ceres, the goddess of Mrs. Mary Newbary Adams is a native of Pera, Ind. She was bom October 17, 1837. Her parents were Eev. Samuel Newbury and Mrs. Mary Ann Sergeant Newbury. She received her early education at home private schools; graduated from Cleveland public schools later, and from Troy, Tenn., Seminary in 1857. She married Austin Adams, Esq., who was after- ward twelve years judge of the Supreme Court of Iowa. She takes great interest in the history and study of humanity, par- ticularly woman's work in civilization. Her principal literary works are numerous essays, lectures, sermons, and news- paper articles. Her profession is housekeeper and home-keeper. In religious faith she is a Cosmopolitan Unitarian. Mrs. Adams is a member of the National Woman's Suffrage Association and many archaeological and historical societies. In per- sonal appearance she is stately, dignified and commanding. Mrs. Adams' parents and ancestors were ministers, judges, phy- eicians, and seven of her grandmothers daughters of professional men. Her line of thought and work has been inherited^ and is not military nor business. Her postoifice address is Dubuque, Iowa. MRS. MARY NEWBURY ADAMS. *The original title of the address as delivered before the Congress was, "Influence of the Great Women of Yesterday on the Great Women of Today." 342 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 343 Agriculture and Commerce, greatness was shown in the discovery of new lands, fruits palatable, grains nutritious, and in the power of the will to direct energy to useful ends, to plow and plant, to save and sell, to make fruitful Earth serve the will and wish of the human mind; with them the great woman was one who had found a new grain that could be utilized for food of people that they might not be compelled to be marauding tribes, stealing cattle from other tribes for food. The mothers in council learned how to feed with grain their people quietly, peacefully, and gradually to work into the nerve of children and youth strength and reason, and thus check the raven- ous dispositions and the roving, stealthy habits that always go with those who herd cattle, and are eaters of blood and sinew, the habits of patriarchs, and the people they herd and were shepherds of. The great women, mothers of commerce, of agriculture, of trade and ingenious workmanship, compared good with evil, and aspired to become self-directing, co-working with Creation and its laws. The same idea animates the highest civilization to-day, and it is our duty to find who the women were who helped to bring it about. The methods for our enlightened life today were those of the great mothers in council, who were drawn by sympathy to help one another in distress, in sickness, at harvest, and in journeys for trade, not to slay or steal from other tribes, but to learn to exchange baskets for pots, minerals, shells and fiber to make into raiment. The great women of antiquity are those who aided the human mind to distinguish good from evil, and through habits of industry curb the powers of passion, and tame force and strength to serve the tribe under the direction of reason. She was great who could think some thought, do some deed to add to the experience of the world, to aid the next generation of women so they could be sure of a permanent home, sure of food and raiment and ability to make something to sell. The great souls were not the strong forces that destroyed enemies or beasts, but the inventive souls, the intuitive minds that circumvented evils, that brought positive good to a people. How? Not by conquering a neighbor and securing booty in land and cattle, but those who trained families to supply their own wants by work, to have an aim in life, to so order their ways that they could be imitated with advantage to the whole tribe; thus mankind could become by habit civilized, that is, to work together by free choice, that the work of each should be good for all. It is women who have brought these ideals into human life. Women have not been visionary but practical, unless the having a high ideal and working for a future better than the present can appreciate is visionary. There is an irrepressible conflict between the patriarchal idea of greatness and the matriarchal. Since the re-discovery of the Western continent by Western Europeans four hundred years ago, and the discovery that the sphere was balanced by its own motion, and this motion intimately connected with life thereon, then began changes in governments and in religions, from the patriarchal to the matriarchal methods, and the laws of earth and woman have been honored. Woman began to be recognized as a sphere in society, gaining equilibrium, too, by her own reason and her motion of mind, and that intimately connected with her movement of mind was the equilibrium of society. The literature of Greece was revived because the methods, the principles, the ideals of goddesses, the matriarchal ideals, were to come forth in power to shape and direct the New World era And this republic is the result of matriarchal not patri- archal methods of life and in ideals. This is the influence we inherit. Have we knowledge to understand it? Histories heretofore have been written by men; Scriptures preserved by the high priests, the Druids, the patriarchs; reprinted and upheld by empires, religious and political. The true history of human progress from savagehood to enlightened civil life is yet to be written. Not till the spirit of archaeology, philology and folk-lore was awakened did we have the material facts to reason from. Now, here, in the center of the oldest continent, we find Scripture fulfilled, and the last continent is found to be the first, and the rejected stones of the early Americans are to become the corner- stones of human history. 344 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. The influence of the great women of the past is felt today, not by knowledge of their names and their individual work, or the time they lived, but by the things they started, the methods of activity they began; what they inaugurated by following their natural instinct to change the present, to secure the greater future, which we enjoy today. \Ve have heard only of the women of gayety at the courts; we need the lives of the great women who changed the history of their time by finding new fords, opening new fields for commerce. Matilda of Scottish lineage was called Maude. She was the mother of Henry H. of England, and Hume says her son was the greatest prince of his time for wisdom, virtue and ability. She introduced the culture of broom corn. She built the first arch bridge in England, Bowbridge, made new roads, repaired the Roman roads. She was prudent, and encouraged those things which educated and benefited the people. She was political, and to her we trace the constitutional blessing England enjoyed. The arrangements for peace and progress, the law that the people could depend upon, based on principles of justice and reciprocation, she had written out into char- ters, and so established a precedent for the rulers that followed. She made history. Through her influence her son, called Henry Beauclerc, granted the important char- ter which was the model and precedent of the great Magna Charta. English history is full of the greatness o*f the reign of Edward HI., yet when Philippa died he brought forth only evil deeds, and what was good in his reign is owing almost wholly to the queen. Through her the shipbuilding and commerce began, the navy was established. With her own pin money she brought to England Froissart, to travel at her expense, so the French and English by knowing one another better might have less wars, and that he might meet her charming young relative, Chaucer. With her own money she established the Flemish weavers and cotton and flax indus- tries in Norfolk, built houses for these people she brought from her girlhood home. She began the great commerce of England. It would take volumes to tell all that Philippa did for England to civilize and enlighten it, and cause it to revolve about its own industrial life, instead of seeking to conquer its neighbors. Margaret, born in 1353, in Denmark, daughter of Waldemar HI., was married in 1373 to Haquin, King of Norway, in 1376 regent, too, of Denmark. The year Cath- erine of Sienna died, 1380, she became Queen of Norway. Her son dying, she was acknowledged also sovereign of Denmark. At an assembly of the three countries of Norway, Sweden and Denmark she held at Calmar in 1397 the famous treaty of peace between these contending countries, and formed the " Calmar Union." Her nephew appointed her successor. The Woman's Peace at Cambrai, which held the domination of Venice in check and awakened and helped Western Europe, shows the moderate policy of women, their foresight, judgment and perseverance, higher qualities of mind than aggressive con- quering wars. Margaret, daughter of Ernest of Austria, born in 1416, died in i486; married Frederick the Wise, of Saxony, and had eight children. She was a wise counselor in state affairs. Her husband accorded her the right, which she exercised, of coining money and to assist in governing the state. She contributed much by wise counsel in putting an end to wars. In 1467 her husband died. She reigned and proved herself a mother to her subjects. She died in i486, seventy years old. She was the first sovereign to provide public rooms where the poor could have opportunity to warm themselves during severe winters. Learning and public education by meetings and discourse were inaugurated by her. Poems were recited, the rude dramas and public fairs encouraged. Ann of Denmark, wife of James I., demanded that the crown be put on her head as well as the king's. Her descendants were the powers to form the best civil life in Germany and England, and Elizabeth, the friend of Des Cartes, furthered the highest philosophic thought and practical education. THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 345 "Mother Anna" of Saxony, born in 1531, daughter of Christian III. of Denmark, a protestant, humane and wise king. She was educated by her mother, Dorothea, and the chaplain. In 1548, when seventeen years old, married August of Saxony, a wise ruler. She had fifteen children. She devoted herself to the moral and mental improvement of her people; she had faith in them and patience with the evil. She is called " the mother of her country." She multiplied schools for the people. The rich had tutors in their castles, but she raised the standard of education, making it prac- tical. Under her direction waste land was cultivated, and new foods introduced suited to the soil. On one occasion she headed the pioneers with a spade, carrying it in the procession in order to patronize agriculture, which she did much to improve. She devoted much time to chemistry, natural philosophy, botany, and studied for knowl- edge that her people needed; on all occasions tried to make her knowledge contribute to the happiness, comfort and wealth of her people. She did much not only to improve lands, but the houses of the poor. She aided her husband in welcoming and supporting the Dutch exiles and the cloth and cotton weavers who were driven from their homes by Christian persecution from Holland and France. She accompanied her husband on his travels to learn of the condition of her people and other nations. She distributed the best seed to the people, and taught them how to save and preserve it. She induced her husband to pass a law that every newly married couple must plant and graft two fruit trees during the first year of their marriage. A wise mother of her large family, and a loving, devoted wife, "mother of her country, too," she is an example of the matriarchal ideal. These women did " Mutually leaven Strength of earth with grace of heaven." The great women active from 1450 to 1600 will tell you why the eighteenth cent- ury was so vital with progress, knowledge, and demand for human rights. It was the renaissance of the matriarchal ideal — knowledge with opportunity to work unhindered by supreme authority. That the matriarchal spirit arose in the last century is seen by the awakened curiosity for knowledge: the Encyclopaedias began to collect; the British Museum was established 1753, and interest in Oriental languages began. Rollin's ancient history told us of past nations. Excavations began, and the statues of the great Egyptian women came into view, telling us of a civilization that taught Greeks, Hebrews and Romans. Women have risen in influence with the rise of these matriarchal methods, and this wider knowledge of higher civilizations than Europe had ever had under patri- archal rule. A republic is but a political order of a matriarchal home, as an empire is a patriarchal ideal. The evolution of our republic, as a political organization with matriarchal rather than patriarchal ideals, is a most fruitful study of human activity. The states are a family of children, each have rights and are free to develop individuality, but all must be true to the home, the union of all, the central head; and mark, this is not to obey a patriarchal will, but to adjust their way to order as in a home. It was thus that the uniting in ancient times, of many with one purpose created a greater force than even one mighty man over many slaves obeying his will. This was the first great step in civilization, when individual passion had to curb itself to obey the law of the whole tribe. That was the work of early women in matriarchal times, and today it has to be repeated in every household by the mother teaching the child's will that it must obey the law of the family, its rules and regulations. Each family repeats the history of the world. Thus the influence and light from the great, courageous mothers of the past help women of today. We should realize that we are a part of the history of the world. Those early women were great because with no example, only their own instincts — they first taught and trained children and men in industry, economy and foresight— those traits which make us different from the brute. 346 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. Civil life in a wide continent has to adopt the methods of the matriarchal system, though they are despised by patriarchs. They are based on conference, councils, arbitration, and not commands from one. A patriarch did not confer with his people. He ruled and directed by his sovereign will and his wish. He claimed to be directed by his god, or his angel, or his high priest. Women were directed by their collected reason as to what was right. Their instincts were their authority; so they established the council as authority. Because they were not strong when isolated, they invented habitations that protected them from wild beasts and from lawless persons of their own and other tribes. Their method was the motto of one of the states of our republic: " United we stand, divided we fall." It was this uniting of the mothers to secure ben- efit to their families that began the method of councils and that introduced treaties for peace. Women, not being as strong in body as men, and with the care of their young, could not take risks of starvation or fight with enemies single-handed; so, from their disability in physical strength and animal courage, they developed the defense that comes from thought and invention. For this reason the matriarchal power is older than the patriarchal. The mothers united in council and acted together. When they, from their grain fields, controlled the food supply and the sale of their baskets, trinkets and religious vestments, then they were a power; for that one is master who supplies the food and raiment. Walled cities, large armies broke the matriarchal reign and established empires. Let us turn back four hundred years: Constantinople was taken in 1453 by Moham- medans. In 1480 Columbus was starting for Portugal. Ferdinand and Isabella were in their prime, thirty years of age. Sir Thomas More, Margaret (daughter of Maxi- milian), and the great Mary of Burgundy, were born this year. Sister Hadewych, a nun of Brabant, was collecting songs for the people in their own tongue, thus establishing a unity of the Dutch language. Anna Bljins, the first to write with grace and elegance that language, was writing for the good of people who could not read Latin. From this time the matriarchal stream of thought and ideas have gradually eroded the walls and pillars of patriarchal power. In 1480 the Continent of America was at peace, not yet found by the covetous, wrangling, fighting, stealing, persecuting Europeans. The women here on this conti- nent had their harvest festivals, gathering their corn and potatoes, weaving baskets and making pottery, worshiping what helped them in life in their temples with rev- erence to sun moon and stars: their help and yet their mystery. They had learned that they were connected in some way in guiding and blessing their every-day life with light and growth. It was from their religious island that a woman held high the sacred torch of their worship that greeted Columbus in that dark night of despair with his frail boats on the unknown ocean. The incident is preserved by art in the woman's seal of the World's Columbian Exposition It was the intuitive apprecia- tion and generosity of women that gave Columbus the ability to do his work. The accumulated charts and geographical knowledge, and the fortune and estate of his wife in Porto Santo, and wisdom of her mother, were his opportunity and inspiration. The granddaughter of the great Queen Philippa of England was the mother and inspirer of Henry II. of Portugal, who gave Perestrello, the father of Columbus' wife, his knowledge and his estate. The great women of that time are a study of them- selves. I leave them and go back a century before, to 1380, when closed the lives of two great women whose history remains to teach and inspire us today — Philippa of Hainault and St. Catherine of Sienna. Marcus Aurelius commends the precept of Themistocles to have before the mind some of the many men of antiquity who illustrated by their lives the greatness possi- ble to men. It is equally a benefit for women. Too long we have been kept on his- tory written and illustrated by men's lives; now we want to know the spinners of the fiber of individual character; the knitters who have formed the social life; the weav- ers who have held together by principles and laws the passions of people, so that the strength of each should be the salvation of the whole. The lives of the women in each age will reveal the evolution of the growth of civil life, though men's lives may THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 347 illustrate the revolutions against enemies and usurpers." Plutarch's lives of the great Greeks were powerful in inspiration to the eighteenth century. They were a renais- sance in themselves. This century needs the history of womanhood in civilization. The study of the womanhood of women in high position, in governments, the queens and princesses of Europe, will exert a beneficial influence on all women, for they will learn that the state is but the larger household; and if the study of society, of industries, commerce, religious and educational methods, or the study of govern- ment, is elevating and ennobling for queens; if the study of how to adjust difficulties, develop and rule people is suited for royal families, then it is suited for all fami- lies in a republic where people are sovereigns. It will be a study equally elevating for American women and her family in a republic. The women who, against the prejudice of patriarchal ideals, have tried to bring into this republic recognition of womanhood and matriarchal methods, have been working on the Divine plan of Prov- idence and in the true history of mankind. When the Spaniards came to Peru, South America, they found a learned woman — Capillano. She was born 1 500-1 541. Her manuscripts and paintings are in the Dominicans' Library there now. They represent ancient Peruvian monuments, with historical explanations. There are representations of their plants and the curious dissertations on their properties. The lives of such women are a part of the history of America; but more, they are part of the history of womanhood, as well as of the world. Humanity is not bound by geographical lines. We are interested in what woman has wanted to do and how she has done it. We need to study not only women like ourselves, but those placed in all the various phases of life. The means they may have employed may have been different from our ancestors, but what was their womanhood? That we need to know. There have been elect women in all days who have felt impelled to do and dare, and to bring a higher state of affairs on earth — to work out their ideals of what ought to be into a reality. Have they not always aimed for what they thought was good for mankind? Woman has made her love " the ladder for her faith, and climbs above on the rounds of her best instincts." We know that there were great and good women here in America in prehistoric times. Their works prove it. The fanatical discoverers were too barbaric to appreciate them. They judged a people by their ability to kill and fight and to resist an enemy. Their temples they tried to utterly destroy, and stripped from them gold and silver adornments and sacred offerings and buried the stones, defacing them. We lose the true record of the life lived here; but the work of their hands comes forth from their hidden tombs. There is much to bear witness that there were great women who labored for beauty, for peace, comfort, and an orderly life. We want now a sacred, safe place to gather and preserve, as fast as found the record, the work of these early great women on this oldest continent. We must prove we value knowledge, that we want opportunity to compare what has been evil with what has been good. Then women in the future can write a true history. What will the Exposition do for us? It will carry us forward to new convictions for duty and elevate the rule 01 life. Here we have met companions who were truly such, who enjoy what we enjoy,, and are inspiration as well as fellowship to us. Our horizon has broadened, and the little we know is put into comparison with the infinite we do not know. This collection from all lands, from all races, with exhibition of their endeavors to civilize and attain enlightened humanity, would be a childish, summer play of the nations if it were not a profound examination of civil- ization, its causes, and its growth. "The soul of man is widening toward the past, More largely conscious of the life that was." " Here is the pulse of all mankind Feeding an embryo future." THE FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE OF WOMEN. By MRS. ELLEN M. HENROTIN. In accepting Mrs. Eagle's kind invitation to address this Congress I suggested that a few words on the financial position of women might not be uninteresting. The entrance of women into the labor markets of the world marks a distinctly new era in her financial status, and the economic condition of woman is still a sad one. It is undeniable that the exhibits at the Columbian Exposition testify to the tremendous advance which she has made during the last half cent ury in the industrial world, but it also testifies to the fact that in this world she occupies a very subordi- nate position: not numerically, but as a skilled arti- san. In the modern world her position is relatively but little better than it was in ancient days, when she was the hewer of wood and bearer of water; and that she does not now hew wood and carry water is due to the fact that mechanical appliances perform for humanity the tasks in which primitive woman was engaged. Little by little, woman has emerged from the home and its industries into the modern competitive labor market. It is estimated that there are six thousand women in this country who act as postmistresses; treasury department, one thousand four hundred women. New York City has over one hundred thou- sand women who earn their own living and are supporting families. The average weekly wages of working women in American cities is S5.24, the highest being at San Francisco, S6.91, and the lowest at Atlanta, Ga., S4.05. Over three million women are earning independent incomes in the United States. It is impossible to estimate the number of women who have independent incomes by inheritance. Miss Grace Dodge says that there are two thousand four hundred and eighteen members of the clubs forming the New York Association. The average earnings are five dollars a week; thus, members of the New York Association earn ;S654,68o a year. These figures give no idea of women in the insurance business; teachers, most of whom save something and make small investments; librarians, stenographers, whose wages range from six dollars to eighteen dollars per week; but from the meager statement it is easy to judge of the truly enormous sums of money made and invested each year by women. Why in the nineteenth century, in this land of plenty, flowing with milk and honey, she and her little children should be pushing into this struggle for existence, in which the survival of the fittest seems to be lost sight of, for bread to put in their mouths, is a sociological question which must be left for society, the church and the state to Mrs. Ellen M. Henrotin. was bom in Portland, Me. Her parents were Edward Bryan Martin, Camden, Me., and Sarah Norrie Martin, of that city. She was educated in New Haven, Conn.; Shankland, Isle of Wight, England ; two years in Paris, and two years in Dresden. She has traveled all over Em-ope and America. She married Mr. Charles Henrotin, banker and broker, Chicago, in 1869. Her special work has been in the interest of women and social and economic institutions. Mrs. Henrotin was vice president and acting president of the Woman's Branch of the World's Congress Auxiliary, which arranged various congresses during the Exposition in Chicago in 1898. She filled that position with great credit to herself and profit to women in general. Her postoffice address is Chicago, 111. 348 MRS. ELLEN M, HENROTIN. THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. U9 answer. That she is in the labor market today as a permanent factor is apparent even to the most superficial observer, and the next question is, How to improve her economic and financial condition so that life may be made at least worth the living. This may seem but a poor ambition, but it is, after all, the highest possessed by the great majority: that their life may be fairly comfortable, and passed under such con- ditions that the next generation may be a little better and a little wiser. There is no more patent sign of the times than the fact that woman is attracting the attention of the financial world, and that her large property interests are being recognized as*an integral part of the so-called " Woman Question." She has always been recognized as a worker, but as a worker along the lines in which her financial rewards did not render her an object of special consideration in the moneyed world. Now, however, all this is changed, the money or the savings which she accumulates are invested in moneyed institutions, as building and loan associations, real estate, and mortgages on real estate. The amount thus invested is in the hundred millions. Mr. Ethelbert Stewart, of the Department of Labor at Washington, sends me the following report: " The relative numerical position of men and women as investors in building and loan associations is as one to four. That is to say, twenty-five per cent of the build- ing and loan shares of stock in the eastern and middle western states are owned by women. In New Jersey every fourth shareholder is a woman, as is seen from the figures: Total, 78,725 shareholders; 58,496 males, 19,341 females; nine hundred and eighty-eight corporations and firms: percentages, seventy-four per cent., twenty-five per cent, and one per cent, respectively. The " present value " of the shares held by women in New Jersey is 56,401,593. By present value is meant dues paid in, together with accrued profits. Of the borrowers, or those who are securing homes for themselves by means of building and loan associations: In New York State 32,699 women hold 126,874 shares of stock, having a present value of ^^5,935,554, and a maturity value of approximately twenty-five million dollars. The total membership of these societies in New York is composed of twenty-four per cent, women, though only about twenty per cent, of the stock is held by women. In the city of Philadelphia 34,4000 women hold stock valued at $10,059,861, while the stock matured and withdrawn, either in money or in canceled mortgages, equals 515,000,000 more, within the past "maturing period" of eight years. In the State of Pennsylvania $22,200,000 worth of building and loan stock is held by 92,000 women. Of the ^960,000,000, representing the net assets of building and loan associations in the United States, $192,000,000 worth is held by 2,400,000 women. The law of Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and probably many other states, makes building and loan stock taken out by women, and when the dues upon said stock is paid by them, to be theirs in every particular, and not subject to attachment or execution for their husbands' debts. The question of the source from whence the dues come which are paid on shares held by women, is one that can not be answered in a very comprehensive way. One association, in New York City, visited by the writer, had sixty-three chambermaids among its membership, each earning by her own labor the money invested. In a teachers' building and loan association in New York City ninety per cent, of the members were women earning their own money, and many of them having built several houses for rent through the association. In Buffalo, N. Y., I asked twenty- seven women who came in to pay their dues how they got the money. Twelve replied their husbands gave it to them. One said her husband supported the family and she swept a large house for a wealthy lady twice each week and invested the earnings in building and loan stock. Another baked bread for three different families, and thus earned the money invested in dues. Five others earned the money themselves by various extra domestic jobs, such as sewing or washing for a neighbor. In all, seven married women earned their own funds; twelve did not. The remaining eight were unmarried and worked for their living. 350 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. I have attended the meetings of scores of building and loan associations and asked the female members as they came in to pay dues what their source of income was, and I believe that less than fifty per cent, of them derive their mofiey from their husbands. That is to say, one million three hundred and fifty thousand women are investing in building and loan stock the money they earn themselves, and this self- earned money, as distinguished from the total held by women is, at a low estimate, ^86,000,000. Women investors in building and loan associations are usually working women or the wives of working men. A great many clerks and school teachers invest in this manner, as building associations hold out the prospect of obtaining a home, which is the goal of woman's endeavor; for almost every woman has some one for whom she desires to create a home; if not her own children, then parents or a sister or a brother; in fact, this is the strong motive among working women, and to attain this end they walk many a weary mile and deprive themselves of many a pleasure. Women should exercise great care and do their best to ascertain from a reliable source the financial status of the association in which they desire to invest. The tremendous financial power which women might become in this country they have never as yet realized. At my request, Mr. Hepburn, the late comptroller of the currency, sent out to the national banks a request to furnish him with a list of women holding bank stock, and the statistics which he collected were sent to me by Mr. Eckels. It is an interesting point that the large amount of stock in banks owned by women does not come to them as a reward of their own labor, but is usually given by some relative. The tendency of men to put their money in the hands of women is becom- ing a very pronounced one; also most husbands and fathers consider bank stock a safe investment to leave to women. It is easily managed, the income is usually an assured one, and in the present status of women's information on financial matters, it does not require very much ability to draw little slips of paper against a definite sum; conse- quently that is regarded as an easy way of disposing of their future, and this is the point of view to be combated. Were the women of this country once to realize their power, the sense of ethical responsibility born of power would rise within them. They would no longer content themselves with giving their proxy when asked for it, and never voting themselves or attending a stockholders' meeting. There is also another side. The men are constantly.saying they are overworked: this is made the excuse for the bad management of many corporations. There are a large number of intelligent women in this country, owning great financial interests; these women would make excellent directors, they are conservative; with a little exer- tion they could acquire the requisite knowledge of finance and then relieve the men of some of the tremendous burdens from which they now suffer. Before continuing further I will give the figures of the comptroller of the currency. It must be borne in mind that these figures represent only the national banks, and not all of them. In some states the private banks do not report. THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 351 STATEMENT SHOWING BY STATES AND TERRITORIES THE NUMBER OF SHARES OF NATIONAL BANK STOCK OWNED BY WOMEN APRIL 15, 1893, AND PAR VALUE OF SAME. ALSO THE NUMBER OF WOMEN EMPLOYED IN NATIONAL BANKS ON SAME DATE, AND AMOUNT OF SALARIES PAID TO SAME. Statb and Terbitoeies. Maine New Hampshire. Vermont Massachusetts Rhode Island Connecticut New York New Jersey Pennsylvania Delaware Maryland District ot Columbia Virginia West Virginia North Carolina South Carolina. Georgia I^lorida Alabama Mississippi Louisiana Texas Arkansas Kentucky Tennessee Ohio Indiana Illinois Michigan Wisconsin Iowa Minnesota Missouri Kansas Nebraska Colorado Nevada California Oregon Arizona North Dakota South Dakota Idaho Montana New Mexico Oklahoma Indian Territory.... Utah Wyoming Washington Total No. of Shares Par Vtdae of Sharee No. of Women Salaries of Women Owned by Women- Owned by Women. Employed. Employed. 27,.343 $ 2,540,905 6 $ 2,296 13,635 1,;350,493 11 4,541 25,6:33 1,719,666 6 2,550 214,169 21,738,195 32 15,394 126,931 6,593.770 2 1,000 68,774 4,922,786 5 1,526 264,053 18,317,471 44 18,952 56,894 3,604,290 3 1,106 267,779 17,267,184 26 10,723 12,768 755,075 1 360 119,886 3,739,205 1 416 3,349 3;M,900 1 60 7,174 717,400 4,316 422,366 7,351 549,250 3,799 379.910 5,932 589,'380 2 1,200 988 98,850 1 60 31,962 698,700 1,560 156,000 4,174 417,475 2 1,560 213,261 2,326,570 3 1,700 1,477 147,700 1 600 32,331 3,085;580 6 2,680 15,404 1,496,400 4 3,920 100,547 10,381,631 23 9,399 30,255 3,025,558 24 11,510 58,927 5,892,780 27 14.859 24,a50 2,464,091 11 5,780 11,849 108,675 12 5,116 16.306 1,620,488 21 9,593 29,563 3,032.177 13 5,640 30,775 3,110,650 15 9.520 10,008 1,061,088 21 8,820 8,927 903,318 19 10,090 5,187 • 518,700 4 2,520 5,000 12.805 "e" 1,310,.375 5,280 2,093 224.800 4 2,450 30 3,000 2,102 210,200 4 1,930 2.988 302,820 9 4,329 393 39.300 1 600 2,427 242,700 3 2.900 1,112 111,200 79 7,900 330 33,000 3,229 322,900 2,192 219,200 1 500 5,098 590,213 8 4,376 1,703.759 $130,681,485 383 $185,797 The statistics of women as bank employes show that but a small number have entered banking offices, though women are admirably fitted for such employment. The work is well systematized; the hours fixed; there is no night work, comparatively speak- ing; and they are very expert in the handling of money. The well-known bank exam- 852 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. iner, Mr. Sturges, has written a paper on this subject, which will be found in the records of the Congress. I have written to every woman bank cashier in this country, and I have received many interesting letters, among others one from Mrs. Annie Moores, President of the First National Bank of Mount Crescent, Texas. She says that she had never had her attention drawn to this point before, but that she immediately made it a subject of investigation and was perfectly amazed at the result. She happened at the time she received my letter to be in Virginia, and her investigation was in the County of Suffolk. She found eight stockholders in the bank of Monsmont were women, possessing by inheritance one-third of the stock, which they all voted by proxy. Further investiga- tion has proved that two-thirds of the National bank stock of this entire county of Suffolk is owned by women, Mrs. Simpson, who is President of the Simpson Bank of Columbus, Texas, gives very much the same figures; and adds that woman to be capable of investing funds wisely and judiciously must be possessed of three essential qualifications — to wit: A knowledge of matters of finance, self-confidence, and firm- ness. The keynote of the relation of the sexes is really a financial one; this may appear a very materialistic view to take of the situation, but the readjustment now in progress between the relative position of the sexes is largely of that character. Life was com- paratively a simple thing when the law recognized but one responsible head to the family, of arbitrary power over its goods and chattels. The position of a married woman or an unmarried woman in the household was that of a dependent. She was expected to marry; failing that the family had a right to her services without remuner- ation. Under this primitive system protected by the English common law , the family was really presided over by the father. No one acquainted with the social life of this country forty years ago can deny this fact. The wife, in many cases the active partner of the concern, had absolutely no financial independence. Most of the young women of that day employed themselves in household work; some few taught school; some few went out as seamstresses and dressmakers, and their wages were largely appro- priated by the younger members of the family to help the boys through college or for current expenses. Only a widow, and she in a very limited sense, ever thought of com- merce, and no consideration was given to women as investors, their "nearest of kin" among men doing the investing for them. But within the last thirty years, public opinion, and the laggard that always follows it, the law, have revolutionized the financial standing of woman. The Code Napoleon was the forerunner of the financial emancipation of woman, recognizing as it did her financial status as a partner in marriage; consequently French women are financiers, and are more largely engaged in commerce than the women of any other nation, and not as employes but as employers and partners; because the Code conferred on them, early in the development of the women question, a financial .standing; and, far from being a source of danger to the family, it has proved in France to be the surest foundation on which the family can be established. The baneful influence of the English common law in regard to marriage can never be overestimated, creating, as it has, between husband and wife, the feeling that the finances are exclusively in the hands of the husband; so that money is an unfor- tunate subject to discuss after marriage, and one to be scrupulously avoided before marriage. Many a girl marries a man ignorant of his financial resources, and most men in this country marry a woman without any discussion as to her financial pros- pects from her family or herself. The constant tendency of modern legislation is to rehabilitate the family as a partnership; and while the laws relating to the property of married women are modified and liberalized until her position is approximately one founded on justice, these laws are of so recent enactment that the feeling of ethical responsibility as to the making, managing and spending of money is not yet developed. Bank stocks are also largely in the hands of widows, or women who are not convers- ant with the needs of the younger generation, and consequently carry out old-fash- THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 353 ioned methods of giving their proxy to any one who desires to vote it. If once the feeling of moral responsibility toward the financial interests of the country could be aroused in women it would be greatly to the advantage of the country. In her heart of hearts she dearly loves a plain statement, especially about financial matters. She hates to be in debt, and extended lines of credit present no charms to her. She would be a tremendous conservative factor could she once undertake the management of her own financial affairs. . The French woman of today is conservative. Her constant participation in the commerce of the nation is creating of that country the financial stronghold of the world, prosperous, wealthy, and economical. I am not one to clamor for laws favor- ing the financial independence of women, and which are virtually aimed at her further enslavement. Too much protection is often dangerous. Her estate should be equally liable with that of her husband for the living expenses of the family, but not for his personal debts; where her money is being employed in business she should have the rights of an acting partner, and sufficient time allowed her at his death to wind up the affairs of the partnership, or create a new partnership if she so desires. There is no reason why a woman should not go into business with her husband, and it is a mistaken idea that business should not be discussed at home, and a far greater mis- take for a woman not to have the right of entrance at her husband's ofifice. A woman is a thousand times a better companion who is informed as to the finances of the country, who knows the whys and wherefores of the market, and standing a little out- side, with full knowledge of the inside, make her an invaluable counselor. There is something, too, in the added security of a man at his death feeling that he leaves behind him a woman able to direct her own business affairs, and with the knowledge requisite to put to its best use either the large or small amount of property which he leaves to his family. (23) THE CHOLERA IN HAMBURG. By MISS ANNESLEY KENEALY. To some of my hearers it may seem as if the subject of my paper is rather grue- some, but upon reflection it would appear to be a matter not only of public interest, but of national welfare, that every possible ray of light should be cast on the mysteries and develop- ment of that dreaded cholera which worked so much destruction in Hamburg during the autumn of 1892, and which appeared to threaten the whole continent of Europe. An account of the rise, the progress and the decline of the epidemic in that city may be instruct- ive and suggestive. Cholera is a disease of which little more is known now than was known when Eugene Sue described it so graphically in the pages of "The Wandering Jew" — a description which is thrillingly realistic to anyone who has stood face to face with it. It arises silently and stealthil)', doing its dreaded work surely and without pity. Atmosphere and climatic conditions affect the development of the germ, for cholera is essentially a germ disease, and impure water and bad sanitation complete the growth. These conditions combined in September, 1892, in Hamburg, and adjoin- ing cities were startled to find the disease so close upon them. As we drove through the streets of the city after a hurried journey from England to the seat of war, if one may so express it, we caught glimpses of the so-called " cholera streets" where the disease arose. The architecture in its antiquity and picturesqueness filled us with admiration; the canals of Stygian blackness, flowing on a level with the lower floors of the houses, reminded us of bits of old Venice, and wanted only the gondo- liers to complete the illusion. But while one's artistic senses were satisfied, one's sani- tary knowledge rose in revolt against the neglect of all the laws of health as typified in these charming " slums." It would appear that in the towns of Europe it is almost impossible for Art and Hygiene to walk hand in hand. The beautiful " White City " has shown us that they may do so in America. The condemnation of the " cholera streets " is a gain to sanitation, but a terrible sacrifice of art on the altars of the pub- lic weal. The gloomy station at which we alighted was typical of the deserted condition of the city, five Sisters of Mercy and ourselves being the only travelers. To our minds the lapse of duty on the part of the railway employes in forgetting to take our tickets Miss Annesley Kenealy is a native of Sassex, England. Her parents were the late Edward Kenealy, Q. C, LL. D., and M. P., andElizabeth Kenealy. She waseducated by private tutorsinLatin, Greek, science, mathematics, etc., andstudiedatthe London College of Medicine for women. She has traveled, studying the hospital systems in'the- United States, Norway, Holland, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal. Her special work has been in the interest of the social and political advancement of women, also in the interests of philanthropy. She was a volunteer nurse during the cholera epidemic in Hamburg in 1892. She was appointed by the Royal Commission of England a judge in the Hygienic and Sanitary Section of the World's Fair, Chicago, 1893, and was invited to prepare the official report of the Department for presentation to U. S. Congress. Her principal literary works are contributions to the "British Medical Journal," many leading English periodicals, pam- phlets and books. Her profession is that of a lecturer on health to national health societies and the British County Councils. Her postoffice address is Watford, Herts, England. 354 MISS ANNESLEY KENE.^LY. THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 355 -was the strongest possible proof of public demoralization that we saw. That German officialdom could be caught napping was indeed one of the wonders of the cholera epidemic. The city and its streets looked as if under the shadow of a great destiny. Funerals and funeral wreaths, mourners and signs of mourning met us at every corner. The absence of women and children was very conspicuous. It was as if some Pied Piper had passed along and robbed the city of its ornaments. But we learned that forty thousand of the residents had fled on the first mention of cholera, a large pro- portion of these being women and children. A picturesque procession, known as the Volunteer Company of Health of Hohen- felde, met us on our route. It consisted of some two dozen men and boys with pails and carboys of chemicals, whose self-imposed duty it was to go to the places where the disease had been, and thoroughly disinfect and cleanse the rooms and houses. In the early days of the epidemic undoubtedly great confusion reigned; but military dis- cipline soon asserted itself, and out of chaos came order of a most admirable type. I venture to think that few cities of the world would have shown such resource and strength to meet the invasion of so formidable a foe as did Hamburg. The only weak point about the siege was that in the beginning of the epidemic the authorities refused to acknowledge that the enemy was within their gates. Thus the germ was able to take possession of many strongholds which could have been rendered impregnable if proper measures of safety had been adopted sufficiently early. When the fact that cholera had taken possession of the city could no longer be concealed, military cor- dons were drawn around the infected quarters, ingress and egress being limited to physicians and attendants. But as the proportions of the disease increased, it vvas found necessary to clear the hospitals of their ordinary patients to make room for the cholera-stricken. In the Eppendorf Hospital, where my sister and I spent some three weeks, there was found accommodation for nearly two thousand patients. This hos- pital, which is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful in the world, and which closely resembles the Johns Hopkins Hospital of Baltimore, reminded us in its proportions and appearance of a friendly fortress strong to save, and offering a safe refuge to those taking shelter within its walls. The grounds and gardens, full of beautiful flowers and shrubs, the beautiful creepers covering the building, looked, especially at night, when lighted up by electricity, a veritable scene in fairyland. But this likeness was limited to the externals. In the wards there was only the grim realism of suffering and death. In addition to the large wards and partitions, further accommodation was fur- nished by hospital tents similar to. those used in the Franco-Prussian war, which stood picturesquely dotted about in a large waste field adjoining the grounds. These tents grew up almost like the beanstalk of the fairy story — in a single night — and bore testi- mony to the excellency of the arrangements made by those in authority. Rows of beds stood ready for occupancy, electricity lighted up the interiors as well as the out- side, and the tents flying the Red Cross, the emblem of charity and pity, gave one the sense of being in the midst of some military encampment. From a theoretical stand- point, treatment in the open air under canvas would seem a desirable method of treat- ing cholera, and it would appear that thus there would be less danger of the spread of the disease; but, practically, it has been shown that in the cold collapsed condition of the patient, the open air is too depressing. An admirable system of police notifica- tion of fresh cases was established, prompt removal being effected by a service of two- horsed cabs, which were kept busy night and day. Each vehicle vvas accompanied by an official, whose duty it was to take the name and address of the stricken patients and furnish this to the hospital, thus affording a ready means of identification in case of death In the early days of the epidemic, patients were picked up in the streets, unconscious, dying and dead, and were carried to the various hospitals without any means of tracing their families and friends. The disease originated in the shipping quarter, having been brought to Hamburg from the Black Sea by a vessel which successfully concealed the fact that its crew had been stricken by cholera some two months previously. It was natural, therefore, that 356 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. the sailors and those who go down to the sea in ships should be first attacked. Many- foreigners fell victims, whose names never will be known, and whose friends will vainly wait for tidings from and of the lost ones. Curiously enough, my sister was recently asked by a German woman, whom she met in an English country town, whether she could give her any news of a sister who had been lost sight of during the Hamburg epidemic, and who, it was feared, must have shared the common fate. It was by no means unusual for whole families to be taken to the same hospital and distributed in the various wards according to sex and accommodation. Spacious and roomy as these wards were, their capacity was tried to the utmost, the beds, of necessity, being so close that the patients might almost have joined hands round the circumference of the ward. Had not the ventilating and sanitary arrangements been almost perfect, a very serious condition of things would have arisen. The stone floors admirably lent themselves to assidious deluging and mopping with suitable disinfectants. Thus the career of the germ was early cut off. The appearance of the cholera patient is typical and unlike that of one suffering from any other disease. He is collapsed, with a dusky blackness of skin in many- cases, giving the suggestion that his body has been thickly powdered with coal-dust. The normal lines are blackened and deepened, the expression haggard and wan. List- lessness and apathy are expressed in every attitude, and the mental condition, unless the case be complicated with delirium, is distinctly one of lethargy. The rapid emacia- tion of the body through the draining of the tissue fluids is characteristic only of chol- era, and is noticeable in all severe cases. It gives an aged, withered look to the patient, and even the dimpled, rounded limbs of the young child will lose contour, and become wrinkled and shrunk in the space of a few hours. A consuming thirst is so great as to almost absorb all other sensations, and results in the enormous consumption of liquids and in part restores the loss of the fluid components of the body through the disease. This thirst is constant and unrelievable, and was one of the difficulties of the situation. Hard pressed as we were to supply the bare needs of our patients, it was most pathetic to be frequently obliged to ignore for a space their entreaties for drink of any and every kind, and to note the wistful, thirsty eyes of the occupants as we passed their beds to supply some one whose needs were greater. The tight clutch of baby hands on mugs and glasses told us how real was the desire for liquid. Often in the midst of our duties we would hear a small thud on the ground, followed by patter of little feet that scarcely knew how to walk, setting out on a small voyage of discovery and investigation into the contents of bottles and jugs that stood in the wards. It has been said that a large proportion of cholera patients die of fear, but I believe this conclusion to have been reached from observations made in India. Doubtless the nervous, highly-strung Hin- doo would see in the invasion of cholera the finger of fate, against which he would believe medical skill to be quite powerless, but the phlegmatic Teuton gave no evi- dence of a belief in an unassailable Kismet. It frequently occurred to us that the choleraic condition killed all natural emotion. Little sisters side by side in bed, one would die, and the other would take no notice and feel no fear. Older children would see their mothers carried dead from the wards, and would watch the procession as of something afar off that had no relation to them. The rapid succession of patients was most bewildering — not, unfortunately, because of recovery, but because of deaths. Almost before we had time to know the faces of our patients they were removed to the mortuary, and others were ready to take the vacant beds. Cholera spares neither sex nor age. Our patients ranged from the baby at the breast to those who had fulfilled their three-score years and ten. The fight was by no means always to the strong, and victory not at all necessarily to those of robust nature. Treatment consisted chiefly of venous injections of warm salt and water, combined with hot, stimulating baths and packs, but the general consensus of medical opinion at Hamburg was that no remedy could in any sense be relied on. Our ov»n experience bears out that which has been aptly said regarding the disease, that " if the patient be strong enough, or can in any way be assisted to survive the attack, it might be said he was cured of cholera, but it THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. 357 was the man who lived, and not that the cholera was killed." Prevention is the only cure. Epidemics are nature's health officers, and they do their work efficiently if they are sufficientl}' serious to impress themselves upon the public mind. Slowly and by degrees, as malarial and deadly spots in India are drained and sanitated, the outbreaks of cholera are fewer and less serious. Pisease is a foe that recedes as the missionaries of health advance. Gradually, as more light is thrown on the science of hygiene, the legions of microbes ever lurking in darkness and dirt are stifled in their growth and become weaker and weaker. The insanitation of India, the starvation and misery of Russia, are a standing menace to the peoples of Europe, and so long as these exist, each year we will have to gird up our strength to meet the foe, and shall have to grapple hard to keep him to his own quarters — the quarters of dirt and uncivilization. In these days of express speed we have many adv^antages. The railroad and steamboat bring us into relation with the uttermost ends of the earth and the peoples thereof, but we must not lose sight of the fact that at the same time we are brought into contact with the moral and physical diseases of all these different peoples. The "sins of Hamburg" were great, and eventually found her out. Nature had dealt very gently with her breaches of the eternal laws of health. Thirteen compara- tively mild epidemics had failed to suggest to the city authorities the necessity of putting their house in order. The Elbe water was still supplied in all its native and imported impurity, and then came the fourteenth warning, sadder, sharper and effect- ual, and Hamburg has risen to the occasion. From her commercial position and har- bor accommodations Hamburg is peculiarly open to the importation of foreign diseases, and it is only by keeping her hearths well garnished and the city household in health that she can afford to admit suspicious visitors. It is a matter of menace and regret that she did not enforce compulsory cremation during the cholera epidemic. A beau- tiful crematorium, hitherto practically unused, stood all through the epidemic as a silent but eloquent monument to the prejudices of the people. In certain conditions of the soil a cholera body is more dangerous to the community when below than when above the ground, and it is much to be feared that a heavy day of reckoning must come when it is remembered that countless thousands of cholera corpses are giving their noxious emanations to the atmosphere of Hamburg. A physician, recently writing in a professional paper, makes use of the following astonishing statement that "cholera gives a new lease of life to the sufferer." This may be so if he means us to understand some transcendental lease in another sphere, but if he alludes to a lease here below, I cannot but think that the most of us should object to the terms of the agreement. There is no question but that, in the marvelous cleaning up ot Europe that has followed the cholera scare, there will be found new leases of life to whole nations consequent to improved health conditions. Let me commend the system to Chicago. In my stay here during the World's Fair I have noted whole rows of " cholera streets," which have not even the excuse of being artistic. Tracts were distributed broadcast among the patients in the German hospitals persuading them in solemn language that the cholera epidemic was a merciful dis- pensation on the part of a wise Providence, and that the gentle chastisement had been sent as a reminder that their ways of life were evil. But not a word was said of the evil ways of the authorities of the city, who allowed the water supply to become so polluted that " death in the cup" might be taken more as a statement of fact than as a poetical exaggeration. In conclusion let me offer a deserved tribute to the energy, the self-denial and •devotion of Hamburg and her sons and daughters during the period of suffering. Nurses, physicians and attendants worked with a singleness of purpose and forgetful- ness of self. Much illness arose and many deaths occurred in the ranks, but all stood by their guns with a courage that was one of the most hopeful beacons at a time when encouraging signals were much needed. Truly " unhappy Hamburg" has been the scapegoat for sanitary sins. She was 358 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN. far in advance of most continental cities in sanitation, notwithstanding she was singled out and other much worse offenders were passed by unharmed. But the warning has been to all to gird up their loins and prepare their strongholds to meet attacks from an enemy so mighty and subtle and mysterious that his coming is always stealthy, and, as it were, in the dead of night. THE GLORY OF WOMANHOOD. By MADAME HANNA K. KORANY. It is a fact that a seeker for truth will walk by its direction, guided by its, rays and fight, if need be, for its victory; for truth is like a noonday sun, shedding his illumin- ating rays and clearing from the face of nature the veil of darkness, that it may appear to the naked eye in its wealth of beauty and majestic excellence. ^r'; .."*^ - . r- Knowledge is but a curse, devoid of truth, the staff with which wisdom guards her steps. Humanity could not be elevated, except by following the dicca- tion of truth, which leads man to be patriotic, philan- thropic; inventor and orator; making him a laborer in the fields of noblest action. Rousseau, the famous French writer, when speak- ing of woman said, " Her glory is in being unknown." He betrayed his doubt of her capabilities and her large intelligence, exhibiting as well his great selfish ambition in confining power and glory to men alone. Fortunately for woman, the storm of mental progress blew away this theory; for many women stand before the world in triumphant glory, victorious over all obstacles; striving they write in large letters of light on the margin of truth, *' There is glory for woman that no shadow can eclipse," The great-souled, noble woman has won and is crowned with laurel in spite of all the powers that have worked to keep her unknown. There is a glory in store for every woman, let her but labor for its possession. But what is this glory? What are the ways and means to it, and how can she gain it? Is it by taking arms and waging war against her fellows, murdering as many as she is able, and returning from the tumult of war in a crimson suit colored with the blood of men, or by exploring unknown regions, searching for gold and treasures, returning with beasts. laden with wealth? Oh, no! for such deeds and their glory belong to man. What then? Does woman gain glory by sitting on the throne of royalty with the scepter of power, or by dwelling in palaces of luxury where all that money could buy is to be found? Never. Many who sat on thrones of dominion and power are only famous for cruelty, injustice, and even degradation; and many passed their lives in bondage to selfishness; departing, leaving none to sing their praises. Piety or purity is the garb of woman's glory. Without it, all her wisdom, knowledge, intelligence and patience amount to nothing; for piety alone purifies the heart and mind, elevates the morals and uplifts womanhood. A woman should be wise if she would be glorious. Mailame Hanna K. Korany is a native of Beyroiit, Syria. She was born in a little village on Mt. Lebanon in the year 1871. Her parents were natives of Syria and belonged to good old families. She was educated in the American seminary for girls at Beyront, where she stndied science, art and the languages, and was graduated 1885. She has traveled in parts of her own country, in Malta, France, England and America. She married Amin Efifendi Korany in 1887. Her special work has been in the interest of her own country women. She was the first.of them to appear ae a public writer. Her principal literary works are a book on "Manners and Habits," several essays and fonr translations. Madame Korany came to the C'olnmbian Exposition in the double capacity of an exhibitor and a delegate to the World's Congress. She tliinks of spending some time here tolectare upon the Orient and its women. In religious faith she is a Christian, and a member of the Presbyterian Church. Her postofBce address is Beyrout, Syria. 359 MADAME HANNA KORANY. 360 THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN Carrying with her the safeguard of knowledge, she avoids failure and is qualified to fight the battle of life and win the victory. Wisdom is the crown of glory and scepter of power for woman. Most of the misery and wretchedness of humanity arethebitter fruits of ignorance and stupidity. It is impossible for any woman to fill her place as a mother, wife and mistress of home, unless she is possessed of sense and wisdom to meet the vicissitudes of life. To improv^e the race, we want healthy, cultivated women. Really, it does seem strange that an impression should have taken hold of the world, especially in the East, that woman's duties in life should require less education and preparation than man's. Yet it is so. 1 used frequently to hear our people say, " Oh it does not matter about the girl, but I am anxious about the boy. " Man's duties in this world may be noble enough; I would be the last to ignore their grandeur. But woman's office is a very sacred one; for the world is what woman makes it. As the mother of men, she stamps indelibly upon them her own weakness or talent, health or disease. Hence, I believe that woman should have a liberal education to fit her for the responsibilities of wife, mother and general educator. Woman should be thankful and happy in her place in creation. It is noble and glorious. She is the ruling queen and may be the leader in progress. It is her own fault if she does not labor to be dressed with purity, crowned with wisdom, and adorned with the jewels of patience and peseverance. I cannot under- stand why women should not be satisfied, why she seeks to push man to do his work. It would never do to have them labor in the same field of action. This is against the law of nature which provides a sphere for everything. Equality between the sexes is not in the equal portion of the same work, but the equality of their whole contribution to the welfare of the race. Woman should glory in womanhood, in being the mother of men, the doctor of moral and mental diseases, in offering to mankind the fruit of her labors and experience, so they might grow together strong in understanding, rounded in intellect, prepared for pure and glorious lives. ARE WOMEN CITIZENS AND PEOPLE? By MRS. EMILY BURTON KETCHAM. At the time of the Republican National Convention, in June, 1892, hundreds of women, as well as men, were waiting eagerly to see what issues that party would adopt in their platform as the issues for which they would carry on their campaign. Carefully we read their declaration of principles as telegraph and press brought them to our homes. With surprise and joy we read the following: "We demand that every citizen of the United States shall be allowed to cast one free and unrestricted ballot in all public elections. That a free ballot and a fair count shall be guaranteed to every citizen and all of the people." That surely meant women as well as men, for, by the Supreme Court of the United States, we are citizens, and certainly we are people; but to make certainty doubly sure, I wrote to Hon. J. B. Foraker, chairman of Committee on Resolutions, quoting the words, and asking if by " every citizen," and " all of the people," his committee considered women a part of all the people, " whose free and honest ballot, the just and equal representation as well as their just and equal protection under the laws," to whom the Republican party gave their guar- anty " to protect in every state," to which the honor- able gentleman replied, briefly and frankly, thus: "I can only say, speaking for myself, that I did not understand the words you quoted to be intended to include women, and, therefore, to amount to a declaration in favor of female suffrage." Webster defines a citizen as one who enjoys the freedom and priviliges of a city. The freeman of a city as distinguished from a foreigner, or one not entitled to its fran- chises, a person, native or naturalized, who has the privilege of voting for public officers, and who is qualified to fill offices in the gift of the people; also, any native- born or naturalized person of either sex who is entitled to full protection in the exer- cise and enjoyment of the so-called private rights, which latter definition is in har- mony with the United States Supreme Court decisions. Article IV, section 2, in the Constitution of the United States, says: "The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states." Article IX says: "The enumeration of certain rights shall not be considered to deny or disparage others retained by the people." Article XIV says: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States, and of the state Mrs. Emily Burton Ketcham is a native of Grand Kapi