SE\WnE-G-M\RRffll THE WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE A SERIES OF ORIGINAL ESSAYS EDITED BY THEODORE STANTON, MA. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY FRANCES POWER COBBE " If you would know the political and moral status of a people, demand what place its women occupy." — L. Aim4 Martin, "On the Education of Mothers," Boole I., Chapter VI. "There is nothing, I think, which marks more decidedly the character of men or of nations, than the manner in which they treat women." — Herder, " Philosophy of History " (French Edition), Vol. II., Book VIII., Chapter IV. LONDON SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, AND RIVINGTON Crown Buildings, Fleet Street 1884 I DEDICATE THIS WORK TO MY MANY COLLABORATORS, AND, ABOVE ALL, TO MARGUERITE BERRY, MY WIFE, WHOSE PARTICIPATION HAS NOT BEEN LIMITED TO A SINGLE CHAPTER, BUT EXTENDS THROUGHOUT EVERY PAGE OF THE VOLUME. T. S. EDITOR'S PREFACE. I BEGAN collecting the materials for this volume in the winter of i88o-'8i. It was my wish to secure, in each country of Europe, the collaboration of one or more women, who, in connection with a literary training, had participated, either actively or in spirit, in some phase of the women's movement, — that remarkable social revolu- tion now going on in old Europe as well as in young America. With the exception of the chapter on Portu- gal and a portion of the chapter on France, all the con- tributions are from the pens of women. One of the most distinguished Portuguese authoresses, Mrs. Maria Amalia Vaz de Garvalho, had promised to speak for her country, when a sudden illness interrupted her work. Mr. Rodrigues de Freitas, the well-known Portuguese publicist and republican, kindly came forward to fill the gap. The chapter on France differs materially from the others, both as regards its form and its amplitude. France, while accomplishing less than almost any other country in the practical amelioration of woman's condi- tion, has, in the field of ideas, always led the world. What her thinkers and reformers have written and spoken, other nations have put into practice. France has already solved theoretically the woman question, as she has all the other great problems of the nineteenth cent- vi EDITOR'S PREFACE. ury. Hence it is that so much space has been devoted to this one country. It is hoped that the brief histori- cal retrospect with which the chapter begins will explain and complete the other chapters. It has been my en- deavor, as far as possible, to have each separate topic treated by a writer possessing special information on such topic. It is therefore believed that the statements and conclusions will be found trustworthy and important. It will be noticed that England has the first place and the lion's share of the volume. But, as it is in Great Britain of all Europe that, on the whole, the most marked progress has been made, especially in the direction of po- litical rights, the summum bonum of the age, the largest space and the post of honor justly belong to the Mother Country. In the arrangement of the chapters, I have striven to observe an ethnological order. First comes Anglo-Saxon England, followed by the Teutonic countries — Germany, Holland and Austria ; then Scandinavia, embracing Nor- way, Sweden and Denmark ; next the Latin nations — France, Italy, Spain and Portugal ; then Latin-Teutonic Belgium and Switzerland ; afterward the Slavonic States — Russia, Poland and Bohemia ; and, finally, the Orient. Hungary should have had its separate place in the Sla- vonic group ; but, after repeated efforts, I was unable to find a collaborator in that country, and the reader, unfort- unately, must be contented with the few words devoted to Hungarian women in the chapter on Austria. How- ever, as Hungary is an integral part of the empire of the Hapsburgs, much of what is said in the chapters given to Austria and Bohemia applies equally well to Hun- gary. I have endeavored to make this volume on the Euro- EDITOR'S PREFACE. yii pean movement for women a storehouse of facts rather than a philosophical study. The latter itself presents, however, a theme of the deepest interest, and one which, if I may be permitted to say so, might well be based on the material found in the following pages. Exactness, therefore, has been one of the chief cares of the editor. In order to secure this end, the translated portions of this work were, before being sent to the printer, submitted to the authors in the English form. The first proofs, and, in some cases, the second proofs also, were passed under their eyes, and, in many instances, were carefully exam- ined by third parties, natives of the countries treated therein. It is hoped that, by this means, accuracy has been secured, not only as regards the facts, but also in the orthography of proper names, so often disfigured in pass- ing through a foreign press. I beg, however, the indulgence of the reader for any errors which may be discovered in these pages; for, with the editor on one side of the Atlantic, and the publisher on the other, the difficulties of proof-reading have been greatly increased. The double translation which some of the essays have undergone may have occasioned a few misconstructions. Without counting the English, the contributions to this volume came to the editor in six dif- ferent languages, viz., German, Italian, Spanish, Norwe- gian, Polish and modern Greek. But, as has already been said, the English text has been examined more than once by the authors, who — a fact worthy of note, by the way — are, with but two exceptions, conversant with the English tongue. My work has not been simply that of a translator, but the more difficult one of an editor. The principal object of this volume was, as has just been stated, to furnish viii EDITOR'S PREFACE. facts. The style in which these facts were to be pre- sented was to be free from extravagance of every kind. I did not wish to take as my guide Diderot, who says : "When woman is the theme, the pen must be dipped in the rainbow and the pages must be dried with the dust of the butterfly's wing." Nor was the " vile-wretch- man " spirit to prevail. But rather Horace's golden mean was to be observed. In order to stick to facts and the juste milieu, the editor greatly increased his labors. With the exception of the biographical notices, and of the English essays, to which I have added a few notes, no chapter appears in its original form. Each has been sub- jected to severe pruning, some having been abridged one-half. In several chapters the order of the matter has been changed, paragraphs have been remodeled, and new sentences introduced. But in every case the English 'arrangement has received the final approval of the au- thor. And I hasten to add that in every instance this approval was cheerfully given, my collaborators readily perceiving that in this way only could we hope to pro- duce a work which would be homogeneous and, at the same time, acceptable to a public three thousand miles away, of whose character all foreign writers are more or less ignorant. Besides other matter, the editor is responsible for most of the foot-notes. With the exception of those in the chapter on France, all the foot-notes are signed with the initials of their respective authors. In this chapter, those not signed belong to the editor. It will be thought, per- haps, that many foot-notes would more properly appear in the body of the text than at the bottom of the page. But as the text was the composition of a particular author, additional matter could be added only in the form of EDITOR'S PREFACE. i x notes. Although continuity is thus often sacrificed, no better plan suggested itself. I have been considerably puzzled as to what titles of address to use before names of persons. It would not do to adopt a different method in each chapter as a new country was taken up. The following rule has, therefore, been observed : Except in the chapter on France, the ordinary English forms have been employed in all cases. It would have been more uniform to have done the same throughout the whole volume, but such an expres- sion as "Mrs. de Stael," for example, shocked the ear too much to admit of such a practice. I cannot close this preface without returning thanks to a few at least of the many persons who have aided me in the preparation of this volume. Mention is not made of the various collaborators whose names appear at the head of the chapters or in the notes thereto. Suffice it to say, that without their generous aid this preface would have no raison d'etre, — this volume would not exist. The list is as follows : England — The Rev. W. H. Channing, Mrs. Peter A. Taylor, wife of the member for Leicester; Mrs. Katharine L. 'Thomasson, wife of the member for Bolton; Miss Emily Faithfull, Mrs. Laura McLaren, wife of the member for Stafford ; Mrs. Fanny Hertz, Miss Caroline A. Biggs, Editor of the English- women? s Review ; Miss Agnes Blatch, and Mrs. Stanton- Blatch, B.A., who has read the larger part of the proofs. France — Mme. Jules Favre, M. Gr6ard, Vice- Rector of the Academy of Paris; M. Molinier, Professor at the Toulouse Law School ; Dr. Nicholas Joly, corres- ponding member of the Institute ; Mme. Caroline de Barrau ; M. Joseph Fabre, deputy ; Mile. Verneuil, M.D.; M. Alphonse Rodiere, Mme. Olympe Audouard, Mile. X EDITOR'S PREFACE. Hubertine Auclert, M. Desmoulins, of the Paris Municipal Council; Mme. Griess-Traut and M. Paul Dubuisson. Germany — Mrs. Louis Otto-Peters. Italy — Mrs. Chris- tine Lazzati-Rossi, Mrs. Ernesta Napollon, and Mr. Charles Francois Gabba, Professor at the University of Pisa. Spain — Mr. Fernando G. Arenal and Miss Theres Roaldes. Portugal — Mr. Antonio da Costa. Belgium — Mr. Jules Pagny. Switzerland — Mr., Mrs., and Miss Z. Milkowski. Denmark — The Baroness Astrid Stampe- Feddersen and Mr. Fredrick Bajer, member of the Danish Parliament. Norway — Mr. H. E. Berner, member of the Norwegian Parliament, and Miss Charlotte Jacobsen. Holland — Mr. R. C. Nieuwenhuys, of Deventer. Poland — Mrs. M. Abdank-Abakanowiez. Russia — the late Ivan Tourgueneff and Mr. Pierre Lavroff. Bohemia — Mrs. Charlotte Garrigue Masaryk. Greece — Mr. A. R. Ran- gab£, Greek Minister at Berlin and Dr. X. Zographos. United States — Mr. Theodore Tilton, Mrs. Laura Curtis Bullard and Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Theodore Stanton. 59, RUE DE CHAILLOT, PARIS, December, 1883. CONTENTS. PAOB Introduction **" CHAPTER I. England x I. The Women's Suffrage Movement 1 II. The Women's Educational Movement 3° III. Women in Medicine 6 3 IV. The Industrial Movement 9© V. Women as Philanthropists Io8 CHAPTER II. Germany *39 I. A General Review J 39 II. The National Association of German Women 153 CHAPTER III. Holland 161 CHAPTER IV. Austria 175 CHAPTER V. Norway 189 CHAPTER VI. Sweden 199 CHAPTER VII. Denmark 221 Xli CONTENTS. CHAPTER VIII. PAGE France 234 CHAPTER IX. Italy 310 I. A General Review 310 II. The Educational Movement 320 CHAPTER X. Spain 330 CHAPTER XI. Portugal 354 CHAPTER XII. Belgium 364 CHAPTER XIII. Switzerland 374 CHAPTER XIV. Russia 390 CHAPTER XV. Poland 424 CHAPTER XVI. Bohemia 44& CHAPTER XVII. The Orient 457 INTRODUCTION. BY FRANCES POWER COBBE. [Miss Frances Power Cobbe, daughter of Charles Cobbe, D.L., of New- bridge House, Co. Dublin, was born in 1822, and is the author of the follow- ing works : " An Essay on Intuitive Morals," " Religious Duty," " Broken Lights," " Darwinism in Morals," "The Hopes of the Human Race," " The Duties of Women," " The Peak in Darien," etc. Of late Miss Cobbe has devoted herself almost exclusively to the work of the Victoria Street Society for the Protection of Animals from Vivisection, of which she is the found- ress and Honorary Secretary.] There have been many movements in the world — some of them recorded in history as portentous events, others forgotten within a few years of their occurrence — which may each be compared to a wave on the surface of the Mediterranean. From the insignificant ripple to the wave- high billow flecked with foam and breaking in cataracts, they have arisen only to subside to their original level, leaving the boundaries of land and sea where they have stood for a thousand years. There are other movements, on the contrary, which resemble the tides of the Ocean, wherein each wave obeys one uniform impetus, and car- ries the waters onward and upward along the shore. Of all the movements, political, social and religious, of past ages there is, I think, not one so unmistakably tide- like in its extension and the uniformity of its impulse, as that which has taken place within living memory among the women of almost every race on the globe. Other agi- x i v INTRODUCTION. tations, reforms and revolutions have pervaded and lifted up classes, tribes, nations, churches. But this movement has stirred an entire sex, even half the human race. Like the incoming tide, also, it has rolled in separate waves, and each one has obeyed the same law, and has done its \ part in carrying forward all the rest. The waves of the Higher Education of Women all over the world ; the waves which lifted women over the sand-bars of the med- ical and (in America) of the legal and clerical professions ; the waves which seated them on the School Boards and Boards of Guardians of the Poor ; the wave which gave them the English Municipal Vote ; the wave which re- stored to Married Women a right to their own property ; | every one of these waves, great and small, has been rolled forward by the same advancing tide. But the crown and completion of the progress must be the attainment of the Political Franchise in every country wherein representative government prevails, and till that point be reached, there can be no final satisfaction in any thing which has been achieved. It has been repeated till it has become a commonplace, that " the Suffrage is the key of woman's position." Obtaining it, every privilege she can reasonably desire must follow. Failing to obtain it, nothing, — not even such installments of her rights as she has hitherto enjoyed, — is secure. An easily-raised storm of prejudice and selfishness, whether of trade or party or sect, passing over the masculine population, might sweep away her few privileges, while she remained helpless and unable to protect them by a single vote. On a small scale such confiscations of the rights of women in trades and other matters have occurred again and again. The sufferers had no appeal from injustice, and, because they were unrepresented, their wrongs were overlooked. \ INTRODUCTION. XV The most difficult problem in that great branch of Ethics which we call Politics regards the place which ought to be assigned under each constitutional govern- ment to alien races of men. The system of Representa- tion itself, with Trial by Jury and the whole scheme of civil and political liberty, as we, in our day, understand it, has grown up through a thousand years of " Freedom slowly broadening down From precedent to precedent," among our law-abiding Anglo-Saxon race ; and either the hasty adoption of it by other nations with different tendencies and untrained to self-government, or else the sudden admission of aliens in large numbers to a share in the working of our own machinery, are experiments fraught with difficulty and danger. In the Greek, Italian, French and Spanish Chambers we see examples of the first ; and, in the Irish Parliamentary " Obstruction " and misuse of the jury system to defeat justice, of the second. Noble and righteous as was the act by which the govern- ment of the United States extended the suffrage to the emancipated negroes, the perils of such a step could scarcely have been encountered by any sane statesman had the lately freed slaves borne a much larger propor- tion to the whole white population of the Republic ; and not even American democracy will contemplate for many a year to come following up this heroic act by enfranchis- ing Chinese immigrants ; nor English radicalism ask for the admission of Hindoos to a share in the Legislative, — scarcely even in the Executive, — government of India. Statesmen, even of the broadest views, may not only be pardoned, but praised, for hesitating and taking time for deep consideration, when it is proposed to introduce a xvi INTRODUCTION. new element into the constitution of their country. In my humble judgment, as a Conservative, there has been culpable recklessness on the part of those who, to serve party interests, have, in England, thrown open the gates of our sacred " polis " to a rabble of " illiterates," and in America have admitted hordes of immigrants to the bal- lot-box, before it was possible for them to acquaint them- selves with American politics, or to imbibe American principles. These considerations should induce women, and their generous advocates, to regard without impatience all op- position to their claims to the suffrage which they believe to be honestly intended and grounded on patriotic anxiety lest the introduction of a new force should dis- turb the working of the machine of State. They should teach them also to frame their arguments with the para- mount object of allaying the fears and encouraging the confidence of such worthy opponents, who, when once convinced that the enfranchisement of women will tend to the stability and prosperity of the State, and to the maintenance of social order and religion, will become the most earnest advocates of the measure. The difference — nay, rather the contrast — should likewise be insisted on between proposals to admit the dregs of a population to the franchise, and those to admit the mothers, daughters and sisters of the men who already exercise it ; and again, between proposals to admit aliens of another race, and those to admit women who have the same hereditary ten- dencies, attachments, creeds and interests ; and who are the inevitable partakers of the nation's prosperity, and the deepest sufferers by its disasters, or misrule. In short, it ought to be the care of the advocates of women to point out that not a single one of the reasons for caution INTRODUCTION. Xvii in the case of the admission of aliens affect their claims ; while there exist a multitude of valid reasons, why, being by nature part of the nation, they should also be, by law, citizens of the State ; bringing with them, not an element of weakness and disintegration, but a completer union, and a contribution to the nation's counsels of some- thing more than " mother-wit," even of mother-wisdom. The man is not to be envied who can view the strug- gle of women for political rights with contempt or in- difference. That those struggles may not always have been guided by infallible taste and wisdom, and that they have often been met — for lack of sensible argument — with silly derision, need not blind us to the fact that they con- stitute one of the bravest battles, one of the most pa- thetic movements, the world has ever seen. Other strifes have been carried on between rival races, rival classes, rival sects; but here we have only the patient, persistent ap- peal of daughters to fathers ; of sisters to brothers ; of wives to husbands ; of the women, who make the charm of society, to the men who call them friends. There are no " garments rolled in blood " in the battle of these war- riors. The combatants command neither cannon nor bay- onets. They cannot even break down iron palings, like the populace of London, when the rights they demanded were withheld; or threaten dynamite and petroleum like Nihilists and Fenians. They have not the minutest polit- ical influence at their disposal wherewith to coerce their opponents. Never was there a case of such pure and sim- ple Moral Pressure, — of an appeal to justice, to reason, to men's sense of what is due, and right, and expedient for all. When the time comes to look back on the slow, uni- versal awakening of women all over the globe, on their gradual entrance into one privileged profession after xviii INTRODUCTION. another, on the attainment by them of rights of person and property, and, at last,on their admission to the full privileges of citizenship, it will be acknowledged that of all the " Decisive Battles of History," this has been, to the moralist and philosopher, the most interesting ; even as it will be (I cannot doubt) the one followed by the happiest Peace which the world has ever seen. I feel myself honored in being called on to introduce a worthy and adequate record of this great contest to the public of England and America. CHAPTER I. ENGLAND. I. THE WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT. BY MILLICENT GARRETT FAWCETT. [Mrs. Fawcett is a daughter of Mr. Newson Garrett, of Aldeburg, Suffolk, where she was born in 1847. In 1867 she married Mr. Henry Fawcett, then Member for Brighton, and now Member for Hackney and Postmaster General in the present Administration (1883). Mr. Fawcett is also Professor of Political Economy in the University of Cambridge; and Mrs. Fawcett was led, through reading to her husband, who is blind, to study the same subject. She published in 1870 her " Political Economy for Beginners," and a year or two later " Tales in Political Economy." Mrs. Fawcett has also written a novel, "Janet Doncaster," and is joint author with her husband of a volume of essays and lectures on political and social sub- jects. She was one of the earliest among lady speakers and lecturers in England on behalf of the political enfranchisement of women, and she has also frequently lectured on other political, literary and economic subjects in many of the principal towns of Great Britain and Ireland. Many members of Mrs. FawcetCs family have taken an active part in promoting the removal of the disabilities of women. Her eldest sister, the late Mrs. J. W. Smith, was the secretary of the first society formed in London to promote women's suffrage ; another of her sisters is Mrs. Garrett-Anderson, the well-known physician ; a third, Mrs. Cowell, was for several years a member of the London School Board ; and her cousin, the late Miss Rhoda Garrett, an excellent speaker and lecturer on behalf of women's suffrage, was also well known in artistic circles as a designer and decorator.] It is very difficult in tracing the history of any great social movement to point to one particular date and say, x 2 WOMAN Q UESTION IN E UROPE. on this day or in this year the movement began. The claim of women for education, for political enfranchise- ment, for social and industrial freedom, is one that is gen- erally regarded as essentially modern. But it owes its origin in England to a date at least as far back as 1792, when Mary Wollstonecraft published her " Vindication of the Rights of Woman." Another weighty blow was struck for women in 18 10, when Sydney Smith published his well-known and witty essay urging the claim of women to a sound literary education. Shelley's name must also be recorded as among those of the earliest of our friends. As late as the first thirty years of this century, the movement must be regarded as one of the results of the upheaval of the human mind of which the French Revolution was the most portentous manifestation. The awakening of the democratic spirit, the rebellion against authority, the pro- clamation of the rights of man, were almost necessarily accompanied by the growth of a new ideal concerning the position of women, by the recognition, more or less de- fined and conscious, of the rights of women. The growth of this movement and its adaptation to the practical spirit of the nineteenth century are to a very large extent due to the life-long advocacy and guidance of the late John Stuart Mill.* Not only in his book on the Subjection of Women, * An English lady, whom I shall have occasion to quote several times in the foot-notes to this essay, writes me as follows : The train of events which led to John Stuart Mill's conversion to the cause of Women's Suffrage is wor- thy of note. The vague enthusiasm for the Rights of Man which convulsed society in Europe, at the end of the eighteenth century, soon assumed in England a more practical shape. Bentham, the father of modern Radicalism, published his philosophical essays upon Government, and founded a school of followers called Philosophic Radicals, who exercised a marked influence on thought at the beginning of this century. Amongst the most distinguished of the disciples of Bentham was James Mill, father of John Stuart Mill. As ENGLAND. 3 but in the Principles of Political Economy, in his Essays and Dissertations, in the books on Liberty, Utilitarianism and Representative Government he attacked the fortress of world-old custom and prejudice, and claimed for women the fullest liberty in the practical affairs of life, and showed the mischief, folly and misery of withholding from half the human race the opportunity of development which no- thing but freedom can give. Mr. Mill was always careful a keen, hard-headed thinker, James Mill stands pre-eminent amongst the lit- tle band of reformers, and his trenchant pen did much to impress the genius and logic of Bentham upon the enthusiasts of his time. About 1824 James Mill published an article on Government in the " Encyclopaedia Britannica " which excited much attention by its novel and lucid argument. After com- menting upon the love of power common to our race he argues that the safe- guard of the elective franchise is necessary to protect our liberties from en- croachment. " But," he continues, " all those individuals whose interests are included in those of other individuals may be struck off " the electoral roll. " la this light women may be regarded, the interest of almost all of whom is in- volved in that of their fathers, or in that of their husbands." Upon the publi- cation of this article, William Thompson, another disciple of Bentham, wrote to John Mill, pointing out that " almost all " women did not include * all women," and that therefore, by his own argument, some women at least should be enfranchised. Thompson demanded that this logical inaccuracy should be amended. James Mill refused to alter the article, whereupon Thompson and Mrs. Wheeler published in 1825, as a joint production, a substantial volume called " The Appeal of Women," in which James Mill is attacked in scathing terms, and the whole position of women is treated with a thor- oughness which no writer of the present day has surpassed. There is no doubt that John Stuart Mill, young as he was at the time, must have seen the controversy in which his father was so fiercely attacked, and it is proba- bly from a consideration of these arguments that his attention was directed to the question of Women's Suffrage. His book on the Subjection of Women, published thirty years later, follows very much the lines laid down in " The Appeal of Women;" but, instead of the vehemence and indigna- tion of the earlier work, we find a cool, dispassionate statement of facts which disarms opposition, and has proved far more alluring to our practical politicians. — T. S. 4 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE to disclaim having been the originator of the women's rights question ; in a speech at Greenwich in 1870 he cor- rected a previous speaker who had alluded to him as hav- ing been the first to advocate the enfranchisement of women. " Several of the most eminent philosophers," he said, " and many of the noblest of women for ages have done this." But there can be no dispute that Mr. Mill's influence marks an epoch in the history of the women's movement. He was a master and formed a school of thought. Just as in art, a master forms a school and in- fluences his successors for generations, so the present leaders and champions of the women's movement have been influenced, and to a great extent formed, by Mr. Mill. Even those who are opposed to the enfranchise- ment of women are unconsciously influenced by the move- ment of which Mr. Mill was the leader. Sir James Stephen admits that in the making of laws which directly affect the relations between men and women, men have made rules for their own supposed advantage which are in fact greatly to the injury of both parties. Even Mr. Goldwin Smith admits that " if there is any wrong to half human- ity, which cannot be righted in any other way, we must at once accept Female Suffrage, whatever perils it may en- tail ; " and leading members of Parliament aver, in oppos- ing the bill to remove the electoral disabilities of women, that women are as fit as men to exercise the political franchise with intelligence and care. In this, as much as in the advocacy of our friends, we see the fruit of the seed sown by Mill between the years 1848 and 1869. One great service of Mill to the women's movement in England has been, I conceive, in impressing upon it from the first, the character of practical good sense and moder- ation which has been its distinguishing feature. The suf- ENGLAND. 5 frage has not been claimed for women in England as an abstract and inalienable right, but it has been claimed upon the ground of expediency ; that is to say, on the ground that the good resulting from it would far outweigh any evils that might possibly attend it. This note was struck by Mr. Mill in his speech in the House of Com- mons in May, 1867, and the whole movement from the first has kept in harmony with the tenor of this speech. He then said : " I do not mean that the elective franchise, or any other public function, is an abstract right, and that to withhold it from any one, on sufficient grounds of ex- pediency, is a personal wrong ; it is a complete misunder- standing of the principle I maintain, to confound this with it ; my argument is entirely one of expediency. But there are different orders of expediency ; all expediencies are not exactly on the same level ; there is an important branch of expediency called justice, and justice, though it does not necessarily require that we should confer polit- ical functions on every one, does require that we should not capriciously and without cause withhold from one what we give to another." He proceeded to state that the only grounds on which the political suffrage could be justly withheld were personal unfitness or public danger, and these, he contended, did not exist in the case of the women it was proposed to enfranchise. This basis of expediency on which the women's suffrage movement in England has rested, has led every women's suffrage society, without exception, to seek for the suf- frage on behalf of those women, and those women only, who fulfill all the qualifications which the law demands of the male elector ; that is for householders in boroughs, the owners of freeholds, and the renters of land and houses, above a certain value, in counties. The societies have 6 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. held steadfastly by this principle, and have refused to be drawn either by friends or foes into complicating their position by claiming the suffrage for those women who, by marriage, or any other circumstance, are prevented from fulfilling the conditions imposed by the legislature on the possessors of the suffrage. Whether these condi- tions are themselves expedient, that is, conducive on the whole to the public good, is another matter which it con- cerns the community very seriously to consider; it is, how- ever, the principle on which the women's suffrage societies have always acted, not to enter in any way into the gen- eral question of the conditions imposed on electors ; but to say to Parliament and to the English people, "You have fixed these conditions as you believe to be for the best ; you have spent years in considering what they shall be ; we accept your decision, and only ask that all who fulfill these conditions shall be admitted to the privileges they confer." This character of practical moderation and rather humdrum common sense, which has stamped the movement in England, has prevented a good deal of what strikes one as rather comic about the movement in other countries. We talk about " women " and "women's suf- frage ; " we do not talk about Woman with a capital W. That we leave to our enemies. A recent diatribe by Mr. Gold win Smith in the Nineteenth Century, upon M Woman," shows how completely he has lost his touch upon English politics and the English tone of approaching this question. If, in his article, the word " Woman " were struck out wherever it occurred, and the word " Man " were inserted, a great part of it would read like a caricature of the ful- minations against the " vile wretch man " which appear to have been the laughing-stock of the American pub- lic some twenty years ago. It must not be supposed, ENGLAND. 7 however, that Mr. Smith is able to vent all his wrath in general terms ; he goes on to speak of women in partic- ular in a way that recalls Vivien's talk to Merlin, when she "let her tongue Rage like a fire among the noblest names, till she left Not even Lancelot brave nor Galahad clean." The studious moderation of the societies, the absence of tall talk, is one great secret of the progress the women's movement has made in England. The words Man, Wom- an, Humanity, etc., send a cold shudder through the average Briton, but talk to him of John and Elizabeth and he is ready to be interested and, up to his lights, just. The agitation on the subject of parliamentary reform which preceded the passing of the reform bill of 1867, naturally led to the consideration of the claims of women to representation. The death of Lord Palmerston in 1865 made reform a practical political question of the first im- portance ; the general election of the same year, when Mr. Mill was returned as member for Westminster, gave the women's suffrage movement a parliamentary leader of the first intellectual rank. These events led to the formation in London in 1866 of a society for promoting the exten- sion of the suffrage to women. The members were Mrs. Peter Taylor, Mr. Hastings, now member for Worcester- shire, the late Dean of Canterbury (Dean Alford), the late Professor Cairnes, the well-known political economist" Mrs. Knox, better known by her maiden name of Isa Craig, Miss Emily Davies, the originator of Girton Col- lege ; Miss J. Boucherett,* Rev. W. L. Clay, Lady Gold- * Miss Boucherett is the author of the essay on " The Industrial Move- ment," at the end of this chapter. — T. S. 8 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. smid, Mr. James Heywood,Miss Manning, and Mrs. Hens- leigh Wedgevvood. The honorary secretary was Mrs. J. W. Smith. It is an interesting and touching list for us who are left, for many of the names are now dear and honored memories, " precious friends hid in death's date- less night." The society was instrumental in getting signatures to a petition in favor of the extension of the suffrage to women who were possessed of the legal quali- fications, and this petition, signed by 1,499 women, was presented during the session of 1866. A member of the society, Madame Bodichon {tUfe Miss Barbara Leigh Smith), read a paper at the meeting of the Social Science Congress at Manchester in October, 1866, entitled, " Rea- sons for the Enfranchisement of Women." The first London Committee was dissolved in 1867 and reformed by Mrs. Peter Taylor under the name of the London National Society for Women's Suffrage. Soci- eties in correspondence with the London society, but en- tirely independent of it and of one another, were almost simultaneously formed at Manchester, Edinburgh, Bristol, Birmingham, Belfast and Dublin, and subsequently smal- ler societies were formed in more than forty towns in Great Britain and Ireland. Mr. Mill was the president of the London National Society, Mrs. Peter Taylor was its hon- orary secretary and treasurer, and, I may add, its presiding genius. The meetings were held at her house, and she devoted herself with all the enthusiasm of her gentle and courageous spirit to the objects of the society. Mrs. Peter Taylor was greatly assisted in her labors by Miss Caroline A. Biggs, who has ever since been an indefatigable worker for the cause of women's suffrage.* The Manchester soci- * " A few years later," writes the lady to whom I have already referred, '•' a large share of the active work of the movement was undertaken by another ENGLAND. g ety was so fortunate as to secure from the outset the ser- vices of Miss Becker as its able and zealous secretary.* Mrs. Duncan McLaren, sister of Mr. Bright, was the president of the Edinburgh society. Lady Amberley presided over the Bath and Bristol society, where she was aided by the untiring energy and self devotion of the Miss Ashworths, members of another branch of the Bright family. Immediately previous to the formation of these soci- eties, a great impetus had been given to the movement by the first discussion upon it in Parliament, which was raised by Mr. Mill on May 20, 1867, in the form of an amend- ment to the fourth clause of Mr. Disraeli's reform bill. The amendment took the form of moving to leave out the word "man" in order to insert the word "person." Eighty-one members, counting the tellers, either voted or paired in favor of Mr. Mill's amendment, and from this date the parliamentary history of the movement begins. Among Mr. Mill's supporters were eleven Conservatives, one of whom, Mr. Russell Gurney, the late Recorder of London, was a teller ; Mr. Gurney was throughout his life a tried and valued friend of every movement for the bene- fit of women. Mr. John Bright, who has since gone over to the enemy, was one of Mr. Mill's band of eighty-one. Others, alas ! have gone over to the majority in a different sense. Death has deprived us of Lord Amberley, Sir committee, composed mainly of delegates from provincial centres. The first meetings of this committee were held at the house of Mrs. Frederick Pen- nington, wife of the present member for Stockport. Under the name of the Central Committee it afterwards became united with the London National Society."— T. S. * " Miss Becker has since then devoted her whole time and energy to tlie work, and has, by her untiring efforts, continued for sixteen years, become the most active leader of the organization." — T. S. IO WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. Francis Goldsmid, Mr. Mill himself, and others whose names are less widely known. The year 1868 was marked by what has since become quite common, the presence of ladies as speakers at pub- lic meetings on behalf of the enfranchisement of women. In April, 1868, a meeting was held in the Assembly rooms, Manchester, at which Mrs. Pochin,* the wife of the ,Mayor of Salford ; Miss Robertson, of Dublin, and Miss Becker, spoke.f The Mayor, Mr. Pochin, was in the chair. This meet- ing was followed by one in May, 1868, at Birmingham; but it was not until more than a year later, namely, July, 1869, that a meeting with lady speakers was ventured upon in London. The meeting was held at some rooms in Conduit street. Mrs. Peter Taylor was in the chair, and the speakers were, besides herself, Mr. Hare, Mr. Boyd Kinnear, Mr. Mill, the Rev. Charles Kingsley, Mr. Henry Fawcett, Mrs. Henry Fawcett, Lord Houghton, Mr. John Morley, Sir Charles W. Dilke, Mr. P. A. Taylor, Professor Masson, and Mr. Stansfeld. The presence of lady speak- ers is now so common at similar meetings as to call forth no remark either of commendation or the reverse, but fourteen years ago lady speakers had to endure an ordeal of ridicule from foes and remonstrance from friends such * "Of all the advocates now living of the claims of women to the suf- frage, Mrs. Pochin occupies the earliest place, having, in the year 1855, pub- lished a pamphlet entitled ' The Right of Women to Exercise the Electoral Franchise,' one of the most brilliant defences of their cause." — T. S. f It may be mentioned as illustrative of the change which has taken place in public opinion with regard to the propriety of women speaking on the platform, that, nt this first meeting in Manchester, it was believed that the utmost public opinion would endure was that the ladies should read papers ; they therefore each read a short address, instead of making a speech in the ordinary way." — M. G. F. ENGLAND. 1 1 as can hardly now be conceived. Shortly after these meetings a member of Parliament referred in his place to the ladies who had taken part in them as having disgraced themselves and their sex. After the passing of the English reform bill, in 1867, followed in 1868 by the passing of similar bills for Scot- land and Ireland, it was believed by many friends of the movement for women's suffrage, especially by members of the Manchester society, that the new reform acts as they stood included the enfranchisement of women. They took their stand upon the existing law, desisted from holding meetings and getting -signatures to petitions, and resolved that the legal status of a female householder as regards the parliamentary suffrage should be tested at the next election. At a by-election at Manchester, in 1867, a woman's name, that of Lily Maxwell, had been accident- ally allowed to remain on the register, and she, under the escort of Miss Becker, went to the poll and voted in favor of Mr. Jacob Bright. Previous to the general election of 1868, after the passing of Mr. Disraeli's reform bill, a large number of women householders claimed, before the revising barristers, to be put upon the roll of the parlia- mentary electors. In Manchester alone 5,346 women householders signed the claim to be put upon the register. The revising barristers were not unanimous in the inter- pretation of the law ; in a few places the claim of women to be put on the register was allowed ; in the great majority it was disallowed. At Scarisbrick, Lady Scaris- brick and twenty-seven women farmers, her tenants, were allowed by the revising barristers for South West Lanca- shire to remain on the register, and they came to the poll in a body, and voted for Mr. Gladstone. These, it must be remembered, were the days of open voting. In Man- X 2 WOMAN Q UESTION IN E UROPE. Chester, the claim of the women was disallowed. The Salford overseers placed the names of 1,400 women on the register, but these were struck out by the revising barristers. In November, 1868, the claim that women were enfranchised by the acts of 1867-8, was heard in the Court of Common Pleas, and judgment was given against allowing the claim of women householders to the parlia- mentary franchise, on the ground that, whatever the wording of the statute and of Lord Brougham's act, whereby in all acts of Parliament words importing the masculine gender shall be deemed and taken to include the feminine unless the contrary is expressly provided, it was clearly the intention of Parliament, as demonstrated by the division on Mr. Mill's motion of May, 1867, not to admit women to the parliamentary suffrage. From the date of this adverse decision the more active and strenu- ous labors of the various societies for women's suffrage may be said to begin. All the usual means of influencing public opinion were adopted by the societies ; public meet- ings were held and lectures were delivered in almost every town in Great Britain ; petitions to Parliament were cir- culated, to which the number of signatures appended were unprecedentedly numerous;* articles were written for the magazines and newspapers ; every opportunity was eagerly seized for showing that women did want the suf- frage and why they wanted it. In 1870, the Manchester society started the publication of the Women s Suffrage Journal, under the editorial charge of Miss Becker. The Journal has appeared monthly since its first publication * In 1874, 1,427 petitions in favor of women's suffrage, with 445,564 signatures, were presented. In 1873, 2 48 meetings were held ; and up to the present time the number of meetings held each year remains at a very high figure. — M. G. F. ENGLAND. 13 and forms a very valuable record of all that concerns the development of the women's suffrage movement. In 1 87 1 special memorials signed by over 9,000 women in favor of the extension of the suffrage were addressed to Mr. Gladstone and to the Earl of Beaconsfield, then Mr. Disraeli. Another means of ventilating the subject was adopted by raising debates on the removal of the electoral disabilities of women in Town Councils. This was done by some member friendly to the movement proposing a resolution that the Council to which he belonged should petition Parliament in its favor. In 1871 the town coun- cils of Manchester, Salford, and Burnley adopted these resolutions by substantial majorities, and a large number of similar petitions were presented in succeeding years. More recently, with a view of reaching a class that is very seldom to be found at public meetings, a very large number of drawing-room meetings have been held ; both lady and gentlemen speakers attend and discussion is usu- ally invited. The object of the drawing-room meetings is not to make a demonstration of the numbers of those who approve of the movement, but to attract those who are either hostile or indifferent to it ; and in this object I believe they have been remarkably successful. From the very nature of these meetings, however, addressing as they do a limited class and very limited numbers, it is impossible to rely on them alone for the spread of the movement. Ward and District meetings among the working classes, to which working women were specially invited, leading up to a monster meeting of women in the principal hall in the town, have been held in Manchester, London (St. James's Hall), Bristol, Birmingham, Bradford, Glasgow, and Nottingham. These great demonstrations of the keen desire which exists among women to possess the I 4 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. parliamentary franchise far surpass as expressions of public opinion anything of the same kind which has taken place since the reform agitation prior to 1867. The agricultural laborers and the other unrepresented classes among the male population have never been able to show anything like such evidence of the demand among themselves for electoral power. At Manchester the Free Trade Hall, in February, 1880, was not only filled, but an overflow meet- ing had to be held at the Memorial Hall, Albert Square. The local newspapers spoke of the demonstration as an occurrence entirely unprecedented in the history of public meetings, and averred that the Free Trade Hall was crowded as it is only crowded when public feeling is deeply stirred. A similar success attended a similar gathering of women in St. James's Hall, London. Here also an over- flow meeting had to be quickly arranged, and in fact at all the places previously mentioned where these monster meetings of women have been held, the result has been the same : — an overwhelming crowd, great enthusiasm, accompanied by perfect order and good temper.* The remark, so common at one time, that women themselves do not want the suffrage, is silenced by these huge demon- strations ; but how long it will be before the legislature listens to the demands of those who urge their claims without blowing up prisons or knocking down park rails * " Among the women who took a prominent part in these demonstrations were Viscountess Harberton, Mrs. Scatcherd, Mrs. Shearer, Miss Becker, Miss Lord, of Belfast ; Miss Biggs, Mrs. Alfred Osier, Mrs. McLaren, and her sis- ter, Mrs. Lucas ; Mrs. Helen Clark, eldest daughter of Mr. John Bright ; Mrs. Fawcett, Miss Jessie Craigen, Miss Jane Cobden, Miss Rhoda Garrett and many others. Perhaps the best known of the women speakers, after Miss Becker, have been Mrs. Scatcherd and Mrs. Shearer, who have by their eloquence and enthusiasm done much to influence public opinion in favor of the claims of women." — T. S. ENGLAND. *5 is a question which only the future can solve. Nothing is more marked in the present phase of the women's suffrage movement than the fact that it is supported by the rank and file of women themselves. At first and from the first it was supported, almost without exception, by every woman who had earned a name for herself by in- tellectual distinction or by the achievement of excellence in any department of art, literature or philanthropy. It is difficult to choose names when the list is so long, but it is right to mention among the distinguished women who have been with this movement from the outset, the names of Mrs. Somerville, Harriet Martineau, Florence Nightingale, Mrs. Browning, Miss Anna Swanwick, Miss Cobbe, Mrs. Grote, Mrs. Ritchie (Miss Thackeray,) Miss Mary Carpenter and Mrs. Jameson.* These women have been, some of them unconsciously, the leaders of their sex in this question, and, having led the way, hundreds and thousands of women are following them in their aspirations for freer development of all the various faculties with which nature may have endowed them. I have here anticipated in part the social history of the movement by speaking of its later developments. It is * The Rev. W. H. Charming, of London, writes me: "But there are a large company of nobly gifted, and highly cultivated women scattered throughout Great Britain, quite apart from the well-known leaders of the so-called Women's Suffrage Party. My reference is to such grand women as Mrs. Josephine Butler, of Liverpool ; Miss S. Winkworth, of Clifton, Bristol ; Miss Anna Swanwick, the distinguished translator of ' Faust ' and ' /Eschylus ' ; Mrs. Augusta Webster, the translator of ' Euripides,' etc." And he closes by referring to " the splendid work which women are engaged in here, in education, literature, art, industry, philanthropy, social reform, etc." Mr. Channing's tribute to English women is fully deserved. I know of no centre in the world containing so many remarkable and pro- gressive women as London. — T. S. 1 6 WOMAN Q UESTION IN E UROPE. now however necessary, if we are to trace its parliament- ary history, to go back to the year when Mr. Mill first in- troduced it into the House of Commons in 1867. Mr. Mill's parliamentary career was very short : he was elected for Westminster in 1865, and he lost his seat in 1868. He never entered Parliament again, and death closed his labors in 1873. The general election in Novem- ber, 1868, resulted in a very large Liberal majority, and although the question of women's suffrage was not brought forward during the session of 1869, that year deserves to be remembered as one in which a most important step was made in the direction of women's complete political enfranchisement. A municipal reform act was passed which conferred upon women householders the right to take part in municipal elections.* This was followed by another step in the same direction in 1870, when Mr. W. E. Forster introduced and carried his Education bill, and then conferred upon wo'men householders the power to vote at school-board elections, and also qualified women to sit as members of school-boards, a qualification of which the electors have availed themselves in an ever-increasing number at each succeeding school-board election. In 1870, the principle of Mr. Mill's resolution of 1867 was embodied in a bill which was introduced by Mr. Jacob Bright, Sir Charles Dilke and Mr. Eastwick. The second reading took place on May 4th, and was carried by 124 against 91. The government remained neutral in * " The bill as originally introduced did not confer this franchise upon women, but an amendment in that sense was, at the suggestion of Mr. Jacob Bright, member for Manchester, accepted by the Government, and passed without a division in both Houses of Parliament. In 1881 and 1882 Dr. Cameron, member for Glasgow, carried a similar measure through Parliament, to confer the privilege of the same municipal franchise on the women of Scotland." — T. S. ENGLAND. 17 this division, and its members were to be found some on one side and some on the other of the division list. When, however, the second reading of the bill was found to have been carried, the alarm seems to have gone forth that if women had votes, the days of the Liberal administration would be numbered. The Liberal government of that day thought they had more to fear from their countrywomen than from their own blunders. The mistake was com- mitted of timidly hesitating to intrust the franchise to a hitherto untried body in the constituencies. Politicians are generally more mistaken in their fears than in anything else.* However, the word went forth. All members of the Liberal government were compelled to desist from giving their support to Mr. Jacob Bright's bill on the motion for going into committee, and all Liberals who were amenable to government influence were urged to vote against the bill. The result was what might have been anticipated : the motion for going into committee was lost by 220 votes to 74. The women's disabilities removal bill was reintroduced in 1871 by Mr. Jacob Bright, the gentlemen sharing with him the charge of the bill being Mr. Eastwick (Conservative) and Mr. Lyon Playfair (Liberal), afterward Post-master General, and now (1882) Chairman of Committees. The de- * The Duke of Wellington, in 1832, said in a letter to Lord Melville, " I don't in general take a gloomy view of things, but I confess that, knowing all that I do. I cannot see what is to save the Church, or pro- perty, or colonies, or union with Ireland, or eventually monarchy, if the re- form bill passes." Despatches of Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington, Vol. ii. p. 451. In the Greville Memoirs we find that the astute and well- informed man of the world who wrote them thought that the passing of the reform bill would be the beginning of a revolution, and he even forecast that the future had in store for poor old William IV. the fate of Charles I ! — Gre- ville Memoirs, Vol. ii., pp. 136-7. — M. G. F. 2 1 8 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. bate on the bill in the year 1871 was rendered remarkable by a speech from Mr. Gladstone, in which, although de- claring that he did not feel able to vote for the bill, he ad- duced such cogent arguments in its favor, that the speak- ers who followed him predicted his speedy enrolment among the list of its supporters. Mr. Gladstone, referring to the various laws which regulate Jhe relations between men and women, confessed that in many most important matters women obtain far less than justice. Alluding to the divorce act, he called the attention of the house to the fact that this act introduced a " new and gross inequality against women, and in favor of men," and that in other matters connected with the subject of matrimonial infidel- ity, "the English* law does women much less than justice, and great mischief, misery, and scandal result from that state of things in many of the occurrences and events of life." He concluded by calling upon those who wished well to their country to devise some means by which wo- men could exercise political influence through "a safe and well-adjusted alteration of the law as to political power." This speech excited much comment at the time, both from the friends and from the opponents of the women's suf- frage movement. Sir Henry James, who was not then a member of the government, attacked it in a vigorous speech. He is the most distinguished and the ablest among the prominent opponents of the bill, who have not usually been found in the ranks of leading politicians. It is to be observed that whereas the bill has at different times been introduced by Sir Charles Dilke, Mr. Playfair and Mr. Leonard Courtney, who are now (1882) all mem- bers of the present government, its leading opposers have rarely attained a first-rate political position. The Hon. E. P. Bouverie has never succeeded in getting any constitu- ENGLAND. *9 ency to elect him as their representative after his defeat at Kilmarnock in 1874; his nephew, Lord Folkestone, although securely seated in the House of Commons, is quite unknown to parliamentary fame, and the same thing may be said of Earl Percy, Mr. Hanbury, and other aris- tocratic gentlemen who have taken a leading part in op- posing this bill. Mr. Newdegate, Mr. Beresford Hope, Mr. Smollett, and Mr. Scourfield, who have also been ac- tive in resisting this bill, have, it is true, a kind of notori- ety, but it is on the whole of the sort that one can with great cheerfulness see enlisted in the ranks of one's oppo- nents. In the division which followed the debate of 1871 the supporters of the bill* numbered 159, the opponents 228. The minority included the names of Mr. Disraeli (after- ward the Earl of Beaconsfield), Mr. Ward Hunt, Mr. Selwin Ibbetson, Lord John Manners, and Mr. Russell Gurney, all leading members of the Conservative party, while the then Liberal government and the present govern- ment were represented by Sir Charles Dilke, Mr. Fawcett, Mr. Osborne Morgan, Mr. Playfair, Mr. Stansfeld, Mr. Trevelyan, and Mr. Viliiers. In the session of 1872 the women's disabilities bill was again in charge of the same gentlemen who introduced it in 1 87 1, and its rejection was again moved by Mr. Bou- verie. The debate does not appear to have had any very remarkable features, save perhaps that Mr. Osborne Mor- gan, who had voted for the bill in 1871, announced his intention to vote against it in 1872, on account of the prominent part taken by some ladies in the agitation which was then commencing for the repeal of the contagious * In citing the numbers in parliamentary divisions, I have throughout this article included tellers and pairs on each side. — M. G. F. 2 o WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. diseases acts. He did not, however, propose to disfran- chise or otherwise punish the gentlemen who were devot- ing themselves to the same agitation. On a division the numbers were : for the bill, 163, against, 242. In 1873 the debate was chiefly memorable for a speech of about two minutes' length from the Right Hon. J. W. Henley, the Conservative member for Oxfordshire, one of the oldest and most respected members of the House. He said that, having watched the effect of women's suf- frage in municipal and school-board elections, he believed it to be beneficial, and as he could not see why it should not also be beneficial in parliamentary elections, he in- tended for the first time to support the bill. This char- acteristically English and common-sense declaration was not without its effect upon the division, in which the minority in favor of the bill included for the first time Sir Stafford Northcote, the present leader of the Conservative party in the House of Commons. The numbers were 172 to 239. The general election in the spring of 1874 resulted in a large majority for the Conservative party. The changes which the election caused in the personnel on both sides of the House were very marked in their effect upon the women's suffrage question. The leading advocate (Mr. Jacob Bright) and the leading opponent (Mr. E. P. Bou- verie) lost their seats. The former was re-elected for Manchester in 1876; the latter, as previously remarked, has never been re-elected at all. These changes necessi- tated a search on the part of the women's suffrage move- ment for a new parliamentary leader, and Mr. Forsyth, Conservative member for Marylebone, a gentleman of high legal and academic distinction, took charge of the bill. Associated with him as sponsors for it were Sir Robert ENGLAND. 2 I Anstruther (Liberal,) Mr. Russell Gurney (Conservative,) and Mr. Stansfeld (Liberal). The session of 1874 passed without a debate, Mr. For- syth failing to secure a day for the second reading; but in 1875 he reintroduced the bill, which came on for second reading in April; and the first division in the newly elected House of Commons showed a decided improvement in the parliamentary position of the bill. The numbers were : for the bill, 170, and against, 205. The rejection of the bill was moved by Mr. Chaplin, followed by Mr. Leatham, and later in the debate by Mr. Smollett, in a speech char- acterized, even by the opponents of the bill, as one of " incredible coarseness." Punch, alluding to this speech, said : " We understand Mr. Smollett is descended from the novelist. We hope he will not descend any lower." The disgust caused by this painful exhibition did a good deal, especially among women, to make them believe in the necessity of intrusting to women the power of in- fluencing the laws by which they are governed. " If this is how men speak of us," I heard more than one lady say, " it is not fit that they should have uncontrolled power of making laws for women." A lady, living in the town Mr. Smollett represented, who had not previously signed the petition, signed it with the remark : " A few insults I have received lately have convinced me that women do need representation." It is only fair to say that the more re- spectable opponents of the women's suffrage bill in the House of Commons were heartily ashamed of Mr. Smol- lett's contribution in their aid, and the friends of the bill, although they knew that Mr. Smollett had really promoted their cause, felt that a heavy price had been paid for the benefit they had gained. On March 1, 1876, Mr. Jacob Bright was, as has already 22 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. been said, re-elected as member for Manchester. He was therefore present to assist Mr. Forsyth in the House of Commons when the bill came on for second reading on April 26th in that year. Mr. John Bright for the first and only time took part in the debate. To the great regret of the promoters of the bill and the great joy of its opponents, he spoke against the enfranchisement of women. His main argument was that women did not need representa- tion because they were not a separate class. The reply to this argument seems to be that women are not a separate class as long as they are treated with strict and equal jus- tice, but that they are created artificially into a separate class as long as special legal penalties and disabilities are attached to their sex. A life devoted to setting free the oppressed, to extending the boundaries of constitutional liberty, to bringing home to all minds the priceless bless- ing of freedom and self-government, more than outweighs a single speech. Mr. Bright's influence is with us, though his speech, and recently his votes, have been against us. No one can read his speeches on the extension of the suffrage to men without feeling that almost every argu- ment he uses so forcibly applies with equal weight to women. It was, however, a great blow to the movement when the old leader of reform lifted his voice against it. It gave an excuse to all weak-kneed and half-hearted Liber- als to turn against us ; it enabled Tories to say that the bill was too revolutionary even for Mr. John Bright. The division which followed Mr. Bright's speech was 161 for the bill, 248 against it.* * The following letter, which, I need scarcely say, the writer gives me permission to make public, will be read with interest in connection with the remarks in the text : " One Ash, Rochdale, Oct. 21, '82. "Dear Sir : — I have never changed my opinion on the question of women's ENGLAND. 23 In 1877 Mr. Jacob Bright resumed charge of the bill, his coadjutors being Sir R. Anstruther, Mr. Russell Gur- ney and Mr. Stansfeld. There was no division, as the debate was not over when the hour (5.50) for the adjourn- ment of the House was reached. In this debate Mr. Leonard Courtney, who had been elected for Liskeard in the previous December, took part. He had during his election contest spoken more than once with all the force of his powerful intellect on behalf of the enfranchisement of women, and the hopes that were entertained of him as a powerful friend and future leader were not disappointed. Mr. Jacob Bright, so long the trusted and courageous champion of the bill in the House of Commons, was com- pelled towards the close of 1877 to go abroad for several months for the benefit of his health. Early in 1878 it became necessary to obtain another parliamentary leader, and the friends of the movement were so fortunate as to obtain the services of Mr. Courtney. The English people suffrage. 1 voted with great doubt and reluctance with Mr. Mill, and more out of sympathy with him than from agreement with him on the subject before us. I have always regretted the vote, and explained the whole matter in a speech against women's suffrage in a subsequent session of Par- liament. I cannot give you the date of this speech, but it is fully reported in Hansard's Debates. I cannot give you all the reasons for the view I take, but I act from a belief that to introduce women into the strife of political life would be a great evil to them, and that to our own sex no pos- sible good could arrive. If women are not safe under the charge and care of fathers, husbands, brothers and sons, it is the fault of our non-civilization and not of our laws. As civilization, founded on Christian principle, advances, women will gain all that is right for them, although they are not seen contending in the strife of political parties. In my experience I have observed evil results to many women who have entered hotly into political conflict and discussion. I would save them from it. If all the men in a nation do not and cannot adequately express its will and defend its interests, to add all the women will not better the result, and the representative system is a mistake. But I cannot discuss the question in a note. I give you an 24 WOMAN QUESTION- IN EUROPE. are said never to pay attention to more than one political question at a time, and at this moment they were devoting all their attention to the consideration of the fate of East- ern Europe. Notwithstanding the absorbed state of the public mind upon foreign politics, Mr. Courtney succeeded in raising a very good debate on the second reading of the bill on June 19, 1878. His speech in introducing the bill was a model of well-reasoned eloquence, but the result of the division showed, as usual, that the appeal to nonsense had been more powerful that the appeal to sense, and the numbers were 155 to 234. The year 1 879 is unfortunately the last in which it is possi- ble to record the result of a debate and division in the House of Commons. The subject this year was raised by Mr. Courtney in the form of an amendment on going into committee. In his speech he referred with great effect to he result of women's suffage in the Territory of Wyoming. idea merely of the view I take of it. There is more in my speech, but even that very lightly touches upon the whole subject. " I am, respectfully yours, "JOHN BRIGHT. " Theodore Stanton, Esq. " a Jacournassy, " par Soreze, " Tarn." When in London in the autumn of 1882 I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Bright, and, the conversation turning on the subject of women's suffrage, he developed more at length the same lines of argument contained in the above note written a few weeks before. It is a curious fact, however, that John Bright stands almost alone in his views on this question among the mem- bers of his very large family. For instance, his sisters, Mrs. McLaren, wife of the member for Edinburgh, and Mrs. Lucas ; his brother, Mr. Jacob Bright, M.P. ; his daughters, Mrs. Helen Bright Clark, Mrs. R. F. Curry and Mrs. Bernard Roth ; his neices, Mrs. Ashworth Hallett, Mrs. Joseph Cross and Mrs. John P. Thomasson, wife of the member for Bolton ; and his nephews, Mr. Charles B. McLaren, M. P., and Mr. Walter B. McLaren, not to speak of almost as many more relatives by marriage, are advocates of women's suffrage, and several of them active workers in the movement. — T. S. ENGLAND. 2 5 He quoted from a letter written by the Speaker of the House of Representatives of Wyoming in which, after con- fessing that at first he had been strongly opposed to women's suffrage, he adds : " I can now say that the more I have seen of the results of women's suffrage, the less have my objections been realized and the more has the thing com- mended itself to my judgment and good opinion ; and I now frankly acknowledge, after all my distrust, that it has worked well and been productive of much good to the Territory, and no evil that I have been able to discern. Women are more interested in good government and its moral influence upon our future sons and daughters than men. They look above and beyond mere party questions or influences in deciding their vote." The debate was unusually long,and, mainly I believe from accidental causes, the division was unusually bad : only 134 voted and paired for Mr. Courtney's resolution, 248 being on the other side. The general election of. 1880 did a great deal directly and indirectly for women. Large numbers of the sup- porters of women's suffrage were among the successful candidates, while a host of the old opponents of the meas- ure lost their seats. Indirectly the movement for women's suffrage was advanced by the fact that the share which women took in the electoral campaign was quite unprecedented. There were few constituencies in which there were not lady canvassers, and there were a great many in which there were lady speakers. Mr. Gladstone did not appeal in vain when he called upon his country- women to play their own part in this political crisis. Ad- dressing his country-women he besought them to use their influence in the electoral contest, assuring them that to do so was the "performance of a duty, the neglect of which would be in future times a source of pain and mortifica- 26 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. tion, and the accomplishment of which would serve to gild your own future years with sweet remembrances, and to warrant you in hoping that each in your own place and sphere has raised your voice for justice, and has striven to mitigate the sorrows and misfortunes of mankind." The questions that were decided at the late election were of a character that was certain to call forth the enthusiasm of women. It is needless to say that women were not on these, nor on any questions, all on one side. The opinion of the Baroness Burdett Coutts was placarded all over London and Middlesex, in support of the Tory govern- ment. Still the organized strength of the women was exerted for the Liberal party, and in the north and in many of the metropolitan constituencies many worked hard and with great effect on behalf of the Liberal candi- dates. The session of 1881 was so disturbed by the general election and by the subsequent formation of the present government, that no opportunity arose for the introduction of the women's suffrage bill, and before the beginning of another session the acceptance by Mr. Courtney of the post of Under Secretary for the Home Department, deprived the movement of its parliamentary chief. Mr. Courtney's successor has been found in the person of Mr. Hugh Mason, member for Ashton-under- Lyne. He has not up to the present time (February, 1883) succeeded in getting a day for the discussion of the bill. It is believed that the women's suffrage party gained a large accession of strength at the last election, but up to the present this impression has not been brought to the test of a division. Reference has just been made to the experience of the Territory of Wyoming in the matter of women's suffrage. England has within the last two years had the benefit of ENGLAND. 27 seeing the experiment of giving votes to women tested in a sort of English Wyoming, i. e. y the Isle of Man. After a spirited contest between the two branches of the Manx legislature in the year 1880, the representative chamber, the House of Keys, prevailed upon the upper chamber to consent to the enfranchisement of women owners of real estate of the annual value of £4 and upwards. Women occupiers and lodgers are still ex- cluded ; but the feeling in the House of Keys was so strong in favor of giving women some share of representation that they at last consented as a compromise to accept the limited measure of enfranchisement which was offered by the other House. The bill received the royal assent early in 1881, and the first election in which women took part was held immediately afterward (March 21, 1881). The women showed the most marked appreciation of their new privilege by polling in large numbers, and the uni- versal opinion in the island seems to have been expressed by one of the gentlemen who was returned, viz., " that the new political element had acted in the most admirable manner." As I have suggested that the Isle of Man may be re- garded as occupying in relation to England a somewhat similar position to that of Wyoming in relation to the United States, I ought, perhaps, for American readers, to point out some of the reasons which make the extension of the parliamentary suffrage to women in the Isle of Man even more important as a political experiment than the enfranchisement of women in Wyoming. The Manx constitution is of very great antiquity ; the island has never been incorporated with Great Britain ; the governor is nominated by the queen, and certain dues, such as customs, royalties on mines, etc., are paid to Great 28 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. Britain. But the island has complete legislative independ- ence. It sends no representative to the House of Com- mons. It has a miniature Parliament of its own, which is of even greater antiquity than the Parliament of Great Britain. The population of the island is 54,042, its area, 180,000 acres. In area, Wyoming greatly surpasses the Isle of Man, for the Territory covers 62,645,120 acres. The population, however, of Wyoming is only 9,118 ;* therefore, whereas the island has one person to (approxi- mately) every three and one-third acres, there are about 6,870 acres to every person in the Territory. An example set by an old established and comparatively thickly peopled community like the Isle of Man has, I think, more signifi- cance than a similar example set by the youngest and smallest of the members which make up the corporate body of the American nation. It is a thing to be expect- ed that the newly settled regions of the United States should become the field for making all kinds of social and political experiments. The freedom which the American Constitution admits in this direction is one of its greatest merits. But I think it may be claimed that when a simi- lar experiment is tried with success in a place that is rigidly conservative of its ancient institutions, the history of which can be traced back to the sixth century, the ex- ample is one that is entitled to even greater respect than that set by the good people of Wyoming. The universal feeling among those engaged in working the women's suffrage question in England is, that with the general public great progress is being made ; but that * This was the population of 1870, but the new census, according to the Tribune Almanac, gives 20,789 souls. This does not in the least affect, however, Mrs. Fawcett's argument, for women's suffrage was in operation in Wyoming in 1870. — T. S. ENGLAND. 29 in Parliament the progress is much less rapid and assured. The great object of all concerned in this movement in England must be to keep it well to the front, so that when the reform question is opened again, as it must be before many years have passed, politicians may be made to feel that women have earned some share of representation. As I write these lines a letter on this subject appears in the London papers, addressed to Mrs. Ashworth Hallett by Sir Stafford Northcote, in which he says : " If we should be called upon to pass a measure for that purpose " (lowering the qualifications for the suffrage) " the case of the women rate-payers ought certainly to be dealt with." With powerful friends on both sides of the House, it may, I hope, be predicted with some confidence that women will not be left out of the next English reform bill.* * Although the Married Women's Property Act, which was passed by Parliament in the summer of 1882, does not properly belong to the subject of this essay, still, as several of the advocates of women's suffrage, were prominent in securing the enactment of this important measure, and as it has wrought such a revolution in the condition of married women in Eng- land, it deserves at least a few words of notice. " When the bill becomes law" (as it did on January J, 1883), says the London Times of August 18, 1882 (weekly edition), " a married woman will be capable of acquiring, hold- ing and disposing, by will or otherwise, of real or personal property as her separate estate, just as if she were single. ... It probably por- tends indirect social efforts much greater than the disposition of property, and it may in the end pulverize some ideas which have been at the basis of English life. Measures which affect the family economy are apt to be 'epoch-making'; and probably when the most talked of bills of the session are clean forgotten this obscure measure may be bearing fruit." I was in London in November, 1882, when the meeting was held at Willis's Rooms, to hear the report of the committee — Mrs. Jacob Bright and Mrs. E. W- Elmy — who had had the measure in charge, and to formally thank them for their untiring labors. Mr. Shaw Lefevre, M.P., presided, and speeches were made by Mr. Jacob Bright, M.P. ; Mrs. Jacob Bright, Mr. Hinde Palmer, M.P. ; Mr. Osborne Morgan, M.P., and others. I was forcibly 3 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. II. THE WOMEN'S EDUCATIONAL MOVEMENT. BY MARIA G. GREY. [Emily Anne Eliza Shirreff, born November 3, 1814, and Maria Georgina Grey, born March 7, 1816, are the elder daughters of the late Admiral Wil- liam Henry Shirreff and Elizabeth Anne Murray, his wife. Admiral Shir- reff, son of General William Henry Shirreff, claimed collateral descent through his mother, Margaret Bayard, of New York, with the Chevalier Bayard sans peur et sans reproche, the Protestant branch of whose family left France after the revocation of the edict of Nantes. His wife also claimed French Huguenot blood through the marriage of her grandfather, the Rev. Dr. Gideon Murray, brother of the sixth and father of the seventh Lord Elibank, Premier Baron of Scotland, with Elizabeth, daughter of General David Montolieu, Baron de St. Hypolite. Maria Georgina Shirreff married in January, 1841, her first cousin, William Thomas Grey, eldest son of the Hon. William, Lieutenant-Colonel Grey, and nephew of the second Earl Grey, who carried the reform bill of 1832. She and her sister composed to- gether first a novel, " Passion and Principle," published in 1841, and later on "Thoughts on Self Culture," published in 1850. In 1858 Miss Shirreff brought out her work on ""The Intellectual Education of Women." In 1868 Mrs. Grey published a novel, " Love's Sacrifice." In 1870 she was a candidate as a member for her own borough, Chelsea, in the first election for the School Board of London, but was defeated by a few votes. In 1871 she formed the National Union for the Education of Women of all Classes, of which Princess Louise, Marchioness of Lome, became the presi- dent, and Mrs. Grey held the post of Hon. Organizing Secretary till her health broke down in the winter of 1878-9. In that capacity she was instru- mental in forming the Girl's Public Day School Co. (limited), incorporated in July, 1872, and the Teachers' Training and Registration Society, incor- porated in 1877. Her sister, Miss Shirreff, who worked hand in hand with her in all these undertakings, was also an Hon. Secretary of the Union and joint editor, with Mr. George C. T. Bartley, of the Journal of the Women's struck at this gathering, as I have often been since, by the large number of prominent persons who take an active part in the English women's move- ment. — T. S. ENGLAND. 31 Education Union, till it ceased to appear at the end of 1881. In 1876, Miss Shirreff, having previously given much attention to the Kindergarten system, was elected president of the Froebel Society, in succession to the late lamented Miss Doreck, its founder and first president. In the same year Miss Shirreff published her " Principles of the Kndergarten System; " and in 1877 her " Sketch of Friedrich Froebel's Life," was first read as a lecture before the meeting of the Froebel Society. She is now (rS82) issuing a series of papers entitled " The Kindergarten at Home," in the monthly periodi- cal, The Governess, published by Joseph Hughes. The other literary work of the two sisters, besides that mentioned above, consists of numerous papers on educational subjects read first at Social Science Congresses, meet- ings of the British Association, and various educational societies, and after- ward published as pamphlets or in educational journals ; and of articles on social and other subjects in Eraser's Magazine, the Contemporary Review, the Nineteenth Century, and the Fortnightly Review J\ The first and most striking fact to note, in giving an account of the movement on behalf of the education of women in England, is its extremely recent origin, and the shortness 1 of the period which has seen its birth and its culminating success. Perhaps no movement of equal importance and involving such far-reaching results ever developed so rapidly, or attained its object so completely, within a fraction of the life-time of one generation. Forty years ago the question of women's education did not exist, and only within the last twenty years has it taken its place among the public and active interests of the day. When the question of popular education came to the front, no difference was made between the girls and the boys ; elementary instruction, especially the religious in- struction, which was its basis at that time, being admit- ted as equally necessary to both sexes. But of education, as the development of human faculty and the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, there was no question for women, or indeed for men either. Boys of all classes were sent to school because it was the necessary prepara- 3 2 WOMA N Q UESTION IN E UROPE. tion for active life. When the progress of civilization after the Renaissance had made a certain amount of cult- ure the necessary accomplishment of a gentleman, it became the fashion for the sons of gentlemen to go from school to the university ; and the universities changed their character from being the fountains of higher knowl- edge to the students, rich and poor, who came to them for knowledge only, into high schools for the sons of the wealthy landed gentry and aristocracy, while also provid- ing poorer men with the necessary preparation, the brod- studien, for the so-called learned professions, the church, the bar, and medicine. As women did not go into these professions, and the finishing process with them required accomplishments, not culture, of course any higher in- struction than that of the school-room was held to be quite unnecessary in their case, and every attempt to ap- proximate their education to that of men was stigmatized as a departure from the proprieties of their sex. The first public action taken to place within the reach of girls of the middle and upper classes better school- teaching, both as regarded quality and quantity, was in- itiated in 1846-7, by one who was in the vanguard of so many other fruitful movements for the propagation of "sweetness and light" in regions where they had never before penetrated, the Rev. F. D. Maurice, at that time a professor of King's College, London. " He took com- passion on the sisters of his boy pupils," says the Dowager Lady Stanley of Alderley,* who was his able and zealous colleague then, as she has been since, of all who have taken up the work of women's education, "and with the Rev. R. C. Trench, the present Archbishop of Dublin, and * Personal Recollections of Women's Education. — Nineteenth Century, August, 1 8 79.— M. G. G. ENGLAND. 33 some other fellow workers, elaborated the plan of Queen's College The first idea of the founders was that governesses only were to be educated in this college ; " (another proof how entirely education was governed by bread-winning necessities); "but this limited plan soon gave place to one including all who could and would come to the classes For such a purpose no endowment could be got, and Queen's College was a venture, depend- ing for its success on the unselfish devotion and energy of its founders. Good workers were not wanting. The col- lege was modestly opened in a house in Harley Street, on the 1st of May, 1848 ; and in 1853 a royal charter was obtained, at that time the only means of forming a corpo- ration, except by an Act of Parliament. This charter was the first formal public sanction given in modern times, to the principle that the education of Englishwomen was not less important or less worthy of honor than that of men." . . . .* In addition to the systematic classes of the college, free evening classes were opened to governesses only, in arithmetic, mathematics, geography, Latin, history, the- ology, and mental and moral philosophy. Of these classes, the first of their kind, Miss Buss, the head-mistress of the North London Collegiate School, herself one of the stu- dents, says: "To young beginners they opened, as it were, a new life." And Miss Beale, principal of the La- dies' College, Cheltenham, expresses in equally strong terms her debt of gratitude to them. That these two women, who have since led the van in the practical work of improving the education of women, should have both owed their training to Queen's College, is alone sufficient * Ibid., page 305. 34 WOMAN Q UESTION IN E UROPE. to stamp its value and justify the position assigned to it as a real and powerful, though silent, agent in the great reform that followed. A year after the foundation of Queen's College, 1849, ^ ie example was followed in the foundation of Bedford College, on the same lines and with the same purposes, with this difference only, that whereas Queen's, like King's College, London, to which its found- ers belonged, was placed distinctly under Church of England patronage, Bedford College stood as distinctly aloof from connection with any religious denomination. After this the whole question seems to have dropped out of sight and out of mind, and it was not till seventeen years later that the next great step was taken. This was the admission of girls to the Local Examinations of the University of Cambridge.* The object for which these examinations had been instituted was to raise the stand- ard of middle-class instruction, known to be lamentably low, by setting up both a standard and a test of attain- ment. The want of such means not only of testing the instruction given, but of impressing a steady direction to- ward a well-defined aim on the character of the teaching, was even more needed in girls' than in boys' schools ; since even the lowest of the latter gains something from the in- fluence of the great public schools and universities. Ac- cordingly a movement was set on foot, of which Miss Emily Davies was the life and soul, to obtain the admission of girls to the local examinations. In 1862 a committee was formed for this purpose, of which Miss Davies was * For the benefit of foreign readers it may be well to explain that these are Examinations of young people of school age, under fourteen for the Junior and under sixteen for the Senior, which were instituted first by the Univer- sity of Oxford and soon after by that of Cambridge, and which are conducted by Examiners appointed by the University wherever a local centre can be formed.— M. G. G. ENGLAND. 35 elected Honorary Secretary; and in December, 1863, an experimental examination was held in London, with the co-operation of the Syndicate, for conducting the local ex- aminations ; the regulations for boys being strictly ob- served. Forty senior and forty-three junior girls were examined ; and as only six weeks' notice could be given, it is not surprising that only six senior and twenty-seven junior girls were successful.* The experiment had, how- ever, shown that no practical difficulty stood in the way of the scheme. Miss Davies redoubled her efforts, and in the following year a memorial, signed by about one thousand ladies and gentlemen officially engaged, or con- nected with educational work, and supported by other influential persons, was presented to the Vice-Chancellor and the Senate of the University of Cambridge. The answer was favorable, and in 1865 the Cambridge Local Examinations were finally thrown open to girls, and six local centres were formed. In 1881 that number had in- creased to eighty-seven, and the number of candidates to 1,554 Juniors and 1,139 Seniors, — total 2,693. Of these, 75 per cent, of the Juniors and 57.5 of the Seniors passed successfully. Oxford was not long in following the example of Cam- bridge, and so far bettered it that, instead of classing the girls separately, as in the Cambridge plan, all the candidates take their places on the list giving the results of the ex- amination irrespective of sex ; and thus affording a per- fectly fair standard of comparison between the girls and the boys, both in the several subjects and in the general average of success and failure. It is worth noting that as the percentage of girls sent up has increased, and the improvement in girls' schools * Ibid. Page 312.— M. G. G. 36 WO MA N Q UESTION IN E UROPE. and their methods of teaching have had time to make themselves felt, there is a marked tendency toward equality of results between the sexes ; * indicating, like the similar tendency observable in the results of the other examinations in which both sexes compete on equal terms, that the intellectual differences between them are probably rather accidental than inherent, and that under similar conditions of training and exercise there is no congenital impediment to the success of women in any field of intellectual labor, f About the same time that the University of Cambridge thus recognized the claims of girls to share in the advan- tages offered to boys, these claims received their first recognition as a matter of national interest by the inclusion of girls' schools within the scope of the Royal Commis- * The percentage of failures given in the report above quoted is 32 for Junior boys, 25 for Junior girls ; 45 for Senior boys, 42.5 for Senior girls. — M. G. G. f Mr. Alfred P. Hensman, of The Temple, writing to the editor of the London Standard on November 15, 1882, says : " Will you allow me to draw the attention of your readers to a remarkable result of the recent Ex- amination for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts in the University of London ? There were two hundred and thirty-seven candidates altogether, of whom two hundred and fifteen were men. Of these two hundred and fifteen men, ninety, or about forty-two per cent., obtained the degree. Of the twenty- two women who presented themselves no fewer than sixteen, or about seventy-three percent., were successful. But, further, only fifty-eight of the two hundred and fifteen men, or twenty-seven per cent., were placed in the first division, whereas fifteen of the twenty-two women, or sixty-eight per cent., succeeded in obtaining places in that division. To put it in another way, more than one in every three of the men who obtained their degrees was in the second division ; only one of the sixteen women who became graduates failed to be placed in the first division. Upon inquiry I find that the average age of the women was not higher, probably it was slightly lower, than that of the men. As one who took an active part in the movement which ended in the admission of women to the Degrees of the University, I am desirous that these striking facts should be generally known." — T. S. ENGLAND. 37 sion, opened in 1864, for inquiring into the education given in schools not included in the former commissions, and also for §< considering and reporting what measures, if any, were required for the improvement of such educa- tion, having special regard to all endowments applicable, or which can rightly be made applicable, thereto." The reports of this Commission, consisting of a General Report and the several reports of the Assistant Commissioners, to each of whom had been assigned one of the eight districts into which England and Wales had been divided, to- gether with the evidence given before the Commissioners by men and women engaged or interested in educational work, were published in 1868-9. The portion of the reports and of the evidence referring to the education of girls was reprinted separately, with the sanction of the Commissioners, by Miss Dorothea Beale, Principal of the Ladies' College, Cheltenham, who added a very valuable preface, giving the results of her own large experience, and adding all the weight of her testimony to the truth of the sad picture presented by the reports. To this volume the present writer has often referred as the Dooms- day book of women's education, — recording, however, not its possessions, but its deficiencies ; and a few extracts from it will best illustrate the condition of things which the initiators of the reform movement had to deal with ; and, at the same time, afford the best measure of the ground gained in the interval between that and the present day. The Commissioners in their general report sum up the result of the Assistant Commissioners' inquiries in the following words : — " Want of thoroughness and foundation ; want of system; slovenliness and showy superficiality; inattention to rudiments ; undue time given to accom- 38 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. plishments, and those not taught intelligently, or in any scientific manner ; want of organization." Mr. Norris's evidence, quoted in the above report as the most concise and accurate view of the state of girls' schools, is to this effect : — " We find, as a rule, a very small amount of professional skill, an inferior set of school-books, a vast deal of dry, uninteresting task-work, rules put into the memory with no explanation of their principles, no system of examination worthy of the name, a very false estimate of the relative value of the several kinds of acquirement, a reference to effect rather than to solid worth, a ten- dency to fill and adorn rather than to strengthen the mind." " It is no exaggeration to say," states the Assistant Commissioner, Mr. Fitch, " that in the mass of girls' schools the intellectual aims are very low, and the attain- ments lower than the aims." The districts allotted to Mr. Fearon and Mr. Giffard, embracing London and its neighborhood, Surrey and Sussex, contained the highest grade girls' schools in the country. This is Mr. Fearon's conclusion in regard to them : — (i) " The provision in London is most inadequate." (2) " The cost of education is very high." (3) " The build- ings and premises of almost all these schools, whether day or boarding, are most unsatisfactory." " Except Queen's and Bedford Colleges, where gentlemen are em- ployed in teaching, and at a very few private schools whose principals have determined to make a stand against the frivolous character of girls' education, the quality of the visiting teachers of language and science is very inferior in girls' schools of the first grade." Mr. Giffard sums up the impressions he derived from his visits to girls' schools thus : — " That the mental training of the best girls' schools ENGLAND. 39 is unmistakably inferior to that of the best boys' schools ; and the great and obvious feature of all girls' schools, ex- cept those of the very humblest, is the enormous pre- ponderance given to accomplishments." The damaging conclusions of the Assistant Commis- sioners were more than borne out by the evidence given before the Commissioners. Mr. Sargant states that the education of girls in Birmingham, of what he terms the middle class, is " disgracefully bad ; that they are very much worse educated than their brothers — very much worse than those who go to any school under H. M.'s. Inspectors " — that is, elementary schools. Miss Emily Davies, mentioned above as one of the earliest and most active movers in the cause of woman's education, says : — "I have come across the best school-mistresses. They always speak a great deal of the bad preparation of the girls who come to them. They say they are perfectly ignorant. Their ignorance is unfathomable." Miss Beale, the editor of these reports, states of female education in the class of life to which her pupils belong, i. e., independent gentlemen and professional men, that " it is defective in an extraordinary degree. . . . Evi- dence is afforded that there are expensive schools where pupils who have naturally fair abilities may remain for years without obtaining the rudiments of education." Miss Buss, one of the highest authorities on the sub- ject, and of whose work we shall speak further on, says in answer to the question put to her by the Commissioners, whether she thought that the girls who came to her from the preparatory schools were in a better or worse state of instruction than boys similarly circumstanced : — " I do not know about the boys ; I know the girls could not be worse prepared than they are." 40 WO MA N Q UESTION IN E UROPE. The evidence quoted above applies mainly to the middle class in its three strata, lower, middle and upper ; but there was good reason to believe that in the highest classes, who are mostly educated at home, although the instruc- tion given might be better and the standard of information somewhat higher, there was really as little systematic training of the intellectual powers, as little appreciation of knowledge, of the higher forms of literature, or of real excellence in the pursuit of any art.* And it must further be noted that the education of which these reports gave the results, was exceedingly expensive ; — " nearly twice as expensive," says Mr. Bryce, " as that far more solid and practically useful education which a boy receives." While the education of girls was so much more costly than that of boys, it received none of that help from en- dowments which has done so much to save the education of boys from falling into an equal abyss of triviality and vulgarity. Miss Buss says in her evidence before the Com- mission : — " I feel most strongly from the people I have had to do with — professional men with comparatively small incomes — that they can obtain help in the education of their boys, but that no assistance whatever is given in the case of their girls ; and that even when willing and able to pay for a good education, they cannot get it." From the tables of endowed schools given in the general report of the Commission, it appears that while the endow- ments applied to boys' schools amounted to £ 177,000 a year, exclusive of the great public schools, those allotted to girls were under ^3,000 a year; and in every case the endowed girls' schools gave only elementary instruction, and were intended for the servant class only ; while among * Paper read by Mrs. M. G. Grey at the meeting of the Society of Arts. May 31, 1871.— M. G. G. ENGLAND. 41 the endowed schools for boys rank the highest in the land. The disclosures respecting the education of women in these reports coming so soon after the general impetus given to it by the admission of girls to the University Local Examinations, and at a time when the subject of education generally was occupying more and more of public attention, led to various associations being formed with a view to supplement the deficiencies so startlingly revealed, and to bring the means both of better and larger instruction within the reach of women of the middle and upper classes. Among these the North of England Coun- cil for the higher education of women and the Ladies' Council of the Yorkshire Council of Education, which was practically an off-shoot of the former, were among the earliest and most important, as taking the lead in the movement and representing considerable areas of the country. The movement rapidly spread, and in almost every large town in England and in University centres both in Scotland and Ireland, similar associations were formed. The principal aim of all these associations was to obtain for women, through the means of lectures and classes, the more advanced instruction which men receive at a Uni- versity. They prepared the public mind in the only way then possible, to accept the idea of education for women beyond that of school, to be carried on through the years which had hitherto been considered as those of emanci- pation from all serious study and occupation. Their modest beginnings, with lectures on two or three popular subjects, such as history and English literature, gradually expanded into classes for systematic teaching, and finally, in many cases, into complete courses of college education ; 42 WOMAN" QUESTION IN EUROPE. sometimes merging the original association for women only into one of the older or newer institutions for men also, — as in the case of the Clifton classes merged in the New University College, Bristol ; the London Ladies' Association in University College, London ; or as the Cambridge Association in the Nevvnham Resident College for women; and they are largely superseded now by the ample means of instruction opened to men and women alike, by the Cambridge and London Societies for the ex- tension of University teaching, and the new Victoria University. Their original work received its natural seal and sanction through the University Examinations for women over eighteen, first instituted in 1873, by the Uni- versity of Cambridge ; an example followed within a few years with scarcely an exception by the other universities of the United Kingdom. There was considerable variety in the standard adopted and the lines of examination ; but all agreed in the fundamental point that the candidates should have passed the school age, and the standard be that of higher than school instruction. Meanwhile, Miss Emily Davies, already so often men- tioned in these pages, being dissatisfied with these imper- fect substitutes for the higher education given to men by a university college course, had conceived the bold idea of giving to women a precisely similar education, under simi- lar conditions of college life ; to be tested at its close by the same examination as that by which the university tests its under-graduates. The idea was, of course, scout- ed at first, and many even of the best friends of women's education opposed it, on the ground that, considering the great and recognized imperfection of the existing univer- sity system, it was unwise to adopt it in founding a wholly new institution for the other sex. Miss Davies, whose ENGLAND. 43 singular clearness of judgment, tenacity of purpose, and untiring energy, specially fitted her for the task she had undertaken, maintained the ground she had taken up, i. e., that the question of woman's fitness for the higher education, represented by the university course, could be fairly solved only by submitting the women students to precisely the same course, under precisely the same tests, as the men. The university tests were known and recog- nized ; they were current coin. A fancy test invented for women only, even if really higher, would never pos- sess more than a fancy value. She enlisted in her cause many Cambridge men, — without whose generous help, in- deed, success would have been impossible, — and many others, both men and women, amongst the most active workers for women's education ; and in October, 1869, the college for women, organized in all respects as one of the Cambridge colleges and getting its tuition from Cambridge tutors, was opened in a small hired house at Hitchin, with five students. In 1873, it was removed to Girton, close to Cambridge, where proper buildings had been erected for it from funds raised by subscriptions and donations, which constitute its only endowment; and those buildings, twice enlarged since,* now contain fifty-eight students. To quote again Lady Stanley of Alderley, who in the case of Girton as of Queen's College was among its earliest and most generous supporters : " Girton is in all re- spects a college on the old model. The students have their own rooms for private reading,their class-rooms for lectures, their public dining-hall ; and if no grand old library is theirs, much earnest enthusiasm for study has proved them * It is about to be enlarged again now (January, 1883) the applications being far in advance of the accommodation and continually increasing. — M. G. G. 44 WOMAN Q UE STION IN E UROPE. worthy of richer opportunities than they yet possess. The university did not recognize, nor has it yet* recognized in any official sense the existence of the women's college, but the help and favor of individual members has never failed. The teaching has been Cambridge teaching ; and the Girton students have been yearly examined from the same papers, and under the same conditions as the under- graduates, both for the previous examination, and for ex- aminations for degrees, with or without honors." Side by side with Girton, another institution has grown up in Cambridge, which has met the educational wants of numbers of women to whom Girton, with its strict colle- giate organization, high standard of matriculation and also higher terms, would have been inaccessible. In 1870, a system of lectures for women was established under the management of a mixed committee of men and women residing in Cambridge, the men being all members of the university, and Professor Maurice once more taking a prominent part in the movement. The educational op- portunities thus offered soon attracted students from va- rious parts of the country, and in October, 1871, Miss A. J. Clough opened a house for the reception of these stu- dents, whose numbers rapidly increased from five at the time of the opening to twenty-six in the Easter term of 1874. In 1S73, the Association for Promoting the Higher Education of Women in Cambridge was formed, and Newnham Hall was built for the reception of the rapidly increasing number of students, the funds being obtained in the form of shares in a limited liability company. The success of Newnham Hall has equaled that of Girton ; and though the first object of both Association and Hall was * This ceased to be true in February, 1881, as we shall see further on.— M. G. G. ENGLAND. 45 to afford students thorough preparation for the Cambridge Higher Local Examinations, many of them have desired s and obtained more advanced instruction, and have shared the privilege granted to the Girton students of informal examination in the Tripos subjects. In 1880, a further step was taken. The Association and Newnham Hall were amalgamated as Newnham College ; a second build- ing was added to accommodate the largely increased num- ber of students, remaining under the superintendence of Miss Clough, to whose initiative in the first instance, and unwearied care throughout, the College mainly owes its present prosperity. It was recognized, together with Gir- ton, by the Senate of the University, as a place of resi- dence for students intending to present themselves for the Tripos Examinations. Two other institutions founded about the same time in the sister island, must be mentioned here ; Alexandra College, Dublin, presided over and owing largely its suc- cess to the late lamented Mrs. Jellicoe, and the Queen's Institute, Dublin, similarly indebted to its principal, Miss Corlett. The latter was at first intended as a technical school only, but the want of instruction and culture in the students making itself more and more felt, classes to sup- ply it were added to the technical classes, and the Insti- tute became the rival of the College as a place for the higher education of women. It will be seen that all these various movements for the education of women sprang up sporadically as it were, sup- ported, indeed, in large measure by the same active and devoted group of friends to the cause, but having no con- nection and no bond of common action. The North of England Council for improving the education of women, and the Ladies' Council of the Yorkshire Council of Edu- 46 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. cation did, indeed, represent comparatively large local areas, but neither of them was, nor pretended to be, in any sense national. The need of some wider organization which should offer the means of communication and co- operation to all throughout the three kingdoms interested or actively concerned in the movement, pressed with great force on the mind of the present writer, and in June, 1871, she brought before a meeting of the Society of Arts, in a paper on the Education of Women, a scheme for a na- tional society affording the desired means of co-operation between all workers in the cause, and obtained the prom- ise, afterward amply redeemed, of the support of the So- ciety. During the meeting of the Social Science Congress at Leeds, in October of the same year,* — the intervening months having been spent in obtaining the names as mem- bers of every well-known friend of the cause, whether man or woman, — the new organization took definite shape under the name of the National Society for Improving the Education of Women of All Classes ; shortened afterward into Women's Education Union. In November of that year it was inaugurated in London at a public meeting, presided over by the late Lord Lyttelton, whose support was a tower of strength. Through his good offices, Princess Louise, Marchioness of Lome, consented to be President of the society, and it numbered among its Vice Presidents besides Lord Lyttelton himself and the Dowager Lady Stanley of Alderley, already so often mentioned in these * I gladly take this opportunity of acknowledging the great debt of gratitude the women's education movement owes to this Association, and to the President of its Council, Mr. Hastings. The opportunities of public ad- vocacy and discussion afforded by its annual Congresses, and the cordial help and sympathy of its Education Section Committee were invaluable to the women, excluded at that time from all other means of public action. — M. G. G. ENGLAND. 47 / pages, representative names in both Scotland and Ireland ; such as Sir Alexander Grant, of the University of Edin- burgh, the Archbishop of Dublin, the late lamented Pro- vost of Trinity College, Dublin, Dr. Lloyd, etc., thereby stamping its national character. The objects of the soci- ety were as follows : (i) To bring into communication and co-operation all individuals and associations engaged in promoting the education of women, and to collect and register, for the use of members, all information bearing on that education. (2) To promote the establishment of good schools, at a moderate cost, for girls of all classes above those provided for by the Elementary Education Act. (3) To aid all measures for extending to women the means of higher education after the school period, such as colleges and lectures for women above eighteen, and even- ing classes for women already earning their own main- tenance. (4) To provide means for training female teachers, and for testing their efficiency by examinations of recognized authority, followed by registration accord- ing to fixed standard. (5) To improve the tone of public opinion on the subject of education itself, and on the na- tional importance of the education of women. After a lapse of eleven years we venture to affirm that those objects have in the main been attained. The Eng- lish jealousy of centralization and love of local independ- ence did, indeed, baffle in a great " degree the efforts toward organized co-operation of all the various move- ments on foot toward their common end ; but the Union did undoubtedly, though in an informal way, largely pro- mote intercommunication and concentration of effort ; and it can boast that every name of note in the roll of friends of women's education has been included in its list of members, and every step in advance has been either 48 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. led or powerfully backed by its wide-spread influence. Its Journal, under the joint editorship of Miss Shirreff and Mr. G. T. C. Bartley, — both well-known writers on educa- tion, Mr. Bartley on that of the people, Miss Shirreff on that of women,* — by recording every movement affecting women's education, not only in England but abroad ; by keeping the work done or doing throughout the country before the public, and by its series of papers on educa- tional subjects both by Miss Shirreff and other writers of weight, which may almost raise it to the rank of an edu- cational manual, has been a real force in aid of liberal education generally and that of women in particular. The Union, by giving scholarships to successful candidates in the various examinations open to girls in the three king- doms, to be held at some place of higher education, gave an impulse to the latter, and set an example which was largely followed afterward by other bodies. By public and drawing-room meetings wherever opportunity offered, by the publication of papers, by memorials and deputa- tions bringing concentrated influence to bear wherever questions affecting the interests of women's education were being decided, the Union carried on with unwearied energy and no little success its work of propagandism ; and if now it is gradually withdrawing from the field, it is because the work is done and the arms by which the bat- tle has been won may be safely laid down.f Of its two principal achievements, the formation of the Girls' Public Day School Company and of the Teachers' * " Schools for the People." By G. T. C. Bartley. " Intellectual Edu- cation." By Miss Shirreff. " Thoughts on Self-Culture." By Emily Shir- reff and Maria G. Grey. — M. G. G. f Since the above was written the Union has been finally dissolved, and the publication of the Journal, of course, ceased at the same time. — M. G. G. ENGLAND. 49 Training and Registration Society, I must speak with somewhat more detail, as both were initiatory movements of great and far-reaching importance, which entitles them to distinct mention in the history of the general move- ment for women's education. The reader will have perceived that up to this time the efforts of the supporters of the movement had been mainly directed to obtaining higher education for women, as the continuation and supplement of school education. But a greater and more pressing want, as shown by the Reports of the Schools Enquiry Commission, was that of good schools to prepare girls not only for this higher education, which must always be the privilege of the few, but for the work and duties of life incumbent on all. It was to sup- ply this want that the Central Committee of the Women's Education Union first turned their attention. Private boarding-schools, with some brilliant exceptions, were not only bad, but so expensive as to put them beyond the reach of all but the wealthier classes ; and the young ladies' academies, which took their place as private day- schools in towns, and professed to teach everything for £i a quarter, were, as a rule, below contempt. A few proprietary schools existed, mostly of a semi-charitable character, with one splendid exception, the Ladies' Col- lege at Cheltenham, which had already been raised by the ability and educational genius of its Principal, Miss Dor- othea Beale, to the rank of a model institution ; and which may now, with its noble central building, its group of boarding-houses, its thorough organization, and it's six hundred pupils, fairly be looked upon as the Eton or Har- row for girls. Another woman of genius, Miss Buss, conceived at this time the generous scheme of giving permanence to the work of twenty years of life, the North 4 5 o WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. London Collegiate School, by making over all her interest in it, though retaining her position as head mistress, to a body of trustees, who were also to be the future governing body ; and creating at the same time a lower school for the poorer middle class, unable to pay even the moderate fee of the Collegiate School. After several years' arduous struggle to obtain the necessary financial support for this scheme, under difficulties to which any lesser energy and ability than Miss Buss's must have succumbed, her efforts were crowned with success by the splendid endowment of the Brewers' Company ; and the Camden Schools, with their noble buildings, their nine hundred pupils,— five hundred in the Upper, four hundred in the Lower, — and their admira- ble organization both as to instruction and discipline, stand in their respective grades at the head of all schools of a simi- lar type throughout the country, and will remain a lasting monument of the genius and self-devotion of their founder. It was Miss Buss's original creation, the North London Collegiate School, that the Women's Education Union took as their model ; but warned by the difficulties she had encountered in obtaining funds, and feeling, moreover, that the secondary education of girls in England could not, and what is more, ought not, to be provided out of charitable endowments, the Central Committee determined to raise the money by means of shares in a limited liabil- ity company. In July, 1872, this company was formed under the title of the Girls' Public Day School Company (limited), and its first school was opened at Durham House, Chelsea, in November of the same year. The experiment of a public,* undenominational school for girls of the mid- * It maybe necessary for American readers to explain that a public school in England means one open without distinction of classes, to any one who can pay the fees ; not, as in America, a school supported by public funds. — M. G. G. ENGLAND. 51 die and upper classes, was an entirely novel, and by many held to be a perilously bold one. On these two points the School Company departed from its model, Miss Buss's school, which before it became an endowed school, ad- mitted pupils only on the recommendation of the Head Mistress and the members of the proprietary body, and was distinctly Church of England in its religious teaching, though with the widest conscience clause. The result has justified the action of the company, and shown how com- pletely it met the great and growing wants of the time ; for at this date, only ten years and a half from its com- mencement, it has twenty-three schools* at work in London and the provinces, giving a thoroughly good education to an aggregate of over four thousand scholars, at a maximum fee of ^15 a year; and before the end of 1882, two more will be opened. For the last four years it has paid a dividend of £5 per cent, to its shareholders ; and while the mixture of classes and denominations has been as complete as possible, not a single difficulty has arisen from it, even in provincial towns, where social and religious distinctions have a much more tenacious life than in Lon- don. The Girls' Public Day School Company has thus satisfactorily solved the problem of providing good and cheap education for girls of the classes above those at- tending the public elementary schools, on terms insuring a fair interest on the capital invested in them. Nor should the beneficent action of the company be measured by its own schools only. Itk example has been largely followed throughout the country ; schools of the same type have been established by independent local bodies in various places, and it may be safely predicted that, in the course * Now, January, 1883, increased to twenty-six, with a corresponding in- crease in the number of scholars, making it close on 5,000. — M. G. G. 5 2 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. of a few years, no town with a sufficient population to maintain a school will remain unprovided with one, either by the Girls' Public Day School Company, or by some local agency of a similar nature. The only real difficulty now embarrassing the executive of the former, is how to meet the increasing demand for schools without outrun- ning its resources both of capital and teaching power. The Women's Education Union having thus provided schools, next turned its attention to the training of teachers. In the case of teachers of elementary schools, the necessity for training had been admitted long before ; and thanks to the unwearied energy and self-devotion of the late Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth and Mr. Carleton Tuffnell, training colleges for elementary school-teachers of both sexes had been established, and a certificate of training required from all candidates for appointments in elementary schools receiving the Government grant. But the equal necessity of such training for higher-grade teachers was by no means admitted, and the very fact that it was required for elementary school-masters caused it to be looked upon as the stamp of an inferior grade of teachers. That University graduates, accustomed, if they had taken a brilliant degree, to have the best appointments in the great public schools offered to their acceptance, should be supposed to require training to teach what they knew, seemed almost an insult ; and the general ignorance of the principles of education, both as a science and an art, even among the educational* public, favored this assumption that the possession of knowledge was sufficient to secure the power of imparting it. By slow degrees, however, the question forced itself to the front, through the efforts of such societies as the Col- lege of Preceptors and the Scholastic Registration Society, ENGLAND. 53 but mainly by those of a few prominent individuals, among whom, besides Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth, should be specially mentioned the late Mr. Joseph Payne, who made the question his own, and who finally received from the College of Preceptors the first appointment to a pro- fessorship of the Science and Art of Education ever made in England. With this exception nothing practical had been done till the Women's Education Union took up the question in 1876, and after careful inquiries into the sys- tems adopted in continental countries, formed a Society for the Training and Registration of Teachers, which began its independent existence in December of that year. Teachers of both sexes were contemplated by the Society, but the Council felt that the first claim upon them was that of women, always at a disadvantage in regard to means; and in May, 1878, their first Training College for Teachers in Middle and Higher Schools for Girls was opened in premises kindly lent to them by the Rev. Wil- liam Rogers, adjoining to the Bishopsgate Middle Class School for Girls ; to which the students were admitted as a practicing school. The College opened with only four students, but the numbers rapidly increased, and in 1882 amounted to thirty-six;* and the efficiency of its train- ing has been most satisfactorily tested by the success of the students at the Cambridge University Examinations in the Theory, History and Practice of Education. This examination, held for the first time in June, 1880, was the result of the efforts made by the various educa- tional bodies and individual educationalists of note, by whom the question of training for higher-grade teachers had been taken up and pressed on the Universities, not only of Cambridge, but also of Oxford and London ; * Now (January, 1883) over forty. — M. G. G. 54 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. though only Cambridge has as yet given effect to their demands.* It must be noted, as marking the great advance already made in public opinion by the women's claim to educa- tional equality, that in this examination no difference is made between the male and female candidates, the con- ditions of admission, standard, and certificate being pre- cisely the same for both, f This brings me to the last and culminating success of the movement — the admission of women to University degrees. The history of the struggle of women to obtain medical education, and the medical degree which alone could give them professional status, belongs to another part of this volume, but it was a most important and efficient factor in the general move- ment on behalf of women's education, and undoubtedly accelerated its final triumph by many years. The public, which had little sympathy with women's desire for educa- tional privileges for their own sake, could feel the injustice of excluding them from the same privileges where they constituted the only access to professional position and emolument. The University examinations hitherto open to women were all arranged for women only, excepting the informal Tripos Examination of Girton and Newnham Hall students at Cambridge, which had no value for medi- cal students. The first^step taken on behalf of the latter was the passing of the Rt. Hon. Russell Gurney's enabling bill, to allow all the nineteen British medical examining bodies to confer their degrees or diplomas upon women. Of these bodies, the Queen's University of Ireland and the King and Queen's College of Physicians, Ireland, were * London has now established a similar examination. — M. G. G. f This holds good also for all the new teaching and examining bodies created within the last few years. — M. G. G. ENGLAND. 55 the first, to their honor be it spoken, to use the powers thus conferred, by admitting women who had successfully- passed their examinations as duly qualified physicians to the Medical Register. In 1876 the Senate of the Uni- versity of London passed a resolution in favor of admit- ting women to the examination for medical degrees, under the powers conferred by the Russell GurneyAct; but the Convocation of the University protested against the Senate proceeding under a permissive Act, and against the ad- mission of women to medical degrees, before the ques- tion of their admission to all the degrees of the University had been considered. The Senate then prepared a Sup- plementary Charter, providing that all the degrees of the University should be open to women. This charter was presented to Convocation and passed by a majority of 241 to 132, nearly 2 to 1, on the 15th of January, 1878, a date to be ever remembered in the history of women. The final step was taken in January, 1882, by the admission of women graduates of the University to vote in Convocation, a right which had before been reserved. An injudicious attempt was made to include in this the right to vote for the Members of Parliament representing the University ; which was in effect an at- tempt by a side-wind to confer the parliamentary suffrage on women. But this portion of the motion having been properly set aside, that part of it which gave votes in Convocation to women was carried by a very large major- ity, and women were finally placed on a complete equality with men in every respect within the competence of the University. It was natural that the University of London, from its modern origin and constitution, and consequent freedom from ancient tradition and social prejudice, should take 5 6 WOMAN Q UESTION IN E UROPE. the lead in this bold innovation ; but it is another proof of the rapid advance of public opinion on the subject, that within two years the ancient University of Cambridge should have followed the example, and pressed by memo- rials very largely and influentially signed, one coming from its own resident members, should have admitted women formally to the Tripos Examinations, to which hitherto the students of Girton and Newnham had only been admitted informally, and as it were sub rosa. This was done on the 24th of February, 1881 ; and it is still more remarkable that the measure should have been carried by the extraordinary majority of 258 to 26, in- cluding a large number of the non-resident members of the University, who are generally supposed to constitute its conservative and retrograde element. ' Great as this step is, it still falls far short of the position cf the University of London as regards equality between men and women. Cambridge has conferred that equality only in respect of the Tripos Examination, but it has not acknowledged women as members of the University; and it is a curious proof of the tenacity of the prejudice against women following a higher course of education for its own sake only as a means of general culture, that they are still excluded from examination for the ordinary degree, and were admitted to the honors' examination avowedly on the ground that it alone would confer upon them any advantage in the race for professional advancement. We may, however, be satisfied with this partial result, knowing well that the wedge, already inserted so deeply, will not fail to be driven home before long. Perhaps Oxford, which, though always moving more slowly than Cambridge in the cause of women's education, has made each con- cession more thorough when granted at last, and which, ENGLAND. 57 like Cambridge, has two resident colleges for women students, Somerville Hall and the Lady Margaret's Hall, may again better the example of the sister University by granting in full what Cambridge is doling out piecemeal : the admission of women to all the privileges of the Uni- versity on equal terms with the other sex. A few months after the decision of Cambridge, the University of Durham opened to women its public exami- nations and first degree in Arts, — the only Faculty be- sides Theology in which degrees are conferred at Durham, — on the same conditions of residence, etc., as male under- graduates. But till some place of residence and means of instruction have been provided there for women, the privilege will remain practically nil. The University of St. Andrews had preceded even London in admitting women to an examination in Arts, of which the standard was the same for men and women in the same subjects, and conferring a degree on the successful candidates ; who, however, when women, were entitled Licentiates instead of Bachelors of Arts, from some foolish fear of the ridicule attaching to the latter term applied to women. Last year the foolishness was increased by making the title, L. L. A., Lady Licentiate. It is to be hoped that the proof afforded by the proceedings of the University of London that women can receive and wear the title of B. A., B. Sc, or B. D. with perfect propriety and dignity, will soon dispel these absurd imaginations, and induce the sister Universities to admit the principle that academic distinctions are of no sex, and mark only degrees of learn- ing, whether the wearer be man or woman. A word must now be said on the application of endow- ments to the education of girls. Of all the claims made for women, this was the one which met with the bitterest 5 8 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. and most persistent opposition, especially in the localities and by the classes interested in the endowments. The idea that girls want secondary education no less than boys has been very slow to penetrate the average British brain, and to apply any part of an educational endowment to their benefit was strenuously resisted as so much robbery of the boys. The Endowed Schools' Commission, presided over by Lord Lyttelton, the never-failing friend of the women's cause, first gave the girls a locus standi under their schemes of reconstruction, and by placing women on the governing bodies of endowed schools acknowledged the right of the mother to be represented as well as the father in the direction of the children's education. The dissolution of the Commission and the transference of its work to a department of the Charity Commission, animated by a very different spirit from that of Lord Lyttelton and his colleagues, seriously threatened for a time the interests of girls ; but the gradually increasing change of public opinion in their favor, and the efforts of the good friends still left to them in the Department, prevented any per- manent reaction, and up to the year 1882 fifty-three schemes for applying a part or the whole of as many local endowments to secondary schools for girls have been sanctioned. Of these, ten are first grade, fourteen second grade, and twenty-nine third grade.* Nor does this by any means represent all that has been done for girls by the" Department. There are many schemes under which scholarships and exhibitions for girls are provided where there were not means or oppor- * It may be necessary to explain that this classification makes only differ- ences in the curriculum of the school and the average age of leaving, which involve difference in the school fees, and has nothing to do with the social position of the scholars. — M. G. G. ENGLAND. 59 tunity for setting up a school, and others where girls get an interest in the endowment contingent upon an expected increase in the value of it. On the whole, we may agree with the Secretary to the Department, Mr. Douglas Richmond, to whom we owe the above statistics and who is himself a staunch friend to the girls, that this is a result by no means calling for self-abasement ; and if we contrast it with the state of things when the Endowed Schools Commission began its labors only twelve years ago, when, as we have seen, not a single endowment was applied to the secondary education of girls, and the infinitesimal share they received in the immense educational endow- ments of the country, went entirely to the support of industrial schools, we shall better measure the ground gained by their cause. Before leaving this subject, one other endowment for the benefit of women's education must receive special mention for its unique magnificence. If is the college for women planned and now building near Egham, Surrey, by Mr. Holloway, in memory of his mother, at a cost of ^237,000 for the building alone, with a further endow- ment for maintenance, besides the purchase money for the park-like grounds in which it stands. The college, — the idea of which, it will be interesting to American read- ers to know, was suggested by Vassar College, — is intended to give the highest university education to four hundred students, and will be as unique for the grandeur and beauty of its architecture and the scale of its internal arrangements, as for the lavish generosity of its founder. It is to be completed in 1883, and made over by the founder to the trustees who are to be the future govern- ing body under the provisions of the trust. Some of those provisions, especially that which excludes from the 60 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. College women intending to make teaching a profession, we would gladly see altered, and also a larger number of women admitted to the governing body. But it would be ungracious to look so splendid a gift- horse too closely in the mouth, and we can but cordially hope that the spirit which is to dwell in so beautiful a temple, mayprove worthy of it in every respect. The latest step toward supplying university educa- tion to women which I have to record, was taken in 1 88 1 by the same body, King's College, London, to which belonged the movers of the first. The Council, presided over by the principal, Canon Barry, always the cordial and able friend of women's education, resolved to commemorate the jubilee of its foundation by founding a Women's Department of the College. Three years pre- viously, following the example given long before by its elder sister, University College,* London, King's College had established classes for women in all the subjects taught at the college, which had proved most successful. University College had, in that same year, admitted women to all its classes on the same terms as men, the junior classes being still separate, the senior mostly com- mon to both sexes. At King's College the complete separation of the sexes was still to be maintained, and it was proposed to raise ^"20,000 for the necessary build- ings — a proposal which, if made on behalf of a scheme for women a few years ago, would have been scouted as pre- posterous — and ,£3,000 were actually subscribed toward it * The difference between these colleges, both instituted to give the instruc- tion which the University of London only tests by its examinations, is, that King's College is connected with the Church of England, and gives theo- logical instruction to its students, while University is purely secular. — M. G. G. ENGLAND 6 1 before the meeting. Perhaps we cannot better close this history of the women's education movement than by con- trasting the tone of some of the speeches made on this oc- casion with our recollection of that which prevailed at its beginning. Then all the efforts of the advocates of women's n education had to be directed to show cause why they should be educated; to meet what Miss ShirrefT on one occasion wittily called the "shirt-button and slipper argument," and prove that the comforts of men would not be less carefully attended to if women's thoughts and interests were en- larged beyond the sphere of the kitchen and the work- room. One gentleman who was appealed to for support bluntly expressed what many more implied, that women were getting too much out of hand and wanted, instead of help, " to be taken down a peg." On another occasion, at a meeting to establish classes for the higher education of ladies in one of the metropolitan suburbs, it was urged that the first classes opened should be for cooking and needle-work, as the subjects of paramount importance in the training of future wives. The conception of women as human beings, with moral and intellectual claims and responsibilities in the cultivation of their faculties and the direction of their lives, was looked upon as one of those " advanced " ideas, or rather crotchets, which had no real standing-ground in practical affairs. Listen now to Lord Salisbury, assuredly no partisan of liberal reform in gen- eral, speaking at this King's College meeting, presided over by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and having for its ex- press purpose to provide the highest college education for women. Lord Salisbury said : " He had accepted the invitation rather to show his sympathy with the move- ment, and with those excellent persons at the head of King's College by whom the movement had been intro- 62 WOMAN Q UESTION IN E UROPE. duced, than from any hope that he could add by his ad- vocacy to the acceptability of such a movement ; because it seemed to him that the difficulty in the matter, was rather to find why there should be need of advocating the extension of education for women, than to find arguments in its favor. The burden of proof lay on the other side. Why was the higher education not to be as much the privilege of women as of men ? " We may hope that this question will never need to be asked again. The privilege is won ; the door so long closed is open wide, and the ways and means of knowl- edge abundantly provided. It remains only that women shall prove themselves worthy of the freedom they have gained ; that they throw off the mental and moral defects contracted during long ages of irresponsible dependence ; that they learn and practice the first lesson of true liberty — obedience to law voluntarily accepted, and make it their duty and glory to show that the most cultivated woman can be, and is, the most womanly in all the essential attri- butes and offices of womanliness. ^ ENGLAND. 63 III.— WOMEN IN MEDICINE. BY FRANCES ELIZABETH HOGGAN, M.D. [Frances Elizabeth Hoggan (n/e Morgan) was born at Brecon, in South Wales, on December 20, 1843, but a stone's throw from the house in which England's greatest actress, Mrs. Siddons, first saw the light. She com- menced medical study in London in 1866, graduated at Zurich in 1870, es- tablished herself in private practice in London at the close of the same year, and was for six years and a half physician to St. Mary's Dispensary, and to the New Hospital for Women, in which the Dispensary became merged. She married, in 1874, Dr. George Hoggan, a staunch supporter of the equal rights of women, and a well known scientific investigator. She co-operated with Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell in founding the National Health Society, of which she was the first Honorary Secretary, and has taken an active interest in ed- ucational and social reforms, and in all movements for the improvement of the legal and social position of women. She became a Licentiate of the King's and Queen's College of Physicians, in Ireland, in 1877, and a Member in 1881. She is, jointly with her husband, Dr. George Hoggan, a regular contributor of scientific articles and reviews to English and foreign medical journals. They have published many researches into the minute anatomy of the lymphatic system and other subjects, and they are now engaged in in- vestigating some important points in the nervous system both in health and disease.] The first qualified medical woman in England, as in America, was Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, a native of Bristol, in the west of England, a graduate of Geneva, New York, and the first woman admitted to the English Medical Register. Curiously enough, she had a predecessor of the same name, a midwife, who in the last century wrote a much-esteemed treatise on botany ; and among the English midwives of an earlier date there are not wanting many who clearly perceived and wrote on the importance to women of hav- 64 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. ing medical advisers of their own sex. The heartburnings and recriminations between midwives and men-midwives, prior to the incorporation of the College of Surgeons in 1800, testify to the existence of a strong feeling on the part of women practicing midwifery, that men were tend- ing unjustifiably to invade their domain ; and a royal mid- wife of the eighteenth century (Mrs. Stephens, midwife to Queen Charlotte), did not hesitate to employ, in a book published by her, the following significant language, which many thoughtful persons at the present day might be found ready to indorse : " I cannot help thinking that so general a use of men in the business of a midwife, has introduced a far greater number of evils among society than it has prevented." Old records tell of patents granted to women as well as men, for the practice of certain well-defined branches of the healing art ; and there is evidence that there existed in England in the seventeenth century, a vigorous and sturdy race of women practicing midwifery. It is note- worthy that as early as 1646, a petition was presented to Parliament, entitled " The midwives' just complaint, and divers other well-afTected gentlewomen, both in city and country," which appears to be the first public protest ever made by Englishwomen in favor of peace and in condem- nation of war. It is further to be noted that the most eminent of the midwives of that day, Mrs. Elizabeth Cel- lier, a woman of such strong character * that had she been a Protestant, or had she lived a century or two later, she * Mrs. Cellier, on the occasion of her acquittal at her first trial for high treason, dauntlessly refused to pay the jurymen the guinea apiece which they demanded of her, promising, in her own quaint and forcible language, to serve their several ladies, " if you and they please, with no less fidelity in theirde- liveries, than you have done me justice in mine." — F. E. H. ENGLAND. 65 would doubtless have become one of the imperishable heroines of history, drew up a scheme for the incorpora- tion of a College of Midwives, which she submitted to James II., and to which he accorded a favorable reception. In spite, however, of his promise to unite the midwives into a corporation, by his royal charter, nothing was ever done by the king. It may be that his parsimonious nat- ure took alarm at the proposed large expenditure ; it may be that the medical profession of the day, anxious as it appears to have been that midwives should be instructed in all subordinate branches of their art, were yet unpre- pared to allow them to take a position which would have placed them on a footing of complete equality with male practitioners of surgery and medicine. Good grounds for the presumption of some such feeling are afforded by the pamphlet published by Mrs. Cellier in 1687, which evinces much professional susceptibility, roused by the remarks and queries of at least one doctor. Viewed by the light of our nineteenth century experience, it would seem as if thus early the exclusiveness of medical men had crept in to mar the harmonious relations which ought to have existed, from the first, between men and women whose lives were alike devoted to the service of the sick and suffering. Passing on to our own century, we find the name of Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell placed, in 1859, on tne English Medical Register, where it remained solitary until 1865, in which year the name of Elizabeth Garrett was added to the Register. Dr. Blackwell, unfortunately for the cause of medical women in England, but no doubt fortu- nately for our sisters in America, was prevented, by force of circumstances, from carrying out her original intention of settling in London. Thus, though an English physi- 5 66 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. cian by the recognition of the register, Dr. Blackwell first practiced in New York. She returned to New York in 1859, an d continued to practice there until 1869, when she came back to England, to leave it no more. After some years' practice, during which she took an active part in the solution of many of the social questions of the day, and especially in all bearing on the degradation of women, Dr. Blackwell founded, in 1871, the National Health Society, which has since done a great deal of use- ful sanitary work. She now lives at Hastings, a centre of bright, cheerful activity, both social and professional, and venerable, less from age than from the unselfish un- wearied labors of a lifetime, spent not in personal ag- grandizement, but in working for the public good. Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell has published several works on the healthy bringing up of children, and especially of girls, and her latest work, " On the Moral Education of the Young in Relation to Sex," which has been translated into the principal European languages, is a valuable con- tribution to the educational literature of the day, and a fearless exposition of the false morality which saps all true education, for which parents owe the pioneer medical wo- man of England and America a lasting debt of gratitude. The early history of all social questions- is more or less a history of the individuals who represent them. Thus a brief notice of two or three of Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell's more immediate successors must here be given. Eliza- beth Garrett (now, through marriage, Elizabeth Garrett- Anderson), the first to follow in her steps, obtained offi- cial recognition, and the right to practice as a licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries, in 1865. The important achievement of having obtained an English registrable diploma, although of the lowest kind, cost Mrs. (now ENGLAND. 67 Dr.) Garrett-Anderson more time, money, perseverance and patience than would have been needed by a man to obtain the highest honors in his profession. No school in Great Britain would admit her as a student. She had to take some of her classes and hospital practice as a pupil-midwife, or as a nurse, merely tolerated in the wards ; and on one occasion she was dismissed because her answers to clinical questions put to the class were too good, and the students mutinied. In other subjects she paid away a small fortune in fees for private teaching from recognized lecturers at medical schools. Only in this way could she gain the certificates technically necessary to en- able her to comply with the requirements of the Apothe- caries' Society, the one medical licensing body in Great Britain which found itself precluded by its charter from refusing to examine women on the ground of sex, and which, therefore, however unwillingly, was at length obliged to let her slip through. When once on the Medi- cal Register, she lost no time in establishing herself in practice in London. In the summer of 1866, a public dis- pensary for women and children was opened, for the pur- pose, as stated in the first yearly report of the committee, of affording to poor women the option of obtaining medi- cal advice from a qualified woman. This dispensary was under the entire medical control of Dr. Garrett-Anderson for the first four years, when another qualified medical woman made her appearance on the scene. Frances Elizabeth Morgan (now, by marriage, Frances Elizabeth Hoggan) began her medical studies in 1866, in company with two other ladies, both of whom were hin- dered by too early marriage from carrying out their studies to their legitimate end, under the then arduous conditions of work and life imposed on women students by the ad- 68 WOMAN Q UESTION IN E UROPE. verse verdict of the medical profession. It was almost impossible, in those early days, for a married student to hold on her course undaunted, when that course implied severance from home and country, studying in a foreign tongue, and pecuniary sacrifices, all to be undergone with- out any certainty of ultimately succeeding in winning a legal professional status in her native land. But although precluded by circumstances from persevering in their medical career, these two ladies proved themselves in every way worthy of the profession they had chosen, and they carried on the traditions of their student life by becoming the founders of two of the most flourishing hospitals for children in London.* Dr. Frances E. Hoggan and her two friends, in com- mencing their medical studies, strictly conformed to the letter of the regulations laid down by the Apothecaries' Society, the only one of the nineteen licensing bodies of Great Britain from which there was at that time any pros- pect of obtaining a diploma. To satisfy its demands, ex- pensive courses of lectures were secured from registered lecturers at medical schools, the fee paid for the anatomy course alone amounting to fifty guineas. Before, however, incurring such heavy expenses, they had ascertained, by di- rect inquiry at Apothecaries' Hall, that no new prohibitory regulations were in force ; yet, notwithstanding all their caution, no sooner had these three women passed success- fully in January,i867, the preliminary examination in Arts (one of them taking honors) f than the council of the Apothecaries' Society, realizing apparently for the first time that an invasion of the medical profession by * The East London Hospital for Children, and the North Eastern Hospi- tal for Children.— F. E. H. f Mrs. Hoggan.— T. S. ENGLAND. 6 9 women was imminent, held a meeting forthwith, and pub- lished, within a week, a resolution which in effect, although not in terms, excluded women thenceforward from any of the professional examinations. Only one course was now open to the baffled students, that of seeking thorough medical training at some reput- able foreign school. Zurich, at that time the leading Uni- versity in Switzerland, true to its ancient traditions of liberality and liberty, had just distinguished itself by admitting, in the year 1867, its first woman student to matriculation and graduation, at the termination of the usual period of study, a period which had been spent by the worthy pioneer, Dr. Nadjesda Suslowa, in cheerless, conscientious, solitary work, hardly lightened by the hope which she sometimes ventured to think had been prophetically breathed into her own name of Nad- jesda (the Russian for hope), that her labors would event- ually be crowned with success. Before Nadjesda Suslowa went to Zurich, other ladies, as early as 1839, h ac * been allowed to attend lectures at the University, but none had been allowed to matriculate. It is a notable fact, and one which contrasts brightly with many facts in the history of medical women in England, that no sooner was the justice of allowing women to matriculate recognized by the Medical Faculty of Zurich, than all trace of past in- justice was at once swept away, and the necessary classes and hospital practice having been already taken by the applicant, permission was forthwith granted to Miss Sus- lowa to enter for her examinations and to graduate at the earliest possible date. To Zurich, therefore, went Frances E. Hoggan (then Morgan), in the autumn of 1867, hoping there to breathe freer and purer air than seemed possible to her at that 7 o WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. time in England, when the medical profession was heap- ing its anathemas, coupled with disgraceful epithets, on those women who chose the profession of medicine as a career.* The next few years, spent in serious study, and cheered by much professional kindness from both pro- fessors and students, form a bright spot in the life of one who began medical study under difficulties unknown to the present generation of students. Dr. N. Suslowa's graduation ceremony, in 1867, was memorable from being the first graduation of a woman that had occurred in Switzerland, and Dr. Frances Hoggan's, in 1870, was memorable for being the first and the last, in the annals of the University, which took place in the Aula, an adjournment thither from the room generally used on such occasions being rendered necessary by' the great concourse of spectators, some attracted by ^curiosity, many drawn to the spot by kindlier feelings of sympathy and interest. On the wall of the Aula hangs the portrait of Charlemagne, the founder of the early Zurich school* and never had it looked down before on a more eagerly excited crowd than it did on that March morning in 1870, which so clearly placed beyond all doubt the interest which the question of medical women had called forth in the University and town of Zurich. Armed with the Zurich diploma, and after having * If any doubt the correctness of the above remark, a glance through the English medical journals from 1865 up to the present time, will convince them of its perfect accuracy. The language often used by members of the medical profession is so bad that it cannot even be quoted. A few generous men, it is true, held out the hand of fellowship, at the risk of incurring pro- fessional odium and loss, but the bulk of the medical men of the country raised angry protests against medical women, and the medical journals were inundated with letters and articles, alike false in substance and disgraceful in tone. — F. E. H. ENGLAND. 71 visited many of the most esteemed foreign schools, Dr. Frances E. Hoggan returned to London toward the close of 1870, being the first Englishwoman in possession of any European degree of Doctor of Medicine, although shortly afterward, Mrs. Garrett-Anderson, added to her L.S.A., the title of M.D., of Paris. Several. Englishwomen followed Frances Hoggan almost immediately to Zurich, and after successful, and, in some cases, brilliant examinations, returned to practice in their own country. In the meantime, the solution of the ques- tion of medical study for women had been sought in Eng- land in another way. Miss Jex-Blake, a pupil of some of the earlier American physicians, applied to the University of Edinburgh, in the spring of 1869, for admission as a medical student. It was not thought advisable to make any special arrangement in the interests of one lady only ; and therefore, in June, 1869, having secured the co-opera- tion of four more ladies, all intending students, Miss Jex- Blake wrote to the Rector of the University, inquiring whether arrangements would now be made for the instruc- tion of herself and her companions. After much delibera- tion, the Edinburgh University decided to admit women tentatively to matriculation and to the study of medicine at the University, with provision for their instruction in separate classes. Miss Jex-Blake and four other ladies matriculated in Edinburgh during the winter of 1869, and, to use her own words, " it seemed now as if smooth water had at length been reached, after seven months of almost incessant struggle." Had the same policy of unobtrusively work- ing on, claiming no distinctions, and sedulously and quietly avoiding all occasions of rivalry between the sexes, which led to such marked success at Zurich with 7 2 WOMAN Q UESTION IN E UROPE. Dr. N. Suslowa, and in Paris with Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi, fhe able and judicious American physician, who opened to women the University of Paris, been now fol- lowed, the result of the Edinburgh experiment was as- sured, and years of struggle, heart-burnings, injustice and hope deferred might have been averted. But through want of tact or patience the regrettable incident occurred, which is here given in the words of one * who was throughout one of the ladies' warm friend and helpers. " As one of the most devoted servants and supporters of the cause of medical women at that time in Edinburgh, I may describe what I, from personal knowledge, know to be the turning point at which the cause, which seemed to have a fair chance of success, was destroyed by the in- judicious conduct of its leader. That point was the agitation connected with the Hope scholarship. In order to understand the question, a few preliminary words are necessary. In the first place, it was clearly understood that the ladies were admitted into the University of Edinburgh only on the basis of an experiment. There was no equality of rights granted to them with the regular students, but only certain privileges, which allowed them to receive instruction from "some friendly professors, who had previously announced their willingness to teach them, provided that those professors who were opposed to the whole question should not be called upon to teach them against their will. At that time the professors in the Uni- versity might be divided into two parties, those favorable to, and those opposed to the claims of the women students. Those opposed to the question did not wish to control their favorable colleagues in the matter, so long as their col- * George Hoggan, M. B. Edin., husband of the author of this essay. — F. E. H. ENGLAND. 73 leagues did not seek to control them ; and thus, at the meeting of the Medical Faculty which decided to allow the experiment to be tried, we find several of the pro- fessors were hostile ; Professors Laycock, Turner and Christison abstaining altogether from voting rather than oppose actively the wishes of their colleagues who had, on the other hand, consented that the hostile professors should not be called upon to teach the ladies if they objected to do so. It wfs on these terms only that the ladies were allowed to matriculate, and to receive in- struction in special classes, apart from the regular classes of the University. At that time, Professor Crum Brown was the lecturer on chemistry, and a warm friend of the women's cause. He agreed to give the ladies the same course of lectures that he gave to his regular class, receiving, however, for the former a fee amounting only to about a thirtieth part of that which he received from his regular class, and giving, moreover, to the ladies certain privileges which his male students did not. enjoy. He granted the women special class examina- tions, at which the same printed paper of questions was used as that for the men students at the competitions for the class medals, and for the scholarship bequeathed by a former professor, and named after him the Hope scholar- ship.* In doing so, he little imagined that he was forg- ing a weapon that would be used against himself. "An authority of the most absolute nature was exercised over the women students by the leader of the party, as she naturally imagined that for the ladies to show extra- ordinary capacity woul3 at once enlist public sympathy, * These scholarships were founded with the proceeds of some very success- ful lectures given to ladies, and it is hardly to be wondered at that the ladies should feel they had some special claim to compete for them.— F. E. H. 74 " WOMAN Q UESTION IN E UROPE. and force the University to admit them, as of right, to all the privileges of students. Miss Pechey, a student of great ability, was, therefore, provided with a good chemical laboratory and private tuition, in order that she might be enabled to pass the best chemistry examination. " Professor Crum Brown not only used the same exami* nation papers for both classes, but he also used the same valuation terms, and found that Miss Pechey's paper was the best of any male or female student's of her year, and that, had she been a member of the regular class, instead of the private class only, she would have become entitled to hold the Hope Scholarship, which had a nominal money value, but was actually given in the shape of three months' tuition in the University laboratory for analytical chem- istry. "A demand was made that the Hope Scholarship should be awarded to Miss Pechey. But even had her private' examination entitled her to this, it was impossible to grant it to her, for, in order to enjoy it, either she would have had to study with the male students, who worked all day in the chemical laboratory, or the laboratory would have had to be reserved for her alone, by turning out all the men ; one of the most stringent regulations under which the female student experiment was conducted being that there should be no mixed classes permitted. She had, however, no legal right to the Hope Scholarship, which was a prize for the students of the regular class, and not for members of any irregular, exceptional, or experimental class which the professor might be allowed to form. * A long series of violent attacks was made by * In Great Britain alone could such an anomaly exist as students allowed to matriculate and yet not legally admitted to the rights and privileges of University students. — F. E. H. ENGLAND. 75 the press upon the University authorities in general, and upon Professor Crum Brown in particular, who, however, did all he could to pacify and satisfy the ladies. He gave the University (bronze) class medal to Miss Pechey, and even offered to add to this the actual money value of the scholarship out of his own pocket, as the rule against mixed classes prevented him from giving the educational equivalent in his laboratory, but this was refused, the entrance to a mixed class, and not the actual prize, being the point aimed at. " It is difficult for any one not then present in Edinburgh to realize the excitement which prevailed in the local press and in the University. That excitement produced its natural and inevitable result. Those professors who had remained benevolently neutral, when they might have been actively antagonistic, and who had expressed them- selves at the beginning as willing to give the experiment a fair chance, now thought that they had made a mistake, and determined to get rid of the rebellious element, which, in the guise of a few young ladies had determined to hold them up to public obloquy. The consequences were fore- seen and foretold by many, including myself, to those most interested. Friendly professors became first neutral, next hostile. The ladies were driven out of the Uni- versity and out of the medical school, and the question which, judiciously conducted, might have had a favorable solution within five years, was thrown back fifty years further in Edinburgh than in any other medical school of the three kingdoms. " The same kind of injudicious action which initiated the exclusion of women from the University, had the same effect subsequently in excluding them from the indepen- dent school of medicine at the College of Surgeons, only ]6 WOMAN' QUESTION IN EUROPE. that in the latter case it was the antipathy of the students which was roused, and it was the influence of the students which excluded them. The board of lecturers at the Col- lege of Surgeons was favorable to trying the experiment of teaching the ladies in mixed classes, and the experiment was first tried in the classes of anatomy and surgery. In the latter department, I had the honor of giving the ladies their first lesson in practical anatomy, besides delivering the winter course of lectures on regional anatomy to a mixed class of male and female students. " The episode of the Hope Scholarship had just taken place, and the bitterness which it had aroused made it impossible that mixed classes, with competition for prizes, could be then and for some time afterward a success. One of the professors permitted this rivalry, however, and even showed a certain leaning toward the ladies while adjudicating the daily marks which ultimately determined the question of prizes. The anger of the students, thus called forth, knew no bounds. They organized an oppo- sition, and on the next occasion of an examination in anatomy the first of that series of dastardly riots oc- curred which disgraced so deeply the Edinburgh Medical School. " The history of these riots is a painful one, and exceed- ingly discreditable to medical students.* On the other hand it has been sought to show, as a set-off to their mis- conduct, that, stung by the disgrace of the riots, a body of the more respectable students formed a guard, who in turn defied and maltreated the rioters, and escorted the ladies home every night while the riots lasted. As the organizer * Professor Blackie, an eminent professor of the Faculty of Arts, ex- claimed on hearing of it: " Ye can say now that ye 've fought with wild beasts at Ephesus ! " — F. E. H. ENGLAND. 77 and leader of that escort, I regret to say that its constitu- tion did not bear out the alleged facts. Of the whole guard, only four were medical students, not one of whom belonged properly to the extra-mural school. In fact, the main body of the escort was composed of Irish students, studying at the Royal Veterinary College, who were marshalled up each evening by their leader, brave and simple Micky O'Halloran, an Irish Bachelor of Arts, and an ex-trooper in the Confederate States' Army. These men, each armed with the national shillelah (anticipating by some years the act of justice to medical women which the Irish College of Physicians was the first to accomplish, by admitting women to examinations for the diploma of the college), soon showed the medical students that rioting was a hazardous game. When the riots proved a failure, the students almost unanimously signed and presented a memorial, asking that ladies should be ejected from the mixed classes ; the effect of this being that the lecturers actually rescinded the permission given by them at the beginning of the session, and excluded the female students altogether from the school. That rivalry and jealousy were the great factors at the extra-mural school, was made evident by the fact that personal antipathy was shown by the male students to one lecturer only, the one in whose class the men and women contended for the same prizes. In Dr. Patrick Heron Watson's mixed class of surgery not the slightest sign of disturbance was ever shown ; but then, while the ladies had no better, more determined, and unselfish supporter than Dr. Watson, in Edinburgh, he refused to accede to their wish that the men and women of his class should be allowed to compete for the same class-prizes, choosing rather to give a second set of prizes to the women out of his own pocket." 78 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. Those were exciting days in the old city of Edinburgh. All the forces of society were arrayed on one side or the other. The daily papers took up the cudgels for or against the ladies, and letters and leaders couched in the strong language of the North, kept the question of medical women constantly before the Scotch public. The aid of one tribunal after another was invoked, * either by the ladies or their opponents ; but the contest between a hand- ful of women and their supporters, on the one hand, and on the other a powerful University, backed by all the re- sources and traditions of the past, was too unequal for the result to be doubtful. That result was complete failure to obtain a footing for women medical students in Edin- burgh, their exclusion from qualifying classes and exami- nations, and dispersion of the students, most of whom eventually completed their term of study and graduated at foreign schools. During the time that Scotland was the theatre of such exciting scenes, the question of medical women was mak- ing quiet and comparatively uneventful progress in Eng- land. St. Mary's Dispensary grew into a Hospital for Women, which for many years was under the medical care of Dr. Garrett- Anderson, and Dr. Frances Hoggan. This hospital enlisted from the first the sympathies and prac- tical help of those interested in the cause of medical women. It became gradually known, and appreciated by * The women (now ten in number) tried the case, in 1872, by an action of declarator ; Lord Gifford (the Lord Ordinary) gave judgment in their fa- vor. Had the University been desirous not to fail in honor, but to fulfill their obligations if they could, they might have rested upon this judicial decision. On the contrary, they appealed against it to the whole Court of Session, and, in June, 1873, by a bare majority of the Court, they obtained a reversal of Lord Gifford's judgment ; and the ladies were mulcted in the costs of both sides in both suits." Right Hon. James Stansfeld, M.P.— F. E. H. ENGLAND. 79 women of the humbler classes, who willingly paid a small weekly sum in the Women's Hospital, although at most of the other Metropolitan Hospitals outdoor and indoor treatment was entirely gratuitous. The New Hospital for Women, Marylebone, has had the usual success of hos- pitals officered by women, as testified to by American experience ; that is to say, it has been gratefully appreci- ated by patients, and generously supported by the public. Changes have from time to time taken place in the con- stitution of the medical staff. One of the original two medical officers has resigned, and Dr. E. Garrett-Ander- son and a full staff of qualified women now carry on the medical work of the institution. One by one, at the expiration of their term of study, medical women returned home from abroad, some with a Zurich, some with a Paris diploma. Some settled in Lon- don, others established themselves in the larger provincial towns, amongst which Birmingham early distinguished itself by appointing a lady as house-surgeon to the Mid- land Hospital for Women, a precedent which, up to the present day, has not been departed from. In spite of the disabilities under which all unregistered foreign graduates labored, disabilities which are exactly paralleled at the present day in Prussia, and which were so serious as to make it doubtful whether the women could maintain their position at all ; in spite, too, of open hos- tility and covert attack on the part of the medical profes- sion, medical women have made fair, and in some cases, large practices. From the first they fixed their scale of remuneration as high as that of medical men, and there- fore financial success may be accepted as a fair test of the value set by the public on their services. Prior to 1876, several Bills for the purpose of relieving 8o WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. medical women from the disadvantages under which they labored, and of enabling them to obtain that official rec- ognition in their own country, hitherto denied them by the nineteen licensing bodies of the kingdom, were brought before Parliament. In that year, what is called an " En- abling Bill," was passed, the principal provision of which was as follows : "The powers of every body entitled under the Medical Act to grant qualifications for registration, shall extend to the granting of any qualification for registration granted by such body to all persons without distinction of sex : provided always that nothing herein contained shall ren- der compulsory the exercise of such powers, and that no person who but for this act would not have been entitled to be registered, shall, by reason of such registration, be entitled to take any part in the government, management, or proceedings of the Universities or corporations men- tioned in the said Medical Act." • The first examining bodies which expressed their will- ingness to examine women, in accordance with the power thus conferred by " Russell Gurney's Act," were the King and Queen's College of Physicians, Ireland, and the Queen's University, Ireland. The friendly spirit thus shown at Dublin was due no doubt in part to the good impression produced on the minds of the professors by a quiet unassuming student, who had been steadily working at Stevens's Hospital for several years. I have it on good authority that, so long ago as 1873, many of the professors were avowedly favorable to medical women, but that the Edinburgh troubles made them un- easy, and they hesitated to open their school unreserv- edly, for fear of encountering similar difficulties. The good intentions of the Queen's University were frus- ENGLAND. g x trated by the refusal of the affiliated colleges to admit women students.* Early in 1877, the first woman, Dr. Eliza W. Dunbar, a graduate of Zurich, was examined by the King and Queen's College of Physicians, and received their license, which enabled her to be placed on the Register ; and her example was quickly followed by other ladies. The London University next decided to throw open all its degrees to women. This liberal proceeding resulted in- directly from the opposition of the majority of the medi- cal members of the University to the granting of medical degrees to women, so long as the other degrees of the University were refused to them, and it was carried by a majority of non-medical votes. Thus, after years of wait- ing, f of work and of quiet progress, a legal and professional *The late Sir Dominic Corrigan wrote on May ist, 1877: — "The Senate of the Queen's University, of which the Duke of Leinster is President, and of which I am Vice-President, passed a resolution that we would admit women to examination, on their complying with our regulations, that is, sub- mitting to education and examination the same as men. Armed with this, twelve women presented themselves as students, as I have been informed, requiring only one session to perfect their course, and not even requiring medical courses. They were refused entrance by the Colleges both of Belfast and Galway, the Colleges thus setting the University at defiance ; in short, the Colleges, by this act, setting themselves above the Senate of the Univer- sity. The whole system must be overhauled. In the face of this, to my mind most improper arrogance on the part of the Colleges, their professors are now seeking an augmentation of salaries, without any promise of amendment in this or other particulars The Colleges never condescend to communicate their proceedings to the Senate, so that I only know of the re- fusal from conversation with some of the professors of the Colleges. Of Cork College I have no knowledge, but I believe it unites with the others." — F. E. H. f The first Zurich graduate was seven years in practice in London before she was allowed to present herself for examination and subsequent registra- tion.— F. E. H. 6 82 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. status was at length granted to medical women in Eng- land. After many unavailing attempts had been made to ob- tain admission for women students at one or other of the existing medical schools, a school of medicine for women was opened in August, 1874, at 30 Henrietta street, Bruns- wick square, London. The initiative in this work was taken by Dr. Jex-Blake, and some of the late Edinburgh students. Dr. E. Garrett-Anderson joined in the scheme, and Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell was also one of the early co. operators and teachers. The school became connected with the Royal Free Hospital in 1877, and it is now a rec- ognized place of medical instruction for women. It has some funded property, a regular curriculum, and a fair supply of students. In the year 1882 there were 44 students on the school and hospital books, and every year some of the students complete their medical course, and enter the profession as licentiates of the Irish College of Physicians. Sufficient time has not yet elapsed for any to have graduated at the University of London, but sev- eral women have passed successfully the earlier examina- tions, and have shown at all the examinations a very high average of attainments ;* and there can be no reasonable doubt that women will go on as they have begun, and graduate at the London University with credit and even with distinction.f The position of medical women at the present day in * Miss F. Helen Prideaux has taken the gold medal for anatomy at the first M. B., or intermediate examination in medicine, the highest distinction given at this examination, and other ladies have also taken honors in the medical examinations of the London University. — F. E. H. f Since the above was written two women have graduated at the Univer- sity of London, one in medicine only, the other with great distinction in medicine and surgery. — F. E, H. ENGLAND. 83 England, may be briefly stated as follows : They have a school and hospital of their own, and they are admitted to no other school ; they can present themselves for exam- ination at the University of London, and at the King and Queen's College of Physicians, Dublin ; they have a legal professional standing as duly qualified registered practi- tioners of medicine ; they have patients, and their popu- larity and influence are growing from year to year. All these advantages they have gained by the help of some earnest, generous members of the medical profession, and of many chivalrous, liberal-minded men outside the pro- fession. The attitude of the general public has undergone a very marked change within the last ten or twelve years, and medical women may now be said to have firmly estab- lished their hold on the public mind. But with the male members of the medical profession their position is far from satisfactory. They are met in consultation, because it would be contrary to the established code of medical etiquette to refuse to meet a registered practitioner. The number of friendly medical men may perhaps be said to be increasing ; still most of the practice at the general and special hospitals is closed to them, and all the medical so- cieties refuse them membership. Medical women thus miss all the sharpening of wit, and all the advantages of professional intercourse, which such societies afford. No better illustration of the narrow spirit which still pervades the dealings of the medical profession in Eng- land with medical women, could be given than the vote of the English organizing committee of the International Medical Congress, held in London, in 1881, excluding women from all but " the social and ceremonial meetings of the Congress." This vote, it is well known, was main- ly brought about by the influence exercised by Sir Wil- g 4 WO MA N Q UESTION IN E UROPE. Ham Jenner, Physician in Ordinary to the Queen, and by a few others ; but it sufficiently indicates the animus still existing in the profession. The exclusion of qualified medical women from medical societies and congresses is now, indeed, so much the or- der of the day, that it deserves more than a passing not- ice or brief reference, and it will no doubt prove of inter- est to pass in review some of the most notable instances of this arrogance of sex, both in our own, and in neigh- boring countries. Among the societies, the Obstetrical Society - * stands forth prominent in its opposition to the claims of women. It met the application for membership of a registered medical woman by a resolution excluding women, as such, from all rights of membership. When, subsequently, a joint paper by a man and a woman f was presented to the Obstetrical Society, an abstract only of the paper was published in the Transactions of the Society, but with the woman's name carefully omitted. The ab- stract, however, having attracted the notice of an emi- nent foreigner, the paper was, at his request, sent over to him in Germany, and published in full in one of the first German medical journals. Following on their exclusion from the Obstetrical So- ciety of Great Britain, comes the exclusion of women from the British Medical Association. For some years pre- viously, two women had been, after regular election, members of the Association. In 1875, they, for the first * " It is curious to note how persistent hostility still finds its stronghold in the ranks of those practitioners who have devoted themselves to the spe- cial treatment of the diseases of women, and to the practice of midwifery. Can it be that they, more than others, tremble for their monopoly ? " — " Medical Women," by Right Hon. James Stansfeld, M. P., July, 1877. — F. E. H. ■J- George and Frances Hoggan. — T. S. ENGLAND. 85 time, attended the yearly meeting, joining in the discus- sions, and reading papers. Thereupon a determined set was made against the ladies, and counsel's opinion taken as to the possibility of getting rid of them. In the elec- tion of the first lady, Dr. Garrett-Anderson, no flaw could be made out. It was, however, discovered by the legal quibblers that a period had existed, prior to the incorpo- ration of the British Medical Association, during which elections might be considered void if the Association so pleased. During that period Dr. Frances Hoggan, to- gether with a large number of members of the male sex, was elected. Her election was duly notified to her, and her fees were regularly taken. Nevertheless, at the yearly meeting, in 1877, a vote was first passed declaring women ineligible for future election, and immediately afterward all the soi-disant irregularly elected members, with the one exception of Dr. Frances Hoggan, were re-elected. We leave to the appreciation of our readers the above novel and ingenious method of procedure which the British Medical Association, the largest and most influential body of medical men in the kingdom, thought fit to adopt against a medical woman whom they had duly elected a member and to whom it was expressly stated that they had no personal objection. Next in chronological order, we have to note the ex- clusion of women from the Association of German Natu- ralists and Doctors, which took place in 1879, under the following circumstances. The same lady who experi- enced such scant courtesy at the hands of the British Medical Association, was also a member of the above- named German society. In 1878, a resolution was brought forward, proposing the exclusion of women as members. The originator of the resolution appealed to his country- 86 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. men to support him, urging them in the most moving terms to emulate their English brethren, who had re- cently " purged the British Medical Association of the presence of women." The vote was not taken until the fol- lowing year, but when taken it was adverse. Women were excluded from membership of the Association of German Naturalists and Doctors, and a protest which had been forwarded by the excluded member, with a request that it might be read at a general meeting of the Associa- tion before the resolution was put, was neither read, nor its receipt in any way acknowledged. A similar reception was accorded to the protest of medical women excluded, for the first time, by the vote of the English Organizing Committee, from the Inter- national Medical Congress recently held in London. In fact, a curious resemblance in points of detail character- izes the exclusion of women from medical societies, in all its various phases ; and the reference of the German doctor to the superior wisdom of the British Medical Association in " purging " their society of women, is highly sugges- tive, and clearly indicates the influence which extends from England to Germany, strengthening the strong class feeling which still prevents medical men from treating their colleagues o.f the opposite sex with fairness ; which enables them to see no unfairness, for instance, in exclud- ing from the advantages of a great international scientific gathering, by the vote of none but recent members, wom- en * who had long preceded them in the Association as members of former Congresses.f To the thoughtful mind it is painful to see the medical profession in the two * Dr. Frances Hoggan and Dr. Aletta Henriette Jacobs, of Amsterdam, referred to at some length in the chapter on Holland. — T. S. f One by four years, another by two years. — F. E. II. ENGLAND. 87 greatest Teutonic nations, England and Germany, thus leagued together against the professional interests of medical women, and, regardless of the strongly expressed desire of other women to have physicians of their own sex, refusing to them those precious opportunities of scientific intercourse and culture which are the necessary complement of the right, now conceded to them in Eng- land, but still contested in Germany, to study and practice medicine, on equal terms with men. The lovers of fair play must, alas, look beyond the Teutonic to the Latin race, to find that fine sense of justice and feeling of true chivalry, which has never yet excluded a colleague from a medical society or congress on the ground of sex.* * Some of the great English scientific societies seem to be pervaded by a more liberal spirit than those of the medical profession, as is shown by the following extracts from an interesting letter by Miss Eleanor A. Ormerod, Consulting Entomologist of the Royal Agricultural Society, dated Dunster Lodge, Isleworth, England, October 30, 1882. " I was the youngest child," Miss Ormerod writes me, " of the well-known genealogist and historian of Cheshire, George Ormerod, and was educated at home (without help from schools, governesses or the lectures we hear so much of at the present day), by my mother, a woman of great information, accomplishment and solid piety. Her principal rule was that everything learnt must be thoroughly mastered, and she instilled into me a lively interest in all natural objects, plant, animal and mineral. This was my beginning, on a basis of intense love, of any pursuit which took me into the open air. Later I suffered much from ill health, and in a succession of long illnesses I beguiled pain and weariness by study of my favorite subject. About 1868, when the Collec- tion of Economic Entomology now at the Bethnal Green Museum (London), was commenced, I wrote and offered to contribute, and from that time until the decease, in 1878, of Mr. Murray, the curator, I contributed not only by constantly collecting, drawing, modelling, etc., but also by working out life histories when requested. Thus I laid the foundation of a good deal of knowledge as to the feelings of, and the great amount of information pos- sessed by, field-laborers, farmers, gardeners, foresters, etc., on these subjects, and about the beginning of 1877, I invited, by a circular, contributions from those who would give me information, for publication in reports, as to means 88 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. Public opinion in England, on the question of medical women, is in advance of the general opinion of the medical profession, notwithstanding the generous help which some members of that profession have always held out to their professional sisters, often to their own great personal det- riment.* That the tide of public feeling has turned is sufficiently- proved by the increasing numbers of medical women. In February, 1 882,there were 26 women on the medical register, and other names have since been added. At Birmingham, a lady, Dr. A. Barker, has been appointed Honorary Act- ing Physician to the Midland Hospital for Women. Last year there were three dispensaries officered by women in London, one at Bristol, one at Leeds, and one at Man- chester. Several qualified women have gone out to the East as Missionary Physicians, and the question of an ade- quate supply of Medical Women for India has become one of general interest, in which the Queen and country alike share. Women are also beginning to contribute their share to medical literature, and to scientific research. In found practically serviceable for prevention of injury to oaks by insects. In this way and by constant study I have become possessed of some knowledge on the subject. In the spring of this year I had the great honor of being asked to become Consulting Entomologist of the Royal Agricultural Society of England. The post is, I am happy to say, no sinecure. Since then I have had the further honor of being appointed the Special Lecturer on Economic Entomology at the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester, a very important post, in which I try to do my duty." — T. S. * In 1880, Dr. Allen Sturge, now of Nice, was refused a hospital appoint- ment, for which he was admittedly the most fitting candidate, and for which he had worked for years, at a hospital founded by a woman, because the committee could not get over the difficulty that he was married to a lady- doctor. Another friend of the movement was, some years ago, offered an independent teaching post, if he would give up his advocacy of the medical women's cause, an offer which he at once declined. — F. E. H. ENGLAND. 89 short, the future looks fair, in spite of the disadvantages under which they still labor ; and it may be confidently predicted that complete success is now but a matter of time, and that the next quarter of a century will have to record fresh achievements and much valuable work accom- plished by medical women, in the practice of their pro- fession, in the field of science, and in the direction of much- needed social reform. 9 o WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. IV.— THE INDUSTRIAL MOVEMENT. BY JESSIE BOUCHERETT. [The Boucherett family, which is of French Protestant origin, settled at North Willingham, in Lincolnshire, where they still reside, more than two hundred years ago. Emilia* Jessie Bouchreett was born in 1825. From early youth she felt an especial interest in the condition of women, who, she thought, had to endure more than their fair share of the hardships of life. Of their various grievances, the most widely felt, and at the same time the least difficult to remedy, seemed to her to be their exclusion from the means of earning a good livelihood. It was, therefore, in this direction that, when the opportunity for acting offered itself, Miss Boucherett turned her efforts, and, in conjunction with some friends, she succeeded in founding the Society for Promoting the Employment of Women, an account of which is given in the following pages. Miss Jessie Boucherett is the author of a little book called " Hints on Self Help for Young Women," published nearly twenty years ago, which is now out of print and out of date, the information contained in it being old, but which at the time had some effect on the class it was intended to assist. She has also written numerous tracts, pamphlets and articles, the most important of which, on the "Condition of Women in France," appeared in the Contemporary Review. This essay showed how women had gradually been excluded from many well-paid trades into which they had been freely admitted before working-men obtained the elect- oral franchise. Mrs. Josephine E. Butler's " Woman's Work and Woman's Culture," contains an essay by Miss Boucherett on " How to Provide for Superfluous Women." Miss Boucherett was one of the earliest promoters of the movement for obtaining the Parliamentary franchise for women house- holders and was a supporter of the Married Women's Property Bill, which happily became law in January, 1883. She is now anxious to persuade poor * Until she had occasion to consult the parish register, at the age of thir- ty-five, Miss Boucherett was under the impression that "Jessie" was her first name, having always been so called. She considered it too late to make a change and has therefore continued to omit " Emilia." ENGLAND. 9 1 ladies to turn their attention to pig and poultry farming, for she believes that a clever, active woman could add considerably to her income by so doing.] In 1845, Thomas Hood, shortly before his death, wrote the well-known " Song of the Shirt." It is probable that some special circumstance or tale of sorrow had at that time called the attention of kind-hearted people to the condition of the London seamstress. The pathos of the " Song " roused public sympathy strongly, and an impres- sion became general that the condition of working women of the lower class was not what it ought to be, and that it would be well if something could be done to raise their wages. This impression, though vague and impracticable, was of great use, for it not only turned the minds of phi- lanthropists toward the subject, but it prepared the way for any efforts that might be made to introduce women into new occupations; the evident plea of necessity diminish- ing the dislike with which such efforts were sure to be re- garded at first. From another quarter, about the same time, attention was called to the distress existing amongst educated gen- tlewomen. The Governesses' Benevolent Institution was started in 1841, but it was not completely organized till two years later, when the Rev. David Laing undertook the office of Honorary Secretary. It had for its object to give pensions to worn-out governesses. The amount of actual destitution amongst educated women which came to the ears of the committee was appalling. When the sum of ^500 had been raised, and was invested so as to create a perpetual annuity of £15, there at once appeared thirty candidates for this small income, a large proportion of whom were entirely destitute. A little later, when the in- stitution had grown richer, there were one hundred and 92 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. twenty candidates for three annuities of £20 each. Here was a revelation of misery, undeserved and unsuspected ! The Governesses' Benevolent Institution is now one of the largest charities in London, and gives pensions to 243 aged governesses, besides affording other relief. Useful as this institution has been, and still is, in relieving dis- tress, I believe that it has been indirectly even more use- ful in making the distress known. A considerable number of people having thus become impressed with the unhappy condition of women who had to earn their bread, whether as teachers, or needlewomen, some efforts were made to relieve their distress by intro- ducing them into new occupations. The Female School of Art, which was started in Gower Street, and thence re- moved to 43 Queen's Square, dates from this period. The annual exhibition of paintings by women artists was opened not long afterward, and has been continued with increasing success up to the present time. Other schemes then started failed, but a part of one of them — the teach- ing of women to paint on glass for windows — was less un- fortunate, and a few women have been thus employed ever since. A most successful effort was made by Mr. Ricardo, M. P., to introduce women into the telegraph service, as is shown in the following extract from the Englishwoman s Journal of December, 1859: " It appears that about six years ag> Mr. Ricardo, M. P., the then chairman of the International and Electric Telegraph Company, heard of a young girl, the daughter of one of the railway station- masters, who had for three years carried on day by day the whole of the electric telegraph'business for her father, and that too with great intelligence and correctness. The idea then suggested itself of training and employing ENGLAND. 93 women as clerks for the telegraph company, and on its being proposed to the committee, the proposition was warmly advocated by General Wyld, who has proved a most untiring friend of the cause. Opposition was of course naturally enough shown by the clerks of the estab- lishment, but the experiment was permitted to proceed, and Mrs. Craig, the present intelligent matron, appointed to instruct in her own room eight pupils on two instru- ments. At first the instruments in one room were worked by young men, and the instruments in the other by young women, and it seemed as though the directors were pit- ting them against each other, establishing a kind of indus- trial tournament, to see which description of laborer was worthiest. With what tact, perseverance and success Mrs. Craig and her pupils worked may be gathered from the fact that, at Founder's Court alone, upward of ninetyyoung women are now (1859) in active employment, the whole of the actual working of the instruments having fallen into their hands. The committee are now perfectly satisfied that girls are not only more teachable, more attentive and quicker eyed than the men clerks formerly employed, but have also pronounced them more trustworthy, more easily managed, and, we may add, more easily satisfied with lower wages. So well pleased are they, indeed, with the result of their experiment, that about thirty more women are now employed at the branch offices, viz., eight at Charing Cross, two at Fleet Street, two at Knight's, etc., and eventually there is no doubt they will fill posts in all the branch offices in England." The success thus foretold has been far more than attained. The government took possession in 1870 of the electric tele- graphs of the country, and the staff employed by the com- panies passed into the hands of the Postmaster General. 94 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. By good fortune, or more correctly speaking, by the mercy of Providence, Mr. Scudamore, whose official duty it was to regulate the telegraphs, was favorable to the employ- ment of women. He retained the women clerks whom the company had employed and even added to their num- ber. Before that time, women had often been employed by local postmasters in country towns as assistants, but they had never been employed by the government. Un- der Mr. Scudamore women were employed in London as post-office counter-women as well as telegraphists ; they gave satisfaction by their conduct, and their numbers in- creased. The success which attended the employment of women in the minor duties of postal work, encouraged Mr. Scudamore, in conjunction with Mr. Chetwynd, to make the experiment of employing women of higher edu- cation as clerks in the discharge of work of a superior sort. The following history is taken from the London Times of January 3, 1882: "In 1871 it was decided to institute a department check, with a view to discover, without waiting for complaints from the public, whether the various officers employed throughout the country upon telegraph work were doing it ill or well, since it seem- ed desirable to Mr. Scudamore that something should be done for those long-suffering people who 'sit down calmly under their grievances and never let the department know what they have suffered.' And it was for this purpose that the Telegraph Clearing-House Check Branch was es- tablished, with a staff composed wholly of female clerks. In the early days of the government telegraph system such a check seemed, indeed, very necessary, and the work which it involved was well within the capacity of a female staff, since, as Mr. Scudamore naively put it, ' it consisted chiefly in fault finding.' *.*.*.* The test ENGLAND. 95 of female ability to perform clerk work having been thus satisfactorily applied, more important duties — such as telegraph account work — were intrusted to the young ladies in question, and it is now by them that the accounts are prepared and rendered to the various newspapers, etc., with which the telegraph department has to deal. It is only necessary to state that the Post Office receives an- nually from newspapers, press associations and agencies, clubs, hotels, etc., a sum of considerably over .£50,000, in order to show the important and responsible nature of the work performed by the female staff of the Clearing-House Branch, who have also, it should be added, to check the claims against the Post Office by the railway companies in respect to the telegraphic work done by them at their various stations on behalf of the government. It was no doubt owing to the very successful results of the experi- ment, as regards the Telegraph Clearing-House, of em- ploying female clerks that Lord John Manners, whose warm sympathy and co-operation the movement appears ever to have received, was induced to recruit certain branches of the savings bank department with ladies, in- trusting to them that simpler kind of work which hitherto had for the most part been allotted to boy clerks. And, so far as can be learnt, there has been no cause to regret the step taken in this direction. The employment of females has also been tried since 1873 in the Returned Letter of- fice, where they have been engaged upon what is described as ' returning work ; ' which consists in returning the ordi- nary correspondence that the Post Office has not been able to deliver. No better proof of the capacity of females for certain kinds of clerk work could be afforded than the em- phatic testimony in this report tendered before the Play- fair Commission by the Controller of the Eeturned Letter 9 6 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. office, who stated that their employment in that office had been a ' perfect success.' They have, he continues, ' com- pletely surpassed my expectations. They are very accu- rate, and do a fair quantity of work ; more so, in fact, than many of the males who have been employed in the same duty.' When the new system of postal orders was intro- duced at the commencement of last year, it was not un- natural that Mr. Chetwynd, profiting by the experience of the Telegraph Clearing House under his control, should desire to intrust to young ladies the simpler portions of the work connected with the system — those duties prob- ably which would have been performed by boy clerks. As a matter of fact, however, Mr. Fawcett has told us that the whole of the clerical work connected with postal orders is performed by a staff of female clerks and is done in a very satisfactory manner. Some slight idea may, perhaps, be formed of the extent and importance of the work thus involved when it is mentioned that postal orders are being issued at the present time at the rate of 4,000,000 a year, for the value of about £ 1,350,000." The number of clerks employed is 337, who receive sal- aries from £6$ a yearto^oo. There are forty-five return- ers of letters, who earn from fourteen to fifty shillings a week, and 1,060 counter-women and telegraphists who earn from ten shillings a week up to .£180 a year. The num- ber of assistants in post-offices employed in the country by local postmasters cannot be known until the publication of the census of 1881. Having thus traced up to the present time the experi- ment commenced by Mr. Ricardo in 1853, let us now return to the earlier period and trace the course of other efforts to find suitable employment for women. In 1855 a pamphlet appeared entitled, " Women and ENGLAND. 97 Work," written by Miss Leigh Smith, now Madame Bodichon. This work gained some attention, and in 1857 a small monthly publication called the Englishwoman s Journal, was established by Madame Bodichon and others interested in the condition of women. Miss Bessie Parkes was the editor of the new periodical, around which gathered a small but earnest circle of sympathizers. A reading-room for women was opened in the house which contained the office of the Journal, and from this small office and humble reading-room have grown almost all the great women's movements of the present day. They have long passed into other hands and become a shop, but I shall always regard the place as classic ground. In April, 1859, an art 'cle was published in the Edinburgh Review on the industrial position of women. It must have had a wide effect, and inspired many with a de- sire to assist women to earn their livelihood. It gave me the idea of establishing a society, the object of which should be to introduce women into new employments. I had seen the Englishwoman s Journal, and I applied to the editor for advice and assistance, and by her was intro- duced to the reading-room, where I was made acquainted with Miss Adelaide Proctor, the poet, who became my coadjutor. As she had many friends in London and con- siderable influence, we succeeded in drawing a few people together, and opened, in 1859, a verv humble room over a shop, as the office of the Society for Promoting the Employ- ment of Women. It was shortly afterward removed to i9Langham Place, where the Journal office and reading- room had already been established. The Association for the Promotion of Social Science, of which Mr. George Hastings was secretary, gave us its support ; the Earl of Shaftesbury, whose name was a tower of strength, became 7 98 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. our president, and, with a committee of twenty-two members, we made a beginning. The first trade we thought of was printing, but thinking it probable that such an undertaking would succeed better in private hands, we apprenticed five girls to Miss Emily Faithfull, who started the Victoria Press. This undertaking did not, I believe, become a commercial success, but it com- pletely proved that women were good type-setters. Many women were taught the trade, and several printing offices now employ women as type-setters. The num- ber of women printers returned in the census of 1871 was 741, and is probably considerably larger at the present time. A women's printing office is now established at number 2 la Great College Street, Westminster, of which Mrs. Paterson is the manager. The women are not merely type-setters, but they work at the higher branches of the trade as well. The next trade into which we endeavored to introduce women, was that of copying of law papers. We hired a house at number 12 Pcrtugal Street, W. C, and engaged a lady superintendent and an invalided law-stationer's clerk as teacher. Unfortunately, before the girls who came to learn had attained to the highest mysteries of the art, the superintendent and the teacher had a dispute, and we parted with the latter. It is to this cause that I attribute the fact that only partial success has attended this under- taking. However women are still employed at the same place, and in this office, which long ago passed into private hands, a considerable number of women have received instruction. The society was always desirous of teaching girls to be- come commercial clerks and book-keepers. This was very difficult to manage, and when at last a few girls ENGLAND. 99 had been well taught, it was not possible to obtain situa- tions for them until such a length of time had elapsed that they had grown tired of waiting and engaged in something else ; so that, when employers came forward, there was no one to take the situations offered. At last, however, owing to the steady perseverance of our secretaries, Miss King and Miss Lewin, a few girls were fitted into situations. They gave satisfaction and other employers were encour- aged to apply. As soon as it was found that in- structed women were capable of doing the work, several employers taught their own daughters, nieces or other dependents, how to keep their accounts. Sometimes an employer who had engaged one of our clerks would take other girls and have her to teach them the business. In this way the number of women clerks and book-keepers has increased with great rapidity, and to-day there is almost an unlimited field of employment for women in this direction. A girl, who is a good arithmetician, writes a good hand, and obtains a certificate for double entry, is sure of a situation, and if in addition she learns to write short-hand, she may aspire to a superior position. Or- dinary book-keepers (not short-hand writers) receive at first about fifteen shillings aweek without board and lodging ; at the end of each year their wages are generally raised two or three shillings a week till they reach twenty-five shillings, while some experienced accountants receive thirty or thirty-five shillings a week. The number of women com- mercial clerks increased between the years 1861 and 1 871 from 404 to i,755> an d it is now probably much larger. In 1876, Miss Crosby, now Mrs. Miiller, opened an office under the auspices of the Society for the Employment of Women for tracing plans for engineers and architects. Ladies are found to do the work well and they earn on loo WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. an average seven pence an hour. The office is now very successfully carried on by Miss Long, at 8 Great Queen Street, Westminster. It was at one time hoped that glass engraving would have been a great success, for good and elegant work was executed by the girls who were taught at the society's expense, but trades unions made it impossible for them to obtain employment. The society has started women in various other trades which it would be wearisome to enumerate. A register is kept at the office, 22 Berners Street, from which com- petent women can be obtained in the following capacities: secretaries, readers, clerks, book-keepers, copyists, can- vassers, wood engravers and carvers, art decorators, proof- readers, printers, lithographers, law writers, upholsterers, hair-dressers, waitresses, gilders, lace-cleaners, linen mark- ers, and needle-women. Her Majesty the Queen became patron of our society in 1869, and at the same time H. R. H. the Crown Princess of Germany and the Princess Louise, Marchioness of Lome. The society was incor- porated in 1879, which gives it a legal status and enables the City Guilds to act in conjunction with it. It is not intended in this paper to enumerate all the efforts which have been made of late years to assist women to earn a better livelihood. Of some schemes I have prob- ably not heard, and of others I know so little that I will not venture to write upon them. For instance, the great subject of sisterhoods and nursing institutions is altogether omitted, although the number of poor ladies who are earning their livelihood in a noble and useful manner in these establishments must be very large. However, I will give a brief account of some of the trades open to women which have not already been mentioned. ENGLAND. 101 Wood-engraving, it is said, is not a favourite employ- ment with Egnlishmen, and the best work is done by for- eigners, who reside in England for the purpose of illus- trating our newspapers and books. Three years ago the City of London Guilds opened a wood-engraving school, at 122 Kennington Park Road, to which girls as well as boys are admitted. Few boys attend, but there are twelve girls, who like the work and have aptitude for it. Some are already skilled enough to earn money. It is said to take five years to become proficient in the art, and when that time is elapsed it is hoped that they will earn at least £2 a week. Mr. Paterson, of East Temple Chambers, Whitefriars Street, gives excellent instruction to women in this art, and some of his former pupils are already working independently with success. The Society of Arts has established a wood-carving class at the Albert Hall, where girls are taught the art under an Italian master. The work done is very beauti- ful. In the article already referred to, which appeared in the Edinburgh Review in 1859, mention was made of the oppression of the women engaged in china-painting in Worcestershire, who were forbidden by their fellow-work- men to use hand-rests in painting, lest they should be able to rival men in skill of execution. This statement has often been vehemently denied, and equally often reas- serted. It appears, however, to have been true, and I am by no means certain that the abuse has even now been put an end to in the great factories in Staffordshire and Worcestershire. In London, however, means have been found of evading the difficulty. Mr. Minton set up a workshop where women were taught china-painting and received employment if they proved skilful. His work- 102 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. shop some years ago was burnt down and not rebuilt, but many women had meanwhile learnt the art and furnaces had been erected for baking their wares. A large number of women are now engaged in the trade ; some have studios and sale-rooms of their own, while some paint for Mr. Mortlock, Messrs. Howell and James, and other establish- ments. The amounts earned by china-painters vary very much. A fairly skilful one told me that she earned at least nine pence an hour. Very superior artists would earn more and inferior ones probably much less. At Mr. Doulton's factory of pottery in Lambeth, one woman was employed as an experiment in 1S71 ; at the present time (1882) more than two hundred are employed there. About the year 1871 the Hon. Lady Welby conceived the happy thought that employment might be afforded to gentlewomen in distressed circumstances by reviving the curious and beautiful forms of art needle-work, as practiced by our ancestresses, and applying the art to decorative purposes on a large scale. A humble room over a bonnet shop was opened in Sloane Street, in which to teach the art to poor ladies, and in spite of many difficulties the work commenced. From the first Her Majesty the Queen approved of the scheme, and H.R.H. the Princess Christian spent much thought and time in carrying it out. Lady Marian Alford and several other ladies took deep interest in it and gave valuable assistance. Success attended the effort, and the school was removed to its present quarters in South Kensington. The beauty of the work speaks for itself and needs no recommendation. Employment of a sort eminently suitable for gentlewomen is thus afforded to a considerable number of ladies, who are enabled to earn a tolerable livelihood by eight hours 0/ daily work. A new kind of employment has thus been created, so that it is ENGLAND. 103 not only those who are in the School of Art Needle-work who owe gratitude to the memory of Lady Welby, but all who are engaged in art needle-work wherever they may be. The Working Ladies' Guild, established by Lady Mary Feilding in 1876, set up a work-room for art needle-work under the special superintendence of Lady Eden. Speci- mens of the work may be seen at 3 Lower Grosvenor Place, S. W. About thirty-eight ladies obtain employ- ment in this manner through the Guild, eleven of whom derive their livelihood from it, and earn, it is calculated, from five to six pence an hour. A good many shops now sell art needle-work and employ women to do it, but the work done for shops is not as good as that done at the establishments mentioned above, and the wages earned are inferior. Several years ago the Misses Garrett* set up as house- decorators and have met with great success. Some other ladies have followed their example. It is a trade well suited to women who possess taste, business capacity and capital. A few educated women are now being taught how to dispense medicines, and Miss Clarke keeps a chemist shop in London. The subjoined table, taken from the former censuses, will be found of some interest.f * Miss Agnes Garrett is a sister of Mrs. Fawcett and Dr. Garrett-Ander- son, and Miss Rhoda Garrett, a cousin, who died in November, 1882, was, Miss Caroline A. Biggs informs me, " an accomplished speaker for women's suffrage." — T. S. f A circumstance which has the effect of making this paper less satis- factory than it otherwise might have been is that the new census will not be published till 1883, for it is only by means of the census taken every ten years that the increase of women in any employment can be definitely 104 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. Comparison of the census of 1861 with that of 1871, as regards the employment of women in various branches of industry in England and Wales. NUMBER IN NUMBER IN OCCUPATION. j86l ig7I Civil Service l ,93 I 3>3 X 4 Law stationers 21 51 Painters and artists 853 1,069 Photographers, including assistants. .. 168 694 Commercial clerks, accountants, etc. 404 1,755 Saleswomen (not otherwise described). 1,055 1,721 Drapers and assistants II >993 I 9> 112 Hosiers and haberdashers 2,126 4,*47 Shopwomen (in undefined branches) . 4,520 $>333 Apprentices (in undefined branches).. 185 743 Stationers 1,752 3,004 Booksellers and publishers 952 J ,°77 Printers 419 741 Hair-dressers and wigmakers 501 1,240 Gilders 74 234 It will perhaps be asked whether what has been done has had any perceptible effect in lessening the distress among women. As far as regards women of the higher classes who are obliged to earn their bread, I confess that in my opinion no improvement has taken place in their condition, but rather the contrary. The number of ap- ascertained. We may know by other means that so many women have been trained for certain employments and have been successful in their pro- fession, but the effect which their success may have had in encouraging others to follow their example, or in inducing employers to engage them, can only be known through the census ; therefore it is to be regretted that this paper must be prepared before the publication of the new census, as much more exact information could be furnished in another twelve-month. — J. B. ENGLAND. 105 plicants for pensions at the Governesses' Benevolent Institution still far exceeds the number of pensions, and every charitable effort to* give assistance to ladies brings to light an innumerable host of helpless women, chiefly composed, as far as England is concerned, of the widows and daughters of officers, clergymen and professional men who are left destitute or nearly so. The explanation of the anomaly is that the efforts made to obtain increased employment for ladies have been more than counteracted by other causes. The excellent day-schools which have been established in London and other great towns have almost put an end to the occupation of the daily governess, and have greatly diminished the demand for resident governesses. At the same time a great increase has been made in the number of ladies seeking employment by the political troubles in Ireland. The widows and daugh- ters of many landed proprietors there have lost the incomes which were supposed to be secured to them on the rentals of the estates. The rents not being paid, the income naturally stops, and some of these ladies have been reduced to such poverty as to have been compelled to take refuge in the work-house. Those who are capable of teaching seek for situations as governesses, and thus the profession of the teacher becomes more overcrowded than ever. Gentlewomen are also now exposed to competition from the ex-pupil teachers in board-schools, who often become nursery governesses. Hence the salaries of ordinary governesses have fallen, and it is only highly superior, accomplished or musical governesses who are still able to obtain good salaries. I may here remark that the competition would have been even keener if the industry of a large number of ladies had not been turned into other channels. The position of poor gentlewomen, 106 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. bad as it is, would have been still worse if no efforts had been made to assist them. It is sometimes said that women have nothing to do with politics, but the case of the Irish ladies shows that politics have a good deal to do with women. When adversity falls upon a nation or a class, it is always the women who suffer first and suffer most, and as adversity is sometimes caused by injudicious public measures, women have in reality at least as much concern in politics as men have. One sign of the times is very satisfactory. A society of young ladies has been formed, called the Emergency Society, each member of which binds herself to learn some one thing, whether art, profession, or trade so thoroughly, that if misfortune comes she will be able to maintain herself by its exercise. I sincerely hope that this society will spread, and the principles of self-help, which it inculcates, will become general. With regard to the women of the working classes, it appears to me that their condition has improved of late years. The great number of women who earn their live- lihood in shops and factories has caused the wages of ser- vants and needle- women to rise. The pay for plain sewing is still too low, and sad stories of destitute needle-women sometimes appear, but I believe that they are rarer than they used to be. The women who are engaged in the government army-clothing establishment earn from seven to eight shillings a week for ten hours a day work, and they can add a trifle to their earnings by working at home after hours. If two or three girls club together to share the same room, they can pay their rent and live tolerably well. The pay of the women who do needle- work for shops seems to be nearly the same. The class which was formerly the most wretched next ENGLAND. 107 to needle-women was that of " lodging-house slave." But here there is a decided improvement. Twenty-five years ago a lodging-house servant would be kept up till any hour at night to bring the lodgers their supper, and would rarely get a holiday ; now the usual stipulation made by a girl, when engaging herself, is that she shall not be expected to answer the bell after ten o'clock at night, or be required to rise until six o'clock in the morning, and that she shall have alternate Sunday afternoons at her own disposal. The poor girl's life is thus rendered endur- able. The cause of this improvement is that there is less competition for employment among women of the work- ing classes than was formerly the case, and this enables them to make better terms for themselves. There being less competition is probably due partly to the opening of new occupations to women and partly to emigration. Many men emigrate rather than submit to low wages, and employers prefer to accept women at lower wages in numerous easy occupations. This emigration is most beneficial. The emigrant himself is far happier engaged in some manly out-of-door pursuit in the colonies than he could have been while following a sedentary feminine trade in England. He probably marries, and thus three individuals are directly benefited by his emigration — the emigrant himself, his wife, and the woman who has taken his place in the old country. More remotely benefit is conferred on those women who are relieved from the competition of the woman who is engaged in the man's former trade. Women in England owe much to the high spirit of the men who so bravely go forth to spread wider the area of civilization, thus taking on themselves the rough work of the world, and leaving space for their sis- ters to follow less laborious occupations at home. 1 8 WOMAN Q UESTION IN E UROPE. V.— WOMEN AS PHILANTHROPISTS. BY HENRIETTA O. BARNETT. [Henrietta Rowland was born in 1851, and in 1873 became the wife of the Rev. S. A. Barnett, who had just been appointed Vicar of St. Judes, Whitechapel, London. Since that date they have lived in Whitechapel and Mrs. Barnett has been especially engaged in work for the help of girls and young women. She has written, for magazines, " The Young Women in our Work-houses," "The Work of Lady Visitors," "At Home to the Poor," " Passionless Reformers," and " Pictures for the People." " Mrs. Barnett occupies an honorable place," Mrs. Fanny Hertz, of London, writes me, " among the band of devoted women who arc applying their intelligence, their energy, and their sympathy to the solution of some of the most difficult and urgent problems wherewith the social reformers of the time have to deal. Her life has for many years been mainly given up to the amelioration of the lives of the people about her in the East-end of London."] The task given to me is a great one. I have been asked to tell something about the work of women as philanthropists. But the space assigned me is limited, so I must pass over the work of which I have the least per- sonal knowledge, or which has been already much and well described. I must pass over the noble work done by women for the sick ; work which, whether voluntary or paid, has been in truth inspired by love; a kindred love, if it be in the breast of the well-born Florence Nightingale, or sheltered under the blue ill-fitting gown of the pauper nurse. The sick have not been sufferers in vain (unless the development of good is vanity), for their needs have called forth great acts from women of all classes. Ladies deli- cately nurtured, and rejoicing in the cultured retirement ENGLAND. 109 natural to the refined, have emerged therefrom to take the control of hospitals and pauper asylums ; or, when adminis- trative power was denied them, to dress with deft fingers ill-gotten wounds, and soothe with gentle tones and kind words weariness (born of hard work and rough usage) such as too often no tonics can cure. But on this sub- ject there is no need to linger ; the language with which the sick appeal to women is universal. It is " the language of a cry " heard and surely responded to by the mother sex in every nation alike. I must also pass over teaching, which was for many years looked upon as the only bread-winning resource for poor ladies ; but is now, happily, considered as a noble profession, not beneath the acceptance of any. It is work which for its highest ends demands that its workers should be philanthropists, whether it be under- taken in ladies' colleges and high schools, within ear-shot of the bells which have sounded through the generations, in the great sister universities of England, or carried on in underground cellars in^back courts for the good of cinder-sifters and rough scavenger lads. The want of space, too, forbids me to discuss temperance work, which has enlisted in its cause an army of earnest women, who bravely, whether by wise or unwise methods, fight the devil of drink and his evil brood. Space forbids me also to give the details of much good work that has been done by women in the cause of health, in societies such as the National Health Society, or Ladies' Sanitary Association, as lecturers and organizers. Nor can I stop to describe the enthusiasm which has sent so many women to the laborious tasks of district visitors or tract distributors ; to serve as workwomen at dull suburban after- noon sewing parties ; as superintendents of mothers' 1 10 WOMAN Q UESTION IN E UROPE. meetings ; as librarians of parish libraries ; as relief agents ; as guardians ; as schoolboard members. In these and countless other ways women have done and are doing good work — work owing its birth to love and to the pity which is akin to it. But of none of these do I now wish to write. Not because during ten years, living side by side with the poor, I have not seen the good results of such work — re- sults which, like the quality of mercy, are twice blessed, both to him who gives and him who takes — but because I would rather here tell of work not so generally known, or so universally approved, and yet perhaps based on a surer foundation, and destined to an even greater future. The key-note of these labors is, that not only should the needs of the times be taken into consideration, but the deeper truth that it is only friendship, the care of one individual for another — love — which can enable human be- ings harmlessly to receive help from one another. One of the things which, in London, is most striking, even to casual observers, is the way in which the poor are housed. In the West-end, eyer and anon, as the well- horsed, richly-appointed carriages roll along the broad streets, where across the shops is written, in various charac- ters, the same word " wealth," the luxurious riders can, if they will, catch a glimpse of the homes of the poor. They are described thus by the Medical Officer of Health for Marylebone, one of the richest districts in London, in the year (though it seems almost irony to say it) of our Lord 1868 : 4< In Edwards Place there are ten six-roomed houses which are occupied by 84 families, in all 277 per- sons. The houses are very dilapidated, many of them unfit for habitation, the closets are filthy in the ex- treme, the yards badly paved, and the drains constantly out of repair. Orders for sanitary work are continually ENGLAND. 1 1 1 being sent out by the vestry to the owner of the wretched property. A rental of ;£io per annum would be an extravagant sum to pay for either of these miserable dwellings, and yet more than three times that amount is exacted from the destitute and indigent people who in- habit them." Does it need much imagination, if this is the outward condition of things, to picture the lives and characters of the inhabitants? Imagine the feelings of the widowed mother whose large family and small earnings have brought her to one room in such a court. Imagine her at weary work all the day long, her well-earned sleep broken by the drunkard's home-coming, while she shud- ders at his ribald song, or trembles in fear that her chil- dren should hear or understand his coarse jokes. The children cannot long retain that innocence which is their only effective deafness if they continue in such a moral atmosphere. This description speaks of the West-end, the wealthy quarter of our great metropolis. In the East-end, the home of the poor, the prospect is not much more cheer- ing. A report made by the Medical Officer of Health to the Whitechapel Board of Works in 1873, states : " Castle Alley is a very narrow thoroughfare leading from Whitechapel, High Street, which is entered by a covered way several feet in length and only about three feet in width. Owing to the frequent deposit of filth in this narrow passage, and from its defective ventilation, it is generally in an offensive condition. The alley con- tains an area, including the space on which the houses stand, of about 1,496 square yards, and has a population of 347, consisting of the very poorest class, each person having an average space of only four square yards. The T 1 2 WOMAN Q UESTION IN E UROPE. eight houses on the west side of the court are very old. The walls and flooring of the cellars are wet, and a most unwholesome smell comes through the lower rooms, which renders such rooms unfit for habitation. The privy of each house is in the cellars, the nuisance from which — there being no other means for its escape — ascends by the staircase and makes its way into every room of the house. It is almost impossible for the tenants of these houses to keep the rooms clean, for the houses are three stories high, the privies are in the cellars, which are difficult of access, and the water supply is in the court. As there are no sinks in the houses, all the dirty water must be carried down four flights of stairs to the privy or thrown into the open court." And this is not the sole evil. In another report to the same body we read: " The great evil of the overcrowding of the tenements of the poor prevails very extensively." Of one visit the inspector writes: " In the front room of the first floor of one house, which has a cubic space of 1 ,408 feet, there were four men, one woman, and a child, and in the room above there were eight persons, viz., four men, three women, and a child." In another house, in one room on thesecond floorthey discovered" three women, two men, and a child ;" in another, " three men and three women." " The smell of the rooms inspected on these occasions was most offensive and overpowering." After another visit the inspector reports : " In room No. 2, which is regis- tered for the occupation of four persons only, six were found, viz., two men and one woman, who were in bed to- gether, and three children lying on the floor. In room No. 5, registered for the occupation of three, there were seven persons, viz., three women, one man, and three chil- dren ; and in room No. 8, which is also registered for three ENGLAND. 113 persons, there were two men, one woman, and five chil- dren." And here again the moral corruption keeps pace with the physical. Such property, let in single rooms, is diffi- cult to manage. The rich owners, experiencing this, and not recognizing their responsibility, let or sell their small house property, which frequently falls into the hands of a class of men who, themselves living on the spot, can make it pay by letting the rooms, alas ! too often for the worst purposes, while keeping within the limits of the law. Many of the rooms are what is called " furnished "; that is to say, that the landlord has " put in a sack of straw to be used as a bed, some rugs for bed-clothes, a table and a chair, with some crockery, more or less broken. This so-called furnished room he had let for 8d. a night." This plan is both remunerative to the landlord and convenient to his tenant. To the thief, to the ne'er- do-well, to those who earn their livelihood by vice, what is more convenient than to have a home for one or two nights, a home from which they can flit at a moment's notice, should the police become dangerously inquisitive, or should the neighbors' tongues be uncomfortably com- municative? What more convenient? Dangerous, trag- ically convenient, and one was helped to realize all its possible terrors by a poor mother, who had lost her girl, saying, " I can never hope to find her, when there's so many furnished rooms about." It needed not a prophet to see nor a statesman to cure such evils, but it needed a brave and noble-hearted woman, and Octavia Hill, with sympathetic eyes, large heart, and clear brain, came forward to solve the prob- lem. She did not come forward backed by a committee, nor supported by influential names and abundant money. 1 14 WOMAN Q UESTION IN E UROPE. She did not come forward with schemes carefully drawn on paper, with plans cut and dried, and rules framed and printed. She began, supported by the belief of one friend, a man whose name is known wherever the language of art has penetrated, John Ruskin, who so far believed in her, young as she then was, as to buy a number of small houses (technically called a " court "), and put them under her charge, to manage according to her ideas, because he " trusted her with his poor." She did not, in those days, come publicly forward at all, but since then her work has, and it is good. It has borne the crucial test of successful working by other hands than hers, and during many years' experience it has been weighed in the scales of use- fulness, and has not been found wanting. Briefly, the plan is to bring together owners of property, and those ladies who care to visit the poor, the latter to act as the rent collectors and to be the link between the landlord and tenants. The plan has many recommen- dations. Without it, those who, having advantages of edu- cation, or the superior cultivation which leisure permits; or who, having the brightness of nature born of happiness and kinder circumstances ; or the lessons to teach, which have grown like flowers from a dead-leaf soil, enriched by sorrow and pain ; without it, the many who, for varied reasons, wish to know and help the poor, have to make excuses to visit them, or to force an entrance, which every Englishman, considering his house (or room) his castle, rightly resents. By going to collect the rent, a natural in- troduction of landlord and tenant is effected, and the introduction once made, it depends on the will and wishes of the collector and tenant whether the connection shall remain merely a business one-, or whether it shall ripen into the priceless relation of friendship. ENGLAND. 115 The rent must be obtained. That is an initial element of Miss Hill's scheme, though, as any one who has had the privilege, as I have had, of working with her, must soon perceive, it is by no means the end. The rent must be obtained, and even the services of the broker (or " bailiff") used if it be not forthcoming. But there are many steps before this one is reached. If the money is not ready because the public-house has swallowed all ex- cept what the children's cries helped to save for bread, the rent collector, in friendliness and with all delicacy, has the right to speak of the defalcation and its cause. If work for the man is scarce, there are little jobs about the build- ing to be done, a room to be color-washed, a message to be sent ; or the wider outlook which education gives can be utilized to meet his need. The small sums necessary to enable the journey in search for work to be taken can be lent; the advertisement pages maybe sympathetically searched ; thousand are the means which friendship may dictate to combat the difficulty. The rent must be col- lected, for on that depend the pecuniary success and the consequent growth of the plan. And the business side of the scheme will stand examin- ation. In one large block of buildings, the capital being ^"30,700, the number of families 130, the volunteer work- ers 5, the paid workers 2, the net profit was ,£1,525, which, after allowing £300 toward a reserve fund, enabled the directors to pay a dividend of 4 per cent. In this parish, where there dwell some two hundred or two hundred and fifty families, whose rents are collected and whose dwell- ings are managed by ladies, the net profit, after all ex- penses are paid, averages 4^ per cent. ; and this is on property a considerable portion of which is old, and for which the repairing expenses are very heavy. The yearly 1 1 6 WOMAN Q UESTION IN E UROPE. interest is 5 per cent, (besides the annual sinking fund) paid on a large block in Marylebone, built by the influ- ence of Miss Hill, who herself tells the story of how she took under her care some dirty houses, dilapidated as they were, with their human inhabitants, their sorrows and their sins, one winter's evening in 1870.* But, necessary and important as the business portion of the scheme is, it bears but the same relation to the whole as the skeleton does to the character of the child in the far-sighted eyes of a responsible mother. The business part is necessary : it gives the introduction, in- sures the regular visit ; but it is mainly valuable inasmuch as it supplies the means of communication, and gives the possibilities of helpfulness. Friendship — the friendship between the member of one class and another, the care of one woman whose heart is sorry because of the pain of another woman, the strength-giving link between two human beings, one of whom education and past life have perhaps helped to turn more readily towards the Sun of Righteousness, sometimes obscured to her less happy sister by the clouds of sin and suffering which encompass her life : to form such friendship, to give scope to such care, to forge such links, is the object, indeed the whole use, of the work. The relationship once established, the means of mutual usefulness rapidly offer themselves ; the chance meeting of the few elder girls may soon develop into a regular gathering for sewing or the learning of singing ; the de- sire for hearing about other people, easily degenerating into gossip, may be guided until the meeting becomes an * See " Homes of the London Poor," by Octavia Hill, to be bought at 52 East 20th Street, New York, and 146 Marylebone Road, London N.W. Price one shilling. — H. O. B, ENGLAND. 117 opportunity of learning about other classes, or concerning those great lives examples of which can be found in all ranks alike. The talks about books and public events might stimulate book-lending, and books, in themselves friends worth having, will yet create more living friendship. " Yes, ma'am, we have real pleasant reading evenings some- times, but the worst of it is, if she's cross, or if anything puts her out, she'll stop in just the most interesting part, and nothing will move her, whatever we say." A trying stoppage, all story lovers will agree, when it is taken into consideration that the " she " is the only member of the party who can read. The sight of the high-spirited rough lads, during an evening's visit to the court or building (which is sometimes necessary to enable the landlady to see her out-all-day tenants, or to assure herself that all goes well) will suggest the advisability of some place of rendezvous out of the street temptations and the mischief which lurks in corners for hangers about. A story-telling evening, if it be but once a week, will keep them together until time and personal influence can weld them into an associated body, likely to be all the stronger and longer- lived if self-governed, by "own pennies" supported. The large-hearted landlady will not only be content to give her own friendship; valuing friendship, she will be anxious that it should exist between her tenants. She will aim at bringing the men together and binding them in some form of corporate life ; she will suggest little ways in which one family can help another. She will kill the germ of discord, which cannot live in the atmosphere of mutual helpfulness. Valuing friendship, she will wish her older and richer friends to know her newer and poorer ones, that they in their turn may give and get all that she finds priceless. And many are the ways of happiness that 1 1 8 WOMAN- Q U EST ION IN E UROPE. will open out from the friendship-paved road. The rich country friend can find a spare room for the smoke-paled child, or perhaps arrangements can be made so that one of the village cottagers can receive as guest the tired mother, weakly from her last confinement, and weary with life's struggle amid the noise and dirt. The hushed country noises sounding in her dinned ears may be for her " God's voice at eventide." The offer of help, such as hospital letters, loans, or even the gift of money, will come from the landlady friend followed by no sense of degradation. For cannot presents be reciprocal between friends? " My reward is greater than I can bear" was the ungrateful sentence of one of the lady collectors, as she displayed to me her gifts received on that day's round. And it must be confessed that a haddock, a bunch of wall- flowers, a tin toasting-fork, a perforated card book-mark, and a bundle of rhubarb are incongruous elements to tidily pack, and somewhat difficult to transport on the journey by omnibus or train which the three to six miles dividing the rich and the poor ends of our big London unfortu- nately makes necessary. Only friendship can bridge it, but friendship is power- ful enough to break down all barriers, social or educa- tional, powerful enough to lighten cloud-darkened lives. " Dull ! why it wouldn't be half living without our weekly ladies" might itself stand as a testimonial for the value of this branch of women's work ; or the sentence "Wher- ever I go, I shall try and keep under the ladies," uttered lowly by a poor woman (who, good soul though she was, had got hardly used in the fight for life, having to finally turn out of her larger first-floor room, and take a cheaper, smaller one), might be an encouragement, almost a ban- ner-motto, to lead on workers dispirited by the laborious ENGLAND. II 9 routine and the often wearying details, on the punctual fulfilment of which depends so largely the successful working of the scheme. I have delayed the longer on the story of this kind of woman's work, in London, because in it lies the germ, already ripening and vigorously growing, of a great social change — perhaps almost a social revolution — in the best sense. It is no longer the work of one woman, and her friends and followers, or of one set of women, but has already spread itself through London, so that, at this time, over one thousand families live under it, and by it are helped to their place in life and society. This method has commended itself to other workers in the great cities of England, and I believe also of America. In the growth of large cities, and the constant tendency to the creation of poorer quarters, and the separation of rich and poor, by the conditions of city life, such a plan as this seems to offer the most hopeful method of restoring the kindlier relations of landlord and tenant, which in rural districts still help to bind classes together. In great cities these relations had ceased, and were replaced only by the mechanical call of the rent-gatherer, whose only object was money-getting, often divorced from any sense of re- ciprocal duty, and far removed from the pale of loving- kindness, on which alone the social world can safely turn. There is another relation of this work, which has already shown itself, and which promises to be as far-reaching in its good effect as the work itself. On this I can only say a word, for it would lead too far. The ladies who act as rent-collectors and friends of their tenants acquire knowl- edge of circumstances and character which makes them the fittest people to afford such information as poor-law officers need ; and should be the essential basis of any sys- 1 2 O WOMAN Q UESTION IN E UROPE. tern of public, or, as we call it, poor-law relief: hence, such ladies may become either the agents or the collabo- rators of those who are now seeking to supplement State relief, or to substitute it by the organization of charity. Of what is meant by the organization of charity, most transatlantic as well as British readers are already suffi- ciently well-informed ; and to those who are not, it would be hopeless to attempt in any few words to map out the relative places which committees of charity, lady rent-collectors, and poor-law officers should occupy, and are beginning to occupy, towards one another. This, how- ever, will, I am sure be clear, that in the work of the lady rent-collectors lies a germ of usefulness which, wher- ever and whenever thoroughly developed, will substitute (as it has already largely substituted) the relation of rich owner and poor tenant, of well-to-do master with laborer, artisan, or invalid. I pass to another subject. In all ages, in all nations, in all ranks the work and privilege of women has been largely that of pleasure-givers. As hostess she has exerted herself to please. For her friends, her neighbors, her chil- dren, her aim has been to give pleasure, or to provide for them recreative rest. And it is work which bears no mean relation to the rest of life. Without it, life would seem grimly bare, hopelessly flat, sin-suggestively insipid. Pleasure is as essential to right human life as sunshine to a healthy physical condition. Women have already counted it one of their duties in life to give pleasure, or to arrange rest for their relations and friends; (how many fathers, brothers, and husbands have not had the seed of selfishness sown and cultivated in such generous soil?) but they have, as yet, rarely recognized it as a duty to give rest and pleasure to the poor. To feed, to clothe, to ENGLAND. 121 educate, to improve, to help the classes below them, are duties for which many a thousand women have sacrificed and striven to perform. To rest them, to recreate them (and pleasure in the highest form must include these two elements, indeed the Christian name for pleasure might be " recreative-rest ") has been left out, and yet it is a gift of which the wealthy and the leisurely classes have the monopoly, and which they alone can offer. The poor cannot get it themselves. In the one room where lives the whole family, father and mother, children of all ages, with occasionally the old grand-parent or the " lone woman " as a lodger, there is no accommodation for pleasure, there is not a possibility of sufficient pause in the ceaseless round of work to permit of recreative rest. The wages have to go for nec- essaries of life ; there is but little margin left for books, concerts, picture-galleries, theatres, country visits, while social pleasure, the re-union where the enjoyment consists in mutual intercourse, the meeting of friends and the interchange of ideas on topics of common interest are prohibited, because practically impossible. Where is the room? where is the money? But just as the women have made it their duty to give help to the poor, so now let them make it their duty to give them pleasure. When the idea is accepted that pleasure is a good and desirable gift, the ways and means will open. And the unusual and dreaded duty once per- formed, it becomes transformed into a delightful joy. " It is more blessed to give than to receive " will come home almost with the force of a self-discovered truth by those who have seen, as I have, the joy of the people at a country party. I do not mean a " treat," where they are taken down in hundreds to the country, turned into a 1 2 2 WOMAN Q UESTION IN E UROPE. field or on a common, where the crowds engender noise and excitement, and only the scene, not the nature, of the daily life is changed ; but at a party where the hostess entertains her guests as the friends of the person, the dis- trict-visitor, or the rent-collector where she receives and welcomes them individually ; where she opens her gar- den, her conservatories, and maybe her house, for their reception ; where she provides them with food not con- tracted for at so much a head, but cooked in her own kitchen and served by her own servants. The pleasure given by such a party is touching to wit- ness, a holy privilege to be allowed to create ; and even simpler efforts give unspoken joy. The evening devoted to the ten or twelve girls — what is it but one evening and a little thought for the hostess ? but the well-appointed tea-table, the merry-making games, the interesting port- folio, the suggestive talk, the soul-speaking music — what are they not to the ten or twelve guests amid their pleas- ure-barren life? "I did not think I could enjoy myself so much in ONE evening" made our breakfast-table look bright, in spite of yellow fog, as I read aloud our guest's letter one day not long after such a little party. It is good and gladdening to be the hostess where the care-worn face brightens at some harmless joke, to see the rough woman (withal a sister) lose herself and her sorrows in enjoyment of a simple play, to feel the sense of pleas- ure (unfortunately still too much mixed with surprise) with which some ordinary courtesy is received and ac- cepted. " If we had been ladies born we couldn't have had better " finished up the lengthy description of one of such parties, as told by a guest to her neighbor ; and methinks it would have been, if the hostess could have seen the radiant face, an ample repayment for her trouble, ENGLAND. 123 and worth more than all the murmured conventional politenesses about " having passed such a pleasant even- ing" which usually reward the tired hostess. But besides the gift of pleasure, such parties may do more. At them introductions can be effected, introduc- tions between people of different classes, with different manners, and different ideas on many matters, making it none the less important that they should be introduced. Deep human insight is shown in the old story of the man who emphatically stated, the conversation having turned on a neighbor, " Oh, I hate the fellow." " Hate him ! " replied his friend, "why I didn't know you knew him." 11 No, I don't," returned the hater ; "if I did, how could I hate him ? " and this, maybe, might go a long way to explain the reason of class hatreds and misunderstand- ings. Woman, if she accepts among her duties the blessed one of giving recreative rest to the poor, might, unknowingly, do yet greater work, attain a yet higher aim. She might bring nearer the good time, promised so many hundred years ago, yet seemingly still so distant ; she might, by bridging over class differences, put some living meaning into the now all but dead words, " There shall be one fold, under one Shepherd." " The next war will not be a religious war, nor a national war ; it will be a class war," has been declared by a wise seer. By such links as are easily forged, by friendly entertainments, mij^ht not women make a strong chain, strong enough even to bind men's evil passions ? By the gift of pleasure might they not earn the blessing promised to peace- makers? I do not advocate an untried theory. In our parish, during, the last ten years, we have given, or planned, and always ourselves accompanied, over three hundred such 1 24 WOMAN Q UESTION IN E UROPE. parties,, Anxious days, tiring evenings have we often thus passed, but bright happy ones, too, with a reflective brightness, for who could help rejoicing when pleasure so real and simple was all around ? Great care has been taken that the guests, whether received in our drawing-room or school-room, or at the houses of town or country friends, should not be more numerous than could be personally entertained as individuals, but with this simple rule, and perhaps a slight additional provision for entertainment in the shape of pictures to look at, or songs or recitations, the parties have been in all essential respects exactly similar to those to which the friends of one's own class are invited. As I write, it strikes me as sadly strange that there is not a larger and more universal experience to record con- cerning this form of woman's love-inspired work ; all the stranger because it is no new idea, being as old as their common name of Christian. The Master himself suggested the idea, painting the picture of a possible host, and pos- sible guests, who could not " bid him again." Can it be true that mere fastidiousness and dislike to come into contact with suualor and dirt have been strong enough to render a prophet's words of none effect? But there are, besides social gatherings, other means for recreative rest. The pictures by the great artists might, so far as their immediate effect is concerned, hard- ly have been painted for all the use they are to the poor. Pictures whose fame is spread over the whole world, which are the study books of the most interesting of all histories, the history of human thought and feeling, are to them as if written in a dead language. In London the galleries are some distance from the poor part of the town, and why should the poor spend their hardly earned pence in ENGLAND. "5 taking the journey to see treasures the beauty of which they do not half understand, having never been educated to see and appreciate them ? But if women will, following the example of the few* who have cared to "bring beauty home to the lives of the poor," and if they will adopt it as a duty to make the places where the poor meet more recreatively restful, they will find a field of work but yet little trodden, a wealth of flower-rewards only waiting to be plucked. By turning to account in tile or panel paint- ing the various accomplishments which so many women possess, beauty might be brought to the homes and meet- ing-places of the poor; by the gift or loan of pictures (and who misses one picture from the drawing-room wall for a few months?), by decoration, by beauty in all its forms, pleasure is given, pleasure often silently received, but fulfilling our two tests as to the requirements of holy pleasure, viz., being both recreative and restful. Here, for woman (the pleasure-giver) has a new opportunity of giving pleasure opened out of late years. She may plan to take little groups of her poor friends to see galleries or exhibitions. The sixpence or the shilling for the fares and admission will not, in most cases, make a large dimi- nution in her pin-money ; or, if so, there are our national galleries free, unbarred even to the poorest, and yet by them but little used — with the lady friend as cicerone, how different the pictures look ! The homely explanation of- fered, the simple story told, the artist's history sketched, lend to them living interest. " She makes the pictures speak and walk," was a compliment, by no means empty, given to one explainer ; and neither did it imply miracu- * Particularly the Misses Harrison, who, while supporting themselves, yet find time and opportunity to leave many a public hospital and poor people's building lovelier than they found it. — H. O. B. 126 WOMAN Q UESTION IN E UROPE. lous powers in the direction of picture explaining. She had but told them what she saw with her more practiced eye, cultivated by the long looking at pictures ; but for her poor friends it was all fresh, and came to them with the force of originality. " Don't look at me, dear friends ; look at the pictures," exclaimed one lady to her party of picture-seers, who were standing gazing, with varied expressions, at her as she expounded, and not at the pict- ures. "Yes, to be sure," apologized one woman, "but I was only looking to see where it all came from.'' Never ending is the pleasure gained and given by in- troducing beauty into the lives and thoughts of those sad pleasure-barren livers. In the last two years we, aided by a large committee, have succeeded in getting up a loan exhibition of pictures. In all kindliness was our request responded to, and we have been able, each year, to show one hundred and sixty to one hundred and seventy pict- ures to our neighbors. Pictures not of the oleograph, and colored print description, but some of the finest works of Sir Frederick Leighton, Watts, Millais, Breton, Riviere, J. Israel, Munckasy, Bret, Ouless, Faed, Davis, Richmond, Holman Hunt, Lewis, Long, Herkomer and Goodall — pictures containing the highest thoughts nobly expressed. The exhibition, held in our parish school- rooms, themselves not well placed for advertisement pur- poses, was opened in April* 1881, for nine days, and at- tracted, in spite of the payment of threepence, for seven days, 9,258 people. In 1882, it was open thirteen days, Sundays included, and no less than 25,776 persons came to see it. The 'figures are the best answer to the argu- ment that the poor do not care for art. If they do not care as they might, if they do not gain from it all the help that is possible, if they do not learn from these poet ENGLAND. 127 teachers all they can teach, it is yet open to women (the pleasure-givers) to get and give to them this joy, a joy by which reverence grows, and by which the greatest lessons might be taught ; for are not pictures the parable language of our day? One other development of woman's work is in connec- tion with music for the people. " Music is an angel of holy thoughts, Inspiring to noble deeds," is the heading of the report* of a society whose work is, in their own words, "to give good music to the working people ; " " to call a fractional percentage of the working multitudes of London to a sense of joy, to the feelings and suggestions of higher and more delicate delights than commonly fall to the lot of those who are, for the most part, condemned to lead a dreary, monotonous life of almost unceasing toil, with rare occasions and lower kinds of pleasure." And then the report further explains the large hope, necessarily large to bear the burden of the small details and many disappointments contingent on the work : " Even small seeds of good are apt to germinate and produce noble and delightful fruit ; a little leaven leaveneth the whole, and to bring to masses of people whose lives are dull, hard-working, and commonplace, and whose minds are uncultured and too often vacant, those pure sources of delight and elevating elements of joy, and those Teachings after higher thoughts, of which music, with its beneficent influence, is acknowledged to be a perennial fountain, is at least a labor of love preg- *"A Statement of the Aims and Work of the Popular Ballad and Concert Committee, 1883." Printers: Hazell & Viney, Kirby Street, London. — H. O. B. 1 2 8 WOMAN Q UESTION IN E UROPE. nant with good." And fruitful of as well as pregnant with good, all must for truth witness who have seen the effect of music on the poor. It is both rest and recre- ation ; speaking for them the things they feel ; explain- ing to them what they are and cannot say. It is not, I think, often taken into consideration what the poor suffer from their dumbness. Education unlooses tongues. Men find in a knowledge of literature the expression of their thoughts. The ignorant are still left with this pain. " Music, which is earnest of a Heaven, Seeing we know emotions strange by it, Not else to be revealed, is a voice'' says Robert Browning ; while George Eliot, our woman poet, tells us • " Music is melted speech *■ . . . . that can reach More quickly through our frame's deep-winding night, And, without thought, raise thought's best fruit — delight." In London there are three associations actively en- gaged in similar work to the one whose report I have quoted, giving freely (or what is perhaps better, bringing within their reach) good music to the people. In all three the work of women is the mainspring of the enter- prises ; and all largely avail themselves of the musical gifts of lady amateurs. It would be easy and interest- ing to write folios of their experience; but I will content myself with one quotation from the same report* which I have especially chosen to illustrate a point which, after long intimacy with the poor, I feel strongly. After speaking of the music selected for the programme, the re- port goes on to say : " Perhaps among all the pieces given * " A Statement of the Aims and Work of the Popular Ballad and Concert Committee, 1883."— H. O.B. ENGLAND. 1 29 at these concerts nothing has evoked greater enthusiasm than Beethoven's ' Creation's Hymn ' and Handel's ' Re- joice Greatly.' The audience, composed of the genuine working classes, has received with enthusiasm the best performances and the best music, while, at the same time, their uniform courtesy, and thoughtful attention, and their just discrimination of the relative merits of mu- sic provided, and of the power and skill of the artists who appeared, have shown that they not only ardently enjoy good music, but that they judge with kindly but singularly accurate tastes the qualities of the music, and the art and talents of its interpreters." And of the very poor, the classes lower than this society reaches, the same can be said. There is a response to the highest kind of music not accorded to the lighter and more popu- lar. After a musical evening, given at a club in one of the lowest courts in the quarter of the town where the crimi- nals congregate, a listener remarked, " Why, the fiddler says what I've all along wanted to." The dumb being, by his dumbness, made more animal, had received the gift of speech. It was Luther who said that " Music is one of the most magnificent and delightful presents God has given us." Women, always anxious, and rightly so, to gather into their homes every care-soothing charm, cultivate music. But if it is true what Mrs. Browning says, that " If we say a true word, instantly We feel 'tis God's, not ours, and pass it on Like bread at sacrament: we taste and pass, Nor handle for a moment, as indeed We dared to set up any claim to such ; " then surely it must with equal truth relate to our duty con- cerning the "melted speech," the "earnest of a Heaven." At a people's party, such a one as those described, there 6* 1 30 WOMAN Q UESTION IN E UROPE. met one winter evening in 1871 a man and a woman, both troubled by the questions affecting the large class of girl children whom poverty had compelled the State to support. The man was the Right Honorable J. Stans- feld ; the woman, Mrs. Nassau-Senior, whose work has decreed that " all generations shall call her blessed." From that almost chance-made acquaintance there was developed a much needed work. There were then in London at least thousands of State- supported children. They had been (thanks to the earn- est work of previous social reformers) removed from the evil influences of the workhouses, where the elder paupers and the criminal class congregate, and had been housed in schools in the country or suburbs. The schools, fitted with every appliance which thought or money could sug- gest, were large; the children sheltered in each being rarely fewer than five hundred, sometimes more than eight hundred. Mr. Stansfeld had, as Mrs. Nassau-Senior says in her report (published in the Blue Book of 1873-4, of the Local Government Board), "expressed his wish to have a woman's view as to the effect on girls of the system of education at the pauper schools," which wish he was able to further by appointing her an Inspector of the Workhouse Schools. She set to work, visiting carefully every pauper school, spending hours with the officers and children so as to get a right and fair judgment concerning the questions which affected both. She traced, laboriously, the after careers of the girls, and in conclusion wrote a report, one of the results of which has been the growth of a woman's society called the Metropolitan Association for Befriending Young Servants. It is an army of kindly ladies fighting sin and sadness, their chief weapon being friendship. ENGLAND. 131 After many wise and womanly suggestions concerning the care and education of the girls while in the schools, where some of them live from their earliest infancy, Mrs. Senior turns her attention to their first start in life. They are sent out, she says, to service, "an unusually difficult life at an age (fourteen or fifteen, sometimes younger) when other children, whose previous advantages have far exceeded their own, are still under guidance and protection." The faults she finds most common among them are " bad temper, untruthfulness and apathy," while ** their ignorance of the cost of clothes, and conse- quent carelessness about keeping them tidily mended," their ignorance, " difficult," she says, " to realize, about things that are familiar to most children of a few years old," do not make them the most handy or desirable ser- vants. Not a very hopeful account of the material to be dealt with, but still the material, dubbed, as it often is, pauper, or low class, or hopeless, is, when subdivided, just a girl ! a creature of the "mother sex,'' having in her possibilities of infinite good, capabilities of destroying evil. And the future of this material — what is it? In tracing this, Mrs. Senior's experience was not with- out its sadness, and her sweet eyes were often tear-be- dimmed, as she told of some poor girl so absolutely friendless in the world that even the arrival of a strange 11 some one" to question the mistress about her, was hailed with a joy only begotten by loneliness. And this loneliness is perhaps the feature which is the most sur- prising to her disciples who have followed on the lines that Mrs. Senior indicated. " Why do you cry, dear?" one girl was asked. " No one ever looked at me to make me feel that way before," was the answer ; and it was no wonder she wept — her way of taking off her shoes — for 1 3 2 WOMAN Q UESTION IN E UROPE. she had seen a vision of the angel of Friendship, and she felt she trod on holy ground. And the poor child was so altogether lonely! After years in the school, she had been sent to her first place, which she soon left. " When a girl leaves her first place, no matter how young she is, even this small amount of legal protection ceases," writes Mrs. Senior, the " small amount " referred to being " that the relieving officer should visit girls up to the age of sixteen." She was but fourteen, but, her first place left, there was no one to turn to, and she hired herself out to any one who would take her. The place was not all it might have been. It was not a den of infamy ; it was only the home of cruelty : but from it the child at last, her youthfulness gone, her frame worn, her growth stunted, ran away, and it was only the direction of a kindly policeman which helped her to find a friend at last. Sad as such cases are — but there are not many now, or else the work of Mrs. Senior had not accomplished all it might — they are not perhaps so hopelessly sad as those of girls whose relations, to quote again from the report, are " as might be expected often of the worst class, fathers from prison, drunken mothers, worthless aunts." " The girls thus tempted " (by their relations) " were often well- beloved, promising children while in school, and I am in- clined to believe that the warm-hearted, generous natures are just those who are the most exposed to this danger." And, as I write, they rise before me, just such girls as Mrs. Senior speaks of. I see them troop past, some of them ruined by the bad influence, strengthened by the re- lationship, some saved by what Mrs. Senior proposed, "a strong counter-influence in the right direction." There goes E. B., such a naughty, dear child, with a bad ENGLAND. m mother and a number of brothers and sisters leading lives that don't bear looking into. She is so far safe, a bright, happy, naughty, wayward dairy-maid, her work with milk and butter in her sweet-smelling workshop in kindly con- trast with the work and surroundings her mother would have had her come to. Here lumbers along (for her gait still bears testimony to the heaviness and bad fit of the workhouse-made shoes) M. T. She comes to show a warm tippet, the gift of her mistress, but to say, too, that the elder sister won't give up the old bad life, and is always " at her " to come too ; and to ask for some of her savings to help pay for the confinement of an unmarried sister. There will be work for the lady friend here ; there will be a hard tussle for that girl's soul — on which side will the victory be declared ? Here comes D. M., puffed up with importance, for " My aunt says she will keep me like a lady, and there is no need that I should work no more." A big bait this to an idle, vain novel-reading girl ; but the friend has made herself trusted. She promises to see the aunt, and the girl agrees, after some difficulty, not to "give notice" until the friend writes or sees her again. And here is J.W., in tears too. The usually sunny giggling Jane. " What is the matter, childie?" " My mistress gave me notice because I was not 'ome right time that day I came to see you." "Not home! why you left me directly we left the Zoological Gardens. What came to you?" Then, tear- choked, it comes out. A big never-before-seen brother had told their aunt (a decent hard-working woman) that he wanted to see his sister, as he was "in trouble." The .child tramped for hours seeking him, and when found he only wanted a shilling or two. To take her wages, to make her lose her place, was the help that manly brother gave. 134 WOMAN" QUESTION IN EUROPE. The experience of the three hundred and twenty ladies — now working with the Metropolitan Association for Be- friending Young Servants, working because Mrs. Senior worked, protecting from the evils which the feeling for these girls the motherly tenderness of a rich nature feared for them — the experience of the three hundred and twenty ladies will support Mrs. Senior when she says : " It not unfrequently happens that a girl who would otherwise do well is unsettled by her relations." And Mrs. Senior foresaw yet other dangers for the friendless, or worse than friendless, girls. She writes in 1873 : " The importance of a girl's keeping her first place is greater on account of the difficulty of providing suit- able protection for her when she is out of place. She has a right to return to the work-house, but all agree that this is about the worst thing she can do." It needs no further argument to prove this last point, when it is re- membered that the work-house houses the human refuse, a contaminating influence for a girl who has perhaps only failed in temper or health, not fallen in character. And the number of times a girl will change her place, particularly the first two years of her service life, is almost incredible. C. L. had nine places in eleven months. She always liked them " so much " for the first week ; the mistress was a "dear lady," and the children (if there were any) were " quite pets," but the song dropped into the minor key during the second or third week, generally to a doleful duet, for the lady usually joined in also. What would have become of this girl if it had not been for the friendship, for her and those like her, which Mrs. Senior had awakened in the breasts of the other women ? The Befriending Society had provided the girl with a friend, who saw she was safely housed between her places, ENGLAND. *35 though, poor child! few were her gowns and hats, for most of the wages had to go in paying for lodging " be- tween places." " Yes, ma'am, the missus do like me very much, she does. She's quite pleased with me. Still she thinks I'd better leave," came from a pretty, high-spirited girl, a contradictory sentence and not a hopeful sign that there would be a future effort to please the new " missus." And the speaker failed again and again until, at last, aided by her friend, she was able to trace the fault to herself, and out of her humility grew hope. " Pride goeth before de- struction, and a haughty spirit before a fall," might have been true of her, had it not been for befriending care ; for to such a girl, the dangers of often being out of place are known to all dwellers in cities, and need not be dwelt on here. And there is yet another side to the character of these friend-needing children. In Mrs. Senior's report we read :* "All without exception were curiously apathet- ic in temperament, described as ' not caring for any- thing,' 'taking no interest,' 'not enjoying,' 'seeming like old people,' etc." A curious description of the char- acters of young people under twenty ; and one in which I cannot but concur with the writer. " The system of training must be in great measure responsible," and this apathy, this self-indifference (a wholly different qual- ity to unselfishness) opens out other dangers to these un- friended girls. They have no consciousness of rights, often not even the right to their own person. Never having possessed anything, they know not how to guard themselves, nor to " possess their own souls." And in * Quoted from a letter written to Mrs. Senior by a friend who had made inquiries about the girls_who had been sent to service. — H. 0. B. 136 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. the endeavor to cure this evil, perhaps more has been done by her women-followers than Mrs. Senior herself anticipated. The lady friend introduced by the Association to the girl, on her leaving school, becomes the somebody " to care for." And it is part of her work to see that her child-friend has something in which to" take an interest." The lady friend's house, the lady's pleasures, her jour- neys out, her home-comings, her health, her relatives, her dresses, her ordinary life, in fact, if she be admitted sympathetically into it, is in itself an interest to the girl ; and to this the wise woman friend will add other and more personal interests for the girl herself. The monthly periodical, the occasional letter, the thought-suggested gift, the carefully planned holiday, are trifling things to do, but without which there is no opportunity for " en- joying " in the gray lives of these children servants. And their wealth of gratitude and love is worth harvesting. For such a little outlay of trouble given, there is such a liberal repayment of affection received. Instead of sor- rowing over wasted pains, I often feel with Wordsworth : " Alas, the gratitude of men Hath oftener left me mourning." " I am never able to say much, but I do feel a great deal about you," wrote a girl, pronounced " hopelessly unimpressionable " by the school official ; and " I will do it if you wish me to," I have heard more than once from the lips of girls who would find the "it " no easy matter. And it is no easy matter to apologize to a harsh, rough- speaking (or, as they would describe her, a "jawing") mistress. It is no easy matter to give up the lover who is " really very kind." It is no easy matter to go on wearily drudging at unlovely work when the sun shines, ENGLAND. 1 37 when outside life looks bright, and there is only one step to be taken to make it their own. The friend, by her love, may become a saviour. Love is stronger than evil ; God than the devil. Mrs. Senior's loving wisdom has had many children. In the Report of 1882 of the Metropolitan Association for Befriending Young Servants, the society which is the more immediate outgrowth of her work (though indirect- ly the Girls' Friendly Society, and kindred societies, might be said to result from the same spirit), we read that there are now (1883) fourteen branches, each with its organiza- tion, its free registry office, clothing club," savings bank, means of safely housing girls, etc., connected with those branches no less than 320 ladies, and the Association has not reached a full stop yet. Under the able captaincy of Miss Anne Townshend (who, herself a friend of Mrs. Senior, took from her the germ of the idea), the society still hopes to grow until it extends its influence all over the metropolitan area ; until it has its office in each poor-law division, its volunteer workers aiding and suplementing the work of the State-paid almoners ; until it imbue with its spirit, and modify the mechanical, and therefore often harsh, action of the legal overseers of the poor. And of this work the keynote is friendship, the same keynote which is struck in the other two kinds of wom- en's charitable work which I have tried to tell about. It is only the gift of friendship, of love, which can help the world. It is only the care of one individual for another that can elevate a soul. It has been woman's work to teach love. To her child she teaches : " Love's holy earnest in a pretty play, By tying sashes, fitting baby shoes, And kissing full sense into empty words." 1 38 WOMAN Q UESTION IN E UROPE. For the world she keeps it alive and warm. By it the two great women I have spoken of were guided to see the needs and think out some of the remedies for the suffer- ers with whom they come in contact. By love, not love in the abstract, but by loving and serving one needing individual, each woman can bring a stone towards build- ing a harbor of refuge for the sorrowful, the sinful, the suffering. * The world waits For help. * * Let us love so well, Our work shall still be better for our love, And still our love be sweeter for our work. GERMANY. 139 CHAPTER II. GERMANY. I. A GENERAL REVIEW OF THE WOMEN'S MOVEMENT IN GERMANY. BY ANNA SCHEPELER-LETTE AND JENNY HIRSCH. [Mrs. Anna Schepeler-Lette was born December ig, 1829, at Soldin, Germany, and was the eldest daughter of Dr. Lette — mentioned in the fol- lowing pages — whom she accompanied, in 1848, to Frankfort-on-the-Main, whither he went as a member of the German Parliament. In 1866 she joined her father at Berlin, and was initiated into the work of the Lette Society, to which admirable organization she has ever since devoted all her time and energy. Mrs. Schepeler-Lette went to America in 1876, and visited the Centennial Exhibition, and many of the principal cities of the United States, where she carefully examined various institutions whose aims were similar to those of the Lette Society. Miss Jenny Hirsch, born November 25, 1829, at Zerbst, Germany, was brought up as a child by very strictly orthodox Jewish parents, but, although she had many narrow prejudices to contend against, secured by her own ef- forts a good education. In i860 Miss Hirsch went to Berlin, became inter- ested in a fashion paper, and accumulated in four years sufficient money to enable her to devote herself entirely to literary work. At this epoch she published numerous essays and criticisms, and many translations from the French, English, and Swedish, among others John Stuart Mill's " Subjec- tion of Women." Since the spring of 1866 Miss Hirsch has been the secre- tary of the Lette Society and editor of the German Women's Advocate (Deutscher Frauen-A nwalt), which is devoted to the industrial and general education of women.] THE woman question, like several other ideas thrust 1 4 o WOMAN Q UESTION IN E UROPE. upon the attention of the world by the French Revolu- tion, was not hastily accepted by the German mind. Many excellent reforms have encountered a long and ob- stinate resistance on this side of the Rhine simply because they were said to be a product of the upheaval of 1789, and the women's movement, in addition to its unfortu- nate origin, was brought into disrepute as the " Emanci- pation of Women." The greatest stumbling-block in our way has been the signification given to this term, and we tacitly agreed to avoid its use, although it was impossible to find one which could exactly replace it. The year 1848 was the signal for the setting free of forces until then held in check, and new truths were prop- agated of which the masses had scarcely a presentiment a few days before. It was the early spring time in the life of nations. It produced a forced and quick growth, and its effect was felt even by women. Mrs. Louise Otto- Peters, of Leipsic, who has since become well-known, caught the spirit of the times, proclaimed the principle of women's progress, and devoted her great energies and talents to the young cause. The brilliant beginnings and lofty hopes of 1848 were immediately followed by a sombre and troubled period. The liberty trees were planted in a soil so poor and badly prepared that they could not take root. They soon per- ished under the influence of the reaction which set in, and all that had been accomplished for good or for evil in that short season was indiscriminately destroyed. What had been done for the amelioration of the condition of women shared the common fate. For the moment these questions were forgotten ; they were pushed aside, repressed, but they could not be extirpated. Po- litical and social life could no longer be confined GERMANY. 14 1 within the narrow limits which had existed previous to the Revolution of 1848. The woman question also came to the surface again, and in 1865 we find it once more before the public, when it took on the form by which it has since been known, marching on, year after year, from victory to victory. The most striking proof of the vitality and the necessity of the reformation lay in the fact that it was demanded at the same time in various places, so that its advocates, ignorant of each other, differed on minor points. The woman question in Germany has this same argument in its favor ; it sprang up simultaneously in several parts of the country, and especially at Leipsic and Berlin. The Leipsic movement had its origin in a women's meeting — to which men, however, were admitted — held in that city in October, 1865, and due to the efforts of Mrs. Louise Otto-Peters, of whom we have al- ready spoken. The Berlin movement dates from a gathering of both sexes at the capital in December of the same year, under the presidency of Dr. Adolf Lette, one of the most eminent philanthropists Germany has produced. At Leipsic, where the feminine element pre- dominated, the question was regarded rather from the standpoint of sentiment, while at Berlin, where business men took part, more practical measures were adopted. In both places, however, good sense prevailed, and all felt that in order to construct a solid and durable edifice the foundation must be made before the roof, that slow and conservative, rather than hasty and radical, steps .would be better in the end. The first meeting in Berlin was followed in February of the next year, 1866, by the foundation of the Society for the Promotion of the Employment of Women ( Verein zur 1 4 2 WOMAN Q UESTION IN E UROPE. Fordcrung der Erwerbsfdliigkeit des weiblichen Gesch- lechts). The new organization was placed under the patronage of the Crown Princess, and in 1869 its name was changed to the .Lette Society {Lette- Verein) in honor of its founder, who died December 3, 1868. Fault is sometimes found because the movement has been separated into two currents ever since its begin- ning. There is unquestionably much ground for this crit- icism, and we do not deny that our efforts would have produced more fruit if both organizations had worked to- gether. But here comes into play a peculiarity of the German character which has considerably modified the evil. The two associations, although occasionally at va- riance, have not acted to the detriment of the common cause, but, on the contrary, they have displayed greater zeal, and have more quickly discovered and corrected er- rors, because of their independent positions. The chief aim of the Leipsic reformers, the National Association of German Women {Der allgemeine deutsche Frauen- Verein), was to produce a broad and thorough agitation of the general question of women's rights, while in Berlin the object in view was more immediate, precise and limited. The former strove to disseminate the new ideas, and, for this purpose, annual congresses or conventions were held in different parts of the country, where eloquent addresses were delivered by these pio- neers, and local societies established.* Although the Lette Society was not founded for the pur- pose of propagandism, this important agency is not ex- cluded from its plan of work. The scope of the organization was clearly set forth in an essay, read by Dr. Lette before the Central Society for the Improvement of the Working * A fuller account of the .Leipsic movement follows this essay. — T. S. GERMANY. 143 Classes of Prussia {Central- Verein fiir das Wohl der arbei- tenden Klassen in Preussen), in which he proved, by the aid of statistics, that a large body of women were forced to earn their own livelihood, and that marriage — since fe- males outnumbered males in Prussia, and also because of certain economic reasons — was not always possible. He called attention to the precarious situation of the daughters of poor government employes when, on the death of their father, they are thrown upon the world wholly unprepared for the struggle of life. He spoke of the few pursuits open to women, of the over-crowding of those not shut against them, and of the low pay resulting from this state of things ; and, in conclusion, he predicted fatal results if the sphere of their activity was not enlarged and em- ployments which were once theirs were not restored to them. These ideas formed the basis of the Lette Society, whose organization was substantially that of the London Society for Promoting the Employment of Women.* We did not, however, servilely follow the English model, but while we utilized the experiences of the London Society, we did not hesitate to introduce modifications demanded by the peculiarities of the German character. The essen- tial principles and aims of the Lette Society have been, from the beginning, to discover new occupations fitted for women, to protect their interests in those where they al- ready have a footing, and to educate them for more im- portant and profitable employments. Notwithstanding the many difficulties which the society has encountered during its long period of activity, it has, on the whole, remained faithful to its origin. It is true that we have found it more and more necessary to devote * For an account of this Society, see page 97.— T. S. 144 WOMAN Q UESTION IN E UROPE. attention to practical instruction, for it was soon discov- ered that most women did not know how to work care- fully, conscientiously, and accurately. This is not due, however, to any innate and fundamental defect in the sex, but is rather a result of bad education and habits, which, as experience has shown, quickly disappear, and are replaced by remarkable aptitude as soon as irregular em- ployment gives place to methodical work preceded by a rational preparation. After the death of its founder and first president, the Lette Society was directed for several years by Dr. von Holtzendorf, professor at the University of Berlin, until Mrs. Schepeler-Lette succeeded to the post in 1872, where she has ever since remained. The society supports at this moment, at its rooms in Koniggratzer Strasse, Berlin, a commercial school, a draw- ing and modeling school, and a cooking school, while it also gives instruction in washing, ironing, cutting, dress- making, hand and machine sewing, the manufacture of artificial flowers, and many other kinds of manual and art work. The pupils of these various schools are prepared for the State examinations for drawing teachers and in- structors in mechanic arts, and subsequently find employ- ment in boarding, private, and girls' grammar schools. In another building is a printing office, where women are taught to set type. The society also conducts a board- ing-house for women {Das Victoriastift), and in connec- tion with it a women's restaurant. A shop for the sale of female handiwork, known as the Victoria Bazaar, a free in- telligence office, and a bank where women may make on easy terms small loans, with which to commence or enlarge their business, or to buy sewing machines, are some of the other admirable features of the Lette Society. GERMANY. 145 The number of those who have been benefited by this institution can be counted by the thousands, so that a great and good work has been accomplished with propor- tionally very small means. Nor has its usefulness been limited to the capital alone. The reputation of the soci- ety has spread throughout the country, and similar organizations have been established in Bremen, Ham- burg, Breslau, Brunswick, Rostock, Stettin, and Pots- dam. At Darmstadt is the Alice Society {Alice- Verein), devoted to the industrial and general instruc- tion of women, and whose patroness was Alice, the late Grand Duchess of Hesse. There are like institutions at Dusseldorf, Cologne, Elberfeld, Weisbaden, Konigs- berg, Dantsic, and other cities, all modeled after the Lette Society, whence are drawn their corps of teachers. The societies founded by the National Association of German Women, as well as those which have sprung up independently of both organizations, are all working in the same field, have a similar aim in view, and are animated by that spirit of modera- tion which has done so much for the success of the common cause. It cannot be said of this movement that it purposes to overthrow existing institutions, that it desires to estrange women from their peculiar vocation in the family, State, and society. This conservative character of the German reformers has been criticised. They have been found too timid, too considerate of old prejudices, too slow, too cir- cumspect. The stricture arises mainly, however, from an imperfect understanding of the situation in this country. Because of the excellent system of compulsory educa- tion which exists in Germany, we had not to begin so low down as in some other parts of Europe. All German girls 1 46 WOMAN Q UESTION IN E UROPE. were furnished with, at least, the foundation of an educa- tion. And yet the women's movement has accomplished admirable reforms in this very field. To it is due the in- troduction into the girls' primary schools {Volksschule) of compulsory arid systematic instruction in sewing and sim- ilar handiwork, and the persevering and finally successful efforts to enlarge the scope of the girls' grammar schools ( Tdchterschule), efforts which have met with the approval of competent persons and which have not passed unnoticed by the government itself. Still greater progress might be made in this direction, if only the proper laws were enacted. All attempts to bring about the establishment by the municipalities or the government of girls' high schools have failed, but it is almost beyond doubt that this worthy object will be accomplished sooner or later. When it is, women will be able to obtain a training similar to that furnished at the boys' gymnasiums, so that, provided with a diploma {Abiturientenzeugniss) they may enter the universities and receive a degree. German women who would secure a higher education must study in private, for their admission into the lecture- rooms of any of our universities is very difficult. Female students, to our knowledge, have been admitted only at Heidelberg and Leipsic, and even in these two institutions they have not been suffered to pass the examinations. It is at foreign universities that our women are forced to pursue their studies and take their degrees. The two fe- male physicians at Berlin, Dr. Franziska Tiburtius, and Dr. Emilie Lehmus, are graduates of Zurich, and Lina Beger, Ph. D., who began her career as a teacher at the capital, received her degree at Bern. The two Berlin dentists, Mrs. Dr. Tiburtius Hirschfeldt, and MissCarsten, studied at Philadelphia. GERMANY. I47 In its treatment of the great question of the higher edu- cation of women, Germany is outstripped, not only by the republics of Switzerland, America and France, but lags behind the monarchies of England, Sweden, Italy, and Russia, which, after an obstinate resistance, have finally opened their universities to women and graduated them with full academic honors. We are convinced that Ger- many must soon follow their example, either by the foun- dation of special institutions or by throwing wide the doors of the existing universities. But we fear that the struggle will be longer and harder here than in other countries, for our universities, venerable by their antiquity and conservative by their organization, are immutable for good or evil. The same thing is seen in England, where the London University, which is of recent origin, long ago conferred its advantages on women, while ancient Cam- bridge and Oxford, although they have made some con- cessions, still hold back.* Until that day arrives, we must be contented with those excellent institutions which have sprung up in many cities under the name of lyceums {Lyceen) and which afford our girls admirable instruction.! The oldest and best known * The United States presents similar examples. While Cornell, Michi- gan, and other young universities are not afraid of women, venerable Har- vard, Yale and Columbia, the latter in spite of the repeated efforts of Presi- dent Barnard in favor of the reform, tremble for their future if co-education be adopted. — T. S. f The prospectus of the Victoria Lyceum at Cologne, of which Mrs. Lina Schneider, a lady of wide culture, is the principal, gives a fair idea of the scope of these institutions. " The instruction comprises," says this pros- pectus, " thorough English in all its branches, German, French, Italian (taught respectively by native professors), Latin and Greek classics, mathe- matics, shorthand-writing, history, literature, and other sciences, music, drawing, painting, calisthenics, and all female accomplishments. * * * 148 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. of these educational establishments is the Victoria Ly- ceum, in Berlin, founded and directed by Miss Archer. It contains the nuclei of what could be developed on the one hand into a gymnasium, and on the other into a univer- sity. The Alice Lyceum, established at Darmstadt by Louise Buchner, would have attained an equally high position if its growth had not been suddenly checked by the death of its founder, who, as Vice-president of the Alice Society, and as a writer on the woman question, showed marked ability and accomplished much good work. Lyceums patterned after these two have been organized at Breslau, Karlsruhe, Dresden, Cologne, and Leipsic. Closely connected with this movement in favor of the higher education of women and of the amelioration of their position in the field of labor, is the effort to spread the Frobel system. Many of the industrial societies (Erwerbvereine) already mentioned have accepted Frobel's ideas, and have opened kindergarten schools, courses for the instruction of teachers for such schools, and courses for the preparation of children's nurses. No- body interested in the general progress of women can un- derrate this important work, and Mrs. Johanna Gold- schmidt, of Hamburg, a pioneer of the Frobel system, will always occupy an honorable place among those who have labored in this field. Women's domestic duties are not excluded from the programme of our movement. Hygiene, the care of chil- There are also opportunities for learning dancing, swimming, skating, and riding." It appears that the lyceum can prepare (the prospectus from which I quote is addressed to the English public) " with special facility and suc- cess for the Oxford and Cambridge local, the Irish intermediate, the Uni- rersity or other examinations." — T. S. GERMANY. 149 dren and rational housekeeping are essential parts of any plan of female education. Furthermore, women should know how to care for the sick of their own household, and should even be taught professional nursing. There may be a question as to whether they should be physicians, but as regards the training of women as nurses there can be but one opinion. The Catholic and Protestant Churches have long had training schools for nurses, and similar in- stitutions have sprung up all over the country during the past fifteen years. The oldest of them is the Baden Women's Society {Badiscker Frauen-Verein), under the protection of the Grand Duchess Louise, which has many branches, and which, besides the instruction of nurses, succors the poor and aids working women. The Women's Patriotic Society {Vatcrlandischer Fraaen- Verein), patronized by the Empress, besides doing a work similar to that of the last mentioned organization, in time of war takes care of the families of militiamen (La?idwehr) in service, establishes hospitals, nurses the wounded, etc. The same ground is covered by the Albert Society {Al- bert- Vereiri) in Saxony, to which the regretted Marie Simon devoted her life \ the Olga Society {Olga-Verein) in Wiir. temberg, which is patronized by the good Queen Olga, and by like bodies in Bavaria, Saxe-Weimar, Mecklenburg, etc. Three groups of women's associations still remain to be mentioned. The German Teachers' and Governesses' Society {Verein dcutscher Lehrerinenen und Erzieherin- etien), which, with its branches, looks after the intellectual and material interests of teachers, possesses in the neigh- borhood of Berlin a retreat for aged and invalid members of the profession. It has also organized boarding houses and clubs, where male and female teachers meet to discuss 1 50 WOMAN Q UESTION IN E UROPE. subjects which interest them. The second group consists of Housekeepers'- Societies {Hausfrauen-Vereinc), which owe their origin to Mrs. Lina Morgenstern, to whom is also due the Soup-kitchens (VolkskiLcheri), where the poor are fed at a very moderate price. All the important questions pertaining to domestic economy, come within the scope of these excellent associations. The third and last group are Societies of Art Students {Vereine der Kunstlerinnen), which, as is the case at Berlin, have established schools where women may study painting and sculpture ; it being difficult, if not absolutely impossible, for them to obtain admission to the School of Fine Arts. There are similar institutions for women at Weimar and Munich, though the school in the latter city is more especially devoted to industrial art, while many pursue their studies in the studios of eminent artists. Our women have proved by their productions that they have richly profited by these advantages. The last two exhibitions of fine arts at Berlin, and the international exhibition at Munich, in 1879, contained specimens of female talent which received the highest praise from im- partial critics. It is no exaggeration to say that women contribute in no small degree to the art industry of Ger- many. With the needle, the pencil, the brush, they pro- duce magnificent ornamental work. The schools of art and design established by the Berlin Industrial Museum {Gcwerbe-Museiun) and the Lette Society, and the similar institutions in Munich, Reutlingen, Karlsruhe, Dresden, and other cities, have turned out many trained women who have become teachers or artificers of fine needle- work, designers, pattern-makers, and the like. German unity, so long desired and so heartily wel- comed, has been prejudicial, we are sorry to say, to the GERMANY. 151 employment of women, as in Austria, in the railroad, postal, and telegraphic service. While the States of South and Central Germany have long availed themselves of fe- males for these positions, Prussia and the countries united with her in the postal and telegraphic union have taken the opposite course. When, on the formation of the Em- pire, the government assumed control of the post-office and telegraph, it looked for a moment as if all the female employes would be dismissed. A petition, however, was sent to the Imperial Parliament {Reichstag) in 1872, which not only checked this tendency, but secured the admission of women into the telegraphic and postal service of Prus- sia itself. But, as the Postmaster General of Germany, Mr. Stephan, is opposed to the employment of women in his department, everything has been done to defeat the measure, so that we are forced to admit that in this mat- ter our country has taken a step backward.* But, on the whole, the agitation begun at Leipsic and Berlin, has accomplished a great deal during the past eighteen years. We have been able to give here only an incomplete outline of its history. What has been writ- ten in Germany, for and against the woman question, would form a large library. A number of periodicals are exclusively devoted to this subject. Besides the New Paths (Neue Bahnen), the organ of the Leipsic movement, we may cite housekeepers' journals published at Berlin and Cologne, also a paper which represents the interests of * Mr. Stephan's course is strongly contrasted by that of the English Post- master General, and is a striking example of how much the success of laws, even under the modern parliamentary regime, depends upon the personal opinions of those who execute them. For an account of what Mr. Fawcett and others have done in England in connection with this subject, see page 93--T. S. 1 5 2 WOMAN Q UESTION IN E UROPE. girls' high schools, and the German Women s Advocate {Deutsche* Frauen-Anwalt), organ of the United Societies for the Education and Employment of Women (Verdana* des dcutscher Frauenbildungs und Erwerbvereine). The last named organization was formed in November, 1869, at a meeting in Berlin of delegates from all parts of Germany, and embraces a large number of women's indus- trial, educational, house-keeping and Frobel societies, and training schools for nurses. It holds general meetings at irregular intervals. Such assemblies have occurred at Darmstadt, Hamburg, Weisbaden, and at Berlin, in the autumn of 1879, where delegates were present from the Leipsic National Society. At these congresses all the various themes relating to women are discussed ; resolu- tions are passed, subjects for prize-essays announced, and petitions sent to the Government. At the Berlin Con- gress petitions were drawn up praying for the admission of women into the pharmaceutical profession, for the pro- viding of means for their higher education, for their em- ployment in the postal and telegraphic service, and for the modification of certain regulations which check their participation in business and trade. More radical demands than these have not been seri- ously made in Germany. The opening of politics to women has not been pressed. Contrary to the course pursued by the American and English reformers, who hold that the only way to emancipate the sex is by means of the electoral fran- chise, and who consequently make suffrage the chief aim of all their efforts, we Germans believe that the lever is found in education. In working for the present generation, and in helping women already half through the journey of life to earn their daily bread, we are sowing seed which will bear a rich fruitage in the future. Thanks to our un- GERMANY. 153 tiring labors the conviction is spreading that every wo- man, rich or poor, high or low, ought to have an educa- tion such as will make her, in the highest and best sense, the helpmate and companion of man — wife, mother, and teacher. The German movement aims to elevate the whole female sex, and to render women capable of serv- ing themselves, the family, society, the State, and hu- manity. Our object is to lift women out of their insignifi- cance, frivolity, poverty, misery, and shame, and train them for work which will render themselves and others happy, and thus advance the general interests of civili- zation. II. THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF GERMAN WOMEN. BY MARIE CALM. [Miss Marie Calm was born at Arolsen (where her father was burgomaster or mayor), in the Principality of Waldeck, on April 3, 1832. She was sent to a private school in her native town and finished her education at a well- known boarding school in Geneva, where she made great progress in the English and French languages. Afterward Miss Calm spent three years in England and two years in Russia, returning to Germany to take charge of a girls' high school in the Rhenish Provinces. Her first appearance in literature was as a story writer in the noted Illustrated World (Illustiirte Welt) of Stuttgart. In 1865 she heard of the movement in Leipsic in favor of women — which she describes in the following pages, put herself in communication with the leaders of the new agitation and was invited by them to take part in their next congress. She accepted this invitation in 1867, and has ever since been one of the most zealous advocates of women's rights in Germany. At Cassel, where she now resides, Miss Calm has done much for the education of girls by opening, in conjunction with some other ladies, an industrial school which has proved most successful. Since 1869 she has lectured all over Germany on educational subjects, has founded girls' schools similar to that at Cassel and organized women's societies auxiliary to the National 1 54 WOMAN Q UESTION IN E UROPE. Association. Miss Calm is the author of stories, poems, works on pedago- gics, and "Leo," a novel in three volumes, "which fastens the reader's attention with the first page," says an American writer, " and holds it un- waveringly to the closing paragraph." I had the pleasure of making Miss Calm's acquaintance at Paris in 1881, and was struck not only by her excel- lent command of English and French, both of which languages she speaks and writes with great ease, but also by her agreeable presence, her enthu- siasm and her liberalism.] THE National Association of German Women (Der allgemeine deutscJie Fraucn- Vereiti), was founded at Leip- sic in October, 1865, and was the first organized move- ment in Germany in favor of what is now known as the Woman Question {Frauenfragc). I do not wish to say- that previous to this date many noble minds had not ex- amined the great subject of women's needs and women's position, but what I do mean is that until the autumn of 1865 this work had been isolated, unorganized and conse- quently barren of practical results. Again, the few wom- en who,' about fifty years ago, tried to cut free from the restraints imposed upon their sex and to gain the liberty denied them by society, overstepped the limits of what is considered womanly by imitating the other sex in dress, in smoking, etc., so that the word cmancipatioii, originally applied to their agitation, has ever since retained an odious meaning and is therefore carefully discarded by the leaders of the present movement. This latter movement is indeed quite different in its origin, its aims and its means from the generous, but rather sentimental, outburst of 1830. The English census of 1856 had brought to light the fact that two millions of women in that country were dependent upon their own labor for their livelihood, and that most of them knew not how to work, or were so poorly paid that, as the Ger- man saying goes, they had too much to die, too little to GERMANY. I55 live. About this time Hood's " Song of the Shirt " ap- peared in all our newspapers, rousing the public to indig- nation at the neglected condition of working women and filling it with pity for the unhappy creature of whom the poet sang. A census in Prussia shortly afterward proved that there was about the same number of women in that country who were unprovided for, and drew attention to the crying necessity of giving them the means of earning their daily bread. Some philanthropists wrote and spoke on the subject, and Dr. Adolph Lette, a man of eminent merit, gave permanent form to this new public sentiment by establishing what afterward became the admirable Lette Society.* Among the women who, not only then but long before, had shown a deep interest in the amelioration of the con- dition of her sex, stands in the front rank, Mrs. Louise Otto-Peters. In her novels, most of which treat social questions, she has always pleaded for the oppressed, and when, after the publication of her " Castle and Factory " {Schloss und Fabrik), a deputation of Leipsic workmen invited her to contribute to their newspaper, she replied that she would gladly do so if allowed to defend the cause of work-women in its columns. She also took a very active part in the political movement of 1848, and founded in that year the first women's paper, to my knowl- edge, in Germany, which bore the motto " I enlist women in the cause of liberty " {Dent Reich der Freiheit werb' ich Burgerinnen). The reactionary period which followed put an end to the paper, but Louise Otto continued fear- lessly devoted to woman and liberty. It was very natural, therefore, that she should become * For a more complete account of the work of the Lette Society, see the preceding essay. — T. S 1 5 6 WOMAN' Q UES TION IN E UROPE. the centre of a movement for promoting the welfare of her sex. In October, 1865, a few men and women met in Leipsic to consider the subject, and the conference ended, as has already been said, in the foundation of the National Association of German Women. The name was rather ambitious when we consider the small number of persons who were present at the birth of the organization. But they looked far into the future, and ardently trusted that in the course of time the title of their young creation would be no misnomer. The Association set itself the task of ele- vating the educational and social position of one half of the nation. It declared work to be the right, the duty and the honor of women as well as of men, and denounced all those obstacles which hinder the former from a free participation in every employment and profession for which they are fitted by nature. In order to propagate these ideas it was resolved to establish a newspaper and to hold annual conventions in different parts of Germany. The organ of the Association, a bi-monthly, which treats all aspects of the woman question, both in Europe and America, was named New Paths {Ncue Bahnen), and has been edited from the beginning by Mrs. Louise Otto Peters and her friend, Miss Auguste Schmidt. But re- forms are not accomplished by the pen alone. Our articles are read chiefly by those already friendly to our views, not by our opponents, and least of all by the great mass of the indifferent. It therefore appeared necessary for the complete success of the cause to propagate it by word of mouth. Never had women assembled in Germany to discuss their own position in society ; never had they been seen on the platform addressing an audience with eloquence and logic. These were prerogatives of the masculine sex alone. The National Association of German Women was GERMANY. 1 57 first to show that the other sex, too, was capable and ready to present its claims before the public. But our aim was not simply to be heard, but to convince ; and this object has always been attained. Wherever our congresses have been held, we have met with success, as witness those of Leipsic (1867 and 1871), that of Brunswick (1868), Cassel (1869), Eisenach (1872), Stuttgart (1873), Gotha (1875), Frankfort-on-the-Main (1876), Hanover (1877), Heidel- berg (1879) and Lubeck (1881). * These meetings have, of course, encountered strong prejudices. People were curious to hear what women had to say ; they wished only to be amused, but many became interested, convinced, and often before the close of the sessions were enthusi- astic supporters of the cause. In these congresses addresses are delivered on all sub- jects connected with the woman question, and reports are read by delegates of the work accomplished by the aux- iliary societies, so that the audience obtains a pretty good idea of the operations of the National Association since the previous meeting.f At the end of each congress an * In a recent letter from Miss Calm, she says : " There has not been any congress this (1882) year, owing to the Berlin Society being rather loath to undertake the trouble and cost of these meetings. It was their turn and they postponed it. I am going to Leipsic next week in order to arrange with my colleagues about next year's congress." — T. S. f The following programme of the last congress, will give the best idea of the nature of these assemblages, and of the scope of the National Associa- tion. The Eleventh Congress of the National Association OF GERMAN WOMEN, Held at Lubeck from the 5TH to the 6th of October, 1881. Wednesday, Oct. gth, 10 A.M. — Business meeting. Election of officers, etc. 7 p.m. — First public session. Reception of the delegates by the local committee. Preliminary addresses by Miss Auguste Schmidt, of Leipsic. 1 5 8 WOMAJ^ Q UESTION IN E UROPE. effort is made to found a local auxiliary society (Lokal-Vereiri), which accepts the plan of the Na- tional Association and endeavors to embody its aims in some useful institution. Organizations of this kind have thus been established in all the above-mentioned cities with one exception, and in several other places through the efforts of individuals. They have created girls' industrial or professional schools, mercantile in- stitutes and lyceums. In some instances the members of these societies arrange courses of lectures and hold monthly gatherings, where women of all classes meet on a common footing, either to listen to an essay, to dis- cuss subjects of mutual interest, or to be diverted by music and declamation. Similar entertainments are some- times offered to working-women, who thus enjoy simple and innocent amusements. Since the year 1876 an agreement has existed between the National Association and the United Societies, at the head of which stands the Lette Society, for calling these congresses alternately, and for sending delegates from the one organization to the congress held under the auspices of the other. But the spirit of active propagandism and Thursday, Oct. 6th, 10 A.M. — Business meeting. Treasurer's report, etc. 3 P.M. to 5 p.m. — Visit to the churches and other celebrated mon- uments of the city. 6 P.M. — Second public session. Opening of the Congress by Mrs. Louise Otto -Peters, of Leipsic. Address by Miss Marie Calm, of Cassel, on " The Women's Movement in its Principal Localities from a Historical Point of View." Reports of delegates. Address by Miss Willborn, of Schwerin, on " The Scientific Education of Female Teachers." Social reunion. Friday, Oct. 7th, 9 A.M. — Third session. Address by Miss Menzzer, of Dresden, on " The Compensation of Women's Labor." Reports. Address by Miss Assmann, of Hanover, on " The Citi- zenship of Women." 3 p.m. — Address by Mrs. Ftillgraff, M.D., of Hamburg, on "Women's Position in America." Reports. Address by Mrs. Lina Morgenstern, of Berlin, on " The Food Question." 7 p.m. — Banquet. — M. C. GERMANY. 1 59 the foundation of new societies appear to be alone pecu- liar to the congresses of the National Association. In 1877 the executive committee of the Association sent to the Imperial Parliament {Reichstag) a petition signed by a great number of women, praying for certain of their civil rights, for the amelioration of their condition as wives and mothers, and for the abrogation of those laws which treat them as minors. This petition was accom- panied by a memorial, drawn up by Louise Otto-Peters, which contained all the laws concerning women as found in the different statute books of Germany, for it must be borne in mind that every State, and even a great many towns, of the Empire has a code of its own. The answer of Parliament to this petition was that a code common to all Germany was soon to be prepared, and that then our demands should be considered.* The above-mentioned executive committee consists of Mrs. Louise Otto-Peters, Miss Auguste Schmidt, the as- sociate editor of the Neue Bahncn and one of the ablest speakers in our congresses ; and Mrs. Henriette Gold- *I select a few paragraphs from the Prussian and Bavarian codes. Ex una disce omnes. Here is the law of Prussia : Children may not marry without the consent of the father. — §45. (So the mother is of no account when it comes to giving up her daughter ! ) By marriage the husband obtains con- trol of the wife's fortune. — §205. Whatever the wife earns during her mar- riage belongs to the husband. — §211. The wife may not contract any debts on the fortune she has brought to the husband. — §§318 and 319. (He has the right to squander the whole of it, but she may not spend a farthing of what was once her own !) In regard to divorce : Bodily ill treatment may be a cause of divorce, if it endangers the health or life of the wife (!). — §685. Here are a few specimens from the Bavarian statute-book : By marriage the wife comes under the authority of the husband and the law {Cewall) allows him to chastise her moderately ( ! ). — §2. Women, with the exception of the mother and grandmother, are unfit to be guardians. — §90. (So are minors, lunatics, and spendthrifts ! ) — M. C. 1 60 WOMAN Q UEST10N IN E UROPE. schmidt, a leading promoter of the Frobel system in Ger- many, who has formed a society in Leipsic for popular education and a girls' lyceum, and who, by her eloquence and her lectures in different parts of the country, has done a great deal to keep alive public interest in the various phases of the woman question. These three ladies and Mrs. Winter, treasurer of the Association, live in Leipsic. Another member of the committee, Miss Menzzer, is at the head of a Women's Educational Society (Frauenbil- dungs Verevi) at Dresden ; a sixth, Mrs. Lina Morgen- stern, is a lady of great talent and activity ; and, lastly, the writer of this sketch, who is president of the Women's Educational Society of Cassel. This brief account shows that the National Association of German Women has not been unsuccessful in its efforts to raise the level of instruction and thereby to improve the general condition of the sex. It is to be hoped that the interest in this question may spread wider and wider — and it was for the accomplishment of this end that our Association was founded — until the victory is complete, and women secure in the family and in the State the position to which they are entitled, but which customs and laws so often deny them. HOLLAND. l6l CHAPTER III. HOLLAND. BY ELISE VAN CALCAR. [Mrs. Elise van Calcar was born at Amsterdam, in 1822. Her first liter- ary production was " Hermine," a domestic novel, which championed the elevation of women and strongly protested against the impediments thrown in the way of their progress by Calvinistic orthodoxy. It proved an unex- pected success and was followed by many other works, one of which, " Evangeline," was exclusively devoted to a consideration of woman's life and destiny. Later, appeared a treatise on the influence of women in improving the condition of sewing girls, which carried off the gold prize medal of the Universal Benevolent Society {Maatschappy tot nut van V algemeen), the first time such an honor was conferred upon a woman in Hol- land. Some time ago the Industrial Society {Maatschappy voor Industrie) offered a gold medal for the best essay on the following subject : " How must a girl be educated in order to gain her own livelihood without unfit- ting herself for domestic life, in case she should marry ? " She was here, also, the successful competitor. Mrs. van Calcar has taken an active part in the movement to improve women's education. She founded a kindergarten and lectured on the subject of infant schools throughout Holland ; she was appointed by the Government to inspect these institutions, and a radical change followed her report ; and she established a seminary for the instruc- tion of teachers in the Frobel system, which remained under her direction for ten years. Mrs. van Calcar next turned her attention to spiritualism and magnetism, and published a novel in three volumes entitled "Children of the Century " {Kindren der Eeuw) with the object of popularizing these new phenomena. She is now conducting at The Hague a spiritualistic monthly, On the Banks of Two Worlds {Op de Grenzen van Twee Werelden). Besides the works already mentioned, Mrs. van Calcar is the author of many other books, articles in reviews and newspapers en various social, religious and literary topics. Her last production is a life and defence of Swedenborg.] 1 62 WOMAN Q UESTION IN E UROPE. When the report of a movement in favor of women's rights first spread from America to these shores, our women were offended that one dared apply the word emancipation to their condition. Are we, then, slaves who need deliverance? they saia, just as a cage-born bird would ask, What happiness is there outside these wires ? May I not do everything I wish : jump from one perch to the other? The Dutch woman is proud of her origin. She remembers that she first saw light on a soil redeemed from tyranny by the blood of her forefathers, and, like a true child of the Reformation, looks with contempt upon her Catholic sisters, condemned to ignorance and bred up in narrow-mindedness and superstition in the convents. To contend for the rights of women seemed to this class quite useless, and men in particular strongly objected to the term emancipation. The idea of a possible equality of man and woman appeared to them to be as dangerous as ridiculous, and, in all newspapers and public utterances, emancipation was branded as a mental alienation, and ranked among the symptoms of the disease of the century, which had to be kept carefully at a distance like a deadly epidemic. However, even in Holland, so very conserva- tive in many respects, there were a few earnest thinkers who took a broader view of the question, and some highly gifted women whose talents were too brilliant to remain buried in the kitchen, or to find in the petty duties of the family, a field large enough for their aspirations. It was, for a long time, an open question whether woman really possessed the necessary mental capacity to place her on a level with man, and to make her the spiritual companion of his life. Most men were afraid to solve the problem. In the meanwhile, many women effectually proved the superior quality of their intellectual gifts, in spite of HOLLAND. 163 the adverse circumstances in which their powers were developed. The only field of labor, except the care of husband and children, which has never been contested to women, is charity.* They made an ample use of this liberty, and thus became conscious of their imperfect training, often discovering that even for this work, they had not receiv- ed the proper preparation. Charitable institutions were founded on every hand. Asylums for fallen women and homeless children were opened, hospitals were established, and many women found employment as nurses in Amster- dam, Rotterdam, Utrecht, The Hague and Leeuwarden. Sewing and knitting schools also sprang up in great numbers. But whoever, twenty years ago, advocated the admission of women to other callings received no hearing. Yet we possessed an author, Mrs. Geertruida Bosboom Toussaint, who, by a series of able novels, usually drawn from our national history, evinced what talent and learn- ing a woman could possess.f She was soon followed by * Miss Elise A. Haighton, of Amsterdam, who enjoys a high reputation in her country as an author, and whose writings on social questions are widely known, has been kind enough to furnish me notes, which will be found scattered through this chapter. " Our women of the upper classes are much interested in charity," she says, "but as they are generally ortho- dox, a good deal of unhealthy religiousness mingles with their acts. In Holland, a great deal is done for the women who fall, but nothing to prevent them from falling." — T. S. f The seventieth anniversary of her birth was celebrated with the greatest enthusiasm, on September 16, 1882. by the literary world of Holland. — E. van C. Miss Frederica van Uildriks, an intelligent teacher, of Gron- ingen, Holland, whose notes, chiefly on educational matters, I shall have occasion to cite in other parts of this chapter, writes me that "the Revue des Deux Mondes has published some of Mrs. Bosboom Toussaint's novels, and that others have appeared in German translations." — T. S. 1 64 WOMAN Q UESTION IN E UROPE. some young female writers who, though not her equal in mental vigor and erudition, have, nevertheless, powerfully helped to combat the prejudice which would deny to woman the development of all her intellectual faculties. In 1856, Bertha von Marenholz, Countess of Bulow, a noble and highly gifted soul, visited these parts to ac- quaint us with the kindergarten system. She exhorted us to be not only the physical, but also the moral and in- tellectual, mothers of our offspring, so that, while pleading for children's rights, she sowed seed for women's rights. The advent of Bertha von Marenholz was an epoch in the women's movement in Holland. A female lecturer was a wonder in the Netherlands, and she spoke so well that she commanded attention and disarmed prejudice. Her eloquence, simplicity and earnestness beat a breach in the thick walls of old Dutch conservatism concerning the higher education of women. Blessed be her glorious name among all those of our sex who desire our real progress, and who seek its accomplishment in the right way ! When this wise and lovable reformer left our country, I felt that her prophet's mantle had fallen upon my shoulders, and that I had henceforth to walk in her foot- steps. I accepted the apostleship, and devoted myself to the educational work which she had initiated. I was therefore the first Dutch woman to mount the public plat- form. I lectured in our principal cities, and called upon women to improve themselves for their own and their children's sakes. I projected a plan of a college for the higher training of girls, which was laid before Queen Sophia, the Premier, Thorbecke, and other eminent per- sonages. I applied for aid in vain to all sorts of moneyed organizations. But nobody seemed to share my enthusi- HOLLAND. 165 asm. I began to fear that my project would never be realized, when the Universal Benevolent Society opened at Arnheim the first girls' normal school. Although the new institution fell far short of my own design, I felt that it was a good beginning. In the meantime, Mrs. Storm, a clergyman's widow, who had spent several years in America, returned to us with brilliant reports of the excellent education provided for girls in the United States. She also delivered lect- ures, telling what she had seen in the New World ; and, although neither the first nor only person to describe to us the schools of New York, she addressed herself more to women and the general public than others who had written on the same subject. Mrs. Storm urged us to follow the example set by the United States and to found industrial and high schools. We now have several indus- trial schools for girls, weak institutions as yet, it is true, and very inferior to those of America ; but the experi- ment has been tried, and that is something. Twenty years ago nobody would have believed that women could ever be apothecaries, watchmakers, clerks in the post, railroad and the telegraph offices, and above all physicians, and yet, to-day, they are found in rapidly increasing numbers in all these callings. For the time being we have but one female physician, Miss Aletta Henriette Jacobs, who is practicing in Amsterdam, but as she is meeting with marked success, others will soon follow her example. * Several years ago the National * The following extract from a letter which I received from Dr. Jacobs in October, 1882, will be read with interest : " As my father was a phy- sician, medicine always had a strong attraction for me. In 1871, at the age of seventeen, I began my studies at the University of Groningen, after ob- taining the necessary permission from the Prime Minister, Mr. Thorbecke, l6 6 WOMAN Q UESTION IN E UROPE. School of Fine Arts was thrown open to both sexes,in compliance with a request made to the Government by some women. The male students were at first discon- tented at the innovation, but to-day girls attend lectures and work after living models in the studios of sculpture who, by the way, added that this was only an experiment, so that, if I had failed, it is probable that the four Dutch universities would be still shut against women, and not frequented by female students pursuing various branches, as is the case to-day. To tell the truth, it was a long time after I took the first step in my present career, before I reflected upon its impor- tance to other women. I attended the lectures without ever experiencing any annoyance from either professors or students. In iS 72 I passed my fropwdentisch-examen, embracing physics, chemistry, botany, zoology, and mathematics. Two years later, in April, I did the same for my eandidaats. examen, — physiology, anatomy, pathology, etc., and in October, 1876, for my dodorraal-examen, which was of an almost totally theoretical nature. I then went to Amsterdam, which, being a larger city, was preferable for the practical part of my medical studies. In April, 1878, came my arts-examen (conducted by a board of examiners appointed by Government), which con- fers the privilege of practicing medicine, surgery and obstetrics. There now remained but one more degree for me to take, that of doctor, which is given by the universities, and which was the only medical degree in Holland prior to 1867. I returned to Groningen, and in ten months' time had accom- plished my object by successfully defending my thesis, "On the Localiza- tion of Physiological and Pathological Symptoms in the Cerebrum " {Over Localisatie van Physiologische en Pathologische Verse hijnselen in de Groote Hersenen). I immediately left for London, and visited daily, during several months, the different gynecological and children's hospitals. On September 15, 1879,1 established myself at Amsterdam for the treatment of the diseases of women and children. I have no fault to find with my success, nor, if the inevitable professional jealousy be excepted, with the conduct of my con- freres. I have been admitted with the greatest complaisance to the Medical Society and participate in all its meetings. The State and municipality ac- cord me the same rights and impose upon me the same duties as in the case of my fellow practitioners, and yet this same State and municipality treat me, as in fact they do all women, as a minor ! Public opinion, it will be ob- served, throws no obstacles in the way of my professional success, so that in this respect my own land is in advance of every other European country. Great progress in favor of bettering the position of women in State and HOLLAND. jfy and drawing, with as great freedom as the young men. Among other signs of progress, I may mention that a few years ago an exhibition of female industry and art was held at Leeuwarden, while reading-rooms for women have been opened in Amsterdam and Rotterdam. * The press being always hostile to our movement, wom- en determined to have an organ of their own. Miss Betsy Perk therefore founded and edited for two years the Our Vocation {Onze Roeping), a weekly journal which was, however, overshadowed by another periodical in fa- vor of women, Our Striving (0ns Str even), supported by society has been especially noticeable in Holland during the past two or three years." " Although the law now allows women to be apothecaries and as- sistant apothecaries," says Miss Uildriks, " Miss A. M. Tobbe was re- fused admission to the examination in 1865. In the following year this call- ing was opened to women, and at the end of 1881 two hundred and sixteen had passed the assistant apothecaries' examinations. The results of these tests during the past two years prove that the female, are far superior to the male, aspirants. The first and only woman up to the present date (October, 1882), to take the apothecary's degree, is Miss Charlotte Jacobs, one of the sisters of our first physician. This occurred in 1880." — T. S. * It is only within a short time that the prejudice against women appear- ing alone in public has begun to pass away. How was this change brought about ? By women simply doing, while strictly adhering to propriety and decorum, what society had been pleased to call improper. Their conduct immediately received the approbation of our best men, who, by the way, are not to blame if our sex does not enjoy in Holland all the liberty it de- serves. The definition of the term womanly broadens every day, and when society hesitates to give us what it is our right to have, our women associate and establish for themselves organizations similar to those from which they are excluded. This is the origin of the women's reading-room at Amster- dam. To-day we may travel alone, may, if business requires it, take rooms and receive our friends, dine at a restaurant or table d'kdte, etc., without running the risk of losing our reputation. Our authoresses may now take up any subject they please, although formerly moral themes and fiction — even novel writing was considered eccentric — were alone thought proper for a feminine pen. — E. A. H. 1 6 8 WOMAN Q UESTION IN E UROFE. some clergymen. But both were too timid to live for any length of time. Although Miss Perk's paper soon died, it left behind an admirable creation, a women's society, whose mot,to was "Work Ennobles" (Arbeid adelt), and whose aim was the providing of poor gentlewomen with home work ; which was afterward sold in shops estab- lished for the purpose. This beneficent institution is still in existence. A third journal, The Housewife {De Huisvrouw), edited by Mrs. Van Amstel, is, as its name indicates, devoted more to domestic matters than to the general question of women's rights, while Miss Alberdingh Thym, a young author of considerable talent, has just begun, at Rotter- dam, the publication of a periodical which addresses it- self to our girls. Although these papers are not in every respect all that one could wish, still it is a good sign that we ourselves are creating our own mouthpieces in the journalistic world. I should prefer to see them deal with broader questions, and to have them more exclusively the work of women, which could be easily the case, as the number of female writers has greatly increased of late, and their united efforts would be sufficient to carry on a solid journal. Some authors deserve a place in this essay. Miss Catharina van Rees, for example, is distinguished not only for her literary productions, but also for her highly developed musical talent. She has sketched the lives of several great composers, in the form of novels, which deserve a wider recognition than they can obtain in the original language, and has written many admirable pieces of music. Miss van Rees has also published im- portant articles on art, and is the editor of a Collection of Dutch Authoresses which brings out clearly the gifts of many of our rising female writers. Among the latter is a HOLLAND. lfi 9 young woman who commenced her literary career at twenty, and who, if she continues as she began, promises to take a very honorable place in our literature. She is known in letters by the pseudonym of A. S. C. Wallis, but it would be no disgrace to her father, who is a professor of philosophy at Utrecht, if she were to write under her own name. Miss Emyde Leeuw is remarkable for her knowledge of botany and her skill in rendering that science enjoya- ble to women, which she -has done in a very clever book entitled " Letters of a Country Girl " {Brieven van een Landmeisje). She is now the editor of a popular weekly, The Swallow {De Zwalutv). But however rich in intel- lectual women our country may be, their efforts are not as yet sufficiently bent on universal interests and the im- portant demands of the hour. The tendency toward teaching has not only very much increased among girls, especially since the establishment of normal schools, but it has developed into a veritable mania, which is encouraged with an almost superstitious zeal by the parents, who seem to look upon pedagogy as a sort of life insurance. But this notion is based on an error. All women have neither the taste nor the ability necessary to become good teachers, even if they succeed in passing the very difficult examinations required by the State. And furthermore the training is very one-sided : the cramming of manuals, rather than a rational develop- ment of all the mental faculties. It was a long time before public opinion could be brought to give girls the educational advantages enjoyed by boys. But now the intermediate schools for girls are increasing in our chief towns and we shall soon have a population of educated women. Their instruction, how- ever, will be imperfect, because to my mind too little at- 1 70 WOMAN Q UESTION IN E UROPE. tention is paid to the peculiarities of female character and destiny. The course of studies is the same for both sexes, but too much time is devoted to our three neighboring languages T French, German and English, so that Greek and Latin are neglected. In my whole life I have met only three or four Dutch women who understood the ancient classics. But I shall not be hypercritical : let us rather be contented that at last a somewhat broader field of culture has been opened to our sex.* * In 1864 higher elementary instruction (middelbaar onderwys), was estab- lished in Holland, and in 1876 there were in existence fifty-two higher ele- mentary schools {middelbare scholen), for boys, and, although several similar ones have been opened for girls, not one of the latter is supported by Gov- ernment. There was great opposition to these girls' schools among the general public, and in the Lower House {Tiucede Kamer) many members predicted that grave evils would result from this conferring on women more than an elementary education. Eighteen hundred and seventy is an important date in this movement. In this year a majority of the municipal council of Amsterdam refused to have a girls' middelbare school in their town, and the Dutch press teemed with essays, pamphlets and news- paper articles on the subject of the education of women. Dr. Vitringa, rector of the gymnasium of Deventer; Dr. J. P. de Keyser, a clergyman of Arnheim ; Marie Delsey, who wrote " Instruction, Education and Emanci- pation of Women " {Onderwys, Opvoeding en Emaneipatie der Vrouw) \ Dr. D. J. Steyn Parve", inspector of middelbare schools and perhaps the most earnest champion of the measure ; and Dr. B. H. C. K. van der Wyck, professor of philosophy at the University of Groningen, are a few names selected from a long list of men and women who spoke out in favor of the innovation. " If man and woman are mentally equal," says the last writer in his " The Education of Women " {De Opvoeding der Vrouw), " then we continually lose funds of immense value by not utilizing the fac- ulties of the female sex." The question of opening boys' middelbare schools to girls in towns where no such schools exist for the latter is being agitated, and meets with the approval, among others, of Dr. Vitringa and Dr. S. A. Naber, professor at the University of Amsterdam. It was one of the sub- jects discussed at the meeting of the Society of Middelbare Teachers held in August, 1881. This discussion brought out the fact that since 1871 one hundred and fifty-five girls have attended twenty-one of the fifty-four boys' HOLLAND. 171 Dutch women have shown a considerable talent for the fine arts. In painting I may mention the names of Vos, Haanen, Schwartze, Bisschop, Rooseboom, van der Sande Bakhuyzen, van Bosse, etc., and in music, while I say nothing of the professional artists, I must devote at least a word to an amateur, Mrs. Amersfoort, who has distin- guished herself by the composition of an oratorio and some other fine works.* The legal condition of women is the same in Holland as in France : we are still subject to the evils of the Napoleonic code.f The idea of women enjoying the same political rights middelbare schools with none but the best results. The meeting decided in favor of the proposition. Although some of the female teachers in these schools are members of this society they rarely participate in its proceedings, so that the example set by four of their number from Groningen, who attended the assembly of 1 88 1, might well be followed by all. At the be- ginning of this note I gave an example of the half-hearted way in which the Government aids the cause of girls' education. Here is one of many in- stances of this same spirit in its treatment of female teachers : Article 25th, of the law of 1878, concerning elementary instruction, states that women are preferable to men in the lower classes of primary schools, and yet but one governmental normal school, that at Nymegen, has as yet been established for their training. — F. van U. Miss Haighton also pronounces co-educa- tion in Holland a success. " Female scholars are admitted to our gymnasia," she says, "and I am told by some of the teachers that their presence has a good effect on the behavior and industry of the boys." Thus, one of the chief arguments used in America by the friends of co-education finds its con- firmation among the intelligent people of the Low Countries. — T. S. * The School of Dramatic Art ( Tooneelschool), established not long ago at Amsterdam, is doing a good work in preparing women for the stage. Mrs. Kleine, one of our best actresses, teaches at this institution, and among its graduates who to-day occupy a high position in the theatrical world may be mentioned Miss de Groot, Miss Poolman, and Miss Sab- lairolles. Some of our other distinguished actresses are Miss Beersmans, Mrs. Albregt, Mrs. de Vries, Miss van Biene, Mrs. de Graeff Verstraete, Miss van Ryk and Mrs. van Offel-Kley. — F. VAN U. f The most noticeable example of legal progress we have to record is, 1 72 WOMAN Q UESTION IN E UROPE. as men is as yet accepted by a very small number of per- sons. Our great female landed proprietors especially feel their undignified position, for they signify less in the sight of the law than the very peasants on their farms, who ex- ercise the elective franchise, from which they are excluded. They often think the distinction wrong and absurd, but still lack the courage to demand a reform. Our women are so little conscious of their gifts and powers that they dare not form a society or found a philanthropic institu- tion, without always choosing a man as president, secre- tary or trustee. * without doubt, the adoption of a new penal code by which adultery of any kind on the part of the husband is sufficient ground for giving the wife a legal divorce. — E. A. II. * If Dutch women do not vote it is probably due in the main to the fact that they have never earnestly asked for the right, for it is by no means sure that female taxpayers might not vote under the present law. Every 45,000 inhabitants, which includes women, are entitled to a representative in the Lower House. A few of our women do not hesitate to participate actively in politics and social questions in so far as this is possible. The Union {Unie), a society which aims to promote popular interest in politics by meetings, discussions, tracts, etc. ; the Daybreak {Dageraad), a radical asso- ciation which holds very ultra opinions on politics, religion and science, and supports a magazine to which many scientific men contribute ; and the New Malthusian Bond, an organization sufficiently explained by its name, all count several women among their members. — E. A. H. In 1870 there ap- peared at Leeuvvarden an essay entitled " Equal Rights for All, by a Lady" {Gelyk Recht voor Allen door eene Vrouw), which claims for women not only better instruction, but more social freedom and the amelioration of her legal status. " The law seems to take it for granted," we read on page five, " that women have no interest whatsoever in the political affairs of their country, that they are indifferent as to the manner of raising the taxes, how the public moneys are spent, what measures are taken to defend the honor of the nation, or for the instruction of their children. The laws, therefore, shut against them all the paths which lead to public life and do not suffer them to have any voice in the election of their rulers." But, as Dr. B. D. H. Tellegen, professor at the University of Groningen, has well remarked " our customs are better than our laws." — F. van U. HOLLAND. 173 A tremendous obstacle to progress in Holland is the strange perversity of the upper classes to cling to the old traditions and customs. Instruction has made great ad- vances during the last twenty years, and our schools can now vie with those of any country. But who are bene- fited by them ? The middle classes alone. The higher, as well as the lower and poorer classes, use them but very little. So long as education is not compulsory, there will remain at the bottom of the social ladder a motley mass of proletaries still groveling in darkness and ignorance, while at the top, will be found a group of refined aristocrats who take quite as little advantage of this State instruc- tion — young ladies even less than young gentlemen. The children of our best families are not sent to school, nor are they taught at home by well-trained Dutch tutors, but, for the sake of a proper pronunciation of the modern languages, they are confided to the care of foreigners, in many instances mere adventurers ; to French, German, English and Swiss governesses, with whom Hol- land is plentifully stocked, and who finish the education of the daughters of our oldest houses. Hence it is that the most fanatical religious and political convictions prevail in this stratum of society, for the aristocracy, with some exceptions, are as bigoted to-day as in the past, and hold fast to all sorts of clerical and social prejudices. As soon as the new instruction penetrates into this narrow circle, we shall hope to find there power- ful friends of the women's movement, but until that day arrives, all solid work, intellectual light and progress, will continue to issue from the more liberal middle classes.* * Holland is considered to be a Protestant country, although one-third of the population is Roman Catholic. The aristocracy and the lower classes are orthodox, while the middle classes, though liberal, still profess a belief. 1 74 WOMAN Q UESTION IN E UROPE. I am sorry to have to confess that, as regards the general emancipation of women, we have accomplished but very little.* Our work is indirect: we can only pro- claim the injustice of our position. This has been done in an admirable way by our gifted writer, Catharina van Rees, who, in the striking scenes of her novel, " From the South" (Uit het Suiden), shows the unfairness of the laws and public opinion in judging the moral transgres- sions of the two sexes ; how heavy the punishment inflicted on the sinning woman, and how the equally sinning man escapes without even a reprimand. Our hopes are fixed on the coming generation, the fresh troops who will carry on the old battle to victory. We claim only our good right, our legitimate place in the world, free scope for the complete development of all our faculties. We wish to become cleverer, wiser and better, in order to be able to respond more fully to our vocation and destiny, so that, coming into a nobler and purer relation with the other sex, man and woman may the more successfully strive together to attain the ideal of a perfect humanity. Irreligiousness, however, is increasing daily, and great is the number of men and women who never go to church. Our cleverest women become more and more of the opinion that Calvinism is their worst enemy, — that Calvinism which orders them to be weak and to submit absolutely to men. They are discarding the old motto, " My weakness is my strength," and are accepting the opinion that the best people are those who possess moral and intellectural force. — E. A. H. * Among the members chosen by the Government to act on the jury on painting at the International Exhibition of 1883, was Miss Schwartze, of Amsterdam, who is mentioned on page 185. "Miss Schwartze is, we believe," writes Mme. Henry Greville, " the first woman to form part of an art jury in Europe." — T. S. AUSTRIA. 175 CHAPTER IV. AUSTRIA. BY JOHANNA LEITENBERGER. [Mrs. Johanna Leitenberger was born at Prague, Bohemia, in 1818. She published, at an early age, some lyric poems and prose essays which met with a favorable reception. After her marriage, separate volumes in prose and poetry began to appear, and an historical tragedy ( Veronika von Tesch- enitz) was played with great success at the two theatres of Gratz. Mrs. Leitenberger edited the Women's Journal (Frauenblatter), devoted to the progress and instruction of women, which was published for a year and a half in this same city. In 1873 Mrs. Leitenberger traveled in Northern Italy and Southern France, and gave in several newspapers an account of what she saw. The next year she established herself at Salzburg, where she still resides, and where were written a collection of tales {Lichtstraleri) and some religious poems (Schneeglockcheti). Mrs. Leitenberger is a contributor to many jour- nals in both Austria and Germany.] Austria-Hungary is composed of so many peoples of different language and origin, that, although they are all un- der one government, it is very difficult to give a precise ac- count of this whole vast and varied agglomeration. Prince Gortchakoff ' s famous remark, that Austria is not a state but a government, is, perhaps, not wholly devoid of truth. But the other races of the Empire are grouped around the old German stock, which, in many respects, stands at the head of civilization and progress. This sketch, therefore, will have to do chiefly with the German women of Austria, for the women of the other parts of the Empire, and especially those of Hun- 1 76 WOMAN Q UESTJON IN E UROPE. gary, have generally followed the lead of their German sisters in all movements for the amelioration of woman's condition. This preponderance of the Teutonic influence in our society is brought out still more strongly by the fact, that the position of the sex in state and family, and the conduct of the government in regard to our interests and rights, is, in all essential particulars, the same in the Austrian Empire as in the German Empire.* The women's movement in Austria has had two phases : the economic and the educational. It is astonish- ing what opposition the latter question has called forth, especially among men. They have brought forward every argument the most careful research could produce, with which to combat the proposition to instruct women and to prepare them for callings monopolized by the other sex. Learned professors have not hesitated to assert the intellectual inferiority of women and to ex- patiate on the weight and quality of their brains. But, notwithstanding this resistance, great progress has been made in the industrial and professional education of women. Institutions for the preparation of women for active employments are continually appearing everywhere in Austria. In the front rank stands the Women's Industrial Society (Fraucn-Erwerb-Vereiti), which was founded at Vienna in 1866, and which has grown every year in usefulness and importance. In 1874 the Society opened its school for the industrial training of women, and workshops, art studios, schools of design, etc., soon * Mrs. Schepeler-Lette, of Berlin, writes me ; " Austria, although politi- cally separated from Germany, is so closely bound to her by the ties of a common ancestry, that the history of the development of the women's move- ment in the latter country would be incomplete, if the history of the same movement in the former country were neglected." — T. S. AUSTRIA. 177 followed. A class in lace-making is connected with the school, and the children of the poor lace-makers of the Erzgebirge, of Bohemia, are here taught gratuitously. But the aim of the Society is not simply to train the hand : it would also develop the intelligence of its pupils. It has, therefore, established a commercial school, formed classes in the French and English languages, and during the winter season courses of lectures on various artistic and scientific subjects are delivered under its auspices by competent professors and scholars. Far more than a thousand women have, during the past few years, enjoyed the privileges of this admirable institution, of which Mrs. Jeannette von Eitelberger is the president. Many of the other principal cities of the Empire possess similar societies. The State participates in the good work and confers honors on the friends of the movement. In 1875, for ex- ample, the government founded at Salzburg a school of trades, which contains a department for women who wish to study certain of the arts applied to industry. Orders of merit have been bestowed on Mrs. Jeannette von Eitel- berger, whom I have just mentioned ; Mrs. Emilie Bach, who is at the head of the Vienna school of art embroidery ; and Mrs. Johanna Bischiz, president of the united women's societies of Buda-Pesth. If now we turn to the general education of women, we find that great progress has been made during the past ten years, especially in Austria. The public and private schools for girls are infinitely improved. The establish- ment of girls' lyceums {Lyceen), which aim at the higher and broader education of Avomen and which cover almost the same ground as the boys' gymnasiums, was a great step in advance, although they are far from meeting all the de- 12 1 78 WOMAN Q UESTION IN E UROPE. mands of the new era. Gratz has an excellent lyceum, and the mayor's wife took an active part in its creation. The normal schools for the training of female teachers are of a superior order in many of the Austrian cities. But they have turned out so large a number of pupils during the past few years, that many young teachers, after long months of waiting, are finally compelled to seek em- ployment in private families. Hungary also offers many signs of progress. The country possesses some four hundred organizations whose aim is the improvement of women's condition. A teacher of South Hungary writes me: " Here, too, the women's movement is a movement in advance, especially in the department of industrial pursuits or employments. Pres- burg, for example, has a society to encourage the employ- ment of women. Many young girls of good family prepare themselves for teachers, although there is an oversupply in this profession, on account of the large num- ber of Catholic sisters, who have of late invaded our school-rooms. These ecclesiastic teachers have gained possession of the girls' schools and kindergartens in every city and important town of South Hungary. Many young women, however, study the Frobel system in the institu- tions for the training of kindergarten teachers at Buda- Pesth, Klausenburg and other places. Females also find employment in the telegraphic and postal service and in other departments of government. It is here that we find the most marked progress in the amelioration of the condition of Hungarian women." If we approach South Austria, we meet with a goodly number of institutions for girls, as for instance at Lay- bach, in Carniola, where females are not only employed in the telegraphic and postal service, but are furnished AUSTRIA. 179 the instruction necessary to fill these posts.* Girls may obtain private instruction in the commercial school of this same city. At Triest is a normal school which has been recently converted into a girls' lyceum. Primary schools for girls are found at Gortz, Fiume, and other cities in the south. Institutions of a higher grade for the instruction of women do not exist either in the maritime countries or in Dalmatia. The Society of Austrian Teachers and Governesses {Verein der Lehrerinen und Erzieherinen in Oesterreich), founded in 1870, takes care of the intellectual and mate- rial interests of its members. Its work may be classed under three heads: 1. Normal school and scientific in- struction. 2. The spreading of rational ideas on female education. 3. The aiding of needy members. These objects are accomplished by lectures and discussions on pedagogic and scientific themes, by the use of a library and reading-room, by participation in teachers' meetings and congresses, by the publication of the proceedings of the society in the newspapers, by gratuitous information to those seeking situations, by the setting apart of a fund for the sick, etc., etc. The Society supports a Home, which can at present accommodate eleven persons, and offers to teachers and governesses, during their so- journ at Vienna, a good, healthy, cheap boarding-house. The Society organizes lotteries from time to time, the prizes being various kinds of women's work. The net proceeds of the lottery of 1881 were turned over to the Home. This admirable organization is * A recent law has, unfortunately, prohibited the further employment of women in this field. Those already in the service may, however, remain. The reason given for this unjust change is that the male telegraphists com- plained that the females worked for too low wages !— J. L. 1 80 WOMAN Q UESTION IN E UROPE. under the able management of Mrs. Louise von Stahl- Almasy. There are many women's -charitable societies at Vienna and in the other Austrian cities. Among those at the capital may be mentioned a society for the maintenance of the widows and orphans of musicians (the Haydn), which was founded some twelve years ago ; an asylum for homeless women (the Elizabethinurri), under the protection of the Empress, which, in the single month of February, 1882, came to the aid of 1,496 women and 407 children ; an aid society whose aim is to instruct and train Jewish girls for some trade; an asylum {Tochterheim) for the orphan daughters of Government officials ; a retreat for poor and friendless women and girls {Frauenheim), which was established in 1882 ; the Housekeepers' Society {Hausfrauen-Verein), which has an intelligence office and a shop for the sale of women's work ; a society (Gisela-Verein) under the patronage of the Archduchess Gisela, eldest daughter of the Emperor, which gives a dowry to poor marriageable young girls ; and a women's society for the training of domestics. The Vienna Women's Charitable Society (Frauen- Woltdtigkeits-Verein) has brought about the creation of similar institutions in many other Austrian cities. The Rudolph Society {Ru- dolf-Vereiri) has established at Vienna a school for the training of female nurses, and in 1881 its students were admitted to the clinics of the celebrated surgeon, Pro- fessor Billroth.* * The Baroness Kathinka von Rosen, a zealous friend of this school, pub- lished in the autumn of 1S81 a " Guide for Nurses of the Sick " (Leitfaden fiir Krankenpflegerineri), which is rich in personal experiences in English hospitals and in the military hospitals during the recent troubles between Servia and Turkey, and Russia and Turkey. — J. L. AUSTRIA. l8l The statistical report for 1881 furnishes the following interesting information concerning the female population of Vienna, and may be taken as a fair sample of the con- dition of women throughout the empire generally : Government employees 20 Teachers 2,790 Authors and editors 25 Actresses and musicians 739 Painters and sculptors 53 Employees of the Board of Health 5 Health officers 870 Innkeepers 133 Farmers 4 Miners 2 In industrial pursuits 4.855 In business 4.448 In banks 14 Messengers 116 Living on their incomes 9,460 Living on pensions, and the like 5.154 Heads of educational establishments 32 Heads of charitable institutions 19 In undefined callings 31,518 Clerks 2,378 Day laborers 49.376 Domestics 75,238 That is, 187,249 women, out of 373,156 — the female population of Vienna — do something toward their own support. Although the doors of our universities are closed to females, we possess many women who have pursued their studies abroad and who have acquired a reputation for their learning. Miss Rosa Welt, of Vienna, for example, is a graduate of Bern. During the summer semester of 1879, sne attended the lectures on ophthalmy of Professor Mauthner, of Vienna, was admitted to the Rothschild hospital, directed by Dr. Oser, and was at one time 1 8 2 WOMAN Q UESTION IN E UROPE. mentioned as likely to become the assistant of Pro- fessor Pfliiger, of Bern, on diseases of the eye. The wife of Dr. Kerschbaumer, , who has an institute at Salzburg for the cure of diseases of the eye, studied medicine at Vienna, became her husband's assistant, and now aids him in all operations and sometimes performs them herself. The orientalist, Mrs. Camilla Ruzicka- Ostoic, who has spent six years at the Imperial Academy of Oriental Languages in Vienna, and has passed brilliant examinations in Turkish, Russian and Arabic, received from the Emperor a gold medal for her dictionary of Turkish-German transcriptions, and from the King of Bavaria the Ludwig's gold medal for art and science. In 1 88 1 she established at Vienna a private school for in- struction in the Oriental tongues and gave free courses of lectures to ladies on the Turkish language. Miss Sofie von Torma has done some very good work recently in the investigation of antiquities at Siebenbiirgen. She has a book almost ready for publication in French and German, and has lectured on her discoveries. Professor A. H. Sayce, of Oxford, and Dr. Schliemann, have both spoken in high terms of Miss von Torma's excavations.* Miss Emilie Horschelmann has lectured with success to women in Vienna on the history of art. Miss Amalie * In a letter from Athens, which I received in October, 1882, Dr. Schlie- mann says : " In commenting on my Trojan antiquities in ' Ilios,' I have con- tinually pointed out the great similarity which exists between many of them as compared to the antiquities found in Hungary, and in my mind there can hardly be a doubt that in a remote prehistoric time Hungary was peo- pled by a Thracian race, which, as it would appear by the signs brought to light by Miss von Torma, also extended over Siebenbiirgen. A lady who excavates is a very rare thing, and such efforts as hers ought to be encouraged and applauded by every archaeologist. I twice mentioned her important excavations on page 350 of my ' Ilios.' " — T. S. AUSTRIA. 183 Thilo, principal of an important girls' institute at the capital, is well known for her lectures on pedagogics, that on the great names in the history of education being specially worthy of mention. In 1881 Miss Helene Drus- kovich, Ph.D., spoke before a large audience under the auspices of a Viennese society, and showed a large ac- quaintance with the Italian and other foreign literatures. Miss Susanna Rubinstein, Ph.D., has made a name both at home and abroad by her lectures and philosophical works. These are a few names selected from a long list of women who have proved that intellectual power is in- dependent of sex.* * The number of women who have shown real talent in special studies is much larger than is generally supposed. Every country furnishes examples similar to those given in the text. The London Times (weekly edition, January, 19, 1883) in a review of the " Dictionary of Christian Biography," refers in these terms to the female contributors : " One, Miss Dunbar, of Duffus, has very appropriately been intrusted with the account of a few saintly women. The other, Mrs. Humphry Ward, has contributed a series of learned and interesting articles on a subject which few scholars would have been competent to treat. * * * It will be only necessary to refer to her article on Leovigild to see that she holds a distinguished place among the contributors, not only in respect of her command of the learning con- nected with her subject, but in point of independent judgment and literary ability. * * * " Here is another example which I find in the Journal des D&ats, September 26, 1880 : In the sitting of Friday, September 24, 1880, of the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres, M. Le Blant presented to the learned body, in the name of the Countess Lovatelli, a notice on a marble crater found in 1875 in the vineyard of the old monastery of St. Anthony on the Esquiline. " The author describes and interprets the figures which ornament this monument," said M. Le Blant, "and shows that she is perfectly well acquainted with the monuments of art and with Greek literature, whose original texts are familiar to her." At the German Anthropological Congress, held at Berlin in 1880, two or three women took seats as members along side of such savants as Virchow and Schliemann. Miss J. Mestorf and Professor Virchow served together on one of the com- mittees. — T. S. 1 84 WOMAN Q UESTION IN E UROPE. I shall next take up the part which women play in the fine arts in Austria. The -theatre, especially during the past few years, has become a veritable magnet for every girl who feels that she possesses a particle of dramatic talent. A large number of our actresses and singers are famous abroad as well as at home. I may mention, for example, Mrs. Amalie Friedrich Materna, the daughter of a humble schoolmaster of Styria, who is to-day one of the most renowned prima-donnas of Austria and Ger- many ; Mrs. Marie Wilt, Mrs. Ehnn, Miss Bianchi, etc. From the Imperial Theatre of Vienna I select the names of Wolter, Hartman, Wessely and Hohenfels. Out- side of the theatres, a large number of women devote them- selves to vocal and instrumental music, a taste which is greatly encouraged by the many musical societies scat- tered all over the country. Women generally prefer the piano, but the harp, zithern, the violin and harmonium have their votaries. The number of female composers is as yet small. In painting our women have made great progress during the past few years, as is evidenced by the art exhibitions which have occurred in various parts of the country. There are very few female sculptors. Many of our women devote themselves to scientific literature and belles-lettres. Besides those already men- tioned, I may cite Aglaja von Enderes, who has written on natural history ; Eufemia von Koudriaffsky, who died in 1881, and who has often treated scientific subjects in her essays ; Mrs. Elise Last, who published a few years ago " More Light " (Mehr Lichf), an admirable exposition of the teachings of Kant and Schopenhauer; and Mrs. Charlotte Edle von Schickh, who also writes on philosoph- ical subjects. Educational questions occupy the atten- tion of many female authors. Austria has a large number AUSTRIA. 185 of poetesses. Betty Paoli, the nom de plume of Elisa- beth Gliick, is distinguished for the strength and beauty of her verse ; the poetry of Margarethe Halm (Berta Maytner) is full of originality ; and Ada Christen (Christine Freder- ick) has published poems, dramas and novels. In lyric and epic poetry are found the names of the Countess Wilhelmine von Wickenburg-Almasy, Marie von Naj- majer, a Hungarian by birth ; Caroline Bruch-Sinn, the Baroness von Kapri, the Baroness Josefine von Knorr, Angelika von Hdrman, Herma Czigler von Eny-Vecse, and Constanze Monter (Rosa Pontini). Among our novel- ists are the Baroness von Ebner Eschenbach, Therese von Hansgirg, Hermine Proschko, Mrs. von Weissenthurn, and Louise Lecher. Ida Pfeiffer is a well-known writer on travels. She twice circumnavigated the globe, visited the countries of the north, Jerusalem and the island of Madagascar, and described her voyages in a simple, clear, and interesting manner. She died in 1858. Rosa von Gerold has recently published a fascinating account of an autumnal journey in Spain. Several very able works on spiritualism are due to the pen of the Baroness Adelma von Vay, ne'e Countess Wurmbrand. Hedwig von Radics- Kaltenbrunner and Harriet Griinewald have written sketches, essays, etc., for different periodicals. Many women have treated the various aspects of the woman question. The poets, Rosa Barach and Henriette Auegg, have written on this subject. The essays and poems of Margarethe Halm are pervaded by a bold reformatory spirit. The Hungarian author, Ida von Troll-Bor- ostyani, published a volume on this question a short time ago, and Franzeska von Kapff-Essenther has handled the same theme in a novel.* * Heinrich Gross, professor of German literature in the German State 1 86 WOMAN- Q UESTION IN E UROPE. Several newspapers are devoted to the different phases of the women's movement in Austria. Some years ago an ex-officer, Captain A. D. Korn, who, if I am not mis- taken, had passed some time in England and America, founded the Universal Women's Journal {Allgemeine Frauen Zeitung). This newspaper was wholly devoted to women's interests, but it soon died. The same thing is true of the Women s Journal {Frauenblatter) o{ Gr&tz, which ap- peared for a short time under the editorship of the writer of this sketch. Mr. Karl Weiss (Karl Schrattenthal), who is professor of German literature in the State college at Deva, recently established at Vienna a paper bearing a similar title {Frauenbldtter), which suspended publication after the third or fourth number. On the 9th, 10th, and nth of October, 1872, the third German Women's Convention {Deutsche Fraucnkonfercnz) was held at Vienna, under the auspices of the General So- ciety for Popular Education and the Amelioration of Women's Condition {Allgemeine Vereifi fitr Volkserziehung und Verbesserung des Fraucnloscs). The other two meetings of this society had been held at Leipsic and Stuttgart. The soul of this new movement was Captain Korn, whom I have already mentioned. His study of the woman question in the United States may have prompted him to awaken a similar agitation among the women of the Austrian Empire.* Addresses were delivered at this convention by ladies from Vienna, Hungary, Bohemia and Styria, and school at Triest, published in 1882 a work on German female poets and authors. He is now (1883) engaged on an anthology of the female poets of Germany. — J. L. * Several years ago Captain Korn and his wife, who took an active part in this convention, returned to Hungary, his native land, and I have never heard of him since. I do not even know whether he is still living. — J. L. AUSTRIA. • 187 all the various interests of women were discussed. The author of this sketch read two essays — one on women's work and wages, the other on the education of women. The convention decided to petition for certain reforms. A resolution was adopted, amidst general applause, that monuments ought to be erected at Vienna and Presburg to the memory of the great Empress, Maria Theresa. Another resolution called for the enactment of a law which should assure women the same pay as men for the same work. The proceedings of the convention attracted con- siderable attention, and produced a favorable impression on the audience, which was recruited from the better classes of the population. But the newspapers of Vienna ridiculed the young movement, its friends grew luke- warm, and every trace was soon lost of this first and last Austrian Women's Rights Convention. The legal position of women in Austria does not differ essentially from what it is generally among Teutonic and Latin nations. They are subordinated to men. A woman of the nobility loses her title on marrying a commoner, and her children cannot inherit it. If a woman lives five years outside of her country without an official permit, she becomes a foreigner. The married woman who has the right to vote, must exercise the privilege through her husband, but the widow and single woman may delegate any man to represent them at the polls.* To sum up the situation, we find that in the field of labor the most crying need is the prompt and better sale of women's handiwork. Although bazaars and lotteries have been constantly employed for the purpose, there * The subject of women's legal and political rights in the Empire is treated at greater length in the chapter on Bohemia, in this work. — T. S. 1 88 WOMAN - Q UESTION IN E VROPE. still remains much to be done in this direction. Radical innovations are needed in the system of women's instruc- tion. The gymnasiums and universities should be opened to them. But as a vast majority of men, public opinion and a large number of women themselves are opposed, or at least indifferent, to this question, much time, agitation and popular enlightenment will be necessary to bring about this very desirable reform. But the future is not all darkness. I. H. von Kirchmann, the distinguished author, in his recently published work entitled, " Ques- tions and Dangers of the Hour" (Zeitfragen und Abent- euer), devotes a division of his volume to " Women in the Past and Future," where he shows that the female sex has been gradually gaining its freedom, and predicts that the day is approaching when women will obtain their com- plete independence and will compete with men in every department of life, not excepting politics. Among our educated women great interest is shown in this question, but the female sex in general has never thought on it. It is a great impediment to progress and reform that Austria is composed of so many separate races, speaking different languages and having dissimilar customs and aims. The German, Hungarian, Slavonic and Italian peoples, which make up the Empire, do not all think alike and do not all work in unison. Thus, lack of interest on the part of the great mass of our women, and want of national unity in the Empire, are immense obstacles to the triumph of our movement. But I feel convinced that the day will come, when these races will unite in their efforts to ameliorate woman's lot, however much the ways and means employed to attain this end may vary, accord- ing to the different qualities and characteristics of these nations. NORWAY. 189 CHAPTER V. NORWAY.* BY CAMILLA COLLETT. [Mrs. Camilla Collett is the sister of the great Norwegian poet. Henrik Wergeland, and is herself one of the best known of Scandinavian writers. Her principal theme has been the woman question, and she has treated it with force, elevation, and, at the same time, with moderation.. "As a poet," says Professor Dietrichson, of the University of Christiania, "she has many charms and lofty ideas, and as a thinker her judgment is profound, clear, and rich in penetrating analysis." "The Bailiff's Daughters," a novel which appeared in 1859, had a marked success, and has been translated into Swedish and German. Mrs. Collett has also published many books of travel, literary criticisms, stories, poetry, etc. She is a member of the order of Lettris et Artibus, one of the few women on whom this honor has been conferred. I had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Collett personally during her sojourn at Paris in the winter of 1881-2, and her tall figure — now bend- ing under the weight of advancing years — and stately presence left an im- pression which will not soon be effaced. ] It is almost incredible how imperfectly this woman question is grasped, not only by the general public, but even by many of the leaders of thought and culture. If we consider the European women's movement, we will readily perceive that the north lags the furthest behind. In initiative measures the nations of the south are in- * Norway is placed before the other two Scandinavian countries because of the comparative estimate of the triad with which the sketch begins. If they were to be arranged according to the progress made in the emancipa- tion of women, Norway would fall to the rear and Sweden stand first, followed by Denmark. — T. S. 1 90 WOMAN - Q UESTION IN E UROPE. variably in advance of us, and positive results are there more easily observed. I venture to assert, however, that while the northern, the Teutonic, mode of treating this question is characteristic, and differs strongly from the course pursued in the south among the Latin races, it in- sures a solution which, if more tardy, will be more truth- ful, more in harmony with the fundamental principles of the subject. This question of women's rights is inex- tricably intertwined with the moral history of mankind, and strikes down into the very soul of social life. In these depths we must fathom for its raison d'etre, therein we find the source of a world-wide wrong, thereon we must base our claims, there seek the means for redress. This moral victory won, the more material immunities will follow of themselves. An examination of the three Scandinavian peoples presents many very striking differences. Denmark, because of her more central position, is in a much better way to obtain a happy and speedy solu- tion of this woman question. Her population is more closely massed, she has more life, more of that mobility found in southern nations, and further, she is blest with Grundtvigianism,* that " lucid and joyous, Christianity " which does not throw obstacles in the way of progress, but is rather auxiliary thereto. But it is our neighbor Sweden which, although not en- joying the advantages just mentioned, stands first among northern states in the movement for the elevation of * Nicolai Grundtvig, a man of high repute as poet and preacher, was the founder of Grundtvigianism, which is essentially nothing else than pure Protestantism, and is much too extensively diffused to be designated a mere sect.— C. C. See the chapter on Denmark for further reference to this school.— T. S. NORWAY. I 9 I women. She early outstripped them in a more lively and general interest in women's rights, and the result is that to-day the country is blessed with many noble reforms in this direction. This striking fact is unquestionably due to the liberal sentiments which Swedish men entertain for women themselves, as well as for the cause which these women advocate. From early times the men of Sweden have been considered to represent the specifically chivalrous virtues of our northern climes, and if the daughters of the land have not yet reaped the full bene- fit of this inestimable national trait, now assuredly has the harvest time come. Norway remains to be treated — Norway of which I have as yet not spoken, and of which it is so difficult to say anything, for the simple reason that there is so little to say. But what I do state shall be candid and true. One step in advance has been the partial opening of the university to women — the best thing that can be said of Norway.* The right of married women to * Miss Cecilie Thoresen, the first female student to matriculate at Chris- tiania University, writing to me from Eidsvold, Norway, under date of De- cember 29, 1882, says that it was in 1880 that she decided to try and take an academic degree. Her father, therefore, applied to the Minister of Public Instruction for the necessary authorization ; the latter referred the applica- tion to the University authorities, who, in their turn, submitted the porten- tous question to the Faculty of the Law School. In due season Miss Thore- sen received this rather unsatisfactory response : " The admission of women to the University is denied, but we recognize the necessity of changing the law on this subject." Thereupon, Mr. H. E. Berner, a prominent Radical member of the Storthing, or Norwegian Parliament, introduced a bill per- mitting women to pursue studies in the University leading to the degrees of arts and philosophy {examen arlium and examen philosophicuni). The Com- mittee reported unanimously in favor of the bill ; on March 30, 1882, it passed without debate the Odelsthing, one of the two chambers of the Stor- thing, with but one dissenting voice — that of a clergyman ; on April 21, 1 92 WOMAN Q UESTION IN E UROPE. control their own property, for which both Danish and Swedish women have so bravely battled, has been denied us. The laws of inheritance, which dated from the time of Christian V. (1646-1699), and which cut daughters off with half as much as 1882, it received the unanimous vote of the other house, the Lagthing ; and it became a law on June 15, 1882. A London illustrated paper, which gives a picture representing Miss Thoresen's matriculation, describes the cere- mony in these terms : " On the 8th of September last (1882) the hall of the University was crowded to excess, when 260 students and their first female colleague, who had passed a most successful examination, were present to receive their matriculation. The body of the hall was occupied by the stu- dents of 1832 and 1857, who were assembled in Christiania to celebrate their fiftieth and twenty-fifth anniversary. The gallery was principally filled with ladies, no doubt anxious to see this new champion of their sex on the high road to learning and academical honors. The proceedings were opened by a fine quartette, sung by a choir of senior students. After the inaugural address by Professor L. M. B. Aubert, the President of the Collegiate Council, the students advanced, one by one, to the rostrum to receive their academical diplomas. * * * There was at this moment a gen- eral bustle and a great deal of stretching of necks all over the hall to catch a glimpse of the fair student, but no cheers or any other sign of sympathy escaped her male colleagues. At an English university a most enthusiastic reception would on a similar occasion undoubtedly have been awarded to the fair one. In the afternoon, however, a deputation from the students waited upon Miss Thoresen to congratulate her, and to welcome her amongst their ranks. She also received an invitation to the festival which the students always give on the evening of the matriculation day, but this is of such a wild and uproarious character that she very wisely excused herself from being present. In the course of the evening her health was proposed, and drank with the greatest enthusiasm." In a letter from Mr. Berner, dated Christiania, December 5, 18S2, he writes me : " It is my in- tention, next year perhaps, unless a similar move is made in other quarters, to propose an amplification of the recent law, which will render it possible for women to take the final university degree. It may be necessary to explain that the law of June 15, 1882, permits them to aspire to only the first de- grees. It was thought best to make haste slowly. Now these two degrees do not confer any privileges, do not open any of the walks of life. It is NORWAY. 193 their brothers, were repealed some time ago, but the ghost of this half-heirship still survives in the habit of paying women less than men, whether it concerns the salary of an ordinary employment or the granting of a Parliamentary pension.* We have two women's reading- rooms, but I am acquainted with no other association. We have no organ in the periodic press ; we have no in- fluence on legislation ; we take no part in political life. only after passing this final examination that one may enter the civil service of the state, be a judge, clergyman, principal of a high school, lawyer, physician, etc. Such is the provision of the law of July 28, 1824. In order, therefore, to place women on an equality with men, this law must be changed, and the former admitted to this examination. I do not think this proposition will encounter much opposition now that a beginning has been made. We shall then see women competing with men for employment in the civil service, a calling for which they are admirably fitted. It is a reform of this description that I propose as the next step in the movement now begun." — T. S. * Mr. Berner, in the letter already referred to, says : " But, while much still remains to be done by legislation to improve the social position of women, the education of public opinion concerning this woman question is of even greater importance. The law reformer is powerless against popular customs, which even destroy the force of existing laws. Thus we see how custom in the last few centuries has annulled the truly liberal provisions of our ancient jurisprudence regarding the rights of married women, and authorized the husband, by the mere act of marriage, to take possession of the wife's property, and to treat her as a minor. The tide is, however, now happily turning again. Marriage contracts or settlements are becoming more and more frequent, and although a bill concerning married women's property, similar to the one which has recently become law in England, was defeated in the Storthing this year (1882), yet the growing tendency towards marriage contracts shows that almost the same end will be attained by this means. It is scarcely necessary for me to add that I stand ever ready to do what I can to advance the interests of women. In my opinion, there hardly exists nowadays any other social problem which has a better claim on public attention. Until women are placed on an equal footing with men, we shall not have departed from the days of barbarism." — T. S. 9 1 94 WOMAN Q UESTION IN E UROPE. Such is the sum and substance of woman's condition in Norway.* A word may be offered, however, in extenuation of the humiliating figure which Norway makes in this great movement for the elevation of women. It should always be borne in mind that Norway is a * Miss Mathilde Gasmann, a talented Norwegian artist living at Paris, gives me these few notes which brighten a little Mrs. Collett's rather dark picture. "The number of Norwegian women who are school teachers," says Miss Gasmann, " is proportionally very great. It is relatively but a few years since women became teachers in the public and private schools for boys, and consequently the state has not yet founded normal schools for their training, although bills for this purpose have been laid before the Storthing by the government. For several years we have had state industrial schools for women, where the instruction is almost free. These schools are very much frequented. The number of our literary women augments every year. Public opinion has grown much more liberal as regards the part women may play outside of the domestic circle. A few years ago, the fear of being called a blue-stocking would have restrained many a woman from quitting the narrow sphere to which nature was thought to have limited her. To-day, however, women are frequently found discussing scientific subjects, lecturing on literary topics, participating in congresses, etc." Mr. Berner says on the subject of education : " Our system of girls' high school education, which has been so deplorably neglected, needs reforming. Such an improvement might be obtained by adopting the American plan of opening the high schools to both boys and girls. But the co-education of the sexes is admitted in this country only in exceptional cases, and then only up to the age of twelve or thirteen. This is a great mistake. It is as equally detrimental to woman as to man, and consequently to the family and society in general, to make education a means of isolation, a wall between the two sexes, holding up to the one ideals and aims in life widely different from those which are instilled into the minds of the other. Non schola sed vita ought to be the governing principle of every educational system, or, as Gambetta very truly put it: 'To join hearts, you must begin by uniting minds' (' pour unir les caurs, il faut commencer par rapprocher les esprits '). It is, however, rumored that the government has in course of preparation a bill for the establishment of girls' gymnasiums similar to those already in existence for boys."— T. S. NORWAY. 195 laggard among nations, because she is the most iso- lated of that triad of states called Scandinavia, both as regards geographical position and political relations. Her deliverance from Denmark, under whose yoke four long centuries were passed in provincial stagnation, was not accomplished until the second decade of the present century. She had then much lost time to make good, ere she could hope to cope with her sister countries, Sweden and Denmark, and assume a distinctive place in general European civilization. It does not fall within the scope of this sketch to trace the successive steps by which the nation, favored by an admirable constitution, and the gentle rule of the Bernadotte * dynasty, which brought as it were a spark from the south to material only await- ing ignition, has taken on a new life, and is to-day thriving as never before. The effect is seen in every department of our national activity. Art and literature especially felt the change. Since 18 14, the year of our independence, the metropolis of Norway, from a small starveling market-town of some eight thousand inhabit- ants, has swelled into a stately city of nearly a hundred and thirty thousand souls. The land was as a desert. Many of our lordliest alp-tracts then lay unexplored, and few there were who dared the break-neck adventure to gain nearer acquaintance with them. In some rural dis- tricts the dead were borne to the grave-yard bound on horses. What has since been accomplished to facilitate communication and to provide for the convenience and * It is scarcely necessary to remind American readers that the founder of the reigning house of Norway and Sweden was Napoleon's marshal, Berna- dotte. It may be said in passing, that Mrs. Collett's opinion of the Berna- dotte dynasty as regards its treatment of Norway is not shared with her by all Norwegians. — T. S. 196 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. comfort of travelers throughout our wide-spread, strag- gling territory, the annually increasing stream of native and foreign tourists well know and fully appreciate. The nation, therefore, has had, as I have already said, much lost ground to recover in order to catch up with our restlessly advancing age. But as yet she has not had the might nor the time to test all the questions, and to solve all the problems, which this same restlessly advancing age has brought forward in its career. Hence it is that all which concerns woman and woman's place in society has lingered pretty much in its former state. Our over- busy men have not yet found leisure to devote them- selves to her.* Unfortunately our women lack, in a certain measure, that Danish vivacity and mobility which might prompt them to rebel against this spirit of mascu- line exclusiveness, which has become more and more pre- dominant. Patiently, therefore, oh, how patiently ! they remain quiet, much like well-behaved children awaiting their turn. The crushing character of our rocky mountains and that isolation in which a great portion of our culti- * There are a few exceptions to this statement, as has already been seen in the indefatigable labors of Mr. Berner. Professor Lochmann, of the Christiania Medical School, is also favorable to the enlargement of the sphere of women's activity, and has recently pronounced, with the approba- tion of the faculty, for their admission to the pharmaceutic examination. " Pharmacy is a field for which women seem peculiarly fitted," he says; " I have no doubt that they would conscientiously and carefully prepare and dispense medicines, and experience has shown that there are many advan- tages in employing them in this department. They are indeed already found there, and the general opinion is that they do their work satisfac- torily. It would therefore be in the interest of society as well as that of women themselves, to give an official stamp to their employment in this profession, which could be very easily done by opening to them the phar- macy school connected with the university." — T. S. NORWAY. 197 vated people live and move, give a certain heaviness to our women which develops ultimately into a passivity too sluggish to will, too timorous to dare. There are parts of my country where girls become women, and women matrons, without ever having once heard the ominous words, " women's rights." And the religion of our land, which least of all may be termed " the joyous Christi- anity," does not hesitate to pronounce its yea and amen to this dumb stress of self-renunciation. What I have just said of our rural population is equally true of the social life of our towns, where the absorption of business and especially the turmoil of political strife, which has begun to lift its Gorgon head in our heretofore so peaceful and happy land, scarcely leave a moment for the consideration of woman's interests.* It is still, as it was before 18 14, regarded unfeminine for one-half of Norway to have any thing in common with the other half. The ideal of womanhood is to be as little remarked as possible, that is, not to leave the beaten path. If a woman should venture an opinion or put a question in a conversation among men on political topics, a polite * Mr. Berner makes the following note on this sentence of the text : " 'The turmoil of political strife* has already done much for women, and will surely do more. Our great national poets, Ibsen, and especially Bjorn- stjerne Bjornson, have exerted a great influence in liberalizing public opinion in regard to the woman question. In his well-known ' Lectures on the Republic,' he makes this very true remark : ' The first thought, or perhaps more correctly, the first deed in aid of women, will come from the republic. With gratitude and hope women ought to unfurl the banner of republican- ism.' " Miss Frances Lord, of London, in the preface to the translation of Ibsen's "Nora" (Ett Dukkehjeni), literally, "A Doll's House," gives an interesting biographical notice of the author, which brings out clearly the important part he has played in the European women's movement. This work, which appeared in 1879, procured for Ibsen the title of " Woman's Poet."— T. S. 198 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. response will of course be given, but it will be instinct- ively addressed to the man at her side. Years may pass away before any one shall remind us that this cause exists. But that day must come, like the February sun, so ardently awaited in our northern clime. Coldly, weakly will fall those first rays into our shaded valleys. But welcome, February sun ! Blessings on thy first, though feeble beam ! It is the harbinger of many brighter ones to come.* * The above sketch, although prepared for this volume, first appeared in the Christiania Aftenposten, of February 8, 1882, in the form of a letter ad- dressed to me. Mrs. Collett has since done me the great honor of publish- ing, in the same journal, two other open letters on the woman question, similarly addressed. — T. S. SWEDEN. 199 CHAPTER VI. SWEDEN. BY ROSALIE ULRICA OLIVECRONA. [Mrs. Rosalie Ulrica Olivecrona {ne'e Roos), born at Stockholm in 1823, was educated at the Wallin School for Girls (mentioned in the following essay), and was one of the first scholars of this pioneer institution for the instruction of women. Miss Roos went to the United States in 1851, and spent nearly four years as a teacher in South Carolina. During this period she devoted much time to a favorite study, botany, and collected a herbarium of American plants containing more than four hundred specimens. On her homeward voyage she visited Havana and New Orleans, went up the Mis- sissippi, stopped at several western and eastern cities, and admired the Mam- moth Cave, that natural wonder, Niagara Falls, and the Catskill Mountains. In 1857 Miss Roos married Dr. K. Olivecrona, one of the most distin- guished jurisconsults of Scandinavia, then Professor of Law at the University of Upsala, and named in 1868 a member of the Supreme Court (I/ogsta Domsloleti) of Sweden. Two years later Mrs. Olivecrona aided in the foundation of the Home Review (Tidskrift for Hemmef), the women's organ referred to at greater length in the following pages, to which she has contributed numerous essays on social and educational questions, on natural science, accounts of travel, biographies, stories and poetry. Mrs. Olivecrona has also published a volume of poems (1851) and the " Life and Work of Mary Carpenter" (1877), of which an abridged edition has been issued in French (Paris, 1880). Having taken the leading part in organ- izing the Swedish department of women's work at the Vienna Interna- tional Exhibition (1873), she prepared, at the request of the Swedish commissioners, " Notes on Women's Work in Sweden " ( Weibliche Arbei- ten, Schweden), which were annexed to the statistical reports edited by them. These notes, revised and augmented for the subsequent great ex- hibitions, have been translated into English (Philadelphia, 1876) and into 200 WOMAN Q UESTION IN E UROPE. French (Paris, 1878). By invitation of the Women's Centennial Committee of the Philadelphia Exhibition, Mrs. Olivecrona prepared, after much time and labor, a lengthy account of women's share in Swedish charitable work. The manuscript reached America in safety, but having been mislaid, a very unsatisfactory abridgment of the original was drawn up at the last moment and published as a supplement to the catalogue of charities conducted by women. Mrs. Olivecrona is the contributor for Sweden to the pro- posed " Encyclopedical and Biographical Dictionary of Celebrated Women " (Dictionnaire encyclopedique et biographique ties femmes c/lebres), edited by Miss Anne Marie Botteau, of Biarritz. She has taken part, as a member, in the Dublin Social Science Congress (1861), the Interna- tional Prehistoric Archaeological Congresses of Copenhagen (1869), Brus- sels (1872), Stockholm (1874), and Buda Pesth (1876), and the Stockholm International Penitentiary Congress (1878), at which Dr. E. C. Wines pre- sided, and to which Mrs. Olivecrona contributed a paper on the reformatory work of Miss Carpenter. Mrs. Olivecrona's philanthropic labors have been in connection with the Upsala Ladies' Society for Poor Infants (1861-1868), the Stockholm Society for the Education of Idiots (since 1869), and the Stockholm Society for Promoting Female Industry (1S72). She moreover founded the Ladies' Committee of the Red Cross (1871), the Bee- Hive (Bikupan), or shop for the sale of women's work (1870), and took part in the establishment of a Working Home for Idiots (1881). All of these in- stitutions are at the capital.] DURING the last twenty or thirty years an earnest movement, aiming to extend women's sphere of thought and action, has been manifest throughout all civilized countries. Sweden early felt its influence, quickly caught the spirit of the times, and made great progress in the amelioration of the condition of its women. The best evidences of this are found, on the one hand, in the many educational institutions which have been estab- lished for, or made accessible to, women; and, on the other, in a greater readiness, on the part of both private individuals and the State, to employ females. The movement for improving the education of women may be said to have been inaugurated by the establish- ment of the Wallin School in 1831, through the efforts SWEDEN. 201 of Professor A. Fryxell, the eminent historian, under the patronage of the Archbishop of Sweden, J. O. Wallin. The next step was the opening, in 1859, at Stockholm, of Higher Classes for young ladies by some influential men, who were eager to raise the level of female instruction. The tuition, which was gratis, was given in the form of lectures and private recitations, and embraced re- ligious exercises, the natural sciences, mathematics, his- tory, Swedish grammar and literature, French, hygiene, and drawing; the scholars being at liberty, however, to choose their subjects. This course of study was contin- ued for three years, and, having met with great success, it led to the foundation of the Royal Seminary for the Training of Female Teachers (Kongl Seminariet for bil- dande af lararinnor), which was opened at Stockholm in 1861. Instruction at this institution is free; the curricu- lum covers a period of three years, and embraces, besides the branches already mentioned, geography, natural philos- ophy, pedagogics, German and English. The number of scholars admitted to the seminary since its beginning is 523, of whom 348 have received a teacher's diploma. Through the voluntary contributions of the pupils, a fund has been raised, the interest of which creates three schol- arships. The Royal Normal School was established on the same premises in 1864, not only as a preparatory school for the Seminary, but also with the object of affording its students an opportunity of gaining some practical insight into the art of teaching. This school is much frequented, and, although the instruction is not gratuitous, it admits fifteen free pupils and five for a lim- ited fee. Including the Seminary and the Wallin School, there are altogether in the metropolis eight high schools 202 WOMAN QUESTION- IN EUROPE. for young women, with a total number of 1,800 pupils and 250 teachers.* Though they all aim to offer to women a good and thorough education, they are conducted on somewhat different principles — one ad- mitting more liberty in the choice of studies and allowing the subjects to be independent of each other; another keeping more strictly to the regular courses. Two of them, the Wallin School and the girls' Lyceum, have added gymnasium classes to their curriculum, where the pupils are prepared for the matriculation examination, f which authorizes them to pursue their studies at the two universities (Upsala and Lund) of the kingdom. Besides these eight institutions, Stockholm has a great many schools on a smaller scale, which offer good educational advantages. Even in the provinces, much has been done of late years to promote female education. Gottenburg has six girls' high schools, the most important of which was founded in 1867 by an association, the funds collected for that pur- pose amounting to 35,000 crowns4 Upsala has three very good schools, and there is, in fact, at the present time (1883) no provincial town of note which has not one or more high schools due to private munificence, or sup- ported by the community. Most of them are in charge of graduates of the Royal Seminary at Stockholm, which is thus extending its beneficial influence all over the king- * In 1881, Stockholm had a population of 176,745. — R. O. f No student is allowed to matriculate at either of the Swedish universi- ties without having previously passed a preliminary examination, called the students' examination, showing his competency to pursue university studies. — R. O. This is also the American and English system, but is not adopted in many continental countries. The word "gymnasium " in this sentence is employed in the sense of high school. — T. S. % A Swedish crown equals about 27 cents. — T. S. SWEDEN. 203 dom. Several good and well-organized boarding-schools are also to be found in the country. Notwithstanding the many efforts that have been made to procure for girls the same educational advantages which boys have long enjoyed — gratuitous instruction in schools established by the State — they have as yet met with only par- tial success. At the meeting of the Diet in 1873, the government asked for a grant with which to establish high schools for girls in four provincial towns, but the request was negatived. However, 30,000 crowns were voted to support private schools already in existence. This appropriation has gradually increased to 70,000 crowns, and makes it possible to furnish free tuition to many scholars in straitened circumstances. Besides the institutions already mentioned, there are Courses of Lectures for young women who desire to pur- sue advanced special studies. The Classes for the higher education of women, established by Miss Jenny Ros- sander in 1865, have proved quite useful in this respect, enabling even young female teachers to supply defects in their education. More than a thousand women have profited by them. Owing to divers circumstances, these classes have lately been discontinued, but others are springing up in their place, and in some of the schools above mentioned, advanced classes have been established for those students who wish to continue one or more special branches. In 1870 women were admitted to the universities, and in 1873 they were allowed to take the same academic degrees in arts and medicine as male students. Upwards of fifty young women — twelve in the single year of 1883 — have passed creditably the matriculation examination. Only a limited number have, however, pursued studies at 204 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. the universities, and still fewer taken academic degrees.* One of the latter is a teacher in a boys' school at Stockholm. At present (January, 1883) there are four female students in Upsala, all belonging to the philosophical or arts fac- ulty ;f two in Lund studying medicine, and one in the Stockholm Medical School {Carolinska Institutci). It is with satisfaction I add that they are treated with perfect deference by their fellow-students of the other sex. There are three scholarships for female students, all founded by private persons — viz., one at the University of Upsala, another at the University of Lund, and the third at the Medical School in Stockholm. In 1867 a course of instruction for the training of nurses for the sick was opened at the University Hospital in Upsala, under the superintendence of a lady who had gone through the Nightingale Institution for the training of nurses at St. Thomas's Hospital in London. Several women have followed this course in order to fit them- selves for the position of matrons in hospitals and in- firmaries. Similar courses were organized in 1877 in Got- * This is doubtless due in part to the fact that it is a novelty and that the practical advantages do not as yet correspond to the exertion. The number of students and graduates is, however, steadily increasing. — R. O. f One of them, Miss Ellen Fries, took, in the spring of 1883, the degree of doctor of philosophy, and defended her thesis, which treated of the diplomatic transactions between Sweden and the Low Countries during the reign of Charles X., in an able and spirited manner before a large audience. Some days after, the graduating ceremony (capping, as it is called in En- land) took place with customary solemnity, and Miss Fries received her diploma and the laural crown, the insignia of her new dignity. She was accompanied home by her fellow-graduates, a delegation of students offered her a magnificent banquet and the choir of the musical society gave her a beautiful serenade. About the same time another of the female students passed the examination of candidate of philosophy, which is preliminary to the doctorate. — R. O. SWEDEN. 205 tenburg, and in 1882 in Stockholm. In the hospital belonging to the Deaconesses' Institute, which was estab- lished at Stockholm in 185 1, and accommodates upwards of fifty patients, all the attendance is performed by "deaconesses " with the assistance of one physician, and most of the medicine used is prepared by them. A school for poor children, a home for destitute children, a reformatory for women, a reformatory school for girls, and a school for the training of maid servants, owe also their existence to this institution. Women have had access to the Royal Academy of Mu- sic, at Stockholm, since 1854; in fact there are instances of their having been admitted as early as 1795 and 1821, though this permission was afterwards withdrawn. The instruction is given by professors of both sexes. Many women profit by this privilege and pursue musical studies with success. For instance, the examination for organ- ists, including harmony, singing, playing of the organ and piano, has been passed with credit by a large number of female students. The examination for musical director,* which covers a period of five years' study, and which in- cludes, besides the subjects already mentioned, counter- point, the history and aesthetics of music, instrumentation, the piano, violin and violoncello, was passed some years ago by Miss Amanda Maier, who also obtained the best certificate for the organ. The Swedish capital contains many special schools which are frequented by women. The Royal Academy of Fine Arts was, in 1864, made accessible to female stu- dents, but the number being limited to twenty-five, many * The passing of this examination is preliminary to the competitive examination for several posts, such as leaders of orchestras, of military bands, teachers at the university, etc. — R. O. 206 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. aspirants are annually turned away. The Industrial School was first opened to women in 1854. About 800, of whom a large proportion pursue technical studies, at- tend yearly this institution, and are allowed to compete for prizes. The telegraphic school, founded by the Gov- ernment, has many female pupils. There are more than a dozen commercial and calligraphic institutes which ad- mit them. Several are conducted by ladies. The Royal Central Gymnasium is open to women who desire to teach or study gymnastics. As early as 1820 female pupils were admitted to this institution, and about 1864 a regular course of training was established for women. More than one hundred have obtained diplomas and gain their livelihood as teachers of gymnastics. Stockholm, Gottenburg and Lund have each a lying- in hospital for training in midwifery. The instruction is free, and includes obstetrics with and without instru- ments, the nursing of children, etc. The mwnber of women who pursue the'complete study of instrumental obstetrics increases yearly, as they are more entitled to public con- fidence, and are consequently in greater demand. Swed- ish midwives were allowed the use of instruments as early as 1829, and experience has shown the wisdom of this measure, for to this may be ascribed the slight mortality in childbirth. The number of practicing midwives in Sweden is upwards of 2,200. I now turn from higher and special instruction to the subject of elementary and popular instruction. Sweden has five normal schools for primary school mistresses, which are much frequented. To these were added, in 1 867, classes for teachers of infant and children's schools, where future school mistresses may have the opportunity of ac- quiring the art of teaching. There are also twenty-four SWEDEN. 207 normal schools devoted entirely to the training of teachers for infant schools. Primary schools for boys and girls are found everywhere in the country as well as in the cities. They are counted by thousands, and are of three kinds : stationary schools, of which there are about 3,600; am- bulatory schools, about 862 ; and infant schools, about 4,300. Since 1870 have been established high schools for young peasants, which furnish more advanced instruction than that given in the primary schools. In nine among them there are also classes for girls, and the pupils — about two hundred in number — are especially educated with the view of becoming good housewives. Industrial and sewing schools for poor children, where instruction is given gratuitously in spinning, weaving, sewing, etc., are very common in the country as well as in towns. In Stockholm there are four institutions for the training of maid servants, the oldest being the Murback Institute, which was founded in 1747. Similar ones are also found at Gottenburg and other cities. All over the kingdom numerous children's homes are met with. Among the earliest establishments of this kind is the one founded by the Princess Eugenie in the Island of Gothland, near her summer residence. The children are received at an early age, pursue the same studies as in the primary schools, and are taught in addition needlework and domestic em- ployments. I shall complete this long list by a brief mention of three other classes of schools. Sweden possesses several dairy schools, especially at the agricultural institutes, where women are taught the management of farms and dairies, the care of cattle, etc. The State grants annually 3,000 crowns for this purpose. It is not an uncommon thing in Sweden for women to take charge of the dairy 208 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. cattle on a farm as well as to do the indoor work of the dairy. Sunday schools, where 'religious instruction is given to poor children, and mending schools, where poor girls are taught to repair their clothing properly, are thickly scattered throughout the kingdom, and are under the charge of young ladies. Swedish women themselves have been unsparing in their efforts to procure for their sex the advantages of a good education, and it is in a large measure due to their perseverance that many of the above mentioned schools have been founded or made accessible to female pupils. The Home Review ( Tidskrift for H emmet) is also an im- portant factor in this grand result. This periodical, which has always been a warm and energetic advocate of women's interests, was founded, in 1859, D y Lady Sophie Leijon- hufoud, at present the Baroness Adlersparre, and by the author of this sketch. It was started anonymously, but having attracted public attention, the identity of the edit- ors could no longer be concealed. During the first years the editors were almost entirely thrown on their own re- sources, but gradually they enlisted the co-operation of many able writers, both male and female. After an existence of a quarter of a century, it may be said that this review has done a good work, for to it is unquestion- ably due much of the progress which has been made in the educational and social position of Swedish women.* The author of this sketch retired from the editorship of the Review after the lapse of nine years, but she has never ceased to contribute to its pages. The Baroness Adlersparre then' became sole editor, a posi- * Mrs. Olivecrona might have gone farther and said that this periodical and the group of liberals who supported it exerted an influence throughout all Scandinavia. See the chapter on Denmark which follows. — T. S. SWEDEN. 209 tion which she still fills with great talent and untir- ing energy. Besides her literary work, the Baroness Adlersparre has been active in promoting reforms in the condition of her sex in other directions. Thus she estab- lished, in 1869, the copying office, which threw open a vast field of labor to women who there find remunerative work in copying and translating. In 1874 she founded the association of the friends of women's domestic industry, and through her exertions the first school for the training of nurses was organized, in 1867, at the university hospi- tal in Upsala. To her efforts is ^also due the Ladies' Reading Room at Stockholm, which has been in exist- ence since 1867, and whose object is not only to diffuse a taste for good reading, but also to put it within the reach of persons with limited means. The Home Review does not offer the only instance in Sweden of the participation of women in periodical litera- ture. Our magazines and newspapers count many able female writers among their contributors, and a number of women have successfully filled the post of editor. We have, also talented authoresses, among whom none are more worthy of remembrance and honor than Mrs. Lenn- gren (1754-1817), whose poetry is unsurpassed in humor and elegant versification; Freddrika Bremer (1801-1866), known and beloved throughout the civilized world ; the Baroness von Knorring, Mrs. Emily Carlen, Mrs. M. S. Schwartz, and Mrs. J. Wettergrund. The fine arts are much cultivated by Swedish women. Music is studied with predilection, as is evidenced by the many far-famed Swedish singers, as, for example, Jenny Lind, Louise Michaeli (1830-1875), and Christina Nilsson, and by the large part that this accomplishment holds in the general system of education. We have some female 210 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. composers of vocal music, and for the violin, piano and orchestra. One of the harpists in the orchestra of the opera is a lady. The first Swedish woman in this century who dis- tinguished herself as a painter was Sophie Adlersparre ( 1 808-1 862), sister-in-law of the Baroness Adlersparre. Many of the difficulties against which she had to struggle have gradually been removed, and female artists occupy to-day a respected position. Several of them, such as Amalia Lindegren, Agnes Borjeson, Josefine Holmlund, Sophia Ribbing, and Adelaide Leuhusen, are known and admired even beyond the limits of their native land. Sculpture, the noblest and most difficult of the fine arts, is also cultivated by some female amateurs, among whom a member of our royal family, the Princess Eugenie, holds an eminent place. Mrs. Lea Ahlborn has been engaged, since 1853, as engraver of medals in the royal mint at Stockholm, and enjoys a high reputation in this vocation. At the Royal Academy of Sciences women are often employed to draw and paint Swedish plants for scientific purposes, and since i860 female designers have been engaged in the archives of Swedish maps. Wood carving is executed by women with skill and taste. Sophia Isberg (18 19-1875), one of the first among these artists, was the daughter of a poor tailor. She had great natural talent, although it was never duly cultivated. Her workmanship was, however, distinguished for great variety of ideas, often historical, and also for an elaborate execution. She received prizes at exhibitions in Stockholm, Gottenburg, Paris, London, and Vienna. Several of our best photographers are women, and xylography, lithography and engraving af- ford employment to many female artists. SWEDEN. 211 The legislative power has co-operated with the advo- cates of woman's emancipation, not only in increasing the opportunities for obtaining instruction, but also in pro- viding new means of self-support, all the more neces- sary since machinery has deprived women of many kinds of work formerly performed by them. Thus, to cite a few examples, the following laws have succes- sively conferred on Swedish women new rights. In 1845 equality of inheritance for son and daughter was estab- lished and the wife was given the same rights as the hus- band to the common property.* In 1846 women were granted the right to practice industrial professions and to carry on business in their own name. In 1853 and in 1859 laws were passed enabling them to be teachers in the primary schools. In 1858 they were allowed to claim their majority at twenty-five, if they found it desirable — a proviso which was removed in 1863, when they were un- conditionally declared of age at twenty-five. In 1861 they were permitted to compete for the situation of organist in the State church and to practice surgery and dentistry on producing proofs of competency. In 1863 minor posi- tions in the postal and telegraphic service were, with cer- tain restrictions, opened to them. _ In 1864 their rights in trade and industrial pursuits were enlarged. In 1870 they were admitted to the universities after having passed * As soon as the marriage ceremony is performed the property of husband and wife is united, and each party has an equal share in it. The mere act of marriage renders the property of both parties common, with the exception of inherited landed property. At the death of one of them it is divided into two parts, the one devolving on the surviving spouse, the other on the heirs of the deceased. Country real estate is not included in this division. The landed property, inherited either by husband or wife, goes to the children, if there be any. If there are none, it descends to the next heir of the deceased. — R, O. 212 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. the students' or entrance examination, and to the medical profession, after having produced requisite proofs of ability. In 1872 women of twenty-five obtained full power to dispose of themselves in marriage (the father's, brother's, or. relative's consent having heretofore been necessary).* And in 1874 married women became entitled to manage that part of their private property set aside for their personal use in the marriage contract, and to control their own earnings. The civil law of Sweden is in many respects more liberal than that of other countries in its treatment of married women, not only allowing them equal rights with their husband to the common property but conferring on them at his death one-half of this property, with the ex- ception of the country real estate inherited by him. This law has long been in use, but just and judicious though it be, it has, however, proved impotent to protect married women from the evil consequences resulting from the hus- band's mismanagement of the common property or from his spendthrift habits. To remedy this, a society for pro- tecting married women's private property was formed in 1871 by Mrs. E. Anckarsvard and Mrs. Anna Hierta- Retzius. This society aims at procuring for a married woman the lawful right of administering and disposing of her own private property, whether inherited or ac- quired, so that it may not be lost by the maladministra- tion of the husband or seized to pay his debts. A sum of 3,000 crowns is awarded as prizes for the best essays on a projected law for this purpose, f * The nobility held out longer. It was not until March 14, 1880, that a resolution was passed at a meeting of noblemen yielding the privilege of act- ing as sponsors for their own daughters. — R. O. f This society would secure for Sweden a law similar to that which went SWEDEN. 2*3 The efforts to enlarge the field of women's work have also secured the co-operation of the general public. Many- females now find employment in professions formerly only open to males, as, for example, clerkships in private and savings banks, in joint-stock and insurance companies, in business and railroad offices. Almost all the larger shops have female cashiers. There are instances of women acting as superintendents of branch departments of private banks, and in one town the treasurer is a lady. The engagement of women in these callings is continually gaining ground. In 1880 there were 5,892 business women in Sweden, 3,101 of whom were in business on their own account. In this same year more than 1,900 were engaged in industrial pursuits, 650 of whom were owners of factories and workshops. During the past few years almost all trades and industries have been opened to women. Even in mechanics they are not wholly without representatives. Some very ingenious machines, an apparatus for tuning organs and harmoniums, an im- provement on Grover & Baker's sewing machine, a con- trivance for making nets, the patent of which Norway has bought for a considerable sum, bespeak female inventive genius.* Many women are watchmakers, one having even into eflect in England on January 1, 1883. The Swedish wife, however, is in a very different position from the English wife, for the former has equal rights with the husband as regards the common property, though not equal control over it. — R. O. * " Women are accorded every talent except that of inventing. This is the opinion of Voltaire, one of the men who has been the most just to women and who knew them best. But, however, if men capable of inventing were alone to have a place in the world, there would be many a vacant one even in the academies." — Condorcet's Works, vol. ix., pp. 18, 19. In 1872 the French Academy of Sciences awarded Miss Caroline Garcin a prize for the invention of an automatic sewing machine. — Leroy-Beaulieu's "Women's Work in the Nineteenth Century," p. 461. Mrs. Matilda Joslyn Gage, in an. 2 1 4 WO MA N Q U EST ION IN E UROPE. received a prize at a London exhibition. Two sisters are successful as goldsmiths in Stockholm. There are female shoemakers, lace-makers, glovers, bookbinders, japanners, mother-of-pearl workers, rope-makers, glaziers, hatters, comb-makers, painters, turners, upholsterers, confectioners and bakers, who carry on these various trades on their own account. Most of the weavers employed in factories are women. There are female type-setters, and some printing offices are owned and managed by women. At the china manufactories of Gustafsberg & Rorstrand a great deal of the work, particularly modeling and enamel painting, is performed by women. From Dalarne, one of the northern provinces, we get many clever female gar- deners. Among the many efforts of women to be of service to their own sex, I shall cite but two or three examples. The Governesses' Mutual Annuity Fund, founded in 1855 by Miss Deland, aims to provide a small annual income to aged lady teachers. At fifty-five the shareholders receive an annuity of nine per cent, on the paid invest- ments, which have increased by the adding of the interest to the capital, and by the acquisition of the investments of contributors who have died before the prescribed age. On January 1, 1882, the capital of this society amounted to 190,713 crowns. The institution is entirely managed by women, the board of trustees consisting of nine ladies. For the disposal of such products of female workmanship as do not generally belong to the industrial market, a salesroom, called the "Bee Hive," was opened at Stock- holm in 1870, under the patronage of several ladies. This interesting little pamphlet entitled " Woman as Inventor," removes what- ever misgivings the two greatest philosophers of the eighteenth century may have entertained concerning woman's inventive genius. — T . S. SWEDEN. 215 effort to assist females in straitened circumstances, by affording them an opportunity to dispose of their work profitably, has proved highly successful. During the twelve years of its existence, the Bee Hive has sold goods to the amount of 218,000 crowns. Similar estab- lishments have sprung up in several provincial cities. The third example is the women's societies which dis- tribute among the poor, who cannot otherwise find em- ployment, spinning, weaving, knitting and sewing work. Among the many benevolent societies and charitable institutions for the aid of suffering womanhood may be mentioned the Society for the Relief of the Poor, at Stock- holm, founded and patronized by the Queen ; societies for the promotion of female industry, created by the late Queen-Mother ;* the Lotten Wennberg's Fund for the destitute, founded by the late Queen Louisa f in memory of the philanthropist Miss Lotten Wennberg (181 5-1864), whose life was devoted to the needy and unfortunate of the capital ; the Friends of Poor Children, a society under the patronage of the Princess Eugenie:}:; the Patriotic Association, which originated with the late Queen Louisa, and aims to induce the working classes to provide against old age and times of need by making small investments in insurance companies ; the Home for Released Female Prisoners, established in i860 by the present Queen § with the view of assisting women punished for crime to reform and redeem their character ; the Crown-Princess Louisa's Hospital,! for sick children ; a Home for poor elderly * Josephine, consort of King Oscar I., deceased 1876. — R. O. f Consort of Charles XV., died 1871.— R. O. % Daughter of King Oscar II.— R. O. § Sophie, princess of Nassau. — R. O. I It was founded under the patronage of Queen Lduisa, while still crown- princess. — R. O. 2l6 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. ladies, quite a magnificent establishment, founded and endowed in 1873 by the late Queen-Mother, Josephine, in commemoration of the* fiftieth anniversary of her ar- rival in Sweden, and dedicated to the memory of King Oscar I., her late consort ; another Home, with the same end, due to the exertions of Countess von Schwerin, and liberally endowed by Freddrika Bremer, has been in ex- istence since 1862 ; a Deaf and Dumb Asylum, established in Stockholm in 1861, and an Asylum for Idiots (the first of its kind in Sweden) in the country, dating from 1866, owe their origin to women of small means and modest position ; a temporary Home for maid-servants in want of employment, opened in 1877, and a Home for incurable children, established in 1881, both due to the untiring exertions of the Princess Eugenie, who entirely devotes her life and means to benefit suffering humanity. There is in Sweden a society based on the same princi- ples as the British and Continental Federation, and with the same end in view. It has both male and female mem- bers, the latter being particularly zealous to promote the cause they have embraced. To their efforts are thus due several institutions whose object is either the rescue of those of their own sex who have already been led astray, or the prevention of sin and misery, by providing work for unprotected and destitute females. In connection with the former I may mention the Home for Destitute Women, established at Stockholm in 1881 by Mrs. Andersson-Meijerhelm, where many women find shel- ter, food, work, and even clothing, and, upon leaving, are provided with good places or remunerative employment. The objects of this association are also embodied in the temporary Home for young girls who are out of work, which was opened at Stockholm, in 1 881, by Miss Nord- SWEDEN. 217 vail, a fund for giving assistance or loans to needy females, and several register-offices for working women, where ad- dresses and references are left, and where employers may apply when in need of hands. In the spring of this year (1883) a bazar was held at the capital in behalf of a Home for aged maid-servants. There are many more associations and institutions in the varied fields of philan- thropy, due to the benevolence and energy of women, but the above mentioned may be considered as fair speci- mens. The domestic industry of the peasant women consists chiefly in spinning and weaving for family use. In the north of Sweden, however, where the soil is favorable to the cul- tivation of flax, there is an extensive linen industry ; the linen there manufactured by hand forms an important article of internal commerce. In one of the central prov- inces, yarn and textile fabrics of undyed wool are pro- duced in considerable quantities, and the women of that region travel about offering their wares for sale. In another of the central provinces, white and colored stuffs of cotton and wool are manufactured by hand in the peas- ant homes. This industry is very general. Contractors, as a rule wealthy peasants, furnish the raw material, pay small wages for the work, and the goods are carried all over the kingdom by peddlers. Knitting also forms a part of domestic industry. The peasant women knit not only stockings for the use of the family, but even warm and strong jackets for seafaring men. In some provinces curiously-worked and highly-ornamented worsted mit- tens are made by the women. Another branch of in- dustry, lace-making, is limited to certain parts of the country. It flourishes mostly in Wadstena (Ostergot- land) and vicinity, and comes down from the olden time. 2i8 WOMAN QUESTION- IN EUROPE. when it constituted one of the chief occupations of the sisters of the far-famed nunnery of Wadstena, founded by St. Brigitta in the XlVth century. The late Queen Louisa, consort of Charles XV., encouraged and revived this industry, which had gradually degenerated, but now produces fine specimens of workmanship. Even in Da- larne, in the north, and in some of the southern provinces, lace-making exists, but is only carried on for the use of the inhabitants themselves, who employ it to ornament their national costumes. It is to be regretted that these costumes are gradually passing away, as they are the means of promoting greater variety in domestic handi- work. Where they are still worn the women generally display more taste and skill in their handiwork as shown by carefully-executed embroideries and richly-colored textures. These specimens of elaborate work are not confined to the costumes, but are also to be seen in curtains, cush- ions, carpets, etc., serving to decorate the walls of the cottage on festive occasions, and frequently handed down from generation to generation. Many Dalecarlian wo- men are skilled in making ornaments of hair, such as chains, bracelets, brooches, etc., which they peddle on foot, not only in Sweden, but also in the neighboring countries. Even Lapland exhibits proofs of female industry. Women not only make all the garments worn, which con- sist partly of a coarse worsted material and partly of the skin of the reindeer, but they also manufacture shoes. They ornament their costumes with curiously-woven, gaudy-colored belts and a richly-embroidered bib, called atsa-lcppa, on which they greatly pride themselves. A kind of zinc wire is used for embroidering, but their com- SWEDEN. 219 mon sewing thread is made of the sinews of the reindeer, carefully twisted together. As the directors of the Vienna International Exhibi- tion of 1873 wished to see the female industry of the respective countries represented, a committee of our ladies undertook to arrange a section for women's work in the Swedish department of the Fair. The object of this committee was to collect specimens of all the different kinds of work suitable for display. In order to form a more correct judgment about the articles contributed for this purpose, a preliminary exhibition was held in Stockholm in the spring of that year. Many hitherto little-known or observed productions of female handiwork, especially that of the peasantry, attracted considerable notice. This gave rise to an association called the Friends of Women's Domestic Industry {Han- darbctcts vdtmcr), which was organized in the spring of 1874, with a view to promote and develop female industry on the basis of native art. This association, which has met with much encouragement, is endeav- oring to save from oblivion ancient patterns and modes of workmanship, and to introduce new ones based upon this early art. The society gives employment to a con- siderable number of women, and has received and ex- ecuted orders not only for the home market, but even for Russia, England, Germany, and Austria. Among its pat- ronesses are the present Queen and the Crown Princess. Associations for promoting domestic industry {Hushall- ningssallskap) exist all over the kingdom, and have been very successful in carrying out this object among the country people. They employ many female teachers, who give instruction in different kinds of weaving, basket and straw work, not only to the children in the country 2 20 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. primary schools, but also to peasant women. The en- couraging results of these efforts may be noticed at the annual exhibitions of these associations. I have left until the last the few words I have to say on the question of the political rights of women, for little progress has been made in this direction. However, in many affairs relative to the municipality, women vote on the same terms as men ; as, for example, in the choice of the parish clergy and the municipal councillors, {stads- fullmaktige), and in the naming of the electors of the county council (landsting), which elects the members of the Upper Chamber. As regards women's admission to the complete elective franchise, which would confer upon them the right of voting for members of the Diet, no demands have been made in this direction nor any meet- ings held for this purpose. The rapid sketch, which I have just given of the means of education and the spheres of activity now accessible to Swedish women, proves that the efforts made for the amelioration of their condition have not been in vain. Far from being limited to a minority, more or less nu- merous, these beneficial results have become the property of women of all classes of society, who at present enjoy advantages, which throw open to them new fields of work and knowledge, and which, in the not distant future, must render them intellectually, civilly and politically the equals of men. DENMARK. 221 CHAPTER VII. DENMARK. BY KIRSTINE FREDERIKSEN. [Miss Kirstine Frederiksen was born February 6, 1845, on the Isle of Laaland, belonging to Denmark, in the Baltic Sea, and was educated at her father's country seat in the midst of a large family. She visited London in 1870, examined carefully the great charitable institutions of the English capital, and on her return home published an account of her impressions. Two years later Miss Frederiksen traveled in Italy and Switzerland, and the result of her sojourn in the former country was a sketch of Syracuse entitled "A Capital of the Remote Past." Soon after this Miss Frederiksen went to live in Copenhagen, where she has always taken an active part in all that concerns* the improvement of women. For five years she was at the head of the Copenhagen Women's Reading Room, mentioned in the following sketch, and has been since 1875 a member of the Board of Managers of the Female Drawing School in that same city. In 1878 Miss Frederiksen passed the State examination for short-hand writing, the only Danish woman who has done so up to the present time, but was refused, on account of her sex, a position on the staff of stenographers of the Rigsdag, or Diet, by the presi- dent of the Landsthing, or Upper House. The following year she passed the State teachers' examination, and received an appointment in the public schools. Miss Frederiksen has contributed, to various home and foreign peri- odicals, translations from the writings of Frances Power Cobbe, the late Pro- fessor Jevons and Emile Laveleye ; original essays on Mrs. Browning and William E. Channing, on the woman question, and on educational and pedagogic subjects.] The first thing to strike the student of the woman question in Denmark is the complete absence of any di- rect participation by women in the political affairs of the country. In the Danish Constitution of 1849, which 22 2 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. established universal male suffrage, nothing is said of the political rights of the other sex. In municipal and school- board elections the same thing is true.* Women can exert only an indirect influence through their husbands and brothers. But, it must be added, Danish women have not shown any very strong desire to exercise these privi- leges.f The liberal movement which swept over Europe in 1848 was felt in Denmark, and had a beneficial effect on the legal condition of women in our country. Thus, in 1857, a bill was passed making them of age at twenty-five, when men also reach their majority, and the laws concerning inheritance became the same for both sexes. The principle of community of goods in marriage, or, as it is called in the Napoleonic Code, communauti de biens, % has been in vogue for two centuries in Denmark. * In Iceland, which is a dependency of Denmark, unmarried women and widows, if they are householders, vote at municipal and school-board elec- tions. This reform was brought about in 1882. — K. F. \ In 1660 a Rigsdag, or Slates-General, was convened at Copenhagen, and the four estates — nobles, clergy, commons, and peasants — voted together for the last time, the result being the conferring of absolute power on the king. On this occasion the nobles not only voted for themselves, but for their absent relatives, including their mothers and sisters, who probably held property in their own right. — K. F. \ The "community of goods" is a species of partnership between the husband and wife. The property owned by each at the date of their mar- riage, except their lands, and all that may be subsequently acquired by either of them, except lands inherited or donated, are brought into and con- stitute the common fund. This fund is chargeable with the debts of each existing at the commencement of the marriage, and with those subsequently contracted by the husband ; and he alone possesses the right to its control and management This same partnership system has been adopted by the civil code of Louisiana, and to a partial extent by the statutes of Cali- fornia. — John Norton Pomeroy, Johnson's Cyclopedia, article "Marriage." — T. S. DENMARK. 223 But the term is a misnomer, for the husband alone has the control of the property and the income, so that the " com- munity" consists in the wife giving up her all to the hus- band. Every attempt to change this law has been, and is still, considered an attack on the sacredness of the marriage relation. But the eyes of the public have been opened of late by numerous lawsuits — the publicity of our judicial proceedings is of recent date — to the abuses resulting from this unjust arrangement. Discussions on this subject in sev- eral international Scandinavian law congresses have awak- ened Danish jurists to the importance of reforms, and, after the repeated efforts of Mr. Fredrik Bajer, a member of the Folketing, or Lower House, who was backed by a petition from several thousand women, a law was passed in the session of 1879-80 which gave to women the control of their own earnings.* This step in advance was followed by another in 1881, when the Minister of Justice was authorized, by a clause in the budget, to legalize gratuit- ously marriage settlements, thus abolishing the heavy fees attending such acts and rendering them easier and more frequent. We may say, however, that the general tendency of Danish law is to place married women, both as regards the control of their property and children, in the absolute power of the husband. In close connection with this question is the important subject of the employment of women. The belief, which is especially strong in every nation of Germanic-Gothic origin, that domestic duties are the proper and only sphere of women, has been handed down to us from our ancestors. Two influences have modified this prejudice: * Mr. Bajer writes me from Copenhagen, under date of February 6, 1883: " The complete text of this law may be found in the Annuaire de legislation Strangire,publU far la SociJtJ ' de Legislation Compare'e, Paris, 1881." — T. S. 224 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. the necessity of procuring better paid work for single women and the example set by foreign nations, as Swe- den, for instance. The State and the municipalities have employed women for the past twenty years, and we find them to-day in the postal, telegraphic and railroad ser- vice, in banks, in the government departments, and in the private offices of newspapers and merchants. But the higher posts are still exclusively reserved for men. Women have been refused employment as parliamentary stenographic reporters on account of the political asso- ciations which surround the position, as if more harm could come from taking down a speech in short-hand in parliament, than from reading the same speech in the newspapers or listening to it from the galleries. It is scarcely necessary to say that women are paid less than men. This is the case, for instance, in the public schools, where women have taught since i860, where they perform the same labor as men with the full approbation of the authorities, and where they receive a similar pension after a service of a certain number of years. University education is highly valued in Denmark, and the State has striven for centuries to improve it. In 1875 women were admitted to the University of Copenhagen — the only one which exists in Denmark — and are allowed to take degrees in every department except theology. The higher and lower forms of instruction — the primary school and the university — are thus open to women. But the whole intermediate stage, the vast field of secondary and professional instruction, depends entirely upon pri- vate initiative. It has, therefore, been a serious check to the higher education of women, that everything except the most elementary instruction has been until recently exclusively monopolized by men. The State supports thir- DENMARK. 225 teen gymnasia, or boys' colleges, but entirely neglects the other sex. In i88i,ayoung girl, who wished to prepare herself for the university, applied for instruction in the upper classes of one of these boys' colleges in the country, but after considerable delay the application was refused. But Danish women have made noble efforts to fill up this gap in the system of female instruction, and the greater part of the talent and energy of the sex has been devoted to this end. Natalie Zahle (1826 ), holds a promi- nent position in this field. In 1883 Miss Zahle exercised for the first time the right of conferring degrees — a great nov- elty in the history of education in Denmark. Her Institute, which was founded at Copenhagen in 185 1, besides giving instruction in various branches of knowledge, embraces a normal school, and has established recently a preparatory course for those wishing to pursue university studies. This large establishment, which, in my opinion, is not in- ferior to similar institutions in other parts of Europe, is almost entirely managed by women, who give instruc- tion in the highest, as well as in the lowest, branches. Our professional schools for girls are due to women and are directed by them. Such, for example, are Miss Caro- line Testman's Girls' Commercial School, and the Drawing School and Institute for Arts and Industry, under the man- agement of Mrs. Charlotte Klein. The latter was founded in 1874 when women were refused admission to the Royal Academy of Arts at Copenhagen. Both of these institu- tions are at the capital. Housekeeping schools for the instruction of servants and ladies in domestic economy are found at Copenhagen, and exist also in the country, for the benefit of peasant girls. Besides these professional schools, women are also ad- mitted to the Folkehdjskole, a peculiar outgrowth of the 226 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. patriotic movement which swept over Denmark during the first half of this century, and which has spread to Sweden and Norway.* There are at least seventy of these schools in Denmark. Men and women of the high- est culture, for the most part disciples of the poet and reformer, Grundtvig, have, especially since the unhappy Sleswick war in 1864, when the existence of our nation- ality was threatened, delivered semi-annual courses of lect- ures to the grown-up youth, in order to arouse in them an enthusiasm for the language, literature and history of their native land. Grundtvig planned the Folkelidjskolc, the first school being established in 1844. One of his followers, Cald, extended the benefit of the instruction to peasant girls. It was not until 1864 that the system was generally accepted in Denmark and received aid from the State. That deeply-rooted prejudice against educating the two sexes together has prevented even these liberal-minded teachers from lecturing to men and women at the same time. Co-education exists only in the country primary schools, and it is considered a sign of progress that the two sexes are separated in the cities. Danish women have always taken an active part in charitable work. Ilia Fibiger (1817-1867), a noble-minded and highly gifted lady, although far from rich, opened her * " The idea was to throw away all finery, all that had not vigor and breadth enough to become public property ; to make religion and patriotism the basis of civilization, and living influence and practical consequence the test of all its elements ; and then by an extensive scheme of education to lift the whole mass of the people up into this reconstructed civilization. And this idea was accepted with such an enthusiasm, and its realization inau- gurated with such success, that the small tablet on which the Danish people records its life is, in this moment, one of the most interesting parts of the great picture of modern civilization." — Clemens Petersen, in Johnson's Cyclopaedia, article " Danish Language and Literature." — T. S. DENMARK. 227 own house to seven orphans, and in 1867 founded a sort of infant asylum which has since been widely imitated. In 1874, Jaegerspris, the country seat of Frederick VII., was bequeathed, along with a large fortune, by his widow, the Viscountess Danner, for the foundation of an educational institution for abandoned little girls, and it has since be- come the grandest charitable establishment in Denmark. Miss Fibiger also took a prominent part in the movement for the introduction of women into the sick-room, and set a good example by offering her services as a nurse in one of the hospitals of the capital, during the cholera epidemic of 1853. The innovation grew in favor with physicians, but it was not until 1875 that a systematic organization of fe- male nurses was introduced into our hospitals. There are training schools for female nurses in the provinces, so that the profession may now be considered open to women. But it is a very humble position that these faithful nurses fill, for the thought has never been entertained of confiding to them the management of even the most insignificant hospital. It is only at the Copenhagen training school, founded in 1862, that the directress occupies an independ- ent and responsible post. In 1876 a branch of the Red Cross Society was established at Copenhagen. Turning to woman in literature, we meet for the third time the name of Ilia Fibiger, one of the most character- istic personages of modern times. Here, too, she appears as a thorough woman. In poetry and prose she speaks out plainly in favor of the free development of her sex according to the laws of nature, and she teaches that the true woman is not only to be found in the drawing-room but also in the garret and cellar. Most of the women who since 1848 have made a name in the literary world have been animated, like Ilia Fibiger, partly by an interest in 228 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. the emancipation of their sex and partly by patriotic enthu- siasm. Thus, the works of Pauline Worm (1825 ) dis- play an almost masculine vigor, whether the author points out with indignation in the novel how young women's talents are trampled upon and smothered through preju- dice, ignorance and stupidity, whether she sings in verse the praises of her country, or attacks in sharp polemics those religious doctrines which in her opinion undermine the patriotism of the nation. The whole life of Mathilda Fibiger (1 830-1 872), the sister of Ilia, was a martyrdom to the independence and liberty of women. The cannon of the war of 1848 between Denmark and Sleswick awak- ened her whole soul. Her model was Jeanne Dare, and all her powerful literary talent was consecrated to the cause of the admission of women into active life. She fell un- questionably before the resistance which her ideas met with and which her sensitive nature could not support. Athalia Schwartz (1821-1871), by her earnest writings on the question of female education, did a great deal to pre- pare the advent of the new era in women's instruction now dawning on Denmark. If we look back to the past, Danish women of letters present much the same characteristics as those of other nations. Biographical and psychological subjects seem to have been their favorite themes. In the early part of the century we have the excellent descriptions of every-day life among the upper classes by Mrs. Gyllembourg (1773— 1856), the mother of the poet Hejberg; Mrs. Hegerman Linden- crone (1778— 1853), and others. The correspondence of Kamma Rahbek (1775-1829), the Danish Recamier, with the leading men o( her time, gives us a better insight, than can be found elsewhere, into the inner life of the golden age of our literature. In the eighteenth century, it is DENMARK. 229 likewise the correspondence of Charlotte Dorothea Biehl (1731-1788) which unravels for the historian the tangled diplomacy of the epoch. The memoirs of the unhappy Eleonora Christine (1621-1678), daughter of King Chris- tian IV., who passed twenty-two years of her life in prison, depict in an admirable manner the peculiar mixture of grandeur and coarseness of the time, and form a unique memorial of the seventeenth century.* At a still earlier period many Danish gentlewomen collected large libraries in their castles, and rendered a real benefit to literature by preserving and copying the poetry of the Middle Ages.f Danish women have not as yet accomplished much in the fine arts. It is worthy of note, however, that, in the theatre, where they earliest got fair play, women are by no means inferior to men, but have so distinguished them- selves that there is every reason to presume, if it had not been for the impediment of language, names such as Anna Nielsen ( 1856) and Johanne Louise Heiberg (1812- — ) would certainly have been known beyond the limits of our little country. Besides the late highly gifted Eliza- beth Jerichau-Bauman, who, though born a Pole, was a Dane by adoption, the young Danish school of painting now in process of development contains female artists of great promise. * Eleonora Christine fell into disgrace on account of her great and touch- ing faithfulness to her husband, Carpito Ulfeldt,who was charged, not with- out cause, with treason to his country and his king. The reigning queen, Sofie Amalie, whose husband was the half brother of Eleonora, was jealous of her rare gifts, both mental and physical. This was, in fact, the real cause of her long imprisonment. — K. F. f It may not be out of place to mention here the remarkable fact, that probably the most prominent personage who ever sat on the Danish throne was a woman, Margrethe, who died in the year 1412, the reigning queen of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. — K. F. 230 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. Among the professions where Danish women have yet to conquer a place is journalism. They have already par- ticipated in discussions in the public prints, but have generally thought it necessary to conceal their personality under a pseudonym. When, in 1845, f° r example, Marie Arnesen, a girl of twenty, wrote under the name of Val- gerda a vigorous open letter to the aged Professor Arndt, of Bonn, to correct his statements concerning popular feeling in Sleswick, she was most earnestly entreated by her friends not to risk her reputation, by acknowledging her identity with the authorship of this polemic* Denmark has produced several journals devoted to the interests of women and edited by women. The Friday (Fredagen), issued from July, 1875, to 1879, was conducted by Mrs. Vilhelmine Zahle, sister-in-law of Miss Natalie Zahle, whom I have already mentioned. It was a bold, radical little sheet. The name was probably taken from the Woman 's Journal and Friday Society (Eruentimmer Tid- enden og Fredagsselskabet), which appeared at Copenhagen, in 1767, under the anonymous editorship of a woman. The aim of this paper was to improve the condition of women in the limited sphere in which they then moved. The Woman s Review (Tidsskrift for Kvinder) began to appear in January, 1882, and is still (1883) in existence. Its edi- tor, Mrs. Elfride Fibiger, has recently associated with her Mr. Friis, a very earnest friend of the women's movement, who has given a more progressive turn to the paper. It now advocates women's suffrage, — the first journal in Denmark to take this radical step. * The same thing is true of continental Europe generally. In France, for instance, several of the most popular contributors to the Revue des deux tnondes. Temps, Figaro, and other leading Parisian periodicals, are women who sign their stories and articles with a masculine or fanciful name. — T. S. DENMARK. 231 It is still more uncommon for our women to appear on the public rostrum ; but here too a beginning has been made. Among others, Pauline Worm, but more es- pecially Benedicte Arnesen-Kall (1813 ), the author- ess and the sister of Marie Arnesen, have recently, on the platform, brought several subjects successfully be- fore the Danish public. ■ One of the most striking signs of progress among Dan- ish women are the societies which they have formed dur- ing the last ten or twelve years. In 187 1 a society aux- iliary to the Geneva International Women's Rights Association {Association internationale pour les droits des f emtnes)* was organized, and was soon afterwards trans- formed into a national association. This organization still exists. As admittance to the Athenaeum, the prin- cipal reading-room of the metropolis, was refused to women in 1872, a reading-room for their special use was established. This reading-room, as well as the drawing and commercial school for women, although their creation is due entirely to private munificence, have recently re- ceived some aid from the government. In 1876 a So- ciety for the Protection of Animals was formed, chiefly through the vigorous exertions of Mrs. Julie Lembcke, and in 1877 an association for the improvement of morals, closely connected with the British Federation opposed to the legalization of prostitution. The Baroness Lili Stampe is the soul of this society. The examples of individual women striving to do something to advance the interests of their sex are more and more frequent. They have come forward with pro- positions to modify the marriage ritual in a way more in * For an account of this organization, see the chapter on Switzerland.— T. S. 232 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. keeping with the dignity of the sex, and have founded prizes for essays on subjects concerning the woman question. We also meet on every hand, girls struggling through all manner of difficulties in order to secure the benefits of a higher education. It is plainly evident that Danish women are weary of the part allotted to them in the old society, a part well characterized by the saying attributed to Thucydides, that the best that can be said of a woman is, that there is nothing to say about her. I began with the admission that the positive fruits of the women's movement in Denmark are not very con- spicuous ; I must close by expressing the belief that the future development of the reform will find in this country a well-prepared soil. A lady who once visited Denmark, and who had participated actively in the women's move- ment in her own land, remarked : " After living in Den- mark, I understand why you Danish women are so pass- ive, — you are too well off." This judgment is quite correct. A comparatively humane spirit reigns among all classes in Denmark. Abuses have never been so great that they have cried aloud for correction. Peasant women are not field-laborers, and scandalous lawsuits in the higher circles are infrequent. Hence it is that our women move so slowly, and at the same time act so earnestly when once their minds have been opened to the new doctrines. It is beyond the scope of this short sketch to enter profoundly into a history of the origin of the women's movement in Denmark. I shall, therefore, treat the sub- ject but briefly. The young Mathilde Fibiger, in her " Letters from Clara Raphael " {Clara Raphael Breve) which appeared in 1850, was the first to awaken an earnest discussion of the woman question. This great DENMARK. 233 subject had been treated up to that time only with laugh- ter and mockery by its opponents, and with timid sym- pathy by its friends. For twenty years thereafter the agitation seemed to sleep. But reports came to us of the activity of the English women ; the writings of that origi- nal Norwegian author, conservative and radical at one and the same time, Camilla Collett, penetrated Denmark ; we learned that in Sweden some of the best men pleaded our cause, and, when the struggle for our national exist- ence ceased for a moment, after 1864, public opinion on the woman question was found to have changed. The sympathetic utterances of the greatest poets of the north — Bjornson, Ibsen, Hostrup — have, perhaps, done more than all else to awaken an interest in the subject. The Swedish Home Review [Tidskrift for Hemmet) has also exercised considerable influence in Denmark.* But if some progress has been made during the last ten years, it is probably due in no small measure to John Stuart Mill's celebrated book, " The Subjection of Women," which was translated into Danish in 1869 by Georg Brandes, the well- known critic, and widely read throughout the country. It was from the educated women of the middle classes that issued the demand for better instruction and better paid employment for their sex, and it has been thought that the movement would keep within those limits. But women are human beings : give them an education and a competency, and they must have all the rest. * For an account of this journal, see the chapter on Sweden. — T. S. 234 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. CHAPTER VIII. FRANCE. BY THE EDITOR. Condorcet, whom Mill, in his "Autobiography," pro- nounces "one of the wisest and noblest of men," spoke out repeatedly and plainly on the eve of the French Rev- olution in favor of the rights of women. His " Letters from a Bourgeois of New Haven to a Citizen of Virginia" (Lettres (Tun bourgeois de New Haven a un citoyen de Vir- ginie), which appeared in 1787, contain an able plea for women's suffrage, and his essay "On the Admission of Women to Citizenship" (Sur T admission des femmes au droit de cite"*) sounds like an article in the Boston Woman s Journal or the London Englishwoman s Review. But the great philosopher did not stand alone. Miche- let paints a vivid picture of the celebrated orator and member of the Convention, the Abb£ Fauchet, speaking in 1790 for women's rights, with Condorcet among his listeners, in the circus, which once stood in the middle of the Palais Royal.f The Abbe Sieves, Saint Just, and other leaders of the epoch, have left eloquent words in support of women's emancipation. The press of the Revolution was not silent on the sub- ject. Besides the numerous tracts, pamphlets and even * This essay appeared in the Journal de la soaY// de 1789, for July 3, 1790. f Les femmes de la revolution, p. 74. FRANCE. 235 books which were written for and against the question, several newspapers came out warmly in favor of extended liberty for women. The Orateur du pcaple, the Clironique du mois, which printed articles by Condorcet ; the BoucJie de fer, in which Thomas Paine sometimes wrote ; the Journal de Vetat et du citoyen, the Cercle social, and other journals, took up the discussion in a friendly spirit. But this movement did not spend itself in words alone. The Assembly and the Convention determined to ame- liorate the condition of women. The proposed code of the Convention, drawn up by Cambaceres, placed married women on an equality with their husbands, which leads a high legal authority to say, that " such a work of civil legislation was never elaborated in any age or among any people." * In the great question of primary instruction, to cite one more example, the Convention treated alike both boys and girls. But far more interesting and remarkable is woman's own part in this effort for emancipation. She was no passive spectator.! The 4< Petition of the Women of the Third Estate to the King" in 1789, is very well writ- ten and deals chiefly with the lamentable position of * Emile Acollas, Le mariage, p. 98. This is a very able and liberal little book, which presents the whole subject of marriage, both in its legal and moral bearings, in a very instructive and broad-minded manner. f The historians of the French Revolution have never done full justice to the women of that epoch, sometimes through prejudice and often because of the obscurity which surrounds the subject. As an instance of this latter fact, Michelet (Les femmes de la revblution, p. 112) says : "We unfortunately know but little of the history of the women's societies; it is only in the acci- dental mention of the newspapers, in biographies, etc., that we find some slight traces of them." Lairluillier (Les femmes cftcbres de la revolution), has done something toward filling this gap in the literature on the Revolu- tion. 236 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. women in the field of work.* Another petition of this same year prays for women's civil and political rights and their admission to the States-General, while still another begs that they be placed on an exact equal- ity with men, and that even the pulpit be opened to them — not a slight request in a Catholic country. The petitioners did not hesitate to solve the most difficult so- cial questions. " Remember that your happiness is ab- solutely dependent upon that of women," they said to the National Assembly; "the only way perhaps to render it mutually unalterable, is to promulgate a decree obliging men to marry women who have no dower." " The number of these documents makes them more significant and im- portant," says M. Am6d6e Lefaure, and, I may add on the same authority, they are all the production of women themselves, f But woman's activity was not confined to petitions. Mile. d'Orbe, who, as president of one of the women's clubs, pronounced an admirable funeral oration on Mira- beau ; the Marchioness of Fontenay (Mme. Tallien), " the woman who saved the city of Bordeaux from massacre," *Some idea of the industrial position of women prior to the Revolution may he gained from this paragraph by Condorcet (Sur F admission des femmes au droit de cite) : " Before the suppression of ihej'urandes [the governing bodies of the old trade corporations] in 1776, women could not acquire the maitrise [the right to the complete exercise of a trade] of a milliner and of other call- ings, unless married, or unless a man lent or sold them the use of his name, in order that they might obtain the privilege. It is quite singular that a woman could be regent in France, but, until 1776, she might not be a mil- liner at Paris." Millinery is one of the few occupations which women have latterly gained from men. f Le socialisme pendant la revolution. This book is most liberal in its treatment of the woman question, and contains very curious information con- cerning the part women played in the upheaval of 1789. FRANCE. 237 says Legouv£,* " and snatched Paris from the Reign of Terror ; " Theroigne de Mericourt, who shouldered the musket in the revolutionary cause jf Rose Lacombe, the leader of the women's clubs ; Olympe de Gouges, the author of the ''Declaration of the Rights of Women," and of a score of volumes on all sorts of social questions, are a few of the less known names of a long list of women, who in courage, generosity, breadth of mind, extravagance and acts of savagery, even, were unsurpassed by the men of the epoch. Either singly or in mass, women were the authors of some of the most important episodes of the Revolution. The initiative act of the struggle, the famous petition of the Champ de Mars, which demanded that " neither Louis XVI., nor any other king," should be recognized, was drawn up by a woman, Mme. Robert, nde Keralio4 ^ n tne * Histoire morale de la femme, p. 398. \ " The ballot and bullet argument," as it has been called, is often brought forward against women's suffrage. If you vote, you must fight, say the op- ponents of the enfranchisement of women. The defenders of women's polit- ical claims then cite the large number of women who, in all ages and in all countries, have borne arms. An obscure but very striking example of a would-be female warrior recently came to my notice. Mile. Julie Jussot, of Vergigny, in the department of the Yonne, was placed on the official birth- register under the masculine name, by mistake, of Jules. On reaching twenty-one recently, she received a communication from the mayor of her commune, informing her that the moment for military service had arrived. She responded promptly, but on learning her sex, the authorities erased her name from the list of conscripts. In a letter to me, which, by its style and hand-writing, betokens a woman of considerable education, Mile. Jussot says : " In regard to the conscripts' flag, I demanded permission to carry it, for one's heart ought always to be French, when the defence of one's country is concerned. If the day of revenge comes, although I am not a man, I as- sure you, sir, that France may count on me to defend her soil." This senti- ment has the true ring of a Jeanne Dare. t Michelet, Les femmes de la revolution, p. 188. 238 WOMAN Q UESTION IN E UROPE. storming of the Bastille and at the fete of the Federation, Michelet pronounces women the prime movers. It was their energetic conduct which crowned with success the events of the 5th and 6th of October, 1789, and brought Louis from Versailles to Paris. A French historian has truly said : " Women were the advance-guard of the Rev- olution." * Thus the advocacy of great men, and the activity and vigor of women themselves, seemed in the early days of the Revolution to portend the opening of a new era for the female sex. But the authors of the revolt wished only to use the women for the advancement of their own ends. No sooner was the insurrection gotten well under way, than they deserted their worthy coadjutors. In the be- ginning they encouraged them in the foundation of clubs, and applauded their ardor in the cause, only to abolish these clubs, check this ardor, and finally thrust them back into their old position when the end was gained.f Mira- beau, Danton, Robespierre, et al., soon put a period to this women's movement. The Republic was gradually merged into the Empire, which was the coup de grace of the aspirations of the women of 1789. The Empire not only dissipated their day-dreams, but it fastened the Napo- leonic Code about their necks. This was a fatal moment for women's interests. The general public had not for- gotten the many disorders in which they had participated, and was unfriendly. The codifiers were dry old fol- lowers of the Roman law, and Bonaparte, woman's evil genius, was all powerful. The spirit with which he en- tered upon the task may be judged by this remark to his * Les femmes de la revolution, p. 24. f Legouve, Histoire morale de lafemme, p. 405. FRANCE. 239 colleagues : " A husband ought to have absolute control over the actions of his wife ; he has the right to say to her : madam, you shall not go out ; madam, you shall not go to the theatre ; madam, you shall not see such or such a person."* Then came the Restoration and its philosopher, M. de Bonald, who pronounces the ipse dixit, " man and woman are not equals, and can never become so." Di- vorce is abolished, and an attempt is made by the govern- ment to re-establish primogeniture.! But this period contained at least one happy event — the birth of the socialistic schools, which, if they have sometimes brought the woman question into bad odor, have also done a great deal to ameliorate the condition of the female sex4 * Napoleon's misogyny was fully reciprocated. Mme. de StaeTs hatred of the Emperor is well known. Se'gur, (Les femmes), states that the women disliked Napoleon because of his wholesale slaughter of their sons on the field of battle. These mothers had perhaps more ground for their antipa- thy than the high-strung exile of Coppet. One of the bright spots in this dark period was the appearance in 1801 of Legouve's " Women's Merit " (Le mMte des femmes), a rather heavy poem to-day, but which had a great success at a time when women were without friends at court, and few persons were dis- posed to sing their praises. Even this poetical defence of women was not allowed to go unanswered. Menegault published, in this same year, " Men's Merit " (Le mdrite des hommes), in imitation of Legouve's poem, and as a set-off to it. f This would have been a tremendous blow to women, for, as will be seen further on in this chapter, the French law of inheritance places daughters on aa absolutely equal footing with sons, one of the very few provisions of the Napoleonic Code which treats women with the same justice as men. % An old Saint Simonian, one of the dozen still alive, M. Charles Lemon- nier, once told me that it was due to the efforts of his sect that women are employed by the railroad companies as guards at the highway crossings. The first railroad in France, that between Paris and St. Germain, which was in- augurated in the early days of Louis Philippe's reign, introduced this custom, 240 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. With the liberal re-awakening of 1830, the woman ques- tion again came to the front. The socialists, individual women, societies, and newspapers, began to take up the subject. Among the women's rights journals were La fcmme nonvclle, which appeared from 1832 to 1834, and the Gazette des fetnmes, which was published from 1836 to 1838, under the editorship of Mme. Poutret de Mau- champs. She based her agitation on the Charte or Con- stitution of 1830, and took the position that, in proclaim- ing the political emancipation of Frenchmen, the generic term was used, so that the new charter of liberties neces- sarily included Frenchwomen in its provisions.* Mme. de Mauchamps appears to have understood the importance of attaching some well-known personages to her agitation. One of the articles is headed, " Men, Worthy of the Name, who Demand the Civil and Polit- ical Rights of Women." Then follows a list of some Parisian celebrities, and among others, Jules Janin, the distinguished critic of the Journal des de'bats, and Cha- teaubriand. The readers of the Gazette are informed that the latter " has called and said to us, ■ Count me among your subscribers ; you defend a grand and noble cause. ' " Jules Janin contributes at least one article to the paper, a fine estimate of George Sand ; and Charles Nodier, the and I never see one of these sturdy women, as the train whizzes by, a baton at her shoulder, without thinking that the eccentric Saint Simon ac- complished some practical good in the world. * Mme. de Mauchamps held that les fran$ais, as employed in the Charte, embraced les frartcaises, and that tons, chacun, etc., wherever they occur in that document, refer to women as well as to men. She therefore addressed a petition to the King, with the following heading : " Petition of Frenchwomen to Louis Philippe I., praying that he declare, in virtue of the Charter of 1830, that he is King of Frenchwomen as he is King of Frenchmen " (gu'il est roi des francaises comme il est roi des frattfais). FRANCE. 241 prolific author and member of the Academy, writes a short book review in one of the numbers.* Every issue of the Gazette des femmes begins with a petition to the King and Parliament, praying for reforms in the Code, for political rights, for the admission of women to the Institute^ etc. In the number for January, 1838, a demand was made that women be admitted to the universities and given degrees. It was forty years before France would listen to this petition, and what was asked under the Orleans monarchy is only just beginning to be granted under the Third Republic. And yet these peti- tions, ably drawn up, and sensible in their claims, several times reported and briefly discussed, were heaped with ridicule in the Chamber and quickly forgotten. That this movement had attracted a share of public at- tention is evidenced in many ways. The Gazette informs us that at one of the elections several voters, instead of casting their ballots for the candidate, gave them to his wife, as a protest against the exclusion of women from the franchise. Mme. Hortense Allart de M£ritens, the novelist and historian, writes to the editor of the approaching foundation of an " Association for the Amelioration of Women's Condition," but I find no further mention of this * Nodier could not have been under the influence of Mme. de Mauchamps when he penned for Le dictionnaire de la conversation his paper entitled La fetnme libre. f Alexandre Dumas said in the French Academy a short time ago : " We frequently, and very justly, invoke the authority of Mme. de Sevigne and Mme. de Stael, and yet, if these two celebrated women were alive to-day, we would not give them a seat in our midst. We have, perhaps, been some- times struck by this contradiction, by this injustice, and we must have said to ourselves : 4 As woman can be man's equal in virtue and intelligence, why may she not also be his equal in society, in our institutions, and before the law? ' " — Report on the Botta Prize, sitting of May 10, 1881. 16 242 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. organization. In September, 1834, appeared the A mazone. The National Library contains only the prospectus of this paper, which was to be a daily for " the political educa- tion of women," and which was to treat the question in a serio-comic vein.* The agitation attracted the atten- tion of Mme. de Girardin, who refers to it several times in her brilliant " Parisian Letters " (Lettres Parisiennes). Laboulaye's " Inquiries concerning the Civil and Polit- ical Condition of Women from the Times of the Romans to the Present " {Recherches sur la condition civile et poli- tique des femmes depais les Romains jusqu a no s jours), and Legouve's " Moral History of Woman " {Iiistoire morale de la femme t), both appeared during the reign of Louis Philippe, and did a great deal to direct the public mind to the lamentable condition of women before the law. M. Legouve's book, conceived in a very liberal spirit, and written in a charming style, was soon read all over Eu- rope. " Equality in difference " (" Vdgalite' dans la dif- ference ") is its key-note. " The question is not to make woman a man, but to complete man by woman," says the author in another part of the volume. While this Platonic consideration of the woman question was in progress, the Revolution of February suddenly burst upon France, and for a moment it seemed as if the * Its epigraph was as follows : Les hommes ne sont pas ce qu'un vain sexe pense, lis sont trop e'tourdis pour gouverner la France. \ Although this work was published after the advent of the Revolution of February, its contents had been delivered as a series of lectures at the College of France during the last year of the July monarchy. M. Legouve is the son of the author of Le me"rite des femmes, to which poem reference has already been made, and, for a Frenchman, holds very advanced ideas on the woman question. FRANCE. 243 era of the actual emancipation of women had come at last. But the magnificent dreams of the Second Republic were, in so far as concerned women, never realized. " In 1848 there was a grand agitation," Laboulaye once wrote me, " great demands, but I know of nothing dur- able or solid on this question." " The intrigues and fatal days of June, 1848, and June, 1849, absorbed public atten- tion," Jeanne Deroin Desroches* writes me ; " men of influence took little interest in social questions, and espe- cially that of the emancipation of women. We were finally prohibited from having anything to do with the political clubs,t and the police aided in the getting up of meetings and societies of women, such as that of the V/suvtennes, composed of prostitutes, which burlesqued everything we said and did, in order to cast ridicule and contempt on our meetings and our acts." In a word, the movement of 1848 — and there was a great movement at this epoch — was swallowed up in Socialism, and Socialism destroyed itself by its own extravagance. But the women had some staunch friends at this time. Victor Considerant, the well-known disciple of Fourier, was " the only one of the nine hundred members of the Con- * Mme. Desroches, one of the enthusiasts and martyrs of this period, is now living at an advanced age, at Shepherd's Bush, near London. f It was a Protestant Minister, Athanase Coquerel, the most distinguished member of the celebrated family of clergymen, the Beecher family of France, who laid before the Chamber the bill for the exclusion of women from the clubs. He was very roughly handled for this act by several femi- nine pens. See Almanack des femmes for 1852. This curious little publica- tion, in French and English, was due to the indefatigable Jeanne Deroin. The first number, which appeared at Paris in 1852, was seized by the police, and the subsequent numbers, those for 1853 and 1854, were issued at Lon- don. These modest little annuals throw a flood of light on a very confused period. 244 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. stituent," writes Jeanne Deroin, ''who demanded women's political rights in the Committee on the Constitution." When, in the summer of 185 1, it was proposed in the Chamber to deny women the right of petition in political affairs, M. Laurent, of the Department of the Ardeche, M. Schcelcher, the celebrated Abolitionist, the Garrison of France, and M. Cremieux, opposed the proposition, and it was defeated.* When the subject of the reorganization of the communes came up, in November, 1851, M. Pierre Leroux, the famous Socialistic Radical, offered an amend- ment to the first article of the bill, to the effect that " the body of electors be composed of French men and women of legal age." He supported his amendment in a speech which filled three columns of the official newspaper, and which was received by the Chamber with shouts of laugh- ter.f The Revolution of 1848 was as fecund in newspapers as it was in socialistic Utopias. Among the former were many women's journals. I have run over some of these and found them highly interesting, often amusing, but always sincere and earnest. La politique des femmes, " published in the interest of women by a society of work- ing women," as we are informed, and which became, later, L opinion des femmes, and La voix des femmes, edited by Mme. Eugenie Niboyet, a woman of considerable literary talent who died in 1882, are, perhaps, two of the best specimens of these women's rights' papers. The French propensity to turn everything to ridicule — and there was, indeed, much material for its gratification at this time — found an outlet in La re'pnblique des femmes, "the journal of the petticoats" {cotillons), as its * See the Moniteur, June 24 and July 3, 1851. fid., November 22, 1851. FRANCE. 245 sub-title reads, which appeared in June, 1848, and poked fun at the women who participated in the public life of the day. In April, 185 1, M. Chapot proposed in the Legislative Assembly to restrain the right of petition in the case of men, and to suppress it entirely for women in all matters of a political nature. Jeanne Deroin, confined at St. Lazare as a political prisoner, issued a vigorous protest from her cell. M. Laurent presented this petition and attacked the Chapot resolution. A debate ensued, and the question was adjourned to July 2d. On that date M. Schcelcher, who is to-day a member of the Senate, offered an amendment protecting women's right of peti- tion. M. Cremieux, who was later a member of the Government of National Defence, seconded the amend- ment, which was finally adopted. The Chapot resolution was then unanimously rejected. But the Republic fell, and the Second Empire rose on its ruins. The women's movement was abruptly checked. In 1858 Proudhon published "Justice in the Church and in the Revolution " (La justice dans Veglise et dans la revolution), in which occurs an extended sociologic study of woman. He favors the androgynous couple as the social unit, without, however, attributing an equivalent value to the two parties who constitute it. Man, he says, is to woman in the proportion of three to two. The in- feriority of the latter is, consequently, according to Proud- hon, irremediable. Newspaper articles, pamphlets and books, attacking this volume, appeared in large numbers, and among them, Mme. Jenny P. d'Hericourt's " The En- franchised Woman," (La femme affranchie s ), and Mme. Juliette Lambery's (Mme. Adam) " Anti-Proudhonian Ideas on Love, Woman, and Marriage " (Ide'es antiproud* 246 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. honiennes sur V amour, la femme et le mariage), which Pro- fessor Acollas pronounces " the most eloquent and the most peremptory refutation of the absurd opinions of P. J. Proudhon on woman." * The writings of Michelet, Jules Simon, Emile de Girar- din, Eugene Pelletan, Leroy-Beaulieu, Emile Deschanel, Mile. Julie Daubie, and many others, touching upon dif- ferent phases of the woman question, belong to this or a little later period. Michelet, in his " Woman " (La femme) and "Love" (V amour), establishes his famous theory of the "sick woman" {la femme malade); Jules Simon, in his " Working Woman " (L ouvrVere) ; Leroy- Beaulieu, in his " Women's Work in the Nineteenth Cent- ury " (Le travail des femmes au dixneuvicme Steele) ; and Mile. Daubi6, in " The Poor Woman of the Nineteenth Century " (La femme pauvre au dixneuvicme Steele), show up the lamentable industrial position of women ; Emile de Girardin calls attention to the condition of woman in the family ; while Eugene Pelletan, in his volume entitled " The Mother " (La mere), demands the suffrage for women.f The opinions of these thoughtful and liberal- minded writers had a powerful influence on French public opinion, and prepared the way for those reforms in favor of women, some of which have already occurred, and others of which must follow in the near future, unless the reac- tionary party once more gets the upper hand. * Le mariage, p. 35, note. \ " By keeping woman outside of politics, we diminish by one-half the soul of the country." — La mere, p. 233. The late M. Rodiere, the distin- guished Professor of the Toulouse Law School, in his " Great Jurisconsults " (Les grands jurisconsultes), published in 1874, is outspoken in favor of women's suffrage. See pp. 509-512. His language is the more remarkable from the fact that he was a strict Catholic, and, at the same time, a repub lican, a very rare combination in the France of to-day. FRANCE. 247 The women's movement took on a more organized form during the last years of the Empire, and M. Leon Richer grouped about himself and his paper, Lavenirdesfemm.es, which still exists as Le droit dcs femmes, the more active friends of the question, and succeeded in securing the support of many distinguished writers and statesmen. Under the Third Republic the woman question, like every other liberal measure, has gained new life and vigor. At the beginning of 1871, Mile. Julie Daubie, " one of the worthiest women I have ever known," says La- boulaye, announced in the public prints the approaching organization of an Association for Women's Suffrage, but died before accomplishing her object.* In 1874, at the time of the discussion of the new electoral law in the Versailles Assembly, M. Raudot, of the Right, proposed that every married elector or widower with a child should have two votes. Another deputy, M. de Belcastel, was in favor of the same propor- tion, but would give the widower two votes whether he had children or not. The Count de Douhet went still further: he would give every man, first a vote for himself, another for his wife, and finally one for each child. The committee to which these projects were referred accepted the principle, and article seventh of the bill which they reported read as follows : " Every married elector, or widower with children or grandchildren, shall have a double vote.'' Although this article was rejected, it shows that there are men in France who think that wo- men and the family are not sufficiently represented under the present electoral system. * " Mile. Daubie," Mme. Griess-Traut writes me, "was the first female bachelor of arts in France. She encountered great difficulty in obtaining her diploma, but suaceeded in 1862, I think." 248 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. In the summer of 1878 occurred at Paris the first Inter- national Women's Rights Congress, due in large part to the exertions of M. Leon Richer. The Organizing Com- mittee contained representatives from six different coun- tries, viz. : France, Switzerland, Italy, Holland, Russia, and America. Among the eighteen members from Paris were two senators, five deputies, and three Paris municipal councilors. Italy was represented by a deputy and the late Countess of Travers. The American members were Julia Ward Howe, Mary A. Livermore, and Theodore Stan- ton. Among the members of the Congress, besides those just mentioned, were Colonel T. W. Higginson, and depu- ties, senators, publicists, journalists, and men and women of letters from all parts of Europe. The work of the Con- gress was divided into five sections, as follows : the historical, the educational, the economic, the moral, and the legislative. The proceedings of these different sec- tions have been published in a volume, which forms a valuable collection of the most recent European and American thought on the various phases of the woman question. * About this time was founded the Society for the Ameli- oration of the Condition of Women, of which Mile. Maria Deraismes and Mme. Griess-Traut are the moving spirits. In 1876 Mile. Hubertine Auclert, radical, earnest, inde- fatigable, established a Woman's Rights Society, whose special aim is to secure the suffrage for women, and in February, *i 88 1, appeared the first number of its uncom- promising organ, La citoyenne. Mme. Koppe, who though poor in purse is rich in purpose, published at Paris, from 1880 to 1882, La femme dans la famille et la socitt^ a * Actes du congrh international, des droits des femmes ; Paris : Ghio, Palais- Royal. FRANCE. 249 little journal which advocated bravely every good reform. In the autumn of 1882 two new women's rights associa- tions were organized. M.Leon Richer created the French Women's Rights League, whose principal object is to im- prove the legal condition of French women, and Mile. Hubertine Auclert converted her Women's Rights Soci- ety into a National Women's Suffrage Society, whose aims are sufficiently indicated by its name. During the past few years, mainly through Mile. Auclert's efforts, meetings have been held and petitions signed in favor of women's suffrage both at Paris and in the provinces. But the reformers have encountered great opposition. Here is one remarkable example of this selected from a large number. M. de Goulard, Minister of the Interior in 1873, refused to allow Mme. Olympe Audouard, whose voice and pen have always been devoted to the interests of her sex, to speak at Paris on the woman question " for three reasons." Here are two of them t " I. These lectures are only a pretext to bring together a body of women already too emancipated. 2. The theories of Mme. Olympe Audouard on the emancipation of women are subversive, dangerous, immoral." * We have now glanced rapidly at the principal features * Besides the books already mentioned in the course of the preceding pages, I give here, for the reader who may wish to examine more thoroughly this interesting subject, the titles of two short volumes written in a friendly spirit, and treating the question in a general manner. La femme libre, by M. Leon Richer ; Paris : E. Dentu, Palais-Royal. Essai sur la condition des femmes en Europe et en Ame'rique, by M. Leon Giraud ; Paris : Auguste Ghio, Palais- Royal. M. Richer's L'avenir des femmes (Paris, 4 rue des Deux Gares), a monthly publication, and Mile. Hubertine Auclert's La citoyenne (Paris, 12 rue Cail), also a monthly, give a good idea of current opinion in France on the woman question. 250 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. of the more radical phase of the women's movement in France since 1789 up to the present day. I shall next consider the actual situation, treating it under separate heads, as follows: I. Laws; 2. Morals; 3. Religion; 4. Charity ; 5. Instruction ; 6. Literature ; 7. Fine Arts ; 8. Industry ; 9. Socialism. "The Revolution, as has already been seen, signally failed," writes M. Leon Giraud,* " in all that concerned woman. Especially in establishing her legal status did it de- viate widely from its principles. This was due in no small degree to the writings of Rousseau. In his Emile, Rous- seau discusses the theory of woman considered as a child, and adopts the principle of virile and non-virile functions which constituted the basis of ancient Roman law, but which the jurisconsults of the second and third centuries of our era had already begun to repudiate.^ Curiously * M. Leon Giraud, docteur-en-droit, is a graduate of the Paris Law School. His legal studies early convinced him of the necessity of a complete revision of the laws affecting the family. He gave himself wholly up to this subject, and sought, in travels in foreign countries, the justification of his own theories. His work on the " Condition of Woman in Europe and America" (Essai sur la condition de la fern me en Europe et en Ame'rique) was sent to the French Academy in 1883, in competition for the Botta prize, and gave rise to a warm discussion in that learned body. In this synthesis of the woman question, the author comes out in favor of female suffrage. Hence the originality of the book and the cause of its ill-success at the Academy. An earlier volume, bearing the rather odd title, the " Romance of the Chris- tian Woman " (Le roman de la femme chre'tienne), was historical in its nature, and considered from an entirely new point of view the subject of the conver- sion of woman to Christianity. Various pamphlets and articles for periodi- cals preceded these publications. Among the former may be mentioned "Souvenirs of the Women's Rights Congress" (Souvenirs du congres pour le droit des femmes), written apropos of the first International Women's Rights Congress, held at Paris in 1878. f Gaius's " Institutes," Book I., § 190. — L. G. FRANCE. 2 5 I enough Portalis's preliminary considerations on marriage in the introduction to the Napoleonic code, are taken in large part almost verbatim from Emile.* Never, in a word, was the idea of justice to women more foreign to any code of laws than to that of 1804. " Let us first consider married women. In the new code, as in the old, they lose independence and become incapable of ownership, with all its rights and privileges. Of the different matrimonial systems placed by the code at the disposition of the contracting parties, none guarantees woman's liberty. Under none may the wife act, in regard to her property, with the same freedom as tne most ig- norant man. In one case — the system of ' community of goods ' {communauti de biens) — she is treated as if weak- minded and in need of a committee; in another — the system by which each spouse is left the separate owner of his or her property (separation de biens) — she is looked upon as a prodigal requiring a guardian. These variations of the old idea, that the wife should be in subordination, are based on principles borrowed from the common law (coutumes) of the sixteenth century, and, in certain cases, are even severer on women than the prescriptions of three hundred years ago. " It is true that the civil code says, with odd naivete" or singular assurance, that the matrimonial systems which it presents are only illustrations, limiting in no respect the liberty of the contracting parties.f But do not believe it. This pretended liberty is defined by the article which im- * Compare Fenet's " Preliminary Reports" (Travaux prfyaratoires), Vol. IX., pp. 177 et seq., and all the first part of the fifth book of Emile. — L. G. f The law does not regulate the conjugal union, as regards property, ex- cept in default of special conventions which the spouses may make as they see fit. * * * —Civil Code, Art. 1387. 252 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. mediately follows, and which informs us that there is a marital authority, a husband who is the head of the family in this new code as in the old.* And several other arti- cles occur farther on in the code, thrice repeating the wife's subordination, stating what deprivations public order and morality require of her, and especially divesting her of that right par excellence of ownership, the aliena- tion and free disposition of her property.f It may be understood from this what is meant, when woman is con- cerned, by those ' imprescriptible ' and ' inalienable ' rights which were the motto of the Revolution ; they are the rights which the husband has over the wife ! This state- ment must be read twic^ before it can be believed. But the tenor of our law, which nobody questions, and the constant practice of eighty years, leave us no room for doubt. " The right of alienation, which is an inherent attribute of ownership, and which, according to the economic prin- ciples of 1789, was so inseparable from the idea of prop- erty that the one could not be understood without the other — even mortmain having been abolished for the simple reason of its restrictive character — this right is a myth in so far as it relates to woman. And yet this same woman * The spouses may annul neither the rights resulting from the marital au- thority over the person of the wife and children, nor those pertaining to the husband as head of the family. * * * — Civil Code, Art. 1388. f * * * she [the wife separated from her husband] may not alien- ate her real estate without the husband's consent. * * * — Civil Code, Art. 1449. The husband retains the control of the real and personal property of the wife, and, consequently, the right to the revenues derived from her dower or from property coming to her during the marriage. * * * — Id., Art. 1538. * * * she [the wife] may not alienate them [paraphernalia] or go to law concerning them, without the husband's con- sent. * * * —M,Art. 1576. FRANCE. 253 was solemnly declared, by the reform of the laws of suc- cession, capable of absolute ownership and of a personal and exclusive title to public riches. The daughter who, as Pothier informs us, was forrrlerly passed over in favor of the sons as regards the greater part if not all of the estate, inherits equally with the male children according to the code of 1804, as was also the case in 1792. Neither distinction of sex nor primogeniture is recognized in our present laws of descent * The daughter, who once counted as a fraction or a zero, is now an integer. This reform has become a permanent part of our legislation. When in 1826, under the Restoration, a bill was laid be- fore parliament for the re-establishment of primogeniture, the effort broke down completely. But once married, this same woman ceases to be an owner in the true signi- fication of the word. Either our law of inheritance is nonsense or our marriage system an error. We must ac- cept one or the other conclusion. Our legislators cannot consistently pronounce such contradictions in one and the same breath, without displaying an absence of philos- ophy and logic, to be explained only on the ground of complete indifference to the best interests of woman. " If we now consider the more intimate relations exist- ing between husband and wife and the authority of par- ents over children, we find that the dominant idea which inspires this portion of our code has also been handed down from the sixteenth century. "Conjugal fidelity is declared reciprocal in a singularly untruthful article,! and yet the husband and wife are in * The children or their heirs inherit * * * without distinction of sex or birth. — Civil Code, Art. 745. \ The spouses owe each other mutual fidelity, succor and assistance. — Civil Code, Art. 212. 254 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. no respects treated alike. The latter is held strictly to account for any moral laxity, under penalty of separation,* and even of several years' imprisonment, f while the former has only to guard against one thing — the law de- clares it formally — persistent concubinage.^: It is in fact polygamy which the law condemns. But the definition of marriage would have been sufficient to prohibit this. The wife, therefore, must submit to every license on the part of her husband until this extreme is reached, and even then he is only slightly fined. § " The father alone, as long as he lives, enjoys authority over the children. | He has custody over them, he may punish them, he superintends their education ; when they would marry, it is his consent which must be obtained.^" * The husband may demand a divorce on account of his wife's adultery.— Civil Code, Art. 229. f The wife convicted of adultery shall be punished with imprisonment for at least three months and not more than two years. — Penal Code, Art. 337. \ The wife may demand a divorce on account of her husband's adultery when he shall have kept his concubine under the common roof. — Civil Code, Art. 230. The first and last of the three foregoing articles are no longer in force on account of the abolition of divorce, but they are given as showing the spirit of the code. § The husband who shall have kept a concubine under the common roof, and who shall have been convicted thereof on the complaint of the wife, shall be punished by a fine from one hundred to two thousand francs.— Penal Code, Art. 339. I The child, at whatever age, should honor and respect his father and mother. — Civil Code, Art. 371. He is subject to their authority until his majority or emancipation. — Id., Art. 372. The father alone exercises this authority during marriage. — Id., Art. 373. The last article destroys the force of the first two, — one of the many absurd contradictions of this much- vaunted French code. IT The son under twenty-five and the daughter under twenty-one may not marry without the consent of their father and mother ; in case of disagree- ment, the consent of the father suffices. — Civil Code, Art. 148. Could any- thing be more nonsensical than such an article as this ? FRANCE. 2 55 The mother is regarded legally as if she did not exist. When she becomes a widow, her inferiority is further em- phasized, for she is still kept under a sort of marital power which discredits her in the eyes of her children. This situation is not justified on the specious pretext of the necessity of there being a head as between two rivals, and its character is the more humiliating for this very reason. The widow is indeed made the legal guardian of her chil- dren, but her husband on dying may impose upon her an adviser, without whose consent she cannot exercise the duties of guardianship, — which amounts to taking away with one hand what is given with the other.* It is scarcely necessary to say, that the dying mother possesses no such prerogatives in respect to the widower. Again, the widow who marries may see the guardianship of her children pass completely from her control to that of a custodian, named by a family council.f Furthermore, the power of sending children to prison undergoes a singular modification when transferred from the father to the mother, becoming less energetic in her hands.:]: " Such are the principal features of woman's position in the family. But she has other disabilities than those already mentioned. For example, she may not be a guardian nor a member of a family council, except in the ascending line, as mothers and grandmothers ; she may not be a witness to any legal document, nor the publisher of a political newspaper ; she may not call a public meet- ing^ Nor is this all, but from these facts we readily per- * Civil Code, Art. 39T. f Civil Code, Art. 395. \ Compare Civil Code, Arts. 376 and 381. § This list might be made much larger. But, more important than the number of these disabilities, is the unwillingness shown by French legis 256 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. ceive what is the legal status of woman in France, and are able to judge whether the wife and mother, in the narrow sphere to which she has been relegated, enjoys the influ- ence and rank which she merits. " We now take up the grave question of the young girl. And this brings us face to face with the important sub- ject of affiliation {la recherche de la paternite). Accord- ing to our code every child born outside of wedlock is considered to be fatherless,* unless, of his own free will, the father formally acknowledges his offspring. Statis- V tics show what a poor resource this is for the bastard : it occurs but once in fifty times, f In no case, except rape, which is almost unknown in France, can the father of an illegitimate child be prosecuted. He is under no obliga- tions to the child any more than to the mother. A prom- ise of marriage, even when made in writing, counts for nothing. A cohabitation extending over many years, even a whole life-time, creates, in the eyes of the law, no presumption against the man. The same thing is true of any private papers containing reiterated avowal of lators to remove any of them. One instance of this is worth citing : In the month of March, 1881, M. de Caste introduced into the Chamber of Deputies a bill making women electors for the tribunals of commerce, which decide many of the differences arising between tradesmen. The bill did not pass, and Gambetta, who was then Speaker, seized the occasion to perpetrate a witticism at the expense of the women. It should be remembered that in no country of the world are there so many women occupying impor- tant and independent positions in trade, as in France. * Affiliation is forbidden. * * * — Civil Code, Art. 340. f For valuable details on this subject of affiliation, see the remarkable report of Senators Schcelcher, de Belcastel, Foucher de Careil and Be'renger, which was printed in the Journal Officiel of May 15, 1878. See also the bill of M. de Lacretelle on the re-establishment of turning-boxes {tours) introduced the same year. It may be added that the Senate took no action on either of these propositions. — L. G. FRANCE. 257 paternity and of measures taken, either at birth or later, for the maintenance and support of the child.* A man may employ every means in his power, short of brute force, to seduce a girl, but no reparation can be obtained. Such is the harsh doctrine of our law. The truth of this statement cannot be questioned. The text of the code, the preparatory reports and the practice of our courts, all agree in this interpretation. Since the promulgation of the Napoleonic code, four score years ago, you cannot find in the whole history of French jurisprudence one single case of a man forced to acknowledge his child. Our ancient jurisprudence contained this maxim : ' The author of the child must support it ' (' qui a fait r enfant doit le nourrir^W What a change from one epoch to an- other ! It could not be more complete.:}: * The proposition of M. Demolombe, one of our first jurisconsults, to make affiliation depend on the treatment of the child as one's own {posses- sion dVtat), met with no favor. See Demolombe's Commentaries on Arts. 319 et seq. — L. G. \ Loysel's " Institutes of Common Law " {Institutes coutumieres). — L. G. % One example selected from thousands may be given to prove, that not only are the statements of the text not exaggerated, but that they are even too mild. M. Alexandre Dumas has just published a powerful arraignment of the French code in its treatment of affiliation. The pamphlet was called forth by a recent decision of the French Court of Appeals. Mile. G became a domestic in the house of M. G , a farmer and married relative much older than herself. They became intimate and two children were born. Mile. G found a place at Paris, when M. G ceased to aid her. Thereupon her guardian sued for damages, basing his claim on seduc- tion, the youth of Mile. G , and the fact that her seducer was her rel- ative and should have been her protector. The provincial court, where the case was tried, condemned M. G to pay 6,000 francs. He appealed, and the Paris Court of Appeals decided on June 28, 1883, that the seduction had not been accomplished by actionable means, and that M. G was responsible only before "the tribunal of his own conscience." It reversed 17 258 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. "And does the State, since it does not hold the father responsible for his illegitimate children, do any- thing to supply his place? At the beginning of the cent- ury, and almost up to the second half, the country un- dertook on a large scale the care of foundlings, by the establishment of turning-boxes {tours), which allowed the unfortunate mother to deposit secretly, and without be- ing subjected to any formalities, her child in the hands of those who would care for it. But, strange to say, at the moment when the turning-boxes were the most nec- essary on account of the increasing number of abandoned infants, they were gradually suppressed (from 1840 to i860). In a word, the State in its turn forsook the chil- dren and broke the solemn promise, given the mothers of France in 181 1, to repair in part the great injustice done them, when it relieved the fathers of all the duties of paternity. Abortion and infanticide consequently in- creased, until they have reached such a point that the juries, weary of punishing without producing any effect, now often simply acquit the culprit. Such is the present situation : the seducer responsible neither to the child nor its mother; the latter, if poor, reduced to infanticide or prostitution. "And what does the code do to protect the girl? Al- most nothing. While it affords man every facility for the gratification of his passions, it shows an indifference for woman to be found probably in no other system of laws. We guard the girl up to the age of thirteen, but the decision of the lower court, and ordered the poor girl not only to return the 6,000 francs, but to pay costs. Such inhumanity seems almost impos- sible at Paris, " the capital of civilization," and in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. And yet the creation of this abominable code is con- sidered one of the greatest of Napoleon's honors. FRANCE. 259 beyond that year she must look out for herself.* The code does not shield her, but rather shields the man. From 1832 to 1863, in which year the law was put on the statute book, the young girl was protected only until the age of eleven, and previous to 1832, girls of the tenderest years might be defiled, provided violence was not used.f Is not the source to be found here of many of the cancer- ous evils which are fast eating out the life of our social system ? " Is woman sufficiently protected when, according to our penal code and the firmly-established practice of our courts, the inciting of minors to debauch, even when sys- tematic and long-continued, is not punishable, provided the debaucher is seeking to gratify his own passions and is not acting the part of a pander?:}: Is she sufficiently protected when the father, who has made a traffic of his daughter's virtue, does not thereby lose paternal author- ity over the other children, who still remain subject to his exclusive and dishonorable control ? § Is she suffi- ciently protected when the husband's adultery is permitted up to a point where it becomes almost complete impu- nity ? Is she sufficiently protected when our system of legalized prostitution owes its very existence to the con- \ Any outrage on decency consummated or attempted without violence on the person of a child of either sex under thirteen years of age, shall be pun- ished with imprisonment * * * — Penal Code, Art. 331. f See commentary on Arts. 331 and 332 of the Penal Code. \ Whoever outrages public morals by habitually inciting, aiding or abet- ting the debauchery or corruption of the youth of either sex under twenty- one years of age, shall be punished * * * — Penal Code, Art. 334. The commentary on this article reads : "Art. 334 is inapplicable to him who, in inciting minors to debauch, is acting for himself and not for others." Three decisions of the Supreme Court, supporting this view, are given. § Compare Penal Code, Art. 335, second paragraph, and Civil Code, Book L. Title IX. 260 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. stant, unpunished practice of inciting minors to debauch ? * No; it is too evident that so long as the Napoleonic code thus forgets almost every one of the material and moral interests of woman, so long will it hang as a mill- stone about the neck of our France, so bravely strug- gling for her political regeneration. " The divorce question now occupies a great deal of the public attention of this country, and is very closely con- nected with the existing system of partial divorce or the separation of a married woman from the bed and board of her husband {separation de corps). One of the chief reasons given for the re-establishment of divorce, which, introduced by the Revolution, existed until 1815, is the effect it will have on this class of women. We have already seen that the wife's separation from the husband does not free her from marital power, even when she is the applicant, which is the case nine times out of ten. She continues to bear his name, and sees her fortune still subject in a measure to his control, so that the husband, if he would take revenge for an adverse judgment, finds here an excellent opportunity to hector his former wife. Although our publicists, both those for and against divorce, have spoken out in opposition to this state of things, no change has been made. " Another anomaly of this partial divorce was sup- pressed, but in favor of the husband, it must be said. I refer to the presumption that the husband was the father of any children born after the separation, even when all cohabitation had ceased.f Since 1850, however, the hus- band has only to confront the date of the child's birth * See Yves Guyot's " Prostitution " {La prostitution). — L. G. f The old maxim put it : Pater is est quern nuptice demonstrant. — L. G. FRANCE. 261 with the date of the separation, to prove that he is not its father. This reform is perfectly just, but it is a curious fact that our law-makers introduce innovations only when their own sex is to be benefited thereby. " What would be the situation of the divorced wife if, without any other changes in the code, M. Naquet's bill, which is the project the most likely to succeed, were to pass in the Senate as it has already done in the Chamber ? In the first place, the wife would of course be emanci- pated from the marital power, which is not the case under the present system as we have just seen. M. Naquet also places husband and wife on the same footing as re- gards adultery, which is not now the case. But with these two exceptions, M. Naquet's bill justifies the apprehen- sions of its adversaries, even when the wife's interests are alone considered. Many provisions of the code would sadly clash with her new liberty. Divorce should be the coping of any reform of our marriage laws, not the foundation stone. " Let us, in the first place, consider the children. It is evident that the divorced wife does not obtain complete control over her children, especially if she remarries. In this case she falls into the same category as the widow, whose disabilities we have already noticed. She will still be subject to the decision of the family council as regards preserving the guardianship of her children, and will have less authority over them than the other divorced parent. Such inequality would cause her to look with disfavor upon divorce not backed by other reforms, and she would probably have less and less recourse to it. " Furthermore, would not the possibility of divorce be a temptation to the husband to abuse the powers which the law gives him over the fortune of his wife? At 262 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. present he is required to at least provide for her wants. What limit would there be to his depredations if M. Naquet's bill passes? Many an honest lawyer will admit that the husband has a thousand ways of ruining his wife under whatever system they are married. By the disso- lution of the marriage tie, the husband, after spending his wife's fortune, could disembarrass himself of her, while she would not be able to hold him to the slightest obligation. " If now we consider the advantages of divorce, we find an aspect of the question quite peculiar to France. I refer to divorce in its relations to nullity of marriage, which modifies in this particular the narrowness of our civil code. It will be remembered that in France the civil law and canon law are absolutely distinct. The causes which make possible the nullity of a marriage are not the same in the two systems. The first, which is very severe, admits of but one case, — error concerning the per- son.* Our courts have decided that this means the mar- riage of a man or woman to another than the individual he or she had in view, — a mistake which, it may be said, never occurs. Once married, two beings are bound to- gether for life, whatever their past has been, or whatever their future may be. " Such was not the doctrine of the old canon law. The church of course held to the principle of the indissolu- bility of marriage, but of marriage normally contracted and uniting certain conditions. The theory of nullity of marriage was very liberal, there being not less than sixteen cases in which the contract could be broken. It was declared null ab initio, and thus the doctrine of indissolubility was left intact, while the present intoler- * See Civil Code, Art. 180, and the commentaries on this article. FRANCE. 263 able situation, from which there is no escape, was avoided. By the re-establishment of divorce, so as to recognize exactly the causes accepted by the canon law, religious scruples would be gotten over, and those who combat the Naquet bill from church prejudices would be able to unite with its advocates. Thus, with the tolerance of Rome and the consent of the State, divorce might be- come a living fact again." * I next take up the moral condition of French women. A Paris journalist has written : " It is not necessary to go to Constantinople to find the harem : one need not leave Paris, with this single difference, that instead of be- ing confined to the narrow walls of a palace, it overflows the limits of the fortifications." \ This is no exaggeration. The vital statistics published each week in the daily papers — to cite but one of many proofs — establish only too firmly the truth of this statement. I select at hazard one of these official reports. During the sixth week of 1882 there were 1,268 births at Paris, of which 937 were legitimate and 341 illegitimate.^: That is to say, nearly one-third of all the children who come into the world each week at the French capital are born outside of wed- lock, — some 17,000 bastards launched on to life annually in one city of France. In such a state of things the * The general subject of the legal position of women in France, is briefly and clearly treated by M. Leon Richer in his volume entitled, the " Women's Code" (Le code des femmes; Paris: Dentu, 1883). I would recommend, as a convenient edition of the civil and penal codes, the two little volumes of M. Riviere (Les codes francais; Paris : Marescq, 20 rue Soufflot). The dif- ferent matrimonial systems are clearly explained in Professor Emile Acollas's interesting little book, " Marriage " (Le matiage; Paris : Marescq, 1881). f M. Albert Rabou, La France, February 9, 1881. % Le Temps, February 12, 1882. 264 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. France of to-day would do well to imitate the Conven- tion, which issued the celebrated decree that " every girl who supports her illegitimate child during ten years, by the fruit of her own labor, may claim a public recom- pense."* Mme. Emilie de Morsier,f than whom no woman in France is more competent to speak for the moral condi- tion of her sex, writes me as follows : " It may be thought surprising that French women have not demanded the abolition of State regulated vice (police des mceurs) before advancing their claims for civil and political equality. Ought not the first protest of woman to be against a law which makes property of her very person ? Her body is not her own ; under certain circumstances it may become the property of the police, and an object of speculation for dealers in human flesh, whose business" is protected by this same police. This law condemns women to the life of a public prostitute under the surveillance of the authorities. " Now and then a voice has been raised against the infamies without name concealed under the hypocritical expression of the police des mceurs. Eugene Sue, in his 'Mysteries of Paris,' stigmatized this official sentine * Legouve, Histoire morale de lafemme. Legouve also cites the follow- ing ordinance of the Convention, one of the many examples of the fair treat- ment of women by that body : " Every mother whose work cannot support her family, may claim aid from the nation." Professor Acollas's work, *' The Child Born Outside of Wedlock " (L'enfant ne hors tnariage), may be read in connection with this subject. f Mme. de Morsier, besides taking an active part in all philanthropic and reformatory movements in France, is the translator into French of Miss Phelps's "The Gates Ajar" and "Hedged In," Mrs. Ashurst Venturi's " Joseph Mazzini, a Memoir," and of Mazzini's two essays, " The Duties of Man " and " Thoughts on Democracy." FRANCE. 265 called the * bureau of morals ' {bureau des maurs*), and the heart-rending life of the poor Fleur de Marie is no exaggerated invention of the novelist, but a daily actu- ality. Mile. Julie Daubie, in a little tract entitled ' The Toleration of Vice' {La tolerance du vice), indignantly condemns this infamous system; but this noble woman died in the midst of her campaign against immorality. " In 1873 Mrs. Josephine E. Butler arrived in Paris. She had been for several years at the head of an English movement, whose aim was to combat this same system introduced into some parts of Great Britain by act of Parliament. She held, with good reason, that as this curse came from the Continent, it should be denounced and attacked at its source. Mrs. Butler was the first wo- man who spoke in France before large meetings on this delicate question, and those who heard her remember the profound impression she produced. " At the same time, a Frenchman, M. Yves Guyot, spoke out against the iniquity, and began in the press a campaign, which he continued later in the deliberations of the Paris municipal council. Having laid the responsi- bility for these infamies at the door of the prefect of po- lice, he was condemned to six months' imprisonment, so that a man was the first to suffer for having championed the cause of these slaves of vice. " Members of the British and Continental Federation for the Abolition of Prostitution, which owes its origin to Mrs. Butler, have several times visited Paris to advo- cate their cause, and the organization of a French com- mittee was the result, with Mrs. Dr. John Chapman and * This is the bureau of the police department, where the girls receive their cards {cartes), and here is the dispensary {dispensaire) whore the doc- tors practice their inspection {visile force'e). 2 66 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. Yves Guyot as presidents. One might have thought that the movement, once gotten under way, would have grown in public favor. But such was not the case. Many persons were, indeed, convinced of the justice of the cause, but as soon as the novelty of the first impressions wore off, they fell back into their former state of indifference, and few passed from conviction to action. France does not yet know what self-government means. When people ex- press the desire for a reform, they sit down, fold their arms, and wait for the government to act. It cannot, therefore, be said that there has been in this country a genuine movement of public opinion in favor of the abolition of State-regulated vice. If M. Yves Guyot had not kept up the agitation, the question would probably long ago have dropped out of sight and out of mind. " The Paris Society for the Improvement of Public Morals {Comite' parisien pour le relevement de la moraliti Publique) follows much the same lines as the Federation, and is doing a good work. " The various associations in France for the promotion of this cause have always been composed of men and women, but it must be admitted that it is not the femi-- nine element which has predominated. This question, so essentially a woman's question, does not awaken their in- terest. It has been said that ' women make the morals,' but it would be more correct to say that they accept them. Through a deplorable frivolity, by a wish to please at any price, they tacitly accept men's opinions and yield to their wishes. This culpable complaisance is sometimes car- ried to such a length,that wives strive to imitate the dress and manners of a class in whose society their husbands occasionally find a moment's pleasure, hoping, by debas- ing themselves, to retain an affection which they fear may FRANCE. 267 escape them. On the other hand, conscientious women, religious ones above all, scarcely dare to glance into these abysses of vice, and, brought up to believe that they have nothing to do with the outside world, say : ' These things do not concern us : men make the laws.' Selfish- ness, ignorance and prejudice must be great indeed, when wives and mothers do not see the depth and breadth of this question. The cause lies in the tacit acquiescence of women in the current opinions held by men on this subject of morals. They have accepted their theory of the necessity of vice, and firmly believe that the house of ill-fame is a hygienic requisite."* There is a small body of Catholics in France, including such men as M. de Falloux, the Bishop of Amiens (M. Guilbert), and the Abbe Bougaud, who cling to the forlorn hope of conciliating Rome with the new society born of the French Revolution. But their efforts have met with no success, and every day the breach widens, the republi- * The literature on this subject of public morality, especially that which treats of the grave question of State -regulated vice, has grown to immense proportions within the past few years. The Actes du congres de Geneve (September, 1877) and the Compte- rendu du congres de Genes (September, 1880) are rich in information on this subject. The continental organ of the Federation is Le bulletin continental, a monthly under the editorship of M. Aime Humbert. These three publications may be obtained by addressing M. Humbert, 19, rue du Chateau, Neuchatel, Switzerland. La prostitution, by Yves Guyot (Paris : Charpentier, 13, rue de Grenelle St. Germain), is per- haps the best French book on the subject. The Westminster Review fox April, 1883, contains a paper written by Dr. John Chapman, and entitled "Prostitution at Paris," which explains very clearly and fully the system of police des mceurs as practiced at the French capital. M. Fallot, 17, rue des Petits-Hotels, Paris, Secretary of the Comite" Parisien, mentioned in the text, can furnish documents and information concerning the general condition of morals in France. 268 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. cans and freethinkers on one side, the monarchists and priesthood on the other. This freethinking party is strong and active. On the evening of Good Friday, 1882, for example, occurred twen- ty-two banquets of " freethinkers and atheists " at Paris alone, and fourteen more in the environs. M. Leo Taxil's Anti-Clerical League (Ligue ant i-c Uric ale) and his bold little paper entitled the Anti-clfrical, keep up the rubadub of agitation. This rebellion against the church takes on various forms. On June 28, 1881, was founded the Civil Marriage Society (Socidte' du mariage civil), with one of the mayors of Paris as its president. The great question of the separation of church and state is con- stantly before Parliament, and has called into existence a society and newspaper devoted specially to the advo- cacy of this reform. Another society is exclusively occu- pied with the propagandism of freethinking doctrines. 11 The question of the enfranchisement of woman and the recognition of her rights," says Maria Deraismes,* " is closely connected with the anti-clerical question or free- thinking movement. Woman, since the commencement of the world, has been the victim of religious tradition. It is often said that Christianity lifted woman out of her * Mile. Deraismes is one of the ablest lady speakers in France and an ac- tive leader in the anti-clerical movement. She has always been a zealous worker for women's rights, was temporary president of the Paris congress of 1878, and is to-day editor and proprietor of a strong free-thinking organ, the Republicain de Seine-et-Oise. Mile. Deraismes is probably the only woman in France who is a Freemason. Her reception a year or two ago by the Lodge of Le Pecq, a small town near Paris, created no little sensation, for it was a double blow at the church, which, prohibiting even its male mem- bers from becoming Masons, could only look with holy horror on a woman's entrance into this organization. Mile. Deraismes was president of the Paris anti-clerical congress of x88i, in which some of the most important public men of France participated. FRANCE. 269 degradation ; that before the coming of Christ she was a mere thing, an object of amusement, an instrument of reproduction. But this is only a legend and has no historical foundation. The servitude of woman in antiq- uity has been considerably exaggerated. The fact is that she was subjected far less than many people are willing to admit.* " The advent of Christianity scarcely modified this sit- uation. The new doctrine condemned one sex to submit to the other ; it taught that woman was made for man, and not man for woman. According to St. Paul and all the fathers of the church who came after him, women should cover their heads in the churches as a sign of submission ; they are ordered to keep silence, they may not preach, they are commanded to respect their husbands, because man * The divine element, according to the ideas of the ancient world, was com- posed of the two sexes. There were dei feminei, and hence temples sacred to goddesses, holy sanctuaries where were celebrated mysteries in which men were not permitted to participate. The worship of goddesses necessitated priest- esses, so that women exercised the sacerdotal functions in the ancient world. The wives of the Roman consuls even offered public sacrifices to the divinities at certain festivals. This important part played by woman in the religious sphere could not but have an influence on her general posi- tion. In the Orient she put on the sovereign purple in the absence of male heirs. The modern world has not done better. Roman law per- mitted married women to control and enjoy their paraphernal property. The wife as well as the husband could make application for a divorce. The dramatic authors of the epoch show us that matrons exercised, when it was necessary, considerable authority in the home. The more property the wife had, the more rights she had. — M. D. "It must be admitted, although it shocks our present customs, that among the most polished peoples, wives have always had authority over their husbands. The Egyptians established it by law in honor of Isis, and the Babylonians did the same in honor of Semiramis. It has been said of the Romans that they ruled all nations but obeyed their wives. I do not mention the Sauromates, who were, in fact, the slaves of this sex, because they were too barbarous to be cited as an example." — Montesquieu, " Persian Letters," letter xxxviii. 270 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. is the head of the family as Jesus is the head of the church. Who can discover in such ordinances the elements of emancipation and equality ? They are, on the contrary, a solemn and definitive proclamation of the social inferi- ority of woman. Christians were so uncertain as to the real value of woman, and the teachings of Jesus were so obscure on the subject, that the Council of Macon asked .if she had a soul ! Although the Virgin Mary occupies the largest place in the Catholic Church, to the exclusion of the persons of the trinity, still this preponderance of the female element in the doctrine and in the service has not improved the social condition of women. " The French republicans of to-day are striving to es- tablish a democracy, and they encounter on every hand a tremendous obstacle, — the church. Now of all the allies of this church, women are the most zealous, the most in- fluential, the most numerous. They it is who have pro- longed the existence of a doctrine condemned fatally to disappear. Remove women from the church, and the Catholic edifice receives a mortal blow. Our men, who have so long neglected women, now begin to perceive the whole extent of the folly of which they have been guilty in refusing them knowledge. They are now trying to repair this fault. They are rapidly organizing a system of instruction for girls which shall be secular, and the same for both sexes. They see that knowledge is the source of all liberty.* * The growing belief among French republicans that the realization or failure of their efforts to found a lasting republic in this country depends in no small measure on the women of France, is one of the most interesting feat- ures of the present political crisis. It has often been said, notably by Mich- elet, that women gave the death-blow to the first republic and powerfully aided the victory of the church and old beliefs. The radical publicist, M. Leon Giraud, one of the most active and intelligent friends of the women's FRANCE. 271 " Every woman who desires to obtain her rights, or who wishes at least to escape from tutelage, should second the freethinking movement. In breaking with the Catholic legend woman revokes the primordial decree which smote her, and which has rendered her an object of universal reprobation. Hence it is that freethinking makes numer- ous recruits among the sex which seemed doomed to be forever the prey of superstition. A large number of women are members of the anti-clerical societies, which are multiplying every day and spreading into the prov- inces. Turning their back on churches, they attend our gatherings, take part in the discussions and become offi- cers of our meetings and societies. Among the many friends of this cause are women distinguished for their learning, literary talent and eloquence. I have room to name but a few, such as Mesdames Cl£mence Royer, Gag- neur, Andre - Leo, Angelique Arnaud, Jules de La Mad6- lene, Edgar Quinet, Edmond Adam, Griess-Traut, Louise David, Rouzade, Feresse-Deraismes, and de Barrau." Women participate very largely in charitable and phil- anthropic work. " I am happy as a French woman," movement in France, writes me on this subject as follows: "It is a state- ment which I think true and which I have tried to explain in my book ' The Romance of the Christian Woman '• (Le roman de la femme ckr/tienne)." In a speech against the decrees which drove the unauthorized religious orders from France, Laboulaye said in the senate, on November 16, 1880 : "If you were present at the expulsion of the congregations, you saw women praying, supplicating. Do you think they will have any affection for the republic? Hatred of the republic is becoming a feminine hatred, and a government cannot resist that." Referring to this speech a few days before his death, Laboulaye said tome in a laughing mood : "Somebody has remarked that a government is lost which has the cooks against it, be- cause they each have a cousin in the army ! " 272 WOMAN Q U EST ION IN E UROPE. Mme. Isabelle Bogelot* writes me, " to be able to say that our beautiful France contains many large-hearted women, and private charity is extensive. There is still much misery, for it is impossible to remove it entirely. To obtain the results we desire, and guard women from dishonor and starvation, is a problem whose solution must be sought elsewhere than in charity. I shall cite a few of these private charitable organizations at Paris, which will give an idea of the work throughout France. " The Philanthropic Society (Soct/U philanthropique), which was founded in 1780, has been a blessing to poor women for a hundred years. Among its many benefactors may be mentioned Mme. Camille Favre, whose recent liberality has made it possible for the Society to establish dispensaries for children, which will soon be opened in all the outlying quarters of Paris.f The Society for the Amelioration of the Condition of Women, already men- tioned several times in this chapter, has charitable aims. The Society for Released Female Prisoners of St. Lazare {CEuvre des libtrtes de St. Lazare), founded by Mile. Michel de Grandpre, comes to the assistance of those liberated from this well-known women's prison. Mme. de Witt has created a folding-room in connection with the extensive publishing house of Hachette & Com- pany, which gives employment to two hundred poor women. They are fed, and the money which they de- posit draws ten per cent, interest. Mme. Dalencourt has organized a society which provides needy women with * Mme. Bogelot (4, rue Perrault, Paris), who is one of the most liberal- minded and active friends of the poor and unfortunate, is.a member of the board of managers of the Society for Released Female Prisoners of St. Lazare {CEuvre des liberies de St. Lazare), of which Mme. de Barrau is director. f The office of this society is 17, rue d'Orleans, Paris. FRANCE. 273 work and food at a very reduced price, and assures them ten per cent, on their savings. Such are a few — perhaps the most characteristic — of the Paris charitable institu- tions due to women and for women." Among other benevolent works in which women par- ticipate, may be mentioned the Paris Society for the Pro- tection of Animals, which counts many ladies among its officers and members. Female charity is sometimes of a patriotic nature, as in the case of the Association of French Ladies, which was founded in April, 1879, an< ^ whose principal object is to care for the wounded in time of war. The Association has several branch societies in the provinces and supports schools for the training of nurses at Paris and in other cities of France. The sister of charity must not be overlooked, for in France as elsewhere she is an important factor in benevo- lent work. It may be said that we have in her the germ of the female physician, for in the dispensary she is a pharmacist, and at the sick-bed a doctor. The sister of charity is, therefore, acting a grand part in accustoming the public to this progressive step in the medical pro- fession.* * Concerning printed information on French charities, Mme. Bogelot writes : " Le manuel des ceuvres (Paris : Poussielque, 15, rue Cassette), pub- lished every two years, gives an account of all public institutions and those of a private nature which have been officially recognized. Manuel des bureaux de bienfaisance, by Molineau (Paris : Marchal et Billard, 27, place Dauphine), is valuable. Les gens de bien, by Mme. Demoulin, of St. Quentin, will soon be published and will give the names of all those who devote their attention to charity in France." M. Maxime du Camp, of the French Academy, has well described the public and private charities of Paris. For the first, see the Revue des deux mondes, June 15th, August 1st, September 1st and 15th, 1870, and October 15th and November 1st, 1872 ; for the second, see the same periodical, April 1st and May 15th, 1883. 274 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. In order to fully appreciate what has been accomplished in the matter of girls' instruction, we must know what was its condition when the work began. The situation previous to the Revolution may be judged by this extract from one of Mme. de Maintenon's essays on education : " Bring up your girls of the middle classes as such," she says ; " do not trouble yourself about the cultivation of their minds; they should be taught domestic duties, obe- dience to husband, and care of children. Reading does young girls more harm than good ; books make wits and excite insatiable curiosity." As regards history, Mme. de Maintenon allows that girls should have a slight knowledge of it, in order to know the names of their own princes, so as not to mistake a king of Spain or England for a ruler of Persia or Siam. But ancient history is proscribed. " I should fear," she says, " lest those grand traits of heroism and generosity exalt their mind and make them vain and affected." But the Revolution modified French ideas concerning women's education. A descendant of La Fontaine, Mme. Mouret, who edited a women's educational journal in 1790, read at the bar of the National Assembly a plan for the instruction of girls, which was received in most com- plimentary terms by the president.* It was the Conven- tion which first spoke out clearly in France for girls' instruction. But the Convention was too short-lived to accomplish its work, and war and bad government ad- journed for many long years the realization of its liberal plans. f * Dictionnaire de la prcsse, p. 161. f M. Auguste Desmoulins, the radical member of the Paris Municipal Council, in a speech at Foix, on the occasion of the unveiling of a statue to Lakanal, September 24, 1882, pointed out how this great Minister of Public FRANCE. 275 The Empire did nothing for the instruction of women, and the Restoration was worse than the Empire, for it was clerical. But the culpability of Napoleon and the Bourbons is of a negative nature. It is not the same with Louis Philippe, however. When the July monarchy, in 1833, at the instance of Guizot, created primary instruc- tion for boys, the girls of France were entirely neglected. This was positive culpability. It must have been at this period that Balzac exclaimed : " The education of girls is such a grave problem — for the future of a nation is in the mothers — that for a long time past the University of France has not thought about it!" Efforts have since been made to remedy this fault, but there are still 3,281 communes which have no primary schools for girls, and 31.34 per cent, fewer girls' than boys' schools in all France. The history of girls' intermediate instruction is still less creditable to the country. Although private initiative has nobly endeavored to supply a crying want, the State began to act but yesterday. M. Duruy, Minister of Pub- lic Instruction under the second Empire, created, in 1867, courses of lectures for the intermediate instruction of girls, but* it was not until December 21, 1880, after a long and bitter struggle of three years' duration, that M. Camille S£e saw his bill become law, and France offered its girls something more than an elementary training. Instruction under the Convention, who considered "the education of girls as indispensable as that of boys," saw his hopes, blasted in France, realized in the United States. "It is not sufficiently known," said M. Desmoulins, " that the vast system of national instruction so brilliantly consummated at this hour across the Atlantic, is the direct and natural result of all that was thought out by our encyclopedists, longed for by our grand revolution, and prepared by the National Convention." — Bulletin de la ville de Paris, Sep- tember 30, 1882. 276 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE, " Our law is at one and the same time a moral law, a so- cial law, and a political law," said M. See, in the Cham- ber; " it concerns the future and the safety of France, for on woman depends the grandeur as well as the decad- ence of nations." The manner in which this reform has been received by French women shows that they were only waiting for an opportunity to improve their minds. I cannot resist citing a few examples of their enthusiasm in what has become, in so far as France is concerned, a second Revival of Learning. The day before the Rouen College (fyc/r*) opened, in October, 1882, the names of 202 girls were already on the register. The Amiens College had, during its first term, 6b day and 40 boarding scholars. At Lyons, a very clerical city, although the college opened very late in the autumn of 1882, some 40 scholars were in atten- dance. When the Montpellier College — the first girls' college in France — was organized, it had 76 scholars, at the end of the year more than 100, and during the autumn of 1882 the lectures were attended by 215 girls. The college at Grenoble began on April 17, 1882, with 47 girls, and in January, 1883, this number had risen to 112. This same tendency is seen in the lecture courses founded by M. Du- ruy, to which reference has already been made. Whereas, in 1875, these Sorbonne studies were pursued by 165 girls, in the collegiate year 188 1-2 there were 244. But the Government and the municipalities enter as heartily into the work as the women themselves. The Chamber voted, in 1882, ten millions of francs for the * In the French system of secondary instruction the establishments are of two classes, those which have a State subvention and those supported en- tirely by the commune. The first are called Ijrcees, the second colleges. I use our English word, college, for both classes. FRANCE. 277 creation of girls' colleges. Rouen, one of the first cities to demand a college, found that it would cost a million francs ; the municipality forthwith contributed half that sum and the Government the other hall At the end of the first year after the promulgation of the See law, the following results had been obtained : The foundation of a superior normal school for women at Sevres,* the open- ing of four colleges, all the preliminary steps taken to the same end in twenty-six other cities, while similar negotia- tions had been begun by thirty-eight other municipalities. To-day (October, 1883) — less than three years after the See bill became law — still greater progress can be reported, and almost every month a new girls' college is added to the vast system of public instruction in France. University education for women was secured long be- fore intermediate education, due mainly to the fact that no new schools had to be created. From 1866 to 1882, 109 degrees were conferred upon women in France. There have been 49 bachelors of arts, 32 bachelors of science, and 21 doctors of medicine; 98 degrees have been con- ferred in Paris alone. Many foreigners, especially in medicine, are found among these 109 graduates, but within the last year or two — particularly since the See law has created a demand for educated teachers — the number of French women studying for university degrees has greatly increased. * This is a national institution conrsponding to the celebrated, superior normal school for oca in the Roe d"Uhn at Fans. Its aim is to fit women to become directors and professors of girfs" colleges. It was created July 28, 1881, at the instigation of M. See, by a Tote of Parliament, and opened December 12 following; with about 40 scholars, ranging from iS to 24 years. In October, 1882, 40 new sc hol ars entered- The course of studies now covers two years, but efforts are being made to extend it to three years. The director of the school is Mae. Fane, widow of the cel e brate d Jules Farre. 278 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. The history of women's medical instruction in France is very significant, and shows most strikingly the growth of public opinion in regard to the higher education of women generally. In 1864 Legouve wrote: " The reader must not think that I desire to see women mingling with male students on the seats of the law or medical school; this would indeed be a poor way to provide for their im. provement." In 1875, Dr. G. Richelot, President of the Paris Medical Society, styled the study of medicine by women " that deplorable tendency," " a malady of our epoch." But Legouve has lived to see women sitting on the same benches with male students without detracting from the improvement of either sex, and Dr. Richelot's malady has become an epidemic. There was a time when the female students at the Paris Medical School were almost without exception from abroad. But this is not the case to-day. The first Frenchwoman to take a medical degree in France was Mile. Verneuil, who is still practicing at Paris. She graduated from the Paris Medical School in 1870. Up to 1 88 1 six more Frenchwomen had followed her example, five taking their degree at the capital, and one at Montpellier. Since that time several new names have been added to the list, the last being Mile. Victorine Benoit, who was graduated at Paris in August, 1883, with the highest approval of the board of examiners, com- posed of such doctors as Potain, Strauss, Rendu, and Monod. That the Paris Medical School has not shut its doors against women, in marked contrast with the action of so many other medical schools, is due in no small measure to Laboulaye. He once told me that some years ago the question of refusing women admission to the Paris Medi- cal School was brought up in the Department of Public FRANCE. 279 Instruction. The matter was referred to him. His re- port to the Minister was to this effect : The rules of the school say nothing on the subject ; it would therefore seem the best and the simplest course to require of wo- men who desire to pursue medicine the same preparatory- studies and the same tests for graduation which are de- manded of the male students, and thus allow both sexes to enjoy the advantages offered by the school. This sensible and just advice was followed, and the question has never been mooted since. The co-education of the sexes is not unknown in France, although the average Frenchman, who has a very strong repugnance to the system, would be astonished at its prevalence. There are 17,728 primary schools for both sexes {Jcolcs-tnixtes), nearly one-third of the primary schools of France, with 633,697 scholars. They are found in every department, and there are seven in the depart- ment of the Seine. For the past thirty-two years there has been an agricultural orphan asylum for the two sexes (asile agricole mixte) at Cernay, in the Haut-Rhin. " These schools," says Mme. Griess-Traut, " have pro- duced here, as in other countries, excellent results."* In the universities, co-education is accepted with scarcely an objection, and every year it becomes more and more a matter of course among professors and students alike. In fact, this rapid and hearty admission of women to the * I take the figures in this paragraph from an admirable article by Mme. Griess-Traut, in the Phare de la Loire for November 21, 1882. The objec- tions raised to this primary co-education, even by the most distinguished educationists of France, are always amusing and often absolutely puerile. M. Francisque Sarcey even goes to the United States to find arguments against it. In the Dix-neuvieme Steele for October 19, 1880, he says : " The Yankees commence to lose faith in this system, which will soon dis- appear " (!). 280 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. French faculties is one of the most significant and re- markable social revolutions of recent years.* "A comparison of the condition of French literary women of to-day," says Mme. Henry Greville,f " with * Primary and intermediate co-education have become an integrant part of our American school system, but university co-education is still strongly opposed by a large class. In France, on the contrary, the first are con- demned, while the second is now generally accepted. Lumping together the opinions on this subject held in the two countries, we find the system approved in the three degrees of instruction, which shows that the objec- tions on both sides of the Atlantic are only prejudices. A concise, learned, and very interesting account of women's education in France, past and present, and more especially of intermediate instruction, is found in L'enseignement secondaire des Jilles (Paris: Delalain, i, rue de la Sorbonne, 1883), by M. Greard, one of the leading educationists of France. This is the latest and most*authoritative essay on the subject. Jules Simon's L'e'cole (Paris : Ilachette, 79, Boulevard St. Germain), while ably treating the whole subject of public instruction, devotes a large portion of his volume to a rather liberal consideration of women's Education. His- toire de I 'Education des Jemmes en France (Paris : Didier, 1883), by Paul Rousselot, was awarded the Botta prize in 1883 by the French Academy. L'enseignement secondaire des jeunes Jilles (Paris : Leopold Cerf, 13, rue de Medicis), a monthly, edited by M. Camille See, with the co-operation of Henri Martin, Legouve, and others, gives, besides short essays on the sub- ject of women's education, all the current news on the question. f Mme. Greville (whose maiden name was Alice Marie Fleury) is the daughter of M. Jean Fleury, who was born at Vasteville, in Normandy, and is now professor at the University of St. Petersburg. She was born at Paris, Rue de Grenelle St. Germain, October 12, 1842, and is the wife of M. E. Durand, who was born at Montpellier in 1838. It will be seen, therefore, that Mme. Greville is thoroughly French by birth as well as marriage. I give these details because she has been claimed by other countries, by Switz- erland and Belgium to my personal knowledge. In 1857 Mme. Greville went to Russia and did not return to her native land until after the Franco- German war in 1872. A few years later her literary career began in the form of remarkable novels depicting Russian society, and the Revue des deux mondes, the Journal des dSats, and the Temp delighted their readers at one FRANCE. 281 that which they occupied during the first half of this cent- ury, presents at the very first glance a remarkable differ- ence. What then seemed abnormal, odd, almost repre- hensible, is now universally accepted without exciting any comment. In fact, from 1800 to 1850, women who had a taste for writing sought to excuse themselves before the public for indulging in this extraordinary caprice, and some, like Mme. Tastu, Mme. Ancelot, Elisa Mercceur, and Mme. Desbordes-Valmore, succeeded in being par- doned their mania by dint of good grace, amiability, I may almost say, humility. Others resembled George Sand, who came to an open quarrel with all prejudices, and lived for her art alone. Through the force of genius, she succeeded in compelling even the most recalcitrant to accept her, but only after a long and perilous struggle. Conscious of greatness and indifferent to public opinion, she was able to alleviate her vexations, but not to remove them. " To-day a woman may write on any subject, — on sci- ence, art, and pedagogics ; she may take up fiction, — every path is open to her. The public judges her as it would a man, retaining, however, that fine, almost involuntary deference, the result of habit and good breeding, which every Frenchman — whether he shows it or not by his outward acts — feels for the woman who respects herself. This notable change, which, relatively speaking, has come about rapidly, is due principally to the fact that female writers of the present time do not entertain the same and the same time with charming creations from this rapid and prolific pen. But Mme. Greville is not only a talented and clever novelist, she is also a broad-minded, liberal thinker on all the great reform and progressive ques- tions' of the hour, and her artistic little house on the heights of Montmartre is an influential centre for the propagation of modern ideas. » 282 WOMAN- QUESTION IN EUROPE. ideas on literature as formerly. When a woman fifty years ago boldly took up the pen, she declared herself by this very act at variance with prejudice. Her avowed object was glory ; she desired that her name should make a noise in the world. This name, therefore, was rarely a pseudonym unless circumstances rendered a disguise necessary. From 1850 to 1880 a change, which has be- come the rule, took place. In order to enjoy greater liberty, almost all women who felt themselves pushed toward literature sheltered themselves behind a pseu- donym, often a masculine one, whose secret was sometimes kept for many years. Their glory thus became less per- sonal, was associated more with the talent than the indi- viduality of the writer, was freer from alloy, and womanly dignity gained thereby. There is evidently an advantage in being discussed under a borrowed, rather than under one's real name. The family is not touched in the com- bats of the press, and may, up to a certain point, remain ignorant of the quarrels of literature, while, at the same time, the domestic hearth is benefited by the material rewards of literary labor. No wonder, then, that many young girls turn toward this new field of work. "At the same moment that the prejudice against female authors began to diminish in force, a more substantial ed- ucation — still far from what it should be, however — pro- vided these literary neophytes more ample means for the attainment of their aspirations, which first assumed the form of verse, so true is it that the impulse to sing, less definite, more subtle, precedes that of speaking. Many volumes of poetry with the names of women on the title- page were born, ran their short course, and died. Then the movement became more strongly marked, took on a more precise form, and, after some groping, the feminine FRANCE. 283 novel, properly so-called, was produced.* Thereby were women not only presented in a new light, but were afforded new means of existence. At the same time, numerous collections for young people were published, and a large number of distinguished women made their first literary efforts in this department. Many continue to devote themselves to juvenile literature, while others have gained a reputation in the higher walks of fiction. 11 Public opinion changed so rapidly that the expres- sions, ' feminine studies,' ' feminine style,' were soon consid- ered to carry with them praise rather than blame, and men even began to choose feminine pseudonyms at a time when women were borrowing their noms de plume from the mas- culine part of the calendar. But so complete a revolution was not produced without profound causes. Female au- thors — to cite the most important of these influences — were formerly considered, justly or unjustly, to neglect their homes so as to devote themselves more entirely to literature. The stockings in holes, the house in dis- order, the children uncared for, the husband treated as an unwelcome intruder sapping the inspiration of his spouse, — all these repugnant details of domestic imperfection had passed into a proverb and brought literary women, often unmeritedly, into discredit. When the profession became the appanage not alone of a few eccentrics, but of a large recognized class of industrious, poorly paid women, it was perceived that they were, generally speaking, none the less good mothers and excellent housekeepers anxious for the reputation of the home. Their aim in taking up the pen was commonly to add some dainties to the dry bread of the daily existence of an aged mother or sick * George Sand being an exceptional genius should be considered a pre- cursor, not the creator of modern feminine French fiction. — H. G. 284 WOMAN - QUESTION IN EUROPE. child, to come to the aid of sons who must be educated, and daughters who must be endowed. How many cases might be cited of women who, abandoned by a prodigal, unquestionably culpable husband, and reduced to the alternative of choosing between poverty and something worse, found their salvation in a return to the studies of their youth. Exhausted strength, the lack of a teacher's diploma, false pride which cannot brook an employment after having enjoyed independence, the incapacity to suffer humiliations never before experienced, — -all these circumstances, singly or united, have often forced from the soul of a cruelly tried woman, cries of anguish and passion which have found an echo in the public heart. ' Where have they discovered that ? ' is asked. In the tor- tures of a blighted existence. Hence it is that women have been able to say things which men would never have thought of or divined. The public has done them justice, believing that they do not the less merit its respect for having discreetly expressed these sufferings. This in- dulgence has brought into prominence a galaxy of femi- nine names and surrounded them with consideration and sympathy. But talent may be germinated otherwise than by misfortune. Happy souls speak in equally touching accents. The joys of the family, the frenzy of passion, and the drama of existence are subjects of study and reflection as inexhaustible for happy as for sad hearts. " Therese Bentzon, Albane, the delicate author of ' Mad- eleine's Sin' {Pe'che' de Madeleine) \ Juliette Lamber (Mme. Edmond Adam), Etienne Marcel, Andr6 Gerard, Georges de Peyrebrune, Jeanne Mairet,* Jacques Vincent, * It is a high compliment to Jeanne Mairet that she should be classed by Henry Greville among French authors, a compliment which may be shared by American women, for the wife of the well-known Paris journalist, Charles FRANCE. 285 and many others whose names I omit with regret, have produced works full of true sentiment and actual expe- rience, which enable us to study the soul of the women of to-day as we never could those of the past. Other female pens have taken up philosophy and morals. The delicately penetrating reflections of Mme. Julia Daudet, her poems full of natural sentiment ; the gloomy, merciful morality of Mme. Blanchecotte, who takes from humanity its afflictions, which she shares, and, whether in prose or verse, gives comfort in return ; the philosophy (which rejects an invisible, unknown enemy) of Mme. Acker- mann, who, standing almost alone in this order of ideas, has spoken out concerning the nature of our existence in such clear, energetic language, — such are a few of the female philosophers and moralists of the France of to-day. In another department, I may cite those clever women, femmes d' esprit, Daniel Dare, Ange Benigne, and Gyp, worthy successors of Mme. de Girardin. "The problems of education, many of which are still unsolved, could not fail to attract the attention of women, in whom the maternal sentiment is oftenest the most pre- dominant. Mme. Pape-Carpantier's ideas on this subject gave evidence of womanly patience and good sense, and she showed the devotion of an apostle in putting them into practice. In creating object-teaching in the infant schools {salles d'asi/c) she opened her arms, like St. Vin- cent de Paul, to all the little ones, the hope of the future and the care of the present. But these arms were not only her own, they were those of all France. What the infant asylum {creche) had done for the first months of Bigot, is the daughter of Healy, the American artist. Her new novel, " Marca," was highly praised by the Temps, and won a prize from the French Academy in 1883. 286 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. the baby, Mme. Pape-Carpantier did for the age when the turbulent child is a danger to himself in the house, at a time when he is capable of learning a great deal in the infant-school. Object-teaching produced a large number of educational works, and gave a start to ju- venile literature, which was quite backward in France, although very able women had not disdained to conse- crate their time and labor to this important branch of letters. Nothing is more difficult than to address one's self to the young in language which instructs and im- proves, at the same time that it amuses. Mme. de Witt, nde Guizot, followed by Mile. L. Fleuriot, Mme. Colomb, and many others, gave themselves up to this work, often so ungrateful, and yet all the more meritori- ous, as it is harder, less remunerative, and does not com- mand so much applause as the higher kinds of fiction. Pedagogics, properly so-called, have found an able ex- pounder in the person of Mme. Coignet. And in propor- tion as intermediate instruction for girls is developed in our country, writers now little known will come forward to elucidate questions as yet but poorly understood. The number of young women who take degrees in science and letters increases every year, and scientific literature will undoubtedly in the near future find among them adepts of a scientific and philosophic turn of mind, such as Mme. Clemence Royer, whose works embrace a vast portion of the human thought of the present time. " During a certain period, toward the middle of the century, a mystical tendency gave birth to writings of a lofty inspiration, which by their form almost attained to poetry. Mme. de Gasparin and Mile. Euge'nie de Guerin were the high priests of this school. But the current has changed, and these two meritorious women have left no FRANCE. 287 disciples. Quite different is the elegant superficial litera- ture of the society journals, in which the toilets and pleasures of the fashionable world are described. Mme. de Peyronny,whose brilliant pseudonym is Etincelle, under- stands wonderfully well the volatile art of giving form to that which is as delicate as the wings of the butterfly. To treat lightly light things is not an easy task, and nothing is more difficult than to be always clever. A knowledge of foreign languages plays an important part in our literature, especially since the war of iS'/o-'yi, and every book of value published abroad has been translated into French, generally by women. Although this kind of work does not admit of great latitude for the development of any individuality, Mme. Arvede Barine, by a thorough study of Russian, German and English literatures, has made a deserved reputation as a specialist in this depart- ment of literary labor. " Women have not played a prominent part in French theatrical literature. I do not mean to say, however, that they have not the ability and desire to write plays. The material difficulties, such as the getting up of the piece, the rehearsals, etc., would be enough to discourage them even if the directors were not to turn their back upon them. At a time when the newspapers throw wide their columns to feminine pens, impresarios cling to the old prejudice and shut their doors — except in a few extraor- dinary instances — against every piece written by a woman. The case of a lady is cited — and she is probably not the only one — who, in order to have her play pro- duced, had to hire a theatre, engage actors, and take upon herself the responsibility of the whole representation. She was probably more persevering and had more money for the realization of her dream than other feminine play- 288 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. writers, since her example has not been followed. As no physiological reason has been advanced to prove that women, who are capable of contriving good novels, are incapable of making good plays, we may hope that this last prejudice will soon go to join the others in the ob- livion of the past.* " In such a short and rapid sketch I can only give the principal features of the epoch, and many names worthy of mention must be passed over for lack of space. This paper would miss its aim if I were to turn bibliographer. More important than persons is the movement, which, starting from a fixed point at the beginning of the cent- ury, is pushing on toward the hidden future of its close. In looking back at the first half of this period, it is impos- sible not to be struck by the marked improvement, during the past thirty years, in the literary status of French women. The future has still greater ameliorations in store for us if we continue to preserve that sense of dignity which, with very rare exceptions, characterizes to-day the female authors of France. If, at some gathering of artists or literati, the eye is arrested by a woman attired in taste- ful simplicity, if she converses with graceful ease, if she * The visitor to the Theatre Francais will notice among the large and interesting collection of busts of famous French playwrights which adorn the halls and stairways of this theatrical pantheon, the marble figures of two women, not the least of the galaxy, George Sand and Mme. de Girardin, who have added many admirable dramas to the repertory of the House of Moliere. Since 1680, when the Francais was founded, about sixty plays by women have been acted. Mile. Arnaud, whose Mademoiselle du Vigean was given at the Francais for the first time on June 28, 1883, is the latest female dramatic writer at this theatre. Dramas by women have been produced at other Paris theatres. The most recent instance is the Autour du manage, a comedy in five acts, played at the Gymnase in the autumn of 1883, and due to the joint authorship of the Countess de Martel (Gyp) and M. Hector Cremieux. FRANCE. 289 knows how to listen to the recitations and the music, it is very probable that this is one of those women of whom French literature is proud. It was not safe formerly to entertain such an opinion, but blue stockings have disap- peared since authoresses daily ply the needle." "Somebody," Mme. L£on Bertaux* writes me, "has said ' Thought, daughter of the soul, has no sex.' A president of Oberlin College declared in 1867: 'While admitting that the two sexes are equally capable, I do not mean to affirm thereby that there exists no normal difference between the intelligence of women and that of men.' This incontestable diversity, this variety in the essence of expression, renders feminine art the corollary of masculine art. It is precisely in taking our stand on this precious result, that we demand for the woman, who devotes herself to art, those opportunities for ele- mentary culture afforded by the School of Fine Arts, in order that she may possess a solid foundation on which to build her artistic conceptions. If a goodly number of * Mme. Leon Bertaux is one of the most distinguished of modern French sculptors. Besides the statues which she has exposed during a long series of years at various exhibitions, she is the author, of a number of monu- mental works, two frontals of the Tuileries, decorative statues for several public monuments, and a large fountain composed of eight bronze figures at Amiens. Mme. Bertaux is the only Frenchwoman who, having taken three medals in sculpture, is hors concours, that is to say, she may be a can- didate only for the medal of honor, which is conferred each year at the an- nual exhibition {salon) on one sculptor. Mme. Bertaux is the founder and presiding genius of the Society of Female Painters and Sculptors ( Union des femmes peintres et sculpteurs), the earliest organization of the kind in France. " The object of this international association," says Mme. Bertaux, " is to offer its members annually an opportunity to exhibit their principal works, to defend their interests, and to afford young talent a chance of making itself known." 19 290 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. Swedish women take an honorable position in our ex- hibitions and treat successfully historical subjects, it is because they have the means of developing at an early hour their artistic taste, for Stockholm has a National School of Fine Arts where women may study from the living model.* "The interesting personality of Mme. Vigee-Lebrun (175 5- 1 842) opens the series of the French female artists of the century. Marie Anne Elisabeth Vigee, daughter and pupil of the painter of this same name, whom she overshadowed, gave evidence in early youth of a great talent for art. At seven she is said to have drawn a man's head, full of promise for the future, and at twenty she had become celebrated for portraits commanded by the State. D'Alembert, in the name of his colleagues, gave her access to all the sittings of the French Academy, and in 1783, under the absolute monarchy, she was made a member of the Academy of Painting and Sculpture, not- withstanding the opposition of some of her future asso- ciates. " To-day, when the female painter or sculptor is no longer looked down upon by a prejudiced society, but, on the contrary, is rather courted for her artistic talent, is it not strange that the only obstacles which she en- counters are those thrown in her way by the very institu- tions which ought to befriend her? Does not common sense revolt against the check which they place on her * That Frenchwomen are only waiting for the opportunity to participate in the valuable instruction of the School of Fine Arts is evidenced on every hand. M . Emile Guiard, for example, the secretary of the institution which he mentions, wrote me in January, 1883 : " Women are admitted to the School of the Louvre {Ecole du Louvre), and every one of our lectures, how- ever dry they may be, has at least five or six female listeners." FRANCE. 291 emulation ? It is true that no fixed law limits women's artistic ambition, but a hidden influence, all the more mischievous because of its disguise, militates against our success and public recognition. I shall cite but one example among a thousand. Is there a male artist of the ability of our great portrait-painter, Mme. N61ie Jacque- mart, who has not been awarded a first-class medal and membership in the Legion of Honor?* The directors of the Department of Fine Arts, who have succeeded each other from time to time, have been influenced by preju- dice and arbitrary routine rather than by equity, so that, since the foundation of the Third Republic, they have systematically refused female artists this important honor. The wrong is increased by the advantages enjoyed by men, for whom the country has smoothed the way, permitting them, without expense, to reap the benefits of the School of Fine Arts until their thirtieth year, if necessary, while, at the same time, the female painters and sculptors pay their portion of the taxes for the support of an institution which is an obstacle to them throughout their whole career. f It is easily understood, therefore, that the female * Mme. Bertaux herself presents a striking instance of this same injustice. Sculptors of far less merit were long ago made members of the Legion of Honor. To fully appreciate the importance of this exclusion, it should be remembered that these distinctions are very highly valued in France. But fifteen women, by the way, are members of the Legion of Honor. f The justice of Mme. Bertaux's complaint can be fully appreciated only by those who have carefully examined the question. A French male artist who is not a graduate of the State School of Fine Arts, who is not a member of the State Academy of Fine Arts, who stands outside of the authorized offi- cial circle, labors under the greatest difficulties. The annual art exhibition, which up to 1882 had been controlled by the State, passed, in that year, into the hands of an independent body of artists {Association des artistes fran- cais). The prime cause of this change was the desire to escape as much as possible the evil influence of an official art coterie. If the male artists of 292 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. artist, who is unequally armed for the combat, and whose honors are not adjudged after the same rules of merit, occupies only a secondary place in France. These diffi- culties explained, the talent of the individuals mentioned in these notes stands out all the more prominently. "The number of women still living who have received official medals since 1824 is not less than fifty-five, of whom three are sculptors and four engravers. The three sculptors are Mme. de Fauvau, Mile. Thomas, and the author of these notes. Mme. Felicie de Fauvau, who received a medal of the second class in 1827, was one of that galaxy of romantic artists who substituted for the bad classic school of the Restoration a rather character- less style, which may be called — if we may be pardoned the pleonasm — neo-renaissance.' Mile. Mathilde Thomas, an animal sculptor of great merit, received a third class medal in 1881.* Among the forty-eight painters who have taken medals, the name of Rosa Bonheur is most France found the yoke unbearable, it is easy to imagine what the female artists suffer, who have against them not only the State but also the extra- State organization. It must not be inferred, however, from what has just been said, that female artists are entirely ignored. The following women took honors at the Salon of 1883 : Second class medal, Mme. Demont-Breton, who also received a gold medal at the Amsterdam Exhibition of 1883 • third class medal, Mile. Lucie Contour and Mile. Leonie Valmon ; honor- able mentions : Mme. Fanny Prunaire, nee Colonny, Mile. Blau, of Vienna ; Mme. Van Marcke-Die'terle, Mme. Helene Luminais, Mme. Lavieille, Mme. Marie Bashkirseff, of Russia ; Mme. Signoret, Mme. Benard, Mile. De- lattre, a pupil of Mme. Bertaux ; Mile. Lancelot, and Mme. Desca, This list includes painters, sculptors, engravers, etc. The last five names are those of sculptors. The State purchased the work of two of these artists. In the summer of 1883, Mile. Martin finished the bust of Le Verrier, which had been ordered by the French Academy of Sciences. * At least one female sculptor has the honor of being represented in the collection of art at the The'atre Francais — Fanny Dubois Davesnes, the au- thor of the bust of the once famous dramatist, Marivaux. FRANCE. 293 widely known, although the talent of a young artist, Mme. Demont-Breton, whose fine canvas, n< The Beach," (La plage) secured a second-class medal at the Salon of 1883 and was purchased by the State, places her in the front rank. Mile. Bonheur studied under her father, and her first work seemed to give promise of a sculptor. It was a fine study in plaster of a bull that thus early revealed the solid qualities of the future artist. In 1848 she pro- duced her masterpiece, ' Nivernese Ploughing ' (Labou- rage Nivemais), which is found in the Luxembourg, and in 1865 the Empress bestowed upon her the Cross of the Legion of Honor.* " But there is ground to hope that in a very near future women will experience in the career of arts a juster treat- ment; opportunities for study similar to those enjoyed by men, a school of fine arts, the prize of Rome as a stimu- lant, and the same artistic and official distinctions. I should also demand, although this will not be so general- ly accepted, that women form part of the juries at our art exhibitions, f The success of the public exhibitions of the Society of Female Painters and Sculptors proves that the victory is socially won. The second exhibition, that of 1883, occurred in the Palais de V Industrie, the same edi- fice in which the great annual Salon displays its vast in- ternational art collection. This is an important and sig- nificant concession. It means that the day is indeed approaching when Frenchwomen will be on an exact * I must pass over in silence many female artists of talent, such as Mile. Elodie La Villette, the marine painter ; Mile. Berthe Wegmann, the histori- cal and portrait painter ; and Mme. Euphemie Muraton, the painter of still life.— L. B. f Mile. Therese Schwartze was a member of the jury on Fine Arts at Amsterdam in 1883. This is the first time in the history of international exhibitions that a woman has held such a position. 294 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. equality with Frenchmen in everything pertaining to that grandest of studies, the Fine Arts." " One of the principal careers open to women," writes Mile. Laure Collin,* " is the honorable and modest calling of teacher, and especially teacher of music, in which de- partment large numbers have distinguished themselves. Most of these successful teachers are graduates of the well-known Paris Conservatory, which is open, when vacancies occur, to every woman under twenty, who pos- sesses the necessary means, and who can pass the com- petitive examinations, f * Mile. Laure Collin, the author of several admirable manuals on musical subjects, may be considered to be the presiding genius of musical instruction in the French public school system. She is professor in the Girls' Superior Normal School at Fontenay-aux-Roses, the Normal School for Mistresses of the Seine at Paris, and the Normal Courses for Maternal Schools, at Sceaux and Paris, where she teaches a remarkable and very successful method approved by the Minister of Public Instruction. Mile. Collin is also the author of a history of music. f As several American girls have already studied with success at the Con- servatory, and as others doubtless contemplate following their example, I subjoin some remarks on this institution which Mile. Collin has been kind enough to furnish me. " The Conservatory," says Mile. Collin, " is a school of high virtuosity. To keep one's place is almost as difficult as to get ad- mitted to the school, for it is absolutely necessary, under penalty of expul- sion, to pass the periodic examinations. This requirement forces talents to multiply and develop, I hardly know how, for there is no uniform method pursued, each professor being free to apply his own, if he has one. But I explain the success of the institution in this wise. There are families of artists, forming a sort of privileged class, in which virtuosos succeed each other generation after generation, and the children, while at their play, so to speak, imbibe good musical traditions. The girls who fill the classes of the Conservatory come generally from these families. Let us take a student of ordinary ability and follow her step by step from the moment she enters the school. If a member of one of the three or four elementary classes, she will have to undergo the trimestrial examinations, when her progress will be FRANCE. 295 " France possesses many talented female pianists. Leonie Tonel — a very exceptional case — was unanimously awarded a certificate by the Conservatory jury of admis- sion, her remarkably skilful execution exempting her from the competitive examination. One of our most celebrated pianists was Mme. Pleyel, nee Moke, a pupil of Jacques Herz, Moscheles and' Kalkbrenner. After playing with great success in all the capitals of Europe, she be- came, in 1847, professor at the Brussels Conservatory, and died in Belgium in 1875. Mme. Farrenc, whose death occurred a few years ago, was also a pupil of Moscheles, Hummel and Reicha, and was distinguished as a composer, writer and virtuoso. In 1869 the Institute awarded her the Chartier prize for the best compositions of music. Mme. Farrenc's class at the Conservatory has turned out ascertained and promotion into the upper classes will follow. Her aim must now be to secure prizes awarded at the public competitions which occur in the month of July. These examinations consist in the execution of a piece of music designated beforehand by the jury, and the reading at sight of an unpublished piece. The first is the same for all the competitors, but its interpretation varies according to the style of the different professors, for it is evident that the pupils of M. Delaborde will give another rendering than those of M. Lecouppey or Mme. Massart. The fate of the pupil de- pends upon the result of these public competitions. She may try three times, a year apart. If she secures, the third year, an honorable mention, for ex- ample, she has two more trials, but is pitilessly dropped from the Conserva- tory after two new successive failures. The professors, of course, look with most favor on pupils endowed with a talent for execution and capable of shining at these musical tourneys. But it often happens that the unsuc- cessful students succeed better as teachers than their more fortunate com- panions. It has been the custom during the past ten years for Mme. Erard to present the winner of the first prize one of her pianos, while the Pleyels do the same for the second prizeman. The present director of the Con- servatory, M. Ambroise Thomas, has introduced many changes in the cur- riculum of studies, and to-day the pupils receive a most complete musical and dramatic education." 296 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. a legion of good female pianists. Among our most highly appreciated contemporaries, I may mention Mesdames Massart, Josephine Martin, Montigny-Rremaury, whose talent for execution is very remarkable, and among the number of those who have secured a first prize at the Conservatory, and who follow the modest calling of teacher, I may name Hortense Parent, who has struck out a new path and founded a normal school for the piano, which has rendered great service to extra-State instruction. "Among celebrated singers, who, though dead, are not forgotten, I may cite Mesdames Cinti Damoreau, Dorus- Gras, Nau, and Stolz, all of whom became famous at the opera; Mile. Falcon, whose magnificent voice, lost, alas! so soon, has not yet had its equal; Mme. Vandenheuvel- Duprez, cut down in her prime and at the zenith of her success; Mme. Cabel, who, although Belgian by birth, won naturalization on the stage of the Opera Comique ; Mesdames Marie Sasse, Gaymard, Darcier, Wertheimber, and Delagrange ; Mme. Gallimarie, who gave such an orig- inal creation to so many roles ; that eminent artist, whom we are still permitted to enjoy, and whose style is marked with such rare distinction, — Mme. Miolan-Carvalho ; Mme. Bilbaut-Vancheld, whose first-rate talent imme- diately placed her in the front rank ; and lastly, that brill- iant singer, eclipsed after shining an instant like a meteor, — Mme. Adler Devries.* " I must not forget two celebrated female musicians of quite different styles, Mesdames Viardot and Ugalde. * The name of Mme. Adler Devries, a native of Holland, reminds me of several other foreigners who have made a reputation in France, as Sophie Cruvelli (the Baroness Vigier), who gave new life to Spontini's Vestale ; Krauss, who is to-day our leading operatic singer ; the Countess de Sparre and the Countess Merlin, whose sweet voices charmed drawing-rooms at the time when Malibran electrified the public at the Italian Theatre. — L. C. FRANCE. 297 Auber said of the latter, ' She would have invented music,' and Charles de Bernard pretended that she must have been born in a piano. This was indeed almost true, for Delphine Beauce (who became at sixteen Mme. Ugalde), a pupil of her mother and her grandfather, the composer Porro, won a medal, when six years old, in a competition, where she performed a part in a com- position for two pianos. She taught music at nine, and three years later sang the mezzo-soprano solos in concerts given by the Prince of Moscow. Her voice soon developed into a soprano of great compass. Her debut in 1848 at the Op£ra Comique in the Domino noir created a sensation. Engaged several times by this the- atre and by the Lyrique, BoufTes, Porte St. Martin, Cha- telet, she created twenty-one important roles. Mme. Ugalde (married in 1866 to M. Varcollier) has for several years devoted herself to teaching, and no one has had greater success in forming artists for the lyric stage. Marie Sasse, for example, is one of her pupils. " Mme.Viardot (Pauline Garcia), daughter of the Italian singer Manuel Garcia, goddaughter of Paer, and sister of Malibran, is, beyond question, one of the greatest artists of our epoch. Her sweet mezzo-soprano voice, supported by a masterly style, has breathed new life into the Orphde and Alceste of Gluck, which had too long lacked that power- ful interpretation without which they fail. Mme. Viardot has been heard in all the great cities of Europe and has sung in the language of each country she visited. Among her most remarkable creations are Gounod's Sappho and Fides in Le Prophete. She has had for some time a class at the Conservatory, and is the author of several unpub- lished partitions. " Several Frenchwomen have taken up operatic com- 298 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. position and some of them have succeeded in it. At their head stands Louise Bertin, who, shortly after the appearance of Victor Hugo's ' Notre Dame of Paris,' composed an opera, Esmtralda, the subject of which was drawn from this book. Mme. Tarbe des Sablons is the au- thor of two operas, Les B at av e s zxiA Les Brigands, founded on Schiller. Mme. Pauline Thys has written an opera in four acts entitled JuditJi, and several operettas which were well received. Mme. Olagnier composed, a short time ago, a very original comic opera, Le Sais, which had a great success, Capoul creating the principal role.* " In the symphonic style of composition I must again mention Mme. Farrenc (aunt of M. Reyer of the Insti- tute), the author of a symphony which was performed at the Conservatory and much admired. I may further name the Baroness de Maistre, the Countess de Grandval,f who has composed some fine religious and instrumental music; Augusta Holmes,who has written a symphony, Les Argo- naut es ; and lastly, Mile. Chaminade, whose very remark- able compositions were executed in 1882 at the Pasde- loup concerts in Paris. u In ballad music I must recall the names, forgotten to- day, of Pauline Duchambge, a master in this department of music, and of that other well-known artist, Lo'i'sa Puget (Mme. Gustave Lemoine) who followed her. Mile. Puget was the author of her own ballads, which she sang with great charm and spirit. Mme. de Rothschild is the author * " If an opera by a woman succeeds, I am delighted, for it is a confirma- tion of my little system that women are capable of doing everything we do, with this single difference between them and us, that they are more amiable than we are." — Voltaire, October 18, 1736, to Mr. Berger, director of an opera-house. f Mme. de Grandval was awarded in 1883 the prize offered by the Min- ister of Fine Arts at the competition of the Society of Composers. FRANCE. 299 of a sweet melody which all Paris sang, and Pauline Thys whom I have already mentioned, has shown talent for ballad music. The refined drawing-room of Mme. Mar- jolin, daughter of Ary SchefFer, was recently charmed with the melodies of an artist of great merit, Mile. Wild, a pupil of Barbereau. Her style is large and pure. She has written several masses, among others a pastoral mass, some remarkable hymns, and pieces for the organ. She composed almost, at her dtbut, a quatuor for string instru- ments which won the approbation of masters like Onslow. " I have spoken of some of the leading female teachers of the piano, and I have now to mention what we have done in vocal instruction. Eugenie Chauvot, a pujiil of Duprez, has secured a high place as professor of singing, and has grouped about her the most distinguished artists. Mme. Feret, a pupil of Revial, whose poor health greatly limits her work, has carefully collected the excellent principles of the master and transmitted them to her dis- ciples. French women play also an important part in the musical instruction given in the public and normal schools. The author of these notes has labored in this field.* The popularizing of musical instruction has made great progress in the last few years, and its development bids fair to soon place France on a level with the nations the most favored in this respect. I am proud to say Frenchwomen have contributed to this progress in the most remarkable and efficacious manner." " I may say, without exposing myself to the imputa- * I have witnessed with astonishment the wonderful results of Mile. Collin's method, and I do not hesitate to recommend its careful examination to the teachers in our American schools, where the science of music is too often sacrificed to the learning by ear of a few patriotic songs. 300 'WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. tion of indulging in national vanity," writes M. Paul Foucart,* " that in no other country of Europe does wo- man, in proportion as her situation requires it, work as much as in France ; that nowhere does she, in every grade of society, associate herself so closely and effect- ively with the husband in his efforts to assure the moral and material prosperity of the family. Those foreigners who have learned, by a long residence in France, to un- derstand the country, are powerfully struck by this fact. ' No housewives are more perfect than the French,' says Karl Hillebrand,f ' who, without boasting of being housekeepers after the German fashion, know how to superintend domestic affairs with a judicious and firm hand. Many of them even take the husband's place in business. . . Ambitious to the highest degree, passion- ate under a cloak of coldness, clever in what they under- take, elegant in appearance, endowed by nature with a grace carefully cultivated by a skilful education, possess- ing above all a firm character and a strong will, they direct husband as well as brother or son, urge him on, smooth his way, and take all the necessary and difficult steps to secure his success. In a word, they conquer him a place in the world and help him to defend it.' X " The most natural and legitimate method of securing * M. Paul Foucart, of Valenciennes, is a close student of industrial ques- tions in France, and is the author of a pamphlet entitled the " Indus- trial Function of Women" {Fonction industtielle des femmes), the substance of which was given as a lecture at Havre in 1880. f " France and the French during the Second Half of the Nineteenth century " {La France et les francais pendant la seconde moitie' du XIXe sikle), Chapter I.— P. F. % I do not pretend that there are not exceptions to Karl Hillebrand's complimentary estimate of Frenchwomen, but these exceptions are much rarer than people generally imagine. — P. F. FRANCE. 301 that grand desideratum of society, the division of labor, would be for the women of all classes, supported by the men, to devote themselves entirely to household duties. But almost always among the lower classes, women are forced to seek occupations directly remunerative, which, on account of the brusque development of the great in- dustries and the exactions of a fierce competition, compel them to confide their children to mercenary or charitable institutions, thus inflicting on the family, in exchange for insignificant pecuniary gains, incalculable moral losses. " Without believing that the world is degenerating and that the ideal of humanity must be sought in the past, I hold that before the advent of the industrial revolution born of the general use of steam machinery, the condition of the women of the lower classes was, in certain respects, more normal than it is to-day. Manufactories employing hundreds of hands were then very rare, while many occupa- tions — spinning, lace making, tulle work, the weaving of muslin, the reeling and weaving of silk, the sorting, pick- ing and winding of wool bobbins, etc., — were followed at home. In this way women gained at the domestic hearth a sum which considerably augmented the resources of the family, without depriving it of maternal care and influence. If young girls left the paternal roof, it was only to labor in the fields, to become servants, or to work as apprentices in small shops, — callings in which agility, address, or taste were the all-important requisites. " Toward the second third of the nineteenth century were felt for the first time with all their force, the conse- quences of a production which developed more rapidly than the demand, and which occasioned stoppage and famine where its promoters predicted abundance. Weeks without work for the husband and misery at home ! How 302 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. is the family to be kept from starvation ? Many wives imagined that the shop, the cause of the evil, might also prove its remedy. If the husband and wife were both at work would not the home realize twice as much, at least in ordinary seasons ? And when the hard times came, it was not probable that all industries would be affected ; when the shops stopped, it would be rare if both husband and wife were thrown out of work. Will not life there- fore be made easier ? The answer to this question is found in the following table,* published in 1882, by the minis- ter of commerce, which gives the actual wages of those employed in textile industries in France. Ordinary Wages. {Cotton, I.78 Wool. 1. 71 Silk, 1. 61 Hemp and Flax, 1.68 Averages, 1 . 69 f Cotton, 2.03 ,, r . J Wool, 1.82 Weaving. ^ g.,^ f ^ [ Hemp and Flax, 1 . 69 Averages, 1.82 2.39 1-47 " It appears, therefore, that it is for the miserable pit- tance of one franc and eighty-two centimesf that so many 1 * This table is taken from the " Statistical Annual of France " (Annuaire statistique de la France) for 1882. — P. F. The money figures in this and the tables which follow are in francs and centimes. A franc equals about nineteen cents, and a centime about a fifth of a cent. \ About thirty-five cents in American money. It may be considered, however, that thirty-five cents has the purchasing power in France of at least fifty cents in the United States. Maximum Wages. Minimum Wages. 2.29 2.15 2.04 2.19 I.40 1-37 1-34 1.38 2.17 I.36 2.66 2.31 2.41 2.19 1.64 1.56 1-33 1.36 FRANCE. 303 women abandon home and children, thus doing a great injury to themselves as well as to those women who cling to the old customs. The competition of the factory has reduced the price of manual labor in many industries still practiced at home. Embroidery and hand-made lace, for example, although they have much declined, continue to give employment, the first to 150,000, and the second to about 220,000, women. The pay of an ordinary embroiderer in the Vosges has fallen to one franc and ten centimes, while the apprentice of fourteen, who copies only simple easy models, earns one-half that amount.* Still worse is the condition of lace-makers. At Valen- ciennes, of which they were formerly one of .the glories, they have entirely disappeared. At Alengon, in Au- vergne, at Chantilly, at Bayeux, they earn only from one to one and a half francs, and it is probable that all of these poor souls will have to soon lay aside their bobbins unless they wish to die of hunger. " In the workshops of the small manufacturers the situ- ation is scarcely any better, as is shown by the careful investigations made by the Paris Chamber of Commerce in i860. At that time 106,310 women were employed in the various industries of the capital. The Chamber of Commerce divided them into three classes according to their occupations and wages : First Division. 1,176 women earning 0.50 2,429 o.75 6,505 1. 00 7.013 1.25 I 17.203 *Augustin Cochin, " Monograph on the Workingwoman of the Vosges : (Monographie sur Fouvriere des Vosges). — P. F. 3°4 WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. Second Division. - Third Divison. 16,722 women earning 1.50 7,644 " " 175 24,810 << tt 2.00 7,723 <■ «< 2.25 17,273 $4 tt 2.50 2,055 t( tt 2-75 7,588