THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 NEW YORK STATE SCHOOL 
 
 OF 
 
 INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR 
 
 RELATIONS 
 
 AT 
 CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 
 J 
 
HQiasi.Nr""""'™"'""-"'"'* 
 
 Woman and social progress; a discussion o 
 
 3 1924 002 636 235 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
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WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 HBW YOKK > BOSTON • CHICAGO 
 DALLAS - SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO., Limitkd 
 
 LONDON BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA. LTD. 
 TORONTO 
 
WOMAN w SOCIAL 
 PROGRESS 
 
 A DISCUSSION OF THE BIOLOGIC. 
 
 DOMESTIC, INDUSTRIAL, AND 
 
 SOCIAL POSSIBILITIES OF 
 
 AMERICAN WOMEN 
 
 BY 
 SCOTT NEARING, Ph.D. 
 
 WHARTON SCHOOL, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA, 
 AUTHOR OF "social ADJUSTMENT," ETC. 
 
 AND 
 
 NELLIE M. S. NEARING 
 
 B. A. BRYN MAWR, M. A. UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1917 
 
 AU rights reserved 
 
Copyright, xgis. 
 By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 
 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published May, 19x2. Reprinted 
 June, X914; March, 1917. 
 
 ^^4 
 
 K^1 
 
 Berwick & Smith Co., Norwood, Mass., U.S.A, 
 
TO THE MANY GIRLS WHO HAVE 
 COME TO US, UNCERTAIN, PER- 
 PLEXED, ASKING, "WHAT SHALL I 
 DO?" THIS ANSWER IS DEDICATED 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 Introduction — The American Woman . . . . i 
 
 Part I. Woman's Innate Capacity. 
 
 I. Woman, — an Individual I 
 
 II. Woman's Biologic Capacity . . . . lo 
 
 III. The Personal Capacity of Woman . . i8 
 
 IV. A Capacity Basis for Achievement . . 29 
 
 Part II. Environmental Influences upon AMraiCAN 
 "Woman. 
 
 (a) The Revolution iti the Home. 
 
 V. The Industrial Revolution .... 34 
 
 VI. The Domestic Revolution .... 42 
 
 VII. The New Leisure for Women ... 49 
 
 (b) The Changing Social Environment. 
 
 (a) The Old Social Order. 
 
 VIII. Social Traditions _ S6 
 
 IX. Masculine Dominance 69 
 
 X. Marriage as a Trade 78 
 
 (b) The New Social Environment, 
 (i) The Child Environment. 
 
 XI. The Home Training of the Girl ... 88 
 
 XII. School Training 97 
 
 (2) The Adult Environment. 
 XIIL College Education for Girls .... 106 
 XIV, Training for Professions . . . .US 
 yXV. Woman's Industrial Fie ld . . . .122 
 
 vii 
 
Viii CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 Part III. The Opportunities Before American Women. 
 
 (a) Self or Society,— A Fundamental Choice. 
 XVI. The Choice of the Women of Rome . . 128 
 
 XVII. The American Woman's Choice . . .137 
 
 (b) Opportunity Through Eugenics. 
 
 XVIII. Selection,— a Basic Factor in Progress . . I47 
 XIX. Women as Selectors 161 
 
 (c) Domestic Opportunities. 
 
 XX. Women as Spenders 171 
 
 XXI. Domestic Science I77. 
 
 XXII.. Domestic Servants and Mothers' Helpers . 187 
 
 (d) Opportunities in Education. 
 
 XXIII. Child Training in the Home .... 196 
 
 XXIV. School Training 205 
 
 (e) Industrial Opportunities. 
 
 XXV. Woftien in Modern Industry .... 217 
 
 XXVI. The New Alignment of Industrial Occupations 225 
 
 XXVII. Women in Specific Employments . . . 231 
 
 (f) Opportunities for Cooperation Work. 
 XXVIII. Philanthropy 240 
 
 XXIX. The Social Significance of Women's Organi- 
 zations 248 
 
 (g) Civic Opportunities. 
 
 XXX. Political Status nf Wnmpn , . . . 2i; 6 
 
 Part IV. Women and the Future. 
 
 XXXI. Woman, — an Organic Social Factor . . 265 
 XXXII. Women and the Future 271 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 THE AMERICAN WOMAN 
 
 "The American Woman" and "The New Woman," 
 phrases equally employed and misused, are in reality 
 synonymous terms, connoting a woman who, break- 
 ing from the traditional activities of womankind, is 
 turning to a new group of interests and occupations. 
 The American Woman is unique. In England she 
 is envied; on the Continent she is revered. Nowhere 
 else in the world, except possibly in Australia, does 
 her counterpart exist. 
 
 The distinctive position of the American Woman is 
 the outcome of four factors: 
 
 1. Opportunity of education. 
 
 2. Freedom in choosing occupation. 
 
 3. Legal equality. 
 
 4. Abundance of leisure. 
 
 Because of these four advantages the American 
 Woman is the first woman in the history of modern 
 civilization who can "sass back" and make her "sass" 
 good. Her father does not own her. Her husband 
 may not kill her, sell her, or even beat her. She has 
 been educated to believe that she is "as good as any 
 man"; she has been sufficiently trained to be able to 
 earn a living; she has numerous opportunities for 
 
X INTRODUCTION 
 
 gainful employment; she is therefore self-reliant and 
 economically independent. 
 
 If she chooses, on the other hand, to maintain i 
 home, she is well fitted for her task. Equality, edi^ 
 cation and leisure place within her reach the possi- 
 bility of becoming an effective homekeeper and a 
 mother. 
 
 At all times, the occupational life of the American 
 Woman may be a broad one. Before motherhood, 
 and, if she does not elect to marry, through her whole 
 adult life, she may pursue her chosen vocation, not 
 stigmatized in any way for being a "working woman." 
 The American Woman, as an independent human 
 being, is presented with the opportunity to contribute, 
 in many different spheres, her share toward Social 
 Progress. 
 
 Many ignorant men and a few ignorant women 
 still refer, with a curl of the lip, to "Woman's Sphere," 
 — ^meaning those occupations involving the mainten- 
 ance of a home, and the bearing and rearing of 
 children. Having chosen to build battleships and mine 
 coal, men assume the primal importance of these 
 occupations. Upon due consideration, may it not 
 appear th^t the development of high quality manhood 
 and womanhood is, after all, one of the most important 
 activities in which a nation may engage? Men have 
 even concluded, because women could not build battle- 
 ships, mine coal or make steel, that they were inferior 
 to men. But wait! What part does the making of 
 character and happiness play in the life of a nation? 
 
INTRODUCTION Xl 
 
 Perhaps, indeed, the whole future of the Republic 
 lies within the realm of "Woman's Sphere," for it 
 is there that the new generation is born and reared. 
 Speak of "Woman's Sphere" if you will, but speak 
 reverently, for through it lies the door of the Future. 
 
 During the last century man's sphere has been 
 clearly outlined. Man has become industrial. With 
 his nose close to the grind-stone of daily occupation, 
 he is devoting his energies to the production of in- 
 coiye. Large-scale factories; high financiering; vast 
 commercial operations; great industrial enterprises, 
 appeal to a man. In adopting industry as his life 
 work, he has co-ordinated his occupational activities 
 with his inclination and capacity. ' 
 
 Unfortunately woman's position in modern society 
 will not lend itself to so optimistic a statement. While 
 man's activities for the next century are definitely 
 determined, woman's activities are, on the contrary, 
 a matter of great uncertainty. Woman's capacity is 
 the great, undirected force in modem society. The 
 sphere of domestic activity and motherhood is limited 
 to married women, who constitute less than sixty per 
 cent of the women fifteen years of age and over in 
 the United States. The remainder — the girl before 
 marriage, the woman who never marries, and the 
 woman who, for some reason, is forced after marriage 
 to earn her living — await direction in their occupa- 
 tional choices. 
 
 One-half of the race cannot efficiently do the work 
 of the world ; hence woman must contribute her moiety 
 
Xil INTRODUCTION 
 
 to Social Progress. In order to make this contribution 
 effective, some definite relation must be established 
 between woman's capacity and her activity. Man, 
 having chosen his sphere and centred his interests, 
 remains comparatively indifferent to woman's dilemma. 
 The co-ordination, therefore, between woman and her 
 life activities must be made by the woman herself. 
 The American Woman facing this dilemma stands 
 at the parting of the ways. The old world of subjection 
 and dependence lies behind herj before her opens the 
 new world of individual development arid achievement. 
 Her opportunities for training have never before been 
 equalled; her opportunities for activity are daily en- 
 larging. Foremost in opportunity, the American 
 Woman may also stand foremost in achievement ; but 
 it is for her to define the scope of the contribution 
 which she will make to Social Progress. 
 
WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 WOMAN — ^AN INDIVIDUAL 
 
 The editors of a great encyclopedia inserted in 
 their first edition, which appeared in the latter part 
 of the eighteenth century, this definition of Woman: 
 "Woman, the Fgmale of man. See Man." Her attri- 
 butes, capabilities, and powers were included in his — 
 she was not an individual, but an attachment to an 
 individual. For information about woman, there was 
 but one source — ^man — "the fountain-head of all her 
 being." In subscribing this heading the editors were 
 interpreting the general thought of the age. 
 
 The contrast between this eighteeftth-century Eng- 
 lish attitude toward woman and the twentieth-century 
 American attitude is both striking and fundamental. 
 For information about women to-day, we not only 
 "See Woman," but we actually quote her. "By a 
 worrian," writes Miss Cicely Hamilton, "I understand 
 an individual human being, whose life is her own 
 concern." "To me she is an entity in herself; and 
 if, on meeting her for the first time, I inquire whether 
 or no she is married, it is 'only because I wish to 
 know whether I, am to address her as Mrs. or Miss."^ 
 
 ^"Marriage as a Trade/' Cicely Hamilton, New York, Moffat, 
 Yard & Co., 1909, pp. 2 and 3. 
 I 1 
 
2 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 The bachelor girl, then, is not a failure because she 
 is unattached; she fails only when she ceases to be 
 a woman. 
 
 A woman, in twentieth-century America, is looked 
 upon as a complete physical and mental organism, 
 which can exist and function without the active aid 
 of man. The American Woman is an individual. 
 Her capacities, attributes and powers are her own — 
 to be employed and used by her as she in her freedom 
 of choice, may elect. This transformation of Woman, 
 from a male attachment into an individual being 
 with free choice, removes her from the slough of 
 contumely and oblivion in which she struggled so 
 long, and places her in the line of evolutionary 
 progress. 
 
 The objective point of evolution, if evolution can 
 be said to have an objective point, seems to be an 
 individual of high type. Among the lower forms 
 of life, the individual disappears in the mass. As 
 the higher forms of animal life are approached, the 
 individual enjoys an increasing period of protected 
 youth; until among men, the offspring is carefully 
 guarded against the possibility of harm during, a period 
 ranging, in civilized society, from ten to twenty-five 
 years. A contrast with savagery and barbarism shows 
 that civilization is a process of lengthening youth. 
 Long youth means long life. The prolongation of 
 youth results in greater individualization. Hence" civil- 
 ized man, the supreme product of the ages, is more 
 intensely individualized than any other being. 
 
WOMAN AN INDIVIDUAL 3 
 
 The race, superficially regarded, might be placed be- 
 fore the individual, yet when the individual is con- 
 sidered in his true light — as handing down tendencies 
 and characteristics from one generation to the next, 
 the race appears only as a continuous aggregation of 
 individuals. "The race or species becomes an ideal, 
 an abstract conception, and the individual the only 
 thing that is real."* In such terms nineteeilth-century 
 philosophy and science express their great contri- 
 bution to modern thought — the individual is all im- 
 portant; the individual is the race. 
 
 For the npst part, however, the individual which 
 these men had in mind was not an individual member 
 of society but an individual man. Woman in the 
 nineteenth-century scheme of things was popularly 
 disregarded; even to-day the commonly accepted view 
 makes the individual man the centre of the universe, 
 and places woman in a secondary position. Appear- 
 ing in the form of social and sociologic theories, this 
 concept becomes the view "that all things centre . . . 
 about man, and that woman, though necessary to 
 the work of reproduction, is only a means of con- 
 tinuing the human race, but is otherwise an unim- 
 portant accessory, and incidental factor in the general 
 result."^ Were this assumption correct, a study of 
 society and of social forces would consist, as it has 
 in all historic times, in an analysis of the doings of 
 
 ' "Pure Sociology," Lester F. Ward, New York, The Macmillan 
 Co., 1903. P- 291, 
 'Ibid., p. 292. 
 
4 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 men only, since woman, apart from her reproductive 
 function, could not be expected to take any share in 
 directing Social Progress. 
 
 During the past few decades, however, individualism 
 has advanced from the discovery of the individual man 
 to the discovery of the individual woman. Woman 
 herself has not been content with her position of 
 alleged inferiority; neither were those scientists who 
 viewed the subject in its broadest phases content to 
 leave her there. 
 
 Perhaps her apparent inferiority was the product 
 of her inferior position in the past. It was while 
 working on such a hypothesis that John Stuart Mill 
 penned his essay on the Subjection of Women, and 
 Lester F. Ward wrote the epoch-making chapter 
 fourteen of his "Pure Sociology," in which he clearly 
 shows that the apparent inferiority of women is the 
 result of age-long subjection. This subjection, 
 "a pure product of human reason, untempered by 
 altruistic sentiments," has persisted since the evolution 
 of man's reasoning faculty told him that, being the 
 stronger physical organism," he could use woman for 
 the gratification of his passions, and forte her to do 
 his work. The opening of this epoch of woman's 
 subjection is thus described by Ward — "In our long 
 . . . journey down the stream of time we have now 
 reached the darkest spot, and fain would I omit its 
 description were this not to leave a blank in the story." 
 Then follows this well known quotation from Herbert 
 Spencer — "In the history of humanity as written, the 
 
WOMAN — AN INDIVIDUAL 5 
 
 saddest part concerns the treatment of women; and 
 had we before us its unwritten history we should 
 find this part still sadder. I say the saddest part 
 because, though there have been many things more 
 conspicuously dreadful — cannibalism, the torturings 
 of prisoners, the sacrificings of victims to ghosts and 
 gods-^these have been but occasional; whereas the 
 brutal treatment of woman has been universal and 
 constant," and "almost beyond imagination." 
 
 "The general fidelity of this picture," comments 
 Ward, "cannot be questioned, but ... I must pro- 
 test against the term 'brutal' as characterizing the 
 treatment of woman by man. Far too many human 
 sins are attributed to the brute that still lurks in man, 
 but in this case it is flagrantly unjust to do this, 
 since no male brute maltreats the female, and the 
 abuse of females by males is an exclusively human 
 virtue."^ 
 
 Woman's subject position in the past is therefore 
 due to the physical dominance of man. Woman's in- 
 feriority, says Condorcet, "has had no other origin 
 than the abuse of power" by men. The inferiority 
 of women to men who ill used and enslaved them may, 
 in reality, be no greater than the inferiority of the 
 Early Christians to Nero and to Pretorians, who 
 threw them to the lions. 
 
 Man, however, seeks to justify his dominance. In 
 literature, in poetry, in science, he urges his prerog- 
 atives. "The Mohametan, for instance, after careful 
 
 '■Supra, pp. 346-7. 
 
6 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 observation from his point of view, decided that she 
 was flesh without a soul. . . The early fathers of 
 the church, who were in the habit of giving troubled 
 and nervous consideration to the subject, denounced 
 her at spasmodic intervals as sin personified."^ An 
 excellent example of this denunciation appears in "The 
 Witch Hammer" a fifteenth-century book, published 
 with the sanction of Pope Innocent VIII. After citing 
 the temptations of Solomon by women, the book con- 
 tinues: "Since she was formed of a crooked rib, 
 her entire spiritual nature has been distorted and 
 inclined more toward sin than virtue."^ Chrysostom, 
 one of the fathers of the early Church, is quoted as 
 saying: "What is woman but an enemy of friendship, 
 an unavoidable punishment, a necessary evil, a natural 
 temptation, a desirable afifiliction, a constantly flowing 
 source of tears, a wicked work of nature covered with 
 a shining varnish."' 
 
 The picture is rounded out by a remark attributed 
 to Tiberius Gracchus : "If we could do without wives, 
 we should be rid of that nuisance; but since nature 
 has decreed that we can neither live comfortably with 
 them nor live at all without them we must even look 
 rather to our permanent interests than to a passing 
 pleasure."* 
 
 '"Marriage as a Trade," Cicely Hamilton, New York, Moffat, 
 Yard & Co., igog, p. ii. 
 
 ' "Pure Sociology," Lester F. Ward, New York, The Macmillan 
 Co., igo3, p. 365. 
 
 * Idem. 
 
 * "Social Life at Rome," W. W. Fowler, New York, Macmil- 
 lan Co., igog, p. 150. 
 
WOMAN — AN INDIVIDUAL 7 
 
 In literature the same denunciation of woman ap- 
 pears. Andrew McPhail, a modern essayist, writes: 
 "A man expects very little of a woman, nothing 
 more than that she shall willingly receive kindness 
 at his hands, that she will permit herself to be loved."* 
 Nietzsche expresses the same view even more strongly. 
 "Let woman be a toy, pure and delicate like a jewel." 
 "Man's happiness is: 'I will.' Woman's happiness 
 is: 'He will.'" "Thou gdest to women? Remember 
 thy whip!" "Women are still always cats and birds, 
 or, in the best case, cows."^ 
 
 Scientists compare men and women as to their 
 physical characteristics, their mental attributes and 
 their moral qualities. They find that men can lift 
 a greater number of pounds of lead, that they have 
 a broader capacity for generalization, and a keener 
 sense of justice than women. All of which being 
 proved, the scientist concludes, ridiculously enough, 
 that men are "better" than women, or that they are 
 "superior" to women. Pray, why not conclude that 
 the sunrise is more beautiful than the sunset, because 
 it comes first; or that the peacock is more beautiful 
 than the bird of paradise, because it is larger. Just 
 as all roads lead to Rome, so all arguments lead to 
 the conclusion that men are the superior and women 
 the inferior creatures. 
 
 Not only are such deductions unjustified by 
 
 * "Essays in Fallacy," Andrew McPhail, New York, Longmans, 
 Green & Co., igio, p. 49. 
 
 •"Thus Spake Zarathustra," F. Nietzsche, "Of a Friend," 
 and "Little Women Old and Young." 
 
8 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 the data on which they are based, but all comparisons 
 between the sexes are obviously futile. Even the 
 scientists agree to disagree among themselves. Have- 
 lock Ellis, after an exhaustive analysis of the entire 
 subject,^ concludes that men depart farther from the 
 normal than women, hence men are more variable; 
 but Professor Karl Pearson, after a thorough dis- 
 tussion of the same subject,'' decides that women vary 
 more than men. The whole discussion is similar to 
 that oft quoted high school debate, "Which is more 
 useful, gold or iron," or that no less grotesque subject 
 "Resolved that Washington was a greater man than 
 Lincoln." Both "useful" and "great" are relative 
 terms and withal so elastic and meaningless that 
 neither connotes any definite concept. Exactly the 
 same thing holds true of the statements regarding the 
 relative "goodness," "superiority" or "importance" of 
 men and women. One might \vith equal facility refer 
 to the usefulness of gold versus iron; the greatness 
 of Washington versus Lincoln; or the genius of a 
 painter versus that of a poet. Men and women are 
 different. Certain characteristics are more strongly 
 marked in men than in women; certain others are 
 more strongly marked in women than in men; but 
 concepts of "better" or "worse," "superior" or "in- 
 ferior" are, as Havelock Ellis puts it, "absolutely futile 
 
 •"Man and Woman," Havelock Ellis, London, Scott Pub. Co., 
 4th Ed., 1904, Ch. 16. 
 
 '"Chances of Death,'' Karl Pearson, London, Edward Arnold, 
 X897, Vol. I, pp. 375-6. 
 
WOMAN — ^AN INDIVIDUAL 9 
 
 and foolish." Hence they have no place in our dis- 
 cussion. 
 
 In this discussion of Woman and Social Progress, 
 we are not at all concerned with the relation of 
 woman's capacity to man's, but with the relation of 
 her capacity to her opportunities and to her achieve- 
 ment. If it can be shown that women have capacity, 
 it matters not a whit whether that capacity be equal 
 to man's, inferior, or superior. If women have capa- 
 city; if they are capable of achievement; then they 
 can, as individuals, play a part in the drama of life. 
 The world abounds in work, a great deal of which 
 will not be done at all unless it is done by women. 
 If it can be shown that women have capacity for 
 work, every relation of social justice and every need 
 of Social Progress demand that this opportunity and 
 this capacity be correlated in such a manner as to 
 insure women's achievement. In the succeeding 
 chapters we shall attempt to prove that women's 
 capacity, if combined with opportunity, will neces- 
 sarily result in achievement; that, therefore they 
 should take their places as individuals in the vanguard 
 of an advancing civilization. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 woman's biologic capacity 
 
 Woman's Capacity for assisting in Social Progress 
 may be stated in terms of her biologic capacity — 
 that is, her capacity as a living member of the human 
 species; or it may be stated in terms of her personal 
 capacity — that is, her capacity as an individual member 
 of society. Biologically, woman is one unit in the 
 race of man, receiving from the past, and transmitting 
 to the future, the life and the race characteristics 
 with which she is endowed. Personally, woman is 
 an Individual Member of a social group, surrounded 
 by institutions and traditions — living as an integral 
 part of the society into which she is born. 
 
 What is the character of Woman's Biologic and 
 Personal Capacity? Biologically, "the female not only 
 typifies the race but metaphor aside she IS the race," 
 writes Lester F. Ward in the most significant of all 
 his books.^ Looked at therefore, from a racial stand- 
 point, woman occupies a position of supreme import- 
 ance to Social Progress. Since she is the race, she 
 
 • "Pure Sociology," Lester F. Ward, New York, The Macmillan 
 Co., igo3, p. 322. 
 
 10 
 
woman's biologic capacity II 
 
 determines the race characteristics that shall be trans- 
 mitted to the future.^ 
 
 Each generation is born anew — ^born to women. 
 While it must accept the social institutions which it 
 discovers, modifying them as best it may to fulfil its 
 purposes, the generation comes into the world with 
 certain characteristics which are typical of the race 
 to which that generation belongs. If the modern 
 biologists are not in error, the female transmits a 
 majority of these race characteristics. 
 
 There are certain elements persistent in every race. 
 Although Ripley's "Races of Europe" throws discredit 
 on the old theory of superior and inferior races, it 
 clearly points to the prevalence of certain character- 
 istics which typify a racial group. For example, our 
 Teutonic ancestors were fair-haired and blue-eyed, tall 
 and long-headed. In direct contrast were the Italians 
 — ^brunettes, short and round-headed. Though these 
 superficial race characteristics are far less significant 
 than such fundamental qualities as aggressiveness, 
 co-operative capacity, the instinct for democracy, they 
 nevertheless indicate the nature of race differences. 
 The really fundamental racial qualities cannot be 
 measured or compared at all, yet their presence or 
 absence determines the ascendancy or decadence of 
 the race in question. These racial qualities^ whether 
 superficial or fundamental, are contributed to the 
 
 'For a very emphatic, though somewhat unscientific statement 
 of this problem, see "Woman and Womanhood," C. W. Saleeby, 
 New York, Kennerley, 19 ii. 
 
12 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 race primarily by woman. The far-reaching conse- 
 quences of this statement warrant some elaboration. 
 
 The most primitive forms of biologic life are per- 
 petuated asexually — ^there is neither male rior female. 
 The cells increase by "budding" or "division." Among 
 slightly higher forms of life, the creature has within 
 itself both the fertilized (female) and the fertilizing 
 (male) elements. Throughout the lower forms of 
 life "The female is the fertile sex, and whatever is 
 fertile is looked upon as female. . . . Biologists have 
 proceeded from this popular standpoint and regularly 
 speak of 'mother cells' and 'daughter cells.' It there- 
 fore does no violence to language or to science to say 
 that life begins with the female organism and is 
 carried on a long distance by means of females alone. 
 ... In a word, life begins as female. The female 
 sex, which existed from the beginning, continues un- 
 changed, but the male sex, which did not exist at 
 the beginning, makes its appearance at a certain stage. 
 . . . There are probably many more living beings 
 without it than with it. . . . The female is not only 
 the primary and original sex, but continues through- 
 out as the main trunk. The male ... is a mere after- 
 thought of nature. Moreover, the male sex was at 
 first for a long period, and still is, throughout many of 
 the lower orders of beings, devoted exclusively to the 
 function for which it was created, viz. that of fertiliza- 
 tion. Among millions of humble creatures the male is 
 simply and solely a fertilizer."^ 
 
 ^ Supra, pp. 313-14- 
 
WOITAN S BIOLOGIC CAPACITY I3 
 
 Thus among the lower orders of life, the female 
 is the only creature; a little further on bisexualism 
 replaces asexualism, but the female remains the 
 dominant factor. . . . "In insects generally the males 
 are smaller than the females, . . . There are many 
 species and even genera belonging to different orders, 
 in which the male, usually smaller and more slender, 
 is either not provided with any functional organs for 
 .eating, or has these so imperfectly developed that it 
 seems improbable that it succeeds in sustaining life 
 beyond the period that the nourishment stored up in 
 the larval state will continue it."^ The female, in 
 the lower forms of life, is either alone in her glory 
 or else dominant. The more highly evolved forms 
 of life show the male larger and stronger than the 
 female, yet even here the female is still the race. 
 The male has entered the field; he may be larger; 
 he may have a sweeter voice or a prettier coat; but 
 it is to the female that nature looks for race con- 
 servation. 
 
 The human species constitutes no exception to the 
 general rule of the primal nature of the female. "With 
 each generation the entire human race passes through 
 the body of its womanhood as through a mold, re- 
 appearing with the indelible marks of that mold upon 
 it. . . . The intellectual capacity, the physical vigor, 
 the emotional depth of woman, form also an untrans- 
 cendable circle, circumscribing with each successive 
 generation the limits of the expansion of the human 
 
 * Supra, p. 217. 
 
14 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 race."* The female is biologically dominant. Woman 
 is the race. Can it then be shown that the success 
 or failure of a race varies with the success or failure 
 of its women? 
 
 There are several important elements in woman's 
 contribution to race progress that stand out very 
 clearly : 
 
 1. Woman is nearer to race type than man. 
 
 2. She is less specialized than man. 
 
 3. She is biologically more conservative than man. 
 The successful demonstration of these three points 
 
 will prove beyond cavil that we must look to woman 
 primarily for the biologic qualities of the Super Man 
 and the Super Race. 
 
 What is the race type? The processes of evolution 
 seem to be working toward a human creature with 
 a large brain, a small face, round trunk, weak limbs 
 and delicate bones — a hairless creature, almost per- 
 fectly typified by the human infant. The adult man 
 is very far from human race type. It is a gross 
 mistake to assume that adult development and evo- 
 lutionary perfection are synonymous. In ikct the 
 adult human male is biologically "a trifle senile, if 
 not decadent."^ This senility comes only with ma- 
 turity. There is little apparent difference between 
 the intellectual capacity of the children of different 
 races, but a marked intellectual difference among the 
 
 •"Woman and Labor," Olive Schreiner, New York, F. A. 
 Stokes Co., igii, pp. 130-1. 
 
 ""Adolescence," G. Stanley Hall, New York, D. Appleton & 
 Co., 1904, Vol. II, p. s6i. 
 
WOMAN S BIOLOGIC CAPACITY 1 5 
 
 adults of these races.^ Furthermore, men of genius 
 approximate to the child type. "The Greeks were 
 always children," and they were frequently geniuses. 
 Thus the child type is the race type, and clearly rep- 
 resents the goal of organic evolution.^ 
 
 And Woman? She is a close approximation to the 
 child. "She bears the special characteristics of 
 humanity in a higher degree than man. . . . She 
 represents, more nearly than man, the human type 
 to which man is approximating."* The child, holding 
 to the race type, gives an indication of the probable 
 line of development of the human race. Woman, 
 very unspecialized, and hence near to the child type, 
 is nearer to race type, and more typical of the race- 
 evolution of the future. 
 
 Stated differently, woman is, from the race stand- 
 point, less specialized than man. If it were possible 
 to draw a line, representing normality, women would 
 vary less from the line than men. There would be 
 fewer geniuses and fewer defectives among women. 
 The woman, less highly developed, that is, nearer to 
 the race type, possesses less of the peculiar character- 
 istics, whether for good or for evil, which characterize 
 men.* 
 
 ' "Man and Woman/' Havelock Ellis, London, Scott Pub. Co., 
 Fourth Edition, 1904, pp. 44s -7. 
 
 'Ibid., Chapter XVIII. 
 
 'Ibid., p. 447. 
 
 *"Man and Woman," Havelock Ellis, London, Scott Pub. Co., 
 Fourth Edition, 1904. Chapter XVI. An excellent discussion 
 of the relative variability of men and women. 
 
i6 WOMAN And social progress 
 
 Since women are less specialized they are more 
 conservative. That is, they have more of a tendency 
 to adhere to the past, and less incUnation to branch 
 out in new directions. Havelock Ellis observes "in 
 women, as in females generally, an organic tendency 
 to stability and conservatism."^ After discussing at 
 sofne length the variation of the male. Ward writes — 
 "Females cannot thus vary. They represent the centre 
 of gravity of the biological system. They are that 
 'stubborn power of permanency' of which Goethe 
 speaks."^ G. Stanley Hall quotes with approval the 
 statements of W. K. Brooks that women are "devoted 
 to keeping what has been acquired by successive 
 generations as new layers of snow are added to 
 glaciers. . . . Her mind is more than that of man, 
 essentially an organ of heredity."* Women conserve 
 the characteristics of the race and transmit them 
 through heredity to the future generations. 
 
 From an evolutionary standpoint the female neces- 
 sarily represents the characteristics of the race. "A 
 species in which the maternal half exhibited a general 
 inferiority of vital functions could scarcely survive."* 
 Negatively this is true. Without a dominant woman- 
 hood, race progress would be impossible. Positively, 
 
 ^ Supra, p. 425. 
 
 '"Pure Sociology," L. F. Ward, New York, The Macmillan 
 Co., 1903, p. 322-3. 
 
 '"Adolescence," G. Stanley Hall, New York, Appleton & Co., 
 1908, Vol. II, p. 567. 
 
 *"Man and Woman," Havelock Ellis, London, Scott Pub. Co., 
 Fourth Ed., 1904, p. 449. 
 
WOMAN S BIOLOGIC CAPACITY I7 
 
 woman "is at the top of the human curve from which 
 the higher superman of the future is to evolve. . . . 
 Her whole soul, conscious and unconscious, is best 
 conceived as a magnificent organ of heredity."^ 
 
 Again, we write, "Woman is the race." She is less 
 specialized, hence nearer to race type, more typical 
 of the race, and therefore prepared to transmit to 
 future generations the characteristics of the race to 
 which she belongs. To women primarily the race 
 must look for its biologic progress. Whether she 
 wills it or not, the responsibility is cast upon her 
 shoulders, because she is female rather than male. 
 Conserving as she does the qualities which have been 
 developed and handed down from the past, she is 
 prepared, far more fully than the male, to transmit 
 these qualities to the future. 
 
 '"Adolescence," G. S. Hall, New York, D. Appleton & Co., 
 1908, pp. 561-2. 
 
 Note. — Some biologists carry the doctrine of female import- 
 ance so far as to maintain that femaleness is maleness plu^ 
 something. "The evidence for this view," writes Professor 
 Thomas H. Montgomery, Jr., "comes from the study of the 
 germ cells of a number of dififerent animals in which it has 
 been shown, as a rule, that when there is a difference in the 
 number of chromosomes in egg cells and sperm cells, the 
 number is generally less in the sperm cells. For these reasons 
 one may well regard male individuals as female individuals 
 lacking certain qualities." 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE PERSONAL CAPACITY OF WOMAN 
 
 iBiOLOGiCALLY, Woman plays a unique part in race 
 progress. Personally, her capacity for Social Prog- 
 ress, though far less unique, is quite distinctive. 
 
 Physically women have certain definitely marked 
 characteristics. In stature, lifting strength, strength 
 of arms and legs, and cranial capacity, they are 
 decidedly inferior to men. Havelock Ellis thus 
 characterizes woman's physique as compared to man's : 
 "The man is larger, with certain tendency to rugged 
 though not unbeautiful outline which conveys an 
 impression of energy; his bony prominences are 
 usually more conspicuous, and his muscles are every- 
 where more clearly defined. The woman is smaller 
 and more delicately made; the bony points are less 
 clearly seen, and the muscles, even although they may 
 be powerful, are softly encased in abundant connective 
 tissue which makes them less obvious. The man's 
 form is erect and closely knit; the woman's is more 
 uneven, with large hips and flowing protuberant 
 curves of breast and abdomen and flanks. While the 
 man's form seems to be instinctively seeking action, 
 the woman's falls naturally into a state of comparative 
 
 i8 
 
THE PERSONAL CAPACITY OF WOMAN IQ 
 
 repose, and seems to find satisfaction in an attitude 
 of overthrow."* 
 
 For heavy lifting and carrying, woman is really 
 unfitted physically (though how far this is due to 
 hereditary characteristics, and how far to the lack of 
 legitimate exercise is still an open question).^ A 
 collection of scientific data relative to the keenness 
 of sense perception (touch, sight, smell and hearing) 
 leads to no definite conclusions. Apparently, there 
 are no marked sexual differences in the sense ca;pacity 
 of women and men.^ But for intellectual work, which 
 is the really important occupation of modern society, 
 woman may be as well fitted as man. Certainly the 
 size of her head has little or nothing to do with the 
 problem. "Popularly, a large head with beetling 
 eyebrows suffices to establish a man's intellectual 
 credit ; but like all other credit, it is entirely dependent 
 on what lies upon deposit elsewhere. Neither size nor 
 weight of the brain seems to be of importance."* 
 
 Women, therefore, possess a definite quota of 
 measurable physical capacity. They can lift, carry, 
 walk; they have all of the ordinary organs required 
 for physical exertion, beside the brain convolutions 
 necessary for thought and decision. 
 
 '"Man and Woman," Havelock Ellis, London, W. Scott, Ltd., 
 1897, pp. 31-2. 
 
 '"Woman's Share in Primitive Culture," Otis F. Mason, New 
 York, Appleton, 1900, Chap. VI. 
 
 • "Man and Woman," Havelock Ellis, London, Scott Pub. Co., 
 Fourth Ed., 1904. Chap. VL 
 
 * "The Races of Europe," Wm. Z, Ripley, New York, D. Apple, 
 ton & Co., 1S99, p. 43 
 
20 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 The objective measures of physical capacity — 
 longevity, vitality, and endurance — are possessed by 
 women to a marked degree. Although, in the United 
 States 105 boys are born to every 100 girls, after 
 the first two years there are more girls alive than boys. 
 All available statistics show a greater length of life 
 among women than among men.* 
 
 The remarkably high vitality of women is evinced 
 by their ability to withstand severe surgical operations 
 and to resist the effects of disease. On the whole, 
 women are less liable to most diseases than are men.* 
 G. Stanley Hall thus summarizes woman's vitality 
 in comparison to man's — "He is more prone than 
 she to rheumatism, cancer, brain troubles, sudden death 
 from internal or external causes, can less survive 
 severe surgical operations and grows old more rapidly ; 
 his hair is gray earlier and he is more prone to loss 
 of sight, hearing, memory, senile irritability, tCr 
 deformities and anomalies, is less hardy and less 
 resembles children."' The vitality of women is there- 
 fore coipparatively very great. 
 
 Women are capable of great endurance. Man is 
 a more specialized instrument for motion, quickness 
 on his feet, with a longer reach, and fitted for bursts 
 of energy; while woman has a greater fund of stored 
 
 •"National Vitality," Irving Fisher, 6ist Congress, Second 
 Session, Senate Doc. 419, 1910, pp. 16 and 18. 
 
 '"Man and Woman," Havelock Ellis, London, Scott Pub. Co., 
 Fourth Ed., p. 449. 
 
 '"Adolescence," G. S. Hall, New York, D. Appleton & Co., 
 1908, Vol. II, p. 563. 
 
THE PERSONAL CAPACITY OF WOMAN 21 
 
 energy and is consequently more fitted for endurance. 
 This capacity for endurance is of peculiar importance 
 because of the recent development of specialization, 
 particularly in industry where it is no longer necessary 
 to master an entire trade. Apprenticeship has been 
 replaced by short-term "learning." A girl who enters 
 the factory to-day can, in the course of a few weeks, 
 or at most a few months, become thoroughly ac- 
 quainted with all of the duties connected with her 
 particular task. After she has learned, it is endurance 
 rather than skill that counts. This is true, not only 
 of industry, but of scientific work as well. "In many 
 of the new fields opening in biology, in embryology, 
 botany, the study of children, animals, savages, 
 sociological investigation, to say nothing of all the 
 vast body of work that required painstaking detail, 
 perseverance, and conscience, woman has superior 
 ability.'"- 
 
 In short, the development of the past century has 
 opened up great reaches of opportunity, which are in 
 every way adapted to the special aptitudes of women. 
 Science and invention have thus paved the way. To 
 follow the lines of activity opened by these new 
 scientific developments, women have a definite physical 
 capacity which expresses itself primarily in longevity, 
 vitality and endurance, a triune of survival qualities 
 which are indispensable in the modern struggle for 
 recognition. 
 
 Thus women have a physical capacity which will 
 
 ^ Supra, pp. 634-s. 
 
 \ 
 
22 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 enable them to do their part of the world's work. 
 Can the same be said of their mental ability? 
 
 Neither head-size nor brain weight are important 
 factors, since scientific opinion emphasizes the quality 
 rather than the quantity of brain tissue. In so far 
 as any judgment may be made, regarding women's 
 mental capacity, G. Stanley Hall writes: "Woman 
 has rapid tact in extricating herself from difficulties; 
 girls speak quicker than boys, old women are likely 
 to be talkative, old men glum; men progress most 
 after graduation; women are very prone, to lose 
 accomplishments and special culture and training, are 
 more punctual in school and college, more regular 
 in attendance and in higher grades have the best 
 marks, but vary less from the average; they excel 
 in mental reproduction rather than in production; 
 are superior in arts of conversation, more conser- 
 vative and less radical; their vasomotor system is 
 more excitable, they are more emotional, blush and 
 cry easier ; are more often hypnotized ; quicker to take 
 suggestions, have most sympathy, pity, charity, gener- 
 osity, and superstitions."^ There seems to be little 
 question of the marked capacity of women to memorize 
 quickly," but as to the breadth of their mental grasp 
 there is considerable dispute. For the minutia of 
 intellectual work, they have a peculiar aptitude; 
 "woman excels in quick 'apprehension of wholes;"* 
 
 '"Adolescence," G. S. Hall, New York, D. Appleton & Co., 
 1908, Vol. II, p. s66. 
 'Ibid., p. 620. 
 'Ibid., p. 565. 
 
THE PERSONAL CAPACITY OF WOMAN 23 
 
 but the capacity for abstractly planning large enter- 
 prises is apparently lacking in the feminine mind. 
 "Abstract thought in women seems usually to be 
 marked by a certain docility and receptiveness." 
 Women lack initiative and aggressiveness in enforc- 
 ing their abstractions. I think we may agree that, 
 as Burdach said long ago, "women take truth as they 
 find it, while men want to create truth. ... It is dif- 
 ficult to recall examples of women who have patiently 
 and slowly fought their way at once to perfection and 
 to fame in the face of complete indifference, like, for 
 instance, Balzac. ... It is still more difficult to recall 
 a woman who for any abstract and intellectual end, has 
 fought her way to success through oblocjuy and con- 
 tempt, or without reaching success, like a Roger Bacon, 
 or a Galileo, a Wagner or an Ibsen."^ 
 
 Men ordinarily reach judgments through logic: 
 women through intuition.^ The former method is 
 deliberate, the latter agile. Undoubtedly the mascu- 
 line method of thought is better suited to the con- 
 struction and maintenance of a great industrial enter- 
 prise, but on the other hand, the woman's intuitive 
 grasp of situations enables her to understand more 
 readily both situations and people. 
 
 Achievement in the fields demanding peculiarly high 
 intellectual power, — art, literature, music, drama, 
 scientific discovery, invention, — has in the past been 
 confined almost wholly to men, although a few women 
 
 ""Man and Woman," H. Ellis, London, Scott Pub. Co., 1897, 
 p. 18S-6. 
 
 'Ibid., p. 174. 
 
24 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 have won universal recognition, George Eliot, and 
 George Sand, Rosa Bonheur and Mrs. Browning have 
 acquired international fame through their creative 
 work. It nevertheless remains generally true that the 
 art, literature, discoveries and achievements of the 
 nineteenth century were in almost all cases masculine. 
 The cause of this absence of the feminine in construc- 
 tive achievement will be discussed in the following 
 chapter. Its truth is obvious. 
 
 Thus, in those mental processes which require quick 
 perception, women extel, while in the fields demand- 
 ing bold, constructive thought, men dominate. If our 
 analysis in the preceding chapter was correct — if men 
 vary more from race type than women, this dominance 
 of man in the field of constructive intellectual work is 
 exactly what might have been anticipated. 
 
 Turning now to the third field of activity, the field 
 to which, for want of a better word, the term "meta- 
 physical" has been applied, we find women occupying 
 a peculiarly significant position. To physical capacity 
 and mental grasp women add a remarkable develop- 
 ment of sympathy, intuition and insight into situations 
 chapter. The facts are obvious. 
 
 After discussing at length the past subjection of 
 women, Olive Schreiner writes : — "We have no certain 
 proof that it is so at present: but, if woman's long 
 years of servitude and physical subjection, and her 
 experience as child-bearer and protector of infancy, 
 should, in any way, be found in the future to have 
 endowed her, as a kind of secondary sexual charac- 
 
THE PERSONAL CAPACITY OF WOMAN 2$ 
 
 teristic, with any exceptional width of human sym- 
 pathy and any instinctive comprehension; then, in the 
 ages that are coming, woman as woman, and by right 
 of that wherein she differs from the male, will have an 
 all-important part to play in the activity of the race."^ 
 
 The existence of this quality of sympathy is recog- 
 nized by Ward, who writes that the relation of the 
 female to her offspring gave to the human race its 
 first touch of sympathy, which "though in itself an 
 entirely different faculty, early blended with, or helped 
 to create, the derivative reason-born faculty of altru- 
 ism."'' Through the development and expansion of 
 this sympathy — altruism early results in a recognition 
 of woman's metaphysical capacity. "It is peculiar and 
 significant that everywhere and always she has been 
 tacitly credited with a certain mysterious power of 
 which the world has, as it were, stood in awe and fear. 
 While perpetually proclaiming her inferiority, insignifi- 
 cance, and weakness, it has by its precautions virtually 
 recognized her potential importance and real strength."' 
 One of the latest manifestations of the world's attitude 
 toward this problem appears in the witch burnings 
 which persisted even in Colonial America. 
 
 The intuition, or insight, so peculiar to women, 
 results in decisions, not based on logicj which are 
 remarkably unerring. A business man said to me 
 
 '"Woman and Labor,'' O. Schreiner, New York, F. A. Stokes 
 Co., 191 1, pp. 224-27. 
 
 *"Pure Sociology," L. F. Ward, New York, The Macmillan Co., 
 1903, p. 424- 
 
 *Jbid., p. 369. 
 
26 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 recently: "I never enter into a serious business rela- 
 tion, without taking home to dinner the man with 
 whom I am dealing, in order to secure my wife's opin- 
 ion of him. Tlje only time I didn't do that, I suffered 
 a very severe financial loss, which taught me a lesson 
 that I shall not soon forget." Here is one instance of 
 the frank recognition, by a keen business man, of the 
 superior worth of a woman's intuitive judgment of an 
 unknown situation. 
 
 Perhaps the most significant phase of the whole 
 subject of woman's personal capacity is her power of 
 inspiration. The thought has been so misused, and 
 degraded that one mentions it hesitatingly, yet rightly 
 treated it represents a deeply significant concept. 
 
 When cases of doubt arise, the French at once say, 
 "Cherchez la femme" (Look for the woman). An 
 investigation will show a remarkably broad field to 
 which this principle will apply. It has been true that 
 up to this point in the world's history, creative work 
 has been largely done by men, yet a careful reading of 
 biography will show behind almost every great man 
 an inspiring woman. Though Galton writes of genius 
 ("Hereditary Genius," Francis Galton) as if it were 
 the product of heredity from father to son, a careful 
 study of the lives of Galton's geniuses shows the 
 dominant influence of many women. Indeed, Galton 
 himself' recognizes this truth. "It therefore appears 
 to be very important to success in science, that a man 
 should have an able mother."^ The best of poetry, the 
 
 » "Hereditary Genius," Francis Galton, New and Revised Edition. 
 New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1879, p. 196. 
 
THE PERSONAL CAPACITY OF WOMAN 27 
 
 noblest of art and literature, even the achievements of 
 science and industry seem to be animated in a marked 
 degree by women. The work was masculine, the con- 
 structor was a man, but the motive power behind the 
 man who built was a woman. Prosaically enough G. 
 Stanley Hall remarks : "Women must be stewardesses 
 of the mysteries of appropriate human life, so that 
 aspiration for its adornments be not arrested. Men 
 are weak in spiritual elements which college women 
 may enforce."^ 
 
 Perhaps Ruskin is right in his analysis of the rela- 
 tion of women to the world's progress. After describ- 
 ing the power of Shakespeare's and Scott's women, 
 the Egyptians who "gave to their spirit of wisdom the 
 form of a woman," the Athena of the Greeks "to whose 
 faith you owe, down to this date, whatever you hold 
 most precious in art, in literature, or in types of 
 national virtue," Ruskin continues: "I will ask you 
 whether it can be supposed that these men, in the main 
 work of their lives, are amusing themselves with a 
 fictitious and idle view of the relations between man 
 and woman ; — nay, worse than fictitious or idle ; for a 
 thing may be imaginary yet desirable, if it were pos- 
 sible; but this, their ideal of women, is, according to 
 our common idea of the marriage relation, wholly 
 undesirable. The woman, we say, is not to guide, nor 
 even to think, for herself. The man is always to be 
 the wiser, he is to be the thinker, the ruler, the superior 
 
 » "Adolescence," G. S. Hall, New York, D. Appleton Co., 1908, 
 Vol. II, p. 583. 
 
28 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 in knowledge and discretion, as in power. Is it not 
 somewhat important to make up our minds on this 
 matter? Are all these great men mistaken, or are we? 
 Are Shakespeare and ^schylus, Dante and Homer, 
 merely dressing dolls for us; or, worse than dolls, 
 unnatural visions, the realization of which, were it 
 possible, would bring anarchy into all households and 
 ruin into all affections?"^ 
 
 '"Sesame and Lilies," John Ruskin, 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 A CAPACITY BASIS FOR ACHIEVEMENT 
 
 If the analyses in the three preceding chapters are 
 correct; if it is true that biologically and personally, 
 women possess marked, and in some particulars, even 
 unique capacity; then there exists in women a power 
 which, coupled with opportunity, assures them a part 
 in the world's achievement. 
 
 Both capacity and opportunity are necessary for 
 achievement. Thomas A. Edison, living on an island 
 in the South Pacific, without the appliances of modern 
 society, could not duplicate his industrial triumphs. 
 The opportunity to work is no less necessary than the 
 capacity for work. Both definitely limit achievement. 
 
 Achievement is of primary importance. Our mea- 
 sures of men are of necessity made in terms of achieve- 
 ment. We think of Michael Angelo in terms of Art, 
 of Shelley in terms of Poetry. ' Michael Angelo and 
 Shelley might have lived their lives in Labrador and 
 been unheard of, but because one lived in artistic Italy 
 and the other in liberty-loving England, they made an 
 impress on the thought of the world. 
 
 This statement is no less true of women than it is of 
 men. "Women have taken little part in the history of 
 the race," you protest. True they have not even writ- 
 
 89 
 
30 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 ten about it. If they had, history might read differ- 
 ently. History, as written, is a record of masculine 
 achievement, — ^wars, battles, intrigues and dynasties 
 constitute the great bulk of historic data. In these, it 
 is true, the women played little part. 
 
 Neither have women made literature, nor painted, 
 nor carved, nor discovered, nor invented. But was 
 opportunity open to them? What has been the posir 
 tion of women during the last ten centuries ? 
 
 With but few exceptions, since the dawn of human 
 intellect, women have apparently been in subjection — 
 physically, politically and socially. Some boys were 
 born into a world of achievement, but all girls were 
 born into a world of subjection. From their cradles 
 they were taught their subject position — taught in 
 terms that permitted of no gainsaying. Women must 
 obey; must conform; must follow the precepts laid 
 down by men. 
 
 Is it true that men have broader mental reach, and 
 that they think more fully? We can arrive at a ten- 
 tative conclusion by analyzing history. Yet historical 
 analysis is necessarily inconclusive because, while our 
 basis of judgipent in history is achievement, women 
 have been denied, throughout historic epochs, any 
 opportunity which might lead them to achieve. 
 
 That women can and do achieve in the presence of 
 opportunity is affirmed by Ward, who writes: "The 
 universal prevalence of the androcentric world view, 
 shared by men and women alike, acts as a wet blanket 
 on all the genial fire of the female sex. We have no 
 
A CAPACITY BASIS FOR ACHIEVEMENT 3I 
 
 conception of the real amount of talent or of genius 
 possessed by women. It is probably not greatly infer- 
 ior to that of men even now, and a few generations of 
 enlightened opinion on the subject, if shared by both 
 sexes, would perhaps show that the difference is qual- 
 itative only. If this is so, the gain in developing it 
 would be greater than that of merely doubling the 
 number of social agents, for women will strike out 
 according to their natural inclinations and cultivate 
 fields that men would never have cultivated. They 
 will thus add to the breadth, even if they do not add 
 to the depth, of the world's progress."^ 
 
 In order to establish this point more effectively. 
 Ward takes up the field of literature, and after analyz- 
 ing its possibilities, writes: "One great factor, how- 
 ever, has been omitted by nearly all who have dis- 
 cussed these questions. This factor is nothing less 
 than exactly one-half of the human race, viz., woman- 
 kind. Galton's point of view is of course exclusively 
 androcentric. Woman is a wholly negligible factor in 
 all his calculations, De Candolle devotes nearly two 
 of the five hundred and seventy-six pages of his book 
 to 'Women and Scientific Progress,' but no woman had 
 ever been admitted to any of the great academies of 
 which he treats. Jacoby's list may contain the names 
 of some women. It would be profitless to search for 
 them. M. Odin is the only one who has seen that the 
 true cause of the small literary fecundity of women has 
 
 '"Applied Sociology," Lester F. Ward, Boston, Ginn & Co., 
 1906, p. 232. 
 
32 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 been their almost complete lack of opportunity. He 
 shows that where they have really enjoyed any oppor- 
 tunity they have done their share. Looking at the 
 subject from the standpoint of the local environment 
 alone, this is clearly brought out by the facts. The 
 great superiority of Paris over all other cities in 
 France has been sufficiently emphasized, even in the 
 case of men. Paris produced 23.5 per cent, of the men 
 of letters of France, but it produced 42.1 per cent, of 
 the women of letters of France. This was because 
 only there did woman find anything like a congenial 
 environment. Only one other condition proved super- 
 ior to Paris, and this was life in chateaux. The cha- 
 teaux of France produced less than 2 per cent, of the 
 men of letters, but they produced over 5 per cent, of 
 the talented women."^ "The production of women of 
 letters coming from each class of localities corresponds 
 exactly to the chances that the women had to acquire 
 a higher edudation."" 
 
 M. Odin then analyzes histrionic talent, showing that 
 women had furnished 29 per cent, of the persons 
 eminent in that branch. In this one art, women have 
 actually excelled men. In most lines, however, they 
 fall far below the masculine standard, — a failure which 
 is due to lack of opportunity rather than to lack of 
 capacity. "Other things equal there is no reason to 
 suppose a priori that woman is naturally inferior to 
 man in any branch of literature."' 
 
 If Ward and Odin are at all correct in their conclu- 
 
 '/6Jd. 'Ibid., p. 195. 'Idem. 
 
A CAPACITY BASIS FOK ACHIEVEMENT 33 
 
 sion, — and no scientist has as yet seriously questioned 
 it, — women's failure to achieve in the past is no more 
 argument against her achievement in the future, than 
 the failure of men to fly in the nineteenth century is 
 an argument against their success in the twentieth 
 century. Precedent can never effectually bind the 
 future either of man or of woman. 
 
 The nineteenth century was barely aware of woman's 
 capacity: the twentieth century is sure of it. The 
 nineteenth century did not ever expect women to 
 achieve, but the twentieth century is already pointing 
 out the line of her progress. 
 
 Capacity for achievement, then, has finally been con- 
 ceded to women. But achievement requires more than 
 capacity. Opportunity is also essential. Therefore, 
 since the achievement of the future depends in part 
 upon the opportunities of today, it is pertinent to ask 
 first what is the character of the environment sur- 
 rounding the twentieth-century American woman ; and 
 second, what opportunities are afforded for converting 
 her capacities into a form of achievement that will 
 make for Social Progress. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 
 
 Among other environmental conditions, a complete 
 revolution in the home confronts the American Woman 
 of today, — a revolution caused by the change, in the 
 early nineteenth century, from the domestic to the 
 factory system of making goods. 
 
 The home furnishes no exception to the rule that our 
 so-called permanent institutions are continually chang- 
 ing in conformity with the new requirements arising 
 out of the evolving conditions of life. Clothed with 
 the hoary garments of tradition, the home stands as 
 one of our oldest institutions, yet it has repeatedly 
 changed its form. The early Teutonic home was a vil- 
 lage or a collection of dwellings. The meaning of the 
 word home has been narrowed, however, until it 
 denotes the abode neither of a social group nor of a 
 tribe, but that of an individual man and woman, their 
 offspring and dependents. It was in such a home that 
 the domestic system of production developed. 
 
 The domestic system, as its name implies, centered 
 around the home, which was the producing unit, 
 occupying in that respect the same position as the 
 modem factory. Under the domestic system of in- 
 
 34 
 
THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION , 35 
 
 dustry the duties of the home were divided between 
 its occupants. 
 
 , In more primitive societies women carried on the 
 industries almost exclusively, and consequently were 
 responsible for most of the production in agriculture, 
 in weaving, and in spinning as well as in the domestic 
 arts. "An examination of the ethnological facts 
 shows that among the primitive races men are engaged 
 in activities requiring strength, violence, speed, and the 
 craft and foresight which follow from the contacts and 
 (Strains of their more motor life ; and the slow, unspas- 
 modic routine, stationary occupations are the part of 
 woman."^ Long before the development of domestic 
 industry, which occurred during the fourteenth, fif- 
 teenth and sixteenth centuries, man began to share 
 actively in the work of the home. Woman, the civiliz- 
 ing agent in society, had tamed her mate, teaching him 
 to substitute productive occupations for war and 
 idleness. 
 
 The same principle of the division of labor was 
 carried into the domestic system of industry. The 
 father, whether blacksmith, carpenter, or farmer, had 
 his workshop within the home or close by in an 
 adjoining building or field. The mother was a com- 
 bination of cook, weaver, seamstress, cleaner, dairy- 
 maid, and general housewife. The boys served a long 
 apprenticeship with their father in the shop or on the 
 farm; the girls, in like manner, helped the mother in 
 
 ' "Sex and Society," W. I. Thomas, Chicago, University of 
 Chicago Press, 1907, p. 123. 
 
36 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 her work, learning the rudiments of domestic industry 
 almost as soon as they could walk or talk. 
 
 "The land was divided into small enclosures," writes 
 Daniel Defoe, in 1724, "from two acres to six or seven 
 each, seldom more, every three or four pieces of land 
 having a house belonging to them; hardly a house 
 standing out of speaking distance from another. We 
 could see at every house a tenter and on almost every 
 tenter a piece of cloth. Every clothier keeps one horse 
 at least to carry his manufactures to the market; and 
 every one generally keeps a cow or two or more for 
 his family. By this means, the small pieces of 
 enclosed land about each house are occupied, for they 
 scarce sow corn enough to feed their poultry. The 
 houses are full of lusty fellows, some at the dye vat, 
 some at the looms; others dressing the clothes; the 
 women and children carding and spinning, being all 
 employed from the youngest to the oldest." Defoe 
 concludes his description with a remark which is cer- 
 tainly not applicable to any manufacturing town of the 
 present day: "Not a beggar to be seen, or an idle 
 person."^ 
 
 While the domestic system originated and reached 
 its highest development in England, it was introduced 
 into America by the British colonists who made the 
 first important settlements here. Although modified 
 somewhat to meet the new conditions, the domestic 
 system persisted in forms which were distinctly Eng- 
 
 » "Industry in England," H. DeE. Gibbins, New York, Charles 
 Scribner's Sons, 1907, pp. 326-7. 
 
THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION- 37 
 
 lish in their origin. Even today, in the mountains of 
 Kentucky, whole communities of people may be found 
 living and producing under conditions very similar to 
 those of Elizabethan England. 
 
 Such was the home under the domestic system, — a 
 complete economic unit; self-sustaining, impregnable, 
 the pride and mainstay of Western civilization. With- 
 in fifty years, however, a series of inventions occurred 
 which substituted steam for human strength, replaced 
 hand labor by machinery and drew industry from the 
 home into the factory. The establishment, between 
 1750 and 1800, of a new system of factory industry in 
 place of the old system of domestic industry, is com- 
 monly referred to as the Industrial Revolution. 
 
 Previous to the Industrial Revolution, all labor was 
 performed by human muscles. With the exception of 
 a small employment of wind and of water power, men 
 did the work of the world with their arms and legs. 
 The last half of the eighteenth century, however, 
 witnessed a phenomenal outpouring of inventive 
 genius, which aflorded a new basis for the conduct of 
 industry. Watts, Hargreave, and Arkwright invented 
 and perfected textile power machinery; Eli Whitney, 
 by inventing the cotton gin, assured a large amount 
 of r-aw material. Division of labor replaced crafts- 
 manship; the home worker was face to face with the 
 harnessed powers of nature, laboring at a rate and 
 producing for a price which he could not duplicate. 
 A weaver with the improved machinery was enabled 
 to produce in a week sixteen hundred yards of shirt- 
 
38 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 ing, while with the old hand loom, in the same length 
 of time, he could produce only forty. A linen sheet 
 that once required thirty days' labor was produced by 
 the aid of a machine in seven hours.^ In the days of 
 hand spinning a single wheel kept a woman employed 
 for one day in producing less yarn than is now taken 
 in an hour from a spindle tended by one worker. The 
 domestic worker was vanquished: he could not for 
 an instant compete with these new powers; he must 
 leave his hand loom and take up work in a factory, or 
 face immediate starvation. 
 
 The division of labor resulting from the introduc* 
 tion of machinery gave rise to the most difficult 
 problems which grew out of the Industrial Revolution. 
 Under the domestic system one man had been a shoe- 
 maker, or a weaver, performing with his own hands 
 all of the varied processes necessary to produce a 
 complete product — a shoe, or a piece of cloth. A man 
 spent years in learning to perfect his art, and gain 
 speed and dexterity in his labor. But after the intro- 
 duction of mechanical power and invention, a new 
 alignment of trades became necessary. 
 
 Because of the required concentration upon some 
 detail of a trade, a class of mechanical specialists was 
 produced. The skilled shoemaker was no longer 
 needed. Instead, the process of making a shoe was 
 divided up into a large number of petty operations 
 involving little or no skill. As an example, let me 
 
 • "Social Uijrest," J. G. Brooks, New York, The Macmillan Co., 
 1906, pp. 178-181. 
 
THE iNDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 39 
 
 give you the list of the various classes of operatives 
 employed in the stitching rooms of a shoe industry. 
 "Skivers, cementers, pasters, folders (these all 
 employed in the work of preparation), upper stitchers, 
 eyelet row stitchers, closers, seam rubbers, seam 
 pounders, gore stitchers, gusset stitchers, lining 
 stitchers, lining makers, liners, closers on, inseamers, 
 vamp liners, facing stitchers, headers, top stitchers, 
 corders, button-hole machine operators, button-hole 
 finishers, button-sewers, punchers (of holes for eye- 
 lets), gang punch operators, eyeleters, fastener set- 
 ters, hookers, markers (of vamp tips), tip markers, 
 tip stitchers, tippers, tip pasters, perforators, tip fix- 
 ers, vamp closers, vampers, barrers, stayers, heel-stay 
 stitchers, eyelet stay stitchers, fancy stitchers, foxing 
 stitchers, tongue binders, tongue stitchers, strap 
 makers, table workers and table hands." "It should 
 be emphasized that the work which has been sub- 
 divided into these forty-nine processes was formerly 
 a single process done by one woman in the days before 
 the invention of the sewing machine."^ 
 
 Thus while many new skilled trades were developed, 
 former skilled trades were largely eliminated, and the 
 vast majority of the working population was reduced 
 to semi-skilled or entirely unskilled operations.^ Much 
 
 » "Woman in Industry," Edith Abbott, New York, D. Appleton 
 & Co., 1910, pp. 181-2. 
 
 'For a discussion of the extent of some skilled and un- 
 skilled trades in American industry, see "Wages in the United 
 States," Scott Nearing, New York, The Macroillan Co., igii, 
 Chapters IX and X. 
 
40 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 unemployment and c»nsiderable individual hardship 
 which resulted in the labor riots so aptly described in 
 Dickens' "Barnaby Rudge," attended the change from 
 domestic to factory industry. 
 
 The factory system inevitably replaced the domes- 
 tic system of production because it insured cheapness 
 and efficiency ; first, by permitting the use of expensive 
 and complicated labor-saving machinery which no 
 individual workman could afford to purchase or main- 
 tain. Second, by the purchasing of materials in large 
 quantities which factory production made possible. 
 Lastly, by the utilization of by-products which occur 
 in large-scale manufacturing. At every point the 
 domestic system was out-classed, both in cheapness 
 and in efficiency. 
 
 Through the Industrial Revolution, men changed 
 the character of their own work. At the same time, 
 they transformed the character of woman's work by 
 invading the domestic sphere hitherto occupied by 
 women. Food manufacture is, at the present time, 
 largely a factory industry. Improved facilities for 
 slaughter, packing and canning, together with the pos- 
 sibilities afforded by the locomotive and the refriger- 
 ator car of conveying the slaughtered products to a 
 distance, have transformed the preparation of meat 
 from a local into a world-wide industry. The canning 
 of vegetables and fruit has also been affected by the 
 improvement in mechanical processes and the possi- 
 bility of transportation, and has been almost entirely 
 taken from the women in the home by the men 
 
THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 4I 
 
 and women in the factory. The preparation of break- 
 fast foods has become, almost entirely, a factory 
 industry, while the possibilities of economy in the bak- 
 ing of bread, crackers, cakes and pastry in large quan- 
 tities have made it cheaper and easier for the average 
 housewife to buy rather than to make her own bread- 
 stuffs. In the manufacture of cloths and clothing, 
 machinery run by artificial power has proved so much 
 cheaper and more ef35cient than hand labor that the 
 making of clothes has come almost exclusively within 
 the province of the factory. Hand weaving, spinning, 
 knitting, tailoring, and dressmaking are, at the present 
 time, wholly or largely performed within the factory. 
 Division of labor, mechanical power and mechanical 
 invention has rendered the maintenance of these indus- 
 tries in the home economically impossible. Thus since 
 the advent of the factory system men have taken over 
 at least two of the duties hitherto belonging exclusively 
 to women, the preparation of food and the manufac- 
 ture of clothing, — in other words, the constructive 
 work of the woman in the home. 
 
 The home, a deserted workshop, deprived of its 
 leading economic functions, was then left to face a 
 transformation which we describe as the Domestic 
 Revolution. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE DOMESTIC REVOLUTION 
 
 While the industrial revolution was of profound 
 sigpificance to industry, its effect upon the home was 
 no less fundamental. Under the domestic system of 
 industry, the home was a complete economic iinit, 
 producing most of the goods which were required to 
 satisfy the wants of the family. The industrial revo- 
 lution, by substituting mechanical power and labor- 
 saving machinery for the craftsmanship of the 
 domestic system, affected the home in three ways. 
 
 1. It tended to perpetuate the home by facilitating 
 the performance of the tasks remaining there and by 
 changing their character. 
 
 2. It eliminated many industries from the home. 
 
 3. It revolutionized the economic and social out- 
 look of the home. 
 
 The perpetuation of some home industries and the 
 elimination of others was due largely to the invention 
 of mechanical appliances. The present home indus- 
 tries have been bulwarked by a myriad of inventions, 
 such as the stove, kitchen utensils, sweepers, washing 
 machines, heating systems, soaps, sewing machines 
 and the like. Cooking, cleaning and sewing are still, 
 in part, performed in the home, but in every one of 
 
 42 
 
THE DOMESTIC REVOLUTION 43 
 
 these fields, inventions have materially lightened the 
 housewife's labor. 
 
 Meanwhile the really constructive work has been 
 largely eliminated from the home by the same forces 
 that have perpetuated the less fundamental work 
 there. The man of the house has been forced to 
 follow his trade from the home workshop to the 
 factory. With the continual development of the fac- 
 tory system, the improvement in invention, and the 
 opening up of transportation facilities, night work and 
 Sunday work have become common, and work at a 
 distance from home often inevitable. Consequently 
 the father and husband is compelled to absent himself 
 from his family and home not only during work time, 
 but often during his recreation time as well. 
 
 The more fundamental processes hitherto per- 
 formed by women in the home such as spinning, 
 weaving and the making of clothes, have been largely 
 eliminated from the list of household duties. The 
 women who were forced to help support themselves 
 and their families could no longer produce sufficient 
 goods within the limits of the four walls of home, and 
 were compelled like the men to follow their work to 
 the factory. This entrance of women into industry 
 has increased yearly until in 1900 the number of 
 women at work in gainful occupations in the United 
 States had reached 5,319,912 or 14.3 per cent, of all 
 the women in the country. In this aggregate are 
 included not only single women, but married women, 
 and little girls, some of them only ten years of age. 
 
44 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 This transfer of the work of women from the home 
 to the factory, begun by the industrial revolution, 
 has since continued until now in the Twentieth Cen- 
 tury, very little other than incidental work is left to 
 the woman in the home. In nearly all communities, 
 cooperation in the regulation and provision of a social 
 supply of water, gas and electricity, and in a few 
 communities, of a social system of house-heating has 
 even removed from the home some of that incidental 
 work. 
 
 Again with the development of cooperation in 
 industry comes the development of cooperation in the 
 training of children, and the consequent departure of 
 even the child from the home during school hours. 
 In the United States, school attendance is generally 
 compulsory for all children under fourteen. Not only 
 for his cultural training, but also for his technical 
 training must the boy leave home. Even the girl who 
 is forced to become self-supporting can no longer 
 "earn her keep" and at the same time train herself for 
 a housewife by doing odd chores at home. She also 
 is forced to seek in the factory employment and liveli- 
 hood. 
 
 Thus, by removing to a large extent the economic 
 raison d'etre of the home and by calling from it the 
 majority of its inmates, the industrial revolution was 
 responsible for a Domestic Revolution which prac- 
 tically eliminated the old type home of which we read 
 so fondly in fiction and biography. It is in vain that 
 F. Hopkinson Smith writes his eulogies of the old 
 
, THE DOMESTIC REVOLUTION 45 
 
 home, — urging our return to it. The old home is 
 gone irrevocably. 
 
 While the purely economic basis of the home has 
 been transferred to the factory, the home continues 
 to exist as an institution necessary to supply certain 
 of the social and individual wants of its occupants. 
 More efficient substitutes for the satisfaction of wants 
 supplied by the home are daily becoming available, 
 however, and the home is losing each year some of its 
 economic and social functions.^ With modern city 
 life has come congestion and its many-sided prob- 
 lems, making all city homes, except those of the very 
 rich, far from satisfactory as regards the space, air 
 and sunlight provided within. The home is no longer 
 the workshop, and requires therefore less room. 
 Because of the greater distances which some men 
 necessarily travel to their work, and because of the 
 irregular hours of modern employment, even house- 
 keeping and family life are at times impossible, and 
 the lodging-house is looked to as the last resort. It is 
 impossible not only to make a tenement room an 
 economic unit, but even to provide it adequately with 
 the most ordinary decencies of life. Indeed from 
 the concentration of industry to the exhaustion of 
 cheap fuel, all city conditions seem to have worked to 
 the detriment of the home. To know the effect of 
 the modern factory life upon standards, says John 
 
 ' For a thorough discussion of the transformation of the 
 home due to the Industrial Revolution, see "The Home." 
 Charlotte Perkins Gilman, New York, McClure, Phillips & Co., 
 1903. 
 
46 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 Andrew Fitch, you must see life in a steel worker'* 
 home. "A week of heavy toil, during ten or eleven 
 hours of daylight, six or seven days, and then an over- 
 turning of things and a week of night work, each shift 
 thirteen or fourteen hours long, and the 'mister' work- 
 ing while the children sleep, and sleeping while they 
 play, — that is the regular round of events in the typical 
 family while the weeks stretch to months, and the 
 months mount to years. 'Home,' said many a steel 
 worker to me with grim bitterness, 'is where I eat 
 and sleep.' "^ 
 
 But far more important than the comparative 
 decrease of the means of satisfying individual wants 
 within the home has been the increase of such means 
 outside the home. Mechanical inventions, unsuited 
 to a household, yet available in factories, hotels, apart- 
 ments and restaurants; improved goods and services 
 resulting from large scale production; — all these have 
 contributed to make the outside agent, — the hotel, or 
 restaurant, — far more capable of satisfying our mater- 
 ial wants than the average home. For his hours of 
 recreation the rich man has his club; the farmer, the 
 corner grocery, and even the poor man has his saloon. 
 The conclusion, therefore, seems obvious, — the home 
 is no longer the best means of supplying our individual 
 material wants. 
 
 Can this be truly said of the home as the best 
 means of satisfying our social wants ? 
 
 » "The Steel Industry and the Labor Problem," John A. Fitch, 
 Charities and the Commons, March 6, 1909, p. 1091. 
 
THE DOMESTIC REVOLUTION 47 
 
 Solidarity in the home under the domestic system 
 was produced by common industry and common 
 responsibilities at home. Although aroused by a purely 
 artificial means, — common work in the home, — a real 
 group spirit inspired each family, a feeling of soli- 
 darity, which developed not only in the parents but 
 in the growing child a sense of his responsibility to 
 the group in which he was placed. But the old time 
 industry has left home, taking with it the father to his 
 shop or office, the children to the school, and often the 
 mother to the factory. Only one really constructive 
 occupation is left in the home, the bearing and rearing 
 of children, and the incidence of this, when it exists, 
 falls almost entirely upon the mother. Work, there- 
 fore, no longer unites the family. Consequently, in 
 many families of the middle class, though every mater- 
 ial want is abundantly satisfied, the lack of individual 
 responsibility and of home solidarity eliminate from 
 the family abode every real element of a home. 
 
 The material means of producing solidarity has left 
 the home, — another means must therefore be sub- 
 stituted. Social ideals, not material things, must 
 become the binding ties of a home in which solidarity 
 will depend on an ethical rather than a material basis. 
 A similarity of ideas, a conscious or unconscious tend- 
 ing of aims in the same direction, must take the place 
 of cooperative home industry. For this new kind of 
 home solidarity, four qualities are essential, — sym- 
 pathy, compatibility, confidence and mutual aid. There 
 must be sympathy between all the members of the 
 
48 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 family; compatibflity between the parents; confidence 
 in their children, and mutual aid from all to all. With 
 these four qualities as the foundation, home will 
 become an atmosphere, a "condition in which" rather 
 than a "place where." Thus, founded on ideas rather 
 than upon industry, the home of the future, no longer 
 a place but an atmosphere, will afford a new basis for 
 solidarity and social growth almost limitless in its 
 possibilities of development. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE NEW LEISURE FOR WOMEN 
 
 Said the tramp, "If time were money, I'd be a mil- 
 lionaire." Many of us doubtless echo the thought; 
 the tramp is not alone in his ecstatic contemplation of 
 leisure. But in thinking of leisure time, few people 
 have a really sougd conception of its meaning. We 
 should agree, universally, that it is a most desirable 
 asset, yet to most of us the tramp's interpretation of 
 leisure in terms of idleness would render it a rather 
 questionable blessing. 
 
 The simplest interpretation of leisure, as I con- 
 ceive it, is opportunity to choose a congenial avocation. 
 Obviously this avocation would vary with individuals 
 as much as tastes in color, decoration and architecture. 
 Usually it would be some pursuit differing radically 
 from the daily routine. For those engaged in seden- 
 tary occupations, leisure should mean physical exer- 
 cise. I know of one business man who revels in an 
 axe and a chopping-block. For the man who gains 
 his bread by the actual sweat of his brow, some occu- 
 pation that gives complete muscular relaxation is the 
 logical employment for his leisure hour. 
 
 No rules can be fixed for leisure, however, because 
 leisure must represent free choice, and the choice of 
 4 49 
 
so WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 I 
 
 one man may not appeal to another. A foreigner 
 when attending a ball in a large American city inquired 
 why people who could afford to dress so well could not 
 afford to hire others to dance for them. He dould not 
 conceive of people voluntarily employing their leisure 
 in dancing. 
 
 It has come to be a well recognized psychological 
 fact that what we do from choice is more faithfully 
 and more perfectly done, than that which we do from 
 necessity. A series of experiments in our public 
 schools shows that the child who studies a subject 
 because of his interest in it progresses far more rapidly 
 than the child who studies it under compulsion. Noth- 
 ing can stimulate the faculties to greater activity than 
 keen personal interest. 
 
 In view of these facts, it is no wonder that the 
 greatest things of the world have been done in leisure 
 time. The great poets, the great philosophers, the 
 great artists were men who had suffitient means to 
 support them while pursuing their avocations, or who, 
 like Coleridge and Rousseau, absolutely neglected the 
 material welfare of those dependent upon them, and 
 blissfully pursued their chosen vocations. Rousseau 
 sent his own children to a hospital for foundlings, and 
 used his leisure time to work out a theory for the 
 proper education of the young. Again, the great 
 scientists and the great statesmen of the world have 
 usually been men who have had leisure in which to 
 work out and perfect their thought. In other words, 
 leisure for the normal, healthy individual with a fund 
 
THE NEW LEISURE FOR WOMEN 5L 
 
 of surplus energy means not idleness, but opportunity 
 to pursue a congenial occupation. 
 
 What has this to do with women? The industrial 
 revolution, the overturning of the old home, the use 
 of leisure time, — are not these subjects woefully aside 
 from the point of our story? By no means. The 
 industrial revolution, by taking woman's occupations 
 out of the home, has given her leisure. 
 
 Women in past ages rarely enjoyed leisure. In 
 primitive society, they performed practically all of the 
 work. An Australian of the Kurnai tribe once said: 
 "A man hunts, spears fish, fights, and sits about," 
 and this is a very good general statement of the male 
 activities of primitive society the world over, if we 
 add one other activity — the manufacture of weapons. 
 On the other hand, Bonwick's statement of the labors 
 of Tasmanian women is a typical one: "In addition 
 to the necessary duty of looking after the children, 
 they had to provide all the food for the household 
 excepting that derived from the chase of the kan- 
 garoo. They climbed up hills for the opossum, delved 
 in the ground with their sticks for yams, native bread, 
 and nutritive roots, groped about the rocks for shell- 
 fish, dived beneath the sea«ifor oysters, and fished 
 for the finny tribe. In addition to this, they car- 
 ried, on their frequent tramps, the household stuff 
 in native baskets of their own manufacture. Their 
 affectionate partners would even pile upon their 
 burdens sundry spears and waddies not required for 
 present service, and would command their help to rear 
 
52 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 the breakwind, and to raise the fire. They acted, 
 moreover, as cooks to the establishment, and were 
 occasionally regaled, at the termination of a feast, with 
 the leavings of their gorged masters."^ 
 
 Under the domestic system the care of children, the 
 cooking, spinning, weaving, clearing, making of 
 clothes, all fell to the lot of the woman, until the 
 proverb reads': 
 
 "Man works from rise to set of sun 
 But woman's work is never done," 
 
 a tribute to the heterogeneous character of the odd 
 jobs which women performed. 
 
 When, however, after the industrial revolution, the 
 factory began gradually to take away from women all 
 those tasks which could be systematized and performed 
 advantageously by large-scale cooperation, the situa- 
 tion was radically changed. With the advance of 
 cooperative industry ind the continually lessening 
 number of tasks in the home, women have been enabled 
 for almost the first time since the beginning of 
 modern civilization to enjoy a limited amount of 
 leisure. Not only has the change in the character of 
 industry effected this result: the development and 
 improvements of the modern public school system, the 
 introduction of kindergartens, playgrounds and school 
 gardens have considerably relieved the overworked 
 mother of the wage-earner's family, as well as the wife 
 of the comfortably fixed clerk, or small-salaried man. 
 
 '"Sex and Society," W. I. Thomas, Chicago, The University 
 of Chicago Press, 1907, pp. 124-5. 
 
THE NEW LEISURE FOR WOMEN 53 
 
 Another factor of the utmost importance in afford- 
 ing leisure to women is the decrease in the number of 
 persons per family and the decreasing birth rate preva- 
 lent througl^out the United States, particularly ^among 
 the native-born population. The census figures show 
 that the average number of persons per family in the 
 United States is steadily decreasing. In Boston, 
 Chicago and Philadelphia the decrease has been reg- 
 ular at each decade since 1880.^ 
 
 Not only is the family smaller in size, — ^but the 
 American birth rate has decreased until, at the present 
 time among college graduates, it is less than two chil- 
 dren per family, while for the American-born popula- 
 tion at large, the number of children per family is only 
 slightly more than two.^ Benjamin Franklin esti- 
 mated that in his day the average family numbered 
 eight children. The decrease is astounding. Since 
 the bearing and rearing of children is a heavy drain 
 on a woman's time and energy, the decreasing birth 
 rate has resulted in the release of a considerable 
 amount of the energy formerly spent in child-bearing 
 and child-rearing. The mother of today, therefore, 
 has not only more leisure time than the woman of fifty 
 or a hundred years ago, but more energy to pursue 
 some avocation during her leisure time. 
 
 This new leisure, already assured to the women of 
 the upper and middle classes and in many cases becom- 
 
 ' Census 1900, Vol. 11. Population. 
 
 "See "Modern Social Conditions," W. B. Bailey, New York, 
 Century Co., 1906, Chapter III. "Social Adjustment," Scott 
 Nearing, New York, The Macmillan Co., 19". Chapter VII. 
 
I 54 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 ing possible to the working woman, particularly where 
 an eight-hour day is observed, presents to women a 
 fundamental choice between two alternatives. The 
 first one is to follow the line of least resistance and 
 gradually to drift into a condition of sex pa rasi- 
 tism. The dictionary defines a parasite as "an obse- 
 quious flatterer living lazily at another's expense." 
 Parasitism as applied to women is that condition in 
 which the woman ceases to produce in proportion to 
 the amount which she consumes, relying largely upon 
 her sex qualities as the motive inducing the male to 
 provide for her support. The artificiality of this posi- 
 tion is obvious. Talents were not given to men to be 
 hidden under a bushel or buried in a napkin, but to be 
 employed in such a manner that they might develop 
 rather than degenerate. The woman who consumes 
 her time in dressing, in adorning herself^ in idle chat- 
 ter and dissipation, gradually loses whatever construc- 
 tive talents may have been hers. Since the unused 
 talent finally disappears, voluntary sex parasitism 
 results ultimately in comgulsbry sex parasitism. 
 
 There is one commonly suggested remedy for this 
 situation. "The place of women is in the home," we 
 hear, "let women remain there and do the work which 
 they have always done." Some may go still further 
 and say, "If men alone can produce sufficient to sup- 
 port all, let the women be kept as passive tools and be 
 subsidized if neceSsary." A few years ago a man of 
 note in England actually proposed that a "compulsory 
 provision be made for at least the women of the upper 
 
THE NEW LEISURE FOR WOMEN 55 
 
 and middle classes, by which they might be maintained 
 through life entirely without regard to any productive 
 labor they might perform."^ 
 
 Society cannot progress like the crab. The new 
 leisure for women presents but one other alternative 
 to parasitism. The true sphere of women, like the 
 true sphere of man, is the place where really construc- 
 tive work is to be done, whether it be the home or the 
 workshop. Nearly a century ago man's constructive 
 work Teft the home ; for women it is now moving, and 
 the vans are heavily laden. Leisure is an opportunity 
 to choose a congenial avocation. If women use their 
 leisure to develop what gifts they may possess, to do 
 the work which opportunity offers, then will the 
 blandishments of the parasite sink to their real value, 
 and righteousness prove its own reward through the 
 blessedness of constructive effort. 
 
 '"Woman and Labor," Olive Schreiner, New York, F. A. 
 Stokes Co., 191 1, p. 116. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 SOCIAL TRADITIONS 
 
 "Custom calls me to 't 
 
 What custom wills in all things should we do il;." 
 
 — Shakespeare. 
 
 Custom calls at every hand. Shall we obey its 
 behests? Only when in so doing we may contribute 
 our part to that social progress for which each gen- 
 eration is responsible. 
 
 Custom, tradition, and precedent have taken a heavy 
 toll in the past. India hes today abject under their 
 despotic sway. We laugh contemptuously at the 
 Chinese who reject the American chilled-steel plow, 
 and continue to use an inefficient implement because 
 it was used by their ancestors. We describe the 
 United States as "the land of the free and the home of 
 the brave," where "all men are created free and equal." 
 But despite our scoffings at precedent, even in the 
 United States there are a number of traditions, — 
 social, legal, political and moral, — ^whose force dom- 
 inates thought and action. ' 
 
 Our laws foster the respect for tradition. The 
 decisions of our courts are based time and time again 
 upon the English precedents which were established 
 under conditions materially different from those exist- 
 
 56 
 
SOCIAL TRADITIONS 57 
 
 ing in the United States. Nevertheless, we accept 
 their authority. 
 
 Obedience to tradition signifies inherent weakness, — 
 inability or unwillingness to make decisions based upon 
 the merits of the case, and a preference to rely upon 
 the decision of some great man who lived under the 
 conditions of a past generation. Hence it is the weak- 
 est, not only physically, but socially and economically, 
 who are most bound by the fear of the past. The 
 strong make precedent ; the weak fear it. 
 
 It is in savage tribes where superstition is dominant 
 that men and women are most bound by tradition. In 
 our society the yoke falls most heavily upon those 
 who bear already many burdens, our so-called weaker 
 sex. Originally because of their physical inferiority, 
 now primarily because of the dependence growing out 
 of that inferiority, women are peculiarly bound by the 
 traditions and the customs of the past. 
 
 The tradition of woman's naturally dependent 
 nature is wide-spread. As an outcome of the age of 
 chivalry where woman was pictured as an ideal rather 
 than as a reality, men have come to regard her as 
 superior morally and spiritually and hence unfit to 
 grapple with the important problems of life. They 
 fear contamination, they say, for her pure and lofty 
 character. Hence, in their eagerness to preserve her 
 idealistic nature, men have bound her in on every side 
 by traditions, preventing her from self-government, 
 personal decisions and real growth in social feeling. 
 
 Woman's intuitive power is entirely misunderstood. 
 
58 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 Instead of regarding it as an additional attribute of 
 women, perhaps as a compensation for physical weak- 
 ness, men have come to consider it a substitute for the 
 power of reasoning. A professor recently addressed 
 a co-educational college class as follows: "Women 
 are emotional. They reach their decisions by means 
 of intuition, — a roundabout way, which no man could 
 follow. Men are rational. Logic governs their 
 thought. In forming their decisions, they proceed by 
 logical steps from premise to conclusion." "But Pro- 
 fessor," began one of these unreasoning females, "are 
 you sure . . . ?" "It doesn't make any difference 
 what you say. Miss Jane," interrupted this open- 
 minded representative of the reasoning sex, "I won't 
 change my mind." The word intuition to such minds 
 as his is closely allied to the word instinct as applied 
 to the animal world. As a matter of fact, women 
 reason by "hops" no oftener than men reason from 
 prejudice. The few women who have been given 
 the opportunity for mind development can trace their 
 thoughts step by step, and when sufficient data is 
 available, can reach a perfectly logical conclusion. 
 
 Again, the complementary tradition concerning 
 woman's superior moral goodness may be paralleled 
 with a disparaging one in respect to her moral bias. 
 Women, we are told, are traditionally partial — their 
 judgment in matters of importance is governed by 
 their personal prejudices and sympathies. 
 
 Woman's traditional narrowness, however, is in 
 reality not the cause but the result of the dependent 
 
SOCIAL TRADITIONS 59 
 
 position into which tradition forces her. It is almost 
 impossible for a woman with undeveloped physical 
 and mental powers, confined to the narrow circle of 
 one "social set" — to rise above the banalities of every- 
 day life. Her mind demands activity, yet its range of 
 possibilities is confined to the trivial concerns of the 
 household, the servant problem, the question of dress 
 and fashion, and endless gossip about the neighbors. 
 
 The tradition of woman's dependent nature leads her 
 further into economic dependence. Practically all 
 women nowadays are dependent for support either 
 upon an individual man, be he father, brother, or 
 husband, who provides for her physical necessities, or 
 upon society as an aggregate of men offering her 
 employment at their terms, in return for which she 
 receives in most cases bare subsistence wages. That 
 this economic dependence is not inherent in the nature 
 of things but largely the result of man-made tradition 
 may be proved by analogies from the few societies 
 where women have the ascendancy. During the recent 
 British expedition into Thibet, in negotiating for the 
 repair of a road, the contract was made through the 
 matriarch who not only named the price and received 
 the pay, but sent several of her husbands to do the 
 work.* Again, all the family's sewing in East Central 
 Africa is done by the men. According to MacDonald 
 in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute of 
 August, 1892, the men are the better tailors. In fact 
 
 *"Sex Equality," E. Densmore, New York, Funk & Wagnalls 
 Co., 1907, p. 109. 
 
60 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 the tradition that men shall do the sewing is so strong 
 that a wife "can obtain a divorce if she can show a 
 rent in her petticoat." Among the Senecas (1873) the 
 female portion usually ruled the house. The husband 
 who proved unsatisfactory might at any time be 
 ordered to pick up his blanket and depart. He could 
 only be saved then by the intercession of some aunt or 
 grandmother. Otherwise he must retreat to his own 
 clan or form a new matrimonial alliance in some other 
 clan.^ 
 
 But woman's traditional dependence is not only 
 economic, it is social as well. Since women are 
 denied contact with their peers in industry, and find it 
 only in the social set to which they belong, they are 
 peculiarly subject to the rules of the social game. In 
 society, fashion reigns supreme. Its dictates are so 
 absolute that few women dare risk the inevitable criti- 
 cism and possible social ostracism resulting from dis- 
 obedience to its decrees. The socially ambitious must 
 be slaves to a fashion, whose rules apply not only to 
 the clothes of women, but to their homes, their methods 
 of living and standards of life. 
 
 Fashion in clothes proves a hard master, — for it is 
 in reality a masculine creation. Frequent changes in 
 style bring rich returns to the manufacturer of cloth- 
 ing, hence the men who decide the fashions have 
 decided that a new outfit is required at least once a 
 year if a woman does not wish to be conspicuously 
 
 •"Ancient Society," L. H. Morgan, New York, Henry Holt & 
 Co., 1907, p. 455- 
 
SOCIAL TRADITIONS 6l 
 
 ill-dressed. Moreover, the individual appropriateness 
 of any particular style of dress must be quite disre- 
 garded. The hideous and ludicrous creations so com- 
 mon of late years, such as the "Merry Widow" and 
 "peach basket" hats, and "hobble and harem" skirts, 
 richly deserve the opprobrium heaped upon them. The 
 ■ unfortunate women who are compelled by the force 
 of tradition , to disfigure themselves therein are more 
 to be pitied than scorned. The wife of a lieutenant, 
 showing her hand-embroidered Underwear to an 
 admiring young friend, explained, "You see I've got 
 my husband, now I must keep him." This good lady 
 considered underwear as much her stock in trade as 
 drugs are to the druggist. 
 
 In obedience to the tradition (^ fashion in personal 
 appearance, women in China for centuries bound 
 their feet until their toes dropped off. The Chinese 
 missionaries, telling such tales before an American 
 audience, bring floods of tears to the eyes of the 
 tender-hearted women present, who sit with their 
 bodies constricted in corsets so tight that their natural 
 respiration is seriously interfered with, and the wel- 
 fare, not of their feet, but of the vital organs encased 
 in the trunk, is menaced. Dr. Sargent of Harvard 
 University has made some interesting experiments 
 concerning the effect of corsets. "In order to ascer- 
 tain the influence of tight clothing upon the action of 
 the heart during exercise a dozen young women con- 
 sented this summer to run 540 yards in their loose 
 gymnasium garments and then to run the same dis- 
 
62 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 tance with corsets on. The running time was two 
 minutes and thirty seconds for each person at each 
 trial, and in order that there should be no cardiac 
 excitement or depression following the first test, the 
 second trial was made the following day. Before 
 beginning the running the average heart-impulse was 
 84 beats to the minute; after running the above-named' 
 distance the heart-impulse was 152 beats to the min- 
 ute; the average natural waist-girth being 25 inches. 
 The next day corsets were worn during the exercise, 
 and the average girth of waist was reduced to 24 
 inches. The same distance was run in the same time 
 by all, and immediately afterward the average heart- 
 impulse was found to be 168 beats per minute. When 
 I state that I should feel myself justified in advising 
 an athlete not to enter a running or rbwing race whose 
 heart-impulse was I60 beats per minute after a little 
 exercise, even though ) there were not the slightest 
 evidence of disease, one can form some idea of the 
 wear and tear on this important organ, and the 
 physical loss entailed upon the system in women who 
 force it to labor for half their lives under such a dis- 
 advantage as the tight corset imposes."^ 
 
 Fashion also dictates the kind of home in which 
 families shall live. In certain social sets three stories 
 are necessary to keep up appearances even if the third 
 be as bare as a barn. Window curtains at all windows 
 visible from the street, a piano, and cut glass in the 
 
 ' "Physical Development of Women," D. A. Sargent, Scribner's 
 Magaeine, Vol. V, p. 181 (i88g). 
 
SOCIAL TRADITIONS 63 
 
 dining room are social requisites. In some cities 
 residence north or south of a certain street permits or 
 prevents intercourse with the socially elite. And the 
 women who cannot afford all the fashionable luxuries 
 will often deny themselves the real necessities of life 
 in order to put lace curtains at their windows or pur- 
 chase cheap bric-a-brac for the parlor mantel. 
 
 Accompanying an increase in income usually comes 
 the desire to rise in the social scale, to spend the extra 
 funds for what is socially desirable rather than for 
 what the individual family needs. A new chair is 
 preferred to a gas stove, and an automobile to a really 
 competent mother's helper for the children. 
 
 Women are further restricted by religious traditions. 
 Under, the xeligion of China, the oldest, probably, of 
 civilized people, woman was traditionally the absolute 
 property of her husband. She was believed to possess 
 neither mind nor soul. The Hindoo and Parsee scrip- 
 tures command women to regaird men as diyine, and 
 to render them absolute submission and worshipful 
 reverence. 
 
 Under the Jewish religion as represented by the 
 Old Testament, woman's position was slightly higher. 
 Man was bid to leave father and mother and to cleave 
 to the woman whom he should choose. Rebecca's 
 consent was sought in her marriage; Jacob toiled 
 fourteen years for Rachel. "Deborah, the wife of 
 Lapidoth a prophetess, acted as a judge and leader 
 over Israel. Maacha, the wife of Rehoboam, con- 
 ducted the government of the state, during the child- 
 
64 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 hood of her grandson, Asa." "Salome Alexandra, the 
 consort of King Alexander Jannaeus, reigned nine 
 years over the Kingdom of Judaea after her husband's 
 premature death."^ The thirty-first chapter of Pro- 
 verbs gives a beautiful picture of the ideal wife and 
 mother, yet in the Ten Commandments a woman is 
 classed along with the servants and domestic animals. 
 The Talmudic writers, again, value their women 
 highly. While the Bible tolerated polygamy, under 
 the Talmud, monogamy was generally practised. 
 "God," says one of the writers in the "Talmud" "has 
 endowed woman with greater wisdom and finer sensi- 
 bilities, because she has nobler work to do than man." 
 It is not until we come to the writings of St. Paul 
 that the religious traditions of Jewry turn drastically 
 against women. According to his teaching and the 
 theology founded upon it, woman is the unclean one, 
 the seducer. Marriage seemed almost as much of an 
 evil as prostitution appears to many today. Celibacy 
 was idealized, and marriage was made a sacrament 
 of the Church in an attempt to purify it. TertuUian 
 says, "Celibacy must be chosen, though the human 
 race perish in consequence." Augustine: "Celibates 
 will shine in heaven, like dazzling stars, while the par- 
 ents who begot them resemble stars without light." 
 Peter tells women to be "obediettt unto your hus- 
 bands." St. Paul says, "It is good for a man not to 
 touch a woman."2 . . . "The head of every man is 
 
 * "Woman's Position in Ancient and Modern Jewry," Joseph 
 
 Straus, Westminster Review, Dec, igio, p. 626. 
 'I Corinthians VII, i. 
 
SOCIAL TRADITIONS 65 
 
 Christ ; and the head of the woman is the man."^ . . . 
 "The man is not of the woman, but the woman for 
 the man."^ . . . "Let your women keep silence in the 
 churches; for it is not permitted unto them to speak; 
 but they are commanded to be under obedience."* 
 "Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. 
 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp author- 
 ity over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was 
 first formed, then Eve."* 
 
 Mohammedan traditions further degrade woman. 
 Mohammed himself practised, and advocated plural 
 marriages. Pre-marital companionship between men 
 and women seemed dangerous to the man, hence he 
 commanded women to wear a veil when appearing in 
 public. Pierre Loti in "Les Desenchantees" gives us 
 a pitiful picture of the Mohammedan women of today 
 who have become enlightened and are endeavoring to 
 break their bond of subserviency. 
 
 A number of religious traditions still remain from 
 early Christianity. Women avoid appearing in church 
 with uncovered heads, and few churches will allow a 
 woman to speak or preach ftom the pulpit. Strangely 
 enough there has developed a tradition that women 
 are more religious than men, as evinced by their greater 
 conscientiousness and more regular church attendance. 
 This attitude, however, is rather pure emotionalism 
 than religious fervor, and is adopted by many women 
 as a substitute for a really constructive occupation 
 
 > I Corinthians XI, 3. • I Corinthians XIV, 34. 
 
 •I Corinthians XI, 9. *I Timothy II, 11-13. 
 
 S 
 
66 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 which circumstances have denied them. Her so-called 
 morality is in fact only a susceptibility to religious 
 influence, and is far more the result of her enforced 
 habit of submission to a higher power, than of her 
 possession of any essentially higher moral tone. 
 
 More practical in their actual effects are the legal 
 traditions which attach themselves to women. Some 
 extracts from Blackstone's Commentaries^ will serve 
 to show the precedents for the tradition of woman's 
 legal inferiority. "By marriage, the husband and wife 
 are one person in the law, that is, the very being or 
 legal existence of the woman is suspended during the 
 marriage, or at least is incorporated or consolidated 
 into that of the husband, under whose wing, protection 
 and cover she performs everything. . . . Her condi- 
 tion during her marriage is called her coverture." 
 Again, if a wife be injured in her person or her prop- 
 erty, she can bring no action for redress without her 
 husband's concurrence." "There are some instances 
 in which she is separately considered, as inferior to 
 him and acting by his compulsion." "The husband 
 also, by the old law, might give his wife moderate 
 correction." In regard to divorce Blackstone says, 
 "The civil law allows, absolute divorce if the wife goes 
 to the theatre or public games without the knowledge 
 or consent of the husband." Again in regard to 
 guardianship of children, "The legal power of the 
 father, for the mother, as such, is entitled to no power, 
 is, etc." If is not remarkable, with such precedents as 
 
 "Book 1, Chapter XV, Sections II and III. 
 
SOCIAL TRADITIONS dy 
 
 these, that women have until very recently been tradi- 
 tionally incapacitated by law. 
 
 Perhaps the most curious tradition by which women 
 are bound, — curious, because it is the most insistent, — 
 is that concerning women's occupation and sphere. 
 How often do we hear the self-satisfied man declare 
 that the place of woman is in the home. Women have, 
 from time immemorial, been forced to occupy them- 
 selves exclusively as housekeeper, wife and mother. 
 If the individual is so unfortunate as to be unable to 
 become a mother, she must content herself as the 
 housekeeper, for the term wife itself implies no stated 
 occupation. "It would be much," says Harrison in 
 his "Realities and Ideals," "if our generation could 
 establish this : that the place of the wife and the mother 
 is in her home." Schopenhauer says of woman, "She 
 is not called to great things. . . . She pays her debt 
 to life by the throes of birth, care of the children, sub- 
 jection to her husband. . . . Girls should be brought 
 up to habits of domesticity and servility." It is 
 woman's vocation to nurse and educate children, 
 because she is herself childish and remains an over- 
 grown child all her life, a kind of intermediate thing 
 between the child and the man, who is the only proper 
 human being. It is the Nietzschean theory that 
 motherhood is the secret justification of woman's 
 existence. An old English book, "The English House- 
 wife," published in London by Nicholas Okes in 1607, 
 gives the "Inward and outward virtues which ought 
 to be in a complete woman, — her skill in physicke. 
 
68 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 surgery, cookery, extraction of oils, banqueting stuffs, 
 ordering of feasts, preserving of all sorts of wines, 
 conceited secrets, distillations of perfumes, ordering 
 of wool, hemp, flax, making cloth and dyemg, etc., 
 etc., and of all other things belonging to a household." 
 In short, all woipen, no matter what their desires or 
 Capacities, should, according to our traditions, fit 
 themselves to the only occupations allowed them and 
 should endeavor as nearly as possible to reconcile their 
 angles and deviations from type to the regulation 
 pattern of wifehood. 
 
 The bond of tradition may not be so strong in the 
 United States as it is in China or India, but it requires 
 a courageous woman to dare disobey the social prece- 
 dents laid down before her. Upon the head of those 
 who dare defy a defunct, senseless precedent, society 
 has heaped not the praise due to a successful pioneer, 
 but the sneers and opprobrium which are erstwhile 
 the lot of a social outcast. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 MASCULINE DOMINANCE 
 
 "The sacrifice of wives in Africa, India, Fiji, Mada- 
 gascar, and elsewliere, upon the death of husbands, 
 shows how completely the person of the female had 
 been made a part of the male activity. Where this 
 practice obtained, the failure of the widow to acquiesce 
 in the habit was highly immoral. Williams says of the 
 strangling of widows by the Fijians : 'It has been said 
 that most women thus destroyed are sacrificed at their 
 own instance. There is truth in this statement, but 
 unless other facts are taken into account, it produces 
 an untruthful impression. Many are importunate to 
 be killed, because they know that life would hence- 
 forth be to them prolonged insult, neglect and want. 
 ... If the friends of the woman are not the most 
 clamorous for her death, their indifference is con- 
 strued into disrespect either for her late husband or 
 his friends.' "^ In this age of conflict so aptly char- 
 acterized by Thomas, when physical strength was the 
 prevailing force, "survival of the fittest" was not a 
 mere catch phrase; the incomprehensible and unman- 
 ageable forces of nature, savage and hostile tribes, 
 
 ' "Sex and Society," W. I. Thomas, University of Chicago 
 Press, 1907, p. 169. 
 
 69 
 
70 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 and the wild beasts of the jungle were ever eliminating 
 those creatures who lacked alertness and physical 
 fitness. 
 
 In this continual struggle against enemies, man, as 
 the possessor of the characteristics most continually in 
 requisition, easily obtained dominance over his partner, 
 woman. While her average strength may be equal to 
 man's, her sex functions cause it to fluctuate contin- 
 ually, rendering her at times entirely helpless, so that 
 she falls an easy prey to man's despotism. Moreover 
 because of the exigencies demanding physical strength, 
 there was inbred in women themselves a respect for 
 physique so great as to induce them to select as mates 
 the strongest and ablest men. Thus strong men were 
 reproduced and fostered, and masculine dominance was 
 the inevitable result. 
 
 Another contributory force existed in the child 
 marriage of primitive societies. Girls were betrothed 
 at birth, and married at the age of a few weeks, 
 months or years, often to an adult. As a result they 
 began to bear when least able to resist it, the yoke of 
 the dependent. Moreover, in the regimen of life neces- 
 sary where depredation is the means of survival, the 
 ablebodied man inevitably develops an attitude of 
 mastery toward all those weaker than himself, especi- 
 ally toward those immediately, dependent upon him, 
 and he comes to regard this relation as right and 
 highly desirable. 
 
 In such a primitive society where physical strength 
 is needed for survival, a division of occupation becomes 
 
MASCULINE DOMINANCE 7I 
 
 inevitable. The man fights and hunts and the woman 
 does the homekeeping and perpetuates the race. 
 Havelock Ellis, in his examination of the French epic 
 cycle discovers a society in which men fought and 
 women had the utmost contempt for the coward in 
 war. Woman possessed the freedom of initiative in 
 love, but after she became a wife, was entirely under 
 the dominion of her husband and often regarded by 
 him with the greatest contempt.^ 
 
 Masculine dominance was so vigorous an offspring 
 of the age of conflict that it still persists in spite of 
 the obviously complete change in the test of social 
 survival. It is no longer the biggest or strongest, he 
 who can use his hands and" arms most eflfectively, who 
 survives. Man has thrown of? the dominance of 
 brute strength, and mental, not physical power is the 
 test of survival today. The accumulated civilization 
 of the ages has advanced far beyond the dreams of 
 our remotest ancestors, but like a child with an out- 
 growrj toy, we still cling to the sex dominance of the 
 days of primitive culture. 
 
 Not only is masculine dominance physical— it has 
 likewise become moral and social and political. In 
 his moral ascendancy, man has been most clever in his 
 method of maintaining his control. He first insists 
 that woman is innately better than man, but requires 
 of her only the virtues which he does not desire for 
 himself, and limits her to the immoralities of which he 
 
 *"Man and Woman," Havelock Ellis, London, W. Scott, Ltd., 
 1897, pp. 12-13- 
 
72 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 does not greatly disapprove. By man's continual 
 insistence upon honor as the great virtue of woman, 
 he has led her to place an artificial value upon it, and 
 to sacrifice all other virtues to this one, a virtue which 
 strangely enough may be possessed only in a negative 
 sense. Cicely Hamilton's adage of the thief is an apt 
 one. Woman may keep her honor only so long as 
 chance is kind enough not to throw in her way a man 
 so brutal as to deprive her of it. But when once 
 deprived of it she may not cry out her theft upon the 
 housetops and demand the pursuit of the thief. Her 
 lack of strength to resist the theft is deemed a dis- 
 grace, to be hidden if possible and greeted with con- 
 tempt when revealed. The thief, on the other hand, 
 rejoicing in his superior strength is rather admired by 
 the world, and' pursues his way, untouched. In 
 France, a law still survives from the Napoleonic code 
 forbidding "qu'on cherche le pere." One could hardly 
 conceive a more desirable code of ethics from the 
 man's point of view. 
 
 Even in marriage a double standard of morality still 
 prevails for the sexes. Framed by men alone, the 
 laws indicate most clearly their intention to subjugate 
 the female by restricting her sexual freedom while 
 leaving that of the male practically unlimited. 
 
 But while the honor of the individual woman is 
 required to be unquestionable, and that of men is 
 almost unquestioned, the violation of the honor of a 
 group of women whose number is legion, is not only 
 sanctioned but rendered a perpetual institution in this 
 
MASCULINE DOMINANCE 73 
 
 society which men have evolved. In order to justify 
 the existence of prostitution, men have at various times 
 invented the one-time plausible excuse of "physical 
 necessity" and have even been upheld by prominent 
 medical men in their insistence upon this opportunist 
 plea. They have, moreover, so applied the doctrine 
 of innate immorality to their unfortunate victims, as 
 to prevent, until very recently, any pity among the 
 more protected women for their fallen sisters. 
 
 Prostitution has existed since masculine dominance 
 prevailed. In Greek and Roman civilization it was 
 an unquestioned institution. "In Athens a sumptuous 
 temple was dedicated to the Goddess Hetaera. In the 
 time of Plato 400 years B. C, there were no less than 
 one thousand prostitutes in the temple of Aphrodite in 
 Corinth."^ . , . Demosthenes thus defines the sexual 
 relations: "We marry in order to obtain legitimate 
 children and a faithful warder of the house; we keep 
 concubines as servants for our daily attendance, but 
 we seek the Hetaera for love's delight." In the mid- 
 dle ages prostitution existed as a regulated trade, hav- 
 ing a distinct guild organization. There were brothels 
 in all towns of any size, belonging usually to the 
 municipality, sometimes even to the church into whose 
 treasuries their proceeds flowed. "The women in 
 these brothels elected their own 'head-mistress,' whose 
 duty it was to preserve order and discipline and 
 who jealously sought to prevent competitors that 
 
 '"Woman," A. Bebel, London, Wm. Reeves, Tr. by B. A. 
 Walther, 3rd Edition, pp. 19-20. 
 
74 a woman and social progress 
 
 did not belong to the guild from spoiling the trade."^ 
 
 Not a particle less hideously does prostitution exist 
 today sometimes licensed, as in Paris and New 
 Orleans, but oftener flowing on as a dark undercur- 
 rent, not to be mentioned openly, unsuspected by many 
 of the innocent ones who are drawn into its vortex, 
 but ever gaining strength and impetus with its flow. 
 The unfortunates are absolutely without hope of 
 escape. Reginald Wright Kauffman, in his "House of 
 Bondage" shows how hideous and how insidious is the 
 system and how small any chance of rescue. The 
 extent of the so-called white slave traffic in America is 
 only beginning to be suspected by its investigators.^ 
 Statistics are unobtainable because of the very nature 
 of the, trade. But there it exists, — a hideous system 
 of vice, a monument to the insistence of men upon a 
 double standard of morality for the sexes. 
 
 "It may be true," pleads the man, "that we are 
 responsible for a system which degrades some women, 
 but you must at least admit that our treatment of a 
 great majority of women is such as to idealize rather 
 than to degrade them." Paradoxical as it may appear, 
 this very sentiment furnishes the basis for the whole 
 social system of woman's dependence. A few women 
 may be degraded morally by a masculine standard of 
 morality, but the vast majority are socially degraded 
 by the dependence resulting from man's intended 
 idealism. 
 
 '^ Supra, p. 32. 
 
 '"The White Slave Traffic," O. E. Janney, National Vigilance 
 Committee, New York, 191 1. 
 
MASCULINE DOMINANCE 
 
 This idealism centers primarily around the home, 
 the most idealized of all Anglo-Saxon institutions. 
 From the era of the domestic system, when the activi- 
 ties of both men and women were centered about the 
 home, has come the tradition that the place of women 
 is the home. Bandied about from mouth to mouth, 
 this phrase has finally been accepted as the expression 
 of divine intent. Whether a woman have the soul of 
 a poet, the inventive power of a genius or the execu- 
 tive capacity and foresight of a statesman, she is 
 relegated to the sphere of the pantry and the washtub, 
 and made to assume all the characteristics which men 
 have so generously designated as "feminine." .^.^ 
 
 Professing to have the highest respect for the A 
 so-called "superior" sex, men have never ceased, since j 
 they first began taking over industry from the home 
 to the factory, to thus limit the sphere of women. 
 Carefully selecting all the qualities which they deemed--/ 
 undesirable for themselves, — purity, constancy, devo- 
 tion, reserve, self-sacrifice, sweetness, gentleness, jeal- 
 ousy, cowardice, — men have abandoned them to the 
 so-called weaker sex. "Woman once the superior, 
 now the equal of man" is a common phrase in the 
 mouths of those who thus try to suppress the efforts 
 of a few women to assume the qualities which men 
 desire to reserve for themselves. 
 
 Thucydides expresses his opinion of women thus: 
 "The .wife who deserves the highest praise is she of 
 whom one hears neither good nor evil outside her 
 house." 
 
76 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 The poet Schiller in his turn generously venerates 
 her: 
 
 "Her might is gentleness, she winneth sway 
 By a soft word and a sober look. 
 Strength, power, majesty belong to men 
 They make the glory native to his life 
 But sweetness is a woman's attribute." 
 
 Otto Weininger in his "Woman and Mankind" (p. 
 334) thus philosophizes upon the desires of women: 
 "But the question is, How ought man to treat woman ? 
 As she herself desires to be treated or as the moral 
 idea would dictate?" (Note here the antithesis be- 
 tween the womanly idea and the moral idea.) "If he is 
 going to treat her as she wishes, he must beat her, for 
 she likes to be hurt; he must hypnotize her, since she 
 likes to be hypnotized; he must prove to her by his 
 attentions how little he thinks of himself for she likes 
 compliments and has no desire to be respected for her- 
 self." How vast must have been his experience, how 
 great his confidence in his own judgment, to justify 
 these conclusions. Andrew Mac Phail in his "Essays 
 in Fallacy" recommends the "effeminate woman, who 
 overcomes man by the force of continual quietness. 
 She may understand all knowledge and have strength 
 to remove all public grievance; yet she is nothing if 
 she has not entered into the mystery of gentleness." 
 
 And what has been the effect of this masculine atti- 
 tude upon the character of women? "Seek and ye. 
 shall find," says the Scripture. Men have finally suc- 
 ceeded in finding in woman what they have so long 
 endeavored to develop there; but with the enforced 
 
MASCULINE DOMINANCE ^^ 
 
 characteristics have come others not so desirable, but 
 which follow as inevitably as day follows night. 
 Deceit and cunning are always co-existent with 
 tyranny and despotism; with lack of opportunity for 
 physical development has come weakness and coward- 
 ice ; with oppression and dependence have come degra- 
 dation and servility ; with the necessity for assuming the 
 qualities which men desire in her has come the habitude 
 of continual masquerade ; with lack of opportunity to 
 judge and decide, and with careful seclusion from the 
 great problems of the world, have come lack of judg- 
 ment and initiative power, and a false estimate of the 
 value of her own petty problems. One of the char- 
 acteristics of woman against which men most end- 
 lessly rail is her tendency to personalize. He delights 
 in quoting the woman who replied, in answer to the 
 statement that women personalize everything: "I 
 don't." "A girl," to quote Stevenson's "Virginibus 
 Puerisque," "has always lived in a glass house among 
 approving relatives, whose word was law ; she has been 
 bred up to sacrifice her judgments, to take the key sub- 
 missively from dear papa; and it is wonderful how 
 swiftly she can change her tune into the husband's." 
 
 Finally man deplores, criticizes and even condemns 
 the results of his dominance of woman. True the 
 result of man's dominance is an inferior creature, but 
 she still retains at least one virtue, the power of per- 
 ception, and she is just beginning to perceive that the 
 dominance of one sex by the other is a hideousi 
 anachronism, Witji knowledge comes power. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 MARRIAGE AS A TRADE 
 
 "Man desires a being that not only loves but under- 
 stands him, a being whose heart not only beats for 
 him, but whose hand smooths his brow, a being that, 
 wherever it appears, irradiates peace, rest, order, silent 
 control over itself and over the thousand trifles that 
 make up his daily life; he desires a being that dif- 
 fuses over everything that indefinable odor of woman- 
 hood, which is the vivifying warmth of domestic life."^ 
 
 Thus do men picture to themselves and to the world 
 their ideal of a wife, and feel that they have trans- 
 figured far above the sordid realities of life the woman 
 who is to exert for them this silent, soothing influence. 
 Alas ! after. all is said and we come down to hard facts, 
 ! fhis grand eloquent idealization of woman means, 
 being interpreted, little more than "second fiddle." 
 
 Men have insisted upon stressing the religious and 
 social side of marriage, rather than its practical aspects. 
 A sacred right having its origin in the Old Testament, 
 — where, we add parenthetically, plural wives were not 
 at all uncommon, and the rights of the individual 
 wife quite generally disregarded, — sanctioned by the 
 
 •"Woman," A. Bebel, London, William Reeves (no date), p. 
 51. Quoted from "Woman from the Standpoint of Political 
 Economy," Lorenze von Stein. 
 
 78 
 
MARRIAGE AS A TRADE 79 
 
 rites and ceremonies of the church, conferring upon 
 woman all the dignity that the fulfillment of her divine 
 function can confer— thus has marriage been again 
 and again defined. Woman's chief social function, 
 to be sure, is to perpetuate her race ; but though social 
 in its object, this perpetuation is purely physical, a 
 faculty that belongs alike to the birds of the air and 
 to the beasts of the jungle. Sincd the relation between 
 race perpetuation and marriage is an artificial one, 
 woman not infrequently fails to perpetuate in spite of 
 the institution of marriage. In fact the two are not 
 so interdependent as we fondly imagine. They may 
 occur and do occur absolutely irrespective of each 
 other. 
 
 In discussing marriage and propagation, we invari- 
 ably fail to take into consideration the next generation. 
 A child has not a divine right to be born unless it can 
 properly be provided for. Unlimited propagation is 
 a crime against the child as well as against society, and 
 should be as deeply condemned as wife- or child- 
 desertion. 
 
 There is, however, another aspect of marriage, far 
 too often disregarded, which is neither so idealistic 
 nor so beautiful as the social and religious aspect. I 
 speak of the aspect of Marriage as a Trade. 
 
 To how many men, I wonder, has it ever occurred 
 that for the vast majority of women marriage was 
 until very recently the only means of support in which 
 they could retain the respect of the world ? The "old 
 maid" has been the laughing-stock of generations, the 
 
8o WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 first and last resource of the comic magazines, the joke- 
 makers and punsters. Men, from time immemorial 
 have been allowed to choose their trade or occupation. 
 Even the members of the proletariat may at least choose 
 the method by which they shall be exploited, — the 
 manner in which they shall labor for their subsistence. 
 But women, excluded from the field of industry, often 
 barred by custom and law from even possessing 
 property, have had but one choice. If the individual 
 woman could succeed in so arousing and fulfilling the 
 desires of the male as to induce him to share his prop- 
 erty and earnings with her, she might by a simple 
 process of exchange, yield up her person for the means 
 of existence. Any variation from this rule in past 
 generations met not only with the disapprobation of 
 the world but even with persecution and punishment. 
 Witch-burning, commonly thought of as a relic of 
 barbarism, was in the last analysis merely the penalty 
 paid by women who deviated from the type of colorless 
 wife and mother of which men approved at that time. 
 It was not only the hag, the decrepit and the infirm 
 who fell victims to this barbarity, it was the woman 
 who evinced any kind of peculiarity, whether unusual 
 beauty, mental power or the genius of Joan d'Arc. 
 
 Is it strange, then, that women are eager to marry — 
 that, after all other trades have been forbidden them, 
 they cling to marriage as a first and last resort, — ^their 
 only hope of social salvation? Is it surprising that 
 they learn to point the finger of scorn at the unmarried 
 women ? Far be it from anyone to cast reflection upon 
 
MARRIAGE AS A TRADE 8l 
 
 the bachelor! Moreover since the census figures tell 
 us that females are in the majority in practically all 
 civilized countries, and since a more or less fixed per 
 cent, of the men everywhere elect to remain in single 
 blessedness, the mathematical result is obvious, — a 
 large number of women, no matter what their efforts 
 or charms, must inevitably fail to enter the married 
 state. 
 
 Ap a further handicap to the pursuit of her trade, — 
 marriage, — custom has ordained that the woman 
 appear reluctant to follow her compulsory pursuit. A 
 strange anomaly! No other worker is subject to such 
 a restriction. The laborer, the teacher, the profes- 
 sional man, offers his services to those who desire 
 them, and is accepted or rejected according to his 
 ability and the condition of the labor market. Unfor- 
 tunately for women there is always a flood in the 
 market of marriageable girls ; and since any direct dis- 
 play of talents and fitness is forbidden, women have 
 but one alternative — ^to wait. 
 
 To be sure, fond mammas occasionally make disin- 
 genuous, hesitating efforts to advance their daughters' 
 matrimonial interests. Thackeray puts the matter very 
 well in commenting on the efforts of the orphan, Becky 
 Sharp, to get herself a husband. 
 
 "Though the task of husband-hunting is generally, 
 and with becoming modesty, entrusted by young per- 
 sons to their mammas, recollect that Miss Sharp had 
 no kind parent to arrange these matters for her. What 
 causes young people to 'come out' but the noble ambi- 
 6 
 
82 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 tion of matrimony? What sends them trooping to 
 watering-places? What keeps them dancing till five 
 o'clock in the morning through a whole mortal season ? 
 What causes them to labor at pianoforte sonatas, and 
 to learn four songs from a fashionable master at a 
 guinea a lesson? What causes respectable parents to 
 take up their carpets, set their house topsy-turvy, and 
 spend a fifth of their year's income in balls and sup- 
 pers and iced champagne? Is it sheer love of their 
 species, and an unadulterated wish to see young people 
 happy and dancing? Pshal they want to marry their 
 daughters." 
 
 In order to minimize the chances of failure in this 
 trade which women must follow but may not profess, 
 the education of girls has been directed with this object 
 in view — ^to enable them to marry. 
 
 Only one ware may be publicly offered by the female 
 — her charm, and the process of attaining this much 
 prized virtue is the work of years. Charm, says Barrie 
 in "What Every Woman Knows," is what every 
 woman needs. If she has it, she needs nothing else 
 — if she does not have it, other virtues are unavailing. 
 Those fortunate ones who are blessed with the charm 
 of physical attractiveness, usually depend for matri- 
 monial success upon beauty of face and form. To this 
 end they deck and adorn themselves. Others who 
 lack personal attractiveness, but who possess a cheer- 
 ful, happy disposition, seek to develop a bright, vivac- 
 ious manner. Still others try to develop talents. 
 Mary is taught to play the piano, Alice the mandolin. 
 
MARRIAGE AS A TRADE 83 
 
 while Sarah learns to warble a few plaintive ditties. 
 Such instruction is rarely given, let it be said, with 
 any idea that the young ladies in question will make 
 of such pursuits their life work. Life work indeed! 
 My Mary work? Horrible thought! Any musical 
 talent really worth development is unusual; yet girls 
 are given as children lessons in music, art or some 
 other artistic pursuit that they may be prepared to 
 shine socially. Some girls endeavor to develop a good 
 physique, and practise tennis and horseback riding 
 assiduously,— of recent years, men have begun rather 
 to admire good health and physical development in 
 women. Finally, a few women, possessing only men- 
 tal ability, are unwise enough to think that the average 
 man wants a brilliant mind in a life companion. In 
 short, the average girl seeks, in so far as her talents 
 lie, to approximate to the standard of womanhood set 
 by the majority of men, since the greater the number 
 of her admirers, the greater her opportunity for a 
 satisfactory choice. 
 
 Whatever the training of the girl may be, there is 
 always the possible husband lurking in the ' back- 
 ground, pictured successively as a minister, a doctor, 
 a great general, or a member of the nobility. The pro- 
 fession is apt to change half a dozen times in the 
 course of twenty years, but the being is there, approv- 
 ing or disapproving of her conduct and inevitably by 
 his preferences, guiding her training. The boy is 
 trained to be a carpenter or sailor, as his talents, 
 desires and opportunities may dictate, but the girl. 
 
84 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 whatever her talents, whatever her desires, is trained 
 or else given over untrained to marriage. 
 
 Ideally as the state of marriage may be pictured in 
 poeti-y, in novels, and in polite conversation, there are 
 certain disadvantages in this trade, which in their sum 
 total do not exist in any other single occupation. In 
 the first place, it usually involves dependence, whether 
 she be the wife of a poor or a rich man. Whether her 
 services to her husband and family be of real value or a 
 minus quantity, the average woman is paid only in the 
 wages of subsistence. It is not because of her earning 
 capacity, but because of the generosity of her husband 
 that she receives the five, ten or fifty dollars a week 
 which is hers to spend entirely as she pleases. In fact 
 her allowance is usually in inverse ratio to the services 
 rendered. This lack of a budget is the culminating 
 point in woman's dependence. 
 
 If we examine the so-called happy marriages we find 
 them seldom based on the comradeship of equal minds, 
 but rather on the extension by men toward women of 
 the kindness and affection which they would show to 
 any lovable pets or creatures. John Stuart Mill 
 declares of his day that "marriage is the only actual 
 form of serfdom recognized by law. Man's much 
 lauded chivalrous attitude toward women is not based 
 on respect. It is merely a remnant of the days of 
 mediaeval romance, when men paid tribute not to real 
 flesh and blood women, but to their vague ideals. 
 Beatrice to Dante, or Laura to Petrarch, was not a 
 woman to be loved, married and lived with on equal 
 
MARRIAGE AS A TRADE 85 
 
 terms, but rather a symbol of abstract beauty and per- 
 fection." 
 
 Romeo states the concept very well when he says : — 
 
 "She hangs upon the cheek of night 
 Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear — 
 Beauty too rich for use. 
 For earth too dear." 
 
 As subsequent events proved, this star-crossed lover 
 was much more apt at dying than at living for his lady. 
 
 Woman is no longer an incomprehensible shadowy 
 creature to be worshiped, nor is she a helpless female 
 needing protection, but an individual with all the 
 potentialities of any human being, — whether male> or 
 female. -As a muscle degenerates from lack of use, as 
 the fish in Mammoth Cave lack eyes to see the day- 
 light with which they never come in contact, so does 
 woman lose her capabilities when they are denied 
 opportunity to develop. Her work is in the home, in 
 entire isolation; she has no contact with her peers 
 in the work of the world. Her children are in school ; 
 her husband at his office or shop. Her real social 
 contact is practically limited to that which she has 
 during leisure hours, for purely recreative purposes. 
 As a result she narrows inevitably. Her viewpoint 
 becomes entirely individual and she incapable of real 
 cooperative effort. 
 
 Finally her training to consider marriage as her 
 trade has made of woman an unskilled worker in all 
 other occupations. The percentage of women returned 
 as occupied in the census of igoo is about 34. This 
 
8d WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 does not mean that only one-third of the women work. 
 It means that a large proportion of girls enters a trade 
 to remain there only, for a few years, almost invariably 
 leaving upon marriage. In fact "the largest class of 
 women in the country is represented by the woman 
 who, from 14 to 15, or even younger, goes out as a 
 servant or works in a factory, mill or workshop, for 
 seven or eig^ht years, and looks forward to marriage as 
 the natural termination of her industrial career." 
 
 Woman not only deserts her occupation for mar- 
 riage, — at the end of about twenty years of mar- 
 ried life, she frequently reenters the industrial arena. 
 The serious difficulty of this double necessity for 
 adjustment is entirely underestimated, She must 
 change from an industrial to a domestic worker or 
 vice versa, — she must change from a woman working 
 supposedly for love, following her own methods with 
 her time allotted as she deems best, to a cog in the 
 great industrial machine requiring regularity, skill and 
 concentration. The habits formed in the years of 
 domestic life not only fail to help her in industrial life 
 but prove a serious hindrance. Is it remarkable that 
 women, are generally unskilled workers ? 
 I It is not marriage in itself that is responsible for all 
 I these results — ^not marriage but the fact that marriage 
 i is regarded as a trade — as a pursuit which must be 
 followed to the exclusion of other regular work. 
 
 The remedy lies in woman's own hands. There is 
 no inherent reason why marriage should not be merely 
 an incident in her life as it is in the life of the man, — 
 
MARRIAGE AS A TRADE 87 
 
 no reason why she should not adopt a profession and 
 follow it through life, — with the possible interruption 
 of a few years, if she becomes a mother, — just as a 
 man pursues his trade. True, she will have to combat 
 the old-time tradition that women who do any work 
 outside their homes must inevitably neglect them. But 
 may not the home of the woman who works be the new 
 kind of home — ^that based upon ideals and common 
 interests rather than upon material drudgery? A few 
 women have proved that it can be done. Such women 
 as the noted singer Madame Gadski tell us that mar- 
 riage and motherhood need not be a hindrance, but 
 may rather be an inspiration to professional or indus- 
 trial work. This need prevent no women who delight 
 in domestic science from adopting that as their occu- 
 pation, but it will no longer put before women as a 
 class the equivalent of Hobson's choice — Marriage as 
 a trade. 
 
 N. B. — I wish to render due thanks to Cicely Hamilton for 
 her suggestive book "Marriage As a Trade," from which I have 
 taken the title for this chapter. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE HOME TRAINING OF THE GIRL 
 
 Wordsworth says "the child is father to the man," 
 probably unconsciously emphasizing the male child 
 as the propagator of the next generation. If he 
 had referred instead to the girl, he might have said 
 that not only was she the mother but the educator of 
 the next generation. Obviously the training of this 
 feminine power which is to be the creative agent as 
 well as the trainer and guide of those unborn, is of 
 the utmost importance. 
 
 The so-called feminine nature has unfortunately been 
 misunderstood for so long, that the shibboleth of preju- 
 dice is most difficult to destroy. "What is now called 
 the nature of women is an eminently artificial thing — 
 the result of forced repression in some directions, and 
 unnatural stimulation in others. It may be asserted 
 without scruple, that no other class of dependents have 
 had their character so entirely distorted from its natural 
 proportions by their relation with their masters; for, 
 if conquered and as slave races have been, in some 
 respects, more forcibly repressed, whatever in them 
 has not been crushed down by an iron heel has gen- 
 erally been let alone, and if left with any liberty of 
 development, it has developed itself according to its 
 
THE HOME TRAINING OF THE GIRL 89 
 
 own laws; but in the case of wothen, a hothouse and 
 stove cultivation has always been carried on of some 
 of the capabilities of their nature, for the benefit and 
 pleasure of their masters."^ The importance, there- 
 fore, of removing this unnatural environment and 
 developing all the best that really lies latent in the girl 
 cannot be overestimated. 
 
 Let us begin with the most obvious quality in the 
 young child, its physical nature. Our civilization has 
 evolved a strange differentiation in the development 
 of the physique of the boy and the girl. From baby- 
 hood the boy is encouraged to romp and play and 
 develop physically; while the girl, until very recently, 
 was invariably urged to be neat and clean, to be a 
 little lady — in other words, to atrophy T/^KjItfMly- 
 
 There is a marked difference in many of the essen- 
 tials of childhood which are provided for the two sexes, 
 as for example, in the toys and clothes. The boy has 
 his ball, his top and his drum, his tools, his engine and 
 his toy automobile. He throws his ball, he spins his 
 top, he beats his drum, his childish ingenuity puzzles 
 over the intricacies of the engine, and he likes to "see 
 the wheels go round." He makes a noise and is usu- 
 ally sent out of doors where he can romp to suit his 
 own free will. 
 
 The girl, on the other hand, has her dolls, with 
 possibly a toy bed or bureau or trunk. She dresses 
 her dolls, she puts them to bed and puts away their 
 
 * "Subjection of Women,'' John Stuart Mill, New York, D. 
 Appleton & Co., 1870, pp. 38-39' 
 
go WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 clothes. Each day, instead of beginning in her play 
 as does the boy, where he stopped the day before, she 
 begins just where she started the day before, and 
 repeats the dressing and undressing process endlessly. 
 Her progress in really effective methods of play is 
 obviously nil. 
 
 As the boy is expected to run and climb, suitable 
 clothes are provided. His knickerbockers are of some 
 heavy material that will not tear easily, and of some 
 dark color, that shows few marks of soil. The girls, 
 until a few up-to-date mothers decided to put them in 
 "rompers" or "johnnies," wore thin dresses, usually of 
 some light color, with lace not only on the dresses, but 
 on the petticoats and underwear. The scolding that 
 results from a rent in Mary's skirt is scarcely an incen- 
 tive to active play. 
 
 The playground of the lightly clad, doll-surrounded 
 girl is within doors. While the boy becomes hardy 
 from exposure, the girl becomes delicate from the 
 enervating air of an artificially heated house. The 
 trouble of bundling her up before she goes out of 
 doors in all of the necessary leggings, gloves, furs 
 and overshoes, is so great that she cannot run in and 
 out at will as does her brother. She is apt, therefore, 
 to follow the line of least resistance and stay inside, 
 particularly if the weather shows any indication of 
 inclemency. 
 
 In the physical ideals presented to the boy and girl 
 the distinction of sex is paramount. The boy is taught 
 to despise the "sis" who is "tied to his mother's apron- 
 
THE HOME TRAINING OF THE GIEL gi 
 
 string." If the girl is neat and clean, her mother sel- 
 dom takes an interest in her muscle. For her, physical 
 ideals are conspicuously lacking. 
 
 J. H. Huxley in his "Science and Education," thus 
 characterizes the situation: "Naturally not so firmly 
 strung nor so well balanced as boys, girls are in great 
 measure debarred from the sports and physical exer- 
 cises which are justly thought absolutely necessary for 
 the full development of the vigor of the more favored 
 sex. Women are, by nature, more excitable than men 
 — ^prone to be swept by tides of emotion, proceeding 
 from hidden and inward as well as from obvious and 
 external causes ; and female education does its best to 
 weaken every physical counterpoise to this nervous 
 mobility— tends in all ways to stimulate the emotional 
 part of the mind and stunt the rest."^ 
 
 The question of a playground for the city girl is a 
 very difficult one. In view of the fact that our com- 
 mon ideal of a home is the abode of a married couple 
 who have or will have children, the woeful lack of 
 provision for the needs of the child in the construction 
 of the modern city home is at least surprising. Huge 
 real estate signs advertise the bathroom, the bedrooms, 
 the dining room and kitchen, the library and reception 
 hall. But where is the children's room? If it exists 
 at all, it is usually some back room in an upper story 
 which is given to them because it cannot be used for 
 anything else. Owners do not care to rent houses to 
 
 ' "Science and Education," J. H. Huxley, New York, D. 
 Appleton & Co., 1901, pp. 71-78. 
 
92 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 people having children. Many of the apartment 
 houses, indeed, exclude children as they exclude dogs 
 or other objectionable animals. 
 
 The-end of this short-sighted policy is close at hand. 
 Alrejidy there are many women brave enough to face 
 social criticism, who convert their best and largest 
 room into a real gymnasium where the girls as well as 
 the boys can play on horizontal bars, climb ropes, swing 
 on rings and play basket ball, without the danger of 
 breaking a picture or knocking over an ornament. 
 With this change comes the elimination of the trouble- 
 some skirt for the growing girl and the adoption of 
 rompers or bloomers made of some serviceable 
 material. 
 
 Where open space about the home permits of out-of- 
 door sports, girls are beginning to play tennis and 
 baseball, to run, jump and climb. Unfortunately few 
 parents are able really to direct the play of their chil- 
 dren, — this task must be left to the schools and public 
 playgrounds. In one enterprising community, how- 
 ever, where a few mothers are attempting to cooperate 
 in organizing the play of their boys and girls, a 
 private playground has been obtained, and a mother is 
 on duty morning and afternoon, — not to run the play- 
 ground as an outsider, but to be one of the children, 
 to suggest and advise only where assistance is 
 requested. The fondness of the children for the play- 
 ground is ample evidence of its success. 
 
 As a matter of fact, really wideawake parents are 
 beginning everywhere to attempt the shaping of a 
 
THE HOME TRAINING OF THE GIRL 93 
 
 policy of physical training of children, irrespective of 
 sex. Opportunity is given to the girl as well as the 
 boy to develop not only muscle and strength, but 
 powers of skill, dexterity and endurance. 
 
 Next in importance to physical well-being is a 
 healthy knowledge on the part of every girl of her 
 bodily functions. General hygiene is already taught, 
 though hesitatingly, in most schools; but the develop- 
 ment of sex hygiene as a science is of fairly recent 
 date, and the place and time for it are still matters of 
 discussion. Were it not for the backwardness and 
 ignorance of parents, the ease of teaching sex hygiene 
 in the home would relieve the school of any responsi- 
 bility; but parents generally refuse to discuss sex 
 questions with their children, and deeply resent inter- 
 ference. Both boys and girls gain at a remarkably 
 early age a considerable amount of sex knowledge. 
 The important thing is not whether, but where and 
 how they gain it. The large majority of them, I feel 
 convinced, are not instructed by their parents in really 
 healthy knowledge of self, but by servants and other 
 children whose own ignorance makes the information 
 largely unreliable, and by those who deliberately dis- 
 tort the facts. 
 
 The responsibility for sex education is, in the end, 
 a parental one. In giving information, the parent 
 must go more than halfway. The time for teaching 
 sex hygiene is not at the arbitrary age of thirteen or 
 ten or six years, but at the age when the individual 
 child begins to question. The little girl who is told 
 
94 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 to "run away and play" when she asks where her baby 
 brother came from, does not go back to her mother 
 with her next question. She seeks some other source 
 of information, whose suitableness is usually open to 
 question. 
 
 The necessity of a healthy knowledge of self on the 
 part of every growing girl hardly needs emphasis, 
 since the well-being of a large part of her life may 
 depend upon the health habits which she establishes 
 during the period* of puberty. Positive wrongdoing 
 or negative neglect is more often the result of ignor- 
 ance than of intent. 
 
 After the physical well-being of the growing girl is 
 provided for, there comes the obvious necessity of 
 character training. Character, it is true, is in a process 
 of constant evolution, and is influenced and changed 
 every year and every decade by environmental circum- 
 stances. But the real working basis for character is 
 developed in early youth and is dependent usually upon 
 home influence. 
 
 I disagree with those who believe that hardship 
 necessarily ennobles character. It just as often embit- 
 ters it. But the necessity for daily constructive effort, 
 be it the making of a bed, or the cooking for an entire 
 family, so long as it does not exceed the maximum 
 amount of work which the girl is able to perform 
 and still have time for her share of play and education, 
 cannot help but develop and strengthen a feeling of 
 social responsibility, — a feeling that since some part 
 of the home activities depends absolutely upon her that 
 
THE HOME TRAINING OF THE GIRL 95 
 
 she is an essential unit in the family life. This pri- 
 mary concept of workihg for the group, if once incul- 
 cated, is well nigh ineradicable. Such social activities 
 must, however, appear in the light of a privilege, rather 
 than an onerous duty. Wherever practical^ the task 
 should be made to suit the inclination of the girl, since 
 work that is done willingly and with interest is always 
 far better done than the unpleasant task. 
 
 A really comprehensive attempt in the home to 
 strengthen the character of the girl would include the 
 inculcation of those characteristics in which women 
 are supposed to be lacking, to counteract, in other 
 words, the so-called feminine weakness, such as 
 timidity, lack of initiative, blind submission to author- 
 ity and pure physical cowardice. It cannot be too 
 often stressed, however, that the child, whether boy 
 or girl, learns in the long run not from the precepts 
 but from the examples of those with whom she comes 
 in contact. 
 
 As an element of character, I shall venture to isor 
 late that of individual independence. The influence 
 of the ages has resulted in making woman dependent. 
 The boy from his babyhood is asked what he intends 
 to do when he grows up. The girl is never really 
 made to feel that she must stand on her own feet. 
 She is brought up to expect that her father will sup- 
 port her until she can find a husband. He, in return 
 for whatever service she can render in his home, will 
 support her so long as she is in need of his assistance. 
 Woman as an independent individual, following an 
 
96 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 occupation of her own choosing, is an ideal rarely 
 impressed upon the mind of the growing girl ; yet it is 
 an essential to the ultimate independence of women. 
 
 Finally, in this home training of girls, the coopera- 
 tion of the father is needed. Just as most of the 
 women's colleges realize the desirability of having men 
 as well as women instructors, so parents should realize 
 that in the home the viewpoint of the father, broadened 
 by his wider contact with the world, is as necessary an 
 element in the training of the girls, as is the mother's 
 influence in the training of the boy. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 SCHOOL TRAINING 
 
 It is hard to realize that the education of girls and 
 women is a comparatively recent innovation; yet it is 
 a fact that the first grammar and elementary schools 
 in our colonial days were intended only for the edu- 
 cation of boys ; and the early public schools in England 
 provided no opportunity whatever for the education 
 of girls. Education was not considered necessary for 
 women; in fact some men really doubted whether 
 women were capable of education. 
 
 Meantime the wheels of the Gods were grinding out 
 the concept of the individual capacity of Woman. 
 Girls were admitted to the primary and elementary 
 schools, and permitted to learn the three R's along 
 with their sewing and dancing and lessons in deport- 
 ment ; then other branches were opened to them, until 
 at present the school system, both public and private, 
 presents practically identical elementary curricula for 
 boys and girls, often in the form of co-education. But 
 there still lingers a trace of the old idea that education 
 is more necessary to the boy than to the girl — an idea 
 admirably expressed by Ruskin in his "Sesame and 
 Lilies." "A girl's education should be nearly, in its 
 course and material of study, the same as a boy's ; but 
 7 97 
 
g8 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 quite differently directed. A woman, in any rank of 
 life, ought to know whatever her husband is likely to 
 know but to know it in a different way. . . . Speaking 
 broadly, a man ought to know any language or science 
 he learns, thoroughly, — while a woman ought to know 
 the same language, or science, only so far as may 
 enable her to sympathize in her husband's pleasures 
 and in those of his best friends." The essential dif- 
 ference in the spirit behind the education of boys and 
 girls cannot be better illustrated than by a speech 
 delivered by Mr. John Burns to the "Children of the 
 State" at the North Surrey District School in 1909. To 
 the boys he said, "I want you to be happy craftsmen, 
 because you are trained to be healthy men." To the 
 girls, "To keep house, cook, nurse and delight in mak- 
 ing others happy is your mission, duty and livelihood." 
 The object of education according to Herbert 
 Spencer is "preparation for complete living" — an 
 attempt to realize all the potentialities of the individual. 
 As applied to women this would include such physical 
 training as to make every atom of her physical energy 
 and power of endurance contribute toward some defi- 
 nite result, whether it be further physical development 
 or some concrete achievement. It would include the 
 full development of whatever mental power she might 
 possess. Finally, what is of most practical importance, 
 it would include some occupational training so that 
 she might perform her work in the world, — whether 
 it be that of cook, mother, or business woman, — as a 
 trained worker. 
 
SCHOOL TRAINING 99 
 
 In what respect does the present school curriculum 
 fulfil these ideals? 
 
 The physical training given to girls in our modern 
 schools is entirely inadequate. This is particularly 
 unfortunate because of the great importance of physical 
 education for girls in preparation for future mother- 
 hood. Stanley Hall in his "Adolescence," lays espec- 
 ial stress upon the need of a well-balanced physical life 
 for the adolescent girl. "The more scholastic the edu- 
 cation of women," he says, "the fewer children and 
 the harder, more dangerous, and more dreaded is 
 parturition, and the less the ability to nurse children. 
 Not intelligence but education by present man-made 
 wa:ys is inversely as fecundity."^ 
 
 In his outline of an ideal institution for the training 
 of girls from twelve to twenty. Dr. Hall makes the 
 following suggestions, — ^"That the training should be 
 in the country, in the midst of the hills, the climbing 
 of which is the best stimulus for heart and lungs, and 
 tends to mental elevation and breadth of view. There 
 should be water for boating, bathing and skating, 
 aquaria and aquatic life; gardens both for kitchen 
 vegetables and horticulture ; forests for their seclusion 
 and religious awe ; good roads, walks, and paths that 
 tempt to walking and wheeling; playgrounds; and 
 space for golf and tennis . . . yet not too great 
 remoteness from the city for a wise utilization of its 
 advantages at intervals."^ In short, while girls are 
 
 '"Adolescence," G. Stanley Hall, New York, D. Appleton & 
 Coi, 1908, Vol. II, p. 614. 'Ibid., Vol. II, pp. 636-43- 
 
ICO WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 being educated they should live. Such an equipment 
 for the physical education of nine-tenths of our girls 
 is, however, out of the question as a practical method. 
 The vast majority must rely upon the facilities offered 
 by the ordinary public or private schools, inadequate 
 and incomplete as they are. 
 
 The inadequacy of the educational system is popu- 
 larly attributed to two factors, — lack of time and lack 
 of money. For really effective physical training a well 
 equipped gymnasium or athletic field is necessary. But 
 the different kinds of apparatus are expensive, out-of- 
 door space, and often indoor space is limited, and the 
 girls' physical training where it exists at all is usually 
 reduced to a mild and ineffective form of calisthenics. 
 For younger children, the system of kindergartens 
 developed under Froebel's plan is admirable. For 
 older children public playgrounds are being gradually 
 introduced into the large cities ; yet most of the facili- 
 ties there for exercise are intended for or monopolized 
 by the boys. The school gardens form an excellent 
 opportunity not only for physical exercise but for 
 practical education in horticulture and agriculture. 
 Unfortunately few schools are provided with them. 
 
 The plea of no time for physical exercise is laugh- 
 able to any one who is familiar with the undue amount 
 of mental effort required of the growing girl, parti- 
 cularly in the high schools. Yet the educator that 
 develops the brain at the expense of the body is usu- 
 ally the one to plead no time for physical education. 
 The general tendency, however, to discount the impor- 
 
SCHOOL TRAINING lOI 
 
 tance of this training for girls is fortunately decadent. 
 The present mental preparation of our girls for 
 "complete living" particularly in the higher grades, is 
 open to considerable censure. The great conscien- 
 tiousness of girls, in regard to their lessons, has made 
 them particularly susceptible of imposition in the 
 matter of home work, hence the tremendous mental 
 pressure which is borne by the ambitious girl who 
 desires to excel in her classes. As a student in the 
 High School, I remember spending day after day of 
 five hours in school, nearly two hours going and com- 
 ing, and six or eight hours of preparation at home. 
 If eight hours is allowed for sleep, and one or two for 
 eating, it is easily seen how little time remains. And 
 I think I was not the exception among those who 
 were preparing for college. In the General Courses 
 the pressure was slightly less severe, but the number 
 of branches studied rendered thoroughness in any one 
 almost impossible. No wonder Herbert Spencer 
 spoke so feelingly of the "flat-cheSted girl who survives 
 our high pressure education." 
 
 The difficulty in the lower grades lies not so much 
 with the mental pressure, as in the lack of elasticity in 
 the work. The elementary classes in the public schools 
 are usually so large (averaging more than forty in all 
 of the leading American cities) that any individualiza- 
 tion of the scholar is impossible ; and be the child bril- 
 liant or stupid, slow to think or quick to jumping at 
 conclusions, he is expected to take in the same facts 
 in the same way, and produce the same result. And 
 
.I02 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 the result is the same. It is universally deadening. 
 
 Hand in hand with recent attempts at improving the 
 health of our school, children, have gone various 
 improvements in the school curricula. The keen sense 
 pf the esthetic which women so generally possesa has 
 never been cultivated within even speaking distance 
 of its possibilities. Educators who have begun to 
 realize this are attempting to remedy the situation, and 
 the study of music and art has been introduced, often, 
 to be sure, in a very crude form. The kindergartens 
 are far more effective in this direction than the more 
 advanced grades. They have made really constructive 
 attempts to develop discrimination both of the eye and 
 the ear in recognizing color and harmony, grace of 
 form and movement. The effort is still in its infancy 
 and offers an open field to the enterprising educator. 
 
 In occupational training both public and private 
 schools are almost entirely lacking. School teaching 
 is the only pursuit for which any extended preparation 
 is given. Along more practical lines, the teaching of 
 domestic science has been limited so far to elementary 
 courses in sewing and cooking. A laboratory is of 
 course necessary for cooking, but the apparatus is usu- 
 ally limited to a stove plus the necessary pots and pans. 
 A course in cooking to be effectual needs a foundation 
 in the fundamentals of chemistry, and ample oppor- 
 tunity to test food values and the chemical properties 
 of foods. The ordinary courses offered in sewing 
 usually give only the simplest elements, and attempt 
 no training in the designing or construction of clothes. 
 
SCHOOL TRAINING , IO3 
 
 The necessity for really thorough training in 
 domestic science in the school is scarcely realized. It 
 is particularly important for the girl who goes, at 
 fourteen or sixteen, from the school to the store or 
 factory, and who leaves behind her any opportunity 
 to secure practical training in domestic economy. 
 Unfortunately, however, the realization of the impor- 
 tance of domestic training is apt to be underestimated 
 by the girls who have not actively felt its need. Some' 
 incentive is needed to arouse their interest when they 
 are still young enough to profit by any advantages 
 offered in the regular school courses. Nebraska, for 
 example, has an annual corn cooking contest among 
 the children of the public schools. The Western 
 states, it may be noted, have left their Eastern sisters 
 far behind them in really effectual training in domestic 
 arts and sciences. 
 
 In the matter of hand training of girls — ^that is, 
 training in skill and dexterity — only the kindergartens 
 have made even a beginning. Here the basket-weav- 
 ing, elementary designing and raffia work correspond 
 roughly to the manual training given to the boys in the 
 higher grades. With the. exception of drawing, how- 
 ever, practically no opportunity is given to the girl 
 after she leaves the kindergarten to develop manual 
 dexterity and skill. 
 
 The teaching of sex hygiene is still another element 
 of education yet in its infancy. Doubtless some will 
 advocate the home as the most fitting place for such 
 instruction. Yet during the years in which such 
 
I04 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 instruction has been delegated to the home, the latter 
 has failed ignominiously to fulfil its duty. The inves- 
 tigations made by Judge Lindsey among the school 
 children of Denver and by Judge Mack among the 
 children of Chicago, reveal the most astounding ignor- 
 ance in this respect among parents. 
 
 Miss Agnes Torelle has made an attempt at teach- 
 ing sex hygiene as a supplement to zoology. Her 
 success in arousing the interest of the children, in 
 giving them a really scientific knowledge of sex mat- 
 ters from which to draw their conclusions is deserving 
 of wide imitation. 
 
 Unfortunately our ideas of modesty make us hope- 
 lessly conservative along this line, and render progress 
 exceedingly difficult. In one of our best known 
 women's colleges the teaching of sex hygiene by an 
 able woman physician was objected to so strenuously 
 by some of the parents, that the trustees decided to 
 remove the offending instructor. Yet a few of our 
 best educators are coming to see the paramount impor- 
 tance of such instruction not only in the college but in 
 the school. 
 
 Finally, the last topic to find its way into our courses 
 for female education will probably be that of, — shall 
 I call it civics, political economy or citizenship? At 
 any rate, I mean such a course of study which shall 
 enable the girl, not to recite verbatim the articles and 
 amendments of the Constitution in whose interpreta- 
 tion the most august Judges are unable to agree, but to 
 understand wherein lies her particular duty to her 
 
SCHOOL TRAINING IO$ 
 
 country, state and city; to realize that Patriotism 
 does not consist in waving a flag to the tune of Star 
 Spangled Banner, and at the same time selling coal at 
 a cheaper rate to the fleets of the enemy than to the 
 national government, or delivering defective ammuni- 
 tion and putrid potted ham to those who have offered 
 to die for their country. Let them read such a book 
 as Bryce's "American Commonwealth," and find 
 wherein our glorious American liberty really consists. 
 Let them learn the particulars of the white slave traffic 
 and its intimate connection with politics. Only the 
 citizen with a realization of the defects of a govern- 
 ment can help to reform it. Women are famous house- 
 cleaners. Let them be prepared in the school to 
 house:i:lean the state. as well as the home, so tbat-when 
 the time comes for them to cast their vote they may do 
 so wisely, judiciously and effectively. 
 
 The defects in our school system are grave, but they 
 can be eradicated. The new spirit is moving every- 
 where. Women are individuals, capable of education. 
 As such they merit a consideration which they are now 
 in a fair way to receive. If present indications may 
 be trusted, the educational system will, in the course 
 of the next half century, be so shaped as to prepare 
 girls physically and mentally to realize fully the poten- 
 tialities of their lives. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 COLLEGE EDUCATION FOR GIRLS 
 
 When Harvard University was founded at Cam- 
 bridge, the proposition of instituting a parallel course 
 of instruction for young women would have been 
 greeted with as much ridicule as a proposition to estab- 
 lish a similar institution for negro slaves. Higher 
 education was considered entirely superfluous for 
 women. Even after the first American colleges for 
 men had been started, Mrs. John Adams wrote: 
 "Female education in the best families goes no farther 
 than writing and arithmetic, and in some few rare 
 instances music and dancing." 
 
 Women accepted as inevitable this attitude toward 
 the education of the sexes, and were slow to develop 
 any feeling of protest. Discontent was eventually 
 aroused in a few individual cases, where a particularly 
 enterprising and ambitious young woman insisted upon 
 receiving with her father, brother or husband instruc- 
 tion in some part of the hitherto forbidden field of 
 knowledge. Individual women sought, and in some 
 cases obtained, permission to enter men's colleges. 
 Credit for the work performed was denied, however, 
 and diplomas universally refused. 
 
 Finally it became apparent to those who desired to 
 io6 
 
COLLEGE EDUCATION FOR GIRLS IO7 
 
 offer college education to women generally, that there 
 was little hope of cooperation with the men's colleges 
 then in existence. The movement toward founding 
 independent women's colleges was the result 
 
 In all, four methods have been followed in procur- 
 ing college education for women, 
 
 1. The establishment of colleges exclusively for 
 women ; 
 
 2. The opening of new institutions with equal 
 rights to both sexes ; 
 
 3. The admission of women to existing colleges 
 for men on equal or unequal terms; 
 
 4. The establishment of women's annexes to the 
 larger universities for men. 
 
 Under the first method, followed principally in the 
 eastern part of the United States, the colleges of Mt. 
 Holyoke, Vassar, Smith, Wellesley, Bryn Mawr, the 
 Woman's College of Baltimore, and a number of 
 others were established, and now offer the best col- 
 legiate training for women that can be secured in the 
 Eastern States. 
 
 Under the second and third methods, followed 
 largely in the Western States, there has sprung up an 
 extended system of co-education in universities con- 
 trolled and directed by the State. The Universities 
 founded in the West since 1871 started as co-educa- 
 tional institutions. Co-education in the Eastern United 
 States is strictly limited. A few of the larger colleges 
 for men, notably Cornell and Pennsylvania, have 
 granted admission to women under rather unfavorable 
 
108 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 circumstances, limiting them to certain courses. Some 
 independent institutions, such as Swarthmore, Oberlin 
 and Bucknell, were co-educational from the start, but 
 the general Eastern sentiment is against college 
 co-education. 
 
 Under the fourth method there have come into exis- 
 tence independent woman's colleges, affiliated with 
 certam men's universities, and enjoying the advantages 
 of their faculty and equipment. These seem to offer 
 the best method for granting women the advantages 
 of a large university, in which the sentiment against 
 co-education is so strong that few women dare face 
 the disapprobation heaped upon the "co-ed." Barnard 
 as an annex to Columbia, and Radcliffe as an annex 
 to Harvard, are the most prominent examples of this 
 type of women's colleges. 
 
 Whether the education of the women be in a co-edu- 
 cation or separate institution, the objects to be attained 
 are the same. College training is primarily cultural. 
 According to tradition, culture can be acquired only 
 through a classical education, founded on Greek, Latin 
 and Higher Mathematics. The modern system of 
 training for culture is more constructive, and follows 
 the newer historic method of studying the past, not 
 as isolated episodes, but as related to the present and 
 bearing upon the evolution of civilization. In reality, 
 the culture inculcated by the present-day college comes 
 more from the daily contact with cultured men and 
 women, than from any specific studies. 
 
 The object most usually sought by the college for 
 
COLLEGE EDUCATION FOR GIRLS IO9 
 
 women is the development of the intellect, and increase 
 of the fund of information at the command of the 
 individual. This, in reality, is a purely mechanical 
 and much over-estimated process, because the impor- 
 tance of a volume of knowledge as an end in itself, 
 affording an opportunity to indulge at will in mental 
 gymnastics, is of little practical value. It is notable 
 that the close students, the "greasy grinds" of college, 
 rarely stand high in later yeai's. The ability to apply 
 an available stock of information to the daily prob- 
 lems is the faculty that really counts in effective living. 
 
 A much underestimated object of the college for 
 women is the physical development of the individual. 
 The importance of this might seem so obvious as to 
 need no mention, yet it cannot be too often asserted 
 nor too thoroughly understood that the power of the 
 girl to apply to her after life the benefits which she 
 gains from a college education depends almost abso- 
 lutely upon the preservation of her physical health. 
 
 This physical education and development is most 
 thoroughly accomplished in the separate college for 
 women where every opportunity for gymnasium work 
 and out-of-door exercise can be made a fundamental 
 part of the college regimen. In Bryn Mawr College, 
 for example, each student is required to perform at 
 least four periods of exercise each week, — a period 
 consisting of violent exercise for half an hour, or of 
 less violent exercise such as walkiilg, for an hour and 
 a quarter. She may indulge at her discretion in 
 hockey, tennis, basket-ball, lacrosse or cricket when 
 
no WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 the weather permits, or in swimming, fencing, fancy 
 dancing, indoor baseball, track, heavy or light gym- 
 nasium work, when outdoor exercise is impossible or 
 undesirable. 
 
 The most practical object of a college education is 
 obviously vocational. The field offered, however, is 
 not usually wide. School teaching is the occupation 
 for which college best fits the average woman ; never- 
 theless a girl with special ability will often be enabled, 
 as a result of her college training, to enter more or 
 less successfully literary work, social work, or even 
 scientific pursuits. A practical geologist or chemist, 
 however, usually needs post-graduate as well as under- 
 graduate work. In fact for any expert practical work 
 outside of the teaching profession, a college training 
 is but a preliminary step. 
 
 Modern college education for women, with intel- 
 lectual, cultural or purely vocational objects in view is 
 attended by several disadvantages. In the first place, 
 the curriculum of the woman's college is merely an 
 imitation of that formerly designed for the man's col- 
 lege, without even a superficial adjustment to sex. A 
 moderately difficult, varied and inclusive course of 
 study for the average man, who discriminates between 
 what he wishes to learn and that about which he refuses 
 to be bothered, is calamitous to the average non-dis- 
 criminating, over-conscientious college woman. A 
 real lack of balance results from this overdevelopment 
 of the intellect, without a corresponding opportunity 
 to meet people in the every-day affairs of life. The 
 
COLLEGE EDUCATION FOR GIRLS III J 
 
 average college girl, in other words, is as theoretical | 
 as the average college boy is practical. ; 
 
 The significance of this tendency toward intellec- 
 tualization is entirely underestimated. Keeping in 
 mind Herbert Spencer's definition of education as a 
 preparation for complete living, we must conclude that 
 any force which directs the individual toward a biased 
 view of life, however cultural or intellectual the force 
 may be, detracts from the foundation of real educa- 
 tion. A preparation for complete living involves a 
 normal development of the power of discrimination. 
 If the girl fails to gain this discriminating power in 
 college, she invariably finds it impossible in after years 
 to put her theories into practice. Without the power 
 to mold her theories to suit the facts, she must either 
 work without balance or discard her theories. 
 
 A frequent accompaniment of this one-sided intel- 
 lectual development of the average college girl is 
 physical disability, due to an overwrought nervous 
 system. I do not refer here to cases of absolute 
 nervous prostration which are fortunately very infre- 
 quent among college women, but to the tendency 
 toward "nerves" or susceptibility to nervous excite- 
 ment exhibited in so many highly intellectual women. 
 The importance of this is only fully realized when we 
 come to the question of motherhood. A celebrated 
 surgeon recently told me that college women invari- 
 ably had great difficulty with child-birth. Unfortu- 
 nately physicians seem unable to decide to what extent 
 this is a case of cause and effect. But the fact 
 
112 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 remains the same. The large-headed child of the 
 intellectual woman is a common phenomenon, and the 
 women who seem to be best fitted to rear the children 
 of the next generation seem at the same time to be less 
 able to give them birth. If college education as it 
 now exists is an impediment to motherhood, it merits 
 radical and immediate readjustment. 
 
 There is some strange inconsistency between the 
 marvelous advance in the profession of surgery, and 
 the comparative lack of knowledge in the fields of 
 obstetrics. It will probably remain for the one who 
 is most directly concerned, the college woman, to 
 reconcile motherhood and college education. 
 
 The most fundamental benefit resulting from col- 
 lege education for women is practice in cooperation. 
 Women have so long lived isolated lives that their 
 inability to cooperate has become an accepted "feminine 
 characteristic. The average woman, unless she be 
 engaged in commercial business, has practically no 
 ] Opportunity to work cooperatively with her peers. 
 With other women her bond of common work and 
 interest where daily personal contact is possible, is 
 confined to the church and our so-called "society"; 
 with men it is usually limited to her husband, father 
 or brothers. College gives to girls their first, to some 
 their only chance, to work cooperatively with their 
 equals in years and capacity ; to develop a real feeling 
 of group solidarity, — even an esprit de corps of sex. 
 College life tends to destroy the petty meanness and 
 jealousies of which women are so often guilty,— 
 
COLLEGE EDUCATION FOR GIRLS II3 
 
 indeed, the class spirit and college spirit, which merges 
 the individual on the whole, which sacrifices the good 
 of the individual for the good of the group, is what 
 women need above all things for their coming partici- 
 pation in life. 
 
 Another advantage of a college education is training 
 in self-reliance, and as a usual outcome, the attainment 
 of personal self-sufficiency. The individual college 
 girl has no longer her home, her parents, her wealth, 
 or her social position to rely upon. She must stand 
 on her own feet, and make good or fail on her own 
 merits. This dilemma has the disadvantage of show- 
 ing up the weak and deficient, but as destruction must 
 always precede construction, even the weak are even- 
 tually benefited. 
 
 The effect of a college education on marriage (not 
 motherhood) is an interesting one, and almost univers- 
 ally misunderstood. Statistics are usually quoted to 
 prove that college girls do not marry; that the mar- 
 riage rate among them is decreasing, and that the mar- 
 riage rate of college women is less than that of non- 
 college women. The available data do not justify any 
 of these conclusions, but indicate that college has little 
 or no effect on the marriage rate. Even if the asser- 
 tion proves to be true, — even if the marriage rate 
 among college girls is lower than the rate in a cor- 
 responding social group, the result is not necessarily 
 calamitous. 
 
 College girls who fail to marry usually do so because 
 they are economically independent, and do not need 
 8 
 
11^ 
 
 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 marriage as a means of support. Their ideals of a 
 husband are high and they refuse to sacrifice these 
 ideals for purely financial reasons. Fewei^ marriages, 
 but better ones, is their motto. They usually have 
 some concept of the meaning of eugenics and choose 
 the husband who will be suitable not only as husband- 
 but as father. 
 
 The men who believe jnjo wing their wild oats can- 
 iiot yet^ reconcile themselves to the new standard 
 required of them by women, and consequently the 
 better educated women may marry less often than 
 their non-college sisters. But this is merely a transi- 
 tional stage. As the demand grows, — and it is grow- 
 ing, — ^men will be compelled to meet the requiretnents 
 of the cdlege-woman standard. Until that time comes, 
 every thinking woman, — whether college or non-col- 
 lege, will corttinue to lower the marriage rate. 
 
 Lastly, college is an important incentive to the 
 growth of a spirit of social service. Girls learn, many 
 of them for the first time, of the horrible maladjust- 
 ments of present-day society, and gain, as a corollary 
 to the new range of facts, the inspiration to some kind 
 of social work. Women have much leisure, — far 
 more than men, probably,; — Whence the crying need is 
 inspiration to some really effective effort. For those 
 forms of work which are directly altruistic, there is 
 no stronger incentive than the ideal of social service 
 so frequently developed by college education. 
 
CHAPTER XIV \ 
 
 TRAINING FOR PROFESSIONS 
 
 Women may secure a general education in the 
 Woman's College, but for training in the professions, 
 they must turn to some more specialized educational 
 institution. Opportunity for the professional training 
 of women has broadened remarkably within the past 
 sixty years. The older professional schools have been 
 opened; new courses have been established along 
 similar lines; and entirely new professions have been 
 created in the course of this educational advance. 
 
 The first medical school for women was established 
 in Massachusetts in November, 1848. Meanwhile 
 Elizabeth Blackwell had beeni granted the degree of 
 M. D. at Geneva in 1849, and her sister Emily a like 
 degree at Cleveland, Ohio, in 1852. Through the 
 influence of these w5men the movement toward open- 
 ing medical training to women became insistent. 
 
 In 1850, through the efforts of Ann Preston, the 
 Woman's Medical College came into , existence at 
 Philadelphia. Until 1859 the Philadelphia County 
 Medical Society threatened to excommunicate any 
 physician who might teach in the school and any one 
 else who might even consult the said teachers. The 
 difficulty of obtaining a competent faculty seemed 
 
 US 
 
Il6 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 unsurmountable. Moreover, until the founding of 
 the Woman's Hospital at Philadelphia in 1862, the 
 students had no opportunity for clinical training. In 
 New York, in 1865, a Medical School for women was 
 established, in connection with the Infirmary, under 
 Elizabeth Blackwell. Finally, in 1869, the third 
 Woman's Medical School in the United States, that 
 of Chicago, was opened. 
 
 In addition to these three women's colleges, several 
 State Universities, between 1869 and 1875, admitted 
 women on a basis of equality with men! Finally, in 
 iSgij^the greatest advance for years was made when 
 Johns Hopkins University opened its medical course 
 to women. This concession was secured largely 
 through the influence of a woman, — Mary E. Garrett 
 of Baltimore, who succeeded in raising $500,000 for 
 the purpose. Thus ample opportunity is now offered 
 to women to obtain the best of medical training. 
 
 With the advance in medicine has gone the sub- 
 stitution of the modern trained nurse for the old- 
 fashioned nurse. In this country, the New England 
 Hospital claims priority in providing theoretical as 
 well as practical training for nurses. Since this inno- 
 vation, 1863, the opportunity for training has rapidly 
 broadened. 
 
 Parallel to their success in obtaining thorough 
 medical training, has been the success of women in 
 their effort to secure legal education. One by one, the 
 leading law schools have consented to receive women 
 as students. In addition, a law school for women was 
 
TRAINING FOR PROFESSIONS II7 
 
 opened in New York, and later affiliated with the 
 University of the City of New York. 
 
 The next in order of the old professions is that of 
 the ministry. Here women have signally failed to 
 obtain anything like an equality in training and oppor- 
 tunity. The Universalist Church was the first to open 
 its theological schools to women, and to ordain them 
 by its established forms. The Meadville Theological 
 School (unitarian) has also been opened to women 
 students. But with the exception of a few isolated 
 instances, there is no opportunity for women to obtain 
 ministerial training. 
 
 The field of music offers practically equal training 
 to men and women, in both vocal and instrumental 
 work, so that the musically inclined or talented woman 
 has opportunity to cultivate her powers in that direction 
 to the utmost. 
 
 In the newer professions, however, women have 
 abundant chance to find a congenial occupation. 
 Teaching, modern sciences, literary work, organized 
 philanthropy, and arts and crafts give a wide oppor- 
 tunity for selection. 
 
 More women are engaged in teaching than in all of 
 the other professions combined. Since the Civil War, 
 the schools, particularly the elementary schools, have 
 been turned over to women. The last chapter gave 
 a picture of the opportunities which women's colleges 
 provide for the training of teachers. In addition, 
 normal schools and teachers' training schools, in every 
 state, provide opportunity for this branch of education. 
 
Il8 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 The significance of teaching, to the present and the 
 future, needs no emphasis at this point. 
 
 Practically all of the women's colleges offer excellent 
 undergraduate training in the sciences, particularly in 
 chemistry, physics, geology and biology ; and the grad- 
 uate departments of even the most conservative men's 
 universities are open, in these branches, to women 
 students. Here they can utilize the best laboratories 
 and experimental appliances for original research work 
 that the world has to offer. The trained woman 
 chemist of today finds a large field of work open to 
 her, and little difficulty in obtaining employment. The 
 trained physicist is not as much in demand as the 
 chemist, but is becoming increasingly so. 
 
 In the field of geology, — and I might add astronomy, 
 in which training is more difficult to obtain, — ^there is 
 no great opportunity for gainful employment. The 
 field of biology has recently developed a need for 
 trained workers. A thorough knowledge of bacter- 
 iology is essential to all food inspectors and analyses. 
 In the modern attempt at preventing adulteration of 
 foods as well as that of providing antitoxins for various 
 diseases, there is an open field for practical original 
 work on the part of a trained biologist. The peculiar 
 capacity of the feminine mind for dealing with details, 
 for properly estimating their importance and for reach- 
 ing careful and minute conclusions, renders it partic- 
 ularly adapted for the pursuit of those sciences requir- 
 ing the utmost exactness and conscientiousness. If, 
 therefore, they can obtaiik the best that there is in pre- 
 
TRAINING FOR PROFESSIONS II9 
 
 paratory training, the success of women in these pro- 
 fessions can be safely predicted. 
 
 Perhaps more widely possible and desirable as a 
 practical profession for women are the fields opened 
 up by the developments in modern literature and jour- 
 nalism. The achievements of women litterateurs in 
 the past, when they were ordinarily denied both train- 
 ing and the opportunity for effective work, presages 
 a brilliant career to the women writers of the future, 
 who have the benefit of the training of modern high 
 schools and colleges, as well as that of a freer life 
 which permits them to come more directly into contact 
 with people and to study the psychology of human 
 nature. In the field of journalism, technical training 
 is now being offered, which prepares the men and 
 women who take the courses for repertorial, editorial 
 and magazine work. 
 
 For a woman possessing a concise, clear, easy style ; 
 a good understanding of people, a quick and imagina- 
 tive mind, — reporting, journalism and magazine work 
 offer an attractive field. 
 
 Mrs. Isabel W. Ball, the first woman to be admitted 
 to the Press Galleries of the Congress of the United 
 States, gives in the following words her view of the 
 essentials for a newspaper woman: 
 
 "In the first place, she must be blessed with good 
 common sense ; not uncommon sense, for then she will 
 want to go on the managing editor's desk the first 
 thing. She must have powers of observation, com- 
 mand of good newspaper English — not dictionary 
 
120 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 English, if you please — ^and be able to sit down in the 
 middle of a cyclone to note her impressions of the same. 
 
 "She must have sound health, a good temper, finesse, 
 and above all things, must learn y^ forget that she is 
 a woman, when she has to work among men at men's 
 work. I do not mean that she must be unwomanly. 
 Nothing would do more harm than that. But if a 
 man wants to smoke in her presence when she is at 
 work, or keep his hat on, or take his coat off, or put 
 his feet on the desk, or do any of the things which she 
 would order him out of her parlor for doing, she must 
 remember that it all goes with the place she is in." 
 
 The financial returns in journalism are usually esti- 
 mated in proportion to the service rendered, irrespec- 
 tive of age and sex. One woman editorial writer in 
 Chicago draws a salary of $S,ooo a year for an average 
 of one column a day. Advance is sometimerslow, but 
 real ability is sure of eventual recognition. 
 
 Another branch of literary work offering wide 
 opportunity for women is library work. There are 
 four principal schools for library training in the United 
 States admitting both men and women, but intended 
 primarily for women. The trained librarian is a com- 
 paratively recent innovation, but she is one that has 
 come not only to stay, but also to improve her field of 
 labor and enlarge upon it. 
 
 Technical training has hardly yet become recognized 
 as a necessary preparation for social work. The New 
 York School of Philanthropy is the pioneer in the 
 field, and offers very valuable instruction in the tech- 
 
TRAINING FOR PROFESSIONS 121 
 
 nique of social and charitable activities. Similar schools 
 have been conducted with marked success in Boston, 
 Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Louis and other cities. The 
 field here open to women is a broad one, and has the 
 advantage of providing an interesting and profitable 
 profession not only for the highly educated college 
 woman, but for her less educated sisters and friends. 
 
 Finally, we come to the possibilities of professional 
 pursuits in the realm of art. In the field of artistic 
 illustration, etching and photography, book making 
 and binding as well as cover designing, interior house 
 decoration, stained and leaded glass work, mural paint- 
 ing, and finally practical designing for textile manu- 
 factories or for mural decorations, — in all of these 
 pursuits women may turn their artistic talents and 
 training to a profitable end, without debasing their art. 
 In schools of industrial art and of the fine arts, sex 
 proves no impediment to success in one's chosen pro- 
 fession. Architectural training, moreover, has recently 
 been opened to women at a number of co-educational 
 institutions, such as Pratt Institute in New York. 
 
 With a final mention of the stage, and the various 
 schools of Dramatic Art which purport to train and 
 equip actresses for a successful career, the list of pro- 
 fessions in which women can obtain adequate training 
 seems exhausted. It is not a long one, — ^is far too 
 short, — ^but it offers an ample opportunity for choice 
 to the intelligent young woman who is seeking a con- 
 genial career in which she will not be handicapped at 
 the offset by insufficient graining and equipment. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 woman's industrial field 
 
 Harriet Martineau, an English woman who 
 visited America in 1840, tells us that she found at that 
 time only seven employments open to women in the 
 United States, — teaching, needlework, keeping board- 
 ers, type-setting, work in book-binderies, work in 
 cotton-mills and household service. 
 
 The institution of the cotton-mill, the northern com- 
 plement of the cotton gin, had notably assisted the 
 transferring of work from the home to the factory. 
 The first cotton mill erected in Lowell, Massachusetts, 
 in 1822, was soon followed by others until, in 1839, 
 there were ten companies employing twelve thousand 
 five hundred and seven operatives, the majority of 
 them women. They were a high type class of women, 
 largely from the nearby farms, who had spun and 
 woven in the home, and now followed the spindle and 
 loom from home to factory. The working conditions 
 were good, and the work more or less skille^d. 
 
 With the improvements in machinery, however, the 
 tendency for many years was to increase the number 
 of unskilled trades open to women, and so to render 
 their position continually more undesirable, and their 
 exploitation easier. The earlier women factory 
 
 122 
 
woman's industrial field 123) 
 
 workers, at least those in the New England Textile 
 Mills, had been educated as thoroughly skilled oper- 
 atives. With the improvements in machinery came 
 hordes of unskilled emigrants who underbid the Amer- 
 ican wage rate, taking the positions from the Ameri- 
 cans who demanded a higher standard. By 1870, if 
 we may believe newspaper accounts of the day, out of 
 70,000 women wage-earners in the city of New York, 
 not including domestics, 20,000 were constantly face 
 to face with starvation and pauperism. Seven thou- 
 sand lived in cellars. Some of them made shirts at 
 six cents apiece, and few workers could make a dozen 
 during one day. Boston, in 1868, showed a similar 
 condition of degraded womanhood.* 
 
 The United States census figures show that women 
 are engaged in nearly all trades. Of the 369 groups 
 into which industries were divided for census purposes 
 in 1890, women were employed in all but nine. In 
 1900, there were only four out of the 303 groups of 
 industries in which no women were employed. 
 
 The vast majority of women are, according to the 
 census, working in unskilled trades. 
 
 In point of numbers, by far the most important occu- 
 pation for women is that of servant or waitress, the 
 1,165,561 women reported for this occupation in the 
 census of 1900 constituting one-fourth of the total 
 number in all occupations. Almost a half million 
 women are reported as engaged in agricultural labor, 
 
 * "Woman's Work in America," Annie N. Meyer, New York, 
 Henry Holt & Co., 1891. 
 
124 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 but 96.8 per cent of these are from the Southern 
 States, and 79.3 per cent of the total number were 
 negroes. The next four occupations, similar in numer- 
 ical importance though of widely different character, — 
 are dressmaking, laundry work, teaching and farming. 
 The next five occupations, — ^textile mill work, house- 
 keeping, stewardess work, salesmanship and sewing, 
 are again purely industrial occupations. The twelfth 
 group, that of nurses and midwives, includes 108,691 
 women. 
 
 The majority of women, engaged in unskilled indus- 
 tries, could secure no industrial education through 
 their work. In order to raise their standard, and 
 enable them to enter the ranks of skilled workers, 
 where the supply was less than the demand, commer- 
 cial and industrial schools were established. 
 
 A few private industrial schools for women, such as 
 the "Wilson Industrial School" in New York, had 
 been started as early as 1856. But it was not until 
 1859, with the opening to the public of Cooper Insti- 
 tute, New York, that a really practical opportunity to 
 secure industrial education was open to women. Sec- 
 ond among the pioneers, in securing industrial educa- 
 tion for women, was the Woman's Christian Temper- 
 ance Union. Under their superintendence classes 
 were organized in commercial arithmetic, penmanship, 
 bookkeeping and typewriting. An industrial depart- 
 ment was also created for the teaching of dressmaking 
 in all its branches of cutting, fitting and hand and 
 machine sewing. 
 
woman's industrial field 125 
 
 Following along this line, but continually improving 
 the technical facilities and expanding the scope of the 
 training, are the modern technical commercial and 
 industrial schools. Foremost among these stand the 
 Pratt Institute in New York, Drexel Institute in Phil- 
 adelphia, and the Massachusetts Institution of Tech- 
 nology in Boston. A woman can here obtain the best 
 training for dressmaking, millinery, cooking and 
 domestic science, typewriting and stenography, as well 
 as for a number of the arts and professions. 
 
 Similar courses have been introduced into the high 
 schools of the public school system. These provide 
 excellent technical training in stenography, typewriting 
 and business courses, but the field covered is confined 
 to commercial training in its narrowest sense. 
 
 Of a somewhat different character is the technical 
 education offered to women by the State colleges and 
 universities of the Western States. Here not only 
 commercial instruction can be obtained, but also 
 thorough courses of preparation in domestic science 
 and in agriculture. 
 
 For the woman who desires to enter some form of 
 industrial occupation for which considerable skill is 
 required and for which adequate training is available, 
 the field for choice is thus a wide one. In the depart- 
 ment of agriculture; for example, she may specialize 
 in poultry farming, dairying, bee-keeping, stock-breed- 
 ing. In horticulture she may devote her energies to 
 forestry or village improvement work, market garden- 
 ing, fruit growing or flower growing. If her tastes 
 
126 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 are domestic, the field of domestic science includes 
 culinary and dressmaking courses. At the same time, 
 the many commercial and technical courses offer ample 
 training for the embryo clerical, secretarial or business 
 woman. 
 
 The desirability of raising the standard of the 
 unskilled trades was, and is still, almost a necessity in 
 the face of the generally bad conditions under which 
 women work. But the first successful attempt to pro- 
 vide such an opportunity was slow to come. Not 
 until the institution of the Manhattan Trade School in 
 New York was any real chance given to the factory or 
 shop girl to perfect herself in the technique of her 
 trade. 
 
 The founders of the Manhattan Trade School aimed 
 to provide a training that would bear directly on the 
 occupational life of the girl. To do this, they visited 
 the leading factories in the neighborhood of the school, 
 and asked the Superintendents, — "What would you 
 like your girls to know?" 
 
 Some of the Superintendents laughed ; some said that 
 it was impossible to teach factory work in school ; but 
 the great majority seeing in the proposed school an 
 opportunity to improve the efficiency of their working 
 force, suggested the lines of work which seemed to 
 them most hopeful in the training of their workers. 
 
 The outcome of this cooperation between school 
 authorities and factory superintendents was the estab- 
 lishment of a number of courses in practical work, 
 highly satisfactory to both parties. The school has 
 
woman's industrial field 127 
 
 provided the theoretical, and some of the practical 
 aspects of a vocation; the factory gives the final 
 instruction in practical work. 
 
 While the Manhattan Trade School is perhaps the 
 most successful experimerit of its kind in the United 
 States, it has many followers in the Trade Schools 
 which are rapidly springing up in all important indus- 
 trial centers. In Germany, even greater progress has 
 been made with the Continuation School— intended, 
 like the Manhattan Trade School, to increase working 
 efficiency, but much broader in scope and more effec- 
 tive in its methods of operation. 
 
 Industry, through its specialization and standardiza- 
 tion, is providing an abundance of opportunity for 
 women. This opportunity, however, is unaccompanied 
 by any adequate facilities, such as those existing under 
 the apprenticeship system, for teaching the worker. 
 Consequently, the school must enter the field, provid- 
 ing a form of technical education that will prepare for 
 and supplement work in standardized industries. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE CHOICE OF THE WOMEN OF ROME 
 
 The revolution in the home together with the 
 breakdown of tradition, and the establishment of 
 educational facilities, has reshaped the environmental 
 influences acting upon women until they are presented, 
 for the first time in centuries, with a wide opportunity 
 to choose the pursuits to which their lives shall be 
 devoted. What is involved in this possibility of 
 choice? What are the fields of opportunity lying 
 open before American Women? Let me begin the 
 discussion by contrasting social conditions in Rome, — 
 the greatest republic of antiquity, with the United 
 States, — the greatest republic of modern times. 
 
 In both civilizations women were given freedom to 
 make a choice fundamental to national welfare. In 
 Rome they chose ; in America they are choosing. What 
 resulted from the choice of the Women of Rome? 
 What hangs upon the choice made by American 
 Women today? 
 
 It is not possible, nor is it even desirable, to contend 
 that any parallel that may be drawn between the women 
 of Rome and the women of the United States is con- 
 clusive evidence on any subject connected with the 
 latter group. On the other hand, since motives and 
 
 128 
 
THE CHOICE OF THE WOMEN OF ROME I29 
 
 actions bore much the same relation to each other in 
 Roman society that they do in present-day American 
 Society, it is reasonable to assert that a given set of 
 conditions in the United States may be followed by 
 consequences similar to those which resulted in Rome 
 from like conditions. 
 
 The early years of Roman society were dominated 
 by a Puritanism of the most extreme type.^ The 
 absolute religious faith which permeated the thought 
 and action of the early Romans, resulted in high 
 standards of moral duty, and in religious ideals of the 
 most exalted character. Virtue was insisted upon. 
 Abstinence of every kind was encouraged. The men 
 abstained from delicacies to such an extent that it was 
 considered disgraceful to use Greek wines. High liv- 
 ing was strictly forbidden, — a prohibition that was 
 ultimately enforced by statute. The women, in their 
 turn, abstained from lirxurious clothing, — living simple, 
 industrious lives within the boundaries of their own 
 homes. 
 
 Each member of this early puritanical society was 
 willing to sacrifice individual taste for group welfare. 
 Each individual believed implicitly in the dignity and 
 responsibility of Roman citizenship, — the men fighting 
 for it and the women working for it. The early 
 Romans, in short, held up high ideals of individual 
 conduct and social duty, to which they adhered because 
 the Gods so ordained. 
 
 '"Puritanism," G. Ferrero, Atlantic Monthly, July, 1910, p. 
 1-6. 
 
130 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 Under this social system the Roman matron occupied 
 a position of great economic importance, since prac- 
 tically all industry was carried on under her direc- 
 tion within the home, where she had great authority. 
 She directed the servants, slaves and relatives in 
 their activities, — at times spinning and weaving her- 
 self, — produced, with their assistance, the clothing, the 
 food and food products, so that she was entirely 
 responsible for the economic well-being of the house- 
 hold.^ 
 
 Although occupying so important an economic posi- 
 tion, the Roman woman was socially dependent, since 
 her life was literally at the disposal first of her father, 
 and later of her husband. Fowler, in describing the 
 early attitude of Roman men toward their women says : 
 "Old Cato represents fairly well the old idea of 
 Roman virtue, yet it is clear enough that his view' of 
 the conjugal relation was a coarse one, — that he looked 
 on the wife rather as a necessary agent for providing 
 the state with children than as a helpmeet to be tended 
 and revered."'' 
 
 Here is truly no very exalted concept of woman- 
 hood, yet the Roman girls were educated as were the 
 boys. Aside from this early education, however, 
 there seems to have been little desire on the part of 
 the men to foster intellectuality or independence in the 
 women. They were regarded as intellectually inferior 
 
 » "Social Life at Rome," W. W. Fowler, New York, The 
 Macmillan Co., 1909, pp. 143-4. 
 ' Ibid., p. 149, 
 
THE CHOICE OF THE WOMEN OF ROME 
 
 s 
 
 and incapable of eflfort on a basis of equality with men.^ 
 With the advance of Roman civilization, the position 
 of women underwent a fundamental change. In the 
 first place, the introduction of slaves made women 
 economically independent by freeing them from house- 
 hold cares. As the Roman armies conquered province 
 after province, they brought back, as a part of their 
 spoil, multitudes of slaves. Each insurrection, more- 
 over, was punished by the enslavement of the rebel- 
 lious subjects. In some extreme cases, the poor of 
 Rome sold their children into slavery. All of these 
 causes made slaves cheap ; hence they were very gen- 
 erally owned, and as domestics compelled to carry on 
 the productive occupations of the household.^ More- 
 over, Rome was becoming rich. Victorious generals 
 invariably returned with enormous wealth, while civil 
 officers, delegated to collect taxes or to administer 
 other governmental functions in the provinces, ac- 
 quired wealth in a phenomenally short space of time. 
 
 The economic basis of women's independence once 
 laid, social independence quickly followed. The 
 matron of early Rome, with her industrious, home- 
 loving disposition, and her simple manners and dress 
 was replaced by women of brilliant social attainments. 
 Contrary to the original custom, women began to 
 acquire property, to indulge in luxurious clothing and 
 
 'An excellent summary of the subject appears in a "Short 
 History of Women's Rights," Eugene A. Hecker, New York, G. 
 ^ P. Putnam's Sons, igio. 
 
 '"Social Life at Rome," W. W. Fowler, New York, The 
 Macmillan Co., 1909, pp. 230-6. 
 
132 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 in public display. Writing of this transformation in 
 the life of the woman, 'Fowler states : "It is not pos- 
 sible here to trace the history of the change in detail, 
 but we may note that it seems to have begun within 
 the household, in matters of dress and expense, and 
 later on, affected the life and hearing of women in 
 society and politics." As women became rich, the law 
 regulating their ornaments and dress was repealed, 
 and divorce "began to be a virtue." During the long 
 wars in the second century B. C. men were away for 
 years at a time. Many died of disease or in battle, 
 leaving the women free and in many cases sufficiently 
 independent to follow their own devices. It is at this 
 epoch that three women of noble rank were tried on 
 the charge of murdering their husbands. "The evi- 
 dence for the Bacchanalian conspiracy of 186 B. C, in 
 which women played a very prominent part, is explicit, 
 and shows that there was a 'new woman' even then, 
 who had ceased to be satisfied with the austere life of 
 the family . . . and was ready to break out into reck- 
 lessness even in matters which were the concern of the 
 state. That they had already begun to exercise an 
 undue influence over their husbands, in public affairs, 
 seems suggested by Old Cato's famous dictum that 'all 
 men rule over women; we Romans rule over all men, 
 and our wives rule over us.' "^ 
 
 With economic freedom and its resulting freedom 
 from social bonds, came a lo^ening of the marriage 
 tie, which proved disastrous to both men and women. 
 
 'Supra, pp. 146-9: 
 
THE CHOICE OF THE WOMEN OF ROME I33 
 
 Marriage became the first step to divorce, and thus 
 led to social freedom. While the unmarried girl was 
 "in the darkest times, as a rule, carefully guarded from 
 the worst corruptions of the spectacles, or from the 
 reckless advances of the hardened libertine," "her 
 temptations and danger often began on her wedding 
 day. ... A marriage of convenience with some mem- 
 ber of a tainted race, blase with precocious and unna- 
 tural indulgence, and ready to concede the conjugal 
 liberty which he claimed, was a perilous trial to virtue. 
 The bonds of old Roman marriage had, for ages, been 
 greatly relaxed, and the Roman lady of independent 
 fortune, and vigorous, highly trained intellect, could 
 easily find consolation for marital neglect."^ 
 
 In addition to this economic and social freedom, 
 women began to exercise an influence in politics. 
 Fowler writes of Sempronia that "she was one of 
 those who found steady married life incompatible with 
 literary and artistic tastes," and adds, "she seems to be 
 one of the first of a series of ladies who, during the 
 next century and later, were to be a power in politics, 
 and most of whom were at least capable of crime, 
 public and private."^ 
 
 A complete transformation had thus come ovjer 
 Roman society. Wealth had increased. Women and 
 men alike, by turning over their work to slaves, had 
 gained boundless leisure. The ancient traditions, 
 
 "•Roman Society," Samuel Dill, New York, The Macmillan 
 Co., 190S, pp. 84-S- 
 
 '"Social Life at Rome," W. W. Fowler, New York, The 
 Macmillan Co., 1909, pp. 156-7. 
 
134 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 which commanded virtue, duty and abstinence, were 
 ruthlessly overthrown, leaving the Roman woman free 
 to make her choice. On the one hand was the old 
 ideal of virtue, family fealty, and simplicity of life ; on 
 the other was economic independence, individual indul- 
 gence, and freedom for social and political activity. A 
 life of social usefulness or one of selfish luxury, — 
 which should she elect ? Should she indulge her animal 
 passions or develop her instincts for social service? 
 
 The women of Rome were called upon to make this 
 fundamental choice between selfishness and social 
 action ; between indulgence and service ; between Pop- 
 paea, the wife of a profligate emperor, and Cornelia, 
 the mother of worthy citizens; between personal 
 adornment and the glory of strong sons and daughters. 
 Their choice is indicated by Fowler, who says of 
 Cornelia: "Such ladies must have been rare, and in 
 Cicero's time hardly to be found."^ 
 
 The Roman woman finally chose childlessness, idle- 
 ness, luxury and dissipation. Dill writes : "Owing to 
 celibacy and vice, childlessness in that age was extra- 
 ordinarily common in the upper class. One of the 
 darkest and most repulsive features in that putrescent 
 society was the social value which attached to a 
 vicious and shameful childlessness."^ Freed from the 
 responsibilities of family life and economically inde^ 
 pendent, the women of Rome led lives of selfish and 
 
 '■Supra, pp. 153-4. 
 
 "•Roman Society," Samuel Dill, London, The Macmillan Co, 
 190S, pp. 96-7. 
 
THE CHOICE OF THE WOMEN OF ROME 135 
 
 voluptuous pleasure. "While a Miisonius or a Seneca 
 was demanding equal chastity in man and woman, the 
 new woman of Juvenal boldly claims a vicious freedom 
 equal to that of her husband.^ 
 
 "In many so-called Christian circles, the gay, sup- 
 ple 'virgin' who would laugh at jests of doubtful free- 
 dom, and who had a relish for spiteful gossip, was 
 much more popular than the 'rough and rustic' person 
 whose religion was not a fraud. Many other sketches 
 of female character have been left us by the pencil of 
 St. Jerome — the sot who justifies her love of wine with 
 a profane jest; the great lady, puflfed up by the honors 
 of her house, who passes through St. Peter's, attended 
 by a crowd of eunuchs, doling out alms with equal 
 parsimony and ostentation, and repulsing the unfor- 
 tunate widow with blows."^ The picture is everywhere 
 drawn, almost without relief, in the darke^ hues. 
 
 The influence of women may be ennobling. It may 
 furnish high ideals and inspiration to men. On the 
 other hand, their influence may be debasing, if it is 
 used to arouse the lowest passions from which men 
 suflFer. Cato may have been right when he said that 
 the Roman women ruled over the men, for he may 
 even then have been suffering defeat at the hands of 
 some brilliant member of the opposite sex. Clearly, 
 however, the women of Rome were given an un- 
 equalled opportunity to employ their influence for the 
 
 • Supra, pp. 86-7. 
 
 * "Roman Society," Samuel Dill, London, The Macmillan Co., 
 1899, pp. 134-S. 
 
136 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 » 
 
 Uplifting or the debasing of society, and this oppor- 
 tunity they used for its debasement. 
 
 "The human harvest was bad."^ The fall of Rome 
 was a great confession that she lacked men. Who 
 shall say what part the abdication of intelligent mother- 
 hood, the loose, vicious lives of the women, and their 
 selfish indulgence in the most debasing of idle pastimes, 
 may not have had in sowing the seed of that bad 
 harvest ? 
 
 '"The Human Harvest," D. S. Jordan, Boston, Am. Unitarian 
 Assn., 1907, p. 13. 
 
 Note. — For a brilliant description of the lives of Roman 
 women under the Csesars, see "The Women of the Caesars," G. 
 Ferrero, New York, The Century Co., 191 1. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE AMERICAN WOMAN'S CHOICE 
 
 Historic parallels may not justifiably be drawn; 
 Rome was a military, the United States is an industrial 
 nation ; modern inventions and discoveries place a wide 
 gulf between the Roman Society of two thousand 
 years ago and the American Society of today; never- 
 theless, the same choice that confronted the women 
 of Rome is confronting the women of the United States 
 today. Will the American Woman choose Selfish 
 Indulgence or Social Service? She may shrink from 
 the decision; she may desire to let events decide for 
 her; she may take refuge in idle excuses and com- 
 plaints, but even while she hesitates and draws back, 
 circumstances are forcing the choice upon her. 
 
 The breadth of this choice varies with the individual 
 and with the income class to which she belongs. The 
 girl born into one of the many families with an income 
 of $io a week may decide, when she reaches fourteen, 
 what kind of industry she wishes to enter. She can 
 not choose to idle, but, within certain limits, she may 
 choose where she will work. After she has passed her 
 twentieth year, she must choose between marriage and 
 a continuance in industrial life. Among the higher 
 income classes, girls may choose between high school 
 
 137 
 
IjS WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 or even college ; between some form of professional or 
 industrial activity, and marriage. Among the middle 
 and upper income groups, the girl may choose between 
 idling or going to college ; between engaging in some 
 form of gainful occupation, or marriage. She may 
 even combine several of these pursuits. Among all 
 classes, after marriage, the woman, by her manage- 
 ment and her decisions, chooses how the family shall 
 live, how large the family shall be, what attitude its 
 members shall assume toward life. 
 
 As income and leisure increase, they broaden the 
 field of choice. Not only does the same dilemma con- 
 front the women of the United States that confronted 
 the women of Rome, but it has arisen in a markedly 
 1 similar way. The women of the United States have 
 ' passed through similar stages, from puritanical de- 
 pendence to economic and social freedom; they have i 
 been relieved of many of their old responsibilities and 
 duties ; they have been educated and received into the 
 professions on an equal basis with men; and now, 
 freed from any necessity, such as the hunger, privation 
 and religious sanctions which drove their ancestors 
 to lives of child-bearing, child care and ceaseless toil, 
 they are confronted with the necessity of making a 
 choice between Selfish Indulgence and Social Service. 
 The freedom which American Women have gained 
 through recent social changes and the significance of 
 their consequent choice, constitutes one of the pro- 
 foundest and at the same time one of the most inscrut- 
 able problems in American life. The women of the 
 
THE AMERICAN WOMAN'S CHOICE 139 
 
 United States are free to choose. What does their 
 freedom involve, and what will follow from their 
 choice ? 
 
 In the early days, before the Revolutionary War, a 
 Puritanism as severe as that of early Rome dominated 
 the thought of the United States.- The call of duty 
 was supreme. All men obeyed it. They worked for 
 duty, dressed for duty, and refrained from laughter 
 on the Sabbath because duty required it. This spirit 
 of puritanisra dominated the lives of women as well 
 as of men. 
 
 In addition to the puritanical obedience to the dic- 
 tates of conscience, economic necessity played a lead- 
 ing part in prescribing the role of the early Puritan 
 maiden. The country was new and rough, — it must 
 be subdued ; families were scantily provided with food, 
 clothes and shelter, — the lack must be supplied. In 
 meeting this necessity the woman played a chief part. 
 She spun; wove; cooked; preserved; made candles; 
 "made clothes ; took charge of milk, if there was a cow ; 
 of eggs, if there were chickens; worked in the fields 
 in summer, and all the year cared for the many chil- 
 dren. 
 
 There was no delicatessen store on the next block; 
 holeproof hosiery was unknown; clothing factories 
 unheard of; breakfast foods must be cooked; no 
 baker delivered bread each morning at her door. Not 
 one of the modern conveniences, comforts or luxuries 
 presented themselves to the Puritan matron. She must 
 work. 
 
140 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 The place of woman in Puritan days was in the 
 home ; so too was the place of man. From similar con- 
 ditions arose the German saying, "An honest woman 
 should keep indoors." The home held almost all of 
 life's activities, pleasures and duties. The home was 
 the center of the world. 
 
 Like the Roman matron, two thousand years before, 
 the American matron in Colonial days was an economic 
 factor, contributing her share to the real income of 
 the family. Society and the church prescribed her 
 duties as they had prescribed the duties of her Roman 
 sisters ; her conscience directed her datily work ; so that 
 she lived a life of simplicity, devotion and earnest labor, 
 little dreaming that her children's children's daughters 
 would be forced to make a choice between home and 
 the outside world; between marriage and industry; 
 between idleness and effort ; between Self and Society. 
 
 Since the days of Puritan New England, American 
 women have been emancipated. The home has lost 
 its industries, the Church has taken down its restric- 
 tions, so that women are at liberty to do as they choose. 
 The stern duty-imposing conscience of the early Puri- 
 tans has given place to the easy-going pleasure-loving 
 conscience of Twentieth-Century America. Industry 
 has been established on a new basis ; the home has been 
 revolutionized, and woman is confronted with hitherto* 
 undreamed-of forces. 
 
 With her emancipation from exacting economic 
 duties in the home has come the social freedom of 
 woman. She has her own clubs, her own friends, her 
 
THE AMERICAN WOMAN's CHOICE I4I 
 
 own circles; she serves on committees, teaches school, 
 directs philanthropy. Incompatibility is a ground for 
 divorce. The woman, through her wide opportunities 
 for gainful occupation, may easily support herself, 
 independent of her husband. Education, by making 
 women not only free to choose but capable of choosing 
 an occupation, has placed them on a basis of virtual 
 equality with men. Three forces, then, economic evo- 
 lution, social freedom and education have revolution- 
 ized the position of women. The industrial revolution 
 resulted in a domestic revolution, and together they 
 have caused a revolution in woman's sphere and 
 status. The American woman today is well nigh "free 
 and equal" with man. She holds property, — in some 
 States she votes. She has a status in the courts. A 
 myriad of occupations are open to her. 
 
 With rights, however, come duties, and if they regard 
 duties as irksome, women will find that there is a 
 thorn for every rose. Each new opportunity carries 
 with it the necessity for choice. The slave alone is 
 free; his master dictates his life; never once is he 
 called upon to make the choices upon which his future 
 depends; but the freeman is bound, unless liberty be 
 interpreted in terms of license; to render an account of 
 his every act. Since he is his own master, he must 
 answer for his own conduct. Under the English Com- 
 mon Law, a married woman was not legally respon- 
 sible for many of her acts, because she was regarded as 
 having done them under the duress of her husband, — 
 a tradition still lingering in the law of many American 
 
142 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 States. Nevertheless, women today are free, — free' to 
 choosCi 
 
 The woman of the United States may, like the 
 women of Rome, choose selfishly. Through all classes 
 of society women may choose single life, with its free- 
 dom from care and responsibility. They may continue 
 in industrial pursuits, earning a fair living, and spend- 
 ing it on dress and pleasure. Among the well-to-do, 
 the women may choose lives of idle dependence, living 
 first at the expense of their fathers and later at the 
 expense of their husbands; never engaging in any 
 serious occupations, devoting their lives to the pursuit 
 of that social will o'the wisp mistakenly called Happi- 
 ness. They may salve their consciences by going to a 
 settlement once a week or attending a charity ball. 
 But deep in their hearts they know, if they ever trouble 
 to look so far, that they are taking more from society 
 in sustenance than they are returning in service ; that 
 they are parasites, supported by the workers of the 
 nation. 
 
 So chose the women of Rome, at least the women of 
 whom we have any record. They preferred childless- 
 ness and gaiety to children and service, so that when 
 the Roman people reaped their harvest, they found 
 that an enemy had sowed tares among the wheat. 
 
 Fifty years ago John Ruskin wrote : "Granted, that 
 whenever we spend money for whatever purpose, we 
 set people to work, we will assume that whenever we 
 spend a guinea we provide an equal number of people 
 with healthy maintenance for a given time. But, by 
 
THE AMERICAN WOMAN'S CHOICE I43 
 
 the way in which we spend it, we entirely direct the 
 labor of those people during that given time. We 
 become their masters or mistresses, and we compel 
 them to produce, within a certain period, a certain 
 article. Now, that article may be a useful and lasting 
 one, or it may be a useless and perishable one — it may 
 be one useful to the whole commufiity, or useful only 
 to ourselves. 
 
 "Thus, for instance, if you are a young lady, and 
 employ a certain number of sempstresses for a given 
 time, in making a given number of simple and service- 
 able dresses, suppose, seven; of which you can wear 
 one yourself for half the winter, and give six away to 
 poor girls who have none, you are spending your 
 money unselfishly. But if you employ the same num- 
 ber of sempstresses for the same number of days, in 
 making four, or five, or six beautiful flounces for your 
 own balldress, — flounces which will clothe no one but 
 yourself, and which you will yourself be unable to 
 wear at more than one ball — ^you are employing your 
 money selfishly. You have maintained, indeed in each 
 case, the same number of people ; but in the one case 
 you have directed their labor to the service of the 
 community; in the other case you have consumed it 
 wholly upon yourself. You say to them, 'You shall 
 make nothing but lace and roses for me ; for this fort- 
 night to come, you shall work at the patterns and petals 
 and then I will crush and consume them away in an 
 hour.' You will perhaps answer, 'It may not be partic- 
 ularly benevolent to do this, and we won't call it so; 
 
144^ WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 but at any rate we do no wrong in taking their labor 
 when we pay them their wages; if we pay for their 
 work we have a right to it.' No — a thousand times no. 
 The labor which you have paid for does indeed become, 
 by the act of purchase, your own labor; you have 
 bought the hands and the time of those workers; they 
 are, by right and justice, your own hands, your own 
 time. But, have you a right to spend your own time, 
 to work with your own hands, only for your own 
 advantage? — much more, when, by purchase, you have 
 invested your own person with the strength of others ; 
 and added to your own life, a part of the life of 
 others? As long as there are cold and nakedness in 
 the land around you, so long there can be no question 
 at all but that splendor of dress is crime."* 
 
 What a picture! Shadows without relief. "It is 
 painted too black," you exclaim. No, not a whit, it is 
 indeed very dark, but this is only one side of it. Look 
 upon the other side, and you will find it very bright, 
 for the American Woman may choose the bright side 
 of the picture. Every social effort should be bent to 
 lead her to this latter choice, because in it lies at least 
 a measure of social salvation. 
 
 First, American Women have opportunity. Educa- 
 tionally, socially, politically, industrially, they are 
 afforded openings for the application of their ability 
 and energy. They have an opportunity to make con- 
 stant effort, upon which depends character and achieve- 
 
 * "Political Economy of Art," John Ruskin, Lecture II, "Ap- 
 plication." 
 
THE AMERICAN WOMAN'S CHOICE I45 
 
 ment. It is true of any animal that' disuse means 
 decay ; the arm, held rigid for a year, would prove an 
 indifferent member; thi^ is equally true of any other 
 faculty. Disuse involves decay,— physical, mental, 
 spiritual. 
 
 The powers of the will, — ^the positive forces of the 
 individual which make up character, — are no exception 
 to this rule. The man who idles becomes an idler; 
 the women who make no effort become colorless. Like 
 the unused arm, they degenerate through lack of func- 
 tioning. The point is obvious, yet it needs strong 
 emphasis in the life of each individual. Dr. G. 
 Stanley Hall holds that such is even more the case with 
 women than with men: "They (women) particularly 
 need absorbing occupations, and are spoiled by idle- 
 ness and vacuity of mind, which makes them either 
 lazy, phlegmatic and unambitious, or else restless."^ 
 The disuse of the power to choose wisely will finally 
 incapacitate the individual to make wise choice. 
 
 But wise choice we must have. On every side are 
 fields, white for harvest. Never were opportunities 
 for service so great; never was the passion for altru- 
 istic effort so rife, so eager for direction ; never before, 
 in the history of man have science, invention and dis- 
 covery opened up such great avenues for the pursuit 
 of knowledge and the application of that knowledge to 
 human affairs; never has there been piled up in any 
 one nation so vast a store of free wealth, — ^wealth 
 
 '"Adolescence," G. Stanley Hall, New York, D. Appleton & 
 Co., 1904, Vol. II, p. 578. 
 10 
 
146 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 which may be directed into any channel that promises 
 high returns in human service. Twentieth Century 
 American society is a city set on a hill, a candle on a 
 candlestick; the whole world is regarding our progfress, 
 — ^applauding and imitating our successes : laughing at 
 and profiting by our blunders. We are making his- 
 tory, whether for the advance or the retardation of 
 mankind, — the history of a democracy, in which each 
 citizen may play a part. 
 
 Women are citizens; they have been emancipated; 
 they may, — ^they must, do their share of the nation's 
 work. They may plunge into reckless extravagance, 
 apeing the fashions, "doing" society, playing cards, 
 visiting dressmakers and milliners, shopping, even dis- 
 sipating, leading lives of idleness. On the other hand 
 they may choose the better part, assuming their share 
 of the responsibilities of the nation, — ^bearing and rear- 
 ing healthy, noble sons and daughters, administering 
 worthy homes, occupying leading positions in indus- 
 trial, educational and philanthropic ventures; utilizing 
 their time wisely; choosing socially and not selfishly. 
 
 Possessed of great capacities, armed with social and 
 industrial choice, the American women of the Twen- 
 tieth Century are choosing to do the work of the world. 
 The High School is bearmg fruit ; the Woman's College 
 is exercising its salutary effect, not among its grad- 
 uates alone, but among thousands who have never 
 been inside its walls ; the American Women of the new 
 generation are choosing to work, — ^and to work at the 
 things which count for most in a nation's life. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 SELECTION, — ^A BASIC FACTOR IN PROGRESS 
 
 Although the terms "Heredity" and "Environ- 
 ment" have been grossly overworked, there are none 
 which serve so well to describe the two general direc- 
 tions in which women may influence the race. Both 
 the characteristics which are transmitted through 
 heredity and the characteristics which are the product 
 of environment are in a measure, within woman's 
 power. Blue eyes, a talent for music, a love of the 
 beautiful, may be handed down as a heritage from 
 parent to child. Strong bodies, alert" minds, sympathy, 
 and strength of character may be imparted by judi- 
 cious training; Environment is far reaching in its 
 influence, but heredity is fundamental. 
 
 All hereditary characteristics are furnished to the 
 offspring by the parents. These characteristics may 
 have arisen long before the parents were born, and 
 may have continued in the family for generations, but 
 the hereditary qualities of the offspring are trans- 
 mitted to them directly, through a combination of the 
 qualities of the parents. These qualities, the scientists 
 now tell us, are contained in the parental germ cells. 
 Since Weismann offered his Germ Plasm Theory of 
 Heredity (1883), the scientific world has generally 
 
 147 
 
148 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 accepted the doctrine that there are two kinds of cells 
 in the human body,— body cells and germ cells. The 
 body cells die, but the germ cells are immortal because, 
 by means of them, life is transferred from the parent 
 to the offspring. The male germ cell (spermatozoa) 
 uniting with the female germ cell (ovum) creates a 
 new organism which will contain a combination of the 
 characteristics of both of its parents. Each parent 
 contributes an equal number of qualities through the 
 chromosomes (which are located within the germ 
 cell), but these chromosomes may pair off in many 
 different ways, creating different characteristics in 
 children of the same parents. On the whole, how- 
 ever, parents with good qualities will transmit good 
 qualities to their children. The kind of qualities 
 possessed by the iparents, therefore, determines, in the 
 long run, the kind of qualities which will be possessed 
 by the children.^ 
 
 Since the most important factor, from an hereditary 
 standpoint, in the determination of qualities of children 
 is the mating of the parents, the force which determines 
 that mating determines what qualities shall be trans- 
 mitted. 
 
 Women determine, in large measure, the character 
 of their mates, hence they determine in a very real 
 sense what the qualities of the race of the future shall 
 be. If women of high qualities choose men of high 
 
 'For an excellent presentation of this theory of heredity, in 
 all of its bearings, see "Heredity,"' J. Arthur Thompson, London, 
 Murray, 1908. 
 
SELECTION — ^A BASIC FACTOR IN PROGRESS I49 
 
 qualities, the oifspring will have high qualities ; but if 
 they mate haphazardly, there can be no guarantee that 
 the qualities of the future will be a whit superior to 
 those of the present. 
 
 Since the germ cell transmits hereditary qualities, 
 and since environmental influences can affect only the 
 body cells, scientists agree generally that acquired 
 characteristics are not transmitted. For thousands of 
 years women of China have bound up their feet with- 
 out decreasing the foot-size of the race. The foot- 
 binding modifies only the body cells, leaving the germ 
 cells undisturbed. In the same way, a woman who 
 has lost an arm will not bear a one-armed child, 
 any more than a horse, whose tail is cropped, or a dog 
 whose ears have been shorn, will bear oifspring with 
 these acquired qualities. One-armed women, tailless 
 horses, and short-eared dogs suffer from a modifica- 
 tion of the body cells, but not of the germ cells, — a 
 modification which can leave no trace in the offspring. 
 
 But changes do occur in species and races. The 
 female dog ig brown, — the puppies are spotted; the 
 mother has brown eyes, the child blue. How can 
 scientists account for these and the thousand oth?r 
 modifications of the parental type which appear in the 
 offspring? There are two forces which adequately 
 determine them, — the first is variation, the second is 
 selection. 
 
 Variation, due to different combinations of parental 
 chromosomes, is universal.* No six rabbits, bom in 
 
 Supra, Chapter III. 
 
150 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 the same litter, are precisely alike. They differ from 
 the mother and from each other, in eye color, mark- 
 ings, size, weight, digestion, speed,— in fact, they vary 
 in nearly every characteristic. From the observation 
 of countless illustrations like this one, the biologist 
 concludes that no animal breeds perfectly true to type. 
 
 Nature always produces a surplus. Among all 
 plants and animals, more -offspring are brought into 
 the world than can possibly live on the available food 
 supply. Hence an eternal struggle is in progress, — 
 brother against brother, sister, father and mother. The 
 strongest, or fiercest, or cleverest lives, crowding out 
 all of the rest. Since in each family there is variation, 
 there is always a strongest and a weakest ; a struggle, 
 and an ultimate survival of the fittest. In this strug- 
 gle, the final triumph of one or more of the most 
 capable units constitutes selection. The weakest, those 
 least able to withstand the struggle, disappear, while 
 the spiecies is continued by the strong. Thus the 
 unfit are eliniinated from each generation, while the fit 
 are selected to be the parents of the new generation. 
 
 Selection carried on without human interference is 
 called natural selection. When, however, man takes 
 a hand in the process, directing and dominating it, it 
 is called artificial selection. 
 
 Artificial selection may be the result of the action of 
 a superior over an inferior force. Men, for example, 
 may breed a long or short eared dog, by selecting for 
 parents, in each generation, the dogs who have ears 
 nearest to the desired type. On the other hand, every 
 
SELECTION — A BASIC FACTOR IN PROGRESS ISI 
 
 intelligent society exercises a restraining influence in 
 the selection of its members, deciding by mutual agree- 
 ment, expressed in public opinion, how the members 
 of the group shall act. Since artificial selection is the 
 force which must be relied upon to secure any improve- 
 ment in the race, a brief discussion of its operation in 
 the animal and vegetable kingdoms, where alone it has 
 been scientifically employed, may not be amiss. 
 
 The cat is related to the fiercest members of the 
 animal kingdom, yet it is gentle, quiet, loves to be 
 caressed and played with, and on the whole, makes a 
 highly desirable domestic pet. What is the cause of 
 this phenomenon ? While its powerful jaws and sharp 
 claws remain, the cat is a docile creature, the play- 
 thing of children. Nothing else than a long process 
 of selecting the gentlest cats could give such a result. 
 For centuries, none but gentle cats have been allowed 
 to live. If a cat displayed savage qualities, it was 
 promptly dispatched, so that, in each generation of 
 cats, the fierce were destroyed and the gentle were 
 perpetuated. Why were such steps taken? Simply 
 because men wanted a domestic pet that was kindly 
 and quiet. 
 
 The cat family in the wilds of India depends for 
 its life and livelihood upon ferocity, hence the fero- 
 cious tiger survives, while the less ferocious one is 
 easily killed by its enemies, or starves to death because 
 it can secure no food. A rigorous process of natural 
 selection destroys the gentle tiger and perpetuates the 
 fierce one. 
 
152 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 Natural selection is unconscious, — that is, it occurs 
 without the intervention of any superior will, but it 
 occurs none the less surely. A good sized codfish 
 annually lays from thirty to fifty millions of eggs, only 
 two or three of which ever develop into mature cod- 
 fish. The rest are destroyed before or after hatching 
 by the cod's enemies. In the course of years, this 
 "survival of the fittest" produces a creature perfectly 
 adapted to the environment in which he lives. 
 
 While natural selection is unconscious, occurring 
 in the course of a struggle for existence, artificial selec- 
 tion is conscious. Men decide to have tame cats, and 
 in order to secure them, they destroy all wild ones. 
 This deliberate selection has remade or domesticated 
 animals. 
 
 Modern agriculture depends upon artificial selection 
 for the production of new species. Consider, for 
 example, the work of the stock breeder. A wild hog 
 runs along the mountain side, living on nuts and roots. 
 His back is sharp, his legs are long and sinewy, while 
 his body is short, bony and scrawny. This is not the 
 type of animal that the pork market demands. Hogs 
 must be long bodied, small boned and fat. Hence the 
 hog breeder attempts to modify the "razor back" to suit 
 the demand of the market. In the course of a few 
 generations, by selecting the short legged, fat, quiet 
 hogs to be the parents of the next generation, a type 
 of animal is produced which answers every require- 
 ment. The body is round and sleek, the legs are 
 short, and the bones small. When this hog is killed 
 
SELECTION — A BASIC FACTOR IN PROGRESS 153 
 
 and dressed, the greater portion of the carcass is 
 edible. The breeding of cattle, sheep, chickens, and 
 other domestic animals has been carried forward along 
 similar lines. 
 
 The most remarkable artificial selective work of the 
 past few years has involved the development of vege- 
 table rather than of animal species. The thornless 
 cactus, and the Burbank potato, are well known illus- 
 trations of achievements in this field. The plant breed- 
 ers of the latter Nineteenth Century have literally 
 revolutionized plant life. Consider, for example, the 
 work of the government experiment stations in devel- 
 oping cereal and other crops with a capacity to resist 
 disease. The gravest foes of the farmer during late 
 years have been blights, scales, and other diseases 
 which attacked, and often completely destroyed, all 
 varieties of crops, from wheat to apple trees. Spray- 
 ing, which was resorted to, proved in some cases, a 
 valuable preventive, but at once the question arose, — 
 "Why not produce a species of wheat which will not 
 get blight?" So the breeders set to work. Men were 
 sent all over the world to look for kinds of wheat 
 which would resist blight, and experiment after 
 experiment was made to secure a variety of gram that 
 would prove immune to the dreaded disease. 
 
 Coincident with these experiments, settlements were 
 being made on the dry lands of the West, where the 
 rainfall (12 to 15 inches a year) is only a third of that 
 of the Atlantic Coastal plain. Here was a new prob- 
 lem. The land was fertile, but' the water was scarce. 
 
IS4 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 A wheat must be bred which had the power to resist 
 drought. Eventually, by careful selection, a variety 
 of wheat was produced which was comparatively free 
 from blight, and which required very little moisture. 
 
 Through artificial selection the hand of man has 
 transformed the vegetable world. The luscious Bald- 
 win is the descendant of the thorn apple ; the splendid 
 market tomato was grown from a weed ; cereal grains 
 are produced with qualities wholly unlike those which 
 naturally belong to them. Men have revolutionized 
 agriculture through selective breeding, creating new 
 qualities by selecting for parents those individuals 
 which came the nearest to possessing the desirable 
 attributes. 
 
 "But," you protest, "we knew all of this before." 
 Perhaps. But have you ever pondered over the appli- 
 cation of this doctnne? If men would but see the 
 universal application of selection, and after studying 
 the question in all of its bearings, would set them- 
 selves to perfect the human race as successfully as 
 they have perfected certain species in the animal and 
 vegetable kingdom, the same principles that have revo- 
 lutionized the vegetable and animal world might well 
 revolutionize human society. Men and women could 
 easily employ stronger and more vigorous bodies ; they 
 could utilize added funds of energy; they might 
 develop higher aesthetic qualities. The need for 
 improving the heredity of the human race, whether 
 by selection, or by some other means yet undiscovered, 
 is emphasized on every hand by aenemic, weakly, mis- 
 
SELECTION— A BASIC FACTOR IN PROGRESS 155 
 
 shapen bodies, and deficient minds. Men and women 
 lack energy, vision, mental grasp, inspiration. They 
 are not the "begt in stock." 
 
 Selection will have no effect upon acquired char- 
 acteristics, since they are not inherited, but it will 
 determine the combination of parental traits which are 
 to be handed down to the next generation. Do men 
 wish a speedy horse? They do not attempt to breed 
 it from cart-horses. Does a breeder aim to secure 
 large red apples? He breeds from the best, and not 
 the worst strains. So, in human society, there are 
 many and varying qualities. From feeble-mindedness 
 to genius, men and women vary, because of the vary- 
 ing characteristics of their parents. 
 
 All hereditary qualities, whether they be good or 
 bad, are transmitted from parent to offspring; hence, 
 if it be the aim of society to produce strong bodies, 
 alert minds and noble characters, it behooves society 
 to see that men and women with such qualities are the 
 fathers and mothers of the future. 
 
 Too much emphasis cannot be laid on the necessity 
 of suppressing the undesirable, and encouraging and 
 perpetuating the desirable qualities in each generation. 
 
 The limited study of the transmission of human 
 ability, and a wide experience with the transmission of 
 ability in animals, leads to the inference that ability 
 among men may be consciously handed on from gen- 
 eration to generation. As the transmission of special 
 ability through the germ cell has not been established, 
 beyond the possibility of cavil, we need not insist upon 
 
156 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 it here. Whether ability is the result of a careful 
 training during infancy and early youth, or of wise 
 selection through marriage, is unimportant to this dis- 
 cussion, since in either case the responsibility for the 
 transmission rests upon parenthood. 
 
 The pioneer work in establishing the transmission 
 of special capacity from parent to child was done by 
 Francis Galton, who estimated that the men who 
 "have distinguished themselves pretty frequently either 
 by purely original work or as a leader of opinion," i.e. 
 the geniuses, — constitute 250 (.025%) in every million 
 men. The transmission of special capacity was illus- 
 trated by an intensive study of the judges of England 
 from 1660 to 1865. On this study, Galton bases his 
 estimate that the most gifted members bf distinguished 
 judges' families had 26% of genius among their fathers 
 and 36% of genius among their sons. Thus, in the 
 population at large 250 men in each million are gen- 
 iuses, while of the fathers of the most distinguished 
 judges, 260,000 in a million, and of tne sons 360,000 
 in a million were eminent. So that the son of a dis- 
 tinguished judge is fifteen hundred times as liable to 
 be eminent as is the son of an average man.^ 
 
 Numerous other illustrations of the transmission of 
 ability are available. An investigation of the geneal- 
 ogies of 65 eminent men of science shows that 26% 
 of their fathers and 60% of their sons were eminent. 
 That is a proportion among the sons of 6 in 10 as con- 
 
 * "Hereditary Genius," Francis Galton, London, The Macmillan 
 Co., 1892 (First Edition 1869), pp. 6-9 and 74. 
 
SELECTION — A BASIC FACTOR IN PROGRESS 157 
 
 trasted with 6 in 25,000 for England at large.^ In one 
 family, — ^the Darwins, beginning with Erasmus Dar- 
 win (1731-1802), there have been in five generations, 
 sixteen men of scientific attainments.^ The Bach 
 family of musicians furnishes another remarkable in- 
 stance of the transmission of ability. In eight gener- 
 ations (1650-1800) there were "far more than twenty 
 eminent musicians," and the biographical collections 
 of musicians gives the lives of fifty-seven. Tradition 
 holds that the men married within the Musical Guild, 
 hence both parents may have been musical. "It was a 
 custom of the family to meet in yearly reunions at 
 which the entertainments were purely musical."* 
 
 Ability may be the product of heredity, or of early 
 training, but it is certainly transmitted from parent 
 to child. Heredity and environment, combined in 
 parentage, are therefore responsible for it. 
 
 The same law holds with equal, if not greater, force 
 in the transmission of defect. While it cannot be 
 shown that ability is due to heredity alone, it has been 
 definitely proven that certain defects are transmitted 
 through the germ cell, and are, therefore, truly heredi- 
 tary. Feeblemindedness, for example, is generally 
 accepted as an hereditary defect. A recent New York 
 study of families, in which both parents were feeble- 
 minded, showed only two normal children in a total of 
 
 ^ Supra, p. 188. 
 
 * "The Family and the Nation," W. C. D. and C. D. Whitham, 
 Lon^ans, London, 1909, pp. 89-90. 
 
 ' "Hereditary Genius," Francis Galton, London, The Macmillan 
 Co., 1892, p. 233, 
 
158 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 seventy-five. In one Pennsylvania family with feeble- 
 minded parents, there are eleven children, all feeble- 
 minded. All of the more recent studies of institutional 
 records show that feeble-mindedness may usually be 
 traced through several generations. 
 
 Other forms of defect than those due to mental 
 disorders, as, for example, delinquency and social 
 dependence, are handed down from generation to gen- 
 eration. Among several instances of the transmission 
 of delinquency none is more striking than that of a 
 notorious Indiana family ("The Tribe of Ishmael"). 
 In one branch of the family "there were originally four 
 children who raised pauper families. One son of the 
 third generation died in the penitentiary; his two sons 
 in the fourth generation have been in the penitentiary ; 
 a daughter in the fourth generation was a prostitute 
 with two illegitimate children. Another son of the 
 third generation has a penitentiary record, and died of 
 delirium tremens — There have been several murders; 
 a continuous pauper and criminal record. . . ."^ 
 
 No more terrible social scourge is conceivable than 
 the constant reproduction of incapacity, pauperism, 
 crime and vice. No social contrast could be more 
 full of meaning than that between the Jukes family 
 and the Jonathan Edwards family. On one side defect 
 and social cost, on the other ability and civic worth 
 have been handed down for generations.^ 
 
 »"The Tribe of Ishmael," Oscar C. McCuUoch, Proceedings 
 National Conf. of C. and C, i888. 
 
 '"Jukes-Edwards," A. E. Winship, Harrisburg, R. L. Myers 
 & Co., 1900, Chapter VIII. 
 
SELECTION — ^A BASIC FACTOR IN PROGRESS 1 59 
 
 Max "Juke" (born 1720) Jonathan Edwakds 
 
 X200 descendants identified (born 1703) 
 
 300 in the poorhouse 13^4 descendants identUied 
 
 2300 years in all 295 college graduates 
 300 died in childhood 12 college presidents 
 
 440 viciously diseased 65 college professors 
 
 400 physical wrecks 60 physicians 
 
 SO notorious prostitutes 100 clergymen and musicians 
 
 7 murderers 75 army and navy ofBcers 
 
 60 habitual thieves 60 prominent authors 
 
 averaged 13 years in 100 lawyers 
 jail 30 judges 
 
 130 convicted of crime 80 held public office 
 "None of them ever i vice-president 
 
 contributed to social 3 U. S. Senators 
 welfare." "It is not known that any 
 
 Their actual and potential of them was ever convicted 
 
 cost to society was $1,250,000. of crime." 
 
 Thus one family has produced twelve hundred social 
 burdens or social scourges, while the other has given 
 to the race nearly fourteen hundred social servants. 
 These families stand at the two extremes of society. 
 They are as far apart as the East and the West. The 
 first family points to social decay, the second to social 
 progress. 
 
 Whether or not ability and defect are the result of 
 heredity through the germ cell or of environment 
 throiigh early training, or of both, — ^the evidence is 
 very strong in support of the contention that they are 
 both handed down from parent to child. If that be 
 true, — if the hereditary characteristics are the combi- 
 nation of the characteristics of both patents, then the 
 choice in the mating of the parents determines the 
 characteristics of the offspring. 
 
l6o WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 Since the status of a race depends upon the stamina 
 of the individuals composing it, and since the charac- 
 teristics of each of these individuals are determined by 
 the characteristics of both parents, the force that brings 
 the parents together determines the fate of the race. 
 Who is responsible for selection? Does woman parti- 
 cipate in it? Every conventionally modest woman 
 instinctively shrinks from such a thought, yet it may 
 well be that when the time is ripe, she selects her mate 
 just as instinctively as she now shrinks from the idea 
 of selection. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 WOMEN AS SELECTORS 
 
 "Coi/LE, man, master up your courage and ask her, 
 —of course she'll have you." 
 
 Will she? That depends entirely upon the qual- 
 ities of the. candidate, and the ideals and standards of 
 the woman. If the man possesses the qualities for 
 which the woman is searching, she will say, "Yes" ; but 
 if he does not, she will say, "No." Upon that "Yes" 
 or "No" depends the mating of this particular man 
 and woman, and the possible transmission of a com- 
 bination of their qualities to some of the children bom 
 into the next generation. It is not only the man's 
 future misery or happiness which hangs on the balance 
 of the woman's choice; but, in addition, the charac- 
 teristics of the new generation. 
 
 Heroes and heroines are not in most matters true to 
 life, but they are true in this — that the man casts his 
 future at the woman's feet, leaving the decision to her. 
 In reality she has probably decided long before, when 
 listening to his confidences, and sympathizing with his 
 misfortunes, — that she would marry him ; were this not 
 so, she would hardly have allowed him to propose. 
 
 Traditionally man selects. The whole problem of 
 "proposing" is his. From the days when he lay in 
 II i6i 
 
l62 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 wait behind a thicket until the woman of his choice 
 wandered far enough away from her kinsmen for him 
 to stun her by a blow from his club and carry her off 
 to be his servile wife; through the time when a man 
 bought a woman from her father for a sum of money, 
 a dukedom or some other such consideration, that tra- 
 dition of masculine selection has survived. Meantime, 
 however, women have been emancipated. The Nine- 
 teenth Century — ^"Woman's Century" — witnessed a 
 revolution in woman's status, which made her indus- 
 trially, legally, morally and socially free to choose. 
 Among other choices she has the alternative choice of 
 her future husband. 
 
 To paraphrase, in all seriousness, a well-known say- 
 ing, — "Man proposes; woman disposes." The male 
 is no longer the sole selective agent, — ^he merely makes 
 an offer which may or may not be accepted by the 
 woman. Men have the initial, women have final 
 choice, and it is upon that final choice that the new 
 generation depends. 
 
 This thought of woman's selective power is not new, 
 but it is somewhat unconventional. It, therefore, occa- 
 sions, just at first, a sharp reaction. 
 
 "Impossible," exclaims the modest girl, "who ever 
 heard of a woman's proposing, even in leap-year?" 
 
 Men assume an even more contemptuous attitude. 
 "I expect to select my wife," remarks the college senior 
 pompously, "and she won't be one of these new women, 
 either." 
 
 Yet this man will make the acquaintance of a girl. 
 
WOMEN AS SELECTORS 163 
 
 and join the ranks of her admirers. One day, he will 
 awaken to the fact that he is in love, and after going 
 through the necessary preliminaries of doubt, hesitancy 
 and resolution, he will propose. In his heart he will 
 believe to the end of his days, that he picked out his 
 wife, — that he married her. The very idea of his hav- 
 ing been married by her is repugnant to his sense of 
 masculine dignity. What really happened? There 
 were twenty suitors ranged before this girl's eyes. 
 Among the twenty, this man appealed to her most, and 
 either intentionally or instinctively, the girl made every 
 effort to attract his attention and win his favor. She 
 selected him out of the group who came to her house. 
 When he proposed, therefore, even if she said, "Oh 
 this is so sudden !" what she really meant was, "Well, 
 at last you've done it, but you certainly were slow." 
 
 There is a girl in an eastern city who illu ;trates 
 the point excellently. She has a dozen warm admir- 
 ers, but is indiflferent to all of them. Among the recent 
 additions to her "kindergarten" as she tails it, was a 
 splendid young fellow of the highest type. A week 
 later, the young lady, discussing the matter with a 
 friend, exclaimed, triumphantly, — "I believe he's the 
 one." If he proves on further acquaintance to be "the 
 one," the young lady will marry him; whereupon the 
 lucky one will spend his remaining years in congratu- 
 lating himself on having an excellent taste in selecting 
 a wife, backed by an ability to secure what he decided 
 upon. 
 
 Of the women who marry, probably eight out of ten 
 
164 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 have either refused a proposal or else have so dis- 
 couraged one or more men as to prevent them frdm 
 proposing. In either case, the woman held the final 
 choice, deciding who should or who should not be her 
 mate. 
 
 Men have always overemphasized their part in the 
 progress of the world making. An appeal to ethnol- 
 ogy, botany, and zoology shows conclusively that 
 among the lower forms of life not only is there no 
 male, but the female is a self-fertilizing, self-perpet- 
 uating being. Then, through the process of selection, 
 a male is developed for the purpose of more complete 
 fertilization. The male is small, inoffensive, helpleS^. 
 One little female creature carries two males, one in a 
 pocket on each side of her body, to insure fertilization 
 at the right time. Among certain spiders, the female 
 is so strong and fierce that the male who approaches 
 her is almost always devoured, either before or after 
 fertilization is completed, so that he really gives his 
 life to perpetuate his race. 
 
 Throughout the world of lower organisms, the 
 female is larger and stronger,: — the male seems to be 
 an after thought of nature, a better scheme than self- 
 fertilization for the perpetuation of the species.^ 
 
 Among the higher animals the female selects, from 
 among the males who contend for her favor, the strong- 
 est or the most decorated. Standing, as she does, at 
 
 'For an able discussion of the biologic importance of the 
 female, see "Pure Sociology," Lester F. Ward, New York, The 
 Macmillan Co., 1903, Chapter XIV. 
 
WOMEN AS SELECTORS 165 
 
 the center of racial life and progress, "the balance 
 wheel of the whole (evolutionary) machinery," the 
 female, through her choice, regulates the future of the 
 race by choosing among the numerous males the 
 strongest or most successful as the parent of her 
 offspring. "While the voice of nature, speaking to the 
 male in the form of an intense appetitive interest, says 
 to him : fecundate ! it gives to the female a different 
 command and says : discriminate ! . . . Here the value 
 of a plurality of males is apparent. In such a plural- 
 ity there are always differences. The fetnale recog- 
 nizes the differences and instinctively selects the male 
 that has the highest value for the race."^ 
 
 Briefly, then, throughout the biologic world, the 
 male is either absent altogether, an incidental crea- 
 ture, or, in the higher forms of life, one of several, 
 among whom the female selects. 
 
 The biologic world is a female world. The males 
 are largest and strongest only among a few of the 
 higher animals, while it is among human beings alone 
 that the male subjugates the female. We are here 
 reviewing, not an evolution, but a revolution in the 
 relative positions of the sexes. The history of this 
 revolution, stated in its shortest terms, is as follows : 
 
 The female, as selector, decided between the males, 
 who, sexually active, sought out the female. A con- 
 test at once arose among each group of males for the 
 favor of the female or females in question. "Jealousy, 
 the 'green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it 
 
 ^ Supra, p. 325- 
 
l66 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 feeds on,' here showed its usefulness, for it cooperated 
 with the aesthetic faculty of the female and led to all 
 those intense activities of the rival males that devel- 
 oped the characters that the females preferred. 
 Success in these struggles for favor, due in turn to the 
 qualities that insured success, was the sure passport to 
 favor, and female favor meant parenthood of the 
 race."^ 
 
 In each generation, the females were selecting for 
 parenthood the largest, strongest, bravest, hand- 
 somest males, a process which ultimately developed 
 these qualities in the male,' until, in the course of ages, 
 size, strength, courage and beauty came to be looked 
 upon as male qualities. The male became, through 
 the process of selection, larger, stronger, and often 
 more beautifully decorated than the female; but it was 
 the female who, through her selective power, had 
 caused this transformation. "This," writes Ward, "is 
 why I reject the usual expression 'male superiority' 
 for those relatively few cases in which the male has 
 acquired superior size and strength along with the 
 various ornaments with which the female has decked 
 him out."^ 
 
 However, even in the higher forms of life, where 
 the female is "greatly surpassed in size and strength 
 by the male," the males never use their strength "tO 
 coerce the females into submission."^ With dawning 
 intelligence comes to man the concept, "Here is a 
 weaker creature than I am. I can force her to do my 
 
 ^ Supra, p. 328. ^Ibid., p. 330. 'Idem. 
 
WOMEN AS SELECTORS I67 
 
 work and to gratify my appetites." Then, for the 
 first time in the history of biologic evolution, the 
 female is subjected to the male. j 
 
 The infusion of one other element completes the 
 cycle of evolution from the dominance and selective 
 power of the female, through her subjugation to the 
 male, to her dawning democratic status, in which she 
 and the male will exercise equal selective power, — I 
 refer to the development of sympathy. Probably com- 
 ing earliest in the female, sympathy is a virtue of com- 
 paratively recent origin. Among many barbaric tribes 
 it seems to be entirely lacking, while it is only in 
 the most highly civilized society that the concept of 
 sympathy reaches an advanced form. When, hov^ever, 
 it does dawn upon the male that his female companion 
 is burdened to the point of intense suffering, he begins 
 to alleviate her most acute trials, — ^taking upon him- 
 self some of the burden of maintaining society. Among 
 the highly civilized races, this sympathy overreaches 
 itself, and results in depriving women of all occupa- 
 tions, converting them into parasites, dependent for 
 support upon the efforts of the male. 
 
 Selection was at one time the function of the female. 
 The dawning intelligence in man led him to subjugate 
 woman and become himself the selector. Now, again 
 the hand of time moves forward and woman assumes 
 a large share of selective power. What does the 
 future hold? Will women grow more or less power- 
 ful as selective agents? 
 
 The answer practically hinges on the question of 
 
l68 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 sexual attraction which exercises far greater influence 
 over men than over women. As among animals, so 
 among men, woman remains sexually passive, and is 
 sought out by the male, who is sexually active. In 
 this fact lies the explanation of the selective power of 
 the female among animals and of the selective power 
 of women among men. 
 
 Sexual attraction, a purely animal force, necessarily 
 acts most strongly upon the most strongly sexed group 
 (the men) making them the seekers and leaving 
 women to exercise their choice among the men who 
 seek them. Were no other explanation available, 
 this one is suffident to justify the statements that 
 while traditionally men are the selectors, in reality, as 
 soon as women are freed from slavery, and permitted 
 to exercise free choice, they, even more than the men, 
 determine mating. They have not, certainly, a uni- 
 versal or even an initial choice; — they cannot select 
 among all of the men in a city or a state. But among 
 their acquaintances, they unquestionably have selective 
 choice. 
 
 To the power of sexual attraction, which is natural 
 and basic, woman adds a purely artificial force in the 
 form of adornment and coquetry which is none the 
 less effective in securing a wider range of selective 
 choice. By these artificial means, of which the fash- 
 ions are a very lame, inartistic expression, women seek 
 to gather around them a larger number of males than 
 would ordinarily be drawn by sexual attraction. To 
 be sure, adornment and coquetry are both grossly 
 
WOMEN AS SELECTORS I69 
 
 misused, but aside from this misuse, they serve as 
 valuable aids in increasing the sphere of woman's 
 selective choice. 
 
 With the education of men and of women, with 
 the rising standards of character and culture, both 
 sexes are demanding high standards of manhood and 
 womanhood. Some men, with whom sexual attrac- 
 tion is not a dominating factor, look deeper than 
 besiuty, demanding noble qualities, as well as good 
 appearances. Men are fast learning to distinguish 
 between the external and the real woman. As Stev- 
 enson has pointed out in "Virginibus Puerisque," 
 "When a young lady has angelic features, eats nothing 
 to speak of, plays all day long on the piano, and sings 
 ravishingly in churchy it requires a rough infidelity, 
 falsely called c)micism, to believe that she may be a 
 little devil after all. Yet so it is; she may be a tale- 
 bearer, a liar and a thief; she may have a taste for 
 brandy and no heart." Whether cynicism or no, many 
 men have developed that "rough infidelity" of which 
 Stevenson writes. 
 
 For the men who are looking deeper than surface 
 indications, women must be worthy in the true sense 
 of the word. They must be individualized, and boast 
 some positive attainments. 
 
 This rising standard is true in the case of men, but 
 it is even truer in the case of women. The traditional 
 woman married in order to be married. The high 
 school and college trained girl of today marries to 
 secure a good mate. The traditional woman was 
 
170 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 J 
 
 forced to marry, either from the necessity of relieving 
 her father of the burden of her support, or of escaping 
 the disgrace of single blessedness. The educated girl 
 of today goes to work, when her education is finished, 
 and waits until a man appears who is really worthy of 
 her. If he never appears, she remains single. Women 
 are setting a standard for. men, socially, intellectually, 
 morally; and the men who fall below that standard 
 must be content with the less worthy women. 
 ' Selection, through parenthood, determines the char- 
 acteristics which will be possessed by the new gener- 
 ation. Within certain limits, women are the selectors, 
 and in so far as this relation holds, they determine the 
 heredity of the race. Women therefore hold in their 
 hands the opportunity to interpret selective mating 
 and parenthood in terms of race culture and progress. 
 While each woman's field of selection is limited, within 
 that field lies a great opportunity for service. Should 
 women maintain their present standards of worth, and 
 continue to demand the same standards of men ; should 
 they use their selective power to bring together the 
 noblest and best in each generation; then they may 
 decide to transmit to the future the noblest and best 
 of the present age. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 WOMEN AS SPENDERS 
 
 "The purse-strings of the American people are held 
 by the women," runs a new saying, — a saying fraught 
 with consequences of far reaching importance in the 
 evolution of American life. Within a century, women 
 have evolved from producers into spenders. 
 
 As producers, women assisted in creating economic 
 goods; as spenders, women determine what economic 
 goods shall be created. The American women are the 
 spenders of the nation. "Why do you look so hard at 
 your pay envelope ?" asked the paymaster of the 
 mechanic, "Because, sir," was the rejoinder, "'tis only 
 two looks at it that I get. One when ye put it into 
 my hands, and one when I put it into the hands of the 
 ould lady at home." This philosophy expresses the 
 situation of the American people. Among the poor, 
 particularly, but likewise, to a marked extent among 
 the middle classes, women direct the expenditures for 
 consumption goods. Hence Mrs. Richard's statement : 
 "The emergence of women from the sphere of produc- 
 tion into that of consumption of wealth has brought 
 with it a disturbance of the economic conditions of the 
 Anglo-Saxon world."^ In reality the disturbancee in 
 
 '"The Woman Who Spends," Bertha J. Richardson, Boston, 
 Whitcomb & Barrows, 1910, Introduction by Ellen H. Richards. 
 
 171 
 
172 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 the economic world caused the revolution in the func- 
 tions of women, but the statement is none the less 
 important. Since the industrial revolution women 
 have become functionaries in an essentially new field, 
 — the field of spending. 
 
 "Years ago, when our nation was a nation of coun- 
 try folk, women did little of the spending, but helped 
 much in the production of wealth."^ In those days 
 little money was spent because the home was self-suffi- 
 cient, producing most of the economic goods which 
 were required to sustain life and consuming most of 
 the economic goods which it produced. The advent of 
 the factory system with its increased amount and 
 variety of goods, openfed a new field, — ^the field of 
 spending. 
 
 Wages, under the new system, were no longer paid 
 in kind or in "bed and board," but in money, which 
 must be exchanged for economic goods. In the rural 
 districts, the family had its own truck patch, pig pen, 
 cow, and chicken coop; but the same family, moving 
 into a great city, must purchase every article which it 
 consumed. Meanwhile, the variety of goods increased ; 
 advertising developed on a gigantic scale in every 
 field. Many kinds of goods appeared, so that the 
 spender must choose between them. Farmers' wives 
 in remote districts still exchange a few dozen eggs for 
 the groceries and dry goods which they need ; but the 
 city woman is overwhelmed with an avalanche of 
 opportunities to spend. She lives in the midst of an 
 
 * Supra, p. 3S. 
 
WOMEN AS SPENDERS I73 
 
 advertising, spending world, — in a maze of newspapers, 
 billboards, trolley-cars, store windows, — all demanding 
 their share of attention. The man is at work in the 
 factory or store. The woman is at home — spending. 
 Thus spending becomes a business, — an art. "Shop- 
 ping" is classed among the professions. To shop well, 
 to know values and qualities, requires an education 
 which the city woman acquires at an early age. 
 
 The bargain hunter has become a joke. Wild eyed, 
 rude, careless of others' rights or comforts, she pushes 
 her way into the front rank of buyers, making her 
 presence felt by her sharp elbows and her wishes by 
 her shrill voice. We ridicule the bargain hunter, but 
 she is the advance agent of progress. Extreme 
 though she is in her attitude and actions, nevertheless 
 she typifies the Woman Who Spends. She is know- 
 ing, alert, and she gets what she wants. She is the 
 radical in a new movement for the efficient spending 
 1 of income. Let no one despise the bargain hunter. 
 '- Every movement has its radicals, the development of 
 I spending is no exception to the rule. 
 
 Expenditures for production goods and for con- 
 sumption goods must be sharply distinguished. Men 
 spend for production goodsj^^-they buy wagons, fac- 
 tories, machines, railroad ties, shovels, and steel 
 bridges. Women, on the other hand, buy consumption 
 goods, — ^hats, meat, flour, shoes, lace, tea, bread and 
 soap. The two classes of goods are wholly distinct, 
 but intimately related- 
 
 Why do men spend (invest) their money in produc- 
 
174 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 tion goods? Because they hope to assist, directly or 
 indirectly, in the making of consumption goods. 
 Wagons are bought to be used in delivering purchases ; 
 factories and machines produce flour, shoes and lace; 
 railroads transport grain from the fields to the cities, 
 — all of man's work consists either in making con- 
 sumption goods or in making tools which will make or 
 assist in making consumption goods. In short, the 
 object of production is consumption. Since women 
 have a choice in the purchase of consumption goods, 
 they practically determine what kind of goods men 
 shall produce. The woman who selects washing 
 powder in preference to soap, increases the demand for 
 washing powder, thus making it probable that washing 
 powder and not soap will be' manufactured. If all of 
 the women in the country should unite in the deter- 
 mination to use only washing powder, soap manufac- 
 turers would stop business. 
 
 'Since the spender holds the balance of industrial 
 power, a union of all spenders could arbitrarily dic- 
 tate to all producers, determining the character and 
 extent of their production, deciding on quality, and, 
 within certain limits, on price. The spender is the 
 arbiter of modern industrial society. 
 
 Women are the spenders for consumption goods; 
 all industrial effort is aimed directly or indirectly at 
 the production of consumption goods; therefore the 
 spenders, women, hold in their hands the power to 
 control production. 
 
 Women may not understand the problem. They 
 
WOMEN AS SPENDERS I75 
 
 may fail to assert independence, choosing in response 
 to clever advertising rather than to the inherent qual- 
 ity or worth of the goods ; they may buy tawdry lace 
 and cheap jewelry; yet by that very act, they are 
 determining production. Failing to realize their power 
 over industry, they prostitute their influence to their 
 whims or fancies, instead of ruling their purchases by 
 judgment. 
 
 As women are educated in spending, as they grow 
 in power to discriminate, they will determine produc- 
 tion to a greater and greater degree. Nothing in the 
 world is so sensitive as "business." At the least indi- 
 cation of a change in popular favor, "business" will 
 change its attitude to meet public demands. As 
 women, through their buying, express public demands, 
 business takes its cue from women. 
 
 Here, then, is a great field bi opportunity for choice. 
 Again American women must choose.* They must 
 choose between weak subservience to the influence of 
 advertising, and a matured, trained judgment; they 
 must choose between allowing the manufacturers to 
 decide for them and deciding for the manufacturers. 
 If they choose selfishly, they will take what comes on 
 the market, careless, so long as they receive what they 
 call "full value," indifferent to the conditions of manu- 
 facture and to the inherent value of the product. 
 
 On the other hand, the women may choose socially. 
 Educated to a true sense of their responsibility, organ- 
 ized into powerful groups, these consumers may make 
 and enforce demands. Acting on lines similar to 
 
176/ WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 these followed by the various "Consumers' Leagues," 
 j they may refuse goods which have been produced 
 f under bad conditions, — sweat shop goods ; goods made 
 i in unsanitary factories by overworked operatives; 
 goods made by child labor; goods which are the 
 I product of any industrial condition that is unfair or 
 unjust to the workers in that particular industry. Fol- 
 lowing out the same policy, they may demand goods 
 with the Union Label, ordinarily a guarantee of just 
 working conditions. In short, by their organizations, 
 the consumers may enforce decent treatment for the 
 producers. 
 
 The spenders, the determinants of consumption, are 
 women. Upon their shoulders devolves this new duty 
 of controlling production through wise spending. 
 
 Women, therefore, must first be educated to wisdom 
 in spending; second, they must reaUze their respon- 
 sibility as spenders; and lastly, they must organize 
 effectively. Cooperative effort is the only effective 
 form of effort in modern society. The question then 
 stands, — ^Will women measure up to their responsi- 
 bility? Will this new generation of women cooperate 
 to enforce the rights of the consumer? Their action 
 will be their answer. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 DOMESTIC SCIENCE 
 
 Spending is the means of which domestic science is 
 the end. Spending provides the housewife with the 
 raw materials out of which domestic science- produces 
 the finished product. Whether the woman spends five 
 or fifty dollars a week, this relation, — spending, the 
 means; domestic science, the end, — remains the same. 
 
 The term "domestic science" is really a misnomer. 
 "Domestic" it is, but "science" it is not. Science is 
 defined as : — "Knowledge gained and verified by exact 
 observation and correct thinking." In the light of 
 such a definition, the activities usually described as 
 "Domestic Science" become, in reality, "Domestic hit 
 or miss." 
 
 "Domestic Science" is not a science, because the body 
 of knowledge upon which domestic activities are based 
 has never until very recent years been the result 
 of any exact measurement. Consider, for example, 
 the baking of bread. There is a tradition that bread 
 of lightness and flavor such as mother used to make 
 has vanished with the past generation. What are the 
 facts concerning this fabulous bread? In the first 
 place, we ate it when we were ravenously hungry girls 
 and bo)rs. Pine shavings, sufficiently disguised, would 
 12 177 
 
178 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 have passed muster in those days of hearty appetite. 
 Secondly, for every woman who could bake bread, 
 there were at least three who could not. If you had 
 the good fortune to be born in the home of an expert 
 breadmaker, you ate good bread, but the mathematical 
 probabilities were three to one against you. In the 
 last analysis, the bread that mother used to mal^e, like 
 the winters that father used to see, was the exception 
 and not the rule. Most bread was heavy, soggy, and 
 sour, because it was made by untrained cooks. Faulty 
 tradition, rather than exact knowledge furnished the 
 basis for its manufacture. 
 
 The baking of bread furnishes one illustration of 
 the existing situation. The body of domestic knowl- 
 edge is the merest guess work. In like manner, "cor- 
 rect thinking" seldom dominates the pursuit o^ the 
 domestic arts. An abundance of food fried in fat is 
 placed upon the table, — ^meat, potatoes, tomatoes, and 
 numerous other vegetables are frequently prepared iix 
 this indigestible form. Indigestible? Certainly. In 
 the process of frying, the food particles are encased, 
 in a coat of fat, which prevents the saliva and other 
 digestive juices from acting properly upon them while 
 they are passing through the mouth and other parts of 
 the digestive tract. This is but one instance of the 
 light thrown by the chemical and dietetic researches of 
 the past ten years upon the unscientific character of 
 "Domestic Science." 
 
 Domestic activities are, however, of the most funda- 
 mental importance. The person who assumes the 
 
DOMESTIC SCIENCE I79 
 
 responsibility for the management of a household 
 assumes the direction of the social unit, which is still 
 the center of American life. 
 
 The responsibilities of the house manager may, for 
 convenience of discussion, be grouped under four 
 headings : 
 
 1. The purchase and preparation of food. 
 
 2. The provision of clothing and sheher. 
 
 3. The care of children. 
 
 4. The creation of a home atmosphere. 
 
 The income which purchases these necessaries is, in 
 most cases, provided by the men of the family, but 
 the responsibility for the distribution of the income 
 over the various items of expenditure rests upon the 
 women. 
 
 Looked at from the physical side alone, the most 
 important single function of the home is the provision 
 of food. Hence the work of domestic science must 
 center primarily around that problem. "Oh," says the 
 girl, "I can cook." Of course you can, anyone with 
 a groundwork of common sense and a smattering of 
 experience can cook, but cooking is only one element 
 and really, a small element, in the provision of food 
 for a household. Cooking is to food what varnish is 
 to a table, — the finishing touch. Before a table can be 
 varnished, it must be built; before a meal can be 
 cooked, it must be planned and bought. The real 
 problem, in the provision of a diet, is not cooking at 
 all, but food combination. 
 
l80 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 The woman who is to provide wisely the food for a 
 household must understand, — 
 
 1. The elements of diet. 
 
 2. Food properties and values. 
 
 / 3. The combination of food values. 
 4. The preparation of food-stuflfs. 
 
 Food chemistry, nutrition values and food combination 
 all precede the cooking, in time and, from one stand- 
 point, in importance. 
 
 There are three principal nutritive elements in food, 
 — ^Protein, Fats and Carbohydrates. Protein is fur- 
 nished chiefly by meats, eggs, dairy products, cereals ; 
 Fats by meats and dairy products ; and Carbohydrates 
 (starches and sugars) by cereals, vegetables, and 
 sugar. Upon these three elements men depend for 
 energy, heat and body-building material. 
 
 The amount of each of these food elements needed 
 daily by an adult man doing moderately hard physical 
 work, has been estimated as 
 
 118 grains of Protein 
 56 " " Fat 
 SCO " " Carbohydrates 
 
 Such amounts will, according to Voit, provide 3055 
 calories of energy.* 
 While these quantities sufSce for an adult man the 
 
 •"Daily Meals of School Children," Caroline L. Hunt, Wash- 
 ington, 1909, Government Printing Ofiice, p. 29. 
 
DOMESTIC SCIENCE l8l 
 
 proportion of each which is needed to maintain effi- 
 ciency varies. Up to the twenty-seventh year, there 
 is need for a very high amount of carlfohydrates ; the 
 maximum of proteins is needed at twenty-two, while 
 the maximum of fats is needed from thirty to forty.* 
 As the relative proportions of the elements diiffer at 
 different ages, it is necessary, in providing an adequate 
 diet, to know the relation between age and food value. 
 Variations in diet must also be made for sex, for the 
 character of work which the individual is performing, 
 for the time of the year, and for the climate. The 
 provision of diet is thus technically, a very involved 
 matter. 
 
 The attempts finally to establish true concepts of diet 
 values have given rise to a storm of discussion. On 
 the one hand are ranged the scientists who insist upon 
 a high protein diet, maintaining that protein, partic- 
 ularly as found in meat, is fundamentally necessary to 
 the human system.* On the other hand is ranged the 
 school led by Professor Chittenden of Yale, who 
 insists that a low protein diet and a high carbohydrate 
 diet is better for the human system than the high 
 protein diet. 
 
 While the doctors are settling their disagreements, 
 the housewife must prepare supper. To do this- 
 efficiently and cheaply, she must know what food 
 
 ' Supra, p. 33. 
 
 *"The Expansion of Races," C. E. Woodruff, New York, 
 Rebman, 1909, contains an excellent discussion of the Nitrogen 
 Problem. Major Woodruff holds a strong brief for nitrogen 
 (Protein). 
 
l82 
 
 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 values are contained in specific foods as well as the. 
 relative cost of protein, fat and carbohydrates in the 
 various food products. The following table contains 
 a brief list of a few well known foods, together with a 
 statement of the various nutritive values of each/ 
 
 
 Refuse 
 
 Water 
 
 Protein 
 
 Fat 
 
 Carbo- 
 hydrates 
 
 Ash 
 
 Fuel 
 Value 
 
 Per 
 Pound 
 
 (in 
 calories) 
 
 Almonds.... 
 Bananas .... 
 
 Butter 
 
 Chocdlate . . . 
 
 45.0 
 35 -0 
 
 ^7 
 48.9 
 II. 
 
 5-9 
 34.2 
 12.6 
 
 65.S 
 
 52.4 
 62.6 
 
 II-S 
 
 I.O 
 12.9 
 25.9 
 22. S 
 13. 1 
 
 19. 1 
 1.8 
 
 30.2 
 
 „ -4 
 85.0 
 
 48.7 
 
 Vs 
 
 9-3 
 
 17,9 
 0.1 
 
 9.5 
 
 14-3 
 "sols' 
 
 2.4 
 59.6 
 
 14-7' 
 
 100. 
 
 SS-i 
 
 r.i 
 
 .6 
 
 3-0 
 
 3.8 
 3-5 
 0.9 
 
 0.8 
 0.8 
 
 I.I 
 
 1,51s 
 
 260 
 
 3,410 
 
 i:il 
 
 1,100 
 29s 
 
 1,750 
 1,200 
 
 CreamCheese 
 Dried Beans. 
 Hen's Eggs. 
 Porterhouse 
 
 Steak 
 
 Potatoes 
 
 Sugar 
 
 II. 2 
 
 12.7 
 20.0 
 
 White Bread 
 
 
 35.3 
 
 9.2 
 
 1-3 
 
 Each element contributes in a markedly different 
 degree to diet. Meat and cream cheese are rich in 
 protein and fat; butter contains almost nothing else; 
 white bread and almonds supply carbohydrates ; sugar 
 is pure carbohydrate; potatoes furnish only 260 cal- 
 ories of energy per pound, as against 3410 calories for 
 a pound of butter. There is no problem more fascinat- 
 ing for the uninitiated than that presented by a day's 
 food supply, a table of food values, and a series of 
 
 '"Principles of Nutrition and Nutritive Value of Food," W. 
 O. Atwater, Ph.D. Washington, Government Printing Office, 
 1910. (Farmers Bulletin No. 142), pp. 16-18. 
 
DOMESTIC SCIENCE 183 
 
 mathematical calculations, giving, as a final result, the 
 food value of the diet. 
 
 The modern grocery and provision store furnishes 
 a wide range for selection, so that the woman who is 
 buying must consider the cost of various articles as 
 well as their nutritive value. Asparagus is always an 
 expensive article of diet, and beans are always qheap, 
 because the food value of asparagus at its usual price 
 as compared with beans at their usual price is very low. 
 On the other hand, as between beans and potatoes the 
 price may be a determining factor. In order to assist 
 the housewife in buying economically, Atwater presents 
 a very interesting table, showing what amount of food 
 value may be secured for ten cents. The ten cents will 
 buy in : — * 
 
 Sirloin beef 410 calories of energy 
 
 Butter 1700 calories of energy 
 
 Eggs SOD calories of energy 
 
 Cheese 1 1x85 calories of energy 
 
 Wheat Bread 2000 calories of energy 
 
 Oatmeal 4500 calories of energy 
 
 Dried beans 3000 calories of energy 
 
 Potatoes 3000 calories of energy 
 
 Strawberries (in season) 215 calories of energy 
 Sugar 3000 calories of energy 
 
 Such a knowledge of the relation between food 
 values and prices as may be easily secured from avail- 
 able sources will therefore enable the housewife to 
 greatly cheapen the diet, maintaining it, at the same 
 time, on an efficiency basis. Meat is always expensive, 
 
 '^ Supra, p. 40. 
 
184 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 particularly the finer cuts. Cereals and dairy products, 
 on the other hand, usually furnish a high return for a 
 given expenditure. In the same way, all of the dif- 
 ferent elements in a diet may be examined and com- 
 pared to determine their relative value. 
 
 Here, in brief, is the problem of food values and a 
 statement of a few of the basic facts in dietetics. 
 There is no more vital unsolved problem in domestic 
 science. The problem has been of necessity hinted at, 
 rather than discussed, yet these few hints should pro- 
 vide a very fair basis for judgment of the importance 
 of scientific domestic economy. 
 
 The elements in diet studied, food values mastered, 
 and an accurate idea of food combination secured, the 
 home manager is now ready for the cooking. Here, 
 again, the problem is by no means simple. Cooking 
 may be delicious, but very indigestible. J^ failure to 
 recognize the truth of this fact has made of the Amer- 
 icans a dyspeptic nation. Good food, well cooked, is 
 essential to digestion and nutrition. 
 
 While food may be the most important, it is by no 
 means the only problem in domestic science. There 
 are other phases of domestic economy which loom 
 large in the lives of home-makers. There must be 
 a shelter, — a house, — well kept, artistic, efficient. 
 Clothes, too, form an essential element in domestic 
 science. While the problem of clothing boys has been 
 well solved, the girls' clothing still perplexes the 
 thinking woman. The careless, indifferent mothers, 
 who are willing to lace their daughters' bodies into 
 
DOMESTIC SCIENCE 185 
 
 steel framework in order to make them fashionable, 
 are happy, even if they are destroying health and 
 vitality; but the conscientious mother who wishes to 
 spare her daughter's body from the brutal demands of 
 fashion and at the same time spare her from the stigma 
 of being dowdy, is placed in a trying position. 
 
 The care of children forms a no less essential ele- 
 ment in domestic science. Feeding, clothing, washing 
 and dressing the child is a world in itself. An abun- 
 dance of books and magazines present this literature 
 in a readable form, for the consideration of the think- 
 ing woman. 
 
 All of these tasks, — feeding, sheltering, clothing, — 
 are but the machinery of domestic science. Though 
 they are essential, though the lives and activities of the 
 members of the family are intimately dependent upon 
 them, nevertheless they constitute only the beginning 
 of a successful household. The final question which 
 confronts the housekeeper transcends all of these, 
 because it is more fundamental and far-reaching than 
 they. How shall the homekeeper create a home 
 atmosphere? The food, the clothing and the shelter 
 can be provided elsewhere, — only in the home can the 
 atmosphere of love exist. 
 
 Confidence, sympathy, mutual helpfulness, — the 
 spirit of a group, held together by the strongest ties 
 of respect and affection, — these things constitute, ulti- 
 mately, the true goal of the home maker. The woman 
 presides over the home : in its conduct her word is law. 
 The evolution of factory production which has de- 
 
l86 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 prived the home of most of its industrial activities has 
 left untouched this one great function, — that of pro- 
 viding an atmosphere of inspiring hope which shall 
 send the members of the family into the world to do 
 effective work. 
 
 As spenders, women may direct production ; as home 
 makers, they may provide an atmosphere which will 
 determine the attitude of the family toward life and 
 living. In the former case, they are in a measure 
 responsible for the greatest of modern institutions^ — 
 industry. In the latter case, they do their work 
 through the most fundamental of all social institutions, 
 — the home. 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 DOMESTIC SERVANTS AND MOTHER'S HELPERS 
 
 "The very idea," cried one woman indignantly, "she 
 had the audacity to tell me that she would rather work 
 in the factory than in my kitchen." 
 
 Her friend sighed, sympathetically. "Well, Edith, 
 perhaps it is better that you did not get her. I had a 
 girl doing my cooking last winter who actually drove 
 me into a sanitarium. You know I spent six weeks 
 up there this spring, and I do believe that she was the 
 cause." 
 
 "They are perfectly terrible, these servant girls," 
 exclaimed a third woman. And so the dialogue went 
 around the circle. There is hardly a group of middle 
 class women whose troubles do not include the "Ser- 
 vant Problem." Can it be that there is any oppor- 
 tunity here for the American woman? 
 
 The "Domestic Servant" is an interesting creature. 
 In igoo there were 1,124,383^ of her in all parts of the 
 United States. Since the census enumerates more 
 than sixteen million families, this number would pro- 
 vide about one servant to each fourteen families, or 
 allowing for the families which have more than one 
 servant, it would allow servants to somewhat less than 
 
 '"Statistics of Woman at Work/' Bureau of Census, Wash- 
 ington, 1907, p. 40. 
 
 187 
 
I^ WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 seven per cent of the families in the United States. 
 This seven per cent constitutes a portion of the middle 
 and all of the upper income classes. The servant 
 problem is therefore an upper and middle class problem 
 from the standpoint of the mistress. What of the 
 standpoint of the servant? 
 
 The American servant is often not an American; 
 she is usually single, and under thirty-five years of age. 
 
 The extremes of the problem naturally appear in the 
 cities wherfe the middle and upper classes live. In 
 cities having at least 50,000 inhabitants in 1900, 
 
 12.6 per cent of the servants are native born of 
 native parents. 
 
 19.2 per cent are native born of foreign parents. 
 
 45.3 per cent are foreign born. 
 22.9 per cent are negroes.^ 
 
 The domestic servant of American cities is there- 
 fore in nearly half the cases foreign bom, and nearly 
 one-eighth of the cases native born of native white 
 parents. The American born white girl has practically 
 ceased going into domestic industry. 
 
 The girls who do enter industry are in 77.4 per cent 
 of the cases under 35 years of age.^ Here, as in 
 industry generally, it is the young girl, who has not 
 yet had a satisfactory chance to marry, who constitutes 
 the largest percentage of the servant class. Moreover, 
 of these servants, 76.7 per cent are single, while 13 per 
 cent are widowed or divorced.' Thus nearly ninety 
 per cent are unmarried. 
 
 * Supra, p. 44. ^ Ibid., p. 48. • Ibid., p. 30. 
 
SERVANTS AND MOTHER'S HELPERS 189 
 
 The present day domestic servant is therefore a non- 
 American, young, unmarried woman. It is this young, 
 unmarried woman who has driven our wives and 
 mothers into sanitariums; and then walked con- 
 temptuously away without notice. Why is she in 
 arms ? What steps can be taken to right this formid- 
 able problem of the well-to-do women? There is but 
 one answer. Domestic service must be placed on a 
 par with other gainful occupations. So long as 
 meniality and servility are prerequisites of a "desir- 
 able" servant, the best girls will take up some other 
 form of occupation. 
 
 The servant problem is another of the outgrowths of 
 modern industry. Half a century ago, girls were un- 
 able to work in industrial occupations on any extensive 
 scale. Therefore, domestic service was almost the 
 sole alternative for the untrained woman, seeking a 
 field of employment. Under such circumstances the 
 girl who was unable to marry, took up domestic 
 service. Today she may choose between domestic 
 service and a wide variety of industrial occupations. 
 The girl is no longer forced into service. She may 
 choose, and with her power to choose comes the 
 monopoly power so vital to the enforcement of her 
 demands, — so disastrous to the pocket book and happi- 
 ness of her employer. 
 
 If there were three good servants looking for one 
 position, a good servant could be secured with little 
 or no difficulty, tvut since there are three positions 
 waiting for one good servant, the servant presents a 
 
igo WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 problem which looms large on the domestic horizon. 
 Servants are "independent" because they are in 
 demand. They are in demand because industry has 
 afforded women new fields of choices. 
 
 "But," exclaims the good lady, "can it be that any 
 sane girl would prefer work in a dirty, noisy factory, 
 to employment in my immaculate kitchen? Why, if I 
 were in her place — " 
 
 If you were in her place. Madam, you would do 
 exactly as she does. If you had in your make-up 
 enough womanliness to long for independence and 
 enough skill to succeed at semi-skilled factory work, 
 you would choose the factory instead of the kitchen. 
 
 What are you asking of your cook? 
 
 1. She must be able to cook a wide variety of 
 dishes — ^perhaps 75 or 100. 
 
 2. She tnust be neat and clean. 
 
 3^ She must work from 7 A. M. to 9 P. M. To be 
 sure, she has "time off," but it is scarcely her own 
 time. 
 
 4. She must cook dinner Saturday evening, and 
 two or three meals on Sunday. 
 
 Suppose that same girl were to secure employment 
 in a factory. What would the superintendent require 
 of her? 
 
 1. She must know how to do one thing well. 
 
 2. She must be punctual and neat. 
 
SERVANTS AND MOTHER'S HELPERS I9I 
 
 3. Her hours are from 7 A. M. to 5 P. M., with a 
 half hour for lunch. 
 
 4. She has Saturday afternoon and Sunday for her 
 very own. 
 
 Yes, you are demanding that a skilled woman — for 
 cooking is an art which it takes years to master — shall 
 work 85 or 90 hours a week, all week long, and in 
 return receive $5 a week, with bed and board. A girl 
 with an equal amount of skill, working 50 hours a 
 week in a factory, would earn $12 a week and find 
 her own bed and board. To be sure, the average fac- 
 tory girl does nol^earn anything like $12, but remember 
 that the average factory girl is unskilled. 
 
 If you were a girl of sixteen, choosing your vocation, 
 you would not hesitate for a moment between the two 
 propositions which I have outlined. You would go to 
 a trade school and then to a factory, or to a factory 
 direct, and apprentice yourself to some trade. 
 
 But this is otily one little element in the problem. 
 I have not yet set down the phase of the subject which 
 transcends and clinches the entire argument. The 
 girl in your kitchen is a "servant," a menial, an under- 
 ling, subjec^to the dictates of the youngest child in 
 the house. The girl in the factory is a "lady," sub- 
 ject to her forewoman and to no other. Her nights 
 out are her own; her mornings and evenings are her 
 own ; she is her own mistress one whole day and a half 
 each week, she is not a "servant." 
 
 Democracy and servility will not mix. In a country 
 
192 , WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 where people are "born middle clarss, and, thank 
 Gawd, know enough to stay middle clarss," servility 
 carries with it a certain distinction which is necessarily 
 lost in a democracy. 
 
 The position of household servants is thus analyzed 
 by Charlotte P. Oilman : "What is the status of house- 
 hold industry as practised by servants? It is this: 
 The Housewife having become the Lady of the House, 
 and the work still having to be done in the house, 
 others must be induced to do it. In the period from 
 which this custom dates it was a simple matter of 
 elevating, 'the wife or chief wife' to a position of 
 dominance, and leaving the work to be done by the rest 
 of the women. Domestic service, as an industrial 
 status, dates from the period of the polygynous groups, 
 the household with the male head and the group of 
 serving women ; from the time when wives were slaves 
 and slaves were wives, indiscriminately. (See domes- 
 tic relations of Jacob.) 
 
 "The genesis of the relation being thus established, 
 it is easy to account for its present peculiar and 
 dominating condition— celibacy. The housemaid is 
 the modern derivative from the slave wife. She may 
 no longer be the sub-wife of the master — ^but neither 
 may she be another man's wife. 
 
 "No married man wishes his wife to serve another 
 man. This household service, being esteemed as a 
 distinctly feminine function, closely involved with 
 maternity, or at very least with woman's devotion, and 
 quite inconsistent with any other marriage; therefore, 
 
SERVANTS AND MOTHER'S HELPERS I93 
 
 we find the labors of the household performed by 
 celibate women of a lower class. Our modern house- 
 hold is but a variation of the primitive group — the 
 man and his serving women still."* 
 Domestic service presents four possibilities. — 
 
 1. It may become a profession, performed by a 
 trained group. 
 
 2. It may be taken over by a menial class. 
 
 3. People may live in apartments. 
 
 4. They may have their work done cooperatively. 
 
 There seems to be no other solution. 
 
 If domestic service is made a profession ; if the hours 
 are reasonable, the conditions fair; the pay good; if 
 the meniality is eliminated; then the housewife may 
 expect a group of high class servants, her equals in 
 education and refinement, who will do her work as the • 
 bookkeeper does the work for her husband, — as a pro- 
 fessional matter. On the other hand, the housekeeper 
 may insist on her "prerogatives." Then she may 
 expect to develop a servile class. In some cities, the 
 negro women have already formed the nucleus of such 
 a group. This class will be inferior to the professional 
 class in every sense of the word, and as figs seldom 
 form on thistles, it will seldom do good, reliable work. 
 
 Two plans of cooperative housekeeping present 
 themselves as alternatives to this ugly dilemma. Fam- 
 ilies may live in apartments, eating in a common dining 
 
 «"The Home," C. P. Gilman, New York, McClure, PhiUips 
 & Co., 1903, pp. 10S-106. 
 
 13 
 
194 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 room, of food prepared by a highly paid corps of chefs, 
 depending on the servants of the apartments for their 
 service ; or they niay live in individual houses, and have 
 the cooking, cleaning and heating done on a cooper- 
 ative basis. Thus far the first of these two plans has 
 been the one generally adopted. Men then supplant 
 women in domestic service, and domestic work becomes 
 a profession for them. 
 
 There is one ray of clear, bright light on this dismal 
 horizon, — that is the advent of the mother's helper. 
 She is a girl with a high school education, often a 
 trained kindergartener ; she takes care of the children 
 primarily, and sometimes of the home. She is not a 
 servant, but a member of the family, — ^the equal of the 
 children and the parents. The mother's helper has a 
 distinctive vocation, for which she is prepared, and in 
 which she has a position as definite as that of the girl 
 who runs a typewriter in an offiice or a loom in a 
 factory. 
 . The near future should see a widespread introduction 
 I of this "mother's helper" into American households. 
 ' Perhaps you may be willing to entrust the management 
 of your household to an uneducated, uncultured 
 woman, but if you respect the future welfare of your 
 children, you dare not entrust them to a person who 
 is not in a position to associate both with you and with 
 them, on a basis of perfect equality. No ^serygnt is 
 competent to care for, or watch over your children. If 
 you cannot do all the work yourself, and few mothers 
 can do it adequately, demand a young woman of 
 
SERVANTS AND MOTHER'S HELPERS I9S 
 
 ability, trained to the management of children and of 
 household affairs. Such a demand of the mothers, 
 wisely met by the schools, should play a leading role 
 in solving the servant problem. 
 
 School courses should be developed to produce, on 
 the one hand, well trained cooks, and on the other 
 hand, trained mother's helpers. Both professions are 
 of the utmost importance,-^the former to the vitality 
 of the nation, — the latter to its future. Perhaps only 
 one woman in twenty-five can afford a mother's helper. 
 Certainly less than one man in twenty-five has a 
 stenographer. Nevertheless, if stenography can be 
 made a profession paying $7, $8, $10 and $15 a week, 
 the wise rearing of children can be put on a level at 
 least as high as that of running a typewriter and at 
 wages commensurate with the service rendered. 
 
 In these two branches of domestic service,— cooking 
 and child caring, — there is a wide range of opportunity 
 for American women. Both trades are skilled, and 
 both can be made of fundamental value to the future 
 of the American people. Only when the domestic 
 servant loses her stigma of servility and becomes an 
 employee able to maintain her self-respect, dignity, and 
 independence, will the trained worker be induced to 
 enter domestic service. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 CHILD TRAINING IN THE HOME 
 
 "What shall I»do for the benefit of France ?" asked 
 Napoleon of Madame de Stael. "Give us, sire," 
 replied that wise woman, "a generation of mothers." 
 She could have expressed no more patriotic sentiment. 
 
 Before assuming the duties of motherhood, the 
 woman selects her mate, thus determining the heredi- 
 tary characteristics of her children. After marriage, 
 she assumes practically the whole duty of training 
 them, thus controlling their early environment. Na- 
 ture endowed woman with the functions of selection 
 and of child bearing, giving her, by this means, a large 
 measure of control over the heredity characteristics of 
 her offspring. Society has added to the responsi- 
 bilities of woman by committing to her hands the duty 
 of child training. Upon her then rests the burden of 
 a large measure of the heredity, and the entire early 
 environment of the new generation. 
 
 "J recently spoke to a steel worker," said John 
 Graham Brooks, "who told me that he had never seen 
 his baby's eyes. He was working on the twelve-hour 
 shift, — ^leaving home before six in the morning, and 
 returning after six at night. When he left home the 
 baby was asleep, and when he returned the child was 
 
 ig6 
 
CHILD TRAINING IN THE HOME I97 
 
 again in bed. As he had worked seven days each 
 week for nearly a year, he had never had an oppor- 
 tunity of seeing his baby awake, — he was compelled 
 to take his wife's testimony as to the color of its eyes." 
 The case is extreme, you may say. Yes, the case is 
 extreme, yet it typifies the revolution that modern 
 industry has wrought in the home, taking the father 
 away for long hours each day, and throwing upon the 
 mother the entire responsibility of child training. 
 
 It is not only among the working classes that this 
 condition exists. The well-to-do are also subject to it. 
 The average business man or lawyer leaves home 
 immediately after breakfast and does not return until 
 night. During the time when his children are playing 
 and learning, the bread-winner is providing the income 
 which makes play and education possible for his chil- 
 dren. Perhaps on Saturday afternoon and on Sun- 
 days and holidays, if nothing interferes, this man will 
 see his children, — in some cases he may even talk to 
 them and walk with them, securing their sympathy and 
 entering into their lives. But of the constant, intimate 
 contact which the mother has with her children, the 
 average father enjoys no share. 
 
 Thus the transformation of the home, the disappear- 
 ance of the many occupations which were formerly 
 carried on there, and the removal of the father's 
 employment from a place adjacent to the home to 
 some distant factory or ofiice building, have placed the 
 duty of child training upon the women of the house- 
 hold. Whatever home training a child receives is 
 
198 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 therefore training from the mother. Biology made 
 women selectors of mates and bearers of children: 
 Civilization has made them the trainers of children as 
 well. 
 
 Therefore, those women who choose motherhood, 
 which is from a racial and social standpoint the most 
 important of all occupations, take into their hands the 
 primary responsibility, hereditary and environmental, 
 of the new generation. They determine the hereditary 
 characteristics : they give the child his earliest impres- 
 sions of the things of this world. 
 
 It is these early impressions that ultimately count. 
 "Give me a child until he is seven, and I will stake my 
 reputation on his future," is no idle boast. Whether 
 we are at birth endowed with intellectual powers, or 
 whether our mind is a blank upon which impressions 
 create our thought and character, the impressions of 
 the early formative years are the impressions which 
 stay with us longest. In the former case, the early 
 modifications which are made in the innate characteris- 
 tics are fundamental; in the latter case, they are the 
 first impressions. Since it is within the home that 
 these early modifications or first impressions are made, 
 upon the home and the home-keeper (the mother) 
 depends their character and influence. 
 
 Here, as elsewhere, exceptions must be made. 
 Those mothers who are compelled to add to the family 
 income by going out to work for eight or ten hours 
 each day cannot exercise a complete maternal influence 
 over their children. So serious is such a loss, to the 
 
CHILD TRAINING IN THE HOME I99 
 
 mother as well as to the child, that, could the mother 
 have foreseen the necessity for her labor during the 
 infancy of her children, it would have justified her in 
 refusing motherhood. Similarly, those mothers whose 
 social duties lead them to commit the care of their chil- 
 dren to servants, fail to fulfill the functions of mother- 
 hood. Could society have foreseen such a catastrophe, 
 it would have been more than justified in denying 
 motherhood to such women. Both classes fortunately 
 constitute a minority, leaving the vast majority of 
 American women with sufficient leisure to fulfill intel- 
 ligently the duties which motherhood implies. 
 
 Two factors are combining to make American 
 motherhood continually more efficient. In the first pUce, 
 the transfer of many of the domestic occupations to the 
 factory has left women with abundant leisure. In the 
 second place, widespread education prepares women 
 to fulfill more fully their vital maternal functions. 
 
 The present systems of elementary and high school 
 training, defective and incomplete though they unques- 
 tionably are, nevertheless render the women of today 
 infinitely more capable of wisely choosing, and wisely 
 administering, than were the women of a century 
 before. The decreasing infant mortality and the in- 
 creasing length of childhood, both testify eloquently 
 to the advantages of educated motherhood. 
 
 At the present day, the home still holds first place 
 among social institutions, — ^not only as a matter of 
 sentiment, but as a matter of fact. The American 
 home is the center of American social life. 
 
200 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 As the central unit in American society, the home 
 furnishes great possibility for directing the lives of 
 children. In the first place, it can individualize them. 
 In the home, as nowhere else, is the individual dis- 
 covered and developed, the home comes the nearest 
 to fulfilling Rousseau's ideal system of education, — one 
 teacher and one pupil, — for in the home the mother is 
 teacher, and in American society her pupils seldom 
 exceed five in number. The average child outside of 
 the home, — whether in school or factory, — is sub- 
 merged in a crowd, and unless properly cared for, may 
 lose his identity as an individual, but in the home, each 
 individual counts, each child has full opportunity for 
 the exercise of his faculties along personal lines. The 
 home, the smallest and most exclusive school in civil- 
 ization, may give to a child education and training ten 
 fold more valuable than that which he will receive in 
 his later scholastic life. 
 
 The goal of home training, expressed in its simplest 
 terms, is the moulding of character. Successful char- 
 acter moulding pre-supposes five things. 
 
 1. Individualization. 
 
 2. Physical Normality. 
 
 3. Normal Recreation. 
 
 4. Self Knowledge. 
 
 5. Energy and Enthusiasm. 
 
 Extremely individualized or spoiled children are lit- 
 tle better than under-individualized children, unless the 
 contact with school companions in early life "takes off 
 
CHILD TRAINING IN THE HOME 201 
 
 the rough edges," and introduces social as well as 
 individual ideas. Here again the duty of regulating 
 the training so as to prevent over-individualization is 
 one that devolves upon the mother. 
 
 What of fatherhood ? Shall the father play no part 
 in the training of his children ? Is he exempted from 
 all responsibilities, merely because his business calls 
 him away from home for a certain number of hours 
 each day ? By no means. Yet, while the present sys- 
 tem of industry continues side by side with the present 
 organization of the home, some division of work is 
 inevitable. The housekeeping must fall to the lot of 
 the married woman, and the income-getting to the lot 
 of the married man. That both should participate in 
 training the children is obvious ; that the greater por- 
 tion of this duty must devolve upon the woman is 
 inevitable. 
 
 Thus home training may individualize the child. In 
 the second place, it should provide robust bodies. 
 There is a way to feed and clothe children which makes 
 for health ; there are many other ways which produce 
 anemic, tubercular men and women. A strong body is 
 an almost universally necessary basis of life work, for 
 without it, the mind cannot do its best thinking nor can 
 the heart manifest its best impulses. 
 
 The mal-nourished bodies, defective eyes and ears, 
 deformed, misshapen bones and muscles of American 
 school children, tell plainly and bluntly the story of 
 the ignorance and inefficiency of American mother- 
 hood. How many mothers know what kinds of exer- 
 
202 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 cise will correct a low shoulder or hip? How many 
 mothers know even the first facts about physical 
 development? There could be no more pointed plea 
 for a well trained motherhood than that furijished by 
 the manifold defects of American school children. 
 Such conditions are not wholly the result of poverty, 
 because these defects occur (though not so frequently) 
 in the well-to-do as in the poverty-stricken neighbor- 
 hoods. The physical defects of our boys, and the 
 physical atrophy of our girls is due in large part to the 
 ignorance of the women who brought those boys and 
 girls into the world. 
 
 The women who choose motherhood in the new 
 generation can, in the third place, provide recreation 
 for their children. Education begins in the well 
 directed plays of children. In play, Froebel believed, 
 lay the germinal leaves of all later life, and from play 
 he developed the noblest type of boyhood and girlhood. 
 Play gives physical and mental development besides 
 the training necessary for enabling children to 
 establish and adhere to a code of action, — a moral code 
 if you will, — which will determine their attitude in later 
 Hfci "The child without a playground," says G. 
 Stanley Hall, "is likely to become the father without a 
 job." So too, the playless child, developed into a 
 workless anti-social man, not only fails to add to the 
 progress of society, but may even detract from it. 
 
 With a strong body and a well developed instinct 
 for play, must go, in the fourth place, intimate self 
 knowledge. The bodies, boys and girls, are wonder- 
 
CHILD TRAINING IN THE HOME 2O3 
 
 ful, God-given machines. With them, you do what- 
 ever work you may decide upon in life. Do you wish 
 to help in the forward march of progress? You can 
 do your best only when you have this machine in the 
 best of repair, under perfect control, every cog oiled 
 and clean, every lever in place. The body and mind 
 of man are the most intricate mechanisms known. 
 Each one of you is a mechanic in charge. As such, 
 you must preserve your bodies and minds because they 
 are the only instruments you will ever have with which 
 to do your work. Thus approached, the subject of 
 bodily hygiene becomes an interesting and a vital one. 
 
 When hygiene is taught thus, it furnishes the foun- 
 dation for the expression of energy and enthusiasm, 
 the fifth of the things which the home can give. It is 
 energy which makes the world go. Each child is 
 endowed with an abundance of it, which may be of 
 untold value through proper direction, but may either 
 fail, or result in infinite harm through disuse or abuse. 
 
 The consummation of all of these qualities is found 
 in character. But it is not enough to make men and 
 women efficient through the increase of knowledge 
 and the development of judgment and ambition. In 
 addition to these, sympathy, ideals, and inspiration lay 
 the foundation for aspiration and character. Inspira- 
 tion (the will to do) and sympathy (an appreciation 
 of men and of things) come through contact with 
 strong men and women. Nobility in the home will of 
 necessity instill such qualities in the children. 
 
 The women who choose motherhood as a part of 
 
204 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 their life work must create an ideal home — an atmos- 
 phere. The old physical basis for the home has dis- 
 appeared. Food, clothing and shelter can be secured 
 elsewhere as well as within the four walls of home ; but 
 S3rmpathy, confidence, cooperation, and mutual aid, — 
 the basis for every true home, — can be found only in 
 the presence of strong mothers and fathers. 
 
 Through heredity, controlled in large measure by 
 the selective power of women, comes the raw material 
 of the new generation : through the home environment 
 of early life come the forces which ennoble or debase 
 this raw material. Here again it is the woman who 
 determines, in this case almost exclusively, what the 
 character of the home shall be. To his sixth or 
 seventh year at least, the mother per se is the arbiter 
 of the child's life. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 SCHOOL TRAINING 
 
 When Dotheboys Hall flourished in England, the 
 rod, — ^the scepter of educational authority, — was 
 always wielded by a masculine arm. Even the Little 
 Red Schoolhouse seldom knew a woman teacher. It 
 was not, indeed, until the last generation that woman 
 took over the profession of teaching, securing for her- 
 self an opportunity for training children which is 
 second only to that of the mother. The American 
 School Teacher — almost invariably a woman — ^takes 
 the children at six, seven or eight years of age, and 
 directs a large portion of their waking hours until they 
 reach the high school. 
 
 The industrial revolution is primarily responsible 
 for opening this new occupational field to women. 
 Under the domestic system of industry, most children 
 never went to school at all. Since all opportunity for 
 learning the crafts and trades carried on by the father 
 and the mother existed in the home, the home itself 
 contained an education. But the industrial revolu- 
 tion, by removing industry from the home to the fac- 
 tory, has eliminated the home as an economic unit, and 
 has made of the bread-winner a small part of a great 
 machine, with little idea of his relation to his fellow 
 workers or to the machine as a whole. 
 
206 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 Modern industry has thus created a new field in 
 education, substituting for the uniform system of 
 apprenticeship which prevailed under the domestic 
 system of industry a system of extreme industrial 
 specialization. 
 
 The old education was calculated to prepare men and 
 women for life in an average community where each 
 man learned his trade by apprenticeship. Boys and 
 girls under such circumstances were taught the three 
 fe's, but were not provided with any school training 
 which would assist them directly in the pursuits of 
 after life. Fifty years ago it was considered unneces- 
 sary to give girls much education; there were still 
 many household trades which have since found their 
 way into the factory, and all of the training necessary 
 for the performance of housework could, therefore, 
 be secured in the home. Both boys and girls, then, 
 received a thorough apprenticeship training for their 
 life work; neither needed specialized education. 
 
 But apprenticeship has vanished from modem in- 
 dustry, except in a few of the old hand-trades. Gen- 
 erally speaking, the demand of industry is for special- 
 ists. Education, then, to be successful, must meet this 
 demand, and must replace the general education of the 
 home by the specialized training of the school. To 
 meet this need, a great school system has been organ- 
 ized, the extent of which may be judged by the follow- 
 ing figures. 
 
 The latest report of the United States Commissioner 
 of Education places the total number of scholars in all 
 
SCHOOL TRAINING 20/ 
 
 of the schools of the United States at 19,550,770. Of 
 this army of learners, 17,960,049 are in the elementary 
 schools; 1,034,827 are in the secondary schools; 
 442,719 are in universities, colleges and professional 
 schools.* Less than nine million and a half of the 
 students are in private schools, — ^the remainder being 
 in public institutions. 
 
 The most significant factor in this table of statistics 
 is the overwhelming proportion of students in the 
 elementary grades, — seventeen of the nineteen millions, 
 — and the comparatively small number who reach col- 
 leges and normal schools,— only about five hundred 
 thousand. 
 
 There are, in the public schools, 506,040 teachers at 
 work in 257,851 school buildings, valued at $967,775,- 
 587. Each year $503,647,289 is turned over to this 
 educational machine, and the amount has been increas- 
 ing steadily year by year.^ 
 
 This school system is a savings bank in which the 
 country has decided to invest its funds. Each year 
 the nation spends upon the public schools a sum suffi- 
 cient to construct a Panama Canal, or a transconti- 
 nental railway system. The school is the greatest 
 public investment in the United States, and the coun- 
 try expects from it a return commensurate with its 
 investment. The schools present an established net- 
 work of influence, evolved and reorganized through 
 half a century of experiment, failure, and success. 
 
 ' Report, Commissioner of Education, 1910, Vol. 11. 
 'Ibid.. Vol. II, p. XIV. 
 
208 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 The secondary schools with a million students, and 
 the universities, colleges, and professional schools with 
 five hundred thousand, are an increasingly important 
 factor, but the broadest influence must be wielded by 
 the elementary schools, which hold more than four- 
 fifths of the students. 
 
 Furthermore, four-fifths of the children who enter 
 American schools never go beyond the elementary 
 grades. Any serious attempt to use the public school 
 system as a vehicle for social education must, there- 
 fore, be directed toward the primary school. It is 
 there that the great mass of pupils are enrolled, — it is 
 there that the real work must be done. 
 
 Outside of the home, the nation presents no form 
 of activity which may so greatly influence Social 
 Progress as the work of teaching in school. Of the 
 494,958 teachers in all of the schools and colleges of 
 the United States 390,463 or about 80 per cent are 
 women. This percentage has grown continually dur- 
 ing the past thirty years, as will be seen by the 
 following table.^ 
 
 1897-80 57.2 per cent of the teachers were women 
 1889-90 65.5 per cent of the teachers were women 
 1899-00 70.1 per cent of the teachers were women 
 1907-08 78.9 per cent of the teachers were women 
 
 The greatest opportunity for training exists in the 
 elementary schools, — ^particularly in the cities, and it 
 is in these city schools that the women teachers are 
 
 'Report of the Commission of Education for 1909, Wa5i- 
 ington, Government Printing Office, 1910, Vol. II, p. 611. 
 
SCHOOL TRAINING 209 
 
 most numerous. In 699 cities, the Report of the Com- 
 mission of Education shows that of the 10,051 super- 
 vising officers, 5,393 of 53 per cent are women, while 
 of the 120,469 teachers, 110,137 (9^ P^^ cent) were 
 women.^ If the statistics were available, they would 
 show a much higher percentage, — probably 98 or 99 
 per cent of all elementary teachers in cities, to be 
 females. In the cities, therefore, the women have a 
 majority of the supervising positions, and almost all 
 of the teaching positions. 
 
 Beside the home, no American institution has so 
 great an opportunity for shaping the lives of the 
 children as the school. Shall that opportunity be util- 
 ized? The answer rests largely with the women who 
 teach school. 
 
 The object of education, as before enunciated, is 
 complete living. A perfect educational system would 
 prepare those participating in it to live every phase of 
 their lives, and to derive from life all possible benefit. 
 Any educational system which enables men to live 
 completely is therefore fulfilling its function. On the 
 other hand, an educational system which does not pre- 
 pare for life is not meeting the necessary requirements. 
 
 What elements in the school system may make for 
 complete living? There is, in the first place, the school 
 curriculum. At present this is a lifeless, meaningless 
 thing which, as it stands, does not make for complete 
 living. Whether she will or no, the teacher must fol- 
 low this curriculum, yet it prescribes the minimum, not 
 
 ^ Supra, Vol. II, p. 629. 
 
 14 
 
2IO WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 the maximum amount of work which a teacher may 
 do. Between that minimum and maximum, the work 
 of different teachers differs radically. 
 
 Visit a school building. In one room the children 
 lounge, the floor is littered, the blackboards are half- 
 cleaned, — ^the whole room is pervaded by a spirit of 
 indifference. The next room, on the contrary, is per- 
 vaded by an atmosphere of contented industry. There 
 are pictures on the walls; floors and blackboards are 
 clean; the children are neat and orderly; the teacher 
 is supreme. It is seldom that a child must be sent 
 from such a room to the principal's office. The room 
 itself is a sufficient explanation of the pupils' conduct. 
 The first teacher teaches according to the curriculum, 
 — the second as her love of the profession, and of her 
 children dictates. The relative advantages and disad- 
 vantages of the two systems are obvious. 
 
 The elementary teacher may aim to develop in her 
 pupils, — 
 
 1. Physique. 
 
 2. Mental originality. 
 
 3. Ideals, — or a dynamic outlook on life. 
 
 The healthy body, the foundation for effective school 
 work, is created by organized play and exercise. 
 Unfortunately the average teacher in an elementary 
 city grade is so handicapped by numbers and cramped 
 by lack of floor space, that neither play nor exercise 
 can be attempted. While the opportunities of the city 
 teacher are restricted in this direction, those teachers 
 
SCHOOL TRAINING 211 
 
 who have charge of schools located in the country 
 have an unparalleled opportunity for developing, 
 through wisely organized play, the bodies of the boys 
 and girls who come under their direction. 
 
 In mental training the teacher in a city school must 
 do her best work. The partial failure of the American 
 school system has been due to the treadmill methods 
 by means of which useless and meaningless facts have 
 been crammed into the children, irrespective of their 
 interests or capacities. Dickens, in his characteristic 
 way, thus describes a public school class under the title 
 "murdering the innocents" : 
 
 "In this life, we want nothing but Facts, sir; noth- 
 ing but Facts." 
 
 "The speaker and the school master swept with their 
 eyes the inclinied plane of little vessels then and there 
 arranged in order, ready to have imperial gallons of 
 facts poured into them until they were full to the 
 brim." "So Mr. M'Choakumchild (the School Master) 
 began in his best manner. He went to work on this 
 preparatory lesson, not unlike Morgiana in the Forty 
 Thieves — looking into all the vessels ranged before 
 him, one after another, to see what they contained. 
 Say, good Mr. M'Choakumchild : when from thy store 
 thou shalt fill each jar brim full by and by, dost thou 
 think thou wilt always kill outright the robber Fancy 
 lurking within— or sometimes only maim him and dis- 
 tort him !"^ 
 
 The picture is overdrawn, perhaps, yet there are 
 
 "'Hard Times," Chapters I and II. 
 
212 iWOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 grades in most large American cities where conditions 
 similar to those just portrayed may be found, — condi- 
 tions which are in part due to poor administration, 
 but also, in large measure due to uneducated, unin- 
 terested teachers. 
 
 The child of eight is an individual and should be 
 treated as such by the school authorities. The individ- 
 uality of the child's body is recognized and provided 
 with an individual seat, but his poor little individ- 
 ual mind is crammed with a group of facts and prin- 
 ciples which, intended for the mind of "the average 
 child," fit neither his mind nor the mind of any one of 
 the twenty thousand other children in the elementary 
 grades of his city. Individual bodies ; collective minds, 
 — such is the official estimate of American school chil- 
 dren. Yet where can a more individualistic group of 
 youngsters be found than in that same class on the 
 playground half an hour later? 
 
 The educational machinery of the city is a great, 
 unwieldy organism. Its salvation lies in the teachers. 
 If they choose to individualize the pupils and teach 
 them as individuals, the system will be a success; but 
 if they look upon each child as a little jug into which 
 so many facts are to be poured, the system must 
 inevitably fail. 
 
 Beyond and above the mental training for individual- 
 ity of thought, the teacher can instill into the child 
 ideals of life. Was there not in your life one teacher 
 whom you will never forget? A teacher who inspired 
 you to do your best; to think your noblest? That 
 
SCHOOL TRAINING 2I3 
 
 teacher did for you the one thing which no curriculum 
 or discipline, or system could do, — she gave you an 
 exalted view of life. 
 
 Perhaps if each of us hitched his chariot to a star, 
 there would not be enough stars to go around, but at 
 least we might try the experiment. At any rate, there 
 is a common goal toward which all may strive, — a. goal 
 of welfare and universal opportunity. There is a 
 common philosophy of life in which all may share, — 
 the philosophy which places the inter.ests of the group 
 above the petty selfish interests of the individual. 
 
 "Breathes there a man with soul so dead, 
 Who never to himself hath said, 
 'This is my own — my native land'?" 
 
 How trite, yet how true ! Patriotism ; College, Class 
 and Civic Spirit; — ^What do all these things mean? 
 Merely that the individual is looking beyond his own 
 selfish ends to the larger interests of the group to 
 which he belongs. Such social enthusiasm, — such 
 group spirit, — has built civilizations in the past, and 
 can revolutionize the world in the future; can abolish 
 the spirit of graft which is eating its way into all 
 phases of American life; can transcend the grasping 
 desire for gain; and create through this new birth, a 
 nation of individuals who are working together for 
 the common good. Such a nation, through its influ- 
 ence, would lead the world. 
 
 This passion for social welfare, — this replacement 
 of the spirit of personal gain by the spirit of social 
 
214 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 service, — can be inspired by the teacher, and in many 
 cases by her alone. Will she do it? 
 
 The women who teach in the elementary schools 
 have in their charge the masses of tomorrow. The 
 few who teach in the high schools and colleges have 
 under their care the elect, — those who have sufficient 
 ambition or whose parents have sufficient income to 
 secure for them an effective education. With these 
 teachers the problem is essentially the same as that 
 which confronts the elementary school teacher. There 
 are, however, greater advantages for intensive work. 
 Classes are smaller, more intimate contact may be had 
 with the students, who, selected from the great mass 
 of elementary school pupils, will make up the leaders 
 of the next fifty years. 
 
 The school is the hope of progress. Whether in the 
 elementary, the secondary or the college classes, the 
 work of progress will be done most effectively by the 
 school teachers. Nine-tenths of the pupils never reach 
 the high school; nineteen-twentieths never reach the 
 colleges; the broadest work, therefore, is to be done 
 in the elementary school ; the deepest work in college. 
 
 Any reform of social ideas or ideals that is to be 
 effected through the public schools must, for the 
 present at least, be developed in the elementary grades. 
 The greatest emphasis must be laid there, where there 
 are the most children. The possibility of developing, 
 through the medium of the public schools, a system of 
 ideas or ideals in the general population, is far greater 
 than by means of newspapers, magazines, or any other 
 
SCHOOL TRAINING 2IS~) 
 
 agency that the country possesses. This is primarily 
 because the public schools reach people while they are 
 young, when impressions are made most easily and 
 prove most indelible. 
 
 The public school presents practically the only organ- ^ 
 ization which can be depended upon to develop and 
 evolve a broad, sane feeling of social responsibility in 
 the body politic. It is through the agency of the pub- 
 lic school that the social conscience can and will be 
 aroused. It will be necessary, if the school is to ful- 
 fill its function, to have introduced into the elementary 
 grades, courses in biology, hygiene, politics, econo- 
 mics, and social problems, which will furnish instruc- 
 tion in three essential fields : — 
 
 1. Personal hygiene. 
 
 2. Parental duty and responsibility. 
 
 3. Social responsibility. 
 
 The most difficult problem confronting the schools 
 is the teaching of a sense of social responsibility. 
 Children should be taught that normal men and women 
 are good, and that badness is merely an indication of 
 abnormality. They should be shown the necessity for 
 maintaining wages, standards, and modes of life. The 
 teaching of individual morality must be supplemented 
 by the teaching of social morality. It is antisocial to 
 pay low wages, and the school children should know 
 it; it is antisocial to maintain unhygienic living condi- 
 tions in the houses which you own, and the children 
 should be told so ; the working life should be long and 
 
2l6 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 joyous, and the schools should make this fact a part 
 of the consciousness of every child. In this way can 
 the school fulfill its duty. In this way can it develop 
 a full sense of responsibility which every man must 
 feel for his fellows in society. 
 
 The hope of progress is the school ; the hope of the 
 school is the teacher. Since nine-tenths of our teach- 
 ers are women, it is obvious that upon women rests 
 our hope of progress through education. 
 
CHAPTER XXV 
 
 WOMEN IN MODERN INDUSTRY 
 
 How inconsistent are people ! In the opening years 
 of the twentieth century, men assemble and gravely 
 discuss the right of women to enter industry; protest 
 against the increasing numbers of women who are tak- 
 ing up gainful occupations; and bitterly assail these 
 women for encroaching on "man's field." Man's field 
 indeed ! 
 
 Among all savage peoples, the women are the work- 
 ers, — they till the soil, make the clothing, weave and 
 cook. All of the crafts and many of the arts originate 
 with women. When man, through reason, discovered 
 that he was stronger than women, he subjugated her 
 and put her to work. From that period dates the 
 beginning of industry. 
 
 It is not, however, until late in history that men 
 take up those industrial pursuits which are most 
 easily separated from the routine of domestic pursuits. 
 Thus, a system of division of occupations gradually 
 develops. The women accept as their share those occu- 
 pations which clearly come closest to the management 
 of the household, yielding to men those occupations 
 which are concerned primarily with the production 
 
 217 
 
2l8 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 of articles for barter or sale. Even as late as the 
 end of the domestic system, women assisted men i/i 
 these productive enterprises, — spun and wove, knitted, 
 tanned and forged. 
 
 Toward the end of the eighteenth century a number 
 of discoveries and inventions laid the basis for modern 
 industry, making it possible for men to achieve 
 results of surpassing magnitude. Immediately the 
 leaders of activity, who, up to that time, had concerned 
 themselves primarily with military ventures and states- 
 manship, turned their energies into the broadening 
 fields of industry. 
 
 Then, one by one the industries left the home; 
 industries which had belonged to women since the 
 organization of human society; industries which 
 women had originated and developed; industries 
 which had been hers for millions of years. Yet today, 
 when women purpose, after a temporary absence of a 
 century, to return to the tasks of their great-great- 
 grandmothers, a great masculine outcry is raised, — 
 "Leave these industries. They are ours, you are 
 trespassers, and we the rightful masters." 
 
 However, men have transformed, and vastly im- 
 proved industrial processes. They have introduced 
 into industry that most fundamental of all social 
 forces, cooperation, so generally neglected by women. 
 They have relieved their muscles and backs of the 
 heaviest burdens by harnessing steam, electricity, 
 water, and forcing them to do the lifting and carry- 
 ing. By these transformations they have rendered 
 
WOMEN IN MODERN INDUSTRY Zip 
 
 industry even more suitable for women than it was 
 when taken from the home. 
 
 Masculine ingenuity has standardized industry. A 
 man no longer makes a shoe, a nail, or an overcoat; 
 rather he cooperates with a hundred or a thousand 
 other persons, each of whom, like himself, has some 
 small and apparently meaningless operation to per- 
 form. These specialized operations, however, are 
 anything but meaningless; organized and directed 
 by a captain of industry, they create a completed 
 product. 
 
 This intense specialization, developed in recent 
 years, has divided labor horizontally into groups, — con- 
 sisting, broadly, of unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled 
 laborers. The division is comparatively recent, because 
 under a craftsmanship system, each man, learning his 
 trade as an apprentice, became ultimately a skilled or 
 master craftsman. From apprentice to journeyman, 
 from journeyman to master craftsman, was a series of 
 steps which most of the industrial workers climbed, — 
 even those who never became masters were neverthe- 
 less skilled, thoroughly trained mechanics. In contrast 
 to this old system, under which a man received a 
 rounded education in his business, the system of spec- 
 ialization which has replaced the handicraft system 
 permits of little apprenticeship. Each man, with or 
 without the aid of a machine, creates a small part of a 
 given product. The worker, in performing this single 
 operation, becomes not skilled, but dextrous. Hence, 
 while his total product has been made larger through 
 
220 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 specialization and organization, his training is along 
 the narrowest lines. , 
 
 Women could not engage in many of the old handi- 
 craft trades because of the long apprenticeship re- 
 quired for them. Now, with industrial standardiza- 
 tion, women may engage not only in the occupations 
 which men took from the home, but in many other 
 occupations and professions which have never been 
 directly associated with the home. A few months, or 
 at most a few years, equips the woman for her special- 
 ized occupation, which she may pursue, as she sees fit, 
 until she has children to care for. 
 
 There has never been a time when women were 
 really out of industry. As Edith Abbott so ably points 
 out in her recent book,* women have worked in industry 
 since the organization of the factory system. In fact, 
 when the loom left the home, the woman went with it 
 into the factory. Therefore the present entrance of 
 women into industry is merely a transitional process, 
 and normal in so far as the women are concerned. 
 Since the time when old hand tools were displaced by 
 the power-driven machinery of the factory, the women 
 have been leaving their homes, and taking their places 
 before the new factory implement. 
 
 More than five million women were working for 
 wages when the last census was taken.* Decade by 
 
 > "Women in Industry," Edith Abbott, New York, B. Appleton 
 & Co., 1910, Chapters II, III, IV and V. 
 
 'All of the figures in this Chapter are taken from the Census 
 Bulletin, "Woman in Occupations," published by the Census Office, 
 in Washington, 1907, based on the Census of igoo. 
 
WOMEN IN MODERN INDUSTRY ,221 
 
 V ^ ' 
 
 decade, the number has been constantly increasing, 
 yet not out of proportion to the numbers of women in 
 the country. In fact the numbers of men engaging in 
 manufacturing and mechanical pursuits has increased 
 faster than the number of women so engaged. This 
 is probably the result of the immigrant tide, three 
 q iiarters o f which is male. 
 
 A brief analysis of the facts regarding the women 
 workers of the United States will throw many side- 
 lights on the woman's industrial problems. There 
 were, according to the twelfth census, 485,767 women, 
 I0-I5^years of age, engaged in gainful occupations. 
 "©f this number, 42.7 per cent were engaged in Agri- 
 culture (chiefly cotton picking in the South) ; 29.2 per 
 cent were engaged in Domestic and Personal Service; 
 and 23.3 per cent were in Manufacturing and Mechan- 
 ical Pursuits. This leaves 4.8 per cent for Profes- 
 sional Service and Trade and Transportation. 
 
 Our chief interest centers around the 4,833,630 
 women, 16 years of age and over, who were gainfully 
 employed in 1900. These women make up exactly 
 one-fifth (20.6 per cent) of all of the women 16 years 
 of age and over in the United States. 
 
 Most of the women who work are quite young, — of 
 the 4,833,630 gainfully employed, — 
 
 44.2 per cent are from 16 to 24 years of age 
 24.2 per cent are from 25 to 34 years of age 
 14.0 per cent are from 3s to 44 years of age 
 
 Thus, nearly half of the working women are under 25, 
 while seven-tenths are under 35. These figures 
 
222 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 demonstrate beyond question the contention that most 
 women work only until they get an oppoftunity to 
 marry. Occupation is, in fully two-thirds of the cases, 
 a makeshift, which is dispensed with when the chance 
 to marry comes. 
 
 The brevity of their industrial career gives to the 
 women little incentive for good work, and no incentive 
 at all for the mastery of skilled trades or profes- 
 sions. Any year "the right man" may come along, 
 so "what is the use of wasting my time learning a 
 skilled trade?" 
 
 The labor market in the United States presents this 
 interesting aspect: at the bottom of the scale, among 
 the unskilled laborers, a great over-supply of men and 
 women; among the semi-skilled, an equal supply and 
 (demand; but among the^killed:-^— demand almost 
 ialways exceeding the supply. This condition is 
 aggravated among men by the influx of unskilled 
 immigrants. It is doubly aggr^avated among women 
 by the presence of three million women wage earners 
 who are not in industry to stay ; who do not learn any 
 art or trade, and who, therefore, stand at the bottom 
 of the ladder, clamoring for a place to work, but 
 ready to relinquish it at the first desirable oppor- 
 tunity for marriage. As they are untrained, they are 
 thoroughly unfitted to do anything except the most 
 simple work. They work in bad surroundings for 
 worse than starvation wages, — shouldering each other 
 for places which are in themselves thoroughly undesir- 
 able. Miss Dorothy Richardson, writing in "The Long 
 
WOMEN IN MODERN INDUSTRY 
 
 Day,"^ has very interestingly portrayed the well-nigh 
 hopeless dilemma of the unskilled working girl. On 
 the other hand, the experience of the Manhattan Trade 
 School (New York) has demonstrated conclusively 
 that there is always a place for the trained, efficient 
 girl worker. 
 
 The transitory nature of the industrial life of working 
 women is further demonstrated by their conjugal con- 
 dition. Among this group of 4,833,630 women workers, 
 16 years of age and over, 3,143,712 are single, 769,477 
 are married, 857,005 are widowed, 63,436 are divorced. 
 
 The single women thus constitute the majority of 
 those gainfully employed. In fact, of the single 
 women in the United States, 45.9 per cent are working 
 for wages. The contrast between this percentage and 
 the 5.6 per cent of married women who are working 
 is striking. Widowed and divorced women are also 
 very generally employed, the percentage for widowed 
 women being 31.5 per cent, and that for divorced 
 women being 55.3 per cent. Thus nearly half of all 
 single women are at work, while more than half of 
 all divorced women are at work. 
 
 Work for gain is much more common among city 
 than it is among country wppien. In the cities of 
 50,000 population and over/28.3"pencent of all women 
 16 years and over were emplojced.^^ while in the smaller 
 cities and in country districts, the percentage was only 
 18.0 per cent. 
 
 '"The Long Day," Dorothy Richardson, New York, The 
 Century Co., igoj. 
 
224^ 
 
 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 The discussion of working girls' homes, and the 
 difficulties which confront the single girl who wishes 
 to be decent in a big city, lend especial interest to the 
 figures which show the family relationship of women 
 gainfully employed. Taking 27 cities, in which 1,232,- 
 268 girls were at work, it appears that, — « 
 
 64.8 per cent lived at home 
 
 11.9 per cent were heads of families 
 26.3 per cent were living with father 
 12.2 per cent were living with mother 
 
 14.5 per cent were living with other relatives 
 35-2 per cent boarded 
 
 Thus one-third of the working women in American 
 cities live away from home. 
 
 Women are gradually returning to their own. As 
 the development of industry takes more and more of 
 the occupations out of the household and places them 
 in the factory, women follow them and take up factory 
 work. 
 
 It is neither wrong nor right for women to enter 
 industry, it is logical and inevitable. The problem is 
 not a problem in ethics, but one in economics. Women, 
 like other human creatures, must have some construc- 
 tive occupation. Such an occupation was formerly 
 provided in the home, but since the home has ceased 
 to provide it, women must seek it elsewhere, — in the 
 factory, the office and the store. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 THE NEW ALIGNMENT OF INDUSTRIAL OCCUPATIONS 
 
 "I AM a Senior in High School. I don't want to go 
 to college ; I can't bear bridge or society. What shall 
 I do?" 
 
 "I am a College Senior. I have my life before me, 
 and I am going to make my life count. How can I 
 use it to the best advantage ?" 
 
 We hear these, and similar remarks, repeated time 
 after time by the younger generation of American 
 girls. What shall we tell these girls? Shall we ask 
 them to go home and fold their hands? Must they 
 idle away the years until they find a suitable husband ? 
 Suppose they never find a man who suits them, must 
 they waste their youthful energy and their mature 
 power in waiting? What a disaster! What an oppor- 
 tunity for the advocate of conservation. 
 
 In most of their calculations regarding constructive, 
 industrial, social and political problems, men blindly 
 overlook one-half the human race. Their reply to 
 these two girls, if they make any at all, would be, "My 
 dears, your place is at home. You can't find anything 
 to do? Well, perhaps your mother needs your com- 
 pany." If the mother is doing nothing she undoubt- 
 edly does, for misery always loves company. 
 
 15 225 
 
226 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 But these girls are not to be so answered. They 
 are capable, trained, efficient. They aspire to a place' 
 in the constructive work of the world, and whether 
 we like it or not, they will take it. Aside from eugenic 
 and domestic opportunities, aside from teaching at 
 home and in school, women have a place in industry. 
 They consume, why should they not produce? They 
 share in the fruits of industrial effort, and they should 
 justly share in its burdens and responsibilities, pro- 
 viding always the industrial field exists into which 
 women can easily go. 
 
 There are certain fields which may reasonably be 
 closed to women. All those occupations which demand 
 great physical strength belong of right to men. Thus 
 the heavy work in the steel mills ; much of the work in 
 the structural trades (structural iron work, heavy 
 carpentry, stone mason work and the like), mining 
 coal, smelting and refining iron and other minerals; 
 most common labor work, picking, shoveling, lifting, 
 carrying, — these tasks are men's tasks. It is no argu- 
 ment to say that in Europe, women are hitched to the 
 plow; that in South America they dig and toil in the 
 streets; that the immigrant woman who comes to 
 America is capable of enduring hard manual labor. 
 To be sure she is, and she does it, but by the time she 
 reaches her fortieth year, she is old,— old as she should 
 be at sixty. 
 
 The physique of women may be improved. It may 
 be possible to develop the Spartan ideal, — a woman 
 as strong physically as any man, — ^but today no 
 
NEW ALIGNMENT OF OCCUPATIONS 227 
 
 civilized women measure up to that requirement. 
 
 Then, too, those trades requiring a long apprentice- 
 ship must usually fall to men. Most women who are 
 engaged in industry are between twenty and thirty 
 years of age. That is, women work until they get 
 married. Obviously a woman who is likely to marry 
 at twenty-seven will not spend the years from sixteen 
 to twenty-one in learning a trade which she can prac- 
 tice for only six years. In the case of the vast 
 majority, therefore, women will not learn apprentice- 
 ship trades. ^ 
 
 If this analysis is correct, it necessarily follows that 
 trades demanding strength and skill primarily will be 
 closed to most women. The steel industry, for 
 example, is one demanding either strength or skill, or 
 both. Among the laborers in the yard gangs, strength 
 is the only requisite, but among the men who direct 
 the operations of the rolling mill, both strength and 
 skill are required. Women are peculiarly unfitted for 
 the long hours of heavy work in a steel plant, and prac- 
 tically no women work in the mills. The Federal 
 investigation of the South Bethlehem Steel Works 
 (1910) discovered 9184 male employes with not a 
 single female. Such trades are the exception, not the 
 rule. Each year mechanical power is called upon to 
 do more and more of the heavy lifting and carrying 
 work; each year, standardization becomes more com- 
 plete; each year some of the apprenticeship workers 
 are replaced by standardized machines. The trades 
 from which women are excluded by lack of strength 
 
228 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 and long apprenticesliip are comparatively few, and 
 continually decreasing in numbers. The great majority 
 of industries, at least in some of their phases, are open 
 to women. 
 
 But a steel mill is the extreme illustration of an 
 occupation dominated by men. While strength and 
 apprenticeship make men dominant in some fields, 
 dexterity and perseverance make women dominant in 
 others. Some industries are almost completely 
 feminized. For example, of all dressmakers in the 
 United States, 99.4 per cent are females. Dressmak- 
 ing work, requiring in most cases dexterity and per- 
 severance rather than skill or strength, appeals partic- 
 ularly to the aptitudes and training of women, hence 
 the Census Bulletin on Women's Work reports 338,144 
 women dressmakers and 2042 men. Dressmaking (for 
 hire) is a woman's occupation. 
 
 Between these two extremes, the steel industry dom- 
 inated by men and the dressmaking industry dominated 
 by women, there are all gradations of occupational 
 pursuits. As the demand for skill and strength is 
 replaced by the demand for dexterity and-^ persever- 
 ance, women replace men in industry. Those indus- 
 tries which, through the demand for apprenticeship or 
 physical tasks or both, are still too heavy to be handled 
 by women, are dominated by men ; on the other hand, 
 those industries in which specialization is replacing 
 apprenticeship and skill are dominated by women. On 
 the one hand are strength and skill; on the other, 
 dexterity and perseverance. 
 
NEW ALIGNMENT OF OCCUPATIONS 
 * utmu» ol WMlitil Ptinmm a I 
 
 229 
 
230 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 Here, then, is the new alignment of industrial occu- 
 pations. Under the domestic system, this alignment 
 was fairly complete. Under the factory system, it is 
 completing itself. Under the domestic system the man 
 did the heaviest of the work, leaving the lighter work 
 for women. The factory system has removed prac- 
 tically all of the old home trades to factory buildings 
 leaving the unskilled trades in the home. Women 
 have left the home, and following the alignment of 
 the old domestic industry, have again taken up those 
 trades requiring dexterity and perseverance. 
 
 Some estimate of the extent to which this alignment 
 has already been carried may be gained from the 
 diagram on the opposite page. 
 
 The time is doubtless coming when this alignment 
 will be more complete. Women, going into the indus- 
 try of the next generation, will practically determine 
 their field. Those trades which require a compara- 
 tively short apprenticeship, and which demand no 
 heavy physical work, will be their trades. Women 
 will not be prevented from entering other trades, but 
 will naturally concentrate here. These trades, recog- 
 nized as peculiarly feminine, will be held open for 
 women, so that the woman who wishes to enter produc- 
 tive industry in 1950 will find her field well marked 
 and distinctive. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 WOMEN IN SPECIFIC EMPLOYMENTS 
 
 The statistics of women gainfully employed are 
 interesting, since they indicate general tendencies, yet 
 they offer little help to those who are so anxiously ask- 
 ing, "What can I do when I leave High School?" 
 "What is there open to me when I graduate from 
 college ?" These girls are not ready to marry, and ; 
 they do not wish to idle at home. What line of 
 activity shall they pursue? 
 
 It is all very well to say in general terms, that indus- 
 try is standardizing; that work is becoming more 
 specialized; that women should be trained; that they 
 should above all else avoid getting into the rut of the 
 unskilled worker, but that does not help the individual 
 girl. Consequently she stands and protests, "But 
 what shall / do ?" with an "I" as big as the one in the 
 fable. 
 
 Although each case must be determined on its own 
 merits there are certain general principles which 
 govern women's occupations. 
 
 In the first place, there are three classes of girls : 
 
 I. Those girls who have had the equivalent of 
 a grammar school education or less. 
 231 
 
232 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 2. Those girls who have been through high 
 school. 
 
 3. The college graduate, and the girl with 
 training equivalent to college in some spec- 
 ialized form. 
 
 Four-fifths of the girls never get to high school; 
 one-twentieth graduate from high school, and one 
 one-hundredth graduate from college. 
 
 The girl with a grammar school education or less is, 
 from the standpoint of industry, thoroughly untrained. 
 She may be able to read and write, but she has no 
 special trade or craft. She is, therefore, an unskilled 
 worker, and must seek h6r place in some form of 
 gainful occupation which requires little skill or exper- 
 ience, and which can be readily mastered. 
 
 There are twelve industries in the United States 
 reporting the employment of more than 100,000 
 women. Arranged in accordance with the number 
 of women employed, these industries are: — ^ 
 
 OCCUPATIONS NUMBER EMPLOYED 
 
 1. Servants and waitresses 1,165,561 
 
 2. Agricultural laborers 456,405 
 
 3. Dressmakers 338,144 
 
 4. Laundresses 328,935 
 
 5. Teachers 327,206 
 
 6. Farmers 307,706 
 
 7. Textile operators 231458 
 
 8. Housekeepers and stewardesses 146,929 
 
 9. Sales women 142,265 
 
 ' "Statistics of Women at Work, igoo,'' Census Bureau, Wash- 
 ington, Government Printing Office, 1907, p. 32. 
 
WOMEN IN SPECIFIC EMPLOYMENTS 233 
 
 la Seamstresses 138,724 
 
 11. Nurses and midwives io8,6gi 
 
 12. Laborers 106,916 
 
 Of these twelve industries at least six require little 
 or no previous training, and hence are open to 
 unskilled girls. Servants and waitresses, Agricultural 
 laborers (almost wholly in the Southern States) 
 Laundresses, Textile operators. Sales women, and 
 Laborers, are positions which require generally a low 
 grade of training, and hence these pursuits do not 
 handicap, by lack of a previous education, the girls 
 who are taking them up. To be sure, among many of 
 the Laundresses, Textile operators, and Sales women, 
 a very considerable amount of skill atid training is 
 required, but generally this is not so in these six 
 occupations. 
 
 The industrial opportunity for untrained women is 
 unattractive but very wide. Half of the leading 
 women's occupations fall within this class, and there 
 are tens of thousands of Dressmakers and House- 
 keepers and Stewardesses who have little real training. 
 
 The girls of this first class are like the sands of the ■ 
 sea for number, and their wages reflect the bitter 
 competition which results from their numbers. In 
 the standardized trades which they enter, these un- 
 skilled girls cut one another down to the lowest figure, 
 often working for wages which barely afford a living. 
 As one little Italian girl said in the recent shirtwaist 
 makers strike — "Me no live vera much on forta-nine 
 cent a day." The forty-nine cents was the product of 
 
234 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 the ignorance of this girl and others like her, who go 
 to work unprepared, and therefore unable to demand 
 living wages. 
 
 The immediate responsibility for a lack of training 
 rests on the school system, which, instead of preparing 
 for life the millions of girls who leave below the high 
 school, merely fills their memories with a conglomera- 
 tion of unimportant facts. It is the girl, however, 
 who bears the burden. 
 
 The high school girl (group 2) who has taken a 
 course in a commercial or trade high school is thor- 
 oughly prepared to do some one thing. She may know 
 stenography, millinery, accounting, or some similar 
 trade. She is at least a factor to be reckoned with. 
 
 A glance at the table will show that more than 
 three hundred thousand women are teachers, most of 
 whom are high school graduates or their equivalent; 
 that women farmers are in many instances well edu- 
 cated, that the great majority of nurses are trained 
 women. Each one of these fields, with their hundreds 
 of women, presents a wide range of opportunity for 
 the high school graduate. 
 
 There are five other occupations employing from 
 80,000 to 100,000 women, in which the high school 
 graduate has a broad opportunity. They are:^ 
 
 OCCUPATIONS NUMBER EMPLOYED 
 
 Stenographers and typewriters 85,086 
 
 Milliners 82,936 
 
 Clerks and copyists 81,000 
 
 •Idem. 
 
WOMEN IN SPECIFIC EMPLOYMENTS 235 
 
 Bookkeepers and accountants 72,896 
 
 Musicians and teachers of music 52,010 
 
 Each of these occupations presents a wide range for 
 choice. Girls with a fair amount of training can in 
 nearly all of these industries secure a reasonable live- 
 lihood. 
 
 It is impossible to pass this group without indicating 
 the field for women which the new agricultural high 
 school is developing. Small fruits, flowers, small 
 stock, and even light trucking present attractive oppor- 
 tunities to the girl living in a rural district, who is 
 inclined to make her living in the country. Indeed, 
 the sharp competition for opportunity in the city on 
 the one hand, and on the other the development of 
 scientific agriculture, the , perfection of agricultural 
 machinery, and the rising price of agricultural products, 
 afford the woman farmer on a small scale ample 
 opportunity to secure a good livelihood. 
 
 So much for the group of high school graduates. 
 Their choices of occupation are wide, and their oppor- 
 tunities considerable. 
 
 Group 3, including the college and normal school 
 graduate, contains the salt of the earth from the 
 wbman's standpoint. Physically robust from the 
 splendid course in physical training, and the invigorat- 
 ing games of college life; trained to think accurately 
 and clearly; learned in method of study and presen- 
 tation; effective through the power of cooperation; 
 and thoroughly alive to the desirability of making 
 time and life count, these college girls furnisH the 
 
236 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 most optimistic argument for the future of women. 
 
 The college girl with her atmosphere of efficiency 
 and capability, has penetrated every group of women 
 who have the time and intelligence to think. Whether 
 college trained or not, the women of America are tak- 
 ing their cue from the college graduate. They see in 
 her the prototype of what they might have been, and 
 they take from her successes new inspiration for their 
 efforts. The college girl is the type of the future for 
 women. 
 
 But what shall she do? She can do anything she 
 pleases. The professions are fully open to her ; Jour- 
 nalism is a new, good field ; she may venture indepen- 
 dently into Business, she may engage in Social Work 
 or in Teaching. She may, and no doubt she will ulti- 
 mately, direct a home, but she need not necessarily lay 
 aside all work to do so. 
 
 What are the chances for the college girl? What 
 fields may she enter? 
 
 The college girls are few in number, and the occupa- 
 tions into which they can go are widely distributed. 
 Teaching presents the most generally chosen field for 
 the college girl graduate. While no general statistics 
 are available showing what proportion of 327,206 
 women teachers are college graduates, the available 
 data from the colleges themselves show that more than 
 half of the graduates are or have been teachers. 
 
 The learned professions are claiming a percentage, 
 though a small one, of the graduates of girls' colleges. 
 A few enter Law and Medicine; 3 few become journal- 
 
WOMEN IN SPECIFIC EMPLOYMENTS 237 
 
 ists ; a still smaller proportion take up Secretarial work. 
 According to the Census returns, there are only 5,984 
 women in "literary and scientific" pursuits, and 7,387 
 "physicians and surgeons." While most of these are 
 probably college graduates, there is no method of 
 accurately determining the proportion. 
 
 A more concrete idea of the occupations in which 
 college girls engage may be gained from the following 
 statement regarding 1076 women who received the 
 degree of Bachelor of Arts from Bryn Mawr College 
 between 1888 and 1910. The Bryn Mawr College 
 statistics are particularly interesting, since the college 
 has always endeavored to impress upon its graduates 
 the necessity for some kind of activity. Of these 1076 
 graduates : — 
 
 27.0 per cent are married, with no paid occupation 
 25.6 per cent are unmarried, with no paid occupation 
 22.S per cent are teachers in schools 
 
 3.8 per cent are teachers- in colleges 
 
 2.6 per cent have unpaid positions in social work 
 
 2.0 per cent have paid positions in social work 
 
 1.8 per cent are private tutors 
 
 1.2 per cent are private secretaries 
 
 1.2 per cent are physicians 
 
 0.6 per cent are lawyers 
 
 The remainder are variously engaged as students of 
 different subjects.* 
 
 Though the college woman has hot yet attempted 
 wide fields of effort, the future is hers. She has train- 
 ing and mental grasp, she has learned to cooperate, 
 
 'Bryn Mawr Calendar, Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, 
 January, 1911, p. 273. 
 
238 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 and has thoroughly prepared herself to be a factor in 
 occupational effort. 
 
 The kind of work which a woman may pursue thus 
 varies with the time, the place and the girl. It is 
 impossible to say definitely what this girl or that girl 
 may do because capacity, inclination and opportunity 
 vary so widely in each specific case, yet a few general 
 principles have been laid down which are universally 
 true. Briefly, — 
 
 1. The more training a girl can secure — ^provided 
 it is specific, the better. 
 
 2. The college girl has the right of way in all voca- 
 tions requiring intellectually trained women. 
 
 3. The girl who cannot go to high school should 
 try to secure an occupation in which some skill can be 
 acquired by an apprenticeship, 
 
 4. Each girl should suit her trade to her inclination, 
 and go to work as if she meant to stay. 
 
 A fifth of the women in the United States are gain- 
 fully employed, yet gainful occupations constitute but 
 one element — and a very insignificant element, too, in 
 the category of things that American women may do. 
 To the individual girl or woman industrial pursuits are 
 of vital importance, but socially considered the 
 eugenic, domestic, and educational opportunities of 
 American women far outweigh in importance the 
 opportunities in industry. Nevertheless, all women 
 
WOMEN IN SPECIFIC EMPLOYMENTS 239 
 
 should be occupied since, as Carlyle very well points 
 out, blessedness comes oftenest through work. 
 
 The occupations which are involved in training the 
 future and moulding the home environment are from 
 a standpoint of Social Progress the vital occupations 
 for women to perform. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 PHILANTHROPY 
 
 One of the chief aims of the Christian Religion is 
 to instill ideas of sympathy and self sacrifice. Perhaps, 
 as some scientists maintain, the concept of sympathy 
 was first developed by women. In any case, sympathy 
 has certainly been a preeminently feminine character- 
 istic during historic times. Men have murdered and 
 wounded : women have mourned and stanched the flow 
 of blood. 
 
 Charles Kingsley writes his "Three Fishers," with 
 this refrain:: 
 
 "For men must work — 
 And women must weep." 
 
 Surrounded by such an atmosphere, Walter Scott 
 
 writes : 
 
 "Oh woman, in our hours of ease, 
 Uncertain, coy and hard to please. 
 And variable as the shade 
 By the light quivering aspen made — 
 When pain and anguish wring the brow, 
 A ministering angel thou." 
 
 Woman is an uncertain quantity, thinks the poet, until 
 some catastrophe occurs. Then it is she who aids the 
 afflicted, or weeps over the dead. 
 
 Such a concept of woman's attitude toward life is 
 240 
 
PHILANTHROPY 24I 
 
 truly absurd if carried to the extreme, yet it is doubtless 
 founded on a psychological truth. Women feel pity 
 more keenly than men. They are more impulsive, 
 naturally, and acting on their impulses rush involun- 
 tarily to the assistance of distress with an intuition 
 that is peculiarly feminine. 
 
 Women are, on the whole, more altruistic than men. 
 While girls develop altruism at 12 or 13, similar mani- 
 festations are not apparent in boys until 14 or 15, and 
 sometimes much later.^ Even after altruistic feeling 
 is developed in children, it manifests itself much less 
 generally in the male than in the female sex. While 
 the studied self-repression of the male is doubtless a 
 factor in preventing the manifestation of altruistic feel- 
 ings, there still appears to be a fundamental difference 
 in the attitude of the two sexes. 
 
 Granted the prevalence of altruism among women, 
 their passion for Social Service through Philanthropy 
 is easily explained. 
 
 The present decade has witnessed a great movement 
 of women into the field of philanthropic work. Un- 
 married, unoccupied women, high school and college 
 graduates, women whose h,ome duties are not exact- 
 ing, — all of these classes are turning to philanthropy 
 as an outlet for their altruistic impulses. Settlement 
 work, neighborly visiting among the poor, director- 
 ships in children's societies, investigations of working 
 conditions,^all furnish abundant opportunities for 
 
 ■"Social Development and Education," M. V. O'Shea, Boston, 
 Houghton MiiHin Co., 1909, Fart I. 
 16 
 
242 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 contact with social problems of appalling magnitude. 
 Books like those of Jacob Riis, and Jane Addams ; 
 articled in magazines and newspapers; together with 
 courses on applied sociology and economics have 
 called wide-spread attention to these problems, bting- 
 ing with the knowledge of conditions an irresistible 
 call to service. 
 
 The field of Philanthropy is broadening each year. 
 The old type of charity, represented by soup kitchens, 
 bread-lines, indiscriminate almsgiving, is being rapidly 
 replaced by the new type of scientific preventive work. 
 The old time social worker asked no questions, but 
 gave freely. The modern worker asks why aid must 
 be given. Unemployment, ignorance, sickness, liquor, 
 vice, and a score of other factors cause poverty and 
 distress. Relief is important, but not nearly so vital 
 as prevention of further need for relief. 
 
 The campaign against tuberculosis is a t3rpical pre- 
 ventive effort. Instead of merely trying to cure the 
 tuberculous person, the worker against the disease 
 first makes sure that it will not be communicated to 
 the other members of the family, and then, after a 
 careful study of the facts, shows the relation between 
 bad housing, under-feeding, ignorance, and tubercu- 
 losis. Tuberculosis is not a cause, but an effect of bad 
 social conditions, hence until the bad conditions are 
 removed, it must continue. 
 
 In this, and in many similar ways, modem phil- 
 anthropy is emphasizing the necessity of building a 
 fence along the edge of the cliff, rather than maintain- 
 
PHILANTHROPY 243 
 
 ing an ambulance down in the valley to rescue people 
 after they have fallen over. Prevention is far more 
 fundamental than cure. All social work does not yet 
 reflect this spirit, yet the advanced social workers in 
 all lines fully appreciate its significance. 
 
 The recipients of philanthropic activities are ordi- 
 narily grouped as, — 
 
 1. The Dependents. 
 
 2. The Defectives. 
 
 3. The Delinquents. 
 
 As these three D's lead directly to the fourth D which 
 begins the word Damnation, it is essential that they be 
 relieved as speedily and as effectively as possible. 
 
 The Dependents, — ^paupers, orphans, beggars, de- 
 serted or temporarily distressed families, form the core 
 of the "charity" problem. The children who are left 
 destitute are worthy of effort, though the adults are in 
 most cases worthless. Nevertheless, for the sake of 
 the children, dependent families must be relieved, 
 though the parents are obviously unworthy. 
 
 The Defectives constitute an altogether different 
 problem. Mental defect is usually incurable and 
 sometimes unimprovable. Physical defects, such as 
 blindness, chronic disease, and the like, may usually be 
 relieved or cured. On the whole, the work with the 
 Defectives is most hopeful, since each year adds evi- 
 dence in favor of the contention that the vast majority 
 of men are normal, and if given an opportunity to do 
 so, will lead normal lives. 
 
244 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 Delinquency, even more than dependence and defect, 
 is the result of bad surroundings. With the rare 
 exception of the born criminal, most delinquents are 
 trained. They fall among thieves at an early age, and 
 learn the gentle art of thievery; they live in squalid 
 homes, or amid vicious surroundings, and become 
 vicious because of the vice which surrounds them. 
 In nine cases out of ten, — ^in fact, in 95 cases out of a 
 hundred, delinquent boys, when given an opportunity, 
 make good citizens. 
 
 Orphanages and almshouses care for the Dependent ; 
 homes, institutions, hospitals, provide for the feeble- 
 minded and other Defectives, while juvenile courts, 
 houses of refuge, reformatories, penitentiaries and the 
 like, house the Delinquent. Each of these institutions 
 has been the object of special study. The whole prob- 
 lem has been submitted to trained experts, who during 
 the last generation have squarely faced both cure and 
 prevention, and in most cases have told fearlessly of 
 the needs. The vast majority of these workers, both 
 trained and untrained, have been women. 
 
 While no accurate figures are extant, giving the pro- 
 portion of men and women in social work. Dr. Samuel 
 McCune Lindsay, Director of the New York School 
 of Philanthropy, writes: — ^ "There are no accurate 
 statistics of the relative number of men and women in 
 social work. I can only give you a personal impres- 
 sion based on the proportion that has been pretty 
 regularly maintained in the School of Philanthropy as 
 
 ^In a letter, dated May 12, 191 1. 
 
PHILANTHROPY 245 
 
 a fair index of the proportion to be found in social 
 work generally; that is, four-fifths women, one-fifth 
 men." 
 
 While most of the money for Philanthropy has in 
 the past been contributed by men, during the last two 
 decades women, coming into the possession of more 
 and more extensive fortunes, have contributed largely 
 to the work. The largest single Social Work Founda- 
 tion, — $10,000,000 for the study of special problems, — 
 was established by a woman, — Mrs, Russell Sage. Up 
 to the present time, however, woman's contribution 
 has usually taken the form of time and energy, spent 
 in visiting, investigating, and organizing. Such a 
 field is, of course, strictly limited to those few well- 
 to-do women who have abundant leisure to devote to 
 work outside the home. 
 
 Social work which was originally done by broken- 
 down clergymen, is today a science, with its schools 
 and advanced courses in investigation. While the 
 untrained worker held the field, he made little progress, 
 but with the advent of the expert, came a wide-spread 
 opportunity for effective work. This opportunity 
 opened at the time that the woman's college was 
 graduating large numbers of women animated by a 
 desire to play some effective part in social advance. 
 The demand and the supply were contemporaneous, 
 and for a decade, college women have been pouring 
 into social work. 
 
 The advent of the college girl has had two effects. 
 It speedily raised the standard of social work far 
 
246 WOMAN. AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 above its old level, and at the same time it practically 
 closed the door of opportunity for social work to any 
 but college women. The manager who can get a col- 
 lege graduate for $50 a month is not going to employ 
 a high school graduate at $40. The value of college 
 training is too apparent to be overlooked, and the col- 
 lege graduate secures the position. 
 
 Pliilanthropy must always be limited because of the 
 limitation in funds and donations. . The work required 
 in the average philanthropic organization is hard and 
 exacting. Strong bodies, resolute minds, and a joyous 
 determination to do good work are just as essential in 
 this field as in any other. As the college graduate has 
 preempted the field of social work, the field is severely 
 limited. 
 
 This has become even truer since the establishment 
 of a number of schools for social workers which furnish 
 a course of a year, or more, through which the college 
 graduate is asked to pass before beginning practical 
 work. 
 
 The real value of social work consists in its revela- 
 tion of existing conditions to the social worker. A 
 girl, shielded all her life from everything that offends 
 or makes unclean, goes into a room with no exit in the 
 outside air ; with a candle burning dimly in one comer ; 
 close with the heavy atmosphere of a hot July, rendered 
 unbearable by stale breath, and the odor of greasy 
 clothes ; with two little children groveling in a pile of 
 filth and rags on the floor, and with a mother and a 
 four-weeks-old baby lying in the only bed. Never in 
 
PHILANTHROPY 247 
 
 her life has she known that such things exist, yet the 
 lecturers tell her that there are 50,000 such rooms in 
 her city alone. She begins to think. She goes on the 
 street at night; finds girls of fifteen, soliciting men; 
 traces them to the white slave dens from which they 
 came; and learns that the whole district reeks with 
 prostitution, which is aided and protected by the police. 
 She is horrified, yet she thinks harder still. Social 
 work is an incentive to thought, and thus performs 
 one of its most useful functions. 
 
 The field of Philanthropy is limited ; only a favored 
 few, with special opportunities can enter it, yet for 
 them it is a spur to tireless activity. 
 
CHAPTER >XXIX 
 
 THE SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE OF WOMEN'S ORGANIZATIONS 
 
 A PROGRESSIVE, earnest man was requested to act 
 on the Board of Managers of a philanthropic organiza- 
 tion. Leaning forward in his chair he asked quickly, 
 "Are there any women on it?" The reply was nega- 
 tive. The man sank back with a sigh of relief. 
 "They're so unpractical," said he, "and they will never 
 cooperate." 
 
 This man was wrong. Women will cooperate if the 
 work in which they are engaged appears to lend itself 
 to immediate cooperative effort; otherwise they seem 
 hopelessly individualistic. 
 
 Generations and centuries have passed over woman 
 — ^as a domestic worker. Individually, in her home, 
 she has toiled to secure the ends for which her life 
 seemed to be given. In the bearing and rearing of 
 children, and in domestic industry, — cooperation was 
 practically impossible. So women labored on in 
 ignorance, bearing individually the burden of their 
 work. 
 
 Meanwhile men had learned. The phalanx, cooper- 
 ating, unified, overcame a mob of ten times its num- 
 bers because the phalanx was an organization, and 
 
 248 
 
1 SIGNIFICANCE OP WOMEn's ORGANIZATIONS 249 
 
 because under the law of cooperation, the phalanx 
 must subdue everything less organized than itself. 
 Thus, through military exploits, men learned the value 
 of mutual helpfulness, — learned it where the penalty 
 of failure was death. Later the same principle so 
 thoroughly mastered in the military world was applied 
 to industry. One man could make one pair of shoes 
 in a day, — ^but ten men brought together in a factory 
 and taught to cooperate could produce thirty pairs of 
 shoes in one day. So in every walk of life which he 
 has entered, man has introduced the modes of cooper- 
 ative effort. 
 
 Meanwhile women worked on individually in the 
 homes. Cooperation seemed impossible. Each woman 
 tended her own fire ; cooked her own food ; washed her 
 own pots and pans and swept her own floor.^ Thus 
 the tradition arose that women had not the capacity to 
 cooperate. 
 
 There was one field, — ^the church, — in which women 
 did unified work. Have you ever attended a church 
 festival, fair or supper, organized and run by women? 
 It is usually a model of efficiency and dispatch. The 
 situation is always a difficult one. Some of the women 
 balk, others gossip and "back-bite," nevertheless, they 
 organize a fair, and a successful fair, too. It was 
 probably in the church that women received their first 
 lessons in cooperation. From these simple beginnings, 
 however, the work has spread far and fast. 
 
 ^"The Home," C. P. Gilman, New York, McClure, Phillips & 
 Co., 1903. 
 
2SO WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 In clubs, 
 
 In social and civic organizations. 
 In agitation for political rights, 
 In industrial unions, 
 women have demonstrated beyond question their 
 capacity for organization. Perhaps, after all, the thing 
 which prevented cooperation in the past was not 
 woman's inherent incapacity to cooperate, so much as 
 the great burden of an individualized social institution, 
 the home,— so organized, and so surrounded by prece- 
 dent and tradition, that it rendered cooperation well 
 nigh impossible. 
 
 Whether or not this be the true explanation, it is cer- 
 tainly the most plausible, since the women of twentieth- 
 century America, with their college training, freedom 
 from social restrictions, and incentive to organized 
 effort, are making wonderful strides toward a type of 
 cooperation that will lead in the direction of Social 
 Progress. 
 
 The Woman's Club is not a distinctive product of 
 the activity of American women, yet there is probably 
 no country in the world where the Woman's Club has 
 been so potent a factor in emancipating women from 
 the bonds of traditional subservience. 
 
 The movement for political rights is not an out- 
 growth of the Woman's Club movement, it is contem- 
 poraneous with it. Woman Suffrage receives its tens 
 of thousands of converts through the new view which 
 is instilled in the club meetings and discussions. 
 
 The Woman's Trade Union League is a movement 
 
SIGNIFICANCE OF WOMEN'S ORGANIZATIONS 2$! 
 
 of an entirely different character. Clubs, civic asso- 
 ciations and suffrage appeal primarily to the woman 
 of leisure. The Woman's Trade Union League voices 
 the protest of American working women against the 
 notoriously bad conditions surrounding the work of 
 women and children. Men began trade union agitation 
 in the early years of the last century (1803), but it 
 was not until nearly a hundred years later that women 
 chose to demonstrate their capacity in similar direc- 
 tions. 
 
 Women have always been taken into some of the 
 men's unions, but the growth of certain trades, — such 
 as glove making, coat and suit making, shirt, collar, 
 and shirtwaist manufacturing and the like,— employ- 
 ing women almost exclusively, — ^made such cooperation 
 impossible. The men were no longer on hand to 
 agitate, and the women did not organize. The result 
 in many cases was low wages, long hours and insani- 
 tary, revolting conditions of work. Into this unorgan- 
 ized field came a few strong women, — some of them 
 suffragettes, some of them radicals, — who were deter- 
 mined to secure fair conditions of work for the work- 
 ing woman. The result of their agitation was the 
 National Woman's Trade Union League. 
 
 The League has directed several strikes in the big 
 cities, and in most cases has won them. Girls strike 
 just as hard as men. They make good pickets and 
 aggressive, earnest strikers, but their resources are not 
 so great, and they have more difficulty in getting tem- 
 porary jobs. Nevertheless, the National Woman's 
 
252 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 Trade Union League has raised the working standard 
 of tens of thousands of American working girls. 
 
 Thus from the leisure woman in her luxurious Club- 
 House to the shirtwaist maker in the twilight of her 
 Union Meeting Hall, the women of the United States 
 have been organizing. Through these efforts they 
 have shown beyond cavil woman's capacity. 
 
 The direct achievements of the woman's club are 
 almost nil. On the other hand, its indirect influence 
 has been very far-reaching. Women were asked to 
 assemble in the Club House that they might study and 
 discuss, and, to the astonishment of the doubting world, 
 they came together peaceably. Obliterating social bar- 
 riers, forgetting family traditions, women of diverse 
 interests sat in a common meeting hall, or around a 
 common committee table, and joined in the analysis of 
 civic and social questions. The triumph was not in the 
 discussion, but in the cooperation of the women. 
 
 An observer, three decades ago, viewing the attitude 
 of American women, and looking forward into the 
 future, would scarcely have dared to predict a city, 
 state, sectional and national organization of women's 
 clubs; a National and International Congress of 
 mothers. Yet that end has at last been achieved. 
 Slowly, hesitatingly, she has assembled, discussed, 
 organized, combined, federated, until the power of a 
 State Federation, led by an aggressive woman, is 
 really to be reckoned with in the polity of a state. 
 
 This power is, however, incidental. The chief func- 
 tion of the woman's club has been educative. By 
 
SIGNIFICANCE OF WOMEN'S ORGANIZATIONS 253 
 
 cooperating, women have disproved their traditional 
 incapacity for group action; they have established a 
 sure basis for successful advance. The lectures which 
 they have attended at their clubs; the papers which 
 they have heard, or which they have written and 
 read; the occasional effort to participate in a Child 
 Labor campaign or a municipal election; the com- 
 mittee or "section" meetings, taking in hand some 
 specific topic, and, through investigation or study, 
 aiming to master its difficulties, — ^these and a score of 
 other activities have given club women a viewpoint 
 that has led them to go into active reform campaigns. 
 Out of the club with its break from tradition, and its 
 atmosphere of progress have sprung the knowledge 
 and the enthusiasm for effective work in many 
 channels. 
 
 To be sure the educative influence of the woman's 
 club was more largely needed in the past generation 
 than it is today. The modern college girl enters the 
 world with an assurance in her capacity to direct 
 progress, — her mother, reared under the old regime, 
 was not so confident of her prerogatives or her powers. 
 She needed the woman's club. 
 
 No Child Labor Committee, no Social Workers' 
 Club, no Street Cleaning or Tuberculosis campaign is 
 organized today without women on its Board of 
 Directors. At times the women are decidedly in the 
 majority. The club sections or committees have done 
 their work effectually. Women are so vitally inter- 
 ested in social and civic advance, that no social or 
 
254 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 civic association can be successfully promoted without 
 their active cooperation. 
 
 Tied to an everlasting grind of labor and drudgery, 
 the women of a century ago were practically denied 
 opportunity for cooperation. The factory system has 
 given them leisure; the college has taught them to 
 "pull together for the class" ; leisure and training have 
 supplied society with an immense unused power, — 
 women, the "untried social force." We know approx- 
 imately what men will do. They have demonstrated 
 both their attitude and their capacity. Of woman's 
 power, we know little. For untold ages they have 
 worked individually — that is, ineffectively. Now, for 
 the first time in the history of western civilization, they 
 are combining in groups, and making demands. What 
 will these groups do ? Where will their demands end ? 
 
 What is the social significance of women's organiza- 
 tions ? The clubs have educated ; the civic associations 
 have agitated; the suffrage associations have de- 
 manded; and the trade unions have struck, fhat is 
 nothing. These results have made little real impress 
 in our time, — ^they have had scarcely any lasting influ- 
 ence. Stop! They have altered the face of the 
 future, not by what they have accomplished, but by 
 what they promise. A century ago man might, in all 
 justice, decide that women had no organizing power.. 
 Today women have demonstrated their capacity for 
 organization. You grope about a dark room at night, 
 you search, upset, — at last your hand touches a match. 
 Have you a light? No, but you have the means of 
 
SIGNIFICANCE OF WOMEn's ORGANIZATIONS 255 
 
 securing one. The women have found the means, 
 cooperation, to the end, organized activity, — an end 
 which will place them in full control of a boundless 
 future. 
 
 The women of today are trained through organiza- 
 tion ; they are moulding the environment through their 
 cooperative activity; they have leisure, they feel the 
 power, they promise to perform far more in the near 
 future than they have performed in the past ; and high- 
 est of all, they, as unionists, or club women, who have 
 spent a part of their lives in learning what can be 
 accomplished through the power of unified action, will 
 teach their children the value of cooperation. 
 
CHAPTER XXX 
 
 POLITICAL STATUS OF WOMEN 
 
 For ages women have been political nonentities. So 
 complete was their subjection, in fact, that their politi- 
 cal non-existence was neither commented on nor ques- 
 tioned. Unlike the Twentieth-Century suifragette, 
 they accepted their fate in silence. 
 
 Yet in times past, women have been more or less 
 important politically. Their position and rights under 
 the old Roman law were far superior to those under 
 the early regime of Christianity, and in some respects 
 to those in mediaeval England and the Continent. 
 According to the Roman law from Augustus to Justin- 
 ian, 27 B. C.-S27 A. D., every Roman woman was 
 under masculine superintendence during her life. But 
 the power of the guardian, whether father, husband, 
 or some other male relative, had become very slight by 
 the third century, Ulpian tells us. The reasons given 
 for establishing this guardianship indicate very clearly 
 the prevailing opinion of woman's nature and her unfit- 
 ness for political power. According to Ulpian it was 
 because of her "unsteadiness of character" and the 
 "weakness of the sex." 
 
 Yet there is no doubt but that ample provision was 
 made for the education of women. Pliny in the 
 
 256 
 
POLITICAL STATUS OF WOMEN 257 
 
 Panegyricus makes the following statement: "In the 
 numerous provisions for the public education at the 
 state's expense, girls were given the same opportuni- 
 ties and privileges as boys." Women, moreover, had 
 complete control of their dowries, and a widow could 
 be appointed legal guardian of her own children. 
 Although women had no vote, they were apparently 
 allowed free public expression of opinion: Juvenal 
 gives us many instances of a woman's pleading in 
 public. 
 
 Woman's gradual approach to political recognition 
 received a check under the early Christian Church. 
 St. Paul had forbidden women to be heard, or even 
 seen in public places and his behests received even too 
 literal an application. The Christianizing of the 
 Roman world therefore involved the re-subjection of 
 women. 
 
 Among the Germanic tribes woman occupied a posi- 
 tion of supreme importance politically; their opinions 
 were heard with great reverence; they participated in 
 the councils; held property; and were in every way 
 equal to men. Tacitus tells of cases where a woman 
 was ruler of a tribe. But as the Goths and Franks 
 and other Teutonic tribes gradually came under the 
 influence of the Christian church, they assigned to 
 women a more and more subject position. 
 
 The struggle of women for political equality may 
 be said to have begun in England toward the end of 
 the eighteenth century. Not only was woman a nonen- 
 tity politically, but she was legally disabled so as really 
 
258 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 to hinder the performance of her duties and functions 
 as a human being. Even as a mother, she had no 
 power over her own children and was always subject 
 to moderate correction by her husband at his discretion. 
 While her power over property was far less than that 
 under the Roman law, she suffered especial hardship 
 from the laws regulating marriage. Stung by the 
 many injustices to which they were subject, women 
 began toward the end of the eighteenth century ser- 
 iously to discuss their disabilities. In 1792 Mary 
 WoUstonecraft published her "Vindication of the 
 Rights of Women" and Harriet Martineau soon after 
 began writing on the subject of political equality. 
 
 That the public generally had really begun to con- 
 sider the question of woman's rights, is indicated by 
 the careful exclusion of women from the franchise 
 under the Reform Act of 1832. "Male persons" were 
 carefully designated as constituting the electorate 
 instead of, as previously, "persons." John Stuart 
 Mill, elected to Parliament in 1856, was the first to 
 bring the matter before the body. Since that time, Iby 
 successive acts, Englishwomen have secured the vote 
 at municipal elections, county council elections and 
 parish and district council elections. In 1907, they 
 were made eligible for the offices of mayor, alderman, 
 and county and town councilors. At present, the 
 women of England lack only parliamentary suffrage. 
 
 Almost parallel with the struggle for political equal- 
 ity in Great Britain has been that in the United States, 
 The agitation began here in 1828 with the visit of 
 
POLITICAL STATUS OF WOMEN 259 
 
 a Scotch woman, — Frances Wright, — ^to the United 
 States. The first Woman's Rights Convention, how- 
 ever, was not held until July, 1848, at Seneca Falls, 
 New York. 
 
 The social sanction given to the suffrage movement 
 is not so general in the United States as in Great 
 Britain. Some of the bitterest opponents of the 
 movement are the women themselves. The suffrage 
 is therefore rather limited. Only six of the States 
 have granted equal suffrage to women, — Wyoming 
 1869, Gilorado 1893, Utah 1896, Idaho 1896, Wash- 
 ington 1910, and California 191 1. School suffrage, 
 however, has been granted in the following chronolog- 
 ical order (beginning 1838), by Kentucky, Kansas, 
 Michigan, Minnesota, Colorado, New Hampshire, 
 Oregon, Massachusetts, New York, Vermont, Ne- 
 braska, North and South Dakota, Montana, Arizona, 
 New Jersey, Illinois, Connecticut, Delaware, Wiscon- 
 sin, and Oklahoma. Kansas in 1887 granted women 
 municipal suffrage, while tax paying women are per- 
 mitted to vote on all questions submitted to tax pay- 
 ers in Montana 1887, Louisiana 1898, New York 1901 
 (on local taxation), Michigain 1908 (on local taxa- 
 tion). 
 
 The right to vote has proved an opportunity for men. 
 In the first place it has democratized them. For cen- 
 turies the right to rule was regarded as a divine right, 
 God-given to the few and exercised by them because of 
 this divine favor. Gradually this concept of the 
 divine right of kings waned. Some kings endeavored 
 
260 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 to govern who had apparently been forgotten in the 
 distribution of divine favors. Such men were ap- 
 parently cursed, not blessed. They were weak, 
 vicious, insincere, — should they be allowed to rule 
 simply because they had the "divine right"? Could 
 Divine Authority make such mistakes? Obviously 
 not. 
 
 So the spirit grew until the men who had not been 
 divinely appointed to govern other men decided to 
 govern themselves. Then there was a revolution, — 
 such an event as the inhabitants of the American 
 Colonies witnessed in 1776, — royal prerogatives were 
 overthrown, and a democracy substituted. 
 
 This change from monarchical to democratic rule 
 has not ushered in the millennium, but it has vastly 
 improved the conditions of millions of human beings. 
 The men who vote are matured. They take their 
 places in the councils, and decide the policies of their 
 governments. 
 
 Citizenship raises individual standards because with 
 privileges come responsibilities, — responsibilities which 
 impose a weight of duties and obligations. Democracy 
 has meant for men an opportunity for the expression 
 of opinion. It has opened a way for self development. 
 Likewise it has opened a way for effective work. 
 Social institutions were oppressive: the oppression 
 was relieved; working conditions were impossible; 
 democracy interfered; the vested interests were over- 
 bearing and grasping; they have been curbed; the 
 government of the men by the men has broadened 
 
POLITICAL STATUS OF WOMEN 261 
 
 and deepened the stream of social consciousness and 
 Social Progress. 
 
 Now, another change is coming. The opportunity 
 to express opinions on public questions, — the oppor- 
 tunity to vote, — is demanded by women as well as by 
 men. Where the demand has been granted, women, 
 as active citizens, have found wide opportunities for 
 service. 
 
 The whole field of social legislation is open to women. 
 Children need protection; prospective mothers must 
 not be physically overtaxed by factory work; babies 
 require pure milk; adults need unadulterated food; 
 streets must be clean ; water must be pure ; sweatshops 
 need inspection, and the City Fathers need more care- 
 ful watching. The house of the body politic needs 
 cleaning and setting to rights. There are innumer- 
 able opportunities all through society for effective 
 social work, — work which must finally be done by 
 women. In the home, they have proved, by centuries 
 of conclusive experiments, that they understand best 
 the methods of keeping things clean and tidy; that 
 they know most intimately the true needs of the human 
 being. 
 
 Here then is a great field for women in politics. 
 Men have built the house. They have constructed 
 modern cooperative society. To be sure, women have 
 helped, — ^but the chief work has been done by the 
 men. Now the time has come when people are really 
 to live in the splendid mansion. Men have built it, 
 but they have left it littered with the inevitable accumu- 
 
262 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 lation of trash and rubbish. They are still pushing 
 onward, and outward, planning and building. It is 
 the women who realize the needs of a social house- 
 cleaning, — ^who are demanding an opportunity for real 
 social service in the state. 
 
 Democracy has educated and matured men; so it 
 must educate and mature women. Democracy has 
 given men an opportunity to express their individual 
 opinions and preferences in connection with the society 
 of which they are a part; it must perform the same 
 service for women. Furthermore, there is a distinct 
 field open to women, — the field of social legislation, 
 which in the next fifty years will be the battle ground 
 of Social Progress. Women will not revolutionize 
 society with the ballot. Men did not revolutionize 
 society, when they secured the right to vote. Woman's 
 opportunity in this direction is not revolutionary, but 
 distinctively social and educative. 
 
 In the communities where women have been granted 
 suffrage, they have followed this line of action with 
 remarkable persistence. After an analysis of condi- 
 tions in seven localities where women have full suf- 
 frage — Finland, New Zealand, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, 
 Wyoming and Washington, Helen L. Summer con- 
 cludes that Colorado is more typical of American con- 
 ditions than any of the others. She therefore dis- 
 cusses the Colorado situation in great detail. 
 
 The women of Colorado have had the privilege of 
 voting since 1894, so that an analysis )jf the results of 
 suffrage in Colorado should prove as conclusively as 
 
POLITICAL STATUS OF WOMEN 263 
 
 any analogy can prove, what opportunities American 
 women have through the franchise. Miss Summer 
 concludes from her scientific and dispassionate study 
 of suffrage in Colorado that — ^ 
 
 1. The better educated women have voted in 
 larger proportions than the less educated 
 women. 
 
 2. Certain advanced types of Legislation have 
 been secured. 
 
 a. For the protection of women and 
 children. ' ' 
 
 b. For social reform. 
 
 c. For municipal reform, 
 
 3. The women of Colorado have been actively 
 engaged in studying economics. 
 
 It seems a very insignificant list of achievements, per- 
 haps, to the enthusiastic propagandist who has faith- 
 fully believed that a few years of equal suffrage would 
 revolutionize a community; but it is a wonderfully 
 optimistic picture of the opportunities for social reform 
 that lie with the women of the United States through 
 the use of the ballot. 
 
 The recent use of the recall by the women of Wash- 
 ington to voice the protest against undesirable condi- 
 tions in municipal government; the election by the 
 women of Denver, Colorado, of Judge Ben B. Lindsey, 
 who was running independently against both political 
 machines, — furnish two dramatic incidents in the 
 
 * "Equal Suffrage," Helen L. Summer, Ph.D., New York, 
 Harper & Bros., 1909, Chapters VI and VII. 
 
264 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 work of women at the polls. In Washington unde- 
 sirable men were holding office; in Colorado a desir- 
 able man was running for office against fearful odds. 
 In both cases the votes of women turned the tide for 
 democracyi 
 
 These illustrations are striking, but incidental. It 
 is the long years of persistent, tireless effort which 
 really count in the movement for Social Progress. 
 Such persistence and tirelessness has characterized 
 the efforts of the women, first, in securing the ballot, 
 then in exercising it for social betterment. ' 
 
 The franchise will give to all women the -right to 
 vote and hence the responsibility, when voting, of 
 making wise decisions. The amount of time con- 
 sumed each year in voting — ^half an hour or at most 
 an hour for each election — is infinitesimally small com- 
 pared with the far-reaching results which women may 
 secure through the wise use of the franchise. If 
 women hold their present ideals of social justice and 
 civic standards, and maintain them through their 
 exercise of the franchise, they may do in the United 
 States what they have done in New Zealand, — force 
 both political parties to nominate men of spotless 
 reputation, and to conduct their administration in such 
 a manner that social well-being is assured. 
 
 Citizenship, wisely exercised, presents one of the 
 chief opportunities open to American women. The field 
 is extensive and largely untried. In the states which 
 have granted equal suffrage, there is already some 
 indication of the power of women in political activity. 
 
CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 WOMAN, AN ORGANIC SOCIAL FACTOR 
 
 This study began with a description of woman as 
 an individual being with qualities, talents, and possi- 
 bilities. The establishment of this fundamental fact 
 immediately involves another concept of even greater 
 importance than the first, — that is, if woman is an 
 independent, capable being, she necessarily assumes a 
 place in the social structure. Woman is therefore not 
 only, an individual, but she is also an organic part of 
 a society, which in a measure, depends for its existence 
 upon her contribution to the future. 
 
 Women have capacity; in the future they will have 
 wider opportunities for the development of this 
 capacity; hence, upon them devolves certain respon- 
 sibilities for racial and social advance. 
 
 Racially, "woman is nature's supreme instrument 
 of the future." They not only play a large part in the 
 selection of fathers for their children, but, in addition 
 they bear the future generation in their own bodies. 
 "I selected my wife," says the man, proudly, "and then 
 I married her." If he stated the matter accurately he 
 must say, "We selected each other, my wife and I, and 
 then we were married." In any case the woman has 
 a partial selective choice, so that her decision, as well 
 
 26s 
 
266 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 as that of her husband, determines who shall be the 
 parents of the new generation. Selection is a basic 
 factor in progress. No single element in the national 
 life goes so far in determining the characteristics of 
 the future. 
 
 In a primitive society, where a high birth rate must 
 be maintained to offset the high death rate due to war, 
 pestilence and famine, all of the emphasis is laid on 
 bearing children. In such a society, large families 
 are looked upon as proofs of exalted patriotism, even 
 though the unfortunate 'victims, women and children 
 alike, are destroyed by the million in the process. But 
 society has advanced to the point of demanding quality 
 before quantity. "It is far more essential," main- 
 tains the modern philosopher, "that we bring up a few 
 children well, than that we bring into the world a great 
 mass of humanity to maintain a precarious existence, 
 or to die at an early age." It is not enough that 
 parents mate wisely: something more is demanded 
 than that children be well born. To be sure, both of 
 these things are essential and fundamental, but wise 
 mating and good birth cannot be converted into 
 efficiency and inspiration in the absence of able train- 
 ing. Besides being well born, children must be well 
 trained, and it is the women who will do the training. 
 
 This is a second social function of the most funda- 
 mental concern to women, — she must not only bear 
 the children but, she must also rear them. In the 
 home their entire training devolves upon the mother; 
 in the schools they are cared for almost exclusively by 
 
WOMAN, AN ORGANIC SOCIAL, FACTOR 267 
 
 women teachers. Abraham Lincoln once said that all 
 that he was or ever hoped to be he owed to his mother. 
 Aside from any native capacity which he may have 
 derived from his father, Lincoln unquestionably owed 
 what he was to his mother. 
 
 In so far, therefore, as the child is shaped by the 
 environment of the first fourteen years of life, he is 
 shaped largely, sometimes altogether, by his mother 
 and his teachers. To-day men are doing the work 
 for which the women of the last generation prepared 
 them. While they are building bridges, and cities, 
 the women are at work on human clay, which will be 
 moulded into the bridge- and city-builders of the future. 
 
 The preservation of the home is one of the chief 
 ideals of the Anglo-Saxons. Among them the home 
 is still the central unit of society, having functions to 
 perform for which no other social institution has thus 
 far been devised. Women are the rulers of the home, 
 where they minister to the most intimate personal 
 wants of the family. 
 
 Then too, women are the spenders, — ^the final arbi- 
 ters of national consumption. By their decision they 
 determine whether the manufacturer shall produce oat- 
 meal or corn flakes; whether beans shall be baked at 
 home or canned in a factory ; whether the manufacture 
 of clothing shall be carried forward in vile tenements, 
 or in sanitary establishments. As spenders, women 
 hold the whip hand of the industrial world. Did they 
 choose to organize their demands and make them felt 
 through judicious spending, they could eliminate food 
 
268 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 adulteration and sweated labor, raise the standard of / 
 quality of all manufactured products, and determine 
 the future status of American industry. 
 
 Thus women hold a strategic position in society. By 
 the choice of parents; by the bearing and rearing of 
 the children ; by child training at home and in school ; 
 by their control of the central social unit, the home; 
 and by their control of the purse-strings of the nation, 
 women may play a leading role in the drama of Social 
 Progress. That they have already availed themselves 
 of some of their opportunities is obvious; that they 
 will have even more extended opportunities in the 
 future is equally certain. Woman is an organic social 
 force of the first magnitude. As such, she must be 
 reckoned with, since, with the awakening to the pos- 
 sibilities of her situation, she will exercise her powers 
 to reshape civilized society. 
 
 In addition to her strictly social functions, woman 
 will each year take a greater share in industry. Cer- 
 tain industrial functions requiring dexterity and per- 
 severance are hers of right. Women will play a part 
 in industry, a part of growing importance. Here, as 
 well as in the social field, they constitute a vital, organic 
 factor. Here, as there, women will help to shape the 
 future. 
 
 There is one other field open for wompn. They 
 will, they must be the house-cleaners of civilization. 
 This house cleaning, which, in modern parlance, is 
 called "Social Work," will fall primarily to the lot of 
 women. 
 
WOMAN, AN ORGANIC SOCIAL FACTOR 269 
 
 How helpless is a man in the home when the women 
 are away! The dishes pile up; litter accumulates; 
 neatness and order disappear. With the woman 
 return order and cleanliness! Houselseeping has 
 begTjn again. 
 
 Genius has been defined as "the capacity for taking 
 infinite pains." If the definition holds, woman is a 
 genius, for she does infinitely well those small things 
 about the house which make up the perfect work of 
 the whole. 
 
 Woman is the housekeeper, and man has abandoned 
 to her that work and betaken himself to the world of 
 affairs, which he has proceeded to clutter up with odds 
 and ends of every description. Graft lies about, thick 
 as dust; iniquitous statutes clog the wheels of prog- 
 ress; indifference collects everywhere. Bad water, 
 adulterated food, child labor, antiquated penal codes, 
 vice and debauchery in public affairs, — all pay eloquent 
 tribute to the unrestricted masculine dominance of 
 social institutions. The world of affairs is in obvious 
 need of a thorough house cleaning.^ 
 
 Here is an apparent and urgent need for the hand 
 of woman. The city and state, as well as the home, 
 need cleaning. In this field, too, woman is advancing 
 to the front and assuming control. Through phil- 
 anthropy, clubs, civic organizations, and political 
 activity, women have begun a national house cleaning, 
 again demonstrating their integral connection with 
 Social Progress. If initiation is primarily a function 
 of men, completion seems to be an equally important 
 
270 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 function of women. Who shall say that the harrow 
 and the seeder are less essential than the plough? 
 
 Whether she take her part in social affairs as an 
 individual, or as one unit in a great cooperating group, 
 woman is an organic element in social advance. 
 Racially, socially, individually, and politically she plays 
 a part which is peculiarly her own, — a part upon which 
 the nation is intimately dependent for its future citi- 
 zens and its future society. 
 
CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 WOMEN AND THE FUTURE 
 
 In the future, as in the present, woman will be an 
 integral factor in Social Progress, securing more in- 
 fluence and power with each succeeding generation. 
 But neither influence nor power will be given her — she 
 must take it. You cannot teach a child, — the child 
 must learn ; no more can you free a slave, — the slave 
 must free himself. So with woman, — she must herself 
 learn what her rights are, and must then demand them 
 in no uncertain terms. Have women a right to organ- 
 ize clubs and absent themselves from home? Have 
 they a right to vote? Should they enter industry? 
 Should they play a part in the constructive life of the 
 nation? Neither organization, franchise, industrial 
 positions or constructive social life will be thrust upon 
 women. If they want these things, they must get 
 them. 
 
 And women are getting them. Slowly the realiza- 
 tion of their independence has dawned upon them. 
 Uncertainly at first, then more firmly and boldly they 
 have asserted their rights. We are now in a transition 
 stage. 
 
 "The place of woman," cries the opponent of her 
 advance, "is in the home." 
 
 271 
 
2/2 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 "Why, may we ask?" 
 
 "Well, because she has always been there." 
 
 Yes, but now she is going to leave it, at least for a 
 portion of her time. The pulsing, living world calls 
 her. Already the father, brother and husband have 
 heeded the call and left the home. One by one the 
 home industries have followed them, until woman, 
 stripped of her former home responsibilities, stands on 
 the threshold of a new life in which, "The past mater- 
 ial conditions of life have gone forever ; no will of man 
 can recall them, but this is our demand: We demand 
 that, in that strange new world that is arising alike 
 upon man and woman, where nothing is as it was and 
 all things are assuming new shapes and relations, that 
 in this new world, we also shall have our share of 
 honored and socially useful human toil. . . . We 
 demand nothing more than this, and we will take 
 nothing less. This is our WOMAN'S RIGHT !"» 
 
 Certain principles regarding woman's future activ- 
 ity, may, however, be laid down as determined. 
 Among the first of these is the fundamental law of 
 democratic society that there are no rights without 
 duties ; that only the slave is free to do as he will ; that 
 freedom carries with it the constant responsibility of 
 choice. Woman's emancipation must come, but with 
 it will come also the burden of deciding what she shall 
 do with her newly acquired liberty, which, cannot, 
 under any interpretation, be construed into license. 
 
 ^ "Woman and Labor," Olive Schreiner, New York, F. A, 
 Stokes Co., 191 1, p. 65. 
 
WOMEN AND THE FUTURE 273 
 
 Women must have freedom, but they must, with the 
 privileges of freedom, accept also its duties. 
 
 That women recognize the exigencies of the matter, 
 that they are alive to the importance of the situation, 
 all of the data at hand would indicate. College 
 trained, or trained by college women, the educated 
 girls of the new generation are coming forward and 
 facing the problems with which they are confronted. 
 The study of eugenics has taught them that racially 
 the future rests mainly upon their shoulders ; that they 
 must select, and that, on their selection, the progress 
 of the race depends. They are learning, scientifically, 
 the problems of domestic science; they have gained 
 wisdom in spending as an essential element in their 
 training. The unit of organized society — the home 
 — is theirs to reconstruct or to consign to oblivion. 
 They see the problem clearly in the light of modern 
 scientific knowledge, and are hastening to master it. 
 These women are likewise assuming their educational 
 responsibilities. In the home as well as in the school, 
 they are training children for citizenship; for civic 
 endeavor; for industrial activity; for fundamental 
 right thinking; for the kind of manhood and woman- 
 hood which alone constitute the essence of the Republic. 
 
 Already, the women of America are accomplishing 
 these things. To achieve their ends, — ^to fit them- 
 selves and the future for the work of the world, these 
 pioneers are organizing; preempting the ballot with 
 which to make their demands emphatic, and then de- 
 claring, before the dying generation, that the women 
 18 
 
274 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 of the new generation will be free, — free through their 
 own efforts. 
 
 The thinking women of the present generation have 
 agreed on emancipation. The stand is eminently 
 justifiable because, if the women of the future are to be 
 worthy mothers of noble children, and, if they are to 
 participate in, social movements, they must have,: — 
 
 1. Effective self development, 
 
 2. Ability and freedom to choose life activities. 
 
 3. A wise concept of the use of leisure time. 
 
 Effective self development should include a strong 
 body, a good training in physiology and hygiene, and 
 a rounded ability to take a place in the world and fill 
 it well. The city woman's physical disability is the 
 culmination of misdirected training, begun early in 
 youth. There is no justification for denying to girls 
 the physical development provided for boys ; for mak- 
 ing them weaklings before the age when there is any 
 physical differentiation due to sex development. 
 
 Back of the physical training which makes the girl 
 of ten the equal, physically, of her brother of ten, 
 should be a thorough education in hygiene and physi- 
 ology. The effects of alcohol and tobacco are of little 
 interest to a girl of ten, but the construction of her body 
 and the proper care of it are of exceedingly great 
 value to her; hence she should secure self knowledge 
 as an integral part of her education. 
 
 Every normal being should engage in some form of 
 constructive occupation. The woman is no exception, 
 
WOMEN AND THE FUTURE 275 
 
 and her education should in the future include not 
 only effective physical development and an adequate 
 training in self knowledge, but also a training that will 
 enable her to fill some position in life. Life in the 
 home should develop sympathy and a desire for co- 
 operation ; education should furnish a basis for a broad 
 viewpoint; and occupation should afford an oppor- 
 tunity for the development of character. 
 
 Home life is narrowing and unless supplemented by 
 education leads to life in "social sets" so disastrous 
 to the development of individuality. Even education 
 is not effective in the development of character unless 
 it is applied in the form of some positive occupation. 
 It is upon this question of occupation that it is neces- 
 sary to lay particular emphasis, because the impression 
 prevails among a group of present-day American 
 women that if their husbands are able to earn enough 
 to support them in idleness it is neither necessary nor 
 fitting for them to engage in any form of occupation. 
 There could be no more dangerous or disastrous 
 fallacy. 
 
 Generally speaking, it is true that "Satan finds some 
 mischief still for idle hands to do," and the person who 
 is chronically idle may well become chronically mis- 
 chievous. Each life should represent some achieve- 
 ment. Character makes for achievement ; achievement 
 makes for character. It is unnecessary to emphasize 
 the fact that physical faculties decay with disuse. The 
 faculties which make up character fall in the same 
 category. If they are used, they develop; if they are 
 
276 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 unused, they decay. Occupation furnishes the readiest 
 use of the faculties composing character, and the test 
 of effectiveness is their use in achievement 
 
 Therefore, of all of the training which should make 
 up the education of the women of the future, none is 
 so important as the training which will enable her to 
 choose her occupation wisely. Some occupation she 
 should have, the nature of which can be determined 
 only by her special aptitudes. 
 
 There are two alternative occupations open to 
 women, — first, motherhood, and second, some form of. 
 constructive pursuit, usually industrial. Neither occu- 
 pation is exclusive of the other and most women should^ 
 at different periods of their lives, engage in both of 
 them. Motherhood, whether viewed from the stand- 
 point of society or of the woman personally, is by far 
 the more important occupation of the two. As mother- 
 hood necessarily implies bearing children, it implies 
 rearing them as well. It is far more important for a 
 woman to bear two children and bring them up well 
 than to bear ten children and let them grow like 
 Topsy. 
 
 But child bearing should be stringently limited to 
 women who possess good health and an income suflB- 
 cient to rear a family properly. Motherhood should 
 be prohibited to any woman suffering from a trans- 
 missible physical defect, like feeble-mindedness, epil- 
 epsy or syphilis. Neither should a chronic pauper be 
 permitted to bring into the world children for whom 
 there is no apparent means of support. Thus, the 
 
WOMEN AND THE FUTURE 277 
 
 woman who chooses motherhood should be physically 
 fitted to bear children, and mentally and financially 
 capable of rearing them. 
 
 Both heredity and environment, however, are de- 
 pendent upon the father as well as the mother. Per- 
 haps the most important decision which a woman must 
 make prior to motherhood is involved in her choice of 
 a husband. Every effort is bent toward the training 
 of men for the careful selection of an occupation, and 
 the successful pursuit of it, but for the girl in the choice 
 of a father for her children, no training whatever is 
 provided, not even in the literature which is placed in 
 her hands during her early years. The woman of the 
 future must understand first that the choice is impor- 
 tant; and secoiM, that the three chief elements which 
 should determine choice are, — ^good physical health, 
 ability and compatibility. 
 
 It seems scarcely necessary to point to the fact that 
 education, viewpoint and aims in life make up the sub- 
 stance of the compatibility which is such a vital factor 
 in the well organized home. 
 
 Motherhood, the first alternative occupation for 
 women, should be accepted by women as a duty due to 
 society, the fulfillment of which should be a responsi- 
 bility felt by all, particularly by the women best fitted, 
 because of ability and income, to rear the children of 
 the next generation. 
 
 The world of constructive activity presents the sec- 
 ond alternative occupation open to women. Arts and 
 crafts originated with women and were at one time 
 
278 WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 performed by them. Never was industry calling more 
 lou^dly for efficiency than it calls today and it makes its 
 call particularly effective because the increasing spec- 
 ializatioif of the past few decades has afforded scores 
 of openings in newly developing industries. These 
 positions furnish a ready outlet for the energies and 
 capacities of the woman who expects to marry, but 
 who finds two or three unoccupied years between her 
 and matrimony. 
 
 If compatibility in the home is to be assured, every 
 woman should, before she marries, or immediately 
 afterward, \^come in contact with the active world, 
 because of the breadth of view which such a con- 
 tact affords. Perfect sympathy in the home can 
 be assured only when the woman understands the 
 problems which confront her husband, and she can 
 understand them intelligently only after some con- 
 tact with the world of affairs. The woman who 
 spends her life in the same "social set" atrophies. 
 Furthermore, society needs the active, efficient cooper- 
 ation of every member if its highest welfare is to be 
 assured. 
 
 There are five groups of women who should always 
 engage in some form of constructive occupation — 
 first, girls between the end of their schooling and their 
 marriage. The average girl stops school at fifteen or 
 sixteen and the average age of marriage for a woman 
 is twenty-three or twenty-four. She should employ 
 the intervening eight years productively. As there is 
 little profitable work in the home for such a girl, the 
 
WOMEN AND THE FUTURE 279 
 
 years should be filled in with some form of industrial 
 occupation. 
 
 Second — women who are suffering from any trans- 
 missible disease or defect should be denied absolutely 
 the privileges of motherhood, and should, therefore, 
 spend their adult lives in some form of occupation. 
 
 In the third place, women who are geniuses, — ^per- 
 haps there is one in ten thousand, — ^the social value of 
 whose careers would be lessened by motherhood, 
 should continue their chosen vocation. Women of 
 such rare ability are, however, peculiarly fitted for 
 motherhood and they should weigh carefully the 
 social value of their motherhood against the social 
 value of their career. In most cases the balance would 
 undoubtedly result in the motherhood plus the career. 
 
 Fourth, that large group of young wives who, dur- 
 ing the first two or three years of wifehood have no 
 children, should by all means begin or continue some 
 productive occupations, principally, a? Dr. Patten has 
 pointed out, because of the needed addition to the 
 husband's income, but also for self development. 
 
 In the fifth place, able-bodied women who in middle 
 life send their last child to college and have no exact- 
 ing duties in the home, should take up some occupation 
 and keep pace with the world. 
 
 "That Mary is no longer merely the down quilt about 
 John's manly form when he comes home cold and tired 
 is partly because 'he needs her in his business' as a 
 citizen. Society has become aware of duties which 
 women can perform better than men. The race-faijiily 
 
28o WOMAN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 
 
 stands in as great need of feminine as of masculine 
 judgment and action. Mother's table-talk is far more 
 important than mother's doughnuts and pies. Mother 
 must chaperon her daughters and keep step with her 
 sons, whether their stockings are darned or not."^ 
 
 The girl before marriage, the defective woman, 
 geniuses, young wives, and women who have raised 
 families, should all take a part in the world of occupa- 
 tion and should all be so trained that when they do 
 take such a position, their work may be efficient. 
 
 The future calls the women of the United States to 
 participate in the efforts to secure Social Progress. 
 With capacity, training and opportunity, they may play 
 a unique part in the development of the new civiliza- 
 tion. As society reshapes its activities, women must 
 choose "between finding new forms of labor or sinking 
 slowly into a condition of more or less complete and 
 passive sex-parasitism."^ That they are choosing the 
 "new forms of labor" is evinced on every hand by the 
 broadening field of woman's activity. 
 
 From every quarter come voices of encouragement 
 and hope. "Morgan has remarked that the fall of 
 classic civilizations was due to the failure to develop 
 women. . . . The hope of our future civilization lies 
 in the development of equal freedom of both the 
 masculine and feminine elements in life."* 
 
 '"Our House in Order," J. E. Robb, Outlook, June 18, 1910, 
 P- 355- 
 
 = "Woman and Labor," Olive Schreiner, New York, F. A. 
 Stokes Co., 191 1, p. 7S- 
 
 •"Man and Woman," H. Ellis, London, W. Scott, 1897, p. 396. 
 
WOMEN AND THE FUTURE 281 
 
 Yet "throughout all human history woman has been 
 powerfully discriminated against and held down by 
 custom, law, literature and public opinion."^ How 
 .encouraging then are the words of G. Stanley Hall, 
 "Biologic psychology already dreams of a new phil- 
 osophy of sex which places the wife and mother at 
 the heart of a new world and makes her the object of 
 a new religion."^ 
 
 The Nineteenth Century has been described as 
 "Woman's Century." In the Twentieth, "the dawn 
 is breaking for womanhood and therefore for all man- 
 kind,"' and men and women are cooperating for the 
 advancement of society. 
 
 If woman is to mean all that she may well mean in 
 the future, she must realize that occupation, achieve- 
 ment and character are a triune which complement 
 each other and make for the highest and best in life. 
 She must realize her own possibilities and see in them 
 a measure of the potentiaUty which is expressing itself 
 in Social Evolution and Progress. 
 
 ' "Pure Sociology," Lester F. Ward, New York, The Macmillan 
 Co., 1903, p. 377- 
 
 '"Adolescence," G. Stanley Hall, New York, D. Appleton & 
 Co., 1908, Vol. II, p. 646. 
 
 •"Woman and Womanhood," C. W. Saleeby, New York, 
 Kennerley, 191 1, p. 392. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Ability t 
 
 Inheritance of, 156-159. 
 Altruism : 
 
 In woman, 25-26. 
 American Woman : 
 
 Choices ojE, 137-139. 
 
 Dilemma of, V. 
 
 Opportunities of, 138-144. 
 
 Position of, I. 
 
 Child Training: 
 
 In the home, 196-204. 
 College Education : 
 
 For women, 106-110. 
 College Women : 
 
 Activities of, 273-274. 
 
 In social work, 244-247. 
 Consumer : 
 
 Power of, 174-176. 
 Consumer's League: 
 
 Possibilities of, 175-176. 
 Co-operation : 
 
 Development in Education, 
 214-215. 
 
 Effect on the home, 42-44. 
 
 On industry, 42-44. 
 
 Opportunity o^ women for, 
 253-255. 
 
 Power of, 214-215. 
 Custom : 
 
 In the United States, 56. 
 
 Defect : 
 
 Inheritance of, 156-159. 
 Diet: 
 
 Elements of, 179-181. 
 Domestic Revolution: 
 
 Effect on the home, 42-44. 
 Domestic Science: 
 
 Character of, 177-178. 
 
 Factors in, 178-180. 
 Domestic Servants: 
 
 Demands on, 189-193. 
 
 Number and character of, 
 187-189. 
 
 Position of, 192-195. 
 
 Domestic System ; 
 And apprenticeship, 35-36. 
 Character of, 34-37. 
 Character of home under, 47. 
 In England, 35-36. 
 In United States, 36-37. 
 Replacement of, 40-41. 
 
 Education : 
 
 Character of, 205-210. 
 
 For Professions, 115-121. 
 
 Modern, 205-210. 
 
 School training, 205-210. 
 Environment : 
 
 Effect on the Child, 266-267. 
 Equal Suffrage: 
 
 Advantage of, 262-264. 
 
 History of developmrait, 258- 
 261. 
 
 Results, 262-263. 
 
 Factory System: 
 
 Effect on woman's work, 52- 
 53. 
 Fashion : 
 
 Result of tradition, 60-63. 
 Female : 
 
 Biologic dominance of, 13-15. 
 
 Primary nature of, 12-14. 
 
 Selective power of, 164-167. 
 Food values, 181-184. 
 
 Girls : 
 College education of, 106-110. 
 Education of, 90-96. 
 
 Ideal, 99-101 ; 104-105. 
 
 Problems in, 99-104. 
 Proper education for, 90-95. 
 
 Heredity : 
 
 New theory of, 147-150. 
 Home: 
 
 And child training, 196-199. 
 
 Character of modern, 45-47. 
 
 Effects of domestic revolu- 
 tion, 42-4. 
 
 282 
 
INDEX 
 
 283 
 
 Loss of economic functions, 
 
 44-46. 
 New basis ior, 47-48. 
 Hygiene : 
 
 Training in, 93-94. 
 
 Individual: 
 
 And the social group, 3. 
 
 Development, 2. 
 Industrial Revolution: 
 
 And division of labor, 38-39. 
 
 Cause of, 37-39 
 
 Effects of: 
 
 On the home, 40-41. 
 On production, 37-38. 
 Industry : 
 
 And woman's work, 218-219. 
 
 Standardization of, 218-219. 
 
 Leisure : 
 
 Effects on work, 49-50. 
 
 For modem women, S3-SS- 
 
 Meaning of, 49. 
 Life: 
 
 Female, 1 2- 14. 
 
 Origin of, 12-14. 
 
 Man and Woman: 
 Comparison of, 7-9. 
 Division of labor, between^ 
 
 3S. 
 
 Methods of reasoning, 23-24. 
 
 Physical capacity, 18-19. 
 
 Power of, 24-25. 
 
 Primitive society, 35. 
 
 Selective power of, 167-170. 
 
 Thought in, 22-23. 
 
 Training of, 89-91. 
 
 Variations in, 16. 
 Manhattan Trade School: 
 
 Success of, 126-127. 
 Man's sphere. III. 
 Marriage : 
 
 And propagation, 7S-79. 
 
 Financial side of, 84. 
 
 Husband hunting, 81-82. 
 
 Practical side of, 79-80. 
 
 Prerequisites, 82-83. 
 
 Trade, nature of, 78-82. 
 Effects on women, 85-87. 
 
 Masculine Dominance, 5-7. 
 
 In literature, 75-77. 
 
 Primitive society, 69-72. 
 
 Prostitution, 72-75. 
 
 Tradition of, 75-77. 
 Morality : 
 
 Double standard of, 71-73; 
 1 1 3-1 14. 
 Motherhood : 
 
 As an occupation, 276-277. 
 Mother's helpers, 194-195. 
 
 Natural selection, 149-152. 
 
 Occupations : 
 
 New alignment of, 128-130. 
 Opportunity : 
 
 As a basis for achievement, 
 29-31. 
 
 Parenthood : 
 
 Duties of, 199-203. 
 
 Education for, 169-170. 
 
 Importance of, 169-170. 
 Philanthropy : 
 
 Problems of, 242-244. 
 Progress : 
 
 Education as an element in, 
 215-216. 
 Prostitution : 
 
 Historically, 73-74. 
 
 In modern society, 74. 
 Puritanism : 
 
 In the American Colonies, 
 138-140. 
 
 In early Rome, 130-132. 
 
 Race: 
 
 Type, 11-12; 14-16. 
 
 Woman and, 11-12; 14-16. 
 Religion : 
 
 And woman's political status, 
 256^257. 
 Rome: 
 
 Women in, 130-136. 
 Selection : 
 
 Artificial, 151-154. 
 
 The female as a factor in, 
 164-167. 
 
284 
 
 INDEX 
 
 In human society, 154-158. 
 Importance of, 147-150; 276- 
 
 277. 
 Reversed, 158-159. 
 And sexual attraction, 168. 
 Woman as a factor in, 161 
 
 165. 
 
 Servant Problem: 
 
 Character of, 189-192. 
 Sex Education: 
 
 Necessity for, 93-94; 103- 
 105. 
 Social Traditions : 
 
 Effect on Women, 57-62. 
 Social Work: 
 
 College women in, 244-247. 
 
 Proportions of n^en and 
 women in, 244-246. 
 Spending : 
 
 Education for, 174-176. 
 
 A new function for women, 
 
 172-174- 
 Sympathy : 
 In woman, 24-25, 
 
 Tradition : 
 
 Effects on women, 63-67. 
 Religious, 63-67. 
 
 Woman : 
 
 Achievement, 29-31. 
 Capacity for, 29-31, 33, 269- 
 
 270. 
 Capacity, biologic, 10-14. 
 Characteristics of, i. 
 College education, 1 06-1 10. 
 Conservatism of, 16. 
 Domestic service for, 187- 
 
 189. 
 In early Rome, 129-132. 
 
 Public .life of, I33-I3S- 
 Effect of idleness on, 144 
 
 146. 
 Endurance of, 20-21. 
 Evolutionary position of, 16 
 , '7- 
 And fashion, 60-63. 
 And the future, 280-281. 
 An individual, 3. 
 
 Industrial activities of, 278- 
 
 280. 
 Industrial work of: 
 
 Prerequisites, 238. 
 In industry, historically, 123- 
 
 124. 
 In modern industry, 123,125, 
 
 217-224. 
 In primitive industry, 35. 
 Insight of, 25-27. 
 Inspirational power of, 26-28. 
 Intellectual capacity of, 19, 
 
 22, 24. 
 Intellectualization of, 109- 
 
 112. 
 Longevity of, 20-21. 
 And marriage, 79-85. 
 Moral Subjection, 71-74. 
 Needs of, 274-276. 
 And the new generation, 11. 
 New leisure for, 53-55. 
 Occupations before, 276-279. 
 Opportunity of, 21-23, 31-33. 
 
 In education, 205-216. 
 
 In the home, 196-204. 
 
 In modern industry, 225- 
 230. 
 
 In organization, 246-250. 
 
 Modern society, 267, 269. 
 
 Philanthropy, 241-247. 
 
 Social legislation, 26r=s6^. 
 
 In specific employments, 
 231,239. 
 
 As spenders, 1 71-176. 
 Physical capacity of, 18-19. 
 Place of : 
 
 The home, II. 
 Political status of, 256-263. 
 Power in the future, 269,270, 
 
 280-281. 
 Real nature of, 85. 
 Sacrifice of wives, 69-70. 
 School training of, 97-103. 
 Selective power of, 162-170. 
 Social positions : 
 
 Effects of religion on, 64- 
 66. 
 
INDEX 
 
 285 
 
 And social progress, 280-281C 
 Specialization of, 14-16. 
 Sphere of, 70-73. 
 Subjection of, 4-6. 
 
 Child marriage, 70-71. 
 
 Home training, 88-93. 
 Subserviency to man, 76-77, 
 Sympathy of, 24-25. 
 Traditional status of, 66-67. 
 Tradition of obedience, 57- 
 
 S8. 
 Training of; 
 
 For professions, 1 1 s-i 3 1 . 
 Unskilled status of, 125-126. 
 Work of: 
 
 Domestic system, 52. 
 Primitive society, 51-52. 
 Vitality of, 20-21. 
 Woman's College: 
 Advantages of, 112-114. 
 Development of, 107-111. 
 Woman's sphere. III. 
 Women's Organizations: 
 Opportunities of, 250-254. 
 
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