she is needed for the treble and alto parts. Needed by whom?
Needed by man? But who gave man the right to set up his needs as
the law of woman's life? If man needs treble and alto, I hope he
may get them. He has the undoubted right to sing both parts to
suit his own fancy, or to hire others to do it for him. Man needs
buttons on his shirts, and clean linen, but for the life of me I
cannot see why that need defines a woman's duty in any respect.
Let him do his own washing, and sew on his own buttons. Suppose a
woman should need to have hooks and eyes sewed upon her dress, as
some of them do, sometimes, after taking a very long breath, would
that determine it to be man's duty to sew them on? "It is a poor
rule that will not work both ways." This is one of the illustrations of
man's selfishness--that he sets up his needs as the rule by which the
rights of one-half of the human race are to be determined.
This same selfishness of man will demand that I reconsider this
talk, and will accuse me of sophistry. It will declare that I do
not state the case fairly. It will say that woman needs money with
which to buy her dresses and procure her food, and strong hands to
labor for her and protect her, and that these needs do indeed
define man's duty with respect to her. But I place all this on the
ground of gallantry and humanity. Of course, we are all very glad
to do these things, you know,--we who have human feelings--but
woman has no right to them, based upon her need--particularly if
she be a woman who insists, as I do, upon her indefeasible right
to sing bass. I know that it helps things along for a woman to
look after a man's linen and buttons, and do his fine work
generally, because she seems to have a kind of natural knack at
the business. I am aware that it is exceedingly pleasant to hear a
woman sing treble, if she sings it well, but I am talking, be it
remembered, of woman's right to sing bass. Let us stick to the
question.
The enemies of this highest among the rights of woman are fond of
alluding to the fact that only here and there a woman can be found
who wishes to avail herself of her right, and practically to enter
upon the work of singing bass. The large majority of women prefer
to sing the soprano, while a few, of moderate views, adopt alto as
a kind of compromise. But what has this fact to do with the matter
of right in the premises? Most people prefer beef-steak without
onions, but I never knew that fact to be brought forward as an
argument against the right of a man to eat it with onions. It is
possible, indeed, that if people were more accustomed to eating
beef-steak with onions, or those savory vegetables were less
objectionable in their style of perfume, there would be a majority
in favor of the associated luxuries. We must remember, too, in
considering this aspect of the question, that woman is, to a
certain extent, a creature of whims. (She is exceedingly apt to
adopt a practice because it is fashionable.) If it were
fashionable for woman to sing bass, how long would it be before
the lower tones would find full development? And how long would it
be before the men themselves would repeat those words of the
immortal bard:--
"Her voice was ever soft,
Gentle and _low_,--An excellent thing in woman"?
After all, this sort of argument against woman's right to sing
bass answers itself. If the preference of women generally for the
soprano and alto be a good reason for their confining themselves
to the performance of those parts, then a change of preference
would be a valid reason for their leaving them. If individual
right goes with general preference, then the pillars of the
universe are uprooted, or we have no pillars worth mentioning. I
suppose that women generally prefer in-door to out-of-door
employments--labor that draws less upon muscle, and more upon
ingenuity and delicate-fingered facility; but that settles nothing
as to their right to engage in muscular toils in the open air. The
German peasant-woman has labored out-of-doors for many generations.
The result has been the gradual approach to each other of her hips
and shoulders, the extinguishment of that portion of her person known
as the waist, and some noticeable flatness over the cerebral organs;
but the German peasant-woman has her right, and that is worth any
sacrifice, you know. If she prefers hoeing cabbages to spinning flax,
who shall hinder her? If all women should prefer hoeing cabbages to
spinning flax, or any variety of yarn, who shall hinder them? So far
as man is concerned, woman has a right to grow her shoulders just as
near her hips, and wear a head as flat as she pleases. In short, the
general preference of women with respect to any thing decides no
question of individual right, whatever.
I will not admit that the general preference of women for private
life imposes any obligation upon any woman to abstain from public
life, or affects in any way her right to enter upon public life. I
am aware that one would not like to have one's wife or sister an
opera-singer, or a public dancer, or a preacher, or a doctor in
general practice, or a circus-rider, or a popular lecturer, or an
actress; but I am talking about the question of right. Most women
would shrink from war--from its fatigues, its dangers, its bloody
strife; but Joan of Arc asserted her right to go into war; and her
name is engrossed upon the scroll of fame. All women have the same
right to go to war that she had. I confess that I should like to
see a regiment of women six feet high, officered by women, all
dressed in Balmorals illustrating the national colors, marching to
battle in as close order as the peculiarity of their garments would
permit, and accompanied by a corps of cavalry in sidesaddles.
Such an assertion of woman's right would be grand beyond
description. I should not care to live on very intimate terms with
the colonel of the regiment, but I don't know as that has any thing
to do with this question.
I was talking, however, about the right of women to sing bass, and
must go on. It is declared by those who oppose this right that
woman has no natural organs and aptitudes for bass. This is the
strong-point of the enemy, but it amounts to nothing. If woman
fails, apparently, in organs and aptitudes for this part, it only
shows what long years of abuse will accomplish. Let us never
forget in this discussion that woman is only a female man, that
there is no such thing as "sex of soul," and that woman's vocal
organs are built exactly like man's--as much like man's as her
hands and her feet and her head are like his--a little smaller,
perhaps,--that's all. It is a familiar fact, I presume, that the
little colts born of South American dams take to ambling as their
natural step, simply because the men of South America have taught
the fathers and mothers of these colts to amble through uncounted
generations. Now in North America we train horses to trot, and the
consequence is that amblers are scarce, and in most cases have to
be educated to their gait. This is the way in which nature adapts
herself to popular want and popular usage. The large variety of
apples which load our orchards were developed from the insignificant
crab, and the peach was the child of the almond, or the almond of
the peach--I have forgotten which. Now I suppose (with some feeble
doubts about it) that man and woman started exactly together, that
her singing treble better than she does bass results from usage,
and that her singing treble rather than bass was purely a matter of
accident at first. All analogy teaches me that if she had begun on
bass, and the other part had been given to man, we should be hearing
today of Ma'lle Patti, "the charming new baritone," and "the
magnificent basso," Madame Jenny Lind Goldschmidt, while admiring
crowds would toss flowers to Carl Formes, "the unapproachable
soprano," or Mario, "the king of contraltos."
I suppose that those who maintain that woman has no natural organs
and aptitudes for singing bass, would say that she has no natural
organs and aptitudes for boxing and playing at ball. Just because
woman holds her fists the wrong side up, as if she were kneading
bread rather than flesh, it is claimed that she was not made for
the "manly art of self-defence," and from the wholly incompetent
facts that she cannot throw a ball three feet against a common
north-west wind, and is not as fleet as a deer, it is judged that
she has no right to engage in base-ball. But suppose all women had
been accustomed to boxing and playing ball as much as the men have
been; would they not have arrived at corresponding excellence? I
know that as women are now (and they please me exceedingly) they
have not muscle to "hit from the shoulder" with force sufficient
to make them formidable antagonists; and I am aware that they lack
something in the length of limb requisite for the rapid locomotion
of the ball-ground; but they have never had a chance. See what
the washerwomen have done for themselves. They seem to be a
separate race of beings, for they all have large arms, and
shoulders that would do honor to Tom Sayers. I have seen negro
slave women at work in the field, with a muscular development that
would be the envy of a Bowery boy. The washerwoman and the field
slave show what can be done by cultivation. I know that their
style of figure is not quite so attractive as I have seen, and I
know that wherever there is an extraordinary tax upon muscle there
is an extraordinary repression of mind and blunting of the
sensibilities, but it must be remembered that we are talking about
rights, now. I claim and maintain, (I may as well come out with
the whole of it,) that a woman has a right to do any thing she
chooses to do, with perhaps the unimportant exception of becoming
the father of a family.
The truth is that women have never had a fair chance. They can do
any thing they are trained to do. The proper physical culture of
woman, carried on through a competent number of generations, would
develop her beyond all our present conceptions. She would be
likely to arrive at a high condition of muscle and a low condition
of mind, very unlike our present idea of the noblest type of
womanhood; but very possibly our ideals of womanhood are
conventional, or traditional. She has hands, and has a right to
use them; a tongue, and the right to wag it in her own way;
powers corresponding to those of man in all important respects,
and the right to develop and employ them according to her taste
and choice. I deny, to man, the privilege of defining the rights
and duties of woman. A woman is mistress of her own actions and
judge of her own powers and aptitudes; and if any woman thinks
that she can do a man's work better than what society considers
her own, then she has an undeniable right to do it, if she can get
it to do, and is willing to accept the work with the conditions
that attend it.
I am a firm believer in "woman's rights"--especially her right to
do as she pleases. It is possible that, before the law, she is not
in possession of all her rights, but all wrongs in this direction
will be corrected as time progresses. I speak particularly at this
time of her right to sing bass, because it is a representative
right, and covers, as with a lid, a whole chest full of others.
Yet while I claim this right, I confess that I should not care to
see it exercised to any great extent, for I think that treble is,
by all odds, the finer and more attractive part in music. Is it
worth while to exercise the right of singing bass, when it costs a
good deal to get up a voice for it, and when treble comes natural
and easy, and is very much pleasanter to the ear? Bass would be a
bad thing for a lullaby, and could only silence a baby by scaring
it. If I should have committed to me the melodies of the world, I
would care very little about my right to sing those subordinate
parts that gather around them in obedient harmonies. At least, I
think I would, unless some upstart man should deny my right to
sing any thing but melodies. If it were committed to me to sing
like a bird, I would not care, I think, to exercise my right to
roar like a bull. If I can witch the ears and win the hearts of
men and women by doing that which I can do easily and naturally
and well, then I shall do best not to exercise my right to do that
which I can only do difficultly, and unnaturally, and ill.
Woman, in my apprehension, is the mistress, not alone of the
melody of music, but of the melody of life. Whatever it may be
possible to do by cultivation and a long course of development, it
is doubtful whether a woman would ever sing bass well. I am aware
that she has the right, and the organs, but I question whether her
bass would amount to any thing--whether it would be worth singing.
When women talk with me about their right to vote, and their right
to practise law, and their right to engage in any business which
usage has assigned to man, I say "yes--you have all those rights."
I never dispute with them at all. Indeed, you see how I have put
myself forward as the defender of these same rights; yet I should
be sorry to see them exercised by the women I admire and love.
It is all very well to say that the presence of woman at the ballot-box
would purify it, and restrain the manners of the men around it; but
I have seen enough of the world to learn that all human influence
is reciprocal and reactionary. Man and the ballot-box might gain, but
woman would lose, and men and the ballot-box themselves would lose
in the long run. The ballot-box is the bass, and it should be man's
business to sing it, while woman should give him home melody with
which it should harmonize.
In the matter of rights, I suppose that I should not differ
materially with any strong-minded woman; but I have always
observed that the most truly lovable, humble, pure-hearted,
God-fearing and humanity-loving women of my acquaintance, never
say any thing about these rights, and scorn those of their sex
who do. I have never known a woman who was at once satisfied in her
affections and discontented with her woman's lot and her woman's
work. There is a weak place, or a wrong place, or a rotten place,
in the character or nature of every woman who stands and howls
upon the spot where her Creator placed her, and neglects her own
true work and life while claiming the right to do the work and
live the life of man. I will admit all the rights that such a
woman claims--all that I myself possess--if she will let me alone,
and keep her distance from me. She may sing bass, but I do not
wish to hear her. She is repulsive to me. She offends me.
I believe in women. I believe they are the sweetest, purest, most
unselfish, best part of the human race. I have no doubt on this
subject, whatever. They do sing the melody in all human life, as
well as the melody in music. They carry the leading part, at least
in the sense that they are a step in advance of us, all the way in
the journey heavenward. I believe that they cannot move very widely
out of the sphere which they now occupy, and remain as good as they
now are; and I deny that my belief rests upon any sentimentality,
or jealousy, or any other weak or unworthy basis. A man who has
experienced a mother's devotion, a wife's self-sacrificing love,
and a daughter's affection, and is grateful for all, may be weakly
sentimental about some things, but not about women. He would help
every woman he loves to the exercise of all the rights which hold
dignity and happiness for her. He would fight that she might have
those rights, if necessary; but he would rather have her lose her
voice entirely, than to hear her sound a bass note so long as a
demi-semi-quaver.
LESSON VIII.
AMERICAN PUBLIC EDUCATION.
"Keen are the pangs
Advancement often brings. To be secure,
Be humble. To be happy, be content." JAMES HURDIS.
"For not that which men covet most is best;
Nor that thing worst which men do most refuse.
But fittest is that each contented rest
With that they hold." SPENSER.
"Men have different spheres. It is for some to evolve great
moral truths, as the Heavens evolve stars, to guide the sailor on
the sea and the traveller on the desert; and it is for some, like
the sailor and the traveller, simply to be guided."--BEECHER.
A venerable gentleman who once occupied a prominent position in a
leading New England college, was remarking recently upon the
difficulty which he experienced in obtaining servants who would
attend to their duties. He had just dismissed a girl of sixteen,
who was so much "above her business" as to be intolerable. The
girl's father, who was an Englishman, called upon him for an
explanation. The employer told his story, every word of which the
father received without question, and then remarked, with
considerable vehemence: "_It is all owing to those cursed public
schools_." The father retired, and the old professor sat down
and thought about it; and the result of his thinking did not
differ materially from that of the father. It was not, of course,
that there was any thing in the studies pursued which had tended
to unfit the girl for her duties. It was very possible indeed for
the girl to have been a better servant in consequence of her
intelligence. There was nothing in English grammar or the
multiplication table to produce insubordination and discontent.
There was nothing in the whole case that tended to condemn public
schools, as such; but it was the spirit inculcated by the teachers
of public schools, which had spoiled this girl for her place, and
which has spoiled, and is still spoiling, thousands of others.
Let us look for a moment into the influence of such a motto as the
following, written over a school-house door--always before the
eyes of the pupils, and always alluded to by school committees and
visitors who are invited to "make a few remarks":
_"Nothing is impossible to him who wills."_
This abominable lie is placed before a room full of children and
youth, of widely varying capacities, and great diversity of
circumstances. They are called upon to look at it, and believe in
it. Suppose a girl of humble mental abilities and humble
circumstances looks at this motto, and says: "I 'will' be a lady.
I 'will' be independent. I 'will' be subject to no man's or
woman's bidding." Under these circumstances, the girl's father,
who is poor, removes her from school, and tells her that she must
earn her living. Now I ask what kind of a spirit she can carry
into her service, except that of surly and impudent discontent?
She has been associating in school, perhaps, with girls whom she
is to serve in the family she enters. Has she not been made unfit
for her place by the influences of the public school? Have not her
comfort and her happiness been spoiled by those influences? Is her
reluctant service of any value to those who pay her the wages of
her labor?
It is safe, at least, to make the proposition that public schools
are a curse to all the youth whom they unfit for their proper
places in the world. It is the favorite theory of teachers that
every man can make of himself any thing that he really chooses to
make. They resort to this theory to rouse the ambition of their
more sluggish pupils, and thus get more study out of them. I have
known entire schools instructed to aim at the highest places in
society, and the most exalted offices of life. I have known
enthusiastic old fools who made it their principal business to go
from school to school, and talk such stuff to the pupils as would
tend to unfit every one of humble circumstances and slender
possibilities for the life that lay before him. The fact is
persistently ignored, in many of these schools, established
emphatically for the education of the people, that the majority of
the places in this world are subordinate and low places. Every boy
and girl is taught to "be something" in the world, which would be
very well if being "something" were being what God intended they
should be; but when being "something" involves the transformation
of what God intended should be a respectable shoemaker into a very
indifferent and a very slow minister of the Gospel, the harmful
and even the ridiculous character of the instruction becomes
apparent.
There are two classes of evil results attending the inculcation of
these favorite doctrines of the school teachers--first, the
unfitting of men and women for humble places; and, second, the
impulsion of men of feeble power into high places, for the duties
of which they have neither natural nor acquired fitness. There are
no longer any American girls who go out to service in families.
They went into mills from the chamber and the kitchen, but now
they have left the mills, and their places are filled by Scotch
and Irish girls. Why is this? Is it because that among the
American girls there are none of poverty, and of humble powers?
Is it because they are not wanted? Or is it because they have
become unfitted for such services as these, and feel above them?
Is it not because they have become possessed of notions that would
render them uncomfortable in family service, and render any
family they might serve uncomfortable? An American servant, who
good-naturedly accepts her condition, and knows and loves her place,
who is willing to acknowledge that she has a mistress, and who
enters into her department of the family life as a harmonious and
happy member, may exist, but I do not know her. People have ceased
inquiring for American servants. They would like them, generally,
because they are intelligent and Protestant, but they cannot get
them because they are unwilling to accept service, and the
obligations and conditions it imposes. Where all the American girls
are, I do not know. I can remember the time when thrifty farmers,
mechanics, and tradesmen took wives from the kitchens of gentlemen
where they were employed,--good, intelligent, self-respectful women
they were, too--who became modest mistresses of thrifty families
afterward;--but that is all done with now. Under the present mode
of education, nobody is fitted for a low place, and everybody is
taught to look for a high one.
If we go into a school exhibition, our ears are deafened by
declamation addressed to ambition. The boys have sought out from
literature every stirring appeal to effort, and every extravagant
promise of reward. The compositions of the girls are of the same
general tone. We hear of "infinite yearnings," from the lips of
girls who do not know enough to make a pudding, and of being
polished "after the similitude of a palace" from those who do not
comprehend the commonest duties of life. Every thing is on the
high-pressure principle. The boys, all of them, have the general
idea that every thing that is necessary to become great men is to
try for it; and each one supposes it possible for him to become
Governor of the State, or President of the Union. The idea of
being educated to fill a humble office in life is hardly thought
of, and every bumpkin who has a memory sufficient for the words
repeats the stanza:--
"Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time."