The life of the world is continuous, morally and spiritually as well
as materially. The individual sees it at short range and in fragments.
That is the reason why it so often seems dislocated and out of joint.
A thoughtful writer, Mrs. L.R. Zerbe, says: "When Goethe made his
discovery of the unity of structure in organic life, he gave to the
philosophers, who had long taught the value, the 'sovereignty' of the
individual, a physiological argument against oppression and tyranny,
and put the whole creation on an equal footing."
[Footnote 1: _History of the Woman's Club Movement in America_.]
The dignity of mind, and the right of the individual to its conscious
use and possession, had been already clearly enunciated by Fichte,
Herder, and others, who antedated Goethe. But Goethe went farther. He
carried the discovery of the rights of the individual to its logical
conclusion, which was, that the rights of every created thing should
be given a hearing. This was absolutely new doctrine. It brought women
and children within the pale of humanity. It moralized and humanized
nature itself; bringing birds, trees, flowers, all animate life, into
the "brotherhood" of creation.
The writings of Rousseau and Châteaubriand extended the idea, and
Madame de Staël and Mary Wollstonecraft were the natural outgrowths of
it. It may be said indeed to have been the actuating principle of
modern literature, especially of modern English poetry, which
vitalizes and idealizes children and nature. Whatever credit may be
given to others, it should never be forgotten that to Goethe we owe
the discovery of structural unity, that the cell of all organic life
is the same.
The ideas that grew out of this discovery reached the higher, thinking
class, and inspired the poets with a new enthusiasm for humanity long
before it reached the masses. The French nobility were satiated with
power. The "Little Trianon" was the only reaction possible to a queen,
from the wearisome magnificence of Versailles, the gilded slavery of
the court. The people recognized no sentiment of human sympathy in the
so-called "whims" and "caprices" of the luxurious occupants of
palaces; and maddened by countless wrongs, precipitated the French
Revolution, which, it has been said, turned back the tide of progress
for one hundred years.
From this movement were developed all those reforms which have made
the nineteenth century glorious, monumental in the history of
progressive civilization. The abolition of slavery, the development
of a spirit of mercy towards dumb animals, the recognition of the
human rights of women and children--all these may be traced through
many a winding way, back to the German scientists and philosophers,
who rediscovered the inner life while working from its outer side.
Yet, as in history there are no sporadic instances, no isolated facts,
so this flower of our century--the recognition of the rights of all
created things, with all that it involves--belongs to universal
history. It is the product of the Reformation and the Renaissance,
with roots only the records of Rome and Greece and Egypt may discover.
The quickening of moral and spiritual life in our day, its accelerated
movement, is not to be claimed by or traced to any one set of
influences or propaganda. The awakening has been all along the line;
and it has resulted in a new mental attitude toward the human life of
the world, both as a whole and in its various parts. Its great outcome
is the learning to live with, rather than for, others.
This new view, this great advance of the moral and spiritual forces,
addressed itself with singular significance to women. To those who
were prepared, it came not only as an awakening, but as
emancipation--emancipation of the soul, freedom from the tyranny of
tradition and prejudice, and the acquisition of an intellectual
outlook; a spiritual liberty achieved so quietly as to be unnoticed
except by those who watched the progress of this bloodless revolution,
and the falling away of the shackles that bind the spirit in its early
and often painful effort to reach the light.
The broadening of human sympathy, the freedom of will, gave rise to a
thousand new forms of activity; some of these an expansion of those
which had previously existed; others opening new channels of
communication; all looking towards wider fields of effort, a larger
unity, a more complete realization of the eternal ideal, the
fatherhood of God, the motherhood of woman, the brotherhood of man.
Realization of this ideal brought a new conception of duty to the mind
of woman, unlocked the strong gates of theological and social
tradition, and opened the windows of her soul to a new and more
glorious world. The sense of duty is always strong in the woman. If
she disregards it she never ceases to suffer. Her convictions of it
have made her the most willing and joyful of martyrs, the most
persistent and relentless of bigots, the most blind and devoted of
partisans, the most faithful and believing of friends, and the only
type out of which Nature could form the mother. This quality has made
women the constructive force they are in the world, and gives all the
more importance to the new departure, to the influences of the new
sources of enlargement that have come into their lives.
Thus it became a necessity that the quickening of conscience, the
widening of sympathy, the influence of aggregations, the stimulus to
desire and ambitions, should be accompanied by corresponding growth in
knowledge and a love beyond the narrow confines of family and church.
The cry of the woman emerging from a darkened past was "light, more
light," and light was breaking. Gradually came the demand and the
opportunity for education; for intellectual freedom for women as well
as men; for cultivation of gifts and faculties. The early half of the
century was marked by a crusade for the cause of the better education
of women, as significant as that for the physical emancipation of the
slave, and as devoted on the part of its leaders.
Simultaneous with this were two other movements--the anti-slavery
agitation, inspired by the new enthusiasm for human rights and carried
on largely by the Quakers of both sexes. The woman's-rights movement
was the natural outgrowth of the individual-sovereignty idea which the
German philosophers had planted, and of which Mary Wollstonecraft was
the first great woman-exponent.
The keynote of the educational advance was struck by Emma Willard in
1821. She was followed by Mary Lyon, Mary Mortimer, and other brave
women who dared to ask for women the cultivation of such faculties as
they possessed, without let or hindrance. This demand has taken the
century to develop and enforce. The work was so gradual that it is not
yet, by any means, accomplished. Schools and colleges exist, but not
yet equally, except here and there. They are, however, giving us an
army of trained women who are bringing the force of knowledge to bear
upon questions which have heretofore only enlisted sympathies.
Simultaneously with this question of educational opportunity, has
arisen an eager seeking after knowledge on the part of women who have
been debarred from its enjoyment, or lacked opportunity for its
acquisition. The knowledge sought was not that of a limited, sectional
geography, or a mathematical quantity as taught in schools, but the
knowledge of the history and development of races and peoples, of the
laws and principles that underlie this development, and the place of
the woman in this grand march of the ages.
The woman has been the one isolated fact in the universe. The outlook
upon the world, the means of education, the opportunities for
advancement, had all been denied her; and that "community of feeling
and sense of distributive justice which grows out of cooperative
interests in work and life, had found small opportunity for growth or
activity."
The opportunity came with the awakening of the communal spirit, the
recognition of the law of the solidarity of interests, the
sociological advance which established a basis of equality among a
wide diversity of conditions and individuals, and opportunities for
all capable of using them. This great advance was not confined to a
society or a neighborhood; it did not require subscription to a tenet,
or the giving up of one's mode of life. It was simply a change of a
point of view, the opening of a door, the stepping out into the
freedom of the outer air, and the sweet sense of fellowship with the
whole universe that comes with liberty and light.
The difference was only a point of view, but it changed the aspect of
the world. This new note, which meant for the woman liberty, breadth
and unity, was struck by the woman's club.
To the term "club," as applied to and by women, may be fitly referred
the words in which John Addington Symonds defines Renaissance. "This,"
he remarks, "is not explained by this or that characteristic, but as
an effort for which at length the time has come." It means the
attainment of the conscious freedom of the woman spirit, and has been
manifested first most strongly and most widely in this country,
because here that spirit has attained the largest measure of freedom.
The woman's club was not an echo; it was not the mere banding together
for a social and economic purpose, like the clubs of men. It became
at once, without deliberate intention or concerted action, a
light-giving and seed-sowing centre of purely altruistic and
democratic activity. It had no leaders. It brought together qualities
rather than personages; and by a representation of all interests,
moral, intellectual, and social, a natural and equal division of work
and opportunity, created an ideal basis of organization, where every
one has an equal right to whatever comes to the common centre; where
the centre itself becomes a radiating medium for the diffusion of the
best of that which is brought to it, and where, all being freely
given, no material considerations enter.
This is no ideal or imaginary picture. It is the simplest prose of
every woman's club and every clubwoman's experience during the past
thirty years.
It has been in every sense an awakening to the full glory and meaning
of life. It is also a very narrow and self-absorbed mind that sees in
these openings only opportunities for its own pleasure, or chances for
its own advancement on its own narrow and exclusive lines. The lesson
of the hour is help for those that need it, in the shape in which they
need it, and kinship with all and everything that exists on the face
of God's earth. If we miss this we miss the spirit, the illuminating
light of the whole movement, and lose it in the mire of our own
selfishness.
The tendency of association upon any broad human basis is to destroy
the caste spirit, and this the club has done for women more than any
other influence that as yet has come into existence. A club that is
narrowed to a clique, a class, or a single object, is a contradiction
in terms. It may be a society, or a congregation of societies, but it
is not a club. The essence of a club is its many-sided character, its
freedom in gathering together and expressing all shades of difference,
its equal and independent terms of membership, which puts every one
upon the same footing, and enables each one to find or make her own
place. The most opposite ideas find equal claims to respect. Women
widest apart in position and habits of life find much in common, and
acquaintance and contact mutually helpful and advantageous. Club life
teaches us that there are many kinds of wealth in the world--the
wealth of ideas, of knowledge, of sympathy, of readiness to be put in
any place and used in any way for the general good. These are given,
and no price is or can be put upon them, yet they ennoble and enrich
whatever comes within their influence.
We are only at the threshold of a future that thrills us with its
wonderful possibilities--possibilities of fellowship where separation
was; of love where hatred was; of unity where division was; of peace
where war was; of light--physical, mental and spiritual--where
darkness was; of agreement and equality where differences and
traditions had built up walls of distinction and lines of caste. This
beautiful thing needs only to be realized in thought to become an
actual fact in life, and those who do realize it are enriched by it
beyond the power of words to express.
Women have been God's own ministers everywhere and at all times. In
varied ways they have worked for others until the name of woman stands
for the spirit of self-sacrifice. Now He bids them bind their sheaves
and show a new and more glorious womanhood; a new unit--the completed
type of the mother-woman, working with all as well as for all.