WOMAN'S RESPONSIBILITY
There are about 40,000,000 women and girls in the United States. About
14,000,000 live in the country and have a direct and compelling power
over the life of the community.
In rural agricultural districts the home-keeper is the provider. She
practically requisitions from farm and garden what she deems necessary
for the family table. To an extent she makes the clothing and sews the
house linen. She also exchanges her perquisites, egg money, perhaps,
for furniture and ornaments. The itinerant peddler brings the world's
wares to her door; the mail-order houses do the rest.
"The ideal home is a social and coöperative society in which all of
its members unite their efforts for the common good. This ideal is
realized most nearly in the country home, where even the smallest
child has opportunity to be and generally is a contributor to the
family support. It has come to be a recognized fact that boys and
girls, healthy, industrious, frugal, capable, intelligent,
self-supporting, cheerful, and patriotic, abound in country homes, and
that the prevalence there of these high qualities is largely due to
the family life, which requires each individual from his earliest
years to bear his proportionate share in providing for the maintenance
of the home. By bringing within the reach of the country people
educational advantages suited to their needs, rural life becomes more
attractive, country homes are multiplied, and the valuable qualities
which these homes develop become the possession of a correspondingly
larger number of the citizenship of the state."[16]
[16] I. H. Hamilton, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, Circular 85.
The government has recognized the need and the possibilities of
meeting it in the recognition it has given to Farmers' Institutes for
women, in which, by lectures, demonstration, and short winter courses
at the colleges, the interest of the woman in her occupation is
aroused. She is not only given help in details of her daily work, but
she is shown how much the efficiency of the farm life depends upon her
capability and intelligence. She is encouraged in the using of all
mechanical and scientific appliances, is introduced to the means of
mental growth; but, best of all, she is given the stimulus of social
recognition. In the year 1908 there were held 832 such meetings in the
several states. In the year 1910 the number will be nearly or quite
doubled.
In no other form of society is the power of the woman for good or ill
so paramount as in rural life, in no other mode of living is the
family so much at her mercy.
In suburban and city life the family can in a measure escape from
insufficient care and uncomfortable conditions. That they do so
escape, any student of social tendencies will testify. The great
increase of restaurants, of clubs and hotels of all grades, shows one
phase of the unattractiveness of home life. The city woman is only
half a housekeeper; she has only one-eighth of a house as compared
with her rural sister. Her control is therefore curtailed until she
feels her helplessness in the hands of her landlord. She sighs and
turns to other interests. To her must be brought the knowledge of her
power as a social factor if she will but use the knowledge she can
easily gain.
The city woman has amused herself because she has seen nothing better
to do with her time. The utilization of her ability is all that is
needed to regenerate city life. Without it all efforts will prove
fruitless. Education of all women in the principles of sanitary
science is the key to race progress in the twentieth century.
As an economic factor, the influence of the housewife is of the
greatest moment. Production on the farm is only one phase. The city
and suburban dweller is a buyer, not a producer. In suburban and city
life the housekeeper has more temptations to buy needless articles,
food out of season, to go often to the shops, especially on bargain
days. She thinks her taste is educated, when it is only aroused to
notice what others like. She is led to strive after effects without
knowing how to attain them. It has been estimated by advertising
experts that ninety per cent of the purchases of the community are
determined by women, not always according to their judgment, but by a
suppression of it. Woman is made to think that she must buy certain
lines of goods. The power of suggestion has been referred to in a
preceding chapter.
When civilization, as it is called, persuaded woman to give up
manufacture and to become a buyer, the first step in the
disintegration of the home as a center of information, as well as of
industry, was taken. The housewife and mother were made to look to the
dealer, and thus to feel their helplessness. This sense of ignorance,
this subconscious loss of power over things, only increased the effect
of that fatalism which the control of machinery was leading man out
from under.
It is barely fifty years since woman began to ask questions and insist
upon knowing, to claim freedom of movement, a chance to breathe. The
time between has been a time of plowed fields, often muddy, usually
stony, but the furrows are turning green and the harvest will prove
the wisdom of the plowing.
Woman had to struggle for right to private judgment and public action.
Some pioneers had to enter the field of research, of investigation, in
order that they might call to those below that the way was open. This
vast company, which has been nearly untouched by the scientific
spirit, was warned off the field of investigation, and society is
paying the penalty of its own blindness.
In the very field where applied science can most serve human welfare,
scarecrows have been set up most prominently. Not until society avails
itself of those qualities of mind sorely needed in the field of
sanitary science, patient attention to detail, strong, practical sense
directed by a profound interest in the subject, will it begin to show
what height it is capable of scaling.
The intrusting of so many great fortunes to women shows an increasing
confidence in their judgment of social needs. It shows that woman's
education has passed the selfish stage, that it has given a wider
vision of the whole horizon.
It may be said without fear of contradiction that the future
well-being of society is largely in the hands of woman. What will she
do with it? Responsibility is always sobering.
Let her once realize her position and woman will rise to the task.
Instances are not wanting of groups attacking scientific and
administrative problems in the true spirit, without sentimental
charity, to which in the past women have been prone.
If civic authorities felt that women's leagues were informed bodies of
women whose suggestions they would make no error in adopting, more
legislation could be effected. Too often city councils are approached
by those who favor some whim or fad, and so ALL women's demands are
classed together. Much harm has been done to the cause by indiscreet,
pushing women with only a glimmer of knowledge. The question is not
WOMAN, but ability and women. It is better, as a rule, to work out
ideas through existing organizations.
All the problems of environment which we have been considering would
be solved in half the time, yes, in one-quarter, if all housewives
would combine in carrying out the knowledge which some of them have
and which all may have.
Infant mortality is controllable through the training of the mother
and nurse. Unsanitary houses are the results of careless housekeeping,
usually a product of apathetic fatalism. Landlords assume that the
woman will submit. When she has a woman sanitary inspector to appeal
to, matters will take on a different aspect.
Unsanitary alleys exist because the abutters do not complain loudly
enough to the right authorities. Dirty markets have been so long
tolerated because women buyers carried the same fatalism to the
stalls--"what is, has to be."
Society is only just beginning to realize that it has at its command
today for its own regeneration a great unused force in its army of
housewives, teachers, mothers, conscious of power but uncertain how to
use it. Perhaps the most progressive movement of the times is one led
by women who see clearly that cleanness is above charity, that moral
support must be given to those who know but do not dare to do right,
and that knowledge must be brought to the ignorant. Nothing can stop
this most notable progress but a relapse into apathy and fatalism of
the vast army of women now being enlisted to fight disease.
The opportunity has come, the responsibility is woman's hereafter. No
one can take it from her; she has knowledge. The door has opened, she
has taken the weapons in hand, is learning to use them. Will she
falter on the eve of victory simply because it involves some sacrifice
of prejudice or tradition? Must she not boldly accept the twentieth
century challenge and fight her way to victory, even at some æsthetic
sacrifice? In another hundred years, then, Euthenics may give place to
Eugenics, and the better race of men become an actuality.
The keeping of the house, the laundry work, the cleaning, the cooking,
the daily oversight, must have for its conscious end the welfare of
the family. It cannot be done without labor, but the labor in this as
in any process may be lightened by thought and by machinery.
Knowledge of labor-saving appliances is today everywhere demanded of
the successful establishment EXCEPT of the family home. Is it not time
that it came in for its share? If the housewife would use wisely the
information at her hand today, it is safe to say that in six cases out
of ten she could cut in half the housekeeping budget and double the
comfort of living.
As conditions are, the twentieth century sees a strange
phenomenon--the most vital of all processes, the raising of children,
carried on under adverse conditions; human labor and life being held
of as little account as in the days of building the pyramids.
Women may be trained to become the economic leaders in the body
politic. It is doubtful if life will be anything but wasteful until
they are trained to realize their responsibility.
The housewife was told that she must stay at home and do her work.
This was preached _at_ her, written _at_ her, but no one of them all,
save, perhaps, the Englishmen Lecky and H. G. Wells, saw the problem
in its social significance, saw that the work of home-making in this
engineering age must be worked out on engineering principles, and with
the coöperation of both trained men and trained women. The mechanical
setting of life is become an important factor, and this new impulse
which is showing itself so clearly today for the modified construction
and operation of the family home is the final crown or seal of the
conquest of the last stronghold of conservatism, the home-keeper.
Tomorrow, if not today, the woman who is to be really mistress of her
house must be an engineer, so far as to be able to understand the use
of machines and to believe what she is told. Your ham-and-eggs woman
was of the old type, now gone by in the fight for the right to think.
The emergence from the primitive condition was slow because the few of
us who did show our heads were beaten down and told we did not know.
It has required many college women (from some 50,000 college women
graduates) to build and run houses and families successfully, here one
and there another, until the barrel of flour has been leavened.
Society _is_ being reorganized, not in sudden, explosive ways, but
underneath all the froth and foam the yeast has been working. The
world is going to the bad only if one believes that material progress
is bad. If we can see the new heaven and the new earth in it, then we
may have faith in the future.
The human elements of love and sacrifice, of foresight and of faith,
are going to persist, and any apparent upheaval is only because of
settling down into a more solid condition, a readjustment to
circumstances. As Caroline Hunt has said[17]: "We may disregard the
popular fear that the home will finally take upon itself the
characteristics of a public institution.... Human intelligence, which
suits means to ends, and which is ever coming to the aid of human
affection, will prevent that. So long as affection lasts it will seek
satisfactory expression in home life, and so long as intelligence
endures it will stand in the way of the extension of the borders of
the home beyond the possibilities of the mutual helpfulness to its
members."
[17] Home Problems from a New Standpoint, p. 140.
The persistent efforts of the farsighted to secure a place in
education for the subjects fundamental to the modern home are now
respectfully listened to.
It is, perhaps, not strange that the first successes in modern
housekeeping were gained in public institutions, for there accounts
were kept and saving told. When one hospital saved $12,000 in one year
by an expenditure of $2,000 for a trained woman, trustees began to
take notice. When large state institutions were reorganized and made
over from unsavory scandals into reputable and life-saving
establishments, even legislators took notice. The trained woman
superintendent proved not only more competent but less affected by
perquisites.
(I do not vouch for the universal maintenance of this high standard
when women managers have had longer experience; but so far conscience
and sterling integrity have been attributes of all my expert women,
even if they have now and then disappointed me in endurance or in
ability. Is not this a fact of great social significance?)
It is universally conceded today, only a few willfully blind or
croaking pessimists dissenting, that home-keeping under modern
conditions requires a knowledge of conditions and a power of control
of persons and machines obtained only through education or through
bitter experience, and that education is the less costly.
When social conditions become adjusted to the new order, it will be
seen how much gain in power the community has made, how much better
worth the people are. Have faith in the working out of the destiny of
the race; be ready to accept the unaccustomed, to use the radium of
social progress to cure the ulcers of the old friction. What if a few
mistakes are made? How else shall the truth be learned? Try all things
and hold fast that which is good.
The Home Economics Movement is an endeavor to hold the home and the
welfare of children from slipping over the cliff by a knowledge which
will bring courage to combat the destructive tendencies. Is not one of
the distinctive features of our age a forcible overcoming of the
natural trend of things? If a river is by natural law wearing away
its bank in a place we wish to keep, do we sit down and moan and say
it is sad, but we cannot help it? No, that attitude belonged to the
Middle Ages. We say, Hold fast, we cannot have that; and we cement the
sides and confine or turn the river.
The ancient cities whose ruins are now being explored in Asia seem to
have been abandoned because of failure of the water supply as the
earth became desiccated; so was the home of our own Zunis. Does such a
possibility stop us? No, we bring water from hundreds of miles. Will
man, who has gained such control over nature, sit down before his own
problems and say, "What am I going to do about it?"
What if the apparent motion is toward cells to sleep in, and clubs to
play bridge in, and amusements for evenings, and a strenuous business
life, run on piratical principles, into which the women are drawn as
decoy ducks? Because this _is_, is it going to be, as soon as a good
proportion of the thinking people stand face to face with the
problem? I believe it is possible to solve the problem, but only if
the aid of scientifically trained women is brought into service to
work in harmony with the engineer who has already accomplished so
much.
Household engineering is the great need for material welfare, and
social engineering for moral and ethical well-being. What else does
this persistent forcing of scientific training to the front mean? If
the State is to have good citizens, productive human beings, it must
provide for the teaching of the essentials to those who are to become
the parents of the next generation. No state can thrive while its
citizens waste their resources of health, bodily energy, time and
brain power, any more than a nation may prosper that wastes its
natural resources.
The teaching of domestic economy in the elementary school and home
economics in the higher is intended to give the people a sense of
_control_ over their _environment_ and to avert a panic as to the
future.
The economics of consumption, including as it does the ethics of
spending, must have a place in our higher education, preceded in
earlier grades by manual dexterity and scientific information, which
will lead to true economy in the use of time, energy, and money in the
home life of the land. Education is obliged to take cognizance of the
need, because the ideal American homestead, that place of busy
industry, with occupation for the dozen children, no longer exists.
Gone out of it are the industries, gone out of it are ten of the
children, gone out of it in large measure is that sense of moral and
religious responsibility which was the keystone of the whole.
The methods of work imposed by housing conditions are wasteful of
time, energy, and money, and the people are restive, they know not
why. As was said earlier, shelter was found by early students of
social conditions to be most in need of remedy, so we see that
"In the first place the state is beginning to offer positive aid to
secure a suitable home for each family. A communistic habitation
forces the members of a family to conform insensibly to communistic
modes of thought. Paul Goehre, in his keen observations printed in
'Three Months in a German Workshop,' interpreted this tendency in all
clearness. The architecture of a city tenement house is to blame for
the silent but certain transformation of the home into a sty. Instead
of accepting this condition as inevitable, like a law of nature, and
accepting its consequences, all experience demands of those who
believe in the monogamic family, that they make a united and
persistent fight on the evil which threatens the slowly acquired
qualities secured in the highest form of the family. It would be
unworthy of us to permit a great part of a modern population to
descend again to the animal level from which the race has ascended
only through æons of struggle and difficulty. When we remember that
very much, perhaps most of the progress has been dearly purchased at
the cost of women, by the appeal of her weakness and need and
motherhood, we must all the more firmly resolve not to yield the field
to a temporary effect of a needless result of neglect and avarice. As
the evil conditions are merely the work of unwise and untaught
communities, the cure will come from education of the same
communities in wisdom and science and duty. What man has marred, man
can make better."[18]
[18] C. R. Henderson, Proceedings Lake Placid Conference, 1902.
It is not impossible to furnish a decent habitation for every
productive laborer in all our great cities. Many really humane people
are overawed by the authority, the pompous and powerful assertions of
"successful" men of affairs; and they often sleep while such men are
forming secret conspiracies against national health and morality with
the aid of legal talent hired to kill. Only when the social mind and
conscience is educated and the entire community becomes intelligent
and alert can legislation be secured which places all competitors on a
level where humanity is possible.
Here, again, the monogamic family is the social interest at stake. It
is a conflict for altars and fires. We are told that all these results
are the effect of a natural, uniform tendency in the progress of the
business world, and that it is useless to combat it. Professor
Henderson reminds us that tendency to uniformity revealed by
statistics may be reversed when resolute men and women, possessed of
higher ideals, unite to resist it. Jacob A. Riis holds that these
evils are not by a decree of fate, but are the result of positive
wrong, and he dedicates his "Ten Years' War" as follows--"to the
faint-hearted and those of little faith."
In like manner we call today for more faith in a way out of the slough
of despond, more resolute endeavor to improve social and economic
conditions. We beg the leaders of public opinion to pause before they
condemn the efforts making to teach those means of social control
which may build yet again a home life that will prove the nursery of
good citizens and of efficient men and women with a sense of
responsibility to God and man for the use they make of their lives.
INSTRUCTIVE INSPECTION
Mrs. Richards intended to embody the following material in