WHILE THE KING SLEPT

He was a young king, but an old subject, for he had been born and raised

a subject, and became a king quite late in life, and unexpectedly.

When he was a subject he had admired and envied kings, and had often

said to himself "If I were a king I would do this--and this." And now

that he was a king he did those things. But the things he did were

those which came from the envy of subjects, not from the conscience of

kings.

He lived in freedom and ease and pleasure, for he did not know that

kings worked; much less how their work should be done. And whatever

displeased him he made laws against, that it should not be done; and

whatever pleased him he made laws for, that it should be done--for he

thought kings need but to say the word and their will was accomplished.

Then when the things were not done, when his laws were broken and

disregarded and made naught of, he did nothing; for he had not the pride

of kings, and knew only the outer showing of their power.

And in his court and his country there flourished Sly Thieves and Gay

Wantons and Bold Robbers; also Poisoners and Parasites and Impostors of

every degree.

And when he was very angry he slew one and another; but there were many

of them, springing like toadstools, so that his land became a scorn to

other kings.

He was sensitive and angry when the old kings of the old kingdoms

criticized his new kingdom. "They are envious of my new kingdom;" he

said; for he thought his kingdom was new, because he was new to it.

Then arose friends and counsellors, many and more, and they gave him

criticism and suggestion, blame, advice, and special instructions. Some

he denied and some he neglected and some he laughed at and some he would

not hear.

And when the Sly Thieves and Gay Wantons and Bold Robbers and Poisoners

and Parasites and Imposters of every degree waxed fat before his eyes,

and made gorgeous processions with banners before him, he said, "How

prosperous my country is!"

Then his friends and counsellors showed him the prisons--overflowing;

and the hospitals--overflowing; and the asylums--overflowing; and the

schools--with not enough room for the children; and the churches--with

not enough children for the room; and the Crime Mill, into which babies

were poured by the hundreds every day, and out of which criminals were

poured by the hundreds every day; and the Disease Garden, where we raise

all diseases and distribute them gratis.

And he said "I am tired of looking at these things, and tired of hearing

about them. Why do you forever set before me that which is unpleasant?"

And they said "Because you are the king. If you choose you can turn the

empty churches into free schools, teaching Heaven Building. You can

gradually empty the hospitals and asylums and prisons, and destroy the

Crime Mill, and obliterate the Disease Garden."

But the king said "You are dreamers and mad enthusiasts. These things

are the order of nature and cannot be stopped. It was always so." For

the king had been a subject all his life, and was used to submission; he

knew not the work of kings, nor how to do it.

And the false counsellors and the false friends and all the lying

servants who stole from the kitchens and the chambers answered falsely

when he asked them, and said, "These evils are the order of nature.

Your kingdom is very prosperous."

And the Sly Thieves and the Gay Wantons and the Bold Robbers and the

Parasites and Poisoners and Impostors of every degree hung like leeches

on the kingdom and bled it at every pore.

But the king was weary and slept.

Then the friends and counsellors went to the Queen, and called on her to

learn Queen's work, and do it; for the King slept.

"It is King's work," she said, and strove to waken him with tales of

want and sorrow in his kingdom. But he sent her away, saying "I will

sleep."

"It is Queen's work also," they said to her; and though she had been a

subject with her husband, she was more by nature a Queen. So she fell

to and learned Queen's work, and did it.

She had no patience with the Gay Wantons and Sly Thieves and Bold

Robbers; and the Poisoners and the Parasites and the Impostors of every

degree were a horror to her. The false friends she saw through, and the

lying servants she disbelieved.

Since the king would not, she would; and when at last he woke, behold,

the throne was a double one, and the kingdom smiled and rejoiced from

sea to sea.

THE HOUSEWIFE

Here is the House to hold me--cradle of all the race;

Here is my lord and my love, here are my children dear--

Here is the House enclosing, the dear-loved dwelling-place;

Why should I ever weary for aught that I find not here?

Here for the hours of the day and the hours of the night;

Bound with the bands of Duty, rivetted tight;

Duty older than Adam--Duty that saw

Acceptance utter and hopeless in the eyes of the serving squaw.

Food and the serving of food--that is my daylong care;

What and when we shall eat, what and how we shall wear;

Soiling and cleaning of things--that is my task in the main--

Soil them and clean them and soil them--soil them and clean them again.

To work at my trade by the dozen and never a trade to know;

To plan like a Chinese puzzle--fitting and changing so;

To think of a thousand details, each in a thousand ways;

For my own immediate people and a possible love and praise.

My mind is trodden in circles, tiresome, narrow and hard,

Useful, commonplace, private--simply a small back-yard;

And I the Mother of Nations!--Blind their struggle and vain!--

I cover the earth with my children--each with a housewife's brain.

OUR ANDROCENTRIC CULTURE; or, THE MAN-MADE WORLD

XI.

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT.

The human concept of Sin has had its uses no doubt; and our special

invention of a thing called Punishment has also served a purpose.

Social evolution has worked in many ways wastefully, and with

unnecessary pain, but it compares very favorably with natural evolution.

As we grow wiser; as our social consciousness develops, we are beginning

to improve on nature in more ways than one; a part of the same great

process, but of a more highly sublimated sort.

Nature shows a world of varied and changing environment. Into this

comes Life--flushing and spreading in every direction. A pretty hard

time Life has of it. In the first place it is dog eat dog in every

direction; the joy of the hunter and the most unjoyous fear of the

hunted.

But quite outside of this essential danger, the environment waits, grim

and unappeasable, and continuously destroys the innocent myriads who

fail to meet the one requirement of life--Adaptation. So we must not be

too severe in self-condemnation when we see how foolish, cruel, crazily

wasteful, is our attitude toward crime and punishment.

We become socially conscious largely through pain, and as we begin to

see how much of the pain is wholly of our own causing we are overcome

with shame. But the right way for society to face its past is the same

as for the individual; to see where it was wrong and stop it--but to

waste no time and no emotion over past misdeeds.

What is our present state as to crime? It is pretty bad. Some say it

is worse than it used to be; others that it is better. At any rate it

is bad enough, and a disgrace to our civilization. We have murderers by

the thousand and thieves by the million, of all kinds and sizes; we have

what we tenderly call "immorality," from the "errors of youth" to the

sodden grossness of old age; married, single, and mixed. We have all

the old kinds of wickedness and a lot of new ones, until one marvels at

the purity and power of human nature, that it should carry so much

disease and still grow on to higher things.

Also we have punishment still with us; private and public; applied like

a rabbit's foot, with as little regard to its efficacy. Does a child

offend? Punish it! Does a woman offend? Punish her! Does a man

offend? Punish him! Does a group offend? Punish them!

"What for?" some one suddenly asks.

"To make them stop doing it!"

"But they have done it!"

"To make them not do it again, then."

"But they do do it again--and worse."

"To prevent other people's doing it, then."

"But it does not prevent them--the crime keeps on. What good is your

punishment?"

What indeed!

What is the application of punishment to crime? Its base, its

prehistoric base, is simple retaliation; and this is by no means wholly

male, let us freely admit. The instinct of resistance, of opposition,

of retaliation, lies deeper than life itself. Its underlying law is the

law of physics--action and reaction are equal. Life's expression of

this law is perfectly natural, but not always profitable. Hit your hand

on a stone wall, and the stone wall hits your hand. Very good; you

learn that stone walls are hard, and govern yourself accordingly.

Conscious young humanity observed and philosophized, congratulating

itself on its discernment. "A man hits me--I hit the man a little

harder--then he won't do it again." Unfortunately he did do it again--a

little harder still. The effort to hit harder carried on the action and

reaction till society, hitting hardest of all, set up a system of legal

punishment, of unlimited severity. It imprisoned, it mutilated, it

tortured, it killed; it destroyed whole families, and razed contumelious

cities to the ground.

Therefore all crime ceased, of course? No? But crime was mitigated,

surely! Perhaps. This we have proven at last; that crime does not

decrease in proportion to the severest punishment. Little by little we

have ceased to raze the cities, to wipe out the families, to cut off the

ears, to torture; and our imprisonment is changing from slow death and

insanity to a form of attempted improvement.

But punishment as a principle remains in good standing, and is still the

main reliance where it does the most harm--in the rearing of children.

"Spare the rod and spoil the child" remains in belief, unmodified by the

millions of children spoiled by the unspared rod.

The breeders of racehorses have learned better, but not the breeders of

children. Our trouble is simply the lack of intelligence. We face the

babyish error and the hideous crime in exactly the same attitude.

"This person has done something offensive."

Yes?--and one waits eagerly for the first question of the rational

mind--but does not hear it. One only hears "Punish him!"

What is the first question of the rational mind?

"Why?"

Human beings are not first causes. They do not evolve conduct out of

nothing. The child does this, the man does that, _because_ of

something; because of many things. If we do not like the way people

behave, and wish them to behave better, we should, if we are rational

beings, study the conditions that produce the conduct.

The connection between our archaic system of punishment and our

androcentric culture is two-fold. The impulse of resistance, while, as

we have seen, of the deepest natural origin, is expressed more strongly

in the male than in the female. The tendency to hit back and hit harder

has been fostered in him by sex-combat till it has become of great

intensity. The habit of authority too, as old as our history; and the

cumulative weight of all the religions and systems of law and

government, have furthermore built up and intensified the spirit of

retaliation and vengeance.

They have even deified this concept, in ancient religions, crediting to

God the evil passions of men. As the small boy recited; "Vengeance. A

mean desire to get even with your enemies: 'Vengeance is mine saith the

Lord'--'I will repay.'"

The Christian religion teaches better things; better than its expositors

and upholders have ever understood--much less practised.

The teaching of "Love your enemies, do good unto them that hate you, and

serve them that despitefully use you and persecute you," has too often

resulted, when practised at all, in a sentimental negation; a

pathetically useless attitude of non-resistance. You might as well base

a religion on a feather pillow!

The advice given was active; direct; concrete. "_Love!_" Love is not

non-resistance. "Do good!" Doing good is not non-resistance. "Serve!"

Service is not non-resistance.

Again we have an overwhelming proof of the far-reaching effects of our

androcentric culture. Consider it once more. Here is one by nature

combative and desirous, and not by nature intended to monopolize the

management of his species. He assumes to be not only the leader, but

the whole thing--to be humanity itself, and to see in woman as Grant

Allen so clearly put it "Not only not the race; she is not even half the

race, but a subspecies, told off for purposes of reproduction merely."

Under this monstrous assumption, his sex-attributes wholly identified

with his human attributes, and overshadowing them, he has imprinted on

every human institution the tastes and tendencies of the male. As a

male he fought, as a male human being he fought more, and deified

fighting; and in a culture based on desire and combat, loud with

strident self-expression, there could be but slow acceptance of the more

human methods urged by Christianity. "It is a religion for slaves and

women!" said the warrior of old. (Slaves and women were largely the

same thing.) "It is a religion for slaves and women" says the advocate

of the Superman.

Well? Who did the work of all the ancient world? Who raised the food

and garnered it and cooked it and served it? Who built the houses, the

temples, the acqueducts, the city wall? Who made the furniture, the

tools, the weapons, the utensils, the ornaments--made them strong and

beautiful and useful? Who kept the human race going, somehow, in spite

of the constant hideous waste of war, and slowly built up the real

industrial civilization behind that gory show?--Why just the slaves and

the women.

A religion which had attractions for the real human type is not

therefore to be utterly despised by the male.

In modern history we may watch with increasing ease the slow, sure

progress of our growing humanness beneath the weakening shell of an

all-male dominance. And in this field of what begins in the nurse as

"discipline," and ends on the scaffold as "punishment," we can clearly

see that blessed change.

What is the natural, the human attribute? What does this "Love," and

"Do good," and "Serve" mean? In the blundering old church, still

androcentric, there was a great to-do to carry out this doctrine, in

elaborate symbolism. A set of beggars and cripples, gathered for the

occasion, was exhibited, and kings and cardinals went solemnly through

the motions of serving them. As the English schoolboy phrased it,

"Thomas Becket washed the feet of leopards."

Service and love and doing good must always remain side issues in a male

world. Service and love and doing good are the spirit of motherhood,

and the essense of human life.

Human life is service, and is not combat. There you have the nature of

the change now upon us.

What has the male mind made of Christianity?

Desire--to save one's own soul. Combat--with the Devil.

Self-expression--the whole gorgeous outpouring of pageant and display,

from the jewels of the high priest's breastplate to the choir of

mutilated men to praise a male Deity no woman may so serve.

What kind of mind can imagine a kind of god who would like a eunuch

better than a woman?

For woman they made at last a place--the usual place--of renunciation,

sacrifice and service, the Sisters of Mercy and their kind; and in that

loving service the woman soul has been content, not yearning for

cardinal's cape or bishop's mitre.

All this is changing--changing fast. Everywhere the churches are

broadening out into more service, and the service broadening out beyond

a little group of widows and fatherless, of sick and in prison, to

embrace its true field--all human life. In this new attitude, how shall

we face the problems of crime?

Thus: "It is painfully apparent that a certain percentage of our people

do not function properly. They perform antisocial acts. Why? What is

the matter with them?"

Then the heart and mind of society is applied to the question, and

certain results are soon reached; others slowly worked toward.

First result. Some persons are so morally diseased that they must have

hospital treatment. The world's last prison will be simply a hospital

for moral incurables. They must by no means reproduce their kind,--that

can be attended to at once. Some are morally diseased, but may be

cured, and the best powers of society will be used to cure them. Some

are only morally diseased because of the conditions in which they are

born and reared, and here society can save millions at once.

An intelligent society will no more neglect its children than an

intelligent mother will neglect her children; and will see as clearly

that ill-fed, ill-dressed, ill-taught and vilely associated little ones

must grow up gravely injured.

As a matter of fact we make our crop of criminals, just as we make our

idiots, blind, crippled, and generally defective. Everyone is a baby

first, and a baby is not a criminal, unless we make it so. It never

would be,--in right conditions. Sometimes a pervert is born, as

sometimes a two-headed calf is born, but they are not common.

The older, simpler forms of crime we may prevent with case and despatch,

but how of the new ones?--big, terrible, far-reaching, wide-spread

crimes, for which we have as yet no names; and before which our old

system of anti-personal punishment falls helpless? What of the crimes

of poisoning a community with bad food; of defiling the water; of

blackening the air; of stealing whole forests? What of the crimes of

working little children; of building and renting tenements that produce

crime and physical disease as well? What of the crime of living on the

wages of fallen women--of hiring men to ruin innocent young girls; of

holding them enslaved and selling them for profit? (These things are

only "misdemeanors" in a man-made world!)

And what about a crime like this; to use the public press to lie to the

public for private ends? No name yet for this crime; much less a

penalty.

And this: To bring worse than leprosy to an innocent clean wife who

loves and trusts you?

Or this: To knowingly plant poison in an unborn child?

No names, for these; no "penalties"; no conceivable penalty that could

touch them.

The whole punishment system falls to the ground before the huge mass of

evil that confronts us. If we saw a procession of air ships flying over

a city and dropping bombs, should we rush madly off after each one

crying, "Catch him! Punish him!" or should we try to stop the

procession?

The time is coming when the very word "crime" will be disused, except in

poems and orations; and "punishment," the word and deed, be obliterated.

We are beginning to learn a little of the nature of humanity its

goodness, its beauty, its lovingness; and to see that even its stupidity

is only due to our foolish old methods of education.

It is not new power, new light, new hope that we need, but _to

understand what ails us._

We know enough now, we care enough now, we are strong enough now, to

make the whole world a thousand fold better in a generation; but we are

shackled, chained, blinded, by old false notions. The ideas of the

past, the sentiments of the past, the attitude and prejudices of the

past, are in our way; and among them none more universally mischievous

than this great body of ideas and sentiments, prejudices and habits,

which make up the offensive network of the androcentric culture.

THE BEAUTY WOMEN HAVE LOST

We know how arbitrary, how changeable, how helplessly associative, is

the "beauty sense." That which gives us a peculiar feeling of deep

pleasure, received through various senses, we call "beautiful," whether

it be color of form, sound, scent, or touch; but no sensation is more

erratic.

Among savages absolute mutilation is considered beautiful; among

partially civilized peoples, like ourselves, restriction and distortion

in our bodies and those of domestic animals are still considered

beautiful; and in matters of fashion, or of food, we all know the

helpless proverb--"Every one to his taste."

In this general variability of taste we have in great measure failed to

grasp certain laws of beauty which obtain whether appreciated or not.

Abstract beauty is but a concept, a thought form for purposes of

discussion. The beauty perceived pertains to something, and in that

something lie its definitions and limitations. This we practically

recognize in certain marked and simple forms. The points which we

admire in a horse are visibly not the same as those admired in a fish or

bird; the beauty of a given animal must be of its own kind.

So vivid and sharp is this law of association, that precisely the same

bit of form and color which we would call beautiful while we supposed it

to be an irridescent shell, would strike us with disgust if we suddenly

perceived the little object to be a piece of very ancient meat. Beauty

must _belong_--varying with its subject.

The beauty of women has suffered from too narrow a field of

appreciation. It has been measured solely from a masculine viewpoint,

primarily as a characteristic of sex, secondarily as pertaining to a

subject creature; and associatively, to every mad extreme of fancy in

nature's variant, the male.

Among other creatures the beauty of the female is mainly that of race.

The lioness is a more appreciable working type of feline power than the

lion, whose sex-beauty, the mane, is somewhat similar to that of a

bison, or a great seal.

In our case, where the dependent female adds to her neutral race-beauty

the shifting attributes of sex-attraction, she has gained to a high

degree in the field man most admires, and lost in the normal beauty of

humanity.

Relative size and strength are elements of beauty in an animal; neither

dwarf nor giant is beautiful; and we for many years have dwarfed our

women, under the direct effect of restraining conditions and the

selective action of the master, whose pride would brook no equal.

Of late years, in some classes and countries, this is changing; so

frequently that the tall woman no longer excites remark or disapproval.

There is no reason whatever, in a civilized condition, why the male and

female should differ markedly in size, and the difference is

disappearing as above noted, as is also the extreme weakness so long

held desirable in women.

But in the great majority of cases our women are still content to be

what they consider beautiful as _women_, and never to consider human

beauty at all.

The disproportionate part played by costume and decoration in the

sex-governed activities of the dependent woman, has given a peculiar

cant to her beauty-sense. If she be well dressed,--or so considered,

and richly ornamented, her sense of beauty is satisfied, quite

regardless of shape, size and color in herself. This is perhaps a

fortunate provision to meet our special case, where the male must be

attracted as a means of livelihood, and under the average limitations of

personal charms. But it is a pity, in the interest of a nobler race,

that our preoccupation with cloths should so blind us to the real beauty

of the human body.

I once knew a girl whose vanity led her to decline gymnasium work, on

the ground that it would make her hands large. The same vanity would

have urged her to it if she had even known of the beauty of a well

proportioned, vigorous, active body. She had read and heard of small

soft hands as a feminine attraction, but never of a smooth, strong neck,

a well set head, a firm, pliant, muscular trunk, and limbs that cannot

be beautiful unless they are strong.

"Slender," "plump," "rounded," "graceful,"--these words suggest beauty

in a woman, but "strong" does not. Yet weakness,--in a healthy

adult,--is incompatible with true beauty--race beauty--the beauty women

have lost.

In their enforced restriction they have lost the beauty of expression

that comes of a rich wide life, fully felt, fully expressed. Look at

the puffy negation of a row of women's faces in a street car. Plump

women, "pretty" women perhaps, well dressed, "stylish," not ill

tempered,--and not anything else! Their range of experience is

absolutely domestic; their interests and ambitions are either domestic

or what they fondly call "social;" they do not feel, know, or act in the

full sense of human life, and their faces show it. They are rated

first, last, and all the time as mothers: mothers future, mothers

present, mothers past; and much is made of "the maternal expression" in

women's beauty. It belongs there, surely. It is a true large part of

it; beauty in a woman could not be true which was inimical to maternity;

but, but it is not the whole of life.

A man's face may be beautiful with a paternal expression, but if that is

all the expression he has, he lacks much.

There is a lack of dignity in our types of female loveliness. There is

the appealing type, the coquettish, the provocative, the mysterious; but

seldom do we see the calm pride based on nature's mightiest power which

should distinguish womanhood.

The woman of the remote past, the far distant matriarchal age, had the

beauty of freedom and the beauty of power; though their hands were

large, doubtless, and assuredly strong. In much later ages, while

losing this, we still kept somewhat of the free beauty of untramelled

bodies; but that too has gone under our binding weight of clothes. No

free grace is possible under a huge, slouching, heavy hat, or to a body

poised on sharp-toed shoes with towering heels.

If we knew beauty--human beauty; if we were familiar from childhood with

the real proportions of the body; if we were familiar with pictures of

the human figure, and then shown that same figure, the woman's, with her

feet artificially mis-shapen and out of poise, her waist distorted, her

head obscured, her every action hampered and confined,--we should see

the ugliness of these things, as we do not now.

The human woman, now so rapidly developing, will regain the wholesome

natural beauty that belongs to her as a human being; will hold, of

course, the all-powerful attraction of her womanhood; but will leave to

the male of her species,--to whom it properly belongs, the effort of

conscious display.

COMMENT AND REVIEW

How many of you have read the life story of Alexander Irvine--"From the

Bottom Up"?*

It is one of the most vivid, interesting, readable of books. It talks,

it laughs, it lives,--and it reveals. It is not a "confession;" not the

overflow of a self-conscious soul like Marie Barklirtseff's outpourings;

it is a story; an account of what happened to the man, and how he grew.

A hungry, ragged, barefoot, ignorant little Irish boy; handicapped in

all ways but three; unusually fortunate in these. He had a good body, a

good mind, a good heart. Up and up and up he pushes; helped now by the

body, now by the soul, now by the intellect, till we find him, still in

strong middle life, educated, experienced, traveled, enobled by loving

and serving, awake to our larger social needs, and working with all his

splendid power to help humanity.

Never was there a man more alive; learning Greek roots while delivering

milk; converting miners, practicing a score of trades, and boxing like a

professional.

The book has a double value; in the hope and courage which must rise

from contact with such a personality and its rich experience, and in the

strong light it throws upon "how the other half live." As Rose Pastor

Stokes so quaintly put it, "Half the world does not know how. The other

half lives."

In this book one-half may learn much of the unnecessary misery of "the

submerged;" and the other half may begin to learn how to live.

* _From The Bottom Up._ The life story of Alexander Irvine. Doubleday

Page & Co. New York, 1910.

*

The English Suffrage papers are an inspiration--and a reproach.

_"Votes for Women"_--the London organ of the militant suffragist, is so

solid and assured; so richly upheld; so evidently the strong voice of a

strong party.

_"The Common Cause,"_ published in Manchester, is another, not militant,

giving the same sense of a settled position and masterly leadership.

The women of England are awake to their needs, and valiantly support

their defenders; but American women, as a rule, are still asleep as to

the responsibilities of citizenship. Here suffrage papers still give

much space to argument and appeal: there, they are mostly filled with

the record of work planned and done; they are party organs, secure and

effective.

One of our best is _"The Progressive Woman"_ of Girard, Kansas.

It is edited by a progressive woman--Josephine Conger-Kaneko.

This is a Socialist as well as Suffragist paper, and more than that; it

stands for the whole front rank of the woman's movement.

In the August number we read of Kate O'Hare's campaign for congress in

Kansas; of "The Socialist Woman's Movement in Russia;" of "The White

Slave Traffic"--quoting from Elizabeth Goodnow's impressive book of

stories, "The Soul Market;" of "The Work of Madam Curie;" of "The

Marriage Contract;" of "The Woman's Suffrage Movement and Political

Parties;" with much other valuable matter.

*

The "Arena Club" of New Orleans is doing good work. It has prepared a

bill against the "white slave traffic" in Louisiana, which was submitted

to the legislature by Hon. J. D. Wall, Representative for East

Feliciana, La. This bill is now a law, and the next step is

enforcement. This calls for activity on the part of the "City Mothers."

*

_"The Union Labor Advocate"_ is one of our exchanges, and a good one.

It is the organ of the National Woman's Trade Union League. One of the

most practical and useful of all woman's organizations.

As women work for the world they become more human; becoming human, they

organize; and in organization grow in further humanness. This was well

shown in the shirt-waist strike of last winter in New York, the new

sense of common interest bringing out college women, society women, all

kinds of women, to help the workingwomen in their struggle for decent

conditions.

Professor Francis Squire Potter formerly of Michigan University, is now

general lecturer for the League: a good field for her unusual powers.

PERSONAL PROBLEMS

The _Forerunner's_ question in this department of the June issue,

reached a good many, it would seem. Here is another response:

"When people must wake up too early every morning, half dead, or at

least half asleep, to begin the ceaseless, monotonous daily grind, keep

at it all day until half dead or at least half asleep until too late at

night, for the mere privilege of existence, they are too tired to wake

up and LIVE--the rest of the night.

When people are entombed in conventions, customs, _Beliefs_! from which

they may only be freed by digging, filing, gnawing, scraping, _wearing_,

themselves as well as their way out, few have the strength and spirit to

emerge and LIVE--only occassionally one comes out _alive_."

"Such _purely_ personal questions as 'how may I, half (or truly a minute

fraction of that) educated, half alive by reason of ill-health, wholly

unaccustomed to push my way in the world, grub out an existence and keep

out of the poor-house, and keep out of the way of others who are doing

things;' seem rather too small, and altogether too numerous."

A. These "purely personal" questions are the most universal, and open

to the most universal answers.

To "Wake up and Live--World size" means this: Your personality is only

the smallest part of your consciousness. A child with a hurt finger

howls inconsolably; a conquering king with a hurt finger doesn't know

it.

"You" are weak and ill; "you" are half educated: "you" don't know how to

work--Just put "we" for "you."

"We," thousands and millions of us, are at present suffering from

various wrong conditions. Taken separately, personally, these wrong

conditions overwhelm us; each sits down in his or her own little circle

of pain, and suffers.

Taken _collectively_--faced, understood, met, overcome--those wrong

conditions can be removed and forgotten.

The writer of this interesting letter (thanks for its kind

appreciation!) sees the trouble of living clearly enough, but does not

see the joy of living.

In the first place, accept your own pain and loss, whatever it may be,

as merely a part of the general pain and loss. Your own, singly, you

may be unable to help; but "ours" you can help. Never mind what ails

"you"--you can stand it--other people do? The human soul is a stronger

thing than you think--_you don't use enough of it._ Unless the mind is

affected, so that one is irresponsible, it is always open to a Human

Being to change the attitude of the mind, and enlarge its area of

consciousness.

Human Life is a huge Immortal Thing.

It has been on earth for many thousand years.

It is bigger, stronger, better, than it ever was.

It is on the verge of a new consciousness, a new power, a new joy, which

will make our poor past seem like a lovingly forgotten babyhood; and our

future a progressive Heaven--growing under our hands as we make it.

And our present! _This_ is our present! Get into the game! You are

human life. Human life is You.

It's a big thing. It's worth while to be alive--if you are human!

To get a lively sense of historic movement read "_The Martyrdom of Man_"

by Winwood Reade. To get it of life today, read what you like of the

rising flood of sociologic and humanitarian books and magazines of

today.

When you are socially conscious--a live Human Being--your "personal

problems" will take on different proportions. There is no personal

trouble so great as the trouble of the world--which we have to face and

conquer.

There is no personal joy so great as the joy of the world--which is ours

to feel, to make, to steadily enlarge.

Change your own condition if you can, but if you cannot, spread out your

life--your Human Life, till your burden is no bigger than a biscuit--to

such huge consciousness.

*

"When my children were little and at home it was easy to guide and

direct, but now they are in the big man-made world without judgment

enough to know that the _world_ standards are wrong, and the _home_

standards of helpfulness and co-operation right.

I believe we are going ahead, and I'm willing enough to help build the

road for others to pass over, but must my children hunger and thirst in

the wilderness?"

A. This is a wide-spread problem. The trouble lies in our confounding

personal and social relations. Our children are in direct connection

with us physically and psychically--but not, of necessity, socially. A

musician does not necessarily have musical children; a reformer does not

necessarily have reforming children. There is no reason why our

children should be expected to see things as we do. They may never see

the way out of the wilderness as we see it.

They are to love and serve, to shelter, guard, teach--and set free!

We must do our work--and they must do theirs.

*

Here is a question from Detroit.

"I entirely agree with you in believing that children should be governed

by reason, and that coercion is a mistake; but how would you suggest

dealing with a child before it can possibly understand reason?"

The writer then speaks of the selfishness and rudeness of undisciplined

children, and goes on:

"I have always thought that the training of a child should begin from a

very early age, long before they can listen to reason at all."

She is quite right. Child culture should begin as soon as the child

begins. The difficulty of the average parent is that he or she assumes

"reason" to mean reasoning--oral argument.

In the reaction from our old violent discipline, they use no discipline;

and for repression substitute gross indulgence.

When a child learns that fire burns by a mild, safe burning, he learns

_reasonably;_ the fire _reacts_--which is not a punishment, but a

consequence. He should learn the rights of others as early as his own,

and by similar processes. Real child culture calls for far more care

and training than the old rule of thumb, but it is of a different kind.

*

"I am very much interested in your 'Androcentric Culture.' Is it your

idea that the female organism was the stronger before consciousness

existed only, or after that period in prehistoric times?"

For the scientific facts underlying the above work, all readers are

referred to Chapter XIV. of "_Pure Sociology,_" by Lester F. Ward. It

is--or should be--in every Public Library, and should be read by every

woman in the world--and by the men also.

THE EDITOR'S PROBLEM

How to enlarge the subscription list!

To pay its running expenses this little magazine must have about three

thousand subscribers. It now has between eleven and twelve hundred.

We want, to make good measure, two thousand more. This is a bare

minimum, providing no salary to the editor.

If enough people care for the magazine to support it to that extent, the

editor will do her work for nothing--and be glad of the chance! If

enough people care for it to support her--she will be gladder.

Do you like the magazine, its spirit and purpose? Do you find genuine

interest and amusement in the novel--the short story? Do the articles

appeal to you? Do the sermons rouse thought and stir to action? Are

the problems treated such as you care to study? Does the poetry have

bones to it as well as feathers? Does it give you your dollar's worth

in the year? And do you want another dollar's worth?

Most of the people who take it like it very much. We are going to

print, a few at a time, some of the pleasant praises our readers send.

They are so cordial that we are moved to ask all those who do enjoy this

little monthly service of sermon and story, fun and fiction, poetry and

prose:

First, To renew their subscriptions.

Second, Each to get one new subscriber. (Maybe more!)

Third, To make Christmas present of subscriptions, or of bound volumes

of the first year.

FROM LETTERS OF SUBSCRIBERS

"I am delighted to hear of the Forerunner. No one in the United States

is so competent as you to write the whole of a magazine, little or big,

from the beginning to end. You have the gift of expression, if anyone

has, and, what is still more important, you have something to express."

*

"I enclose in this $1.00 for one year of the 'Gilmanian' and I think it

a bargain to get so much of you at the price."

*

"Indeed I am more than delighted to have an opportunity to communicate

regularly with you through The Forerunner, and I shall be very proud to

be numbered among the charter subscribers."

*

"Herewith I send $1.00 for my subscription, with all manner of good

wishes for your magazine. Our family has enjoyed every line."

*

"I laid my copy on her dish, and she was so pleased with it that she

came to me with her dollar shortly afterwards."

*

"I enclose $1.00 for a year's subscription. I found The Forerunner most

interesting, and shall look forward to it every month."

*

"The magazine is 'bully.' It even exceeds all my expectations, high as

these were. There are so many good points about the Forerunner that I

hope to come down soon with my husband to congratulate you in person."

*

"I have received the first number of your magazine, and am more than

pleased with it. The first article was splendid--and ought to be read

before every circle of mothers belonging to the Mothers Congress."

*

Enclosed find two subscriptions to The Forerunner. I am making

Christmas gifts to my friends of your interesting and stimulating

periodical."

*

"I think The Forerunner foreruns a lot of good things. It is strong,

interesting, fearless, yet kindly, genial--I like it."

*

"The magazine is unique and distinctly 'Gilmanesque,' which is a

sufficient recommendation to me."

*

"I am constantly surprised at your originality and versatility, and

knowledge of human nature."

*

"Of course I have _got to have_ The Forerunner! And I shall read every

word of every issue. So will everybody else. But what makes you so

lazy? _Why don't you set the type?"_

*

"Your magazine has more real common sense to the square inch than any I

have ever seen. I enclose subscription for one year, beginning with the

first number."

*

"I think a very great deal of this publication and shall try to have a

complete file of it on hand to use for reference. I know of nothing

better in the whole field of the 'Woman Question.'"

*

"I am just 'stuck' on that article 'Why we honestly fear Socialism,' in

December Forerunner, and think it one of the best things to circulate

for propaganda work that I have yet seen."

*

"Will you please send me a year's subscription to The Forerunner, dating

from the first number. They are too good for me to miss any."

*

"I feel The Forerunner will fill a need. In my case it gratifies an

absorbing desire. I knew ere it came out that women would get something

for which they had waited, Lo! these many years."

*

"Your magazines are splendid and I must be among your regular readers."

*

"The first number of The Forerunner has reached us and we wish to

express our appreciation of its excellence and the wish for its long

life. Please find enclosed $1.00, our subscription for the current

year."

*

"Mrs. ----- and I are delighted with The Forerunner and send this dollar

to keep it running our way. Please send samples to the addresses on the

attached list. They should all take the paper, and I shall be glad to

tell them so the first chance I have."

*

"The ----- Club is using your Androcentric Culture articles as the study

one evening each month as they appear. If you can't make something out

of men and women, then indeed only a miracle can."

"I _must_ have _your_ magazine all to myself!--and trust to the Lord to

provide the material bread!"

*

"B---- and I have just returned from a delightful week end with Mrs.

-----. I told her about The Forerunner--and she naturally feels that

life is worthless until she has seen it."

*

"The verses are all brilliant; I don't know how you can think of so many

gay and serious things all at the same time. It is as if you took your

conjuror's hat out and produced eggs, cannon-balls, perfume flowers, and

a whole live, quivering beef at the same stroke. You are a sure

conjuror."

*

"Your scintellating first number has arrived. I have been waiting for

an hour of leisure in which to tell you how much we have all enjoyed

it."

*

"Oh! Charlotte Perkins Gilman! You have--and do--and will--'Contribute

to the great stream of civilization'--by courageously obeying the

injunction, and calling aloud to your sisters to 'Let your light

shine.'"

*

"If you do no other good and great thing you will certainly work one

tremendous miracle; you will rouse every lazy brain that gets a glimpse

into these pages with such a dynamic force that a real desire may be

kindled to Think--Think--Think--for itself."

*

"I am delighted with the magazine. It is meaty, and stimulating."

*

"The valuable readable material in it justifies the absence of any text

on the part of the new minister. It will create free souls and that is

the great work, for while a dead body is not pleasant to look upon, a

dead soul is a thousand fold worse."

*

"I enclose one year's subscription to it for my sister, to whom I am

giving it as one of her Christmas presents. And I know she will enjoy

The Forerunner as much as I do."

*

"The magazines are very interesting and I wish you much success. I am

particularly interested in the suffrage arguments."

*

"I am charmed--thrilled with your strong trenchment work. You are one

of the few who clearly see and forcibly express the fundamental

difference between the old androcentric world and the new dawning age in

which women and men co-operate in _world building._"

*

"I have been wanting and intending to congratulate you on your effort

and result,--and to wish you everlasting success. It is unlike any of

the present-day magazines in many ways.

Allow me to say it is most interesting, and Mr. H---- joins me in

wishing for this publication a most brilliant future."

*

"Enclosed find $1.00, for which please send The Forerunner, your fine

crisp magazine."

*

"I see your _think marks_ on many an article written by both men and

women, and I know they have read your books."

*

"I want ten copies of the January Forerunner. I think it is

particularly good and the article on suffrage--or 'The Humanness of

Women,' one of the very best things I ever read on the subject."

*

"The Forerunner is a great success! I like it all, and it is not

disappointing in any respect in spite of the fact that I have been

getting more impatient to see it each month since I subscribed for it."

*

"Please send The Forerunner to me at ----- -----. It does good

digging--loosens up the soil nicely."

*

"I have enjoyed The Forerunner very much. I feel that I am getting more

than my money's worth; so to help the cause along I am sending you

herewith a few names of progressive friends, who will, I think, become

subscribers, and help in turn."

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IT IS A KIND BY ITSELF

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A BRAND NEW THING IN MAGAZINES

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IS CALLED:

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"Brusher away of cobwebs."

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"The new spirit and new conscience shine on each page."

"Place not filled by any other."

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The Forecast

PHILADELPHIA'S ONLY MAGAZINE

Is right there every time on every topic uppermost in the minds of the

public.

THE SEPTEMBER NUMBER

contains many special features that are readable, timely, lively.

ELLA WHEELER WILCOX tells of "The Influences Which Shaped My Career."

ANTOINETTE E. GAZZAM contributes an original article on "Clothes" which

is most beautifully illustrated and full of valuable suggestions and

pleasing surprises.

THOMAS MARTINDALE, the renowned sportsman and author of "Sport Royal,"

and other fascinating sporting tales, tells of "The Lure of Hunting."

Mr. Martindale never wrote more entertainingly than in this article.

EDWENA LAWRENCE reveals inside information in an article, especially

pleasing to theatre-goers, on "The Educational Value of a Theatrical

Stock Company," an article that will be appreciated by both the actor

and auditor.

SPLENDID FICTION, intimate sketches of the personalities of the day,

able book reviews, able articles on political, social, civic and

national phases of the leading questions of the day, and an entertaining

department of Fun, Fact and Fiction, as well as

CHARLES HOUSTON GOUDISS'S splendid eugenism in an article treating of

the most important phase of the prevention of child degradation, combine

in making The Forecast the most attractive ten cent magazine published.

THE FORECAST,

423 Lafayette Building, Philadelphia.

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Books by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Sent postpaid by

THE CHARLTON COMPANY

67 WALL STREET, NEW YORK

"Women and Economics" $1.50

Since John Stuart Mill's essay there has been no book dealing with the

whole position of women to approach it in originality of conception and

brilliancy of exposition.--_London Chronicle._

A remarkable book. A work on economics that has not a dull page--the

work of a woman about women that has not a flippant word.--_Boston

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Will be widely read and discussed as the cleverest, fairest, most

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look with favor on the extension of industrial employment to

women.--_Political Science Quarterly._

"Concerning Children" $1.25

WANTED:--A philanthropist, to give a copy to every English-speaking

parent.--_The Times,_ New York.

Should be read by every mother in the land.--_The Press,_ New York.

Wholesomely disturbing book that deserves to be read for its own

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"In This Our World" (Poems) $1.25

There is a joyous superabundance of life, of strength, of health, in

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The poet of women and for women, a new and prophetic voice in the world.

Montaigne would have rejoiced in her.--_Mexican Herald._

"The Yellow Wall Paper" $0.50

Worthy of a place beside some of the weird masterpieces of Hawthorne and

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As a short story it stands among the most powerful produced in

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"The Home" $1.00

Indeed, Mrs. Gilman has not intended her book so much as a treatise for

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It is safe to say that no more stimulating arraignment has ever before

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"Human Work" $1.00

Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman has been writing a new book, entitled

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In her latest volume, "Human Work," Charlotte Perkins Gilman places

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It is impossible to overestimate the value of the insistence on the

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IN PREPARATION:

"What Diantha Did" (A Novel) $1.00

"The Man Made World": or, "Our Androcentric Culture" $1.00

Orders taken for Bound Vols. THE FORERUNNER, $1.25

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THE FORERUNNER

CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN'S MAGAZINE

CHARLTON CO., 67 WALL ST., NEW YORK

AS TO PURPOSE:

_What is The Forerunner?_ It is a monthly magazine, publishing stories

short and serial, article and essay; drama, verse, satire and sermon;

dialogue, fable and fantasy, comment and review. It is written entirely

by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

_What is it For?_ It is to stimulate thought: to arouse hope, courage

and impatience; to offer practical suggestions and solutions, to voice

the strong assurance of better living, here, now, in our own hands to

make.

_What is it about?_ It is about people, principles, and the questions

of every-day life; the personal and public problems of to-day. It gives

a clear, consistent view of human life and how to live it.

_Is it a Woman's magazine?_ It will treat all three phases of our

existence--male, female and human. It will discuss Man, in his true

place in life; Woman, the Unknown Power; the Child, the most important

citizen.

_Is it a Socialist Magazine?_ It is a magazine for humanity, and

humanity is social. It holds that Socialism, the economic theory, is

part of our gradual Socialization, and that the duty of conscious

humanity is to promote Socialization.

_Why is it published?_ It is published to express ideas which need a

special medium; and in the belief that there are enough persons

interested in those ideas to justify the undertaking.

AS TO ADVERTISING:

We have long heard that "A pleased customer is the best advertiser."

The Forerunner offers to its advertisers and readers the benefit of this

authority. In its advertising department, under the above heading, will

be described articles personally known and used. So far as individual

experience and approval carry weight, and clear truthful description

command attention, the advertising pages of The Forerunner will be

useful to both dealer and buyer. If advertisers prefer to use their own

statements The Forerunner will publish them if it believes them to be

true.

AS TO CONTENTS:

The main feature of the first year is a new book on a new subject with a

new name:--

_"Our Androcentric Culture."_ this is a study of the historic effect on

normal human development of a too exclusively masculine civilization.

It shows what man, the male, has done to the world: and what woman, the

more human, may do to change it.

_"What Diantha Did."_ This is a serial novel. It shows the course of

true love running very crookedly--as it so often does--among the

obstructions and difficulties of the housekeeping problem--and solves

that problem. (NOT by co-operation.)

Among the short articles will appear:

"Private Morality and Public Immorality."

"The Beauty Women Have Lost"

"Our Overworked Instincts."

"The Nun in the Kitchen."

"Genius: Domestic and Maternal."

"A Small God and a Large Goddess."

"Animals in Cities."

"How We Waste Three-Fourths Of Our Money."

"Prize Children"

"Kitchen-Mindedness"

"Parlor-Mindedness"

"Nursery-Mindedness"

There will be short stories and other entertaining matter in each issue.

The department of "Personal Problems" does not discuss etiquette,

fashions or the removal of freckles. Foolish questions will not be

answered, unless at peril of the asker.

AS TO VALUE:

If you take this magazine one year you will have:

One complete novel . . . By C. P. Gilman

One new book . . . By C. P. Gilman

Twelve short stories . . . By C. P. Gilman

Twelve-and-more short articles . . . By C. P. Gilman

Twelve-and-more new poems . . . By C. P. Gilman

Twelve Short Sermons . . . By C. P. Gilman

Besides "Comment and Review" . . . By C. P. Gilman

"Personal Problems" . . . By C. P. Gilman

And many other things . . . By C. P. Gilman

DON'T YOU THINK IT'S WORTH A DOLLAR?

THE FORERUNNER

CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN'S MAGAZINE

CHARLTON CO., 67 WALL ST., NEW YORK

_____ 19__

Please find enclosed $_____ as subscription to "The Forerunner" from

_____ 19___ to _____ 19___

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THE FORERUNNER

A MONTHLY MAGAZINE

BY

CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN

AUTHOR, OWNER & PUBLISHER

1.00 A YEAR

.10 A COPY

Volume 1. No. 12 OCTOBER, 1910

Copyright for 1910

C. P. Gilman

Tin soldiers have long been a popular toy.

Why not tin carpenters?

ONLY MINE

They told me what she had done--

Of her life like a river free:

Teaching and showing with tender truth,

Giving her light to age and youth,

Till fathers and mothers and children grew

To listen and learn and see

What the village had come to be;

How they had no sickness, young or old,

And had lost but one from all their fold;

For all the people knew

How to keep life strong and true;

And I asked her how had her love begun

To ripen and reach to every one.

She lifted a royal head,

Standing straight, as a tree;

While troops of little ones clustered and clung

To raiment and hand and knee.

"Should I not be glad," said she,

"In health and beauty and joy like this?

Babies by hundreds to cuddle and kiss;

A happier town was never sung;

A heaven of children for old and young;

There is only one that is dead--

It was only mine," she said.

THE BOYS AND THE BUTTER

Young Holdfast and J. Edwards Fernald sat grimly at their father's

table, being seen and not heard, and eating what was set before them,

asking no questions for conscience' sake, as they had been duly reared.

But in their hearts were most unchristian feelings toward a venerable

guest, their mother's aunt, by name Miss Jane McCoy.

They knew, with the keen observation of childhood, that it was only a

sense of hospitality, and duty to a relative, which made their father

and mother polite to her--polite, but not cordial.

Mr. Fernald, as a professed Christian, did his best to love his wife's

aunt, who came as near being an "enemy" as anyone he knew. But Mahala,

his wife, was of a less saintly nature, and made no pretense of more

than decent courtesy.

"I don't like her and I won't pretend to; it's not honest!" she

protested to her husband, when he remonstrated with her upon her want of

natural affection. "I can't help her being my aunt--we are not

commanded to honor our aunts and uncles, Jonathan E."

Mrs. Fernald's honesty was of an iron hardness and heroic mould. She

would have died rather than have told a lie, and classed as lies any

form of evasion, deceit, concealment or even artistic exaggeration.

Her two sons, thus starkly reared, found their only imaginative license

in secret converse between themselves, sacredly guarded by a pact of

mutual faith, which was stronger than any outward compulsion. They

kicked each other under the table, while enduring this visitation,

exchanged dark glances concerning the object of their common dislike,

and discussed her personal peculiarities with caustic comment later,

when they should have been asleep.

Miss McCoy was not an endearing old lady. She was heavily built, and

gobbled her food, carefully selecting the best. Her clothing was

elaborate, but not beautiful, and on close approach aroused a suspicion

of deferred laundry bills.

Among many causes for dislike for her aunt, Mrs. Fernald cherished this

point especially. On one of these unwelcome visits she had been at some

pains to carry up hot water for the Saturday evening bath, which was all

the New England conscience of those days exacted, and the old lady had

neglected it not only once but twice.

"Goodness sake, Aunt Jane! aren't you ever going to take a bath?"

"Nonsense!" replied her visitor. "I don't believe in all this wetting

and slopping. The Scripture says, 'Whoso washeth his feet, his whole

body shall be made clean.'"

Miss McCoy had numberless theories for other people's conduct, usually

backed by well-chosen texts, and urged them with no regard for anybody's

feelings. Even the authority of parents had no terrors for her.

Sipping her tea from the saucer with deep swattering inhalations, she

fixed her prominent eyes upon the two boys as they ploughed their way

through their bread and butter. Nothing must be left on the plate, in

the table ethics of that time. The meal was simple in the extreme. A

New Hampshire farm furnished few luxuries, and the dish of quince

preserves had already been depleted by her.

"Mahala," she said with solemn determination, "those boys eat too much

butter."

Mrs. Fernald flushed up to the edging of her cap. "I think I must be

the judge of what my children eat at my table, Aunt Jane," she answered,

not too gently.

Here Mr. Fernald interposed with a "soft answer." (He had never lost

faith in the efficacy of these wrath turners, even on long repeated

failure. As a matter of fact, to his wife's temper, a soft answer,

especially an intentionally soft answer, was a fresh aggravation.) "The

missionary, now, he praised our butter; said he never got any butter in

China, or wherever 'tis he lives."

"He is a man of God," announced Miss McCoy. "If there is anybody on

this poor earth deserving reverence, it is a missionary. What they

endure for the Gospel is a lesson for us all. When I am taken I intend

to leave all I have to the Missionary Society. You know that."

They knew it and said nothing. Their patience with her was in no way

mercenary.

"But what I am speaking of is children," she continued, not to be

diverted from her fell purpose. "Children ought not to eat butter."

"They seem to thrive on it," Mrs. Fernald replied tartly. And in truth

both the boys were sturdy little specimens of humanity, in spite of

their luxurious food.

"It's bad for them. Makes them break out. Bad for the blood. And

self-denial is good for children. 'It is better to bear the yoke in thy

youth.'"

The youth in question spread its butter more thickly, and ate it with

satisfaction, saying nothing.

"Here, boys!" she suddenly assailed them. "If you will go without

butter for a year--a whole year, till I come round again--I'll give each

of you fifty dollars!"

This was an overwhelming proposition.

Butter was butter--almost the only alleviation of a dry and monotonous

bill of fare, consisting largely of bread. Bread without butter! Brown

bread without butter! No butter on potatoes! No butter on anything!

The young imagination recoiled. And this measureless deprivation was to

cover a whole year. A ninth or an eleventh of a lifetime to them

respectively. About a fifth of all they could really remember.

Countless days, each having three meals; weeks, months, the long dry

butterless vista stretched before them like Siberian exile to a Russian

prisoner.

But, on the other hand, there was the fifty dollars. Fifty dollars

would buy a horse, a gun, tools, knives--a farm, maybe. It could be put

in the bank, and drawn on for life, doubtless. Fifty dollars at that

time was like five hundred to-day, and to a child it was a fortune.

Even their mother wavered in her resentment as she considered the fifty

dollars, and the father did not waver at all, but thought it a Godsend.

"Let 'em choose," said Miss McCoy.

Stern is the stock of the Granite State. Self-denial is the essence of

their religion; and economy, to give it a favorable name, is for them

Nature's first law.

The struggle was brief. Holdfast laid down his thick-spread slice. J.

Edwards laid down his. "Yes, ma'am," said one after the other. "Thank

you, ma'am. We'll do it."

*

It was a long year. Milk did not take the place of it. Gravy and

drippings, freely given by their mother, did not take the place of it,

nor did the infrequent portions of preserves. Nothing met the same

want. And if their health was improved by the abstinence it was in no

way visible to the naked eye. They were well, but they were well

before.

As to the moral effect--it was complex. An extorted sacrifice has not

the same odor of sanctity as a voluntary one. Even when made willingly,

if the willingness is purchased, the effect seems somewhat confused.

Butter was not renounced, only postponed, and as the year wore on the

young ascetics, in their secret conferences, indulged in wild visions of

oleaginous excess so soon as the period of dearth should be over.

But most they refreshed their souls with plans for the spending and the

saving of the hard-earned wealth that was coming to them. Holdfast was

for saving his, and being a rich man--richer than Captain Briggs or

Deacon Holbrook. But at times he wavered, spurred by the imagination of

J. Edwards, and invested that magic sum in joys unnumbered.

The habit of self-denial was perhaps being established, but so was the

habit of discounting the future, of indulging in wild plans of

self-gratification when the ship came in.

*

Even for butterless boys, time passes, and the endless year at last drew

to a close. They counted the months, they counted the weeks, they

counted the days. Thanksgiving itself shone pale by contrast with this

coming festival of joy and triumph. As it drew nearer and nearer their

excitement increased, and they could not forget it even in the passing

visit of a real missionary, a live one, who had been to those dark lands

where the heathen go naked, worship idols and throw their children to

the crocodiles.

They were taken to hear him, of course, and not only so, but he came to

supper at their house and won their young hearts by the stories he told

them. Gray of hair and beard was the preacher and sternly devout; but

he had a twinkling eye none the less, and told tales of wonder and

amazement that were sometimes almost funny and always interesting.

"Do not imagine, my young friends," he said, after filling them with

delicious horror at the unspeakable wickedness of those "godless lands,"

"that the heathen are wholly without morality. The Chinese, among whom

I have labored for many years, are more honest than some Christians.

Their business honor is a lesson to us all. But works alone cannot

save." And he questioned them as to their religious state, receiving

satisfactory answers.

The town turned out to hear him; and, when he went on circuit,

preaching, exhorting, describing the hardships and dangers of missionary

life, the joys of soul-saving, and urging his hearers to contribute to

this great duty of preaching the Gospel to all creatures, they had a

sort of revival season; and arranged for a great missionary church

meeting with a special collection when he should return.

The town talked missionary and thought missionary; dreamed missionary,

it might well be; and garrets were ransacked to make up missionary boxes

to send to the heathen. But Holdfast and J. Edwards mingled their

interest in those unfortunate savages with a passionate desire for

butter, and a longing for money such as they had never known before.

Then Miss McCoy returned.

They knew the day, the hour. They watched their father drive down to

meet the stage, and tormented their mother with questions as to whether

she would give it to them before supper or after.

"I'm sure I don't know!" she snapped at last. "I'll be thankful when

it's over and done with, I'm sure. A mighty foolish business, I think!"

Then they saw the old chaise turn the corner. What? Only one in it!

The boys rushed to the gate--the mother, too.

"What is it, Jonathan? Didn't she come?"

"Oh, father!"

"Where is she, father?"

"She's not coming," said Mr. Fernald. "Says she's going to stay with

Cousin Sarah, so's to be in town and go to all the missionary doin's.

But she's sent it."

Then he was besieged, and as soon as the horse was put up, by three

pairs of busy hands, they came to the supper table, whereon was a full

two pounds of delicious butter, and sat down with tingling impatience.

The blessing was asked in all due form--a blessing ten miles long, it

seemed to the youngsters, and then the long, fat envelope came out of

Mr. Fernald's pocket.

"She must have written a lot," he said, taking out two folded papers,

and then a letter.

"My dear great-nephews," ran the epistle, "as your parents have assured

me that you have kept your promise, and denied yourselves butter for the

space of a year, here is the fifty dollars I promised to each of

you--wisely invested."

Mr. Fernald opened the papers. To Holdfast Fernald and to J. Edwards

Fernald, duly made out, receipted, signed and sealed, were two $50 life

memberships in the Missionary society!

Poor children! The younger one burst into wild weeping. The older

seized the butter dish and cast it on the floor, for which he had to be

punished, of course, but the punishment added nothing to his grief and

rage.

When they were alone at last, and able to speak for sobbing, those

gentle youths exchanged their sentiments; and these were of the nature

of blasphemy and rebellion against God. They had learned at one fell

blow the hideous lesson of human depravity. People lied--grown

people--religious people--they lied! You couldn't trust them! They had

been deceived, betrayed, robbed! They had lost the actual joy

renounced, and the potential joy promised and withheld. The money they

might some day earn, but not heaven itself could give back that year of

butter. And all this in the name of religion--and of missionaries!

Wild, seething outrage filled their hearts at first; slower results

would follow.

*

The pious enthusiasm of the little town was at its height. The

religious imagination, rather starved on the bald alternatives of

Calvinism, found rich food in these glowing tales of danger, devotion,

sometimes martyrdom; while the spirit of rigid economy, used to daylong

saving from the cradle to the grave, took passionate delight in the

success of these noble evangelists who went so far afield to save lost

souls.

Out of their narrow means they had scraped still further; denied

themselves necessaries where no pleasures remained; and when the

crowning meeting was announced, the big collection meeting, with the

wonderful brother from the Church in Asia to address them again, the

meeting house was packed in floor and gallery.

Hearts were warm and open, souls were full of enthusiasm for the great

work, wave on wave of intense feeling streamed through the crowded

house.

Only in the Fernalds' pew was a spirit out of tune.

Fernald, good man though he was, had not yet forgiven. His wife had not

tried.

"Don't talk to me!" she had cried passionately, when he had urged a

reconciliation. "Forgive your enemies! Yes, but she hasn't done any

harm to _me!_. It's my boys she's hurt! It don't say one word about

forgiving other people's enemies!"

Yet Mrs. Fernald, for all her anger, seemed to have some inner source of

consolation, denied her husband, over which she nodded to herself from

time to time, drawing in her thin lips, and wagging her head decisively.

Vengeful bitterness and impotent rage possessed the hearts of Holdfast

and J. Edwards.

This state of mind in young and old was not improved when, on arriving

at the meeting a little late, they had found the head of the pew was

occupied by Miss McCoy.

It was neither the time nor the place for a demonstration. No other

seats were vacant, and Mrs. Fernald marched in and sat next to her,

looking straight at the pulpit. Next came the boys, and murder was in

their hearts. Last, Mr. Fernald, inwardly praying for a more Christian

spirit, but not getting it.

Holdfast and young J. Edwards dared not speak in church or make any

protest; but they smelled the cardamum seeds in the champing jaws beyond

their mother, and they cast black looks at each other and very secretly

showed clenched fists, held low.

In fierce inward rebellion they sat through the earlier speeches, and

when the time came for the address of the occasion, even the deep voice

of the brother from Asia failed to stir them. Was he not a missionary,

and were not missionaries and all their works proved false?

But what was this?

The address was over; the collection, in cash, was in the piled plates

at the foot of the pulpit. The collection in goods was enumerated and

described with full names given.

Then the hero of the hour was seen to confer with the other reverend

brothers, and to rise and come forward, raising his hand for silence.

"Dearly beloved brethren and sisters," he said, "in this time of

thanksgiving for gifts spiritual and temporal I wish to ask your

patience for a moment more, that we may do justice. There has come to

my ears a tale concerning one of our recent gifts which I wish you to

hear, that judgment may be done in Israel.

"One among us has brought to the House of the Lord a tainted

offering--an offering stained with cruelty and falsehood. Two young

children of our flock were bribed a year ago to renounce one of the

scant pleasures of their lives for a year's time--a whole long year of a

child's life. They were bribed with a promise--a promise of untold

wealth to a child, of fifty dollars each."

The congregation drew a long breath.

Those who knew of the Fernald boys' endeavor (and who in that friendly

radius did not?) looked at them eagerly. Those who recognized Miss

McCoy looked at her, too, and they were many. She sat, fanning herself,

with a small, straight-handled palmleaf fan, striving to appear

unconscious.

"When the time was up," the clear voice went on remorselessly, "the year

of struggle and privation, and the eager hearts of childhood expected

the reward; instead of keeping the given word, instead of the money

promised, each child was given a paid life membership in our society!"

Again the house drew in its breath. Did not the end justify the means?

He went on:

"I have conferred with my fellow members, and we are united in our

repudiation of this gift. The money is not ours. It was obtained by a

trick which the heathen themselves would scorn."

There was a shocked pause. Miss McCoy was purple in the face, and only

kept her place for fear of drawing more attention if she strove to

escape.

"I name no names," the speaker continued, "and I regret the burden laid

upon me to thus expose this possibly well-meant transaction, but what we

have at stake to-night is not this handful of silver, nor the feelings

of one sinner, but two children's souls. Are we to have their sense of

justice outraged in impressionable youth? Are they to believe with the

Psalmist that all men are liars? Are they to feel anger and blame for

the great work to which our lives are given because in its name they

were deceived and robbed? No, my brothers, we clear our skirts of this

ignominy. In the name of the society, I shall return this money to its

rightful owners. 'Whoso offendeth one of these little ones, it were

better that a millstone be hanged about his neck and he cast into the

depths of the sea.'"

A QUESTION

Why is it, God, that mother's hearts are made

So very deep and wide?

How does it help the world that we should hold

Such welling floods of pain till we are old

Because when we were young one grave was laid--

One baby died?

IS IT WRONG TO TAKE LIFE?

"Thou shalt not kill."

This is about as explicit as words can be; there is no qualification, no

palliating circumstance, no exception.

"Thou"--(presumably you and I, any and every person) "shalt not"--(a

prohibition absolute) "kill"--(take life: that is, apparently, of

anything).

How do we read this? How apply it?

Some have narrowed it to assassination only, frankly paraphrasing the

simple law, as "Thou shalt do no murder," and excepting the whole range

of war-slaughter, of legal execution, of "self-defence" and "justifiable

homicide."

Some have widened it to cover not only all human beings, but all animal

life as well; the Buddhist and his modern followers sparing even the ant

in the path, and the malaria-planting mosquito.

Such extremists should sit in sackcloth and ashes over the riotous

carriage of their own phagasytes; ever ruthlessly destroying millions

upon millions of staphyllococci and similar intruders.

Where should the line be drawn? And why? Especially why? Why is it

wrong to kill?

If we hark back to the direct command, we find that it could not have

been intended as universally binding.

"Whoso sheddeth man's blood by man shall his blood be shed," and all the

explicit directions as to who should be killed, and how; for such and

such offences, certainly justify the axe and rope of the executioner;

and beyond that come numbers of inspired commands as to the merciless

extermination of opposing tribes in which men, women and children were

"put to the sword"--even to babes unborn. Killing seemed highly

honorable, even compulsory, among the people on whom this stern command

was laid.

Scholars teach us that the ten commandments were in truth not given to

the Israelites until after the return of Hezekiah; that may alter the

case a little, but assuredly if we are to believe the Old Testament at

all there was no blame attached to many kinds of killing.

The Prophets and Psalmists particularly yearned to have their enemies

destroyed, and exulted in their destruction.

In the teachings of Jesus we find another spirit altogether, but we have

not therefore abrogated the old commandments, and the problem of this

clear prohibition remains unsolved.

Those of us to-day who feel most keenly the evil of "taking life" are

almost Buddhistic in attitude. They object to killing for food or

killing in self-defence.

Fortunately for them, we have not many destructive wild beasts among us,

thanks to the vigorous killing of our less scrupulous forefathers.

Some millennial dreamers suggest that the wolves and catamounts might

have been tamed, if taken young; the natural resistance of the parents

to the "taking" overcome by moral suasion, doubtless! Yes, it is

conceivable that all the little snarling cubs and kittens might have

been tamed, and taught to feed out of the hand--_but on what?_

In India some there may be who would emulate their saintly master, who

offered his own body as food to a starving mother tiger; a sacrifice of

less moment than appears, since he believed he would soon have

another--that he had to have a great many--and that the sooner he got

through with the lot the better.

From this unkind point of view his offering was much like that of a lady

giving away a dress she is tired of, to promote the replenishment of her

wardrobe.

The popular objection to killing, in India, results in the continuance

of man-eating tigers and deadly serpents; which again results in their

killing, in their untaught vigor, great numbers of human beings and

other useful animals. The sum of the killings would be less if the

killers were killed.

In our cooler land we have fewer poisonous reptiles and creeping things,

yet insects there are which most of us slay with enthusiasm; the most

sentimental devotee would hardly share couch or clothing with them!

Surely no rational person objects to "justifiable insecticide"?

The most merciful will usually admit our own right to live, and

therefore to kill in self-defence all creatures that would kill us.

Where the line is drawn, however, by many earnest thinkers and feelers,

is at killing harmless, inoffensive creatures for food.

The sheep we may shear, but not make into chops; the cow we may milk,

but not turn into steaks and stews; the hen we may rob of her potential

young, but neither roast nor fricassee.

It is no wonder, in view of the steaming horrors of the slaughter-house,

that we recoil from killing; but is it the killing which is wrong in

itself, or merely the horrors?

Let us first consider how this might be done; and then, if, at its best,

the essential act of "taking life" is deemed wrong, we will consider

that.

Suppose green pastures and still waters, the shade of trees, the warmth

of the sun, the shelter of roof and walls; suppose protection and kind

care, provision for the winter, and that we only shared the milk with

the calves instead of barbarously separating the mother from her young.

Calves might be bottle-fed, to satisfy their hunger, and afterward

turned loose with the mother; they could not take all the milk then, and

we might have the rest.

Suppose creatures thus living in an animal paradise, then gathered in

small numbers, in local centers, and neatly, instantaneously and

painlessly killed, any surgeon can tell us how. They could then be

dressed, chilled and sent to larger centers for more general

distribution.

What hardship, to them, is involved in this?

Die they must, some time, and by worse methods. In a wild state or a

tame they must either be killed by something or die slowly of old age

and incapacity.

Even if we nursed the toothless ox, and fed him with a spoon, he would

not enjoy it.

We have to admit that in this whole round world all creatures die, and

that in most cases, their lives are taken by others.

Looked at from a strictly scientific point of view, this is evidently

the order of nature, her universal law. Looked at from a religious

point of view, it is as evidently the will of God, His universal law.

Some postulate a sinless Eden past, before this killing habit began; and

foresee a sinless Millennium to come, when we shall have outgrown it.

These do not use their imaginations enough. Even if Edenic or

Millennial tigers could digest grass and apples, are they therefore

immortal? Is a species to live on forever in one representative, or one

Platonic pair?

Because if we have life, as we know it, we have also reproduction, the

direction for which precedes the picture of Eden; each pair being told

"to increase and multiply and replenish the earth." Now for the

imagination, to forecast results.

If the creatures fulfill this command, (and they do, diligently) the

earth presently becomes replenished to a degree apparently unforeseen;

unless, indeed, this law of mutual destruction be specially provided to

meet that difficulty.

Life is multiple and interchangeable. Life continues on earth not in

permanent radiating lines, but in flowing union; the forms combining,

separating, growing, in and through one another.

Perhaps our error lies in fixing our minds in the eaten instead of the

eater; dwelling on the loss of the killed, instead of the gain of the

killer.

We say "all creatures eat one another," and it grieves us. Why not say

"all creatures feed one another?" There is something beautiful in that.

Life, to each creature, is all time--all that he has any knowledge

of--and living is a pleasure lasting all that time. Death, on the other

hand, is but a moment, and even so is a pleasure to the wolf who eats,

if not to the sheep who is eaten.

We, with our larger range of thought, and with our strange religions

theories, have complicated and warped the thought of death by associate

ideas. We place conscious fear before it, and load that fear with

threats of eternal punishment.

We try to measure the wholesome facts of life by arbitrary schemes of

later devising, and life seems dreary by contrast.

When we look at the facts themselves, however; see the grass green and

thick for all its cropping; fish swimming in great schools, "as good as

ever were caught"; the oysters peacefully casting forth their millions

of eggs to make up for all that are eaten; this whole blooming, fruiting

world of life and love; we find these to be the main things, the real

prominent features of the performance; and death but a "lightning change

artist," a quick transformation, in which one living form turns into

another, while life goes on.

Meanwhile, in our human affairs it would be a good thing if we would

develop as keen a sense of the responsibility of giving life as we have

in taking it. We hold three powers in the life-process--a degree of

choice and judgment as to who comes on the stage, some power to decide

who shall go off, and when, and, most important of all, the ability to

modify life while we have it.

Is it not singular that there should be so much sentiment about taking

life and so little about giving it? We give life almost as

thoughtlessly as the beasts below us. We are variously minded about

taking it, killing many good men in war, and not killing many bad ones

in peace, except an ill-selected few; but as yet we have no deep feeling

about the struggles and sufferings of people while they live.

If we become religiously careful about the kind of people that are born,

and about the treatment they get after they are born, it will make more

difference to human happiness, and human progress, than would the

establishment of a purely vegetable diet, the abolition of capital

punishment, or even the end of war.

THE WORLD AND THE THREE ARTISTS

Three Artists found a World on their hands. It was their World and they

were its Artists.

It was a Dull World, and needed Amusement.

It was a Hungry World, and needed Food.

It was a Tired World, and needed Inspiration.

It was an Ugly World, and needed Beauty.

Now the Artists were very powerful, having all these things in their

gift.

The first was an Artist Pure and Simple, so he arose and gave the Dull

World what he himself found amusing,--but the World was not amused.

"Stupid Beast!" said the Artist. "When I am dead it will find my work

amusing!"

Then he gave the Hungry World what he thought good to eat,--but the

World would not eat it.

"Ungrateful Wretch!" said the Artist. "When I am dead it will find this

good food."

Then he gave the Tired World what he thought was Inspiration,--but the

World was not Inspired.

"Dense Dolt!" said the Artist. "When I am dead it will recognize my

Inspiration."

Then he gave the Ugly World what he thought was Beauty,--but the World

did not find it Beautiful.

"Blind Brute!" said the Artist. "How terrible it is to be

unappreciated! This Fool Incarnate can never realize what it is

ignoring! And it will give me no reward! When I am dead it will see my

Beauty!"

Now the World had its feelings, and did not enjoy the attitude of the

Artist; so verily it gave him no reward. And he died. Nevertheless

what he foretold was by no means fulfilled, for his work was for himself

alone, and perished with him.

Then arose the second Artist, and he was not only an Artist, but a

Merchant.

And he said, "I perceive that this my brother has died because he did

not please the World, and it would give him no reward. I shall be

wiser."

Then he studied the tastes of the World; Dull, Hungry, Tired and Ugly; a

Neglected Child.

And he carefully catered to its ignorance, its prejudices and its

childish tastes; he tickled with cheap pleasures, he gave it what its

lower nature liked, and the Dull World found his Amusement amusing, and

paid for it; and the Hungry World found his food palatable, and paid for

it; and the Tired World received his Inspiration as if it were genuine,

and paid for it; and the Ugly World eagerly grasped his poor prettiness

as if it were Beauty, and paid for it; so the second Artist did not

die--until he died; and then he was dead; and his work with him.

But the third Artist, who was also a Citizen, thought long of his task.

"I am an Artist," he said, "and this is my World. Of what avail is my

Beauty if the World does not see it? How do I know that Worlds to Come

will see it?--even if it lives? _This_ World needs Beauty, _now!_ If I

work to express myself alone, I die, lean and angry; and my work dies

with me. If I basely cater to this Neglected Child, I die, though

fatter; and my work dies with me. How shall I feed the World?"

But he was an Artist, and very powerful, so he essayed his task.

He earnestly studied the needs of the World. "Shall I feed a lamb on

beef?" said he, "or a cat on pie?"

By the exercise of his intelligence he learned the needs of the World,

which were many and conspicuous; by the exercise of his Art he met them.

He gave it Amusement which was within reach of the tastes of that

Neglected Child, yet which was in truth Amusing; and the World was

Amused, and loved him.

He gave it food both palatable and nourishing; and the World was fed,

and loved him.

He gave it Inspiration which struck to the heart, yet was drawn from

Eternal Truth; and the World was Inspired, and loved him.

And he poured forth his very soul in Beauty; Beauty as simple as the

common flowers the whole world loves, and as true as the stars in

heaven, Beauty that ravished the soul of the Neglected Child, opened its

eyes to Radiant Joy, and lifted it along the ages. And the World bathed

in Beauty, and loved him. Also its taste improved continually under the

influence of his Art. And the Artist was happy, for he fulfilled his

mighty task.

"My glorious World!" he said; "What happiness! To be allowed to serve

the World!"

And he watched it grow; well-nourished now, full of sweet merriment,

strong in steady inspiration, rich in unfolding beauty.

For the World lived, and the Artist lived, and his work lived

forever,--in the world.

IN HOW LITTLE TIME

In how little time, were we so minded,

We could be wise and free--not held and blinded!

We could be hale and strong--not weak and sickly!

Could do away with wrong--and do it quickly!

Riches of earth, enough for all our keeping;

Love in the heart, awake, no longer sleeping;

Power in the hand and brain for what needs making;

Joy in the gift of power, joy in the taking!

In how little time could grow around us

A people clean and fair as life first found us!

One with the under-earth, in peaceful growing,

One with the over-soul, in doing, knowing.

Labor a joy and pride, in ease and beauty;

Art that should fill at last its human duty;

This we could make and have, were we not blinded!

In how little time--were we so minded!

WOMAN AND THE STATE

[A Discussion of Political Equality of Men and Women. To be read in

connection with chapter 12 of Our Androcentric Culture, in this issue.]

Here are two vital factors in human life; one a prime essential to our

existence; the other a prime essential to our progress.

Both of them we idealize in certain lines, and exploit in others. Both

of them are misinterpreted, balked of their full usefulness, and

humanity thus injured.

The human race does not get the benefit of the full powers of women, nor

of the full powers of the state.

In all civilized races to-day there is a wide and growing sense of

discontent among women; a criticism of their assigned limitations, and a

demand for larger freedom and opportunity. Under different conditions

the demand varies; it is here for higher education, there for justice

before the law; here for economic independence, and there for political

equality.

This last is at present the most prominent Issue of "the woman question"

in England and America, as the activity of the "militant suffragists"

has forced it upon the attention of the world.

Thoughtful people in general are now studying this point more seriously

than ever before, genuinely anxious to adopt the right side, and there

is an alarmed uprising of sincere objection to the political equality of

women.

Wasting no time on ignorance, prejudice, or the resistance of special

interests, let us fairly face the honest opposition, and do it justice.

The conservative position is this:

Men and women have different spheres in life. To men belong the

creation and management of the state, and the financial maintenance of

the home and family:

"To women belong the physical burden of maternity, and the industrial

management of the home and family; these duties require all their time

and strength:

"The prosperity of the state may be sufficiently conserved by men alone;

the prosperity of the family requires the personal presence and services

of the mother in the home: if women assume the cares of the state, the

home and family will suffer:

Some go even farther than this, and claim an essential limitation in

"the female mind" which prevents it from grasping large political

interests; holding, therefore, that if women took part in state affairs

it would be to the detriment of the community:

Others advance a theory that "society," in the special sense, is the

true sphere of larger service for women, and that those of them not

exclusively confined to "home duties" may find full occupation in

"social duties," including the time honored fields of "religion" and

"charity":

Others again place their main reliance on the statement that, as to the

suffrage, "women do not want it."

Let us consider these points in inverse order, beginning with the last

one.

We will admit that at present the majority of women are not consciously

desirous of any extension of their political rights and privileges, but

deny that this indifference is any evidence against the desirability of

such extension.

It has long been accepted that the position of women is an index of

civilization. Progressive people are proud of the freedom and honor

given their women, and our nation honestly believes itself the leader in

this line. "American women are the freest in the world!" we say; and

boast of it.

Since the agitation for women's rights began, many concessions have been

made to further improve their condition. Men, seeing the justice of

certain demands, have granted in many states such privileges as

admission to schools, colleges, universities, and special instruction

for professions; followed by admission to the bar, the pulpit, and the

practice of medicine. Married women, in many states, have now a right

to their own earnings; and in a few, mothers have an equal right in the

guardianship of their children.

We are proud and glad that our women are free to go unveiled, to travel

alone, to choose their own husbands; we are proud and glad of every

extension of justice already granted by men to women.

Now:--Have any of these concessions been granted because a majority of

women asked for them? Was it advanced in opposition to any of them that

"women did not want it?" Have as many women ever asked for these things

as are now asking for the ballot? If it was desirable to grant these

other rights and privileges without the demand of a majority, why is the

demand of a majority required before this one is granted?

The child widows of India did not unitedly demand the abolition of the

"suttee."

The tortured girl children of China did not rise in overwhelming

majority to demand free feet; yet surely no one would refuse to lift

these burdens because only a minority of progressive women insisted on

justice.

It is a sociological impossibility that a majority of an unorganized

class should unite in concerted demand for a right, a duty, which they

have never known.

The point to be decided is whether political equality is to the

advantage of women and of the state--not whether either, as a body, is

asking for it.

Now for the "society" theory. There is a venerable fiction to the

effect that women make--and manage, "society." No careful student of

comparative history can hold this belief for a moment. Whatever the

conditions of the age or place; industrial, financial, religious,

political, educational; these conditions are in the hands of men; and

these conditions dictate the "society" of that age or place.

"Society" in a constitutional monarchy is one thing; in a primitive

despotism another; among millionaires a third; but women do not make the

despotism, the monarchy, or the millions. They take social conditions

as provided by men, precisely as they take all other conditions at their

hands. They do not even modify an existing society to their own

interests, being powerless to do so. The "double standard of morals,"

ruling everywhere in "society," proves this; as does the comparative

helplessness of women to enjoy even social entertainments, without the

constant attendance and invitation of men.

Even in its great function of exhibition leading to marriage, it is the

girls who are trained and exhibited, under closest surveillance; while

the men stroll in and out, to chose at will, under no surveillance

whatever.

That women, otherwise powerful, may use "society" to further their ends,

is as true as that men do; and in England, where women, through their

titled and landed position, have always had more political power than

here, "society" is a very useful vehicle for the activities of both

sexes.

But, in the main, the opportunities of "society" to women, are merely

opportunities to use their "feminine influence" in extra domestic

lines--a very questionable advantage to the home and family, to

motherhood, to women, or to the state.

In religion women have always filled and more than filled the place

allowed them. Needless to say it was a low one. The power of the

church, its whole management and emoluments, were always in the hands of

men, save when the Lady Abbess held her partial sway; but the work of

the church has always been helped by women--the men have preached and

the women practised!

Charity, as a vocation, is directly in line with the mother instinct,

and has always appealed to women. Since we have learned how injurious

to true social development this mistaken kindness is, it might almost be

classified as a morbid by-product of suppressed femininity!

In passing we may note that charity as a virtue is ranked highest among

those nations and religions where women are held lowest. With the

Moslems it is a universal law--and in the Moslem Paradise there are no

women--save the Houries!

The playground of a man-fenced "society"; the work-ground of a

man-taught church; and this "osmosis" of social nutrition, this leakage

and seepage of values which should circulate normally, called charity;

these are not a sufficient field for the activities of women.

As for those limitations of the "feminine mind" which render her unfit

to consider the victuallage of a nation, or the justice of a tax on

sugar; it hardly seems as if the charge need be taken seriously. Yet so

able a woman as Mrs. Humphry Ward has recently advanced it in all

earnestness.

In her view women are capable of handling municipal, but not state

affairs. Since even this was once denied them; and since, in England,

they have had municipal suffrage for some time; it would seem as if

their abilities grew with use, as most abilities do; which is in truth

the real answer.

Most women spend their whole lives, and have spent their whole lives for

uncounted generations, in the persistent and exclusive contemplation of

their own family affairs. They are near-sighted, or near-minded,

rather; the trouble is not with the nature of their minds, but with the

use of them.

If men as a class had been exclusively confined to the occupation of

house-service since history began, they would be similarly unlikely to

manifest an acute political intelligence.

We may agree with Tennyson that "Woman is not undeveloped man, but

diverse;" that is _women_ are not undeveloped _men;_ but the feminine

half of humanity is undeveloped human. They have exercised their

feminine functions, but not their human-functions; at least not to their

full extent.

Here appears a distinction which needs to be widely appreciated.

We are not merely male and female--all animals are that--our chief

distinction is that of race, our humanness.

Male characteristics we share with all males, bird and beast; female

characteristics we share with all females, similarly; but human

characteristics belong to _genus homo_ alone; and are possessed by both

sexes. A female horse is just as much a horse as a male of her species;

a female human being is just as human as the male of her species--or

ought to be!

In the special functions and relations of sex there is no contest, no

possible rivalry or confusion; but in the general functions of humanity

there is great misunderstanding.

Our trouble is that we have not recognized these human functions as

such; but supposed them to be exclusively masculine; and, acting under

that idea, strove to prevent women from an unnatural imitation of men.

Hence this minor theory of the limitations of the "female mind."

The mind is pre-eminently human. That degree of brain development which

distinguishes our species, is a human, not a sex characteristic.

There may be, has been, and still is, a vast difference in our treatment

of the minds of the two sexes. We have given them a different

education, different exercises, different conditions in all ways. But

all these differences are external, and their effect disappears with

them.

The "female mind" has proven its identical capacity with the "male

mind," _in so far as it has been given identical conditions._ It will

take a long time, however, before conditions are so identical, for

successive generations, as to give the "female mind" a fair chance.

In the meantime, considering its traditional, educational and

associative drawbacks, the "female mind" has made a remarkably good

showing.

The field of politics is an unfortunate one in which to urge this

alleged limitation; because politics is one of the few fields in which

some women have been reared and exercised under equal conditions with

men.

We have had queens as long as we have had kings, perhaps longer; and

history does not show the male mind, in kings, to have manifested a

numerically proportionate superiority over the female mind, in queens.

There have been more kings than queens, but have there been more good

and great ones, in proportion?

Even one practical and efficient queen is proof enough that being a

woman does not preclude political capacity. Since England has had such

an able queen for so long, and that within Mrs. Humphry Ward's personal

memory, her position seems fatuous in the extreme.

It has been advanced that great queens owed their power to the

association and advice of the noble and high-minded men who surrounded

them; and, further, that the poor showing made by many kings, was due to

the association and vice of the base and low-minded women who surrounded

them.

This is a particularly pusillanimous claim in the first place; is not

provable in the second place; and, if it were true, opens up a very

pretty field of study in the third place. It would seem to prove, if it

proves anything, that men are not fit to be trusted with political power

on account of an alarming affinity for the worst of women; and,

conversely, that women, as commanding the assistance of the best of men,

are visibly the right rulers! Also it opens a pleasant sidelight on

that oft-recommended tool--"feminine influence."

We now come to our opening objection; that society and state, home, and

family, are best served by the present division of interests: and its

corollary, that if women enlarge that field of interest it would reduce

their usefulness in their present sphere.

The corollary is easily removed. We are now on the broad ground of

established facts; of history, recent, but still achieved.

Women have had equal political rights with men in several places, for

considerable periods of time. In Wyoming, to come near home, they have

enjoyed this status for more than a generation. Neither here nor in any

other state or country where women vote, is there the faintest proof of

injury to the home or family relation. In Wyoming, indeed, divorce has

decreased, while gaining so fast in other places.

Political knowledge, political interest, does not take up more time and

strength than any other form of mental activity; nor does it preclude a

keen efficiency in other lines; and as for the actual time required to

perform the average duties of citizenship--it is a contemptible bit of

trickery in argument, if not mere ignorance and confusion of idea, to

urge the occasional attendance on political meetings, or the annual or

bi-annual dropping of a ballot, as any interference with the management

of a house.

It is proven, by years on years of established experience, that women

can enjoy full political equality and use their power, without in the

least ceasing to be contented and efficient wives and mothers, cooks and

housekeepers.

What really horrifies the popular mind at the thought of women in

politics, is the picture of woman as a "practical politician;" giving

her time to it as a business, and making money by it, in questionable,

or unquestionable, ways; and, further, as a politician in office, as

sheriff, alderman, senator, judge.

The popular mind becomes suffused with horror at the first idea, and

scarcely less so at the second. It pictures blushing girlhood on the

Bench; tender motherhood in the Senate; the housewife turned

"ward-heeler;" and becomes quite sick in contemplation of these

abominations.

No educated mind, practical mind, no mind able and willing to use its

faculties, need be misled for a moment by these sophistries.

There is absolutely no evidence that women as a class will rush into

"practical politics." Where they have voted longest they do not

manifest this dread result. Neither is there any proof that they will

all desire to hold office; or that any considerable portion of them

will; or that, if they did, they would get it.

We seem unconsciously to assume that when women begin to vote, men will

stop; or that the women will outnumber the men; also that, outnumbering

them, they will be completely united in their vote; and, still further,

that so outnumbering and uniting, they will solidly vote for a ticket

composed wholly of women candidates.

Does anyone seriously imagine this to be likely?

This may be stated with assurance; if ever we do see a clever,

designing, flirtatious, man-twisting woman; or a pretty, charming,

irresistable young girl, elected to office--it will not be by the votes

of women!

Where women are elected to office, by the votes of both men and women,

they are of suitable age and abilities, and do their work well. They

have already greatly improved some of the conditions of local politics,

and the legislation they advocate is of a beneficial character.

What is the true relation of women to the state?

It is precisely identical with that of men. Their forms of service may

vary, but their duty, their interest, their responsibility, is the same.

Here are the people on earth, half of them women, all of them her

children. It is her earth as much as his; the people are their people,

the state their state; compounded of them all, in due relation.

As the father and mother, together; shelter, guard, teach and provide

for their children in the home; so should all fathers and mothers,

together; shelter, guard, teach and provide for their common children,

the community.

The state is no mystery; no taboo place of masculine secrecy; it is

simply us.

Democracy is but a half-grown child as yet, one of twins? Its boy-half

is a struggling thing, with "the diseases of babyhood"; its girl-half

has hardly begun to take notice.

As human creatures we have precisely the same duty and privilege,

interest, and power in the state; sharing its protection, its

advantages, and its services. As women we have a different relation.

Here indeed we will admit, and glory in, our "diversity." The "eternal

womanly" is a far more useful thing in the state than the "eternal

manly."

To be woman means to be mother. To be mother means to give love,

defense, nourishment, care, instruction. Too long, far too long has

motherhood neglected its real social duties, its duties to humanity at

large. Even in her position of retarded industrial development, as the

housekeeper and houseworker of the world, woman has a contribution of

special value to the state.

As the loving mother, the patient teacher, the tender nurse, the wise

provider and care-taker, she can serve the state, and the state needs

her service.

WHAT DIANTHA DID