(1.) Prejudice is slowly dying out, but indifference remains. Educated
men who can help, who _would_ help if they knew the need, have not yet
learnt that need. I do not blame them with any bitterness. There has
been enough already of bitterness on the one side and of levity on the
other. But an acknowledgment of past error lies at the base of every
true reform. Let that be acknowledged here, which every thoughtful
observer must see, that through all ages of the world’s history the more
powerful sex have been liable to use their power carelessly, not for
protection only, but for pain. So comes it that at this day just and
chivalrous men find themselves, (as Lord Palmerston said of the Emperor
of Russia), “born to a heritage of wrong and oppression.” They cannot,
if they would, at once alter the structure of the society around them.
But even of these just men I complain that they _do not see_. If they
saw, they would act; and ought they not to see? Our best men too often
know nothing of the lives of any women except those with whom they are
immediately connected, and whom they guard in comfort and ease. They do
not think of those who sit in cold and want outside. Many a
tender-hearted but not large-hearted man, on hearing some hint of
hardships among women outside his own circle, thanks God that _his_ dear
wife or daughter is exempted from them, and so dismisses the subject.
When once such men are brought to see and to feel, we invariably find
them _more_ indignant than women themselves, who are well schooled in
patience. Much of this misery is strange and unknown to men, and was
certainly never designed by them. The old social order has changed,
giving place to the new, but women have fallen out of line with the
onward movement, fettered by their own cowardice and the careless
selfishness of men. Custom and use press heavily on women, they endure
long before they dare to think whether the system under which they
suffer is a right or a wrong one, whether their burdens be removable or
no,—whether, in short, they have fallen into the hands of God or man.
Even when they are fully persuaded that their burdens are removable,
they have no voice to raise. They are unrepresented, and the interests
of the unrepresented always tend to be overlooked.
(2.) The exclusion of women from trades is in most cases notoriously
based upon a coarse selfishness. Take the instance of the china painters
at Worcester. “It appears that both men and women are employed in this
art, but that the women having excited the jealousy of the men by
surpassing them in skilful execution, and consequently earning better
wages, were by them forcibly deprived of the maulsticks on which it is
necessary to rest the wrist while painting. Thus the women are at once
rendered incapable of any fine work, and can only be employed in the
coarser kinds of painting. The masters submit to this tyranny, though to
their own disadvantage, being probably afraid of a strike or riot if
they resist, and the women are forced to yield from the fear of personal
violence from their less skilful but heavier-fisted rivals. This story
appeared in the _Edinburgh Review_ for 1859, and it is surprising that
it did not excite more general indignation.” The conduct of the
Apothecaries’ Company is worse than that of the china painters, inasmuch
as doctors have not the excuse of indigence to justify their
exclusiveness. The _Daily News_, in a recent article, concludes an
account of some of the proceedings of that body with these words:—“We
recommend these facts to the good people who think that coercion,
restriction, and the tyranny of combination are peculiar to any one
class of society. It will be a great day in England when the right of
every individual to make the most of the ability which God has given
him, free from interested interference, is recognised, and to that goal
we are surely advancing; but our progress is slow, and it is very clear
that it is not only in the lower ranks of the community that the
obstructive trades’ union spirit is energetically operating.”
The chivalry, or the justice of educated men could scarcely be brought
to bear upon a subject where chivalry and justice are needed more. In
this matter, of the bad effects of trades’ unions, much may be hoped for
from the known character of working men themselves, as a class. They are
not wanting in justice, in tenderness of heart, and in a shrewd
perception of right and wrong when they are placed before them: but they
need enlightenment and instruction,—and they wait for it,—from those who
are their superiors in education and trained intelligence. Untold good
might be done, and much future misery averted, if those among our
leading men who have the ear and the confidence of working men would
(themselves first instructed) bring before them fairly and patiently,
such subjects as these. Economics lie at the very root of practical
morality, and it is to be hoped that men of influence, and genius, and
experience of life, will address themselves gravely to the task of
instructing the working classes on this most grave subject.
The common objection brought before the Society for promoting the
Employment of Women, is that a risk would be thus incurred of decreasing
the employment of men. Now, in the first place, this is by no means
certain. No one proposes to interfere with the men at present working at
any trade; but while the demand for young men at high wages in the
colonies continues practically unlimited, it may be questioned whether
the admission to a sedentary employment at home is not a pitfall as
often as an advantage. Many a young man would be healthier and happier
at some manly trade in Canada or Australia, than in standing behind an
English counter or plaiting straw. To take only the trades connected
with women’s dress and such matters, the census of 1861 gives the
following numbers of _men_ employed in trades, some of which would seem
as distinctly appropriate to the one sex, as soldiering and sailoring to
the other.
Males.
[3]Mercers, Drapers, and Linen Drapers 45,660
Hair Dressers and Wig Makers 10,652
Haberdashers and Hosiers 4,327
Straw Hat and Bonnet Makers 1,687
Washermen and Laundry Keepers 1,165
Stay and Corset Makers 884
Milliners and Dress Makers 803
Artificial Flower Makers 761
Berlin Wool Dealers 63
Artists in Hair—Hair Workers 42
Baby Linen Makers 13
——————
66,057
Disabilities of sex are parallel to disabilities of creed, and the
economical results are likely to be the same. Silk weaving was driven
_into_ England by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and I believe
that now several light trades are being driven _out of_ England by the
industrial proscription of women. “But supposing,” says Miss Boucherett,
“that the competition for employment were so great that whatever was
added to the prosperity of one sex must be deducted from that of the
other, is it just that the whole of the suffering thus caused should be
laid upon the weaker half of humanity? How great a contrast is there
between the spirit of Christianity, and the course of conduct too
frequently pursued in this our country!”
“Be just before you are chivalrous,” many a woman is tempted to exclaim,
when she finds every door through which she might pass to a subsistence,
closed in her face with expressions of deference. Signs have not been
wanting which have justified the saying “that a selfish disregard of the
interests of women, and indifference to their sufferings, is the great
national sin of England,—and all national sins, if unrepented, meet with
their punishment sooner or later.”
(3.) The defective training of the women themselves is the most serious
of all the hindrances which I have been considering. Here it is that the
vicious circle returns upon itself. These women cannot teach, because
they are so ill educated, and again, they are so ill educated that they
can do nothing _but_ teach.[4] Many a woman rejected from the shop-till
or housekeeper’s room for ignorance and inefficiency, is compelled to
offer herself among the lowest class of nursery governesses, or, failing
all, to embrace the career, the avenues to which stand ever wide open,
yawning like the gates of hell, when all other doors are closed.
The fault of this defective training lies mainly with the middle-class
parents who, as the Endowed Schools Commissioners say plainly enough,
educate their daughters to get husbands, and for nothing else.
Education was what the slave-owners most dreaded for their slaves, for
they knew it to be the sure road to emancipation. It is to education
that we must first look for the emancipation of women from the
industrial restrictions of a bye gone age. In the meantime I may surely
say that no lover of his country, of justice or of God, can see this
misery unmoved. “He looked for judgment, but behold oppression, for
righteousness, but behold a cry.”
I sometimes hear it said “I am weary of this question of the rights, or
the wrongs, of women.” Undoubtedly there are many who are quickly weary
of any thought which is perplexing or painful: nevertheless the facts
remain the same—that women constitute one half of the human race, that
whatever effects them, for good or evil, affects not one half, but the
whole of the human race, and that the _primary_ education of all
generations of men rests in the hands of women.
There are two classes of advocates of the improvement of the education
and condition of women. The one class urge everything from the domestic
point of view. They argue in favour of all which is likely to make women
better mothers, or better companions for men, but they seem incapable of
judging of a woman as a human being by herself, and superstitiously
afraid of anything which might strengthen her to stand alone, prepared,
singlehanded, to serve her God and her country. When it is urged upon
them that the women who do and must stand alone are counted by millions,
they are perplexed, but only fell back on expressions of a fear lest a
masculine race of women should be produced, if we admit any theories
respecting them apart from conjugal and maternal relationships.
On the other hand, there are advocates who speak with some slight
contempt of maternity, in whose advocacy there appears to me little
evidence of depth of thought, or tenderness, or wisdom, and which
bespeaks a dry, hard, unimaginative conception of human life. They
appear to have no higher ideal for a woman than that of a _man_ who has
been “tripos’ed,” and is going to “get on in the world,” either in the
way of making money or acquiring fame. They speak of women as if it were
a compliment to them, or in any way true, to say that they are like men.
Now it appears to me that both these sets of advocates have failed to
see something which is very true, and that their ears are deaf to some
of the subtle harmonies which exist in God’s creation—harmonies
sometimes evolved from discords—and which we are much hindered from
hearing by the noise of the world, and by our own discordant utterances.
The first class of advocates do not know how strong Nature is, how true
she is for the most part, and how deeply the maternal character is
rooted in almost all women, married or unmarried: they are not,
therefore, likely to see that when a better education is secured to
women, when permission is granted them not only to win bread for
themselves, but to use for the good of society, every gift bestowed on
them by God, we may expect to find, (as certainly we shall find,) that
they will become the _more_ and not the _less_ womanly. Every good
quality, every virtue which we regard as distinctively feminine, will,
under conditions of greater freedom, develop more freely, like plants
brought out into the light from a cellar in which they languished,
dwarfed and blanched, without sun or air. The woman is strong in almost
every woman; and it may be called an infidelity against God and against
the truth of nature to suppose that the removal of unjust restrictions,
and room given to breathe freely, and to do her work in life without
depression and without bitterness, will cause her to cast off her
nature. It will always be in her nature to foster, to cherish, to take
the part of the weak, to train, to guide, to have a care for
individuals, to discern the small seeds of a great future, to warm and
cherish those seeds into fulness of life. “I serve,” will always be one
of her favourite mottos, even should the utmost freedom be accorded her
in the choice of vocation; for she, more readily perhaps than men do,
recognises the wisdom and majesty of Him who said—“I am among you as he
that serveth.” In Him,—“in Christ Jesus,” says the apostle, “there is
neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free; there is neither
male nor female.” It has been the tendency of Christianity, gradually
and slowly, to break down all unfriendly barriers between races, and to
extinguish slavery; and last of all it will—this is our hope—remove
disabilities imposed by the stronger portion of society upon the weaker.
What do we lose by the abandonment of national exclusiveness? Is labour
demoralized because slaves are free? Does _service_ cease when servitude
is at an end? Common sense alone, without the help of historical
knowledge, might lead us to suppose that women will not do their
_special_ work in the world worse, but better, when justice shall be
done them.[5] It is in the name of _Christ_ that the removal of burdens
and disabilities is preached: much wisdom might be learned regarding
some of these matters if people would look more closely at this, and
note that this is the Person in whom all virtues which are considered
essentially womanly, as well as those which are considered essentially
manly, found their perfect development. A little meditation on this
double truth—that in Christ all distinctions are done away, and that in
Him, nevertheless, were exhibited in perfect beauty the distinctive
virtues of the feminine character—would suggest some lessons which the
world has been very slow to learn, would tend to remove groundless fears
regarding the consequences of the abandonment of many unreasonable and
unchristian theories which prevail, and to counteract the materialistic
doctrine which has sunk too deep into the heart of our so-called
Christian community, a doctrine which amounts to this, that “the weaker
races, classes, persons must struggle on unaided, and if they are
trampled down and die out, the fact proves that it is better for the
world that they should perish, so only a stronger and higher stock will
remain;”[6] a doctrine of which we see the fruits in our wickednesses in
Asia, &c., and which takes its stand on a supposed “law of nature” that
the weak must go down.
The tone in which certain foolish popular writers speak of unmarried and
childless women betrays both coarseness of feeling and ignorance. They
speak of these women as having altogether missed their vocation, and as
necessarily dwarfed in affection and motive, because they have not
performed certain physical functions. We are all mothers or
foster-mothers. The few exceptions to this rule,—the cases in which the
maternal feelings are weak or wanting,—are to be found among mothers of
families as well as among childless women. I have known many unmarried
women in whom all the best characteristics of maternity are stronger
than in some who are actually mothers. It would be wise of the State to
avail itself of this abundance of generous womanliness, of tender and
wise motherliness which lives in the hearts of thousands of women who
are free to bring their capacities to bear where they are most needed.
The country counts by tens of thousands its orphan and outcast children,
in workhouses, and in the streets of our great cities. These orphans
have lately been called “the children of the State:” for the care of
these children of the State alone, mothers and nurses of the State are
needed, women who must be free to some extent from domestic ties of
their own. These workhouse children are not likely to grow up to be
useful to the country or other than dangerous classes, while they are
left wholly to the mercy of vulgar, uneducated people.[7]
Leon Fauchat exclaimed, when told of crimes committed in our country
against children,—“Est-il possible que ces choses soient permises par
une nation qui a des entrailles!” “Take heed that ye offend not one of
these little ones,” are words of most solemn import: when women begin to
deserve and acquire more weight in the community, the warning contained
in them will be better understood. The interests of children will not
remain unrepresented any longer than women remain so. I say this with
certainty, knowing the nature of woman. It will not be left to an
indignant father, or philanthropist, or to an impassioned poetess, at
long intervals to translate in the ears of the public the inarticulate
cry of the children:
“They are weeping in the playtime of the others,
In the country of the free,
For the man’s grief abhorrent, draws and presses
Down the cheeks of infancy.”
· · · · ·
“They look up with their pale and sunken faces,
And their look is dread to see,
For they mind you of their Angels in their places,
With eyes meant for Deity:
‘How long,’ they say, ‘how long, O cruel nation,
Will you stand, to move the world, on a child’s heart,
Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation,
And tread onward to your throne amid the mart?
Our blood splashes upwards, O our tyrants,
And your purple shows your path;
_But the child’s sob curseth deeper in the silence
Than the strong man in his wrath_.’”
The ears of my reader would not endure to hear what I could tell, what
my eyes have seen, of outraged innocence, of horrors and miseries
endured among the children of the poor. I am not unmindful of the
benevolent enterprise there is in our country, the orphanages, schools
and homes springing up everywhere. God be thanked for these! but they do
not yet meet the evil; and we must remember that stone walls do not shut
out crime, nor regulations confer blessing; these institutions
themselves fail in their purpose unless the compassionate motive which
originated them be sustained in a constant and abundant flow. The
histories of many charities in foreign countries and at home prove that
institutions devised by loving hearts for protection and blessing, have
become, for lack of the constancy of the internal impulse, neither more
nor less than “habitations of cruelty.” What I here complain of is the
thriftless waste of good feelings, of emotion,—emotion which on the one
hand is ill trained, and consequently takes a false or unreal direction,
and on the other is wearing itself out, unclaimed. Tears shed over
sentimental works of fiction or some imaginative woe might well be
bestowed on the realities around us. Surely there is room enough among
_them_ for the promptings of a mighty compassion! Surely there is cause
enough _here_ for tears! “Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for
the destruction of the daughter of my people.”
And there is other work on every side waiting to be done by women,—the
work of healers, preachers, physicians, artists, organizers of labour,
captains of industry, &c., while on the other hand women are waiting to
be prepared for service, and ready to bridge over, as they alone can,
many a gulf between class and class which now presents a grave obstacle
to social and political progress.
The second kind of advocacy of the rights of women, of which I spoke,
may be said to be simply a reaction against the first. It is chiefly
held by a few women of superior intellect who feel keenly the
disadvantages of their class, their feebleness, through want of
education, against public opinion, which is taken advantage of by base
people, their inability, through want of representation, to defend their
weaker members, and the dwarfing of the faculties of the ablest and best
among them. These women have associated little with men, or at best,
know very little of their inner life, and do not therefore see as
clearly as they see their own loss, the equal loss that it is to men,
and the injury it involves to their characters, to live dissociated from
women: they therefore look forth from their isolation with something of
an excusable envy on the freer and happier lot, which includes, they
believe, a greater power to do good, and imagine that the only hope for
themselves is to push into the ranks of men, to demand the same
education, the same opportunities, in order that they may compete with
them on their own ground. They have lost the conception of the noblest
development possible for both men and women; for assuredly that which
men, for the most part, aim at, is not the noblest, and yet that is what
such women appear to wish to imitate; they have lost sight of the truth,
too, that men and women were made equal indeed, but not alike, and were
meant to supplement one another, and that in so doing,—each supplying
force which the other lacks,—they are attracted with a far greater
amount of impulse to a common centre. When St. Chrysostom preached in
Constantinople, that “men ought to be pure, and women courageous,” he
was treated as a dangerous innovator, a perverter of the facts of
nature, a changer of customs. I hope that many such innovators will
arise, who will shew forth in practice the possibility of the attainment
of a common standard of excellence for man and woman, not by usurpation
on either hand, nor by servile imitation, but by the action of each upon
each, by mutual teaching and help. The above misconception, like many
other errors, results from men and women living so dissociated as they
do in our country; hence comes also all that reserve, and incapacity for
understanding each other which has existed between the sexes for so many
generations, those false notions about women which are entertained in
society, and great injury to the work, and happiness, and dignity of man
and woman alike: for it may be truly said that many of the most serious
evils in England are but the bitter and various fruit of the
sacreligious disjoining of that which God had joined together, the
disunion of men and women, theoretically and practically, in all the
graver work of life.
The following account of the School of Art, in Newman Street, London, is
interesting, as affording some illustration of this subject. Mrs.
Heatherley writes, “This School was begun on the separate principle,
about twenty-three years ago, by Mr. James Mathews Leigh. I first knew
the place in 1848, when I studied as an amateur. Mr. Leigh, whilst
agreeing to the idea of mixed classes as a theory, always declared that
the men’s conduct and conversation would render it impossible for any
lady to come amongst them, and they were certainly very rough in manner
when, after Mr. Leigh’s death, we took the school. We were warned that
we should be ruined by introducing the mixed system. Very soon both
parties found the convenience of studying in the Gallery every day,
instead of having to take their places on alternate days. Finding it
succeed, at the end of 1861 we admitted ladies to the evening school:
there are about two hundred students in the course of the year. Great
individual freedom is allowed, and a most friendly feeling exists
amongst the students. Every one who knew the place before the admission
of women agrees that there has been great improvement; quite another
tone prevails. We have never had to dismiss anyone for conduct that was
disapproved. From here went the first ladies to the Royal Academy, one
of whom, a girl of about twenty-one, gained the gold medal, last
December, for the best historical picture. As a general rule, where
there are equal facilities, the women are the most successful. The
Academy ceased to admit them when their numbers reached about twelve,
and now takes them in only when the time of studentship of others
expires. They made this change at the end of two years, without giving
any notice here or at any other school, to the great disappointment of a
number of girls. This I think is an act of hardship, as there has been
shown positively that no incompetence exists. Unless there be chances
offered to women of being able to follow a profession, parents will
invest in consols, as a general rule, rather than in a superior
education. The mention of our school may be useful, because there are
doubts in many minds as to the expediency of free intercourse between
young people, and facts are better than theories. The more that is done
to bring young men and women together in a rational manner, the sooner
we may hope to arrive at a social state less immoral than the present.”
I am persuaded that anyone who will candidly and carefully consider the
histories of separate communities of men or women, for educational or
other purposes, must see that the evils attendant on such a system as
they represent outweigh its conveniences. The arrangement is for a given
period, but not so the evils which accompany it, for they,—and of this
men are not ignorant,—too often leave their effects, I may say their
curse, throughout life. The objection rises at once of the difficulty of
adopting any other arrangement than the present, which may be called an
unnatural one. This objection will be more effectually met by facts than
by reasoning, and in time facts will speak for themselves, while up to
the present they attest that whenever the experiment of a different
system has been tried, the difficulties have been found to be very much
less than it was believed they would be, before the trial was made.
To conclude this part of my subject, although I grant that too much
stress cannot be laid upon the improvement of the education of women who
will be actually the mothers of a future generation, yet I wish, on the
one hand, that persons who only look at it from this point of view would
take more into account the valuable service our country might command if
it but understood the truth about the condition and feelings of its
unmarried women, and that a more generous trust were felt in the
strength of woman’s nature, and the probable direction of its
development when granted more expansion, while on the other hand I
should like to see a truer conception of the highest possibilities for
women than is implied in the attempt to imitate men, and a deeper
reverence for the God of nature, whose wisdom is more manifested in
variety than in uniformity. It cannot be denied that a just cause has
sometimes been advocated by women in a spirit of bitterness. Energy
impeded in one direction, will burst forth in another; hence the defiant
and sometimes grotesque expression which the lives and acts of some few
women have been of the injustice done to them by society. This will
cease, and while it lasts, it ought to excite our pity rather than our
anger. It must be remembered that it is but a symptom of a long endured
servitude, a protest against a state of things which we hope will give
place to a better. It is folly to regard it as the natural fruit of that
of which we have scarcely seen the beginning. Acts of violence on the
part of a long oppressed nation are not the offspring of dawning
liberties, but of a doomed tyranny. Again, no important reform can be
carried without a measure of attendant confusion. Evil agencies are the
most vigilant for destruction at the beginning of a great and good work,
and many lives have to be consumed in its inauguration. Any evils which
may at first attend a social reform ought not to alarm us: they are
transient; they are but the breakers on the bar which must be crossed
before we launch into deep waters, but the “noise and dust of the wagon
which brings the harvest home.”
There is a near future and there is a far future; there are plans for
the near future and plans for the far future. The world is full of plans
for the near future; not so of plans for the far future. There are
people who do just what comes first to their hand to do, there are
others who do all for a near future, others again who do all for a far
off end. The first and the last have much in common; it is the second
aim, which when exclusively pursued, misleads. Plans and schemes for the
near future gain and obtain with most people; not unfrequently they
wither away like untimely fruit: those who look afar off prevail, yet
not they, but rather He prevails in them, who taught them to stretch
their vision to the distant horizon, and enables them to bear with
composure the disappointment of present hopes.
Some say, “in order to insure success for this or that movement, you
must have a scheme beforehand, a well-planned system, a fixed principle
of action, else you will be blown hither and thither.” Without offering
any opposition to such a theory, there are others to whom there appears
but one principle of action,—to fix the eyes on the far future, and to
do to-day the work of to-day; each day to undo the heavy burdens as they
come to their hand, each day to break some link of the chains which
bind, and to let some who are now oppressed go free. God guiding these
efforts to the desired end.[8] They have more faith in that which grows
from within than in that which is planned from without, and built
according to the preconceived plan. Such plans or schemes as must be
adopted by them are made as elastic as possible, so that the builders
can avail themselves, at each step, of experience gained, and be ready
to correct or undo any part of the work without sacrificing the whole;
they are content with the light which falls on the path immediately at
their feet, and with the fairer light in the distance. Perhaps it is by
such a principle of action that we can best supply “the needs of the
times,” and it is the possibility of adopting such a principle in times
of need that alone can ensure permanence in usefulness for the venerable
institutions of the country. What such institutions generally do is to
resist all movement, or if they admit any change, it is only to
crystallize anew in an altered form. Almost all true help is special;
and crystallized institutions seldom have help to give for great and
special necessities. But there are times when an impulse, having its
origin in the _hearts_ of men, is found to be stronger than custom and
use; if it cannot work within the established bounds, or by existing
machinery, it will work without them. Somehow or other difficulties
vanish before such an impulse, and much is accomplished which before was
held to be impossible.
I cannot conclude these remarks without expressing the gladness and
gratitude with which I am filled when I see the earnest spirit in which
some of the best and most thoughtful men are beginning to consider these
matters; and I venture especially to acknowledge the kindness of men in
high educational positions themselves, whose sympathies have lately been
enlisted on behalf of the women-teachers whose struggles, and sorrows,
and social disadvantages I have tried to indicate. Mr. Maurice says,
very truly, “Whenever in trade or in any department of human activity,
restrictions tending to the advantage of one class and the injury of
others have been removed, there a divine power has been at work
counteracting not only the selfish calculations, but often the
apparently sagacious reasonings of their defenders.” If we were not
assured that there is indeed a divine power at work in all these things
which some of us have so deeply at heart, we should lack the only
stimulus which enables us to work on, to live and to die for that which
we hold to be right and true; for “except the Lord build the house,
their labour is but vain that build it.”