agree that whatever it is, we want it; that, indeed, we want it more
than anything else in the world. How to secure it is what all the
colleges and schools are trying to teach and what all the ministers in
all the churches are preaching. If you knew you would sometime have to
look back, realizing that you had made a failure of life, you would
hardly care to go on living. Many do have this experience. Such a person
seems like a disabled vessel being towed into port with broken mast and
damaged rigging. Yet that person was once young and hopeful, with life
all before him, and he looked forward to something so different!
Sometimes we fail to realize that the very purpose of our school days is
to get us ready for the voyage; that we are day by day being taught the
use of chart and compass; that we are being shown where the danger lies
and where the safe paths are to be found.
If you want to know how you can secure for your own life and character
those qualities which you most covet, study the lives of those who have
these qualities and try to compel them to yield you their secret. As I
think, one after another, of the most successful lives of which I have
read in history, I find that there are certain characteristics that all
seem to have possessed in common. Take a dozen or a score of really
successful lives chosen at random and make them a subject of earnest
study and comparison. In outward circumstances and conditions of life
you will find these lives widely at variance. One person has been a
child of fortune and another has had the severest struggle with poverty.
One bears an honored name with generations of culture, character, and
achievement behind it; another is of obscure origin, with little help
from family or early environment. The ends accomplished in life have
been as different as the means of accomplishing them; yet in all worthy
lives there are certain clearly defined and common characteristics.
In the first place, I think that all the successful people whom I have
known or known of have had a definite purpose in life. I see them
keeping right on, striving for a certain goal, regardless of enticements
by the way. The able mariner knows to what port he is bound. He does not
keep changing his course, he does not become disheartened and drift with
every chance wind. Unswervingly he steers toward the goal he has in
view. Many of the failures in life are caused by purposelessness.
None of these persons whom I have classed among the successful seem to
have been seeking pleasure. They have been possessed by great ideas,
they have been occupied with large thoughts, they have been devoted to
the good of others, to the advancement of mankind. Can you imagine a
Lincoln or a Phillips Brooks wrapped up in his own petty concerns, even
for a day? The self-centered life is a failure. "He that is greatest
among you, let him be the servant of all." All really successful lives
have been moulded on that principle. Such men and women have not cared
especially about being great or famous, but how they have longed to
serve! There are thousands of unhappy persons who might find happiness
and the beginning of success if they would only stop asking whether they
are happy and would go and do something for somebody.
All really successful people have _faith_. They have faith in
themselves, faith in their fellow men, and faith in God. It is difficult
to see how any life can be strong without such faith.
We must have faith in ourselves because we are likely never to
accomplish more than we believe we can accomplish. It is not always
modesty on our part to shrink from an undertaking because of our
unworthiness; sometimes it is weakness. "Self-trust is the essence of
heroism," said Carlyle. This does not mean that there is no such thing
as over-confidence in self. We have all known people who over-estimated
their own powers. The conceited person is rightly considered a nuisance
and a subject of ridicule. The person who is always attempting some
great project which ends in a fiasco is deserving of the condemnation
which he receives. Yet most failures are caused by too little confidence
in self rather than too much. Our consciousness of weakness ought to be
accompanied by a belief in our power to overcome that weakness. The
self-distrust which hinders growth becomes a moral wrong. Those who
accomplish large things usually have a splendid self-confidence which is
as far removed as possible from self-conceit. It is said of Mary Lyon,
by one of her biographers, that she had "the rare power of
distinguishing between the impossible and the merely difficult." That is
a power we should all cultivate.
One thing that should be impressed upon young people, who have not yet
had sufficient experience to make the discovery for themselves, is that
we have a right to judge ourselves by the best of which we are capable,
not by the worst. There is an ebb and flow of the tides of the spirit.
We have our moods of depression and of exaltation. One of sensitive
conscience is quite likely to believe that his worst self is his real
self. That is not true. This conflict among the many selves that each of
us feels crowding for utterance within him is well expressed by one of
our minor poets:--
"Within my earthly temple there's a crowd;
There's one of us that's humble, one that's proud.
There's one that loves his neighbor as himself
And one that cares for naught but fame and pelf.
There's one that's broken-hearted for his sins
And one that unrepentant sits and grins.
From much corroding care I should be free
If once I could determine which is me."
In seeking to determine which of this motley crowd is really you, one
thing should be clear, your real self is what you are in your highest
moments. Do not accept as yourself the one who cares for fame and pelf,
but the one who loves his neighbor as himself; not the unrepentant one,
but the one who is broken-hearted for his sins. Life really is what it
looks to us to be when we are on the heights, not when we are in the
valley. When belief in our own possibilities is greatest, that is the
time when our vision is truest; for the first step in realizing those
possibilities is to believe in them. The vision of our best selves, of
our highest possibilities, which we had on the heights, must be carried
down into the valleys, there to furnish us inspiration and impetus.
"But tasks in hours of insight willed
Can be through hours of gloom fulfilled."
If you would be really successful you must have faith in your fellow
men. No doubtful or suspicious person was ever a benefactor of his race.
The person who can help you most is the one who has most faith in you.
So if you would help others, you must have faith in them. The power to
see the best in a person in spite of his faults is a precious power. If
you have it not, cultivate it. Never look for a mean motive in another.
Always recognize the germ of goodness, small though it be, and always
help it to grow. Nothing inspires us like the knowledge that some one
expects good things of us.
By believing in people we make them believe in themselves. There is no
greater service we can render our fellow men than to increase their
faith in themselves and in their own powers. To be a faith-inspirer is a
privilege we should all earnestly covet. We all know people from whose
presence we come away feeling that all things are possible. They
encourage us, they stimulate us, they compel us to believe in ourselves.
This rare and precious power belongs only to those whose lives are fed
from deep spiritual sources. To be a faith-inspirer one's own attitude
toward life must be right; one must be in tune with one's self. The very
atmosphere about such a person is charged with hope and cheer. No
pessimist, no cynic, no misanthrope was ever a faith-inspirer. The
possession of this quality depends not upon what we _do_, but upon what
we _are_.
Some people, as they grow older and meet with more or less selfishness
and deceit, as we all do, grow cynical. They conclude that there is no
such thing as honor or constancy or disinterested kindness. Cling with
undying faith to your belief in the goodness of human nature. Has some
one deceived you? In spite of that, be just as ready to trust again.
"Better trust all and be deceived,
And weep that trust and that deceiving.
Than doubt one heart that, if believed,
Had blessed one's life with true believing."
It would be difficult to find any one who has had real success in life
and yet does not believe in God. How can I keep my own life serene and
hopeful if I believe that the world is ruled only by blind chance, that
there is no meaning or purpose in life, that wrong may eventually
triumph over right? But belief in a wise and beneficent Ruler of the
universe should be the greatest element of strength in my own life; it
should give me assurance that the forces of the universe are in league
with righteousness and that good will finally triumph over evil.
What a comfort it is to believe, when the forces of evil seem to be in
the ascendant, that it is only for a moment! Perhaps you are troubled
because justice does not always seem to be done in the world. You know
that the wicked often prosper and the righteous suffer, and perhaps you
are troubled to understand why. Doubtless this is not easy to comprehend
fully, but far better than comprehension is the acceptance of it in the
right spirit and as a part of the divine plan. We all need a working
theory of life, a philosophy of life, if you will, or we cannot live
strong lives. One who has faith in "that Power not ourselves that makes
for righteousness" can be optimistic and serene, and can believe that
things everywhere are gradually working themselves out for good. No
matter what happens, such persons never believe that the world is going
to destruction. Even the most cruel and needless war since time began
cannot shake their faith that the world is gradually getting better and
that it will continue to grow better. When they stand for the right, it
is in the confidence that they are fighting on God's side and that in
the end He is always victorious.
I believe there is such a thing as a habit of success. Some people have
the habit, and you can hardly imagine them anywhere in this world or any
other where they would not be winning successes. Why? Because of two
things, high purpose and an indomitable will. Given both, what can
defeat us? "The day is his who works in it with serenity and great
aims."
Failure will come sometimes, to be sure, as it comes to all. But what of
that? The indomitable spirit will still urge us on. Browning held that
"we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better." So holds every brave,
strong soul. This is what I call _the habit of success_. That attitude
toward life, which in a failure or a defeat finds only a lesson for the
next time, is sure to win.
My definition of success, you will see, does not take large account of
wealth or position or fame, or of many other things some people
foolishly think spell success. One who has mastered the fine art of
living has had real success, whether or not the world ever hears of him.
Do not think that the success of one's life is to be measured by the
amount of pleasure in it. Some are fortunate all the days of their
lives, with good health, sufficient means, and kind friends. Others have
trouble after trouble heaped upon them, poverty, ill-health, and grief.
We are likely, if we are not discerning, to think that one has failed of
success when he has only been roughly buffeted by fate. We have to know
the soul to know whether or not one has been a success. We have to know
what God thinks of him.
What are the school days for unless they are to teach you values, to
show you which things are of most worth? The same qualities which bring
success in after life are needed in one's preparation for life.
Opportunities lie all about, unnoticed and neglected by some, by others
seized and employed to their full. Side by side sit two students, one
dull and listless or dissipating the energies of the mind in a thousand
ways; the other earnest, alert to seize every opportunity for
self-improvement. Later in life the two move on, one failing in
everything he undertakes because of these same habits of indifference
and indolence; the other applying his concentrated powers to the task in
hand and winning victory. Success in life is not greatly a matter of
opportunity, it is rather a matter of character.
"Still o'er the earth hastes Opportunity,
Seeking the hardy soul that seeks for her."
XII
THE PROGRESS OF WOMAN
Of all the wonders which the history of civilization presents to us,
especially during the past century, by far the most remarkable is the
progress of woman. Just as we teach the story of political and religious
freedom to the rising generation, in order that the blessings of civil
and religious liberty may be more fully prized and guarded, so all girls
and women should be taught something of the long, arduous struggle which
women have had in order to reach the position which they now occupy in
the most enlightened parts of the earth. Though a painful struggle, its
history is instructive and stimulating. If we know what public opinion
has been in the past regarding woman's place in the world, we can more
truly decide whether or not present-day tendencies are to persist.
It is so easy for the unthinking to assume that the world is as it was
intended to be and that the customs and conventionalities of society are
divinely ordained. This is one of the reasons why we should be careful
students of history. No one who has the wide point of view which such
study gives can fail to recognize the fact that ours is by no means a
completed world, but that evolution is as surely in progress now as ever
it was, and that human society is still in the making. Each generation
is in duty bound to know the accumulated wisdom of past ages and to add
something to it for future generations.
There are many phases of the so-called "woman-question," the
enfranchisement of woman being only one of them, though the one we are
hearing most about to-day. All the questions which have arisen, and all
which are likely to arise in the future, may be summed up in one or two
all-important questions: Is there any freedom, privilege, or opportunity
accounted good for men that should be denied to women? If so, to whom
belongs the right to deny it?
Within the last few years many conventional ideas regarding woman's
sphere have been swept away and still others are disappearing. While the
discussion is going on, sometimes with heat and bitterness, but
sometimes calmly and sanely, a generation of girls is growing up, each
one of whom is vitally concerned. In what sort of a world are these
girls soon to take their places? To what extent are the duties and
responsibilities of woman to be different from what they have been? The
girl of to-day, who is to be the woman of to-morrow, should come into
this new world open-eyed and intelligent.
Only a few hundred years ago philosophers were seriously debating the
question whether or not women have souls. With the passing of the
centuries an attitude of mind so extraordinary was no longer possible,
but other ideas, which are not much less amazing in the light of to-day,
long persisted.
The literature of any age reflects current public opinion, and if we
would know how women were regarded and what qualities were thought most
desirable in them, all we need do is read the literature of that period.
Euripides reflects Greek sentiment when he makes Iphigenia say to
Achilles, "Better a thousand women should perish than one man cease to
see the light." The Latin motto, _Bene vixit qui bene latuit_ ("She has
lived well who has kept well concealed"), speaks eloquently of woman's
place in the days of the Roman Empire. In the metrical romances of the
mediæval period, women seem to live only to grace a tournament or to
furnish opportunity for a feat of chivalry on the part of some
knight-errant. In Chaucer's time such stories as that of Patient
Griselda force us to the conclusion that she was the most highly
esteemed woman who patiently endured the grossest injustice and the most
cruel wrong. The weak and sentimental women of Fielding, Richardson, and
other eighteenth-century novelists call forth our pity when we realize
the purposeless lives they were expected to lead. We must not overlook
the fact, however, that in every age there have been marked exceptions
to the general rule. From the time of Deborah, or long before, each age
has had its "new women," its nonconformists, who insisted upon doing
their own thinking. Most of Shakespeare's heroines are of this type.
From time immemorial laws have rested heavily upon women. This is true
of the Roman law, so just and fair in most respects. Woman was not a
citizen with the rights and privileges of a citizen; she was in a state
of perpetual tutelage. We do not, however, have to go back to Roman
times to find unjust discrimination against women. In this country
Connecticut was the first State to give women the power to make a will,
which it did only one hundred years ago. It is not long since a law was
enacted in Massachusetts giving women a legal right to their own
clothing. It took a terrible tragedy only a few years ago, the killing
of a number of innocent children by their half-crazed mother lest they
fall into the hands of their unworthy father, to cause the Massachusetts
Legislature to abolish the law which made the father the sole guardian
of his children.
In those parts of the world where the Christian religion is little
known, the progress of women has been even slower and beset with more
obstacles than in Christendom. Indeed, the women of those countries must
look to Christian lands for their salvation. Buddhism, the principal
religion of Japan, teaches that woman's only hope of heaven is that she
may be reincarnated as a man. Confucius, the founder of the religion
that prevails in China, taught that ten daughters do not equal the value
of one son. The woman of Brahminic faith is forbidden to read the
scriptures or to offer prayer in her own right. We all know something of
the horror of the suttee in India, which, until prohibited by English
law, permitted a widow to be sacrificed on her husband's funeral pyre.
The Moslem man prays, "O God, I thank thee that thou hast not made me a
woman," and the Koran teaches that strict obedience to her husband is
the only condition upon which a woman can be saved.
The fact that so few women have attained a supreme place in any art or
profession is often brought forward to prove the natural inferiority of
women. When we recall how few men attain the first rank in spite of the
honors and rewards showered by an approving world upon such a man, and
when we remember that until recently it was considered hardly
respectable for a woman to write a book, to paint a picture, or even to
publish music, the surprising thing is that so many women have defied
public opinion and have given expression to the genius that was in them.
George Eliot wrote under the name of a man in order to get a hearing.
The rich poetic gifts of Dorothy Wordsworth largely increased the fame
of her illustrious brother. No one knows how many of Felix Mendelssohn's
beautiful "Songs without Words" were the work of his sister Fanny, as we
are told by his recent biographers. Caroline Herschel was another gifted
sister whose labors helped bring honor and fame to her brother, the
great astronomer. If any of these women had lived in the twentieth
century, the world would have paid them high honor for the work of their
gifted minds.
The last half of the nineteenth century brought educational opportunity
to women and the inevitable result followed: they began to reason and
hence to ask their share of things, and it looks as if they would not
stop until they get it. What are they asking? That all artificial
barriers to their freedom be removed, nothing more. So far as nature has
created barriers for them and placed limitations upon them, these
barriers and limitations should be respected, must be respected. With
these, reasonable women have no quarrel. It is the artificially made
barriers they are determined to remove. The Chinese woman is realizing
that she has burdens sufficiently heavy to bear without adding that of
an artificial deformity. Life will not be any too easy for the feminine
half of the race even when they have obtained every right and every
opportunity to which they have a claim.
One of the things which women asked in vain for many years was the
privilege of higher educational opportunity. One hundred years ago there
was not a single college in our country which opened its doors to women.
All the arguments which are put forward against the enfranchisement of
women to-day were put forward yesterday against the extension of their
educational opportunities. Serious-minded and earnest men--and women,
too--argued that women had no use for the higher education; that they
were not capable of receiving it, and that if some, by chance, were
equal to it intellectually, they were not physically. The final and
seemingly unanswerable argument was that education would unfit women for
the sacred duties of the home. Now that our colleges are graduating more
than ten thousand young women every year who have not lost their health
and who make better wives and mothers because of their wider horizon and
broader interests, no one remembers these foolish fears.
Another privilege which women have been seeking for many years is the
opportunity to work; that is, they have been asking that there be no
artificial barriers between them and the work they want to do. The world
is yielding them this privilege, though slowly and somewhat grudgingly.
We are still told occasionally that woman is out of her place whenever
she seeks remunerative employment outside of the home. It makes little
difference, however, who approves and who disapproves. To put things
back to where they were one hundred years ago would be no less difficult
than to turn back Niagara River. Statistics tell us that there are at
present over eight million women in this country engaged in gainful
occupations.
Perhaps you ask, But why do women rush out into the world to find work?
Why can we not go back to the good old times when all women found
shelter and safety within the walls of the home? The answer to this
question is a very complex one. More than fifty years ago Harriet
Martineau wrote of conditions in England, "A social organization framed
for a community of which half stayed at home while the other half went
out to work cannot answer the purposes of a society of which a quarter
remains at home while three quarters go out to work. With this new
condition of affairs, new duties and new views must be adopted."
There is wide disagreement as to the answer to the question why so many
women are engaged in gainful employments. You can best work out the
problem for yourself by recalling the women and girls of your
acquaintance who are earning a livelihood by work outside of the home.
Ask one of these why she does not give up her present position and go
back to the "shelter of the home." She will probably tell you that there
is in her home no possible means of support for her. The chances are
that she will tell you that her labor is one of the sources of income
for the maintenance of that home and dependent ones in it.
The talk of some people would lead you to think that if women would only
behave themselves they might all spend their lives in weaving and
spinning, as their great-grandmothers did. But if they did this there
would be no market for their labors; and who would earn the money
necessary for their support? If you knew the facts in regard to the
average home of one hundred years ago, you would find conditions vastly
different from what they are now. Then, the great bulk of the population
lived on farms, from which the labor of all drew sustenance for all. For
many years the trend of population has been toward the cities, and the
man who once made a comfortable living from the farm, with the
assistance of his family, now works in a store or a factory or some
other industrial concern. The compensation is often not enough for the
family necessities, and the labor of women must be added to that of men.
Formerly there were few men who did not have several dependent women
relatives in addition to wife and daughters. Now a self-respecting woman
prefers the independence which comes with self-support.