COMMENT AND REVIEW
THE CENTURY OF THE CHILD
This is the well chosen title for one of the most important books of this Twentieth Century, written by Ellen Key, that great Swedish woman who so intensely loves "the child," a book which has set all Europe thinking, has revolutionized the attitude of mind of thousands of young women, and filled thousands of old ones with vain remorse.
In Germany a very considerable movement among girls of the upper classes, involving a new attitude towards marriage and maternity, has resulted from this one work.
I take a special, personal interest in it because my "Woman and Economics" was held to represent the opposite pole of thought regarding women from that of this book.
What is Miss Key's position?
She holds that "the child" is the most important of personages, that life should all be bent to its service, that the woman's one, all-inclusive purpose is the right bearing and rearing of children. She shows how painfully inadequate is our present provision for child culture, how unprepared is the average mother, how unsuitable the atmosphere of the average home and also of the average school; and makes searching comment on our methods of teaching—especially in teaching religion.
Her chapter on "The Education of the Child" is so important that it has been taken out and made a book by itself.
There is present throughout the book a deep sincerity, a boundless love and sympathy, and evidence of the widest and most searching observation. It throws a relentless light on our cheap and trivial way of facing the gravest issues of life, and should stir every woman's heart to new enthusiasm for the power and glory of motherhood.
The most controversial chapters—to most of us—are the first, in which marriage is discussed, and the one on religion; but to my mind the most important question here, as in all deep study of child culture, is this: Is the mother the best person to supply the entire care for and culture of the child?
Miss Key holds that she is. For that reason she deprecates any education, any profession, any interest or purpose in a woman's life which at all interferes with this primal claim of motherhood. She allows to women the right, as individuals, to forego motherhood and develop their egos as they will; but of women as a class she demands the most entire consecration to this function. Her requirements are soul-absorbing and exclusive of all others. It is not alone in the hours spent with the child that the mother should be at work upon him, but in every waking hour—in her work and rest times—the child should be always on her heart, and she should ceaselessly revolve in her mind the problems of her work as a mother.
The book is a determined protest against the present tendency to specialization among women: it is thrown up like a rampart against the rising tide of independence and free human life demanded by the girls of today—and its strength lies in the deep truth of its attitude towards the child.
It is true that the child is the most important personage. In him—in her—must appear the inherited growth of the world. Unless our children are born better, born stronger, born cleaner and more beautiful than we, the race does not progress. And unless the first years are rightly treated, we lose in wrong education much of the fruit of right breeding.
It is true that we need among women a new, strong, clear "class conscious" motherhood which shall recognize that this deep duty is superior to that of the wife; that it is woman's worst crime to consent to bear children of vicious, diseased fathers; that it is woman's first duty, not merely to reproduce, but to improve the human race.
So far I am in hearty agreement with Ellen Key, and congratulate the world of to-day upon her book. She herself is a "human mother," a "social mother," loving children because they are children not because they are her own. Such love, such high intelligence and insight, such quenchless enthusiasm, are in themselves the proof that wise and beneficial child-service may be given by extra-maternal hearts, heads and hands. Wherein I disagree with this world-helper will be found in a few remarks on "The New Motherhood," elsewhere in these pages.
*
I was asked by a justly indignant subscriber to review Molly Elliot Sewell's amazing performance in the September "Atlantic" called "The Ladies' Battle," and replied at the time that I had not seen the article. Since then I have, and am glad to say a few words on a matter the only importance of which is that The Atlantic Monthly should have committed itself to such a presentation.
There is but one reasonable way to oppose Woman Suffrage today: that is to bring definite proof that it has worked for evil in the states and countries where it has been long in practice. This means not merely to show that evil still exists in these communities, or even that some women take part in it: it must be shown that new or greater evils exist, and that these are proven due to use of the ballot by women. We have yet to wait for such legitimate opposition.
This effort of Miss Sewall's, like all the others, consists almost wholly of prophesies of horror as to the supositious effects of an untried process, and where she does bring definite charges of corrupt behavior in a woman suffrage state, the corruption charged is one common to man suffrage everywhere, and is in no way attributable to the presence of voting women. Her anti-suffrage opinions, quoted from these states, can be overwhelmingly outnumbered by pro-suffrage ones from equally good sources.
She repeatedly alludes to woman suffrage as "a stupendous governmental change," "the overturning of the social order which woman suffrage would work," and other similar alarmist phrases; yet, as a matter of fact, women have voted more than a generation, and are now voting, in various of our states and in foreign countries all over the world without the slightest "governmental change" or "overturning of social order" other than a gradual improvement through legitimate legislation.
The notable essence of this paper lies in two statements, advanced with the utmost solemnity as "basic principles" and "basic reasons," whereas they might both be dismissed by sweeping legal exclusion as "incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial."
First, no electorate has ever existed, or ever can exist, which cannot execute its own laws.
Second, no voter has ever claimed, or ever can claim, maintenance from another voter.
To dismiss the second with an airy wave of the hand, us its merely inquire if it is a fact that in our four woman suffrage states married women have no legal claim to support from their husbands? As a matter of fact, they have. Therefore it is apparent that even now in this country, as in many others, one voter has claimed, does claim, and succeeds in getting, maintenance from another voter. Exit the second "basic reason."
The first one looks quite formidable. It calls up in one's mind a peculiar alignment of the sexes in which all the women voters are segregated and opposed to all the men voters and that this all-woman vote is on some matter which concerns all men, and that all men utterly object to doing what all women want them to do, and that all women could not make all men do what they wanted them to do—against their wills. Perhaps they couldn't. Perhaps they could. There are more ways of coercing them than by brute force. But in any case what has this preposterous vagary to do with woman suffrage?
Have the women voters of any state or country ever united as a body against the men voters? Is there any reason to suppose that they ever will? There are some measures, as in dealing with the social evil, wherein women might conceivably vote "solid" against a considerable number of men; but even then there would remain a large proportion of wise and good men on the side of virtue and health—and this proportion is increasing daily. Decisions made by all women on questions of this sort could be efficiently enforced by them.
The absurdity of this first "basic proposition" is in its innocent assumption of flatly opposing interests between men and women, whereas most of their interests are identical. In following out her grisly fears of valiant man forcibly preventing womankind from voting, our authoress again forgets existing facts and again surrenders herself to gloomy prediction.
"A dozen ruffians at a single polling place could prevent a hundred women from depositing a single ballot," she says.
Yes. But do they?
A dozen ruffians could do alarming damage to a hundred women almost anywhere if the women had no guns. Has Mrs. Seawell ever had the pleasure of observing the absence of "ruffians" at the polling places in Woman Suffrage states? She seems to imagine that women, in acquiring the ballot, instantly thereby lose, not only all their male relatives, but the protection of the law, and become a species of "enemy," with men, terrified and enraged, banded together against them—which is a childish absurdity.
The errors of fact in this article are gross and unpardonable. If Mrs. Seawell had ever examined "The Woman's Bible" she would have noticed that it was not "Miss Anthony's," but was undertaken by Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton with collaboration of some others, and that it was not an attempt to make the Bible a "suffrage document" but to show how it discriminated against women.
She alleges that the divorce rate is "practically higher" in the four suffrage states than in any others in the Union whereas Wyoming is the one state where divorce has decreased rather than increased. She speaks of Colorado as having had "more than thirty years of suffrage" whereas it was only introduced in 1893.
Any person capable of real interest in this question of practical politics and world improvement are urged to concentrate their study, not on the most fiercely sentimental presentation of what woman suffrage will do or will not do, but on the numerous and easily accessible facts as to what it really does, information concerning which can be readily obtained at the National Woman Suffrage Headquarters, 505 Fifth avenue, New York city.
*
In the preliminary announcement of this magazine, twelve short articles were promised by name.
As the months came round, other matters arose for attention, other articles were urgent, and this arbitrary set was much in the way.
One, The Nun in the Kitchen, was seized upon by another magazine. They wanted the title particularly, so it was given them—and the price thereof goeth to feed the Forerunner. But, being a much larger magazine, they benevolently allowed the same name and a similar article to appear in these modest pages.
The others, "Our Overworked Instincts" and "How We Waste Three-Fourths of Our Money" being promised, are now printed, altogether and with most gratifying brevity, their length never having been specified. The New Year is not going to be hampered with any such too previous announcements.
*
We mean to carry lists of books useful to our readers. We wish to prove that it will pay publishers to advertise with us. If you order any book reviewed here, please send your order to THE FORERUNNER.
"Pure Sociology," by Lester F. Ward, Macmillan, Pub., $4.00.
"Hygiene and Morality," by Lavina L. Dock, R.N., G. P. Putnam's Sons,
Pub., $1.25.
"Marriage as a Trade," by Cicely Hamilton, Moffat, Yard & Co., Pub., $1.25.
"To-day's Problems." Trade Union Book Concern. Chicago, Ill.
"The Century of the Child," by Ellen Key; G. P. Putnam's Sons., Pub., $1.50.
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