Perhaps the most defined and significant feminine movement which flowered it had long before blossomed at the death of the past century is that which is generally termed "the higher education of women." While this movement is not peculiar to America, it is in this country that it first gave signs of florescence and has taken deepest root. Over the length and breadth of the land are constantly springing up new educational centres which are devoted to the culture of young women. When Vassar began its career, it was, as Girton in England, looked upon as a most doubtful experiment, both as to its permanency and the merit of its aims; now it is but one of an ever-increasing many, while coeducation is now an established rule in many of our greatest institutions of learning. There are still dissentients from the theory of classical and scientific education for women, and it is somewhat singular that the movement should have obtained full headway at the very time when there has been sharp and sustained attack upon university education for men as an aid to future career; but in neither case can the opponents of liberal education be said to have prevailed in argument. That errors have been made in the progress of the movement for broader feminine culture cannot be successfully denied; occasionally, as in the adoption of the purely masculine badges of cap and gown, cause has been given for more or less good-natured ridicule and charge of fashion rather than earnestness in the movement. Nor can the introduction of athletic contests into the female curriculum be heartily defended; not only are such contests abrogative of the most cherished theories of feminine culture, but they are not productive of respect from the enemies of the movement. The remarkable spectacle has been presented of "championship" games of basketball which ended in fights between the adverse collegiates that recall the days when a baseball match was merely the preliminary to a battle between the partisans of the respective clubs, led by the players. Gracefully to accept defeat is not the nature of womankind, and struggles for physical mastery among them are subversive of all that is most admirable in the feminine nature. Nevertheless, all these things are but excrescences and not germane to the main theory, and they will doubtless correct themselves by the constant self-evidence of their absurdity or evil tendencies. The promoters of the movement did not look to an aping of masculine garb and pursuits as the end or even means of their purposes, and their original aim will emerge from the mists and shine clear and bright in its height and singleness. That aim was that woman should be placed upon a level with man in all that is most desirable as a foundation for a career, and no one can dispute its excellence of theory. The methods of obtaining the best results in that purpose may be debated and, it is possible, the conclusion reached that not yet have the guides of the army of feminine culture found the shortest and least-encumbered path to their goal, but that the goal will in time be reached by the easiest and best way does not admit of a doubt; in this case at least, though with some difference of application, may be quoted the old French proverb: Ce que femme veut, Dieu veut.
That the future of our country depends, as its past has largely depended, upon its women is but a truism; it is something more, however, that we can look forward with calm confidence to that future as upheld by American womanhood. To-day the American woman stands but on the threshold of her career. Behind her are noble traditions, fraught with lesson, with admonition, and in some cases with warning; before her are the coming centuries, pregnant with possibility, to be made her own. Every step that she takes is a determination of her destined path; even though the step be temporarily in advance, if it leads to no worthy goal it is force wasted, and worse.
She must needs face responsibility, without which she would be but the toy which she rightfully refuses to be considered; yet the responsibility which lies on her shoulders should make her thoughtful and grave to meet and outface many problems of existence, to the solution of which she must in largest part contribute by her dealings with them. She is free with the noblest of freedoms; she has the liberty to be as well as to do, and the former is the greater thing. That which she does is but the reflex of that which she is, and the latter is the determining factor in the result of civilization. It is for her to direct the steps of progress, less in material matters than in spiritual direction; the legislation which is enacted in the halls of our legislatures is but the consequence of the influence and even the teachings of the home, and the face of the land is ever turned in the direction toward which its women set their countenances. There lies before us grave peril in questions of social nature, and it is our women who will determine whether the peril is to prove fatal to the best interests of civilization or but a "stepping-stone to higher things."
The story of American womanhood in the past shows deep cause for pride in those who can boast kinship to that womanhood, and the future will not blur the blazon of the past.
CONTENTS
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[I] [II] [III] [IV] [V] [VI] [VII] [VIII] [IX] [X] [XI] [XII] [XIII] [XIV] |
[INTRODUCTION] THE ABORIGINAL WOMAN THE WOMEN OF MEXICO THE WOMEN OF SOUTH AMERICA THE PERIOD OF SETTLEMENT THE EARLY COLONIAL PERIOD THE LATER COLONIAL PERIOD REVOLUTIONARY DAYS THE WOMEN OF CANADA THE YOUNG REPUBLIC THE GROWTH OF THE NATION THE SECTIONAL DIVISION THE CIVIL WAR FEMININE RECONSTRUCTION THE CLOSE OF A CENTURY |
List of Illustrations
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[Huemac II. meets Xochitl] [The death of Minnehaha] [The beautiful maidens presented to the Spaniards] [The courtship of Miles Standish] [Antony Van Corlear] [A Southern wedding] |
Obregon William L. Dodge From the "Lienzo de Tlaxcala" C. Y. Turner F. D. Millet E. L. Henry |