“Yes,” said Helen, slowly. Then, with more enthusiasm, “You know, father, I’ve always wished I were a boy. It seems so much grander to be a man than a woman. A man’s life is so much freer, and he can do so much greater things, you know. Of course, I shall try to be a good woman, 23 but I wish women could do big things, the way men can.”
“What wondrous things can men do that women can’t do?” asked Mr. Wayne with a smile.
“Oh,” replied Helen, clasping her hands with enthusiasm, “just see what men do. They build immense houses, and great bridges—Oh, they make the world, and women just sit in the house and look on. I’d like to do something.”
Mr. Wayne smoothed back the hair from the forehead of his enthusiastic daughter with a tender smile, as he replied, “It does seem on the surface as if men did greater things than women, but it is only seeming, my dear. It is just as grand a thing to be a woman as to be a man. True, woman’s work does not show on the surface so plainly, but she works with more enduring material than does man in creating the world of things. We can see the great works of man’s hands and they impress us with a sense of his power; but it is mind that does the real work, and women have minds, or are minds, you know.”
“Yes, I know, but they must devote their minds to cooking and dishwashing.”
“I have seen women doing other things. In the old world I saw women digging ditches, carrying brick and mortar to the top of high buildings, ploughing in the fields; in fact, working just like men. The great buildings of the World’s Exposition erected in Vienna in 1873, were largely the work of women’s hands. You are not anxious 24 to exchange dishwashing for such work, are you?”
“O, no, indeed; but it is man who plans such work and superintends its doing. A woman could not have planned Brooklyn bridge, for example.”
“It is quite true that a woman did not plan it, but did you know that it was completed under a woman’s supervision?”
“No, was it? How did that happen? Tell me all about it.”
“It happened this way. Mr. Roebling, who was superintending its construction, was taken ill, and his wife took his place and personally gave oversight to every part of the work until it was done. You see, her being a woman did not prevent her doing the work. But if she had been only a careless or an ignorant woman she could not have done it. It was mind, you see, and cultured mind at that, which was the master power. If she had not been working with him in making the plans, she could not have worked for him in carrying them out. Instead of lamenting over your sex, you would better rejoice in the fact that you are a spirit, and realize that your power in all spheres of activity will be measured by the cultivation of your mental and spiritual powers.”