I regard true beauty as the divinest gift which woman has received; and was not Pandora, the first of mythical women, endowed with every gift? And was not Eve, the first of orthodox women, the type of every feminine perfection? Only Protogyna, the first of scientific women, was poorly and meanly endowed. If I were a woman I would value health and wealth; I would think kindly of honor and reputation; I would greatly prize knowledge and truth; but above all I would be beautiful—possessed of that strange and mighty charm which would lead a crowd of slaves behind my triumphal car and compel a haughty world to bow in humble submission at my feet.
In the third place my ideal woman has inherited the intellect of Pallas. And this inheritance is necessary in order to secure for her a true possession of the gifts of Aphrodite. For a woman can never be truly beautiful who does not possess intelligence. It is a matter of the utmost indifference to me what studies my ideal has pursued. She may be a panglot or she may scarcely know her vernacular. If she speak French and German and read Latin and Greek, it is well. If she know conics and curves it is well; if she be able to integrate the vanishing function of a quivering infinitesimal, it is well; if from a disintegrating track which hardening cosmic mud has fixed and fastened on the present, she be able to build a majestic, long extinct mammal, it is well. All these things are marks of learning, but not necessarily of intelligence. A person may know them all and hundreds of things besides, and yet be the veriest fool. My ideal, I should prefer to have a good education in science and letters, but she must have a sound mind. She must have a mind above petty prejudice and giant bigotry. She must see something in life beyond a ball or a ribbon. She must have wit and judgment. She must have the higher wisdom which can see the fitness of things and grasp the logic of events. It will be seen readily, therefore, that my ideal is wise rather than learned. But she is not devoid of culture. Without culture a broad liberality is impossible. But what is culture? True culture is that knowledge of men and affairs which places every problem in sociology and politics in its true light. It is that drill and exercise which place all the faculties at their best and make one capable of dealing with the real labors of life. Such a culture is not incompatible with a broad knowledge of books, with a deep insight into art, with a clear outlook over the field of letters. Indeed it includes all these and is still something more than they are.
My ideal then, so regally endowed, is the equal of any man—even if he be the "ideal man" of the American Chemical Society.
My ideal stands before me endowed with all the majesty of this long ancestral line. Proud is she in the consciousness of her own equality. Her haughty eye looks out upon this teeming sphere and acknowledges only as her peer the "ideal man," and no one as her superior. Stand forth, O perfect maiden, sentient with the brain of Pallas, radiant with the beauty of Venus, quivering with the eager vivacity of Diana! Make, if possible, thy home on earth. At thy coming the world will rise in an enthusiasm of delight and crown thee queen. [Long and enthusiastic applause.]
WOODROW WILSON
OUR ANCESTRAL RESPONSIBILITIES
[Speech of Woodrow Wilson at the seventeenth annual dinner of the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn, December 21, 1896. Stewart L. Woodford, the President of the Society, said, in introducing the speaker: "The next toast is entitled 'The Responsibility of having Ancestors,' and will be responded to by Professor Woodrow Wilson,[13] of Princeton. I know you will give him such a welcome as will indicate that, while we are mostly Yale men here, we are not jealous of Princeton.">[
Mr. President, Ladies, and Gentlemen:—I am not of your blood; I am not a Virginia Cavalier, as Dr. Hill [David J. Hill. See Vol. II.] has suggested. Sometimes I wish I were; I would have more fun. I come, however, of as good blood as yours; in some respects a better. Because the Scotch-Irish, though they are just as much in earnest as you are, have a little bit more gayety and more elasticity than you have. Moreover they are now forming a Scotch-Irish society, which will, as fast as human affairs will allow, do exactly what the New England Societies are doing, viz.: annex the universe. [Laughter.] We believe with a sincere belief, we believe as sincerely as you do the like, that we really made this country. Not only that, but we believe that we can now, in some sort of way, demonstrate the manufacture, because the country has obviously departed in many respects from the model which you claim to have set. Not only that, but it seems to me that you yourselves are becoming a little recreant to the traditions you yearly celebrate.
It seems to me that you are very much in the position, with reference to your forefathers, that the little boy was with reference to his immediate father. The father was a very busy man; he was away at his work before the children were up in the morning and did not come home till after they had gone to bed at night. One day this little boy was greatly incensed, as he said, "to be whipped by that gentleman that stays here on Sundays." I do not observe that you think about your ancestors the rest of the week; I do not observe that they are very much present in your thoughts at any other time save on Sunday, and that then they are most irritating to you. I have known a great many men descended from New England ancestors and I do not feel half so hardly toward my ancestors as they do toward theirs. There is a distant respect about the relationship which is touching. There is a feeling that these men are well and safely at a distance, and that they would be indulged under no other circumstances whatever; and that the beauty of it is to have descended from them and come so far away.