The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910)
by
Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Part 12 out of 18



answered, unless at peril of the asker.


AS TO VALUE:

If you take this magazine one year you will have:


One complete novel . . . By C. P. Gilman
One new book . . . By C. P. Gilman
Twelve short stories . . . By C. P. Gilman
Twelve-and-more short articles . . . By C. P. Gilman
Twelve-and-more new poems . . . By C. P. Gilman
Twelve Short Sermons . . . By C. P. Gilman
Besides "Comment and Review" . . . By C. P. Gilman
"Personal Problems" . . . By C. P. Gilman
And many other things . . . By C. P. Gilman

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THE FORERUNNER
CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN'S MAGAZINE
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THE FORERUNNER

A MONTHLY MAGAZINE

BY

CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN
AUTHOR, OWNER & PUBLISHER

1.00 A YEAR
.10 A COPY

Volume 1. No. 10
AUGUST, 1910
Copyright for 1910
C. P. Gilman

Each mother, separately, owes a duty to her child.
Do not mothers, collectively, owe a duty to their children? What is it?




THE EARTH'S ENTAIL


No matter how we cultivate the land,
Taming the forest and the prairie free;
No matter how we irrigate the sand,
Making the desert blossom at command,
We must always leave the borders of the sea;
The immeasureable reaches
Of the windy wave-wet beaches,
The million-mile-long margin of the sea.

No matter how the engineers may toil,
Nature's barriers and bulwarks to defy;
No matter how we excavate and spoil,
De-forest and denude and waste the soil,
We must always leave the mountains looming high;
No human effort changes,
The horizon-rolling ranges
Where the high hills heave and shoulder to the sky.

When a child may wander safely, east or west,
When the peaceful nations gossip and agree.
When our homes are set in gardens all at rest,
And happy lives are long in work loved best,
We can leave our labor and go free;
Free to go and stand alone in,
Free for each to find his own in.
In the everlasting mountains and the sea.



THE COTTAGETTE


"Why not?" said Mr. Mathews "It is far too small for a house, too pretty
for a hut, too--unusual--for a cottage."

"Cottagette, by all means," said Lois, seating herself on a porch chair.
"But it is larger than it looks, Mr. Mathews. How do you like it,
Malda?"

I was delighted with it. More than delighted. Here this tiny shell of
fresh unpainted wood peeped out from under the trees, the only house in
sight except the distant white specks on far off farms, and the little
wandering village in the river-threaded valley. It sat right on the
turf,--no road, no path even, and the dark woods shadowed the back
windows.

"How about meals?" asked Lois.

"Not two minutes walk," he assured her, and showed us a little furtive
path between the trees to the place where meals were furnished.

We discussed and examined and exclaimed, Lois holding her pongee skirts
close about her--she needn't have been so careful, there wasn't a speck
of dust,--and presently decided to take it.

Never did I know the real joy and peace of living, before that blessed
summer at "High Court." It was a mountain place, easy enough to get to,
but strangely big and still and far away when you were there.

The working basis of the establishment was an eccentric woman named
Caswell, a sort of musical enthusiast, who had a summer school of music
and the "higher things." Malicious persons, not able to obtain
accommodations there, called the place "High C."

I liked the music very well, and kept my thoughts to myself, both high
and low, but "The Cottagette" I loved unreservedly. It was so little
and new and clean, smelling only of its fresh-planed boards--they hadn't
even stained it.

There was one big room and two little ones in the tiny thing, though
from the outside you wouldn't have believed it, it looked so small; but
small as it was it harbored a miracle--a real bathroom with water piped
from mountain springs. Our windows opened into the green shadiness, the
soft brownness, the bird-inhabited quiet flower-starred woods. But in
front we looked across whole counties--over a far-off river-into another
state. Off and down and away--it was like sitting on the roof of
something--something very big.

The grass swept up to the door-step, to the walls--only it wasn't just
grass of course, but such a procession of flowers as I had never
imagined could grow in one place.

You had to go quite a way through the meadow, wearing your own narrow
faintly marked streak in the grass, to reach the town-connecting road
below. But in the woods was a little path, clear and wide, by which we
went to meals.

For we ate with the highly thoughtful musicians, and highly musical
thinkers, in their central boarding-house nearby. They didn't call it a
boarding-house, which is neither high nor musical; they called it "The
Calceolaria." There was plenty of that growing about, and I didn't mind
what they called it so long as the food was good--which it was, and the
prices reasonable--which they were.

The people were extremely interesting--some of them at least; and all of
them were better than the average of summer boarders.

But if there hadn't been any interesting ones it didn't matter while
Ford Mathews was there. He was a newspaper man, or rather an
ex-newspaper man, then becoming a writer for magazines, with books
ahead.

He had friends at High Court--he liked music--he liked the place--and he
liked us. Lois liked him too, as was quite natural. I'm sure I did.

He used to come up evenings and sit on the porch and talk.

He came daytimes and went on long walks with us. He established his
workshop in a most attractive little cave not far beyond far beyond
us--the country there is full of rocky ledges and hollows, and sometimes
asked us over to an afternoon tea, made on a gipsy fire.

Lois was a good deal older than I, but not really old at all, and she
didn't look her thirty-five by ten years. I never blamed her for not
mentioning it, and I wouldn't have done so, myself, on any account. But
I felt that together we made a safe and reasonable household. She
played beautifully, and there was a piano in our big room. There were
pianos in several other little cottages about--but too far off for any
jar of sound. When the wind was right we caught little wafts of music
now and then; but mostly it was still--blessedly still, about us. And
yet that Calceolaria was only two minutes off--and with raincoats and
rubbers we never minded going to it.

We saw a good deal of Ford and I got interested in him, I couldn't help
it. He was big. Not extra big in pounds and inches, but a man with big
view and a grip--with purpose and real power. He was going to do
things. I thought he was doing them now, but he didn't--this was all
like cutting steps in the ice-wall, he said. It had to be done, but the
road was long ahead. And he took an interest in my work too, which is
unusual for a literary man.

Mine wasn't much. I did embroidery and made designs.

It is such pretty work! I like to draw from flowers and leaves and
things about me; conventionalize them sometimes, and sometimes paint
them just as they are,--in soft silk stitches.

All about up here were the lovely small things I needed; and not only
these, but the lovely big things that make one feel so strong and able
to do beautiful work.

Here was the friend I lived so happily with, and all this fairy land of
sun and shadow, the free immensity of our view, and the dainty comfort
of the Cottagette. We never had to think of ordinary things till the
soft musical thrill of the Japanese gong stole through the trees, and we
trotted off to the Calceolaria.

I think Lois knew before I did.

We were old friends and trusted each other, and she had had experience
too.

"Malda," she said, "let us face this thing and be rational." It was a
strange thing that Lois should be so rational and yet so musical--but
she was, and that was one reason I liked her so much.

"You are beginning to love Ford Mathews--do you know it?"

I said yes, I thought I was.

"Does he love you?"

That I couldn't say. "It is early yet," I told her. "He is a man, he
is about thirty I believe, he has seen more of life and probably loved
before--it may be nothing more than friendliness with him."

"Do you think it would be a good marriage?" she asked. We had often
talked of love and marriage, and Lois had helped me to form my
views--hers were very clear and strong.

"Why yes--if he loves me," I said. "He has told me quite a bit about
his family, good western farming people, real Americans. He is strong
and well--you can read clean living in his eyes and mouth." Ford's eyes
were as clear as a girl's, the whites of them were clear. Most men's
eyes, when you look at them critically, are not like that. They may
look at you very expressively, but when you look at them, just as
features, they are not very nice.

I liked his looks, but I liked him better.

So I told her that as far as I knew it would be a good marriage--if it
was one.

"How much do you love him?" she asked.

That I couldn't quite tell,--it was a good deal,--but I didn't think it
would kill me to lose him.

"Do you love him enough to do something to win him--to really put
yourself out somewhat for that purpose?"

"Why--yes--I think I do. If it was something I approved of. What do
you mean?"

Then Lois unfolded her plan. She had been married,--unhappily married,
in her youth; that was all over and done with years ago; she had told me
about it long since; and she said she did not regret the pain and loss
because it had given her experience. She had her maiden name again--and
freedom. She was so fond of me she wanted to give me the benefit of her
experience--without the pain.

"Men like music," said Lois; "they like sensible talk; they like beauty
of course, and all that,--"

"Then they ought to like you!" I interrupted, and, as a matter of fact
they did. I knew several who wanted to marry her, but she said "once
was enough." I don't think they were "good marriages" though.

"Don't be foolish, child," said Lois, "this is serious. What they care
for most after all is domesticity. Of course they'll fall in love with
anything; but what they want to marry is a homemaker. Now we are living
here in an idyllic sort of way, quite conducive to falling in love, but
no temptation to marriage. If I were you--if I really loved this man
and wished to marry him, I would make a home of this place."

"Make a home?--why it _is_ a home. I never was so happy anywhere in my
life. What on earth do you mean, Lois?"

"A person might be happy in a balloon, I suppose," she replied, "but it
wouldn't be a home. He comes here and sits talking with us, and it's
quiet and feminine and attractive--and then we hear that big gong at the
Calceolaria, and off we go stopping through the wet woods--and the spell
is broken. Now you can cook." I could cook. I could cook excellently.
My esteemed Mama had rigorously taught me every branch of what is now
called "domestic science;" and I had no objection to the work, except
that it prevented my doing anything else. And one's hands are not so
nice when one cooks and washes dishes,--I need nice hands for my
needlework. But if it was a question of pleasing Ford Mathews--

Lois went on calmly. "Miss Caswell would put on a kitchen for us in a
minute, she said she would, you know, when we took the cottage. Plenty
of people keep house up here,--we, can if we want to."

"But we don't want to," I said, "we never have wanted to. The very
beauty of the place is that it never had any house-keeping about it.
Still, as you say, it would be cosy on a wet night, we could have
delicious little suppers, and have him stay--"

"He told me he had never known a home since he was eighteen," said Lois.

That was how we came to install a kitchen in the Cottagette. The men
put it up in a few days, just a lean-to with a window, a sink and two
doors. I did the cooking. We had nice things, there is no denying
that; good fresh milk and vegetables particularly, fruit is hard to get
in the country, and meat too, still we managed nicely; the less you have
the more you have to manage--it takes time and brains, that's all.

Lois likes to do housework, but it spoils her hands for practicing, so
she can't; and I was perfectly willing to do it--it was all in the
interest of my own heart. Ford certainly enjoyed it. He dropped in
often, and ate things with undeniable relish. So I was pleased, though
it did interfere with my work a good deal. I always work best in the
morning; but of course housework has to be done in the morning too; and
it is astonishing how much work there is in the littlest kitchen. You
go in for a minute, and you see this thing and that thing and the other
thing to be done, and your minute is an hour before you know it.

When I was ready to sit down the freshness of the morning was gone
somehow. Before, when I woke up, there was only the clean wood smell of
the house, and then the blessed out-of-doors: now I always felt the call
of the kitchen as soon as I woke. An oil stove will smell a little,
either in or out of the house; and soap, and--well you know if you cook
in a bedroom how it makes the room feel differently? Our house had been
only bedroom and parlor before.

We baked too--the baker's bread was really pretty poor, and Ford did
enjoy my whole wheat, and brown, and especially hot rolls and gems. it
was a pleasure to feed him, but it did heat up the house, and me. I
never could work much--at my work--baking days. Then, when I did get to
work, the people would come with things,--milk or meat or vegetables, or
children with berries; and what distressed me most was the wheelmarks on
our meadow. They soon made quite a road--they had to of course, but I
hated it--I lost that lovely sense of being on the last edge and looking
over--we were just a bead on a string like other houses. But it was
quite true that I loved this man, and would do more than this to please
him. We couldn't go off so freely on excursions as we used, either;
when meals are to be prepared someone has to be there, and to take in
things when they come. Sometimes Lois stayed in, she always asked to,
but mostly I did. I couldn't let her spoil her summer on my account.
And Ford certainly liked it.

He came so often that Lois said she thought it would look better if we
had an older person with us; and that her mother could come if I wanted
her, and she could help with the work of course. That seemed
reasonable, and she came. I wasn't very fond of Lois's mother, Mrs.
Fowler, but it did seem a little conspicuous, Mr. Mathews eating with us
more than he did at the Calceolaria.

There were others of course, plenty of them dropping in, but I didn't
encourage it much, it made so much more work. They would come in to
supper, and then we would have musical evenings. They offered to help
me wash dishes, some of them, but a new hand in the kitchen is not much
help, I preferred to do it myself; then I knew where the dishes were.

Ford never seemed to want to wipe dishes; though I often wished he
would.

So Mrs. Fowler came. She and Lois had one room, they had to,--and she
really did a lot of the work, she was a very practical old lady.

Then the house began to be noisy. You hear another person in a kitchen
more than you hear yourself, I think,--and the walls were only boards.
She swept more than we did too. I don't think much sweeping is needed
in a clean place like that; and she dusted all the time; which I know is
unnecessary. I still did most of the cooking, but I could get off more
to draw, out-of-doors; and to walk. Ford was in and out continually,
and, it seemed to me, was really coming nearer. What was one summer of
interrupted work, of noise and dirt and smell and constant meditation on
what to eat next, compared to a lifetime of love? Besides--if he
married me--I should have to do it always, and might as well get used to
it.

Lois kept me contented, too, telling me nice things that Ford said about
my cooking. "He does appreciate it so," she said.

One day he came around early and asked me to go up Hugh's Peak with him.
It was a lovely climb and took all day. I demurred a little, it was
Monday, Mrs. Fowler thought it was cheaper to have a woman come and
wash, and we did, but it certainly made more work.

"Never mind," he said, "what's washing day or ironing day or any of that
old foolishness to us? This is walking day--that's what it is." It was
really, cool and sweet and fresh,--it had rained in the night,--and
brilliantly clear.

"Come along!" he said. "We can see as far as Patch Mountain I'm sure.
There'll never be a better day."

"Is anyone else going?" I asked.

"Not a soul. It's just us. Come."

I came gladly, only suggesting--"Wait, let me put up a lunch."

"I'll wait just long enough for you to put on knickers and a short
skirt," said he. "The lunch is all in the basket on my back. I know
how long it takes for you women to 'put up' sandwiches and things."

We were off in ten minutes, light-footed and happy, and the day was all
that could be asked. He brought a perfect lunch, too, and had made it
all himself. I confess it tasted better to me than my own cooking; but
perhaps that was the climb.

When we were nearly down we stopped by a spring on a broad ledge, and
supped, making tea as he liked to do out-of-doors. We saw the round sun
setting at one end of a world view, and the round moon rising at the
other; calmly shining each on each.

And then he asked me to be his wife.--

We were very happy.

"But there's a condition!" said he all at once, sitting up straight and
looking very fierce. "You mustn't cook!"

"What!" said I. "Mustn't cook?"

"No," said he, "you must give it up--for my sake."

I stared at him dumbly.

"Yes, I know all about it," he went on, "Lois told me. I've seen a good
deal of Lois--since you've taken to cooking. And since I would talk
about you, naturally I learned a lot. She told me how you were brought
up, and how strong your domestic instincts were--but bless your artist
soul dear girl, you have some others!" Then he smiled rather queerly
and murmured, "surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any
bird."

"I've watched you, dear, all summer;" he went on, "it doesn't agree with
you.

"Of course the things taste good--but so do my things! I'm a good cook
myself. My father was a cook, for years--at good wages. I'm used to it
you see.

"One summer when I was hard up I cooked for a living--and saved money
instead of starving."

"O ho!" said I, "that accounts for the tea--and the lunch!"

"And lots of other things," said he. "But you haven't done half as much
of your lovely work since you started this kitchen business, and--you'll
forgive me, dear--it hasn't been as good. Your work is quite too good
to lose; it is a beautiful and distinctive art, and I don't want you to
let it go. What would you think of me if I gave up my hard long years
of writing for the easy competence of a well-paid cook!"

I was still too happy to think very clearly. I just sat and looked at
him. "But you want to marry me?" I said.

"I want to marry you, Malda,--because I love you--because you are young
and strong and beautiful--because you are wild and sweet and--fragrant,
and--elusive, like the wild flowers you love. Because you are so truly
an artist in your special way, seeing beauty and giving it to others. I
love you because of all this, because you are rational and highminded
and capable of friendship,--and in spite of your cooking!"

"But--how do you want to live?"

"As we did here--at first," he said. "There was peace, exquisite
silence. There was beauty--nothing but beauty. There were the clean
wood odors and flowers and fragrances and sweet wild wind. And there
was you--your fair self, always delicately dressed, with white firm
fingers sure of touch in delicate true work. I loved you then. When
you took to cooking it jarred on me. I have been a cook, I tell you,
and I know what it is. I hated it--to see my wood-flower in a kitchen.
But Lois told me about how you were brought up to it and loved it--and I
said to myself, 'I love this woman; I will wait and see if I love her
even as a cook.' And I do, Darling: I withdraw the condition. I will
love you always, even if you insist on being my cook for life!"

"O I don't insist!" I cried. "I don't want to cook--I want to draw!
But I thought--Lois said--How she has misunderstood you!"

"It is not true, always, my dear," said he, "that the way to a man's
heart is through his stomach; at least it's not the only way. Lois
doesn't know everything, she is young yet! And perhaps for my sake you
can give it up. Can you sweet?"

Could I? Could I? Was there ever a man like this?



WHOLESALE HYPNOTISM


We are beginning to see some glimmering of new truth concerning the art
of suggestion.

Here is some one with a strong will who imposes upon you a definite
idea--"This napkin is a peach; a luscious, ripe peach," insists the
hypnotizer; and the hypnotized bites at the napkin with every appearance
of delight.

It is said that those once thoroughly hypnotized, surrendering their own
observation and judgement and submitting absolutely to the ideas
impressed upon their minds by others, become thereafter less able to
think and act for themselves, and more and more open to suggestion.

We begin to see this of the individual mind, but we have not yet seen
its application to the race mind.

Suggestion is a force acting upon us all, as is well known to the
politician and the advertiser, but it acts most strongly upon the weak
and those unaccustomed to using their own minds, as is completely shown
in children.

It is the susceptibility to suggestion which makes children so easily
swayed by the influence of their companions; so ready to follow the
leader who says "let's play" this or that: nearly all join in, and a
group of children used to such leadership will stand about rather
helplessly if deprived of it.

It is that extreme susceptibility which makes the church say "Give us
the first five years of a child's life, and he will never outgrow our
influence!" Children, of all people, are most open to the power of
suggestion.

Now observe the cumulative action of this power, applied to the youth of
humanity, and in each generation further applied to each individual
youth. Certain ideas first grasped in ages of dark savagery, or even
previous to that, and then believed to be of supreme importance, were
forcibly impressed upon the minds of children, all children, generation
after generation. To select one simple instance, observe the use of the
fear-motive in controlling the young.

Among animals there are two main modifiers of conduct, desire and fear.
They act either to gratify a desire or to avoid a danger.

The young animal does not know his dangers, and it is imperative that he
should know them. In those higher species where parental education is
developed, the mother shows her young what things are good for it, and
teaches it the terror necessary. The little bird or beast must squat
and be still, must stay in the cave or lie hid in the grass; lest the
fox, hawk, lion, or whatever enemy is to be dreaded should pounce upon
it. And this pre-human method of culture has come down to its through
long lines of savages with their real and fancied bugaboos to terrorize
the young; through ancient and modern races; through the warrior mothers
and nurses using "Napoleon" or "The Black Douglas" as the impending
danger, to the same primitive, ignorant custom to-day--"The Goberlins
'll git yer, if you don't watch out"!

The "pain economy" and "fear economy" of the beast and savage are long
left behind, but we preserve and artificially enforce the fear
instinct--by suggestion. We hypnotize our children generation after
generation, with disciplinary dread, and rely so wholly upon it to
enforce good behavior that our citizens see no preventive of crime
except fear of punishment.

Similarly we impress on the helplessly receptive minds of our children,
whose earliest years are passed under the influence of uneducated
house-servants, the ancient, foolish prejudices and misconceptions of
our dark past. If the expanding mind of the little child could be
surrounded by the influences of our highest culture, instead of our
lowest; and above all things be taught to _use its own power_--to
observe, deduce, and act accordingly, and be carefully shielded from the
cumulative force of age-old falsehood and folly, we should have a set of
people who would look at life with new eyes. We could see things as
they are, and judge for ourselves what conduct was needed, whereas now
we see things as we have been taught they are; and believe, because we
have been told so, that we cannot alter conditions.

It is not lack of mental capacity which blinds us; not lack of power
which chains us; but we are hypnotized--and have been for a thousand
thousand years--with carefully invented lies.

"You can't alter human nature." Who says so? _Is it true?_ Is there
no difference between the nature of the modern American and the nature
of a Fiji Islander? Do they respond alike under the same conditions?
Are their impulses and governing tendencies the same?

Human nature has altered from its dim beginnings, under the action of
changed conditions, just as dog-nature has altered from fierce wolf and
slinking jackal to the dear loved companion of mankind.

There are some properties common to all natures; some common to each
race and species; some common to special strains and families; but of
all "natures" human nature, the broadest, most complex, most recent, is
_most easily_ alterable.

Let that sink in. Be hypnotized the other way for awhile!

You Can Alter Human Nature!

We are naturally displeased with human nature as we see it about us. It
so inert--so subservient--so incredibly dull.

Put yourself in the place of a bright youngster, two hundred years
hence, looking back at these suffering times. Suppose he is studying
"ancient history," and has been given pictures and books describing the
life of our day. "But _why_ did they live so?" he will ask. "Weren't
they people like us? Couldn't they see--hear--feel? Hadn't they arms
and hands and brains? Here's this--this--what do you call it?
'Overcrowding in cities.' What made them overcrowd?" Then the
professor will have to explain. "It was their belief that governed
them. They believed that economic laws necessitated all that kind of
thing. Everybody believed it."

"But how _could_ they believe it? They had intelligence; look at the
things they invented, the scientific discoveries they made, the big
businesses they managed! What _made_ them believe it?" And unless the
professor understands the peculiar effect of race-hypnotism he will be
pushed for an answer.

What indeed makes us believe that so many human beings have to remain
inferior to so few; that this kind of animal cannot be improved and
elevated like any other kind? What makes us believe that because one
man is inferior to another, therefore the other must take advantage of
him? What makes us believe that while the wide earth responds
submissively to our modifying hand; while we master arts and sciences,
develop industries, probe mysteries, achieve marvels; we are, and must
ourselves remain a set of helpless, changeless undesirables?

"But," the professor will say to the child, "they _felt_ thus and so,
you see." "Felt!" that sturdy son of the future will say, "Didn't they
know that feeling could be changed as easy as anything?"

It will be hard indeed, when human nature is altered a little more, to
make it patient with the besotted conviction of unalterableness that
paralyzes it now.

A baby's opening mind should be placed among the most beautiful and
rational conditions, specially arranged for easy observation and
deduction. It should be surrounded by persons of the best wisdom now
ours; and whatever it may lack of what we do not yet know to be true, it
should be religiously guarded from what we do know to be false.

Every college should have its course in Humaniculture, and the most
earnest minds should be at work to steadily raise the standard of that
new science.

New concepts, broad and beautiful, should be implanted in each young
mind; this mighty power of suggestion being used by the highest, to lift
us up, instead of by the lowest, to keep us down.

What a simple process! What a blessed change! At present the child
mind is entrusted to the most ignorant, and taught the oldest lies.
Soon we shall entrust it only to the most wise and teach it the newest
truths.



[Untitled]


Sit up and think!
The life in you is Life--unlimited!
You rose--you'll sink--
But Life goes on--that isn't dead.



THE KITCHEN FLY


The ills that flesh is heir to are not all entailed.

We used to think that diseases were special afflictions sent by God, to
be borne with meek endurance. Now we have learned that some of them
grow in us like plants in a garden, that some we give to one another as
presents, and some we keep as pets.

Many little go-betweens we have discovered, with legs and wings, who
operate as continual mischief-makers, and among these at last looms
large and deadly, that most widespread and intimate of pests--the Common
Fly.

The House Fly is his most familiar name, but that should be changed. He
is not of his own nature a parlor fly, nor a library fly, nor a bedroom
fly; an attic fly nor a hall and stair fly; but he is _par excellence_
the Kitchen Fly.

Flies are not perennial bloomers. They have to be born--hatched from
eggs, and the resultant larva have to have a Congenial Medium to be born
in. The careful mother fly does not leave her little flock on a
mahogany center table. Flies have to eat; they eat all the things we
do, and many that we don't!

There are two main nurseries for the Common Fly in all our cities, yes,
and in our country homes as well--the Stable and the Kitchen.

Unless stables are kept with the most absolute cleanliness flies are
bred there.

Unless kitchens are kept in the most absolute cleanliness flies are bred
there--or therefrom! Moreover the smell of hot food draws flies from
afar; a kitchen even though spotless and screened is a constant bait for
flies.

I was once visiting in a fine clean summer camp in the Adirondacks,
where friends in combination did the work. In the main room of this
place was a wide long window--one great picture, framing the purple
hills. It was a good deal of work to clean that window, and we took
turns at it. One day this window was laboriously polished inside and
out by an earnest gentleman of high ideals. Then--in the kitchen--some
one cooked a cabbage. Forthwith that front-room window was black with
flies--big, bumping, buzzing, blue-bottle flies. To slay them was a
carnage--and they were carried out by the dustpanful.

In the country, by screening every window and door, by constant watch
upon each article of food to keep it covered, one may keep one's own
flies bumping vainly on the outside of one's own house--except when
people go in and out, and the ever-ready buzzer darts in before the
swing-door shuts.

But in the city, where a million homes maintain their million
fly-baiting kitchens, and each kitchen maintains its garbage pail, the
problem becomes more serious.

Let us face this fact. In the residence part of a city the kitchen is
almost the only source of dirt.

The kitchen-stove furnishes its quota of coal-dust, coal-gas and coal
ashes. But for the kitchen a heating plant could warm many blocks of
houses, and keep that source of dirt at a minimum, thus clearing our
streets of the ash-can and ash-cart nuisances.

The kitchen is wholly responsible for the garbage pail; each area or
alley gate offering for inspection and infection its unsavory
receptacle; and beyond that, the kitchen is in large measure responsible
for the stable. In the quiet streets where people live, the horses
which defile those streets, which break the quiet, wear the pavement,
and wring the hearts of lovers of animals, are almost all kitchen
horses.

At early dawn the milkman's horse--many milkmen's horses. Then the
baker's horse--many bakers' horses. Then the iceman's horse, the
fishman's horse, the market man's horse, the vegetable man's horse, the
grocer's horse, the confectioner's horse; with, of course, the ashman's
horse, the garbage man's horse, and the coal man's horse. All these
horses and their various stables, help to maintain the breeding of
flies; and the kitchen maintains them.

Nobody ever liked flies. The rigorous housewife has long pursued them
with waving towel and flapping paper; dark plates of fly poison are set
on high places where the children can only occasionally get it; and the
dreadful "tanglefoot" hangs here and there, agonizing our ears with the
frantic buzzing of its slow-dying victims.

The housewife objected to the fly because he made work for her,
speckling all things offensively; and the house-husband objected to him
because he walked on his face, or his bald spot, and woke him from
needed slumber.

Also no one likes flies floating dankly in the soup, disguised as
currants, or sacrificing their legs to the butter. But these distastes
are as nothing to the new Terror of the Fly. He is now seen to be a
purveyor of disease--we might say _the_ purveyor of disease.

The cat and the dog, the rat and the mouse and their small parasites are
responsible for some diseases. The deadly Anopheles only brings
malaria, even the Stegonyia has but one fever in his gift, albeit a
yellow one; but Musca Domestica deposits on our food, on our clothing,
on our pillows, on our very faces, according to the N. Y. Medical
Journal, the germs of "tuberculosis, leprosy, cholera, summer diarrhea
of children, plague, carbuncle, yaws, tapeworm, swine-plague and typhoid
fever."

Now that is a nice beast to have in the house! And more especially that
is a nice beast to breed in the house, to maintain, feed, shelter, and
encourage.

When shall we be willing to face the simple fact that the preparation of
food is not a suitable process for the home?

The vegetarian will say that if we eliminate meat all will be well; let
him read again my tale of the Cabbage and the Bluebottle. But meat is
unquestionably the worst of our food supply as far as flies are
concerned. The fly delights in the voluminous cow, even while alive;
thrives in her stable, makes free with her milk, and follows her from
steak to soup with ceaseless interest. If we had no meat, no fish, no
milk, no cheese, no butter, no eggs, we should reduce our bait a little;
but there would still remain plenty of fly provender, and also the
horses to bring it to our myriad doors.

Why not keep the food and leave out the fly?

Let us for once fairly face the possibility of a home without a kitchen.

Look at it--a real house, in no way different from any other house in
front. But it does differ in the back--for it has no back! Its back is
another front, just as pretty, just as dignified, just as _clean._
There is a dining-room in this house, cool, sweet, well-screened from
passing, vagrant winged things, but that is all; no kitchen, no
kitchen-sink, no raw meat coming in and garbage going out, no grease, no
smell of frying.

But how shall we get our food into our dining-rooms?

It will be delivered, cooked, in shining aluminium receptacles hot and
steaming, cold and fresh--all this _has been done._ And it and its
dishes, will go away again, tight-closed, leaving you to brush up the
crumbs and fold the tablecloth. If you want your own elaborate sets of
china enough to wash dishes, that is quite permissible, a butler's
pantry will take care of that.

There is no more reason why a civilized family should cook its own food
in its own kitchen than kill its own pig in its own backyard.

Then rises the pathetic cry about not liking it. Of course some people
won't like it. Some people never like any new way of doing things.
Food habits are proverbially hard to change.

But I can tell you who will like it--that is the woman who is tired of
planning meals, tired of ordering meals, tired of managing servants, or
tired--deadly tired--of her own cooking.

And one generation of children, growIng up in kitchenless homes, eating
food that is prepared by trained experts and not by "greenhorns," used
to science and art in the food supply instead of affection and
ignorance--they will like it.

We like what we are used to, and if we have been used to it for a
thousand years we like it more intensely. But that proves nothing at
all except that we are used to it. It does not prove the thing is good
for us--nor that we can not get used to something better and like that,
in course of time, just as devotedly. One would think, observing the
attitude of most of us toward any proposed change, that so far we had
never changed at all.

But with all history behind us; with that long, long flight of little
steps we took so many centuries to climb, and then, closer, the swiftly
heightening large steps we have been taking in these later years ever
more swiftly; what then accounts for our always clinging so desperately
to the one behind, and resisting so furiously being forced up one more!

It is like the old story of the liberal-minded Grandma and the
combination suit. She visited her daughter in New York, resolved to
keep up with Progress.

They took her to hear Ignatius Donnelly with his Baconian theory;
Ingersoll hammering at Moses, and Jenness-Miller with her Reformed
Clothes for Women.

Then the old lady broke away and returned to her rural home. "They took
away my Shakespeare, and they took away my God," said she; "but when
they took away my chemise I couldn't stand it."

We have seen the home robbed and depleted as years have passed; with
struggle and objection, no doubt, but inevitably shrinking. Out went
the shears and the carders, out went the dye tub and the
spinning-wheels; big wool wheel, little flax wheel, all gone. Out went
the clattering loom; out went the quilting-frame, the candle-mould, the
little mallet to break up the tall blue-papered "sugar loaves."

Some of us have seen all these. In long remote places they are still to
be found. In the neighborhood of Chicago's Hull House was found a woman
to whom the spinning-wheel was a wonderful modern invention! She spun
with a spindle--like Clotho.

Now why do reasoning people, seeing all this behind them, so dread and
resist the next step before them--the eliminating of the kitchen? Shall
we never learn, that as a means of feeding the world it is not a
success? It does not bring health and happiness. Every competent woman
is not a competent cook and never will be; any more than every man is a
competent carpenter. The preparation of food is too important a task to
be left to a private servant--whether hired or married.

There are reasons, many, and good, why the kitchen must go; reasons of
health, of economy, of happiness; but this last reason is a good
accelerator--the Horror of the Fly.

Here he is by millions and millions: Here She is, by trillions. Their
hairy feet, their whiskered probosces, slop and paddle in every foul and
nauseous thing. They sit twiddling their paws on the pauper's sickbed;
and then twiddle those same paws on our warm chocolate-cake.

And every home that keeps a kitchen, with its attendant stables, helps
to maintain and disseminate this scourge of humanity, this universal
purveyor of infectious disease--The Kitchen Fly.



ALAS!


Have those in monstrous hats no glimmering dream
Of the high beauty of the human head,
House of the brain: seat of the sentient soul;
Haloed for sainthood; crowned for royalty;
Bright-ringed with roses, wreathed with noble bays,
Most beautifully bound with shining hair.

Alas for the soft glory they have lost!
Alas for the Ashantee wigs they wear!
Nor plait nor coil nor ringlet, but a mass
Of shorn dead hair from poorer women's heads.
Of bulging wire and hard, stiff, glittering bands.
A heap no loving hand would long to touch.

This body is the glory of the world;
The head the body's crown; but we on this
Plant like a fool's-cap these preposterous forms.
Alas for women's folly; and alas
For man, who likes his women to be fools,
And carefully has bred them to this end.



HER PETS


She saw the pleasant living creatures; bright birds, scattering music in
the air, fish like darting lights in the dark water; beasts with soft
eyes and softer fur. Therefore to her house she brought them, in chains
and cages and glaring jails of glass she kept them, prisoners and exiles
all.


Out of the plenteous, pure water, freshened by free air, darkened by
shadowing leaves and hidden ledges; away from pleasant chase of food
desired; come the gold-red fish she loves; come to foul airless water,
scant and warm, where they gasp faintly to and fro, in dim distress;
come to the stale monotonous food that falls to them inert; come with
their lidless eyes to the round high-placed globe of glass, set in a
window in the sun, reflecting and refracting the fierce light from every
side;--even as the Carthaginians tortured their prisoners she tortures
the gold-red fish she loves.


Out of the billowing green boughs of the forest, the endless oceans of
bright air, the refreshing rain, the winds that lift and rush and fill
with wild rejoicing; out of the whispering darkness of deep leaves, the
wide sweet light of sunlit hill and valley; away from pleasant chase of
food desired; come the yellow song birds which she loves; come over land
and sea in small tight wicker cells; come to prisons of gilded wires
scarce larger; come to the smothering house air, the dull constant
dreary walls, the sick heat, the smell of coal gas and the smoke of oil;
to such stale monotonous food as falls to them inert; to hop and hop and
hop, to sing madly to no end, and dream of flight,--to this come the
birds she loves.


Out of his long wild past; lifted to be assistant in the chase, house
guardian, brother shepherd; comes the friend of man to be the pet of
woman. Down, down, he sinks; no shepherd, no hunter, no guardian now;
far from the pleasant chase of food desired; only a pet, her pet.
Dwarfed, distorted, feeble; a snub-nosed monsterling; ears cropped, tail
cut, hair shaved in ludicrous patches; collared and chained; basketed,
blanketed, braceleted, _dressed,_--O last and utter ignominy!--stuffed
on unnatural food till he waddles grossly, panting and diseased; so
comes the dog she loves.


Of bird and beast and fish, her pets, what sacrifice is asked? They
must first lose freedom, the essential joy of every life; fresh air,
fresh water, the daily need of every life. They must lose the search
and chase of natural food, the major occupation of every animal,
deprived of which they are deprived of function; nerve, muscle,
brain,--all must deteriorate, disused. They must lose the joy of long
adaptation to environment; no few generations in houses can overcome the
longings bred in countless ages for sky and river, forest and plain and
hill.


They must lose--and has the mother of the world no pity?--the free use
of nature's overwhelming instincts, they must be denied the strongest
desire of life. The sorrowful mother of drowned kittens mourns under
the caressing hand that robbed her; the tumbling puppies are gone and
their mother finds no comfort, the little hen bird frets over a
scattered thread or feather, vainly striving to build a useless nest;
the little yellow-feathered lover shrills his heart out for the mate he
never sees.

The piercing clamor of bachelorhood enforced makes our nights hideous
with voices of sufferers free on roof and fence, or chained in yard and
kennel; and even--exquisite outrage! we surgically prepare for their
high position the pets we love.


Men, too, have pets, sometimes; men who are invalids, prisoners,
dwellers in lonely cabins; but not free human beings, working gladly in
a free human world.



WHAT DIANTHA DID


CHAPTER X

UNION HOUSE.


"We are weak!" said the Sticks, and men broke them;
"We are weak!" said the Threads, and were torn;
Till new thoughts came and they spoke them;
Till the Fagot and the Rope were born.

For the Fagot men find is resistant,
And they anchor on the Rope's taut length;
Even grasshoppers combined,
Are a force, the farmers find--
In union there is strength.


Ross Warden endured his grocery business; strove with it, toiled at it,
concentrated his scientific mind on alien tasks of financial calculation
and practical psychology, but he liked it no better. He had no interest
in business, no desire to make money, no skill in salesmanship.

But there were five mouths at home; sweet affectionate feminine mouths
no doubt, but requiring food. Also two in the kitchen, wider, and
requiring more food. And there were five backs at home to be covered,
to use the absurd metaphor--as if all one needed for clothing was a four
foot patch. The amount and quality of the covering was an unceasing
surprise to Ross, and he did not do justice to the fact that his
womenfolk really saved a good deal by doing their own sewing.

In his heart he longed always to be free of the whole hated load of
tradesmanship. Continually his thoughts went back to the hope of
selling out the business and buying a ranch.

"I could make it keep us, anyhow," he would plan to himself; "and I
could get at that guinea pig idea. Or maybe hens would do." He had a
theory of his own, or a personal test of his own, rather, which he
wished to apply to a well known theory. It would take some years to
work it out, and a great many fine pigs, and be of no possible value
financially. "I'll do it sometime," he always concluded; which was cold
comfort.

His real grief at losing the companionship of the girl he loved, was
made more bitter by a total lack of sympathy with her aims, even if she
achieved them--in which he had no confidence. He had no power to change
his course, and tried not to be unpleasant about it, but he had to
express his feelings now and then.

"Are you coming back to me?" he wrote. "How con you bear to give so
much pain to everyone who loves you? Is your wonderful salary worth
more to you than being here with your mother--with me? How can you say
you love me--and ruin both our lives like this? I cannot come to see
you--I _would_ not come to see you--calling at the back door! Finding
the girl I love in a cap and apron! Can you not see it is wrong,
utterly wrong, all this mad escapade of yours? Suppose you do make a
thousand dollars a year--I shall never touch your money--you know that.
I cannot even offer you a home, except with my family, and I know how
you feel about that; I do not blame you.

"But I am as stubborn as you are, dear girl; I will not live on my
wife's money--you will not live in my mother's house--and we are
drifting apart. It is not that I care less for you dear, or at all for
anyone else, but this is slow death--that's all."

Mrs. Warden wrote now and then and expatiated on the sufferings of her
son, and his failing strength under the unnatural strain, till Diantha
grew to dread her letters more than any pain she knew. Fortunately they
came seldom.

Her own family was much impressed by the thousand dollars, and found the
occupation of housekeeper a long way more tolerable than that of
house-maid, a distinction which made Diantha smile rather bitterly.
Even her father wrote to her once, suggesting that if she chose to
invest her salary according to his advice he could double it for her in
a year, maybe treble it, in Belgian hares.

_"They'd_ double and treble fast enough!" she admitted to herself; but
she wrote as pleasant a letter as she could, declining his proposition.

Her mother seemed stronger, and became more sympathetic as the months
passed. Large affairs always appealed to her more than small ones, and
she offered valuable suggestions as to the account keeping of the big
house. They all assumed that she was permanently settled in this well
paid position, and she made no confidences. But all summer long she
planned and read and studied out her progressive schemes, and
strengthened her hold among the working women.

Laundress after laundress she studied personally and tested
professionally, finding a general level of mediocrity, till finally she
hit upon a melancholy Dane--a big rawboned red-faced woman--whose
husband had been a miller, but was hurt about the head so that he was no
longer able to earn his living. The huge fellow was docile, quiet, and
endlessly strong, but needed constant supervision.

"He'll do anything you tell him, Miss, and do it well; but then he'll
sit and dream about it--I can't leave him at all. But he'll take the
clothes if I give him a paper with directions, and come right back."
Poor Mrs. Thorald wiped her eyes, and went on with her swift ironing.

Diantha offered her the position of laundress at Union House, with two
rooms for their own, over the laundry. "There'll be work for him, too,"
she said. "We need a man there. He can do a deal of the heavier
work--be porter you know. I can't offer him very much, but it will help
some."

Mrs. Thorald accepted for both, and considered Diantha as a special
providence.

There was to be cook, and two capable second maids. The work of the
house must be done thoroughly well, Diantha determined; "and the food's
got to be good--or the girls wont stay." After much consideration she
selected one Julianna, a "person of color," for her kitchen: not the
jovial and sloppy personage usually figuring in this character, but a
tall, angular, and somewhat cynical woman, a misanthrope in fact, with a
small son. For men she had no respect whatever, but conceded a grudging
admiration to Mr. Thorald as "the usefullest biddablest male person" she
had ever seen. She also extended special sympathy to Mrs. Thorald on
account of her peculiar burden, and the Swedish woman had no antipathy
to her color, and seemed to take a melancholy pleasure in Julianna's
caustic speeches.

Diantha offered her the place, boy and all. "He can be 'bell boy' and
help you in the kitchen, too. Can't you, Hector?" Hector rolled large
adoring eyes at her, but said nothing. His mother accepted the
proposition, but without enthusiasm. "I can't keep no eye on him, Miss,
if I'm cookin' an less'n you keep your eye on him they's no work to be
got out'n any kind o' boy."

"What is your last name, Julianna?" Diantha asked her.

"I suppose, as a matter o' fac' its de name of de last nigger I
married," she replied. "Dere was several of 'em, all havin' different
names, and to tell you de truf Mis' Bell, I got clean mixed amongst 'em.
But Julianna's my name--world without end amen."

So Diantha had to waive her theories about the surnames of servants in
this case.

"Did they all die?" she asked with polite sympathy.

"No'm, dey didn't none of 'em die--worse luck."

"I'm afraid you have seen much trouble, Julianna," she continued
sympathetically; "They deserted you, I suppose?"

Julianna laid her long spoon upon the table and stood up with great
gravity. "No'm," she said again, "dey didn't none of 'em desert me on
no occasion. I divorced 'em."

Marital difficulties in bulk were beyond Diantha's comprehension, and
she dropped the subject.

Union House opened in the autumn. The vanished pepper trees were dim
with dust in Orchardina streets as the long rainless summer drew to a
close; but the social atmosphere fairly sparkled with new interest.
Those who had not been away chattered eagerly with those who had, and
both with the incoming tide of winter visitors.

"That girl of Mrs. Porne's has started her housekeeping shop!"

"That 'Miss Bell' has got Mrs. Weatherstone fairly infatuated with her
crazy schemes."

"Do you know that Bell girl has actually taken Union House? Going to
make a Girl's Club of it!"

"Did you ever _hear_ of such a thing! Diantha Bell's really going to
try to run her absurd undertaking right here in Orchardina!"

They did not know that the young captain of industry had deliberately
chosen Orchardina as her starting point on account of the special
conditions. The even climate was favorable to "going out by the day,"
or the delivery of meals, the number of wealthy residents gave
opportunity for catering on a large scale; the crowding tourists and
health seekers made a market for all manner of transient service and
cooked food, and the constant lack of sufficient or capable servants
forced the people into an unwilling consideration of any plan of
domestic assistance.

In a year's deliberate effort Diantha had acquainted herself with the
rank and file of the town's housemaids and day workers, and picked her
assistants carefully. She had studied the local conditions thoroughly,
and knew her ground. A big faded building that used to be "the Hotel'
in Orchardina's infant days, standing, awkward and dingy on a site too
valuable for a house lot and not yet saleable as a business block, was
the working base.

A half year with Mrs. Weatherstone gave her $500 in cash, besides the
$100 she had saved at Mrs. Porne's; and Mrs. Weatherstone's cheerfully
offered backing gave her credit.

"I hate to let you," said Diantha, "I want to do it all myself."

"You are a painfully perfect person, Miss Bell," said her last employer,
pleasantly, "but you have ceased to be my housekeeper and I hope you
will continue to be my friend. As a friend I claim the privilege of
being disagreeable. If you have a fault it is conceit. Immovable
Colossal Conceit! And Obstinacy!"

"Is that all?" asked Diantha.

"It's all I've found--so far," gaily retorted Mrs. Weatherstone. "Don't
you see, child, that you can't afford to wait? You have reasons for
hastening, you know. I don't doubt you could, in a series of years,
work up this business all stark alone. I have every confidence in those
qualities I have mentioned! But what's the use? You'll need credit for
groceries and furniture. I am profoundly interested in this business.
I am more than willing to advance a little capital, or to ensure your
credit. A man would have sense enough to take me up at once."

"I believe you are right," Diantha reluctantly agreed. "And you shan't
lose by it!"

Her friends were acutely interested in her progress, and showed it in
practical ways. The New Woman's Club furnished five families of patrons
for the regular service of cooked food, which soon grew, with
satisfaction, to a dozen or so, varying from time to time. The many
families with invalids, and lonely invalids without families, were glad
to avail themselves of the special delicacies furnished at Union House.
Picnickers found it easier to buy Diantha's marvelous sandwiches than to
spend golden morning hours in putting up inferior ones at home; and many
who cooked for themselves, or kept servants, were glad to profit by this
outside source on Sunday evenings and "days out."

There was opposition too; both the natural resistance of inertia and
prejudice, and the active malignity of Mrs. Thaddler.

The Pornes were sympathetic and anxious.

"That place'll cost her all of $10,000 a year, with those twenty-five to
feed, and they only pay $4.50 a week--I know that!" said Mr. Porne.

"It does look impossible," his wife agreed, "but such is my faith in
Diantha Bell I'd back her against Rockefeller!"

Mrs. Weatherstone was not alarmed at all. "If she _should_ fail--which
I don't for a moment expect--it wont ruin me," she told Isabel. "And if
she succeeds, as I firmly believe she will, why, I'd be willing to risk
almost anything to prove Mrs. Thaddler in the wrong."

Mrs. Thaddler was making herself rather disagreeable. She used what
power she had to cry down the undertaking, and was so actively
malevolent that her husband was moved to covert opposition. He never
argued with his wife--she was easily ahead of him in that art, and, if
it came to recriminations, had certain controvertible charges to make
against him, which mode him angrily silent. He was convinced in a dim
way that her ruthless domineering spirit, and the sheer malice she often
showed, were more evil things than his own bad habits; and that even in
their domestic relation her behavior really caused him more pain and
discomfort than he caused her; but he could not convince her of it,
naturally.

"That Diantha Bell is a fine girl," he said to himself. "A damn fine
girl, and as straight as a string!"

There had crept out, through the quenchless leak of servants talk, a
varicolored version of the incident of Mathew and the transom; and the
town had grown so warm for that young gentleman that he had gone to
Alaska suddenly, to cool off, as it were. His Grandmother, finding Mrs.
Thaddler invincible with this new weapon, and what she had so long
regarded as her home now visibly Mrs. Weatherstone's, had retired in
regal dignity to her old Philadelphia establishment, where she upheld
the standard of decorum against the weakening habits of a deteriorated
world, for many years.

As Mr. Thaddler thought of this sweeping victory, he chuckled for the
hundredth time. "She ought to make good, and she will. Something's got
to be done about it," said he.

Diantha had never liked Mr. Thaddler; she did not like that kind of man
in general, nor his manner toward her in particular. Moreover he was
the husband of Mrs. Thaddler. She did not know that he was still the
largest owner in the town's best grocery store, and when that store
offered her special terms for her exclusive trade, she accepted the
proposition thankfully.

She told Ross about it, as a matter well within his knowledge, if not
his liking, and he was mildly interested. "I am much alarmed at this
new venture," he wrote, "but you must get your experience. I wish I
could save you. As to the groceries, those are wholesale rates, nearly;
they'll make enough on it. Yours is a large order you see, and steady."

When she opened her "Business Men's Lunch" Mr. Thaddler had a still
better opportunity. He had a reputation as a high flyer, and had really
intended to sacrifice himself on the altar of friendship by patronizing
and praising this "undertaking" at any cost to his palate; but no
sacrifice was needed.

Diantha's group of day workers had their early breakfast and departed,
taking each her neat lunch-pail,--they ate nothing of their
employers;--and both kitchen and dining room would have stood idle till
supper time. But the young manager knew she must work her plant for all
it was worth, and speedily opened the dining room with the side entrance
as a "Caffeteria," with the larger one as a sort of meeting place;
papers and magazines on the tables.

From the counter you took what you liked, and seated yourself, and your
friends, at one of the many small tables or in the flat-armed chairs in
the big room, or on the broad piazza; and as this gave good food,
cheapness, a chance for a comfortable seat and talk and a smoke, if one
had time, it was largely patronized.

Mr. Thaddler, as an experienced _bon vivant,_ despised sandwiches.
"Picnicky makeshifts" he called them,--"railroad rations"--"bread and
leavings," and when he saw these piles on piles of sandwiches, listed
only as "No. 1," "No. 2" "No. 3," and so on, his benevolent intention
wavered. But he pulled himself together and took a plateful, assorted.

"Come on, Porne," he said, "we'll play it's a Sunday school picnic," and
he drew himself a cup of coffee, finding hot milk, cream and sugar
crystals at hand. "I never saw a cheap joint where you could fix it
yourself, before," he said,--and suspiciously tasted the mixture.

"By jing! That's coffee!" he cried in surprise. "There's no scum on
the milk, and the cream's cream!" Five cents! She won't get rich on
this."

Then he applied himself to his "No. 1" sandwich, and his determined
expression gave way to one of pleasure. "Why that's bread--real bread!
I believe she made it herself!"

She did in truth,--she and Julianna with Hector as general assistant.
The big oven was filled several times every morning: the fresh rolls
disappeared at breakfast and supper, the fresh bread was packed in the
lunch pails, and the stale bread was even now melting away in large
bites behind the smiling mouths and mustaches of many men. Perfect
bread, excellent butter, and "What's the filling I'd like to know?"
More than one inquiring-minded patron split his sandwich to add sight to
taste, but few could be sure of the flavorsome contents, fatless,
gritless, smooth and even, covering the entire surface, the last
mouthful as perfect as the first. Some were familiar, some new, all
were delicious.

The six sandwiches were five cents, the cup of coffee five, and the
little "drop cakes," sweet and spicy, were two for five. Every man
spent fifteen cents, some of them more; and many took away small cakes
in paper bags, if there were any left.

"I don't see how you can do it, and make a profit," urged Mr. Eltwood,
making a pastorial call. "They are so good you know!"

Diantha smiled cheerfully. "That's because all your ideas are based on
what we call 'domestic economy,' which is domestic waste. I buy in
large quantities at wholesale rates, and my cook with her little helper,
the two maids, and my own share of the work, of course, provides for the
lot. Of course one has to know how."

"Whenever did you find--or did you create?--those heavenly sandwiches?"
he asked.

"I have to thank my laundress for part of that success," she said.
"She's a Dane, and it appears that the Danes are so fond of sandwiches
that, in large establishments, they have a 'sandwich kitchen' to prepare
them. It is quite a bit of work, but they are good and inexpensive.
There is no limit to the variety."

As a matter of fact this lunch business paid well, and led to larger
things.

The girl's methods were simple and so organized as to make one hand wash
the other. Her house had some twenty-odd bedrooms, full accommodations
for kitchen and laundry work on a large scale, big dining, dancing, and
reception rooms, and broad shady piazzas on the sides. Its position on
a corner near the business part of the little city, and at the foot of
the hill crowned with so many millionaires and near millionaires as
could get land there, offered many advantages, and every one was taken.

The main part of the undertaking was a House Worker's Union; a group of
thirty girls, picked and trained. These, previously working out as
servants, had received six dollars a week "and found." They now worked
an agreed number of hours, were paid on a basis by the hour or day, and
"found" themselves. Each had her own room, and the broad porches and
ball room were theirs, except when engaged for dances and meetings of
one sort and another.

It was a stirring year's work, hard but exciting, and the only
difficulty which really worried Diantha was the same that worried the
average housewife--the accounts.



"THE OUTER REEF!"

(A Picture by Paul Dougherty.)


Who dares paint daylight?
The bright white light of flaming noon?
No blur of shadow, mist or haze,
Just the whole unobstructed blaze
Of hot mid-June.

No screen of leafage;
The keen clean green of summer sea;
Dazzle of surf in mid-day light,
The very sound of the surges' fight,
Broad--open--free.

The earth all stillness,
Noon hush on the pastures' height;
Turf topped cliffs with faces bare,
Bones of the earth unveiled to air,
Heat--breakers--light.



OUR ANDROCENTRIC CULTURE; or, THE MAN~MADE WORLD


X.

LAW AND GOVERNMENT.


It is easy to assume that men are naturally the lawmakers and
law-enforcers, under the plain historic fact that they have been such
since the beginning of the patriarchate.

Back of law lies custom and tradition. Back of government lies the
correlative activity of any organized group. What group-insects and
group-animals evolve unconsciously and fulfill by their social
instincts, we evolve consciously and fulfill by arbitrary systems called
laws and governments. In this, as in all other fields of our action, we
must discriminate between the humanness of the function in process of
development, and the influence of the male or female upon it. Quite
apart from what they may like or dislike as sexes, from their differing
tastes and faculties, lies the much larger field of human progress, in
which they equally participate.

On this plane the evolution of law and government proceeds somewhat as
follows:--The early woman-centered group organized on maternal lines of
common love and service. The early combinations of men were first a
grouped predacity--organized hunting; then a grouped
belligerency,--organized warfare.

By special development some minds are able to perceive the need of
certain lines of conduct over others, and to make this clear to their
fellows; whereby, gradually, our higher social nature establishes rules
and precedents to which we personally agree to submit. The process of
social development is one of progressive co-ordination.

From independent individual action for individual ends, up to
interdependent social action for social ends we slowly move; the "devil"
in the play being the old Ego, which has to be harmonized with the new
social spirit. This social process, like all others, having been in
masculine hands, we may find in it the same marks of one-sided
Specialization so visible in our previous studies.

The coersive attitude is essentially male. In the ceaseless age-old
struggle of sex combat he developed the desire to overcome, which is
always stimulated by resistance; and in this later historic period of
his supremacy, he further developed the habit of dominance and mastery.
We may instance the contrast between the conduct of a man when "in love"
and while courting; in which period he falls into the natural position
of his sex towards the other--namely, that of a wooer; and his behavior
when, with marriage, they enter the, artificial relation of the master
male and servile female. His "instinct of dominance" does not assert
itself during the earlier period, which was a million times longer than
the latter; it only appears in the more modern and arbitrary relation.

Among other animals monogamous union is not accompanied by any such
discordant and unnatural features. However recent as this habit is when
considered biologically, it is as old as civilization when we consider
it historically: quite old enough to be a serious force. Under its
pressure we see the legal systems and forms of government slowly
evolving, the general human growth always heavily perverted by the
special masculine influence. First we find the mere force of custom
governing us, the _mores_ of the ancient people. Then comes the gradual
appearance of authority, from the purely natural leadership of the best
hunter or fighter up through the unnatural mastery of the patriarch,
owning and governing his wives, children, slaves and cattle, and making
such rules and regulations as pleased him.

Our laws as we support them now are slow, wasteful, cumbrous systems,
which require a special caste to interpret and another to enforce;
wherein the average citizen knows nothing of the law, and cares only to
evade it when he can, obey it when he must. In the household, that
stunted, crippled rudiment of the matriarchate, where alone we can find
what is left of the natural influence of woman, the laws and government,
so far as she is responsible for them, are fairly simple, and bear
visible relation to the common good, which relation is clearly and
persistently taught.

In the larger household of city and state the educational part of the
law is grievously neglected. It makes no allowance for ignorance. If a
man breaks a law of which he never heard he is not excused therefore;
the penalty rolls on just the same. Fancy a mother making solemn rules
and regulations for her family, telling the children nothing about them,
and then punishing them when they disobeyed the unknown laws!

The use of force is natural to the male; while as a human being he must
needs legislate somewhat in the interests of the community, as a male
being he sees no necessity for other enforcement than by penalty. To
violently oppose, to fight, to trample to the earth, to triumph in loud
bellowings of savage joy,--these are the primitive male instincts; and
the perfectly natural social instinct which leads to peaceful
persuasion, to education, to an easy harmony of action, are
contemptuously ranked as "feminine," or as "philanthropic,"--which is
almost as bad. "Men need stronger measures" they say proudly. Yes, but
four-fifths of the world are women and children!

As a matter of fact the woman, the mother, is the first co-ordinator,
legislator, administrator and executive. From the guarding and guidance
of her cubs and kittens up to the longer, larger management of human
youth, she is the first to consider group interests and co-relate them.

As a father the male grows to share in these original feminine
functions, and with us, fatherhood having become socialized while
motherhood has not, he does the best he can, alone, to do the world's
mother-work in his father way.

In study of any long established human custom it is very difficult to
see it clearly and dispassionately. Our minds are heavily loaded with
precedent, with race-custom, with the iron weight called authority.
These heavy forces reach their most perfect expression in the absolutely
masculine field of warfare. The absolute authority; the brainless,
voiceless obedience; the relentless penalty. Here we have male coercion
at its height; law and government wholly arbitrary. The result is as
might be expected, a fine machine of destruction. But destruction is
not a human process--merely a male process of eliminating the unfit.

The female process is to select the fit; her elimination is negative and
painless.

Greater than either is the human process, to _develop fitness._

Men are at present far more human than women. Alone upon their
self-seized thrones they have carried as best they might the burdens of
the state; and the history of law and government shows them as changing
slowly but irresistably in the direction of social improvement.

The ancient kings were the joyous apotheosis of masculinity. Power and
Pride were theirs; Limitless Display; Boundless Self-indulgence;
Irresistable Authority. Slaves and courtiers bowed before them,
subjects obeyed them, captive women filled their harems. But the day of
the masculine monarchy is passing, and the day of the human democracy is
coming in. In a Democracy Law and Government both change. Laws are no
longer imposed on the people by one above them, but are evolved from the
people themselves. How absurd that the people should not be educated in
the laws they make; that the trailing remnants of blind submission
should still becloud their minds and make them bow down patiently under
the absurd pressure of outgrown tradition!

Democratic government is no longer an exercise of arbitrary authority
from one above, but is an organization for public service of the people
themselves--or will be when it is really attained.

In this change government ceases to be compulsion, and becomes
agreement; law ceases to be authority and becomes co-ordination. When
we learn the rules of whist or chess we do not obey them because we fear
to be punished if we don't, but because we want to play the game. The
rules of human conduct are for our own happiness and service--any child
can see that. Every child will see it when laws are simplified, based
on sociology, and taught in schools. A child of ten should be
considered grossly uneducated who could not rewrite the main features of
the laws of his country, state, and city; and those laws should be so
simple in their principles that a child of ten could understand them.

Teacher: "What is a tax?"

Child: "A tax is the money we agree to pay to keep up our common
advantages."

Teacher: "Why do we all pay taxes?"

Child: "Because the country belongs to all of us, and we must all pay
our share to keep it up."

Teacher: "In what proportion do we pay taxes?"

Child: "In proportion to how much money we have." (_Sotto voce_: "Of
course!")

Teacher: "What is it to evade taxes?"

Child: "It is treason." (_Sotto voce_: "And a dirty mean trick.")

In masculine administration of the laws we may follow the instinctive
love of battle down through the custom of "trial by combat"--only
recently outgrown, to our present method, where each contending party
hires a champion to represent him, and these fight it out in a wordy
war, with tricks and devices of complex ingenuity, enjoying this kind of
struggle as they enjoy all other kinds.

It is the old masculine spirit of government as authority which is so
slow in adapting itself to the democratic idea of government as service.
That it should be a representative government they grasp, but
representative of what? of the common will, they say; the will of the
majority;--never thinking that it is the common good, the common
welfare, that government should represent.

It is the inextricable masculinity in our idea of government which so
revolts at the idea of women as voters. "To govern:" that means to
boss, to control, to have authority; and that only, to most minds. They
cannot bear to think of the woman as having control over even their own
affairs; to control is masculine, they assume. Seeing only
self-interest as a natural impulse, and the ruling powers of the state
as a sort of umpire, an authority to preserve the rules of the game
while men fight it out forever; they see in a democracy merely a wider
range of self interest, and a wider, freer field to fight in.

The law dictates the rules, the government enforces them, but the main
business of life, hitherto, has been esteemed as one long fierce
struggle; each man seeking for himself. To deliberately legislate for
the service of all the people, to use the government as the main engine
of that service, is a new process, wholly human, and difficult of
development under an androcentric culture.

Furthermore they put forth those naively androcentric protests,--women
cannot fight, and in case their laws were resisted by men they could not
enforce them,--_therefore_ they should not vote!

What they do not so plainly say, but very strongly think, is that women
should not share the loot which to their minds is so large a part of
politics.

Here we may trace clearly the social heredity of male government.

Fix clearly in your mind the first head-ship of man--the leader of the
pack as it were--the Chief Hunter. Then the second head-ship, the Chief
Fighter. Then the third head-ship, the Chief of the Family. Then the
long line of Chiefs and Captains, Warlords and Landlords, Rulers and
Kings.

The Hunter hunted for prey, and got it. The Fighter enriched himself
with the spoils of the vanquished. The Patriarch lived on the labor of
women and slaves. All down the ages, from frank piracy and robbery to
the measured toll of tribute, ransom and indemnity, we see the same
natural instinct of the hunter and fighter. In his hands the government
is a thing to sap and wreck, to live on. It is his essential impulse to
want something very much; to struggle and fight for it; to take all he
can get.

Set against this the giving love that comes with motherhood; the endless
service that comes of motherhood; the peaceful administration in the
interest of the family that comes of motherhood. We prate much of the
family as the unit of the state. If it is--why not run the state on
that basis? Government by women, so far as it is influenced by their
sex, would be influenced by motherhood; and that would mean care,
nurture, provision, education. We have to go far down the scale for any
instance of organized motherhood, but we do find it in the hymenoptera;
in the overflowing industry, prosperity, peace and loving service of the
ant-hill and bee-hive. These are the most highly socialized types of
life, next to ours, and they are feminine types.

We as human beings have a far higher form of association, with further
issues than mere wealth and propagation of the species. In this human
process we should never forget that men are far more advanced than
women, at present. Because of their humanness has come all the noble
growth of civilization, in spite of their maleness.

As human beings both male and female stand alike useful and honorable,
and should in our government be alike used and honored; but as creatures
of sex, the female is fitter than the male for administration of
constructive social interests. The change in governmental processes
which marks our times is a change in principle. Two great movements
convulse the world to-day, the woman's movement and the labor movement.
Each regards the other as of less moment than itself. Both are parts of
the same world-process.

We are entering upon a period of social consciousness. Whereas so far
almost all of us have seen life only as individuals, and have regarded
the growing strength and riches of the social body as merely so much the
more to fatten on; now we are beginning to take an intelligent interest
in our social nature, to understand it a little, and to begin to feel
the vast increase of happiness and power that comes of real Human Life.

In this change of systems a government which consisted only of
prohibition and commands; of tax collecting and making war; is rapidly
giving way to a system which intelligently manages our common interests,
which is a growing and improving method of universal service. Here the
socialist is perfectly right in his vision of the economic welfare to be
assured by the socialization of industry, though that is but part of the
new development; and the individualist who opposes socialism, crying
loudly for the advantage of "free competition" is but voicing the spirit
of the predacious male.

So with the opposers to the suffrage of women. They represent, whether
men or women, the male viewpoint. They see the woman only as a female,
utterly absorbed in feminine functions, belittled and ignored as her
long tutelage has made her; and they see the man as he sees himself, the
sole master of human affairs for as long as we have historic record.

This, fortunately, is not long. We can now see back of the period of
his supremacy, and are beginning to see beyond it. We are well under
way already in a higher stage of social development, conscious,
well-organized, wisely managed, in which the laws shall be simple and
founded on constructive principles instead of being a set of
ring-regulations within which people may fight as they will; and in
which the government shall be recognized in its full use; not only the
sternly dominant father, and the wisely servicable mother, but the real
union of all people to sanely and economically manage their affairs.



COMMENT AND REVIEW


There is a fine article in the June Popular Science Monthly, by Dr.
Thomas W. Salmon on "Two Preventable Causes of Insanity."

He shows how much has been done by the popular recognition of cause and
effect in checking tuberculosis, malaria and yellow fever, and urges a
similar awakening in regard to insanity. At the close of 1908 there
were 30,456 patients in the public and private institutions for the
insane in New York State, about one in 280 of the general population of
the state, he says; and then gives the new admissions for that year as
5,301. Five thousand new lunatics a year is a good many.

Dr. Salmon then shows that of this number there were "664 cases of
general paralysis (dependant on syphilis) and 638 cases of alcoholic
psychoses (due to intemperance)," or _more than one-fourth of all first
admissions due to these two preventable causes._ There is a further
most interesting fact, that this general paralysis in men is nearly
three times as great in cities as in the country, and in women, twice as
great; while alcoholic psychosis in women is seven times as great in
cities.

Most striking of all is Dr. Salmon's showing that "_42 per cent. of all
male admissions from cities were for general paralysis and the alcoholic
psychoses._" As he justly remarks, "Where are 'the nervous tension of
the cities' and 'the mad rush of modern life,' of which we speak so
glibly, compared with syphilis and drunkenness as the real dangers of
city life?" But for these two causes the ratio of insanity would be
greater in the country, where, as is well known, the largest percentage
of women lunatics comes from the lonely farm house.

Further than this we are told that many other forms of lunacy are
indirectly due to syphilis and alcoholism, through parental
transmission.

Knowledge is power. Society is but just awakening to a conscious
knowledge of itself, its pains and pleasures, and its powers. One man
may not be strong enough to resist the influences which pull and push
him into these large hells, but when society as a whole,--or even women
as a half,--waken to a realization of all this needless suffering, this
dreadful waste, then we can prevent it.

*

The gentlemen of France are distressed about the birthrate. It appears
that the men of that country do not bear enough children to keep up the
population as they desire. Therefore serious measures are proposed "to
stimulate the birthrate." They are these:

Additional military service to be imposed on bachelors over twenty-nine.

Marriage to be made obligatory to gentlemen employed by the state, at
the age of twenty-five, with supplementary salaries and pension
allowances for more than three children.

The law requiring equal distribution of estates among children to be
repealed. The dislike of Frenchmen to dividing their property is a
frequent cause of restricted families, we are told.

We trust that the gentlemen of France, spurred and encouraged by these
incentives, will now produce more children than they have hitherto.

The New York _Times_, of Friday, June 24, gives an editorial to this
news from France,--and no wonder. But it is perfectly serious in its
treatment, and offers no criticism of the measures proposed. The writer
has apparently small know]edge of biology, for he expresses astonishment
that the miserably poor "increase prodigiously" in Russia and elsewhere.
"Who shall solve these mysteries or dogmatize upon them?" he says, and
speculates further, in a vaguely awe-stricken manner, on the subject,
quoting from the vigorous Mr. Roosevelt and the gloomy Dr. Koch.

Do any of our readers, belonging to the negligible side of this race
problem see anything to smile at? Let us parallel it:

There is dismay in the poultry yard over a grave falling off in the
supply of eggs. A convocation of roosters is called to discuss it, and
to take measures to remedy the condition. They propose (a) To make all
roosters over six months old do extra scratching for food. (b) To
enforce matrimony--or its gallinaceous equivalent--on all roosters
employed by the flock. (c) To alter the custom of dividing the worms
equally among the chicks.

The simile is strained, we admit: try to apply it to some other case, as
a shortage in the milk supply--considered by a convocation of bulls.
That seems rather absurd too. Can not some one suggest a parallel which
could be taken as seriously as the Times takes this effort on the part
of Frenchmen?

*

People in general, peaceably minding their own business, do not give
much thought to their subtler enemies. A burglar, creeping in through
the window, we can see and scream at; but a Public Poisoner, a whole
array of Public Poisoners, creeping through the Legislature, we do not
notice.

In the interests of the common good we have our National Health League,
working by means of the Owen Bill for a National Department of Health
which shall safeguard the people from disease and contamination as the
Bureau of Agriculture safeguards our cattle.

Against this measure, one of most needed social service, is rising an
organized opposition called the "League for Medical Freedom." This
association defends the free practice of healing by unorthodox methods,
but its opposition to the Owen Bill is wholly ignorant, if not worse.
The Owen Bill, in urging a National Department of Health, does not seek
to regulate the practice of medicine. Its work will be to maintain pure
food, pure drugs, pure streams, and to study human health and maintain
it as assiduously as we now study the health of swine and steers.

This sudden opposition, using great sums of money to advertise in the
newspapers, seems based on the big interests of the patent medicines and
other profitable health destroyers and life takers.

Our women, within their capacity as mothers and guardians of the home,
ought to inform themselves as to the work of the National Health League.

Write to the Committee of One Hundred, Drawer 45 New Haven, Conn.

*

How many of our readers know that superb magazine, _The Englishwoman?_*

As far as I have seen them it is by far the finest woman's publication
in the world. A big, handsome, dignified monthly; 120 pages in large
clear type, a joy to the eye; and paper, a joy to the hand; the magazine
is three-quarters of an inch thick to _The Century's_ half inch, and
weighs ten ounces to _The Century's_ 18. This is not only because there
are no pictures, but because of that specially light weight paper, so
much more used in England than with us.

Thus pleasing to the eye and to the hand, it gives to the mind a clear,
strong, varied presentation of the affairs of the world to-day as they
specially affect women. Excellent writers and plenty of them furnish
the material; it is good reading straight through.

My special satisfaction in this monthly is in its breadth of view. The
need of the ballot is strongly emphasized, and due record is kept of the
progress of the equal suffrage movement; but far more ground than that
is covered. Studies are given of the previous position of women, of her
place in different countries and classes, of her connection with the
other stirring questions of the day.

Reading this, we gather an increasing sense of the real world-issues of
which the woman's movement is not only in itself an interesting part,
but one in the solution of which is shown to be that of many others.
People who shrink from "feminism" in its more intense and accentuated
forms, will find here a more proportional treatment, enlightening and
persuasive.


*"The Englishwoman." Published by Sidgwick & Jackson, 3 Adam St.,
Adelphi. London, W. C. England. Monthly, 1s. Yearly, 14s. 6d. post
free.

*

_The Woman's Journal,_* so long our best exponent of the equal rights
movement in America, is now the official organ of the National American
Women suffrage association.

This is as it should be. The association needs an organ, and _The
Woman's Journal_ has always needed and desired a wider support than the
equal suffragists gave it.


*The Woman's Journal. Saturday weekly. $1.00 yearly, No. 585 Boylston
St., Boston, Mass.


It is the earnest wish of _The Forerunner_ that every American "equal
suffragist" take the _Woman's Journal,_ and so keep in touch with the
movement. It is now but _one dollar a year,_ which, for such a weekly,
is more than reasonable.

It is also the earnest wish of The Forerunner that every American
interested in the woman's movement the world over, and its English
status in particular, should take _The Englishwoman._ That costs
fourteen shillings a year, and is worth it.

And who is to take _The Forerunner?_ Only those who like it and find it
useful.



PERSONAL PROBLEMS


Problem 1st. A woman of thirty, single and intending so to remain,
owning a tiny cottage in the woods near a large city; exhausted by ten
years' overwork and having spent her savings on doctor's bills, asks two
questions:

(a) Why cannot she stay at home and enjoy it?

(b) Can one love a man too much? (There was a man, but he went away.)

To (a) the answer is: one cannot live at home, and earn one's living
without practicing some domestic industry. Of these two obvious and
common ones are:

Take in washing:--not strong enough.

Take in sewing?--How about that?

A large city ought to furnish sewing and mending enough to keep one
woman who owns a cottage. Five dollars a week ought to do it, including
carfare.

Then comes the more various tasks; to make some one thing excellently
well, and sell it: taking orders: making a little business of one's own.

The age of domestic industry is really past; but a lone woman with no
rent to pay ought to make good, unless too ill to work at all.

If there is any ground with the cottage she could raise some food
perhaps.

Third possibility: take another woman to board: or a child, if competent
to care for children.

As to the second question: Yes, one can; one often does. If by "loving"
one means "wanting." Love, pure love, strong giving love, does not
exhaust nor injure. One can love a lifetime, without return--if it's
that kind. But to hopelessly wish for what one cannot have is an
illness. If that is the case it is time for a decided change of heart.

The world is full of people to love and serve; and a brave rational
attitude of living ought to cure and strengthen.

Sister--sit quiet in the door of the little cottage: say "I am here to
serve; to work for the world. I am willing. My own life is
desolate--well? So are the lives of many. That I must bear. There are
many years before me to be lived through--bravely and lovingly. If I
die--that's no hardship; if I live I will do the work I'm here for."

Then study out your case with dispassionate interest; _as if it were
some one else's_; and do what is wise. When you are strong enough, if
you are willing to do housework (a job always waiting) for six months,
it should give you a clear $150.00, to live another six months without
care, and to practice the art you like best. Plan _ahead;_ bear what
you have now in the determined hope of what you like better in five
years--ten years--for the rest of life.

And so enlarge your range of consciousness, thinking, talking, reading
about big human interests, that your own trouble shrinks in proportion.

Problem 2d. "Several of my professors in the University have such a
condescending attitude toward women that most of us girls find it very
hard to do our best. In some classes, we are actually, as a sex, marked
lower than the men of the class. We have found in every instance that
the wives of these professors are of the lowest tabby-cat variety,
gossipy, infantile, at times malicious.

_Q._ (a) Can you believe that these trained men would be as illogical
as to judge us all by their wives?

_Q._ (b) Is there any way even to make a start to root out this idea
that all women are cast from the same mold,"--Studiosa.

_Ans._ (a) "Trained" men are not necessarily logical men. Logic in
some fields does not imply logic in all. No matter how logical or how
much trained, most men are illogical about women. (As are most women
also.)

_Ans._ (b) Yes. The way to start,--and finish--this idea that "all
women are cast from the same mold" is to prove that they are not by
being different. The likeness men see in women is the likeness of sex.
Show them the difference in human personality.

Problem 3d. "It is almost impossible for married women to go on
teaching. Just as I am at my best, my usefulness is nullified because I
am married. Would you please outline a plan of organization among
married women who wish to continue practicing their profession, thru
which they may arouse other women, and also reach the authorities who
have control over their work?"--_E. M. K._

_Ans._ The most suitable organization among married women, and single
ones as well, whereby to "arouse other women and reach the authorities"
is political organization. That question is easily answered--by
securing equal suffrage.

Problem 4th. "Several of us girls wish to associate with our men
friends as real comrades, paying our half of theatre tickets, suppers
and the like, as we have as much money, or as little, as they. They are
fine young men, decidedly worth while. Yet they make the most
astonishingly stupid objections, as do most of the other girls. It is
not 'polite' or 'customary,' it is a man's 'privilege,' etc., etc.
Could you not give us suggestions, perhaps in story form, of how to win
the young men, and other girls too, without being too sharp-angled, over
to our side?"--_College Girl._

_Ans._ I knew of a good arrangement between a man and a woman on this
basis. If he invited her, he paid for both. If she invited him, she
paid for both. If both went on their several initiatives each paid for
him or herself.

As to how to "win over" the most conservative of beings, young men and
young women, one can only recommend the trump card in any hand,--a sweet
and winning personality;--not "feminine influence," but personal
influence. If one's company is much desired, one can dictate terms.

Further; don't be stubborn about it. Ultimate principles are one
thing,--personal application are quite another. Vary your attitude
according to the degree of intelligence and prejudice you have to deal
with.

Problem 5th. "A person is condemned to die for a crime he did not
commit. Should he as a good citizen submit peaceably to his own murder
(legal) or fight for his life, killing jailors perhaps, till
overpowered?"

_Ans._ "As a good citizen" he should submit. See Socrates.

"In answer to question under 'Personal Problems' in June Forerunner,
'Why don't people wake up and _live!_ World size?' Will submit:

_Ans._ (a) Laziness. If people knew that thirty minutes of a


 


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