BRAIN SERVICE

We offer our hearts to God, contrite and broken;
 Why not offer our brains, whole and alive?
Why follow the grovelling words wailing old races have spoken?
 Bow and submit, when we ought to resist and strive!

What is this "heart" that you offer? A circulator,
 An organ that quivers and starts at the fears of the hour.
Why not offer your head? And hold it straighter?
 Bring to the service of God your noblest power?

When we learn to credit Him with our great ideals, and greater—
 When we all stand up at last, stop kissing the rod—
When we bring the brains of to-day to seek and serve the Creator—
 God will look better to us, and we shall look better to God.

WHEN I WAS A WITCH

If I had understood the terms of that one-sided contract with Satan, the Time of Witching would have lasted longer—you may be sure of that. But how was I to tell? It just happened, and has never happened again, though I've tried the same preliminaries as far as I could control them.

The thing began all of a sudden, one October midnight—the 30th, to be exact. It had been hot, really hot, all day, and was sultry and thunderous in the evening; no air stirring, and the whole house stewing with that ill-advised activity which always seems to move the steam radiator when it isn't wanted.

I was in a state of simmering rage—hot enough, even without the weather and the furnace—and I went up on the roof to cool off. A top-floor apartment has that advantage, among others—you can take a walk without the mediation of an elevator boy!

There are things enough in New York to lose one's temper over at the best of times, and on this particular day they seemed to all happen at once, and some fresh ones. The night before, cats and dogs had broken my rest, of course. My morning paper was more than usually mendacious; and my neighbor's morning paper—more visible than my own as I went down town—was more than usually salacious. My cream wasn't cream—my egg was a relic of the past. My "new" napkins were giving out.

Being a woman, I'm supposed not to swear; but when the motorman disregarded my plain signal, and grinned as he rushed by; when the subway guard waited till I was just about to step on board and then slammed the door in my face—standing behind it calmly for some minutes before the bell rang to warrant his closing—I desired to swear like a mule-driver.

At night it was worse. The way people paw one's back in the crowd! The cow-puncher who packs the people in or jerks them out—the men who smoke and spit, law or no law—the women whose saw-edged cart-wheel hats, swashing feathers and deadly pins, add so to one's comfort inside.

Well, as I said, I was in a particularly bad temper, and went up on the roof to cool off. Heavy black clouds hung low overhead, and lightning flickered threateningly here and there.

A starved, black cat stole from behind a chimney and mewed dolefully.
Poor thing! She had been scalded.

The street was quiet for New York. I leaned over a little and looked up and down the long parallels of twinkling lights. A belated cab drew near, the horse so tired he could hardly hold his head up.

Then the driver, with a skill born of plenteous practice, flung out his long-lashed whip and curled it under the poor beast's belly with a stinging cut that made me shudder. The horse shuddered too, poor wretch, and jingled his harness with an effort at a trot.

I leaned over the parapet and watched that man with a spirit of unmitigated ill-will.

"I wish," said I, slowly—and I did wish it with all my heart—"that every person who strikes or otherwise hurts a horse unnecessarily, shall feel the pain intended—and the horse not feel it!"

It did me good to say it, anyhow, but I never expected any result. I saw the man swing his great whip again, and—lay on heartily. I saw him throw up his hands—heard him scream—but I never thought what the matter was, even then.

The lean, black cat, timid but trustful, rubbed against my skirt and mewed.

"Poor Kitty" I said; "poor Kitty! It is a shame!" And I thought tenderly of all the thousands of hungry, hunted cats who stink and suffer its a great city.

Later, when I tried to sleep, and up across the stillness rose the raucous shrieks of some of these same sufferers, my pity turned cold. "Any fool that will try to keep a cat in a city!" I muttered, angrily.

Another yell—a pause—an ear-torturing, continuous cry. "I wish," I burst forth, "that every cat in the city was comfortably dead!"

A sudden silence fell, and in course of time I got to sleep.

Things went fairly well next morning, till I tried another egg. They were expensive eggs, too.

"I can't help it!" said my sister, who keeps house.

"I know you can't," I admitted. "But somebody could help it. I wish the people who are responsible had to eat their old eggs, and never get a good one till they sold good ones!"

"They'd stop eating eggs, that's all," said my sister, "and eat meat."

"Let 'em eat meat!" I said, recklessly. "The meat is as bad as the eggs! It's so long since we've had a clean, fresh chicken that I've forgotten how they taste!"

"It's cold storage," said my sister. She is a peaceable sort; I'm not.

"Yes, cold storage!" I snapped. "It ought to be a blessing—to tide over shortages, equalize supplies, and lower prices. What does it do? Corner the market, raise prices the year round, and make all the food bad!"

My anger rose. "If there was any way of getting at them!" I cried. "The law don't touch 'em. They need to be cursed somehow! I'd like to do it! I wish the whole crowd that profit by this vicious business might taste their bad meat, their old fish, their stale milk—whatever they ate. Yes, and feel the prices as we do!"

"They couldn't you know; they're rich," said my sister.

"I know that," I admitted, sulkily. "There's no way of getting at 'em. But I wish they could. And I wish they knew how people hated 'em, and felt that, too—till they mended their ways!"

When I left for my office I saw a funny thing. A man who drove a garbage cart took his horse by the bits and jerked and wrenched brutally. I was amazed to see him clap his hands to his own jaws with a moan, while the horse philosophically licked his chops and looked at him.

The man seemed to resent his expression, and struck him on the head, only to rub his own poll and swear amazedly, looking around to see who had hit him. the horse advanced a step, stretching a hungry nose toward a garbage pail crowned with cabbage leaves, and the man, recovering his sense of proprietorship, swore at him and kicked him in the ribs. That time he had to sit down, turning pale and weak. I watched with growing wonder and delight.

A market wagon came clattering down the street; the hard-faced young ruffian fresh for his morning task. He gathered the ends of the reins and brought them down on the horse's back with a resounding thwack. The horse did not notice this at all, but the boy did. He yelled!

I came to a place where many teamsters were at work hauling dirt and crushed stone. A strange silence and peace hung over the scene where usually the sound of the lash and sight of brutal blows made me hurry by. The men were talking together a little, and seemed to be exchanging notes. It was too good to be true. I gazed and marvelled, waiting for my car.

It came, merrily running along. It was not full. There was one not far ahead, which I had missed in watching the horses; there was no other near it in the rear.

Yet the coarse-faced person in authority who ran it, went gaily by without stopping, though I stood on the track almost, and waved my umbrella.

A hot flush of rage surged to my face. "I wish you felt the blow you deserve," said I, viciously, looking after the car. "I wish you'd have to stop, and back to here, and open the door and apologize. I wish that would happen to all of you, every time you play that trick."

To my infinite amazement, that car stopped and backed till the front door was before me. The motorman opened it. holding his hand to his cheek. "Beg your pardon, madam!" he said.

I passed in, dazed, overwhelmed. Could it be? Could it possibly be that—that what I wished came true. The idea sobered me, but I dismissed it with a scornful smile. "No such luck!" said I.

Opposite me sat a person in petticoats. She was of a sort I particularly detest. No real body of bones and muscles, but the contours of grouped sausages. Complacent, gaudily dressed, heavily wigged and ratted, with powder and perfume and flowers and jewels—and a dog.

A poor, wretched, little, artificial dog—alive, but only so by virtue of man's insolence; not a real creature that God made. And the dog had clothes on—and a bracelet! His fitted jacket had a pocket—and a pocket-handkerchief! He looked sick and unhappy.

I meditated on his pitiful position, and that of all the other poor chained prisoners, leading unnatural lives of enforced celibacy, cut off from sunlight, fresh air, the use of their limbs; led forth at stated intervals by unwilling servants, to defile our streets; over-fed, under-exercised, nervous and unhealthy.

"And we say we love them!" said I, bitterly to myself. "No wonder they bark and howl and go mad. No wonder they have almost as many diseases as we do! I wish—" Here the thought I had dismissed struck me agin. "I wish that all the unhappy dogs in cities would die at once!"

I watched the sad-eyed little invalid across the car. He dropped his head and died. She never noticed it till she got off; then she made fuss enough.

The evening papers were full of it. Some sudden pestilence had struck both dogs and cats, it would appear. Red headlines struck the eye, big letters, and columns were filled out of the complaints of those who had lost their "pets," of the sudden labors of the board of health, and interviews with doctors.

All day, as I went through the office routine, the strange sense of this new power struggled with reason and common knowledge. I even tried a few furtive test "wishes"—wished that the waste basket would fall over, that the inkstand would fill itself; but they didn't.

I dismissed the idea as pure foolishness, till I saw those newspapers, and heard people telling worse stories.

One thing I decided at once—not to tell a soul. "Nobody'd believe me if I did," said I to myself. "And I won't give 'em the chance. I've scored on cats and dogs, anyhow—and horses."

As I watched the horses at work that afternoon, and thought of all their unknown sufferings from crowded city stables, bad air and insufficient food, and from the wearing strain of asphalt pavements in wet and icy weather, I decided to have another try on horses.

"I wish," said I, slowly and carefully, but with a fixed intensity of purposes, "that every horse owner, keeper, hirer and driver or rider, might feel what the horse feels, when he suffers at our hands. Feel it keenly and constantly till the case is mended."

I wasn't able to verify this attempt for some time; but the effect was so general that it got widely talked about soon; and this "new wave of humane feeling" soon raised the status of horses in our city. Also it diminished their numbers. People began to prefer motor drays—which was a mighty good thing.

Now I felt pretty well assured in my own mind, and kept my assurance to my self. Also I began to make a list of my cherished grudges, with a fine sense of power and pleasure.

"I must be careful," I said to myself; "very careful; and, above all things, make the punishment fit the crime."

The subway crowding came to my mind next; both the people who crowd because they have to, and the people who make them. "I mustn't punish anybody, for what they can't help," I mused. "But when it's pure meanness!" Then I bethought me of the remote stockholders, of the more immediate directors, of the painfully prominent officials and insolent employees—and got to work.

"I might as well make a good job of it while this lasts," said I to myself. "It's quite a responsibility, but lots of fun." And I wished that every person responsible for the condition of our subways might be mysteriously compelled to ride up and down in them continuously during rush hours.

This experiment I watched with keen interest, but for the life of me I could see little difference. There were a few more well-dressed persons in the crowds, that was all. So I came to the conclusion that the general public was mostly to blame, and carried their daily punishment without knowing it.

For the insolent guards and cheating ticket-sellers who give you short change, very slowly, when you are dancing on one foot and your train is there, I merely wished that they might feel the pain their victims would like to give them, short of real injury. They did, I guess.

Then I wished similar things for all manner of corporations and officials. It worked. It worked amazingly. There was a sudden conscientious revival all over the country. The dry bones rattled and sat up. Boards of directors, having troubles enough of their own, were aggravated by innumerable communications from suddenly sensitive stockholders.

In mills and mints and railroads, things began to mend. The country buzzed. The papers fattened. The churches sat up and took credit to themselves. I was incensed at this; and, after brief consideration, wished that every minister would preach to his congregation exactly what he believed and what he thought of them.

I went to six services the next Sunday—about ten minutes each, for two sessions. It was most amusing. A thousand pulpits were emptied forthwith, refilled, re-emptied, and so on, from week to week. People began to go to church; men largely—women didn't like it as well. They had always supposed the ministers thought more highly of them than now appeared to be the case.

One of my oldest grudges was against the sleeping-car people; and now I began to consider them. How often I had grinned and borne it—with other thousands—submitting helplessly.

Here is a railroad—a common carrier—and you have to use it. You pay for your transportation, a good round sum.

Then if you wish to stay in the sleeping car during the day, they charge you another two dollars and a half for the privilege of sitting there, whereas you have paid for a seat when you bought your ticket. That seat is now sold to another person—twice sold! Five dollars for twenty-four hours in a space six feet by three by three at night, and one seat by day; twenty-four of these privileges to a car—$120 a day for the rent of the car—and the passengers to pay the porter besides. That makes $44,800 a year.

Sleeping cars are expensive to build, they say. So are hotels; but they do not charge at such a rate. Now, what could I do to get even? Nothing could ever put back the dollars into the millions of pockets; but it might be stopped now, this beautiful process.

So I wished that all persons who profited by this performance might feel a shame so keen that they would make public avowal and apology, and, as partial restitution, offer their wealth to promote the cause of free railroads!

Then I remembered parrots. This was lucky, for my wrath flamed again. It was really cooling, as I tried to work out responsibility and adjust penalties. But parrots! Any person who wants to keep a parrot should go and live on an island alone with their preferred conversationalist!

There was a huge, squawky parrot right across the street from me, adding its senseless, rasping cries to the more necessary evils of other noises.

I had also an aunt with a parrot. She was a wealthy, ostentatious person, who had been an only child and inherited her money.

Uncle Joseph hated the yelling bird, but that didn't make any difference to Aunt Mathilda.

I didn't like this aunt, and wouldn't visit her, lest she think I was truckling for the sake of her money; but after I had wished this time, I called at the time set for my curse to work; and it did work with a vengeance. There sat poor Uncle Joe, looking thinner and meeker than ever; and my aunt, like an overripe plum, complacent enough.

"Let me out!" said Polly, suddenly. "Let me out to take a walk!"

"The clever thing!" said Aunt Mathilda. "He never said that before."

She let him out. Then he flapped up on the chandelier and sat among the prisms, quite safe.

"What an old pig you are, Mathilda!" said the parrot.

She started to her feet—naturally.

"Born a Pig—trained a Pig—a Pig by nature and education!" said the parrot. "Nobody'd put up with you, except for your money; unless it's this long-suffering husband of yours. He wouldn't, if he hadn't the patience of Job!"

"Hold your tongue!" screamed Aunt Mathilda. "Come down from there!
Come here!"

Polly cocked his head and jingled the prisms. "Sit down, Mathilda!" he said, cheerfully. "You've got to listen. You are fat and homely and selfish. You are a nuisance to everybody about you. You have got to feed me and take care of me better than ever—and you've got to listen to me when I talk. Pig!"

I visited another person with a parrot the next day. She put a cloth over his cage when I came in.

"Take it off!" said Polly. She took it off.

"Won't you come into the other room?" she asked me, nervously.

"Better stay here!" said her pet. "Sit still—sit still!"

She sat still.

"Your hair is mostly false," said pretty Poll. "And your teeth—and your outlines. You eat too much. You are lazy. You ought to exercise, and don't know enough. Better apologize to this lady for backbiting! You've got to listen."

The trade in parrots fell off from that day; they say there is no call for them. But the people who kept parrots, keep them yet—parrots live a long time.

Bores were a class of offenders against whom I had long borne undying enmity. Now I rubbed my hands and began on them, with this simple wish: That every person whom they bored should tell them the plain truth.

There is one man whom I have specially in mind. He was blackballed at a pleasant club, but continues to go there. He isn't a member—he just goes; and no one does anything to him.

It was very funny after this. He appeared that very night at a meeting, and almost every person present asked him how he came there. "You're not a member, you know," they said. "Why do you butt in? Nobody likes you."

Some were more lenient with him. "Why don't you learn to be more considerate of others, and make some real friends?" they said. "To have a few friends who do enjoy your visits ought to be pleasanter than being a public nuisance."

He disappeared from that club, anyway.

I began to feel very cocky indeed.

In the food business there was already a marked improvement; and in transportation. The hubbub of reformation waxed louder daily, urged on by the unknown sufferings of all the profiters by iniquity.

The papers thrived on all this; and as I watched the loud-voiced protestations of my pet abomination in journalism, I had a brilliant idea, literally.

Next morning I was down town early, watching the men open their papers. My abomination was shamefully popular, and never more so than this morning. Across the top was printing in gold letters:

All intentional lies, in adv., editorial, news, or any other column. .
.Scarlet
All malicious matter. . .Crimson
All careless or ignorant mistakes. . .Pink
All for direct self-interest of owner. . .Dark green
All mere bait—to sell the paper. . .Bright green
All advertising, primary or secondary. . .Brown
All sensational and salacious matter. . .Yellow
All hired hypocrisy. . .Purple
Good fun, instruction and entertainment. . .Blue
True and necessary news and honest editorials. . .Ordinary print

You never saw such a crazy quilt of a paper. They were bought like hot cakes for some days; but the real business fell off very soon. They'd have stopped it all if they could; but the papers looked all right when they came off the press. The color scheme flamed out only to the bona-fide reader.

I let this work for about a week, to the immense joy of all the other papers; and then turned it on to them, all at once. Newspaper reading became very exciting for a little, but the trade fell off. Even newspaper editors could not keep on feeding a market like that. The blue printed and ordinary printed matter grew from column to column and page to page. Some papers—small, to be sure, but refreshing—began to appear in blue and black alone.

This kept me interested and happy for quite a while; so much so that I quite forgot to be angry at other things. There was such a change in all kinds of business, following the mere printing of truth in the newspapers. It began to appear as if we had lived in a sort of delirium—not really knowing the facts about anything. As soon as we really knew the facts, we began to behave very differently, of course.

What really brought all my enjoyment to an end was women. Being a woman, I was naturally interested in them, and could see some things more clearly than men could. I saw their real power, their real dignity, their real responsibility in the world; and then the way they dress and behave used to make me fairly frantic. 'Twas like seeing archangels playing jackstraws—or real horses only used as rocking-horses. So I determined to get after them.

How to manage it! What to hit first! Their hats, their ugly, inane, outrageous hats—that is what one thinks of first. Their silly, expensive clothes—their diddling beads and jewelry—their greedy childishness—mostly of the women provided for by rich men.

Then I thought of all the other women, the real ones, the vast majority, patiently doing the work of servants without even a servant's pay—and neglecting the noblest duties of motherhood in favor of house-service; the greatest power on earth, blind, chained, untaught, in a treadmill. I thought of what they might do, compared to what they did do, and my heart swelled with something that was far from anger.

Then I wished—with all my strength—that women, all women, might realize Womanhood at last; its power and pride and place in life; that they might see their duty as mothers of the world—to love and care for everyone alive; that they might see their dirty to men—to choose only the best, and then to bear and rear better ones; that they might see their duty as human beings, and come right out into full life and work and happiness!

I stopped, breathless, with shining eyes. I waited, trembling, for things to happen.

Nothing happened.

You see, this magic which had fallen on me was black magic—and I had wished white.

It didn't work at all, and, what was worse, it stopped all the other things that were working so nicely.

Oh, if I had only thought to wish permanence for those lovely punishments! If only I had done more while I could do it, had half appreciated my privileges when I was a Witch!

[Untitled]

"I can understand," says Eugene Wood, "how some women want to vote. And
I can understand how some women do not want to vote."

"But I can't understand how some women do not want other women to vote."

BELIEVING AND KNOWING

What is Believing—psychologically? What does the brain do when it "believes" that is different from what it does when it "knows"?

There is a difference. When you know a thing you don't have to believe it. There is no effort, and no credit attached, in knowing; but this act of "believing" has long been held as both difficult and worthy.

There seems to be not only a clearly marked distinction between knowing and believing, but a direct incompatibility. It may be said roughly that the less we know the more we believe, and the more we know the less we believe. The credulity of the child, the savage, and the less educated classes in society, is in sharp contrast with the relative incredulity of the adult civilized human, and the more highly educated.

There is a difference also shown in our mental sensations as to a thing believed and a thing known. If a man tells you that grass is red and the sky yellow, you merely think him color blind—It does not anger you nor alter your opinion. If he tells you that two and two make ten, you think him ignorant, weak-minded, but your view is not changed, nor are you enraged by him. But if he contradicts you on some religious dogma you are hurt and angry. Why? As a matter of direct physicho-psychological action, why?

To make a physical comparison, it is like the difference between being pushed against when you stand square on your feet, and pushed when you stand on one leg.

Or again, the thing you know is like something nailed down, or planted and growing; the thing you believe like something held up by main force, and quite likely to be joggled or blown away. "Do not try to shake my faith!" protests the believer. He does not object to your trying to shake his knowledge.

If the new knowledge you bring him is evidently a matter of fact, if his brain rationally perceives that he was wrong about this thing, and you are right, he removes his incorrect idea and establishes the correct one, with no more disagreeable sensation than a little sense of shame:—not that, if he was wise enough to admit ignorance gracefully.

But the new faith you bring him is quite another matter. He hangs on to his old faith as if there was a virtue in the mental attitude of belief—aha! now we are on the track! He has been taught that there is!

We receive knowledge and faith in quite different ways, with quite different emphasis. The child learns—and learns—and learns—every day of his life; learns year after year, as long as his brain is able to receive impressions. This vast mass of knowledge is for the most part received indiscriminately and assorted by the brain after its own fashion.

There are but few departments of knowledge to which we have attached arbitrary ideas of superiority; and those fortunately, are all old ones. Knowledge of "the classics" was once kept in the same box with social standing, if not with orthodoxy; and to this day an error in spelling or grammar will condemn a person far more than entire ignorance of physiology or mechanics. Knowledge is a vast range, an unlimited range, visibly subject to extension; each new peak surmounted showing us many more. We learn, unlearn, and relearn, without much opposition or criticism, so long as our little bunch of specialties is assured—the spelling, for instance.

But when it comes to believing, disbelieving, and rebelieving—that is a different matter. Certain things were given us to believe—in our racial infancy—before we knew much of anything, and were therefore far more capable of believing. These articles of belief were sincerely held to be the most important matters; and they were too; because, if any stronger minded race infant refused to believe them, he was ostracised—or executed. What a man believed, or disbelieved, was the keynote of life—in that interesting race infancy of ours. All the other mental processes were as nothing compared to this. Knowledge? There was none to speak of. Doubt was a crime. Inquiry was the beginning of doubt.

The dogmas inserted did change, though slowly; but their importance in the scheme of life did not change. Whatever else the man might or might not be the first question was, "Art thou a Believer?" And he was. What he believed might be the One Absolute Truth; or one of many contemptible heresies; but he was always a believer.

They began with the helpless little children, and told them as the most important basic truths, whatsoever religious doctrines were current at the time; and renewed this process with every generation until this very day—and are still at it. Many of the most pronounced free-thinkers not only prefer to have their women still "devout," but insist on putting their children through the old course of instruction.

So, in the course of these unbroken ages; under a combined treatment of rigid "natural selection"—the elimination of the unfit, who were burned or beheaded—and of the heaviest social pressure, in both education and imitation; we have developed in the race mind a special area for "believing" as distinct front knowing. This area is abnormally sensitive because in those long ages behind us, it was the very vital base of life itself. If your Belief was steady and intact, you were permitted to live. If it was in the least degree wavering you were in danger. Is it any wonder we object so automatically to anyone's trying to "shake our faith?"

The change of the last century in this regard has been not only in the sudden opening up of new fields of knowledge; not only in the adoption of entire new methods in the acquisition of knowledge; not only in the rapid popularization of knowledge; but most of all in a new relation of ideas. We are beginning dimly to grasp something of the real scheme of life; to get our sense of the basic verities from observation of facts. That underlying scheme of life which the brain as an organ hungers for, is now opening to us in the field of ascertained fact.

A broad deep satisfying conception of life may now be gathered from the open book of natural law, both the perception of and the inspiration to right living are to be found there; all matters of calm clear easily held knowledge. When one knows enough to build a working religion on established facts, one does not have so much need of that extra capacity of believing.

You may also believe what you know—but it isn't necessary.

It will be a wonderful thing for the world when in every mind the beautiful truths of life shall be common knowledge. You may believe in an alleged father you have never seen; but when you live with your father you know him.

THE KINGDOM

"Where is Heaven?" asked the Person.
"I want Heaven—to enjoy it;
I want Heaven, recompensing
For the evils I have suffered—
All the terrible injustice,
All the foolish waste and hunger—
Where is Heaven? Can I get there?"

Then the Priest expounded Heaven:
"Heaven is a place for dead men;
After you are dead you'll find it,
If"—and here the Priest was earnest—
"If you do the things I tell you—
Do exactly what is ordered!
It will cost you quite a little—
You must pay a price for Heaven—
You must pay before you enter."

"Am I sure of what I'm getting?"
Asked the mean, suspicious Person.
"What you urge is disagreeable;
What you ask is quite expensive;
Am I sure of getting Heaven?"

Then the Priest prepared a potion,
Made of Concentrated Ages,
Made of Many Mingled Feelings—
Highest Hope and Deepest Terror—
Mixed our best and worst together,
Reverence and Love and Service,
Coward Fear and rank Self-Interest—
Gave him this when he was little,
Pumped it in before the Person
Could examine his prescription.
So the Person, thus instructed,
Now believed the things he told him;
Paid the price as he was able,
Died—the Priest said, went to Heaven—
None came back to contradict him!

*

"We want Heaven," said the People;
We believe in God and Heaven;
Where God is, there must be Heaven;
God is Here—and this is Heaven."

Then they saw the earth was lovely;
Life was sweet, and love eternal;
Then they learned the joy of living,
Caught a glimpse of what Life might be,
What it could be—should be—would be—
When the People chose to have it!

Then they bought no further tickets
Of the sidewalk speculators;
They no longer gave their children
The "spring medicine" of Grandma.
They said, "We will take no chances
Of what happens after dying;
We perceive that Human Beings,
Wise, and sweet, and brave, and tender,
Strong, and beautiful, and noble,
Living peaceably together,
In a universal garden,
With the Sciences for Soldiers,
With the Allied Arts for Angels,
With the Crafts and Trades for Servants,
With all Nature for the Teacher,
And all People for the Students,
Make a very pleasant Heaven.
We can see and understand it,
We believe we'd really like some;
Now we'll set to work and make it!

So they set to work, together,
In the Faith that rests on Knowledge,
In the Hope that's born of Wisdom.
In the Love that grows with Practise
And proceeded to make Heaven.

*

And God smiled. He had been tired
Of the everlasting dead men,
Of the hungry, grasping dead men;
He had always wanted live ones—
Wanted them to build the Kingdom!

PRIZE CHILDREN

A prosperous farmer, driving a valuable horse, will exhibit with pride the "points" of his swift roadster—the fine action, the speed and endurance. He himself sits stoop-shouldered and muscle-bound; strong, it may be, but slow and awkward, with bad teeth and poor digestion; by no means a model human being either in "points" or "action."

He never thinks of these things.

A virtuous housewife, running a comfortable house, has a justifiable pride in the cleanliness, comfort and convenience of the place, in its beautiful appointments and conveniences, and in her own. fine clothes! She herself is stout, short-legged, incapable of any swift agility of action; a brief run leaves her panting; she would be grotesque as a statue; and her internal housekeeping is by no means as efficient as a doctor would approve.

She never thinks of these things.

The same farmer will show you his stock—sheep, swine, fowls, cattle; point out their superiority and talk learnedly of the best methods of improvement. The same housewife will show you her fine needlework, her fine cooking, and discuss patterns and recipes with gusto. Both the farmer and his wife took prizes at the county fair—he for pigs and poultry, she for pies.

Now look at their children.

She gathers little Johnny into her motherly arms. "Johnny was always delicate!" she says tenderly. "He's a little backward because he's delicate. Mother's boy!" And she kisses his smooth head as he nestles up to her. "Adelaide had better go and lie down. Adelaide's not strong. They work her too hard in school."

Jim looks sturdy enough, and makes noise enough, but the expert perceives that Jimmy has adenoids, breathes through his mouth, is really undersized.

Here is the oldest boy, a tall, heavy fellow; but what a complexion!
"Quite natural for boys of that age; yes, he's real sensitive about it."

*

Well? They are "good children." When properly dressed, they compare favorably with other people's children.

None of them would take any prizes in an exhibition of Human Stock. There are no such prizes. As to the exhibition—that is continuous. We are so used to the exhibition, and to its pitiful average, that we have no ideals left.

Neither the farmer nor his wife ever thought of a Human Standard; whether they came up to it, or if their children did, or of how they might improve the breed.

We take humanity as we find it. We admire "beauty," or what we call beauty; but we don't care enough for it to try to increase it. We are concerned about our health after we lose it, but give small thought to lifting the average. Young men vie with one another in athletic sports, and have certain ideals, perhaps, of "military bearing," and the kind of chest and chin a man should have; but all their ideals put together do not make us as beautiful and strong as we have a right to be.

Then arise those who come to us talking largely of eugenics; wanting us to breed super-men and super-women; talk[ing of improving] the race by right selection. There is a lot of sense in this; we could do wonders that way; of course, if we would. Certain obstacles arise, however. Men and women seem to love each other on other grounds than physical superiority. Those physically superior do not always have the most superior children. Then, again, the physically superior children do not always hold out through life, somehow.

This method of breeding and selection is nature's way. It works well—give it a chance; but it has to be accompanied by a ruthless slaughter of the unfit, and takes thousands upon thousands of years. We have a method worth two of that.

We can improve the species after it is born.

That's the great human power, the conscious ability to improve ourselves and our children. We have the power. We have the knowledge, too—some of us have it, and all of us can get it.

The trouble is, speaking generally, that we haven't the standards.

Here is where our mothers need new ideals, and new information. A person who is going to raise cattle ought to know something about cattle; know what to expect of cattle, and how to produce it. Suppose we had a course in Humaniculture to study. We have Agricultural colleges; we study Horticulture, and Floriculture, and Apiculture and Arboriculture. Why not have a Humanicultural College, and learn something about how to raise people?

Such a course of study would begin with the theory, illustrating by picture and model; and later should have practical illustration from the living model, in nursery and school. The graduate from such a course would have quite a different idea of human standards.

She would know the true proportions of the human body, and not call a No. 2 foot "beautiful" on a No. 10 body. She would know what the real shape of the human body is, and that to alter it arbitrarily is a habit of the lowest savagery. The shape of the body is the result of its natural activities, and cannot be altered without injury to them. She would learn that to interfere with the human shape, moulding it to lines that have nothing to do with the living structure and its complex functions, is as offensive and ridiculous as it would be to alter the shape of a horse.

Should we not laugh to see a horse in corsets? The time is coming when we shall so laugh to see a woman.

She would learn to measure beauty, human beauty, by full health and vigor first of all, right proportion, full possession of all natural power, and that the human animal is by nature swift, agile, active to a high degree, and should remain so throughout life. So trained, she would regard being "put on a car" by the elbow as an insult, not a compliment.

Then at last we should begin to have some notion of what to expect in children, and how to get it. The girl would look forward not merely to some vague little ones to love and care for, but to having finer children than anyone else—if she could! And she would naturally have a new standard of fatherhood, and sternly refuse to accept disease and the vice which makes disease.

Then, when the children came, she would know the size and weight that was normal, the way to feed and clothe the little body so as to promote the best growth; the kind of exercise and training essential to develop that legitimate human beauty and power which ought to belong to all of us.

We have our vulgar "Baby Shows," where fat-cheeked, over-fed younglings are proudly exhibited. A time is coming when, without public exhibitions, without prize-money or clamorous vote, we shall raise a new standard in child culture—and live up to it.

HEAVEN FORBID!

When I was seventeen, you'd find
 No youth so brash as I;
Things must be settled to my mind,
 Or I'd know why!

I knew it all, and somewhat more,
 What I believed was true;
The future held no task in store
 I could not do!

If I had died in my youthful pride—
 And no man can say when—
Should I have been immortal
 As I was then? (Heaven forbid!)

When I was forty-two I stood
 Successful, proud and strong;
Little I cared for bad or good—
 My purse was long.

My breakfast, newspaper and train,—
 My office,—the Exchange—
My work, my pleasure, and my gain—
 A narrow range.

If I had died in my business pride—
 And no man can say when—
Should I have been immortal
 As I was then? (Heaven forbid!)

Now I am old, and yet I keep
 Intelligent content;
I wake and sleep in the quiet deep
 Of disillusionment.

I don't believe, nor disbelieve—
 I simply do not know.
I fear no grave—no heaven crave—
Am quite prepared to go.

But when I die—and I would not stay,
 Though a friend should show me how,
Shall I become immortal,
 As I am now? (Heaven forbid!)

WHAT DIANTHA DID

CHAPTER VII.

HERESY AND SCHISM.

You may talk about religion with a free and open mind,
 For ten dollars you may criticize a judge;
You may discuss in politics the newest thing you find,
 And open scientific truth to all the deaf and blind,
But there's one place where the brain must never budge!

CHORUS.

Oh, the Home is Utterly Perfect!
And all its works within!
 To say a word about it—
 To criticize or doubt it—
 To seek to mend or move it—
 To venture to improve it—
Is The Unpardonable Sin!

—"Old Song."

Mr. Porne took an afternoon off and came with his wife to hear their former housemaid lecture. As many other men as were able did the same. All the members not bedridden were present, and nearly all the guests they had invited.

So many were the acceptances that a downtown hall had been taken; the floor was more than filled, and in the gallery sat a block of servant girls, more gorgeous in array than the ladies below whispering excitedly among themselves. The platform recalled a "tournament of roses," and, sternly important among all that fragrant loveliness, sat Mrs. Dankshire in "the chair" flanked by Miss Torbus, the Recording Secretary, Miss Massing, the Treasurer, and Mrs. Ree, tremulous with importance in her official position. All these ladies wore an air of high emprise, even more intense than that with which they usually essayed their public duties. They were richly dressed, except Miss Torbus, who came as near it as she could.

At the side, and somewhat in the rear of the President, on a chair quite different from "the chair," discreetly gowned and of a bafflingly serene demeanor, sat Miss Bell. All eyes were upon her—even some opera glasses.

"She's a good-looker anyhow," was one masculine opinion.

"She's a peach," was another, "Tell you—the chap that gets her is well heeled!" said a third.

The ladies bent their hats toward one another and conferred in flowing whispers; and in the gallery eager confidences were exchanged, with giggles.

On the small table before Mrs. Dankshire, shaded by a magnificent bunch of roses, lay that core and crux of all parliamentry dignity, the gavel; an instrument no self-respecting chairwoman may be without; yet which she still approaches with respectful uncertainty.

In spite of its large size and high social standing, the Orchardina Home and Culture Club contained some elements of unrest, and when the yearly election of officers came round there was always need for careful work in practical politics to keep the reins of government in the hands of "the right people."

Mrs. Thaddler, conscious of her New York millions, and Madam Weatherstone, conscious of her Philadelphia lineage, with Mrs. Johnston A. Marrow ("one of the Boston Marrows!" was awesomely whispered of her), were the heads of what might be called "the conservative party" in this small parliament; while Miss Miranda L. Eagerson, describing herself as 'a journalist,' who held her place in local society largely by virtue of the tacit dread of what she might do if offended—led the more radical element.

Most of the members were quite content to follow the lead of the solidly established ladies of Orchard Avenue; especially as this leadership consisted mainly in the pursuance of a masterly inactivity. When wealth and aristocracy combine with that common inertia which we dignify as "conservatism" they exert a powerful influence in the great art of sitting still.

Nevertheless there were many alert and conscientious women in this large membership, and when Miss Eagerson held the floor, and urged upon the club some active assistance in the march of events, it needed all Mrs. Dankshire's generalship to keep them content with marking time.

On this auspicious occasion, however, both sides were agreed in interest and approval. Here was a subject appealing to every woman present, and every man but such few as merely "boarded"; even they had memories and hopes concerning this question.

Solemnly rose Mrs. Dankshire, her full silks rustling about her, and let one clear tap of the gavel fall into the sea of soft whispering and guttural murmurs.

In the silence that followed she uttered the momentous announcements: "The meeting will please come to order," "We will now hear the reading of the minutes of the last meeting," and so on most conscientiously through officer's reports and committees reports to "new business."

Perhaps it is their more frequent practice of religious rites, perhaps their devout acceptance of social rulings and the dictates of fashion, perhaps the lifelong reiterance of small duties at home, or all these things together, which makes women so seriously letter-perfect in parliamentry usage. But these stately ceremonies were ended in course of time, and Mrs. Dankshire rose again, even more solemn than before, and came forward majestically.

"Members—-and guests," she said impressively, "this is an occasion which brings pride to the heart of every member of the Home and Culture Club. As our name implies, this Club is formed to serve the interests of The Home—those interests which stand first, I trust, in every human heart."

A telling pause, and the light patter of gloved hands.

"Its second purpose," pursued the speaker, with that measured delivery which showed that her custom, as one member put it, was to "first write and then commit," "is to promote the cause of Culture in this community. Our aim is Culture in the broadest sense, not only in the curricula of institutions of learning, not only in those spreading branches of study and research which tempts us on from height to height"—("proof of arboreal ancestry that," Miss Eagerson confided to a friend, whose choked giggle attracted condemning eyes)—"but in the more intimate fields of daily experience."

"Most of us, however widely interested in the higher education, are still—and find in this our highest honor—wives and mothers." These novel titles called forth another round of applause.

"As such," continued Mrs. Dankshire, "we all recognize the difficult—the well-nigh insuperable problems of the"—she glanced at the gallery now paying awed attention—"domestic question."

"We know how on the one hand our homes yawn unattended"—("I yawn while I'm attending—eh?" one gentleman in the rear suggested to his neighbor)—while on the other the ranks of mercenary labor are overcrowded. Why is it that while the peace and beauty, the security and comfort, of a good home, with easy labor and high pay, are open to every young woman, whose circumstances oblige her to toil for her living, she blindly refuses these true advantages and loses her health and too often what is far more precious!—in the din and tumult of the factory, or the dangerous exposure of the public counter."

Madam Weatherstone was much impressed at this point, and beat her black fan upon her black glove emphatically. Mrs. Thaddler also nodded; which meant a good deal from her. The applause was most gratifying to the speaker, who continued:

"Fortunately for the world there are some women yet who appreciate the true values of life." A faint blush crept slowly up the face of Diantha, but her expression was unchanged. Whoso had met and managed a roomful of merciless children can easily face a woman's club.

"We have with us on this occasion one, as we my say, our equal in birth and breeding,"—Madam Weatherstone here looked painfully shocked as also did the Boston Marrow; possibly Mrs. Dankshire, whose parents were Iowa farmers, was not unmindful of this, but she went on smoothly, "and whose first employment was the honored task of the teacher; who has deliberately cast her lot with the domestic worker, and brought her trained intelligence to bear upon the solution of this great question—The True Nature of Domestic Service. In the interests of this problem she has consented to address us—I take pleasure in introducing Miss Diantha Bell."

Diantha rose calmly, stepped forward, bowed to the President and officers, and to the audience. She stood quietly for a moment, regarding the faces before her, and produced a typewritten paper. It was clear, short, and to some minds convincing.

She set forth that the term "domestic industry" did not define certain kinds of labor, but a stage of labor; that all labor was originally domestic; but that most kinds had now become social, as with weaving and spinning, for instance, for centuries confined to the home and done by women only; now done in mills by men and women; that this process of socialization has now been taken from the home almost all the manufactures—as of wine, beer, soap, candles, pickles and other specialties, and part of the laundry work; that the other processes of cleaning are also being socialized, as by the vacuum cleaners, the professional window-washers, rug cleaners, and similar professional workers; and that even in the preparation of food many kinds are now specialized, as by the baker and confectioner. That in service itself we were now able to hire by the hour or day skilled workers necessarily above the level of the "general."

A growing rustle of disapproval began to make itself felt, which increased as she went on to explain how the position of the housemaid is a survival of the ancient status of woman slavery, the family with the male head and the group of servile women.

"The keynote of all our difficulty in this relation is that we demand celibacy of our domestic servants," said Diantha.

A murmur arose at this statement, but she continued calmly:

"Since it is natural for women to marry, the result is that our domestic servants consist of a constantly changing series of young girls, apprentices, as it were; and the complicated and important duties of the household cannot be fully mastered by such hands."

The audience disapproved somewhat of this, but more of what followed. She showed (Mrs. Porne nodding her head amusedly), that so far from being highly paid and easy labor, house service was exacting and responsible, involving a high degree of skill as well as moral character, and that it was paid less than ordinary unskilled labor, part of this payment being primitive barter.

Then, as whispers and sporadic little spurts of angry talk increased, the clear quiet voice went on to state that this last matter, the position of a strange young girl in our homes, was of itself a source of much of the difficulty of the situation.

"We speak of giving them the safety and shelter of the home,"—here Diantha grew solemn;—"So far from sharing our homes, she gives up her own, and has none of ours, but the poorest of our food and a cramped lodging; she has neither the freedom nor the privileges of a home; and as to shelter and safety—the domestic worker, owing to her peculiarly defenceless position, furnishes a terrible percentage of the unfortunate."

A shocked silence met this statement.

"In England shop-workers complain of the old custom of 'sleeping in'—their employers furnishing them with lodging as part payment; this also is a survival of the old apprentice method. With us, only the domestic servant is held to this antiquated position."

Regardless of the chill displeasure about her she cheerfully pursued:

"Let us now consider the economic side of the question. 'Domestic economy' is a favorite phrase. As a matter of fact our method of domestic service is inordinately wasteful. Even where the wife does all the housework, without pay, we still waste labor to an enormous extent, requiring one whole woman to wait upon each man. If the man hires one or more servants, the wastes increase. If one hundred men undertake some common business, they do not divide in two halves, each man having another man to serve him—fifty productive laborers, and fifty cooks. Two or three cooks could provide for the whole group; to use fifty is to waste 47 per cent. of the labor.

"But our waste of labor is as nothing to our waste of money. For, say twenty families, we have twenty kitchens with all their furnishings, twenty stoves with all their fuel; twenty cooks with all their wages; in cash and barter combined we pay about ten dollars a week for our cooks—$200 a week to pay for the cooking for twenty families, for about a hundred persons!

"Three expert cooks, one at $20 a week and two at $15 would save to those twenty families $150 a week and give them better food. The cost of kitchen furnishings and fuel, could be reduced by nine-tenths; and beyond all that comes our incredible waste in individual purchasing. What twenty families spend on individual patronage of small retailers, could be reduced by more than half if bought by competent persons in wholesale quantities. Moreover, our whole food supply would rise in quality as well as lower in price if it was bought by experts.

"To what does all this lead?" asked Diantha pleasantly.

Nobody said anything, but the visible attitude of the house seemed to say that it led straight to perdition.

"The solution for which so many are looking is no new scheme of any sort; and in particular it is not that oft repeated fore-doomed failure called "co-operative housekeeping."

At this a wave of relief spread perceptibly. The irritation roused by those preposterous figures and accusations was somewhat allayed. Hope was relit in darkened countenances.

"The inefficiency of a dozen tottering households is not removed by combining them," said Diantha. This was of dubious import. "Why should we expect a group of families to "keep house" expertly and economically together, when they are driven into companionship by the fact that none of them can do it alone."

Again an uncertain reception.

"Every family is a distinct unit," the girl continued. "Its needs are separate and should be met separately. The separate house and garden should belong to each family, the freedom and group privacy of the home. But the separate home may be served by a common water company, by a common milkman, by a common baker, by a common cooking and a common cleaning establishment. We are rapidly approaching an improved system of living in which the private home will no more want a cookshop on the premises than a blacksmith's shop or soap-factory. The necessary work of the kitchenless house will be done by the hour, with skilled labor; and we shall order our food cooked instead of raw. This will give to the employees a respectable well-paid profession, with their own homes and families; and to the employers a saving of about two-thirds of the expense of living, as well as an end of all our difficulties with the servant question. That is the way to elevate—to enoble domestic service. It must cease to be domestic service—and become world service."

Suddenly and quietly she sat down.

Miss Eagerson was on her feet. So were others.

"Madam President! Madam President!" resounded from several points at once. Madam Weatherstone—Mrs. Thaddler—no! yes—they really were both on their feet. Applause was going on—irregularly—soon dropped. Only, from the group in the gallery it was whole-hearted and consistent.

Mrs. Dankshire, who had been growing red and redder as the paper advanced, who had conferred in alarmed whispers with Mrs. Ree, and Miss Massing, who had even been seen to extend her hand to the gavel and finger it threateningly, now rose, somewhat precipitately, and came forward.

"Order, please! You will please keep order. You have heard the—we will now—the meeting is now open for discussion, Mrs. Thaddler!" And she sat down. She meant to have said Madam Weatherstone, by Mrs. Thaddler was more aggressive.

"I wish to say," said that much beaded lady in a loud voice, "that I was against this—unfortunate experiment—from the first. And I trust it will never be repeated!" She sat down.

Two tight little dimples flickered for an instant about the corners of
Diantha's mouth.

"Madam Weatherstone?" said the President, placatingly.

Madam Weatherstone arose, rather sulkily, and looked about her. An agitated assembly met her eye, buzzing universally each to each.

"Order!" said Mrs. Dankshire, "ORDER, please!" and rapped three times with the gavel.

"I have attended many meetings, in many clubs, in many states," said Madam Weatherstone, "and have heard much that was foolish, and some things that were dangerous. But I will say that never in the course of all my experience have I heard anything so foolish and so dangerous, as this. I trust that the—doubtless well meant—attempt to throw light on this subject—from the wrong quarter—has been a lesson to us all. No club could survive more than one such lamentable mistake!" And she sat down, gathering her large satin wrap about her like a retiring Caesar.

"Madam President!" broke forth Miss Eagerson. "I was up first—and have been standing ever since—"

"One moment, Miss Eagerson," said Mrs. Dankshire superbly, "The Rev. Dr.
Eltwood."

If Mrs. Dankshire supposed she was still further supporting the cause of condemnation she made a painful mistake. The cloth and the fine bearing of the young clergyman deceived her; and she forgot that he was said to be "advanced" and was new to the place.

"Will you come to the platform, Dr. Eltwood?"

Dr. Eltwood came to the platform with the easy air of one to whom platforms belonged by right.

"Ladies," he began in tones of cordial good will, "both employer and employed!—and gentlemen—whom I am delighted to see here to-day! I am grateful for the opportunity so graciously extended to me"—he bowed six feet of black broadcloth toward Mrs. Dankshire—"by your honored President.

"And I am grateful for the opportunity previously enjoyed, of listening to the most rational, practical, wise, true and hopeful words I have ever heard on this subject. I trust there will be enough open-minded women—and men—in Orchardina to make possible among us that higher business development of a great art which has been so convincingly laid before us. This club is deserving of all thanks from the community for extending to so many the privilege of listening to our valued fellow-citizen—Miss Bell."

He bowed again—to Miss Bell—and to Mrs. Dankshire, and resumed his seat, Miss Eagerson taking advantage of the dazed pause to occupy the platform herself.

"Mr. Eltwood is right!" she said. "Miss Bell is right! This is the true presentation of the subject, 'by one who knows.' Miss Bell has pricked our pretty bubble so thoroughly that we don't know where we're standing—but she knows! Housework is a business—like any other business—I've always said so, and it's got to be done in a business way. Now I for one—" but Miss Eagerson was rapped down by the Presidential gavel; as Mrs. Thaddler, portentous and severe, stalked forward.

"It is not my habit to make public speeches," she began, "nor my desire; but this is a time when prompt and decisive action needs to be taken. This Club cannot afford to countenance any such farrago of mischievous nonsense as we have heard to-day. I move you, Madam President, that a resolution of condemnation be passed at once; and the meeting then dismissed!"

She stalked back again, while Mrs. Marrow of Boston, in clear, cold tones seconded the motion.

But another voice was heard—for the first time in that assembly—Mrs.
Weatherstone, the pretty, delicate widower daughter-in-law of Madam
Weatherstone, was on her feet with "Madam President! I wish to speak to
this motion."

"Won't you come to the platform, Mrs. Weatherstone?" asked Mrs. Dankshire graciously, and the little lady came, visibly trembling, but holding her head high.

All sat silent, all expected—what was not forthcoming.

"I wish to protest, as a member of the Club, and as a woman, against the gross discourtesy which has been offered to the guest and speaker of the day. In answer to our invitation Miss Bell has given us a scholarly and interesting paper, and I move that we extend her a vote of thanks."

"I second the motion," came from all quarters.

"There is another motion before the house," from others.

Cries of "Madam President" arose everywhere, many speakers were on their feet. Mrs. Dankshire tapped frantically with the little gavel, but Miss Eagerson, by sheer vocal power, took and held the floor.

"I move that we take a vote on this question," she cried in piercing tones. "Let every woman who knows enough to appreciate Miss Bell's paper—and has any sense of decency—stand up!"

Quite a large proportion of the audience stood up—very informally.
Those who did not, did not mean to acknowledge lack of intelligence and
sense of decency, but to express emphatic disapproval of Miss Eagerson,
Miss Bell and their views.

"I move you, Madam President," cried Mrs. Thaddler, at the top of her voice, "that every member who is guilty of such grossly unparlimentary conduct be hereby dropped from this Club!"

"We hereby resign!" cried Miss Eagerson. "We drop you! We'll have a New Woman's Club in Orchardina with some warmth in its heart and some brains in its head—even if it hasn't as much money in its pocket!"

Amid stern rappings, hissings, cries of "Order—order," and frantic "Motions to adjourn" the meeting broke up; the club elements dissolving and reforming into two bodies as by some swift chemical reaction.

Great was the rejoicing of the daily press; some amusement was felt, though courteously suppressed by the men present, and by many not present, when they heard of it.

Some ladies were so shocked and grieved as to withdraw from club-life altogether. Others, in stern dignity, upheld the shaken standards of Home and Culture; while the most conspicuous outcome of it all was the immediate formation of the New Woman's Club of Orchardina.

THE HOUSE OF APPLES

There was a certain King; young and inexperienced, but a man of resource and initiative; an efficacious King if he did but know it. Being new to his business, however, he did not, as yet, exert himself particularly.

This King, as it happened, was mightily fond of apples; but he was, as aforesaid, youthful and inexperienced; and too much overwhelmed with new duties, glories, and responsibilities, to be very exacting.

As a matter of expediency his stewards and servants strove to please him. As a matter of course they gave him what he wanted, when they could. As a matter of fact his table was provided with the best the market could afford.

The market, however, could not afford to do very well; at least its products did not satisfy the King.

"What is the trouble with these apples!" said the King, "Bring me another kind!"

They brought him several kinds—as many as three or four.

"Bring me more kinds!" said the King.

"These are all that the market affords, O King," they replied.

"Confound the market!" said the King, "I will consider this business myself."

Then the King consulted his books about apples; and the heads of departments in his Bureaus of horticulture and of Commerce. Having thus added to his information, he then went out to study the facts; and he found that the facts were these:

Apples grew as easily as ever they did; and there were really more kinds instead of less. People liked apples as well as ever they did, and there were more people instead of less.

Yet in the country the orchards were neglected and the apples fed to pigs or left to rot; and in the city, the fruit-stalls were loaded with the monotonous tasteless apples of commerce, cold-stored from time unknown; and those that were cheap were nasty, and those that were not nasty and not cheap were by mo means as high in quality as they were in price.

Then the King issued a Mandate, ordering his subjects far and wide to send him samples of all kinds of apples that were grown; with their names and histories and habits.

After this he made a tour of state, visiting his kingdom far and wide, and studying Appleculture in every quarter. And he consulted the people separately, in different places, saying, "Why do you not raise more apples of this sort and of this?"

And with one accord the people answered him—"It does not pay!"

This his Financial Advisers explained to him, outwardly with deep respect, but inwardly with derision at his inexperience, that there was no market for these varieties of apples, and they discoursed on The Law of Supply and Demand.

Then the King called upon his people to write everyone a postal card to him, stating the kind of apples they would buy if they could; and how many barrels or bushels or pecks or quarts they would like to use in a season, if the price was $2.00 a barrel, or five cents a quart.

This furnished employment to many mathematicians and staticians and tabulators for many days; but when all was done the King found that the desire of his people for apples averaged a barrel apiece per year. And the King briskly multiplied the number of his people by the price of a barrel of apples, and obtained a great sum.

"Ah!" said the King. "This is 'The Market,' is it not?"

But his Financial Advisers laughed in their sleeves, saying solemnly to him. "No, O King—this is merely an estimate of the idle desires of the people—with two large Ifs in it."

"But this is 'the Demand' is it not?" said the King.

And his Financial Advisers put down their sleeves and said, "No, O King this is but a desire—not a demand."

But the King was fond of apples, and obstinate.

So he caused to be built in every city a House of Apples; and appointed to each an Apple-Master, to carry out his will. And he commanded all his common carriers to carry apples in their season, so many carloads to a city, according to the desires of his people. And he offered to all fruit-raisers, from the humble Farmer to the haughty Horticulturist, such and such a price for such and such apples; the number thereof to increase as the population increased from year to year.

In the House of Apples was an Exhibition Hall, showing waxen examples of every Apple upon earth; and a market where Apples were sold; the short-lived Apples in their season, and the long-lived Apples the year around, and some were costly and some were cheap; and in the autumn the market was flooded—so that then all people could buy apples for a song—to their hearts' content and their bodies' comfort.

Golden Porters, crystalline and winy, were to be had in their brief season; and succulent sweetings, to bake with molasses; and gilliflowers, purple and mealy, and little scarlet sapsons, of which one eats without counting. Then the people bought more even than they had intended; and the farms found apples were a paying crop and cultivated them; and the common carriers lost nothing, for their carrying grew greater and the payment was steady and sure.

Now the King was really pleased at this, for he loved Apples and he loved having his own way—as Kings do. Also he delighted in the glorious array of Apples in his Houses; to look at, to eat, and to smell.

"It is worth the Price!" said the King. "I know what I want and I'm willing to pay for it."

But when the Reports of The Apple Masters came in, Lo! There was a
Great Profit for the King.

"There is no harm in that!" said he. And he showed the report to his
Financial Advisers—and his sleeve was across his mouth.

And the name of that King was Demos.

OUR ANDROCENTRIC CULTURE; or, THE MAN-MADE WORLD

VII.

ETHICS AND RELIGION.

The laws of physics were at work before we were on earth, and continued to work on us long before we had intelligence enough to perceive, much less understand, them. Our proven knowledge of these processes constitutes "the science of physics"; but the laws were there before the science.

Physics is the science of material relation, how things and natural forces work with and on one another. Ethics is the science of social relation, how persons and social forces work with and on one another.

Ethics is to the human world what physics is to the material world; ignorance of ethics leaves us in the same helpless position in regard to one another that ignorance of physics left us in regard to earth, air, fire and water.

To be sure, people lived and died and gradually improved, while yet ignorant of the physical sciences; they developed a rough "rule of thumb" method, as animals do, and used great forces without understanding them. But their lives were safer and their improvement more rapid as they learned more, and began to make servants of the forces which had been their masters.

We have progressed, lamely enough, with terrible loss and suffering, from stark savagery to our present degree of civilization; we shall go on more safely and swiftly when we learn more of the science of ethics.

Let us note first that while the underlying laws of ethics remain steady and reliable, human notions of them have varied widely and still do so. In different races, ages, classes, sexes, different views of ethics obtain; the conduct of the people is modified by their views, and their prosperity is modified by their conduct.

Primitive man became very soon aware that conduct was of importance. As consciousness increased, with the power to modify action from within, instead of helplessly reacting to stimuli from without, there arose the crude first codes of ethics, the "Thou shalt" and "Thou shalt not" of the blundering savage. It was mostly "Thou shalt not." Inhibition, the checking of an impulse proven disadvantageous, was an earlier and easier form of action than the later human power to consciously decide on and follow a course of action with no stimulus but one's own will.

Primitive ethics consists mostly of Tabus—the things that are forbidden; and all our dim notions of ethics to this day, as well as most of our religions, deal mainly with forbidding.

This is almost the whole of our nursery government, to an extent shown by the well-worn tale of the child who said her name was "Mary." "Mary what?" they asked her. And she answered, "Mary Don't." It is also the main body of our legal systems—a complex mass of prohibitions and preventions. And even in manners and conventions, the things one should not do far outnumber the things one should. A general policy of negation colors our conceptions of ethics and religion.

When the positive side began to be developed, it was at first in purely arbitrary and artificial form. The followers of a given religion were required to go through certain motions, as prostrating themselves, kneeling, and the like; they were required to bring tribute to the gods and their priests, sacrifices, tithes, oblations; they were set little special performances to go through at given times; the range of things forbidden was broad; the range of things commanded was narrow. The Christian religion, practically interpreted, requires a fuller "change of heart" and change of life than any preceding it; which may account at once for its wide appeal to enlightened peoples, and to its scarcity of application.

Again, in surveying the field, it is seen that as our grasp of ethical values widened, as we called more and more acts and tendencies "right" and "wrong," we have shown astonishing fluctuations and vagaries in our judgment. Not only in our religions, which have necessarily upheld each its own set of prescribed actions as most "right," and its own special prohibitions as most "wrong"; but in our beliefs about ethics and our real conduct, we have varied absurdly.

Take, for instance, the ethical concept among "gentlemen" a century or so since, which put the paying of one's gambling debts as a well-nigh sacred duty, and the paying of a tradesman who had fed and clothed one as a quite negligible matter. If the process of gambling was of social service, and the furnishing of food and clothes was not, this might be good ethics; but as the contrary is true, we have to account for this peculiar view on other grounds.

Again, where in Japan a girl, to maintain her parents, is justified in leading a life of shame, we have a peculiar ethical standard difficult for Western minds to appreciate. Yet in such an instance as is described in "Auld Robin Gray," we see precisely the same code; the girl, to benefit her parents, marries a rich old man she does not love—which is to lead a life of shame. The ethical view which justifies this, puts the benefit of parents above the benefit of children, robs the daughter of happiness and motherhood, injures posterity to assist ancestors.

This is one of the products of that very early religion, ancestor worship; and here we lay a finger on a distinctly masculine influence.

We know little of ethical values during the matriarchate; whatever they were, they must have depended for sanction on a cult of promiscuous but efficient maternity. Our recorded history begins in the patriarchal period, and it is its ethics alone which we know.

The mother instinct, throughout nature, is one of unmixed devotion, of love and service, care and defence, with no self-interest. The animal father, in such cases as he is of service to the young, assists the mother in her work in similar fashion. But the human father in the family with the male head soon made that family an instrument of desire, and combat, and self-expression, following the essentially masculine impulses. The children were his, and if males, valuable to serve and glorify him. In his dominance over servile women and helpless children, free rein was given to the growth of pride and the exercise of irresponsible tyranny. To these feelings, developed without check for thousands of years, and to the mental habits resultant, it is easy to trace much of the bias of our early ethical concepts.

Perhaps it is worth while to repeat here that the effort of this book is by no means to attribute a wholly evil influence to men, and a wholly good one to women; it is not even claimed that a purely feminine culture would have advanced the world more successfully. It does claim that the influence of the two together is better than that of either one alone; and in especial to point out what special kind of injury is due to the exclusive influence of one sex heretofore.

We have to-day reached a degree of human development where both men and women are capable of seeing over and across the distinctions of sex, and mutually working for the advancement of the world. Our progress is, however, seriously impeded by what we may call the masculine tradition, the unconscious dominance of a race habit based on this long androcentric period; and it is well worth while, in the interests of both sexes, to show the mischievous effects of the predominance of one.

We have in our ethics not only a "double standard" in one special line, but in nearly all. Man, as a sex, has quite naturally deified his own qualities rather than those of his opposite. In his codes of manners, of morals, of laws, in his early concepts of God, his ancient religions, we see masculinity written large on every side. Confining women wholly to their feminine functions, he has required of them only what he called feminine virtues, and the one virtue he has demanded, to the complete overshadowing of all others, is measured by wholly masculine requirements.

ln the interests of health and happiness, monogamous marriage proves its superiority in our race as it has in others. It is essential to the best growth of humanity that we practice the virtue of chastity; it is a human virtue, not a feminine one. But in masculine hands this virtue was enforced upon women under penalties of hideous cruelty, and quite ignored by men. Masculine ethics, colored by masculine instincts, always dominated by sex, has at once recognized the value of chastity in the woman, which is right; punished its absence unfairly, which is wrong; and then reversed the whole matter when applied to men, which is ridiculous.

Ethical laws are laws—not idle notions. Chastity is a virtue because it promotes human welfare—not because men happen to prize it in women and ignore it themselves. The underlying reason for the whole thing is the benefit of the child; and to that end a pure and noble fatherhood is requisite, as well as such a motherhood. Under the limitations of a too masculine ethics, we have developed on this one line social conditions which would be absurdly funny if they were not so horrible.

Religion, be it noticed, does not bear out this attitude. The immense human need of religion, the noble human character of the great religious teachers, has always set its standards, when first established, ahead of human conduct.

Some there are, men of learning and authority, who hold that the deadening immobility of our religions, their resistance to progress and relentless preservation of primitive ideals, is due to the conservatism of women. Men, they say, are progressive by nature; women are conservative. Women are more religious than men, and so preserve old religious forms unchanged after men have outgrown them.

If we saw women in absolute freedom, with a separate religion devised by women, practiced by women, and remaining unchanged through the centuries; while men, on the other hand, bounded bravely forward, making new ones as fast as they were needed, this belief might be maintained. But what do we see? All the old religions made by men, and forced on the women whether they liked it or not. Often women not even considered as part of the scheme—denied souls—given a much lower place in the system—going from the service of their father's gods to the service of their husbands—having none of their own. We see religions which make practically no place for women, as with the Moslem, as rigidly bigoted and unchanging as any other.

We see also this: that the wider and deeper the religion, the more human, the more it calls for practical applications in Christianity—the more it appeals to women. Further, in the diverging sects of the Christian religion, we find that its progressiveness is to be measured, not by the numbers of its women adherents, but by their relative freedom. The women of America, who belong to a thousand sects, who follow new ones with avidity, who even make them, and who also leave them all as men do, are women, as well as those of Spain, who remain contented Romanists, but in America the status of women is higher.

The fact is this: a servile womanhood is in a state of arrested development, and as such does form a ground for the retention of ancient ideas. But this is due to the condition of servility, not to womanhood. That women at present are the bulwark of the older forms of our religions is due to the action of two classes of men: the men of the world, who keep women in their restricted position, and the men of the church, who take every advantage of the limitations of women. When we have for the first time in history a really civilized womanhood, we can then judge better of its effect on religion.

Meanwhile, we can see quite clearly the effect of manhood. Keeping in mind those basic masculine impulses—desire and combat—we see them reflected from high heaven in their religious concepts. Reward! Something to want tremendously and struggle to achieve! This is a concept perfectly masculine and most imperfectly religious. A religion is partly explanation—a theory of life; it is partly emotion—an attitude of mind, it is partly action—a system of morals. Man's special effect on this large field of human development is clear. He pictured his early gods as like to himself, and they behaved in accordance with his ideals. In the dimmest, oldest religions, nearest the matriarchate, we find great goddesses—types of Motherhood, Mother-love, Mother-care and Service. But under masculine dominance, Isis and Ashteroth dwindle away to an alluring Aphrodite—not Womanhood for the child and the World—but the incarnation of female attractiveness for man.

As the idea of heaven developed in the man's mind it became the Happy Hunting Ground of the savage, the beery and gory Valhalla of the Norseman, the voluptuous, many-houri-ed Paradise of the Mohammedan. These are men's heavens all. Women have never been so fond of hunting, beer or blood; and their houris would be of the other kind. It may be said that the early Christian idea of heaven is by no means planned for men. That is trite, and is perhaps the reason why it has never had so compelling an attraction for them.

Very early in his vague efforts towards religious expression, man voiced his second strongest instinct—that of combat. His universe is always dual, always a scene of combat. Born with that impulse, exercising it continually, he naturally assumed it to be the major process in life. It is not. Growth is the major process. Combat is a useful subsidiary process, chiefly valuable for its initial use, to transmit the physical superiority of the victor. Psychic and social advantages are not thus secured or transmitted.

In no one particular is the androcentric character of our common thought more clearly shown than in the general deification of what are now described as "conflict stimuli." That which is true of the male creature as such is assumed to be true of life in general; quite naturally, but by no means correctly. To this universal masculine error we may trace in the field of religion and ethics the great devil theory, which has for so long obscured our minds. A God without an Adversary was inconceivable to the masculine mind. From this basic misconception we find all our ideas of ethics distorted; that which should have been treated as a group of truths to be learned and habits to be cultivated was treated in terms of combat, and moral growth made an everlasting battle. This combat theory we may follow later into our common notions of discipline, government, law and punishment; here is it enough to see its painful effects in this primary field of ethics and religion?

The third essential male trait of self-expression we may follow from its innocent natural form in strutting cock or stamping stag up to the characteristics we label vanity and pride. The degradation of women in forcing them to adopt masculine methods of personal decoration as a means of livelihood, has carried with the concomitant of personal vanity: but to this day and at their worst we do not find in women the naive exultant glow of pride which swells the bosom of the men who march in procession with brass bands, in full regalia of any sort, so that it be gorgeous, exhibiting their glories to all.

It is this purely masculine spirit which has given to our early concepts of Deity the unadmirable qualities of boundless pride and a thirst for constant praise and prostrate admiration, characteristics certainly unbefitting any noble idea of God. Desire, combat and self-expression all have had their unavoidable influence on masculine religions. What deified Maternity a purely feminine culture might have put forth we do not know, having had none such. Women are generally credited with as much moral sense as men, and as much religious instinct; but so far it has had small power to modify our prevailing creeds.

As a matter of fact, no special sex attributes should have any weight in our ideas of right and wrong. Ethics and religion are distinctly human concerns; they belong to us as social factors, not as physical ones. As we learn to recognize our humanness, and to leave our sex characteristics where they belong, we shall at last learn something about ethics as a simple and practical science, and see that religions grow as the mind grows to formulate them.

If anyone seeks for a clear, simple, easily grasped proof of our ethics, it is to be found in a popular proverb. Struggling upward from beast and savage into humanness, man has seen, reverenced, and striven to attain various human virtues.

He was willing to check many primitive impulses, to change many barbarous habits, to manifest newer, nobler powers. Much he would concede to Humanness, but not his sex—that was beyond the range of Ethics or Religion. By the state of what he calls "morals," and the laws he makes to regulate them, by his attitude in courtship and in marriage, and by the gross anomaly of militarism, in all its senseless waste of life and wealth and joy, we may perceive this little masculine exception:

"All's fair in love and war."

COMMENT AND REVIEW

"Inspired Millionaires," by Gerald Stanley Lee, has certainly inspired one. We read among the quoted letters on the paper cover one from Mr. Joseph Fels saying, "I want twenty-five copies of the book to distribute among the millionaires here. If the books are well received I will increase the order."

The impression to the lay mind, not too profusely acquainted with millionaires, is of amazement at his opportunities; twenty-five among "the millionaires here," and a possible demand for more!

The impression deepens as we read Mr. Fels' second letter, "Please send fifty more copies. I am putting them where they tell."

Seventy-five millionaires "here"—wherever that was; and in other places more and more and even more of them! Among so many there must be some common humanity, possibly some uncommon humanity; it would appear as if Mr. Lee might be right.

He believes that a millionaire may be a good man, a social enthusiast, an artist and connoisseur, not in spite of his money, but because of it; not by giving it away, pre- or post mortem; but by using it in his business.

This is a simple thought after you see it; but it has been generally overlooked. Mr. Lee has clear eyes and a silver tongue. His perceptions are important and his expressions convincing. He speaks plainly also, calling some millionaires by name, and designating others almost as plainly.

"What could be more pathetic, for instance," he says, "than Mr. ——- as an educator—a man who is educating-and-mowing-down two hundred thousand (?) men a day, ten hours a day, for forty years of their lives; that is, who is separating the souls of his employees from their work, bullying them into being linked with a work and a method they despise, and who is trying to atone for it all—this vast terrible schooling, ten hours a fay, forty years, two hundred thousand men's lives—by piecing together professors and scholars, putting up a little playhouse of learning, before the world, to give a few fresh young boys and girls four years with paper books?—a man the very thought of whom has ruined more men and devastated more faiths and created more cowards and brutes and fools in all walks of life than any other influence in the nineteenth century, and who is trying to eke out at last a spoonful of atonement for it all—all this vast baptism of the business world in despair and force and cursing and pessimism, by perching up before it ——- University, like a dove cote on a volcano.

"It may blur people's eyes for a minute, but everyone really knows in his heart—every man in this nation—that the only real education Mr. ——- has established, or ever can establish, is the way he has made his money. Everyone knows also that the only possible, the only real education Mr. ——- can give to a man would have to be through the daily thing he gives the man to do, ten hours a day, through the way he lets him do it, through the spirit and expression he allows him to put into it ten hours a day. Mr. ——-'s real school, the one with two hundred thousand men in it, and eighty million helpless spectators in the galleries, is a school which is working out a daily, bitter, lying curse upon the rich, and a bitter, lying curse upon the poor, which it is going to take the world generations to redeem."

This is a long quotation; but it shows our prophet is not blinded by sentiment; he knows an un-inspired millionaire when he sees him.

He makes this observation of one of the first important acts of Governor Hughes. "He did one of the most memorable and enlightened silences that has ever been done by any man in the United States." And then he goes on to show the power that lies in simply being right.

There are plenty of epigrams in the book, plenty of imagination, plenty of hard sense; and some mistakes. Various readers will assort these to suit their several minds. But it is funny, having so many men, with so much money, and so little idea of what to do with it, is it not?

Why shouldn't they, or some of them at least, really do business with it as Mr. Lee suggests?

PERSONAL PROBLEMS

Question:—What can one do with a bore? I am not over strong, and very sensitive to people. When some people come to see me—and stay—and they always do stay—it makes me ill—I cannot work well next day.

—Sufferer.

Answer:—My dear Sufferer. Your problem is a serious one. Bores are disagreeable to all and dangerous to some. They cannot be arrested or imprisoned; and kerosene does not lessen their numbers. They commit no active offence—it is not by doing that they affect us so painfully, but simply by being. Especially by being there.

Sub-question:—Can a bore be a bore when no one else is present.

Sub-answer:—We suspect they can. It is because he bores himself when alone that he seeks continually to bore others.

Yet some of them are well-intentioned persons who would be grieved to know they were injurious. Even the dull and thick-skinned are open to offence if it is forced upon them.

We suspect that the only real cure is courage on the part of the victim. If the suffering host or hostess frankly said, "My dear Sir—or Madam—you are making me very tired. I wish you would go away," the result would leave nothing to be desired. "But," says the sufferer in alarm, "they would never come to see us again!"

Well. Do you want them to?

"But—sometimes I like to see them." Or, "I cannot afford to quarrel with So and So!"

Ah! We will now quote Emerson. "It you want anything, pay for it and take it, says God."

Question:—"I have a sick parent. What is my whole duty in the case?"

—Filial Devotee.

Answer:—It depends on your sex. If you are a man, your duty is to provide a home for the patient, a servant, a nurse, a physician, food, medicine, and two short calls a day. You will be called "A Devoted Son."

If you are a woman, you need provide none of these things; but must wait upon the patient with your own hands as nurse and servant; regardless of your special ability. If you do at does a devoted son you will be called "An Unnatural Daughter."

Question:—"Why do the shapes of shoes change from year to year? Surely the shapes of our feet do not.

Answer:—This is one of the inscrutable minor problems of Fashion and The Market. The desire for novelty; the lack of a real feeling for beauty; a savage indifference to physical comfort, the pressure of necessity or greediness urging the manufacturer to sell more shoes than people need; the brow-beaten submissiveness of most purchasers and the persuasive—or insolent—compulsion of salesmen; all these combine to make our feet ugly and painful.

SUFFRAGE

I became an advocate of full suffrage for women as soon as I was old enough to understand the value of democratic government, to see that a true democracy requires the intelligent participation of all the people, and that women are people. With further knowledge I advocate woman suffrage on two grounds: first because a dependent and servile womanhood is an immovable obstacle to race development; second because the major defects of our civilization are clearly traceable to the degradation of the female and the unbalanced predominance of the male, which unnatural relation is responsible for the social evil, for the predatory and combative elements in our economic processes, and for that colossal mingling of folly, waste, and horror, that wholly masculine phenomenon—war.

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THE FORERUNNER CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN'S MAGAZINE CHARLTON CO., 67 WALL ST., NEW YORK

AS TO PURPOSE:

What is The Forerunner? It is a monthly magazine, publishing stories short and serial, article and essay; drama, verse, satire and sermon; dialogue, fable and fantasy, comment and review. It is written entirely by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

What is it For? It is to stimulate thought: to arouse hope, courage and impatience; to offer practical suggestions and solutions, to voice the strong assurance of better living, here, now, in our own hands to make.

What is it about? It is about people, principles, and the questions of every-day life; the personal and public problems of to-day. It gives a clear, consistent view of human life and how to live it.

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Why is it published? It is published to express ideas which need a special medium; and in the belief that there are enough persons interested in those ideas to justify the undertaking.

AS TO ADVERTISING:

We have long heard that "A pleased customer is the best advertiser." The Forerunner offers to its advertisers and readers the benefit of this authority. In its advertising department, under the above heading, will be described articles personally known and used. So far as individual experience and approval carry weight, and clear truthful description command attention, the advertising pages of The Forerunner will be useful to both dealer and buyer. If advertisers prefer to use their own statements The Forerunner will publish them if it believes them to be true.

AS TO CONTENTS:

The main feature of the first year is a new book on a new subject with a new name:—

"Our Androcentric Culture." this is a study of the historic effect on normal human development of a too exclusively masculine civilization. It shows what man, the male, has done to the world: and what woman, the more human, may do to change it.

"What Diantha Did." This is a serial novel. It shows the course of true love running very crookedly—as it so often does—among the obstructions and difficulties of the housekeeping problem—and solves that problem. (NOT by co-operation.)

Among the short articles will appear:

"Private Morality and Public Immorality."
"The Beauty Women Have Lost"
"Our Overworked Instincts."
"The Nun in the Kitchen."
"Genius: Domestic and Maternal."
"A Small God and a Large Goddess."
"Animals in Cities."
"How We Waste Three-Fourths Of Our Money."
"Prize Children"
"Kitchen-Mindedness"
"Parlor-Mindedness"
"Nursery-Mindedness"

There will be short stories and other entertaining matter in each issue. The department of "Personal Problems" does not discuss etiquette, fashions or the removal of freckles. Foolish questions will not be 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
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Twelve short stories . . . By C. P. Gilman
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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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Please find enclosed $_____ as subscription to "The Forerunner" from _____ 19___ to _____ 19___

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TO RENT

A Summer Cottage on Lake Champlain Near the Adirondacks

This is a six-room two-story cottage, natural wood finish, unplastered, on two and a half acres of land, 600 feet on the lake, with an old apple orchard and many other trees. It has on two sides covered piazzas, outside blinds, open fireplaces in two rooms; and new white enameled open plumbing, with hot and cold water. It is about a mile and a half from Essex Village, and about one-quarter of a mile from the post office, at the Crater Club, an exclusive summer colony. Access by boat and train.

I have not seen this cottage, but I've seen plans, elevations and photographs of it, and of views from it. It stands on a bluff, close to the lake, the Green Mountains far in the east, and the Adirondacks some twelve miles to the west. The people who own it will answer further questions and state facts fully on request, both advantages and disadvantages.

The list of furnishings is accurate and circumstantial, as follows:

INVENTORY OF CONTENTS OF COTTAGE

LIVING ROOM

Mahogany sofa, small mahogany table
Marble-topped table and "Crowning of Esther"
4 rosewood chairs, steamer chair
Whatnot, wall-bracket, books, basket
Mahogany table, small round 3-legged
Long mantel mirror, gilt frame
3 oil paintings, 3 engravings
Rustic seat (filled with wood)
Old-fashioned heating stove, crated
Candle-lantern, 2 Japanese trays
Door-scraper, woodbasket
Tongs-holder, hearth brush
Child's garden tools
2 sofa cushions
Various small ornaments

KITCHEN

Ironing Table, stand, wax, bosom board Tin pail, dipper, basin 1 new broom, 1 old broom Tool box, tools, nails, saw, hatchet Hammock, barrel hammock, tie ropes Soap rack, dustpan, scrap basket Folding hat rack, ladder Carving set, 6 knives (very old) Coffee pot, toaster, egg whip, egg beater 5 large white china plates 5 medium and 6 small ditto 6 demi tasse and saucers, same 2 tea cups, 6 saucers, same 2 egg stands, green; 2 sugar bowls 1 butterfly cup and saucer 6 glasses, 1 lemon squeezer 1 mechanical red-glass lamp 2 reading lamps, 3 small hand lamps 3 small bracket lamps, 1 shade White shades at all windows

GREEN BEDROOM

Green bedstead (three-quarter)
2 mattresses, 2 pillows, madras cover
Green bureau; green washstand
Green table; green rocking chair
Oak chair; 2 pictures; 1 chamber

LARGE EAST BEDROOM

Oak bedstead (double) Oak bureau, oak washstand 2 mattresses, 2 feather beds, 1 bolster 2 pillows, madras spread 1 box cot, 1 mattress, straw pillow 2 chairs, 2 towel racks Bureau cover, pen cushion, etc. 3 pictures

SOUTHWEST BEDROOM
Black walnut single bedstead
1 hair mattress and bolster
1 pillow, 1 feather bed, 1 madras spread
Bureau (mirror broken), 2 towel racks
Mahogany washstand, mirror
Small 3-legged table
3 rosewood chairs
Bureau cover, pin cushion, etc.
Shoebag on wall
Oil painting, on copper
Brass stair rods, in closet

NORTHWEST BEDROOM

2 mahogany bureaus, empty trunk Portable bath-tub, clothes basket On shelves: 7 sheets, 7 pillow cases 3 table cloths, 10 doilies 4 towels, dish cloths and towels Bureau and tray cloths Curtains, enough for doors Curtains for some windows

Apply to "Summer Cottage," care of The Forerunner or to John B. Burnham,
Agent, Essex, N.Y.

THE FORERUNNER

A MONTHLY MAGAZINE BY

CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN
AUTHOR, OWNER & PUBLISHER

1.00 A YEAR .10 A COPY Volume 1. No. 8 JUNE, 1910 Copyright for 1910 C. P. Gilman

Clothing is for five purposes: Decoration, Protection, Warmth, Modesty, and Symbolism. Can you explain yours?

THE PURITAN

"Where is God?" I cried. "Let me hear!"
"I long for the voice of God!"
And I smote and trod
On all things clamoring near;
Small voices dear,
That wept and murmured and sung
Till my heart was wrung;
That shrieked, shrieked loud and clear,
As I with hammer and sword
Slew them in the name of the Lord.
Where is God?" I cried. "Let me hear!"
But my ears were ringing yet
With cries I could not forget;
The blood was flowing still,
From the thing I could not kill;
A smothered sobbing cry
Filled all the red, wet earth, the cold, hard sky—
God came not near.

Then long I lived alone,
On the desolate land; a stone
On the thing I could not kill.
I bent to my hardened will
All things that lived below;
I strove to climb above,
To the land of living love
I had dreamed of long ago,
But I could not see—not know.
"O God!" I cried, "Come near!
Speak! Let thy servant hear!
Have I not utterly slain
With tears of blood, with sweat of pain,
In this base heart of mine
All voices old and dear—to hear but Thine!
And if there struggleth still
The thing I could not kill,
Have I not put a stone
On its head? O Thou alone
Whom I would follow and fear—
Speak! Let Thy servant hear!"

Silent I lay, and weak;
Then did the darkness speak;
"Child of the World! My love
Is beneath as well as above!
Thou art not always led
By a light that shines ahead!
But pushed by an impulse blind—
A mighty Power behind!
Lifted, as all things grow,
By forces from below!
Fear not for thy long mistake—
Listen! And there shall wake
The voice that has found the way
From the beginning, upward ever, into the light of day!
Lo! I am with thee still—
The thing thou couldst not kill!

MAKING A LIVING

"There won't be any litigation and chicanery to help you out, young man. I've fixed that. Here are the title deeds of your precious country-place; you can sit in that hand-made hut of yours and make poetry and crazy inventions the rest of your life! The water's good—and I guess you can live on the chestnuts!"

"Yes, sir," said Arnold Blake, rubbing his long chin dubiously. "I guess I can."

His father surveyed him with entire disgust. "If you had wit enough you might rebuild that old saw-mill and make a living off it!"

"Yes, sir," said Arnold again. "I had thought of that."

"You had, had you?" sneered his father. "Thought of it because it rhymed, I bet you! Hill and mill, eh? Hut and nut, trees and breeze, waterfall—beat-'em-all? I'm something of a poet myself, you see! Well,—there's your property. And with what your Mother left you will buy books and writing paper! As for my property—that's going to Jack. I've got the papers for that too. Not being an idiot I've saved out enough for myself—no Lear business for mine! Well, boy—I'm sorry you're a fool. But you've got what you seem to like best."

"Yes, sir," said Arnold once more. "I have, and I'm really much obliged to you, Father, for not trying to make me take the business."

Then young John Blake, pattern and image of his father, came into possession of large assets and began to use them in the only correct way; to increase and multiply without end.

Then old John Blake, gazing with pride on his younger son, whose acumen almost compensated him for the bitter disappointment of being father to a poet; set forth for a season of rest and change.

"I'm going to see the world! I never had time before!" quoth he; and started off for Europe, Asia, and Africa.

Then Arnold Blake, whose eyes were the eyes of a poet, but whose mouth had a touch of resemblance to his father's, betook himself to his Hill.

But the night before they separated, he and his brother both proposed to Ella Sutherland. John because he had made up his mind that it was the proper time for him to marry, and this was the proper woman; and Arnold because he couldn't help it.

John got to work first. He was really very fond of Ella, and made hot love to her. It was a painful surprise to him to be refused. He argued with her. He told her how much he loved her.

"There are others!" said Miss Ella.

He told her how rich he was.

"That isn't the point," said Ella.

He told her how rich he was going to be.

"I'm not for sale!" said Ella, "even on futures!"

Then he got angry and criticised her judgement.

"It's a pity, isn't it," she said, "for me to have such poor judgment—and for you to have to abide by it!"

"I won't take your decision," said John. "You're only a child yet. In two years' time you'll be wiser. I'll ask you again then."

"All right," said Ella. "I'll answer you again then."

John went away, angry, but determined.

Arnold was less categorical.

"I've no right to say a word," he began, and then said it. Mostly he dilated on her beauty and goodness and his overmastering affection for her.

"Are you offering marriage?" she inquired, rather quizzically.

"Why yes—of course!" said he, "only—only I've nothing to offer."

"There's you!" said Ella.

"But that's so little!" said Arnold. "O! if you will wait for me!—I will work!—"

"What will you work at?" said Ella.

Arnold laughed. Ella laughed. "I love to camp out!" said she.

"Will you wait for me a year?" said Arnold.

"Ye-es," said Ella. I'll even wait two—if I have to. But no longer!"

"What will you do then?" asked Arnold miserably.

"Marry you," said Ella.

So Arnold went off to his Hill.

What was one hill among so many? There they arose about him, far green, farther blue, farthest purple, rolling away to the real peaks of the Catskills. This one had been part of his mother's father's land; a big stretch, coming down to them from an old Dutch grant. It ran out like a promontory into the winding valley below; the valley that had been a real river when the Catskills were real mountains. There was some river there yet, a little sulky stream, fretting most of the year in its sunken stony bed, and losing its temper altogether when the spring floods came.

Arnold did not care much for the river—he had a brook of his own; an ideal brook, beginning with an over-flowing spring; and giving him three waterfalls and a lake on his own land. It was a very little lake and handmade. In one place his brook ran through a narrow valley or valleyette—so small it was; and a few weeks of sturdy work had damned the exit and made a lovely pool. Arnold did that years ago, when he was a great hulking brooding boy, and used to come up there with his mother in summer; while his father stuck to the office and John went to Bar Harbor with his chums. Arnold could work hard even if he was a poet.

He quarried stone from his hill—as everyone did in those regions; and built a small solid house, adding to it from year to year; that was a growing joy as long as the dear mother lived.

This was high up, near the dark, clear pool of the spring; he had piped the water into the house—for his mother's comfort. It stood on a level terrace, fronting south-westward; and every season he did more to make it lovely. There was a fine smooth lawn there now and flowering vines and bushes; every pretty wild thing that would grow and bloom of itself in that region, he collected about him.

That dear mother had delighted in all the plants and trees; she studied about them and made observations, while he enjoyed them—and made poems. The chestnuts were their common pride. This hill stood out among all the others in the flowering time, like a great pompon, and the odor of it was by no means attractive—unless you happened to like it, as they did.

The chestnut crop was tremendous; and when Arnold found that not only neighboring boys, but business expeditions from the city made a practice of rifling his mountain garden, he raged for one season and acted the next. When the first frost dropped the great burrs, he was on hand, with a posse of strong young fellows from the farms about. They beat and shook and harvested, and sack upon sack of glossy brown nuts were piled on wagons and sent to market by the owner instead of the depredator.

Then he and his mother made great plans, the eager boy full of ambition. He studied forestry and arboriculture; and grafted the big fat foreign chestnut on his sturdy native stocks, while his father sneered and scolded because he would not go into the office.

Now he was left to himself with his plans and hopes. The dear mother was gone, but the hill was there—and Ella might come some day; there was a chance.

"What do you think of it?" he said to Patsy. Patsy was not Irish. He was an Italian from Tuscany; a farmer and forester by birth and breeding, a soldier by compulsion, an American citizen by choice.

"Fine!" said Patsy. "Fine. Ver' good. You do well."

They went over the ground together. "Could you build a little house here?" said Arnold. "Could you bring your wife? Could she attend to my house up there?—and could you keep hens and a cow and raise vegetables on this patch here—enough for all of us?—you to own the house and land—only you cannot sell it except to me?"

Then Patsy thanked his long neglected saints, imported his wife and little ones, took his eldest daughter out of the box factory, and his eldest son out of the printing office; and by the end of the summer they were comfortably established and ready to attend to the chestnut crop.

Arnold worked as hard as his man. Temporarily he hired other sturdy Italians, mechanics of experience; and spent his little store of capital in a way that would have made his father swear and his brother jeer at him.

When the year was over he had not much money left, but he had by his second waterfall a small electrical plant, with a printing office attached; and by the third a solid little mill, its turbine wheel running merrily in the ceaseless pour. Millstones cost more money than he thought, but there they were—brought up by night from the Hudson River—that his neighbors might not laugh too soon. Over the mill were large light rooms, pleasant to work in; with the shade of mighty trees upon the roof; and the sound of falling water in the sun.

By next summer this work was done, and the extra workmen gone. Whereat our poet refreshed himself with a visit to his Ella, putting in some lazy weeks with her at Gloucester, happy and hopeful, but silent.

"How's the chestnut crop?" she asked him.

"Fine. Ver' good," he answered. "That's what Patsy says—and Patsy knows."

She pursued her inquiries. "Who cooks for you? Who keeps your camp in order? Who washes your clothes?"

"Mrs. Patsy," said he. "She's as good a cook as anybody need want."

"And how is the prospect?" asked Ella.

Arnold turned lazily over, where he lay on the sand at her feet, and looked at her long and hungrily. "The prospect," said he, "is divine."

Ella blushed and laughed and said he was a goose; but he kept on looking.

He wouldn't tell her much, though. "Don't, dear," he said when she urged for information. "It's too serious. If I should fail—"

"You won't fail!" she protested. "You can't fail! And if you do—why—as I told you before, I like to camp out!"

But when he tried to take some natural advantage of her friendliness she teased him—said he was growing to look just like his father! Which made them both laugh.

Arnold returned and settled down to business. He purchased stores of pasteboard, of paper, of printers ink, and a little machine to fold cartons. Thus equipped he retired to his fastness, and set dark-eyed Caterlina to work in a little box factory of his own; while clever Guiseppe ran the printing press, and Mafalda pasted. Cartons, piled flat, do not take up much room, even in thousands.

Then Arnold loafed deliberately.

"Why not your Mr. Blake work no more?" inquired Mrs. Patsy of her spouse.

"O he work—he work hard," replied Patsy. "You women—you not understand work!"

Mrs. Patsy tossed her head and answered in fluent Italian, so that her husband presently preferred out of doors occupation; but in truth Arnold Blake did not seem to do much that summer. He loafed under his great trees, regarding them lovingly; he loafed by his lonely upper waterfall, with happy dreaming eyes; he loafed in his little blue lake—floating face to the sky, care free and happy as a child. And if he scribbled a great deal—at any sudden moment when the fit seized him, why that was only his weakness as a poet.

Toward the end of September, he invited an old college friend up to see him; now a newspaper man—in the advertising department. These two seemed to have merry times together. They fished and walked and climbed, they talked much; and at night were heard roaring with laughter by their hickory fire.

"Have you got any money left?" demanded his friend.

"About a thou—" said Arnold. "And that's got to last me till next spring, you know."

"Blow it in—blow in every cent—it'll pay you. You can live through the winter somehow. How about transportation?"

"Got a nice electric dray—light and strong. Runs down hill with the load to tidewater, you see, and there's the old motorboat to take it down. Brings back supplies."

"Great!—It's simply great! Now, you save enough to eat till spring and give me the rest. Send me your stuff, all of it! and as soon as you get in a cent above expenses—send me that—I'll 'tend to the advertising!"

He did. He had only $800 to begin with. When the first profits began to come in he used them better; and as they rolled up he still spent them. Arnold began to feel anxious, to want to save money; but his friend replied: "You furnish the meal—I'll furnish the market!" And he did.

He began it in the subway in New York; that place of misery where eyes, ears, nose, and common self-respect are all offended, and even an advertisement is some relief.

"Hill" said the first hundred dollars, on a big blank space for a week.
"Mill" said the second. "Hill Mill Meal," said the third.

The fourth was more explicit.

"When tired of every cereal
Try our new material—
 Hill Mill Meal."

The fifth—

"Ask your grocer if you feel
An interest in Hill Mill Meal.
 Samples free."

The sixth—
"A paradox! Surprising! True!
Made of chestnuts but brand new!
 Hill Mill Meal."

And the seventh—

"Solomon said it couldn't be done,
There wasn't a new thing under the sun—
 He never ate Hill Mill Meal!"

Seven hundred dollars went in this one method only; and meanwhile diligent young men in automobiles were making arrangements and leaving circulars and samples with the grocer. Anybody will take free samples and everybody likes chestnuts. Are they not the crown of luxury in turkey stuffing? The gem of the confection as marron glaces? The sure profit of the corner-merchant with his little charcoal stove, even when they are half scorched and half cold? Do we not all love them, roast, or boiled—only they are so messy to peel.

Arnold's only secret was his process; but his permanent advantage was in the fine quality of his nuts, and his exquisite care in manufacture. In dainty, neat, easily opened cartons (easily shut too, so they were not left gaping to gather dust), he put upon the market a sort of samp, chestnuts perfectly shelled and husked, roasted and ground, both coarse and fine. Good? You stood and ate half a package out of your hand, just tasting of it. Then you sat down and ate the other half.

He made pocket-size cartons, filled with whole ones, crafty man! And they became "The Business Man's Lunch" forthwith. A pocketful of roast chestnuts—and no mess nor trouble! And when they were boiled—well, we all know how good boiled chestnuts are. As to the meal, a new variety of mush appeared, and gems, muffins, and pancakes that made old epicures feel young again in the joys of a fresh taste, and gave America new standing in the eyes of France.

The orders rolled in and the poetry rolled out. The market for a new food is as wide as the world; and Jim Chamberlin was mad to conquer it, but Arnold explained to him that his total output was only so many bushels a year.

"Nonsense!" said Jim. "You're a—a—well, a poet! Come! Use your imagination! Look at these hills about you—they could grow chestnuts to the horizon! Look at this valley, that rattling river, a bunch of mills could run here! You can support a fine population—a whole village of people—there's no end to it, I tell you!"

"And where would my privacy be then and the beauty of the place?" asked Arnold, "I love this green island of chestnut trees, and the winding empty valley, just freckled with a few farms. I'd hate to support a village!"

"But you can be a Millionaire!" said Jim.

"I don't want to be a Millionaire," Arnold cheerfully replied.

Jim gazed at him, opening and shutting his mouth in silence.
"You—confounded old—poet!" he burst forth at last.

"I can't help that," said Arnold.

"You'd better ask Miss Sutherland about it, I think," his friend drily suggested.

"To be sure! I had forgotten that—I will," the poet replied.

Then he invited her to come up and visit his Hill, met her at the train with the smooth, swift, noiseless, smell-less electric car, and held her hand in blissful silence as they rolled up the valley road. They wound more slowly up his graded avenue, green-arched by chestnut boughs.

He showed her the bit of meadowy inlet where the mill stood, by the heavy lower fall; the broad bright packing rooms above, where the busy Italian boys and girls chattered gaily as they worked. He showed her the second fall, with his little low-humming electric plant; a bluestone building, vine-covered, lovely, a tiny temple to the flower-god.

"It does our printing," said Arnold, "gives us light, heat and telephones. And runs the cars."

Then he showed her the shaded reaches of his lake, still, starred with lilies, lying dark under the curving boughs of water maples, doubling the sheer height of flower-crowned cliffs.

She held his hand tighter as they wound upward, circling the crown of the hill that she might see the splendid range of outlook; and swinging smoothly down a little and out on the green stretch before the house.

Ella gasped with delight. Gray, rough and harmonious, hung with woodbine and wildgrape, broad-porched and wide-windowed, it faced the setting sun. She stood looking, looking, over the green miles of tumbling hills, to the blue billowy far-off peaks swimming in soft light.

"There's the house," said Arnold, "furnished—there's a view room built on—for you, dear; I did it myself. There's the hill—and the little lake and one waterfall all for us! And the spring, and the garden, and some very nice Italians. And it will earn—my Hill and Mill, about three or four thousand dollars a year—above all expenses!"

"How perfectly splendid!" said Ella. "But there's one thing you've left out!"

"What's that?" he asked, a little dashed.

"You!" she answered. "Arnold Blake! My Poet!"

"Oh, I forgot," he added, after some long still moments. "I ought to ask you about this first. Jim Chamberlain says I can cover all these hills with chestnuts, fill this valley with people, string that little river with a row of mills, make breakfast for all the world—and be a Millionaire. Shall I?"

"For goodness sake—No!" said Ella. "Millionaire, indeed? And spoil the most perfect piece of living I ever saw or heard of!"

Then there was a period of bliss, indeed there was enough to last indefinitely.

But one pleasure they missed. They never saw even the astonished face, much less the highly irritated mind, of old John Blake, when he first returned from his two years of travel. The worst of it was he had eaten the stuff all the way home-and liked it! They told him it was Chestnut Meal—but that meant nothing to him. Then he began to find the jingling advertisements in every magazine; things that ran in his head and annoyed him.

"When corn or rice no more are nice,
 When oatmeal seems to pall,
When cream of wheat's no longer sweet
 And you abhor them all—"

"I do abhor them all!" the old man would vow, and take up a newspaper, only to read:

 "Better than any food that grows
 Upon or in the ground,
Strong, pure and sweet
And good to eat
 Our tree-born nuts are found."

"Bah!" said Mr. Blake, and tried another, which only showed him:

"Good for mother, good for brother,
 Good for child;
As for father—well, rather!
 He's just wild."

He was. But the truth never dawned upon him till he came to this one:

"About my hut
There grew a nut
 Nutritious;
I could but feel
'Twould make a meal
 Delicious.

I had a Hill,
I built a Mill
 Upon it.
And hour by hour
I sought for power
 To run it.

To burn my trees
Or try the breeze
 Seemed crazy;
To use my arm
Had little charm—
 I'm lazy!

The nuts are here,
But coal!—Quite dear
 We find it!
We have the stuff.
Where's power enough
 To grind it?

What force to find
My nuts to grind?
 I've found it!
The Water-fall
Could beat 'em all—
 And ground it!

PETER POETICUS."

"Confound your impudence!" he wrote to his son. "And confound your poetic stupidity in not making a Big Business now you've got a start! But I understand you do make a living, and I'm thankful for that."

*

Arnold and Ella, watching the sunset from their hammock, laughed softly together, and lived.

TEN SUGGESTIONS

This is a sermon.

Its purpose is to point out the need of a clearer conception of right and wrong, based on knowledge.

Its text is from Ecclesiastes I, 13, "And I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven; this sore travail hath God given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith."

(Let me remark here that I had my sermon in mind before I looked for the text; but a more expressive and beautifully apposite one I never saw!)

The Preacher of old is right; this sore travail was laid upon us, a most useful exercise; but we have lazily evaded it and taken other people's judgment as to our duties.

That would-be Empire Builder, Moses, legislated for his people with an unlimited explicitness that reflects small credit on their power to search out by wisdom.

His cut and dried rules went down to most delicate selection of ovine vicera for the sacrifice—"the fat and the rump, and the fat that covereth the inwards and the caul above the liver, and the two kidneys"; and into careful dietetics, which would cut out from our food list the hare and rabbit, the lobster, the crab, the turtle, the clam, oyster and scallop, indeed all shellfish.

The "fowls that creep, going upon all four," whatever they may be, are also considered an abomination; but locusts, bald locusts, and grasshoppers are recommended by name. Even in clothing we are carefully forbidden to use a garment of linen and woolen, yet among our pious Puritan ancestors "linsey-woolsey" was a very common and useful cloth.

All these secondary Mosaic directions have long since been relegated to their place in archaeology; at least by the Christian churches, but the ten commandments are still held as coming direct from God; and form the main basis of our ethics. Yet while tacitly accepted they are not studied, and few people have remarked how the pressure of social development has changed their weight and relative value.

At first they stood, imposing and alike, an even row, to break anyone of which was held an equal sin. Few persons now would hold disrespect to a patently disrespectable parent as wrong as murder; or a failure to "remember the Sabbath" as great a sin as adultery. Experience has taught us something, and those who have undertaken that sore travail—to seek and search out by wisdom—have found that some things are much more wrong than others—and why.

I met once a very pious man; dark, gloomy, violently virtuous. He looked like one of Cromwell's deacons; but was in fact a southerner and an Episcopalian. Mention was made of an enlightened jury, somewhere in the west, who had acquitted a man who stole bread for his starving children.

"Good!" said I; "good! we are at last learning to discriminate in our judgment of right and wrong."

He glowered at me forbiddingly. "There is no room for judgment," he said; as if he were Fate itself. "There is a Commandment which says, 'Thou shalt not steal!'"

"Do you mean that all the Commandments stand equally?" I inquired. "That we must hold all of the same importance, without qualification, and to break any is an equal sin?"

"I do!" he said, with solemn assurance.

I meditated a little, and then asked, "Did you not say to me the other day that if the negroes ever tried to assert social equality, you would be among the first to shoulder your gun and put them in their place?"

"I would!" he admitted proudly.

"But," said I, "is there not a commandment which says, 'Thou shalt not kill?'"

He was silent. He was much annoyed, and saw no way out of his morass of contradiction. Then I offered what looked like a plank, a stepping-stone to safety. "Surely," said I, "there is some room for judgment. The later and smaller laws and regulations give many directions for killing. All through ancient Hebraic history it was frequently a special mandate, the people being distinctly commanded to slay and destroy, sometimes even to kill women, children and the unborn. And to-day—even a Christian man, in the exercise of legal justice, in defence of his life, his family, his country,—surely he has a right to kill! Do you not think there are times when it is right to kill?"

With a long breath of relief he agreed.

"Then why may it not be sometimes right to commit adultery?"

The conversation lapsed. He knew the two offenses were not in the same category. He knew that the reasons adultery is wrong, and killing is wrong are older than Hebrew history, and rest on observed facts. It would be a hardy thinker who would defend adultery; but we all know—to quote Ecclesiastes again that "There is a time to kill and a time to heal."

It may be that that set of ten applied with beautiful precision to the special vices of that people and that time; but there is room for many more needed ones to-day. There is no commandment against gambling, for instance; one of the most universal and indefensible evils. Gambling does no one good; the winner of unearned money is corrupted and the loser both corrupted and deprived. Gambling undermines all habits of industry and thrift; it unsettles our reliance on care, patience, thoroughness, ability, and tempts us to rely on chance. It is an unmitigated social evil, but goes unforbidden by the Mosaic code, which was so careful about which kind of fat to sacrifice and how much uncleaner a girl baby was than a boy.

Speaking of social evil, the social evil is not referred to. Adultery is an offence to be sure, dangerous and destructive to family and social life; but prostitution is a greater evil; far more common—and goes unmentioned; unless in the original it meant the same thing.

Lying is not referred to. Of course some say that bearing false witness means lying; but surely malicious perjury is a special crime, distinctly described, and not the same thing as mere misrepresentation.

Another of the blackest sins known to man, always so recognized and punished, goes without notice in this list:—treason. To betray one's country—what could be worse! Is it not visibly wickeder than to play ball on Sunday?

On the positive side our whole code of ethics, Hebrew and Christian, fails to mention the main duty of life—to do your best work. This is the one constant social service; and its reverse is a constant social injury.

The old ethics is wholly personal, the new ethics (still unwritten) is social first—personal later. In the old list we find, on a par with adultery, theft and murder, "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain." Does this mean common swearing? Is it as wrong to say 'damn' as to commit murder?

No, we do know better than that. We know that in those days, when lying was so universal a habit that no one thought of prohibiting it, the two most evil extremes were flat perjury with intent to harm, and the solemn invocation of God's name to bind a bargain or seal a vow, afterward broken. Both these were carefully forbidden. No one thought of believing anything unless it was sworn to—and if they broke their oath there was no reliance anywhere. To compel a slippery people to keep faith—that was good ethics; and then most necessary.

We do not run our business that way now; we do greater evil in new ways—and there is no commandment to forbid us. If that one read, "Thou shalt not break faith nor cheat," it would have applied equally well now.

The very first one is a curious proof of the then belief in many gods. Jehovah does not say, "I am the only God," He says, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." That there were others is admitted, but it is forbidden to run after them.

Nowadays we do not care enough even for our own idea of God—to say nothing of other people's! And look at all that careful objection to images and likenesses, and idol worship generally. The Jews forebore painting and sculpture for many centuries because of that prohibition. Now everyone with a kodak breaks it. The growth of true religious feeling, as well as scientific thought, makes it impossible for civilized peoples to make images and worship them, as did those ingenious old Moabites and Midianites, Jebuzites and Perrizites, Hittites and Haggathites.

The rigorous prohibition of coveting has always puzzled me—to covet is such a private feeling. And if you keep it to yourself, what harm does it do? You may spend your life wishing you had your neighbor's large red automobile; but he is none the poorer. Of course if one sits up nights to covet; or does it daytimes, by the hour, to the exclusion of other business; it would interfere with industry and injure the health. Can it be that the ancient Hebrews were that covetous?

Now suppose we do in good earnest give our hearts to seek and search out all things that are done under heaven, to classify and study them, to find which are most injurious and which are most beneficial, and base thereon a farther code of ethics—by no means excluding the old.

The two great Christian laws will stand solidly. The absolute and all absorbing love of God and the love of the neighbor which is much the same thing—are good general directions. But in daily living; in confronting that ceaseless array of "all things that are done under heaven," the average person cannot stop to think out just how this game of bridge or that horse-race interferes with love of God or man. We need good hard honest scientific study; sore travail, which God hath given to the sons of men, to be exercised therewith; and a further code of ethics, not claimed as directly handed down from Heaven, but proven by plain facts of common experience. We do not need to imitate or parody the authoritative utterance of any priesthood; we want an exposition which a bright child can understand and a practical man respect.

We have succeeded before now in establishing elaborate codes of conduct—yes and enforcing them, without any better sanction than habit, prejudice, tradition. A schoolboy has his notion of right behavior, not traceable to Hebrew or Christian ethics; so has the grown man, putting his quaint ideas of "honor" and "sportsmanship" far beyond any religious teaching. Our scorn of the tell-tale and the coward is not based on the Bible, but on experience; our inhuman cruelty to "the woman who has sinned" is based on mere ignorance and falsehood.

Take that fatuous "unwritten law" which allows a man to murder another man and the wife who has offended what he calls "his honor." There is nothing about that honor of his in old or new testament. It is a notion of his own, which overrides, "Thou shalt not kill," as easily as "lying like a gentleman" overrides, "Thou shalt not bear false witness."

Since we have shown such simple capacity to invent and enforce codes of ethics, of questionable value, why not exercise our ingenuity in making some better ones? We know more now.

As a matter of fact we do not want commands, we want instructions; we want to know why things are wrong, which are the most wrong, and what are their respective consequences. But if a distinct set of prohibitions is preferred it is quite possible to make some that would fit our present day conditions more closely than the Hebraic list.

It would be an interesting thing to have earnest people give their minds to this and seek and search out for themselves a new light on everyday ethics. As a starter here is a tentative list to think about; open to alteration and addition by anyone.

And on what authority are these presented? some will ask. Not on "authority" at all; but on law, natural law, the right and wrong indicated being long since known to us. And are these set presumptuously in the place of the Divine Command? will be tremblingly inquired. By no means. The Ten stand as before—these are auxiliary and merely suggestive of study.

1. Thou shalt learn that human love is a natural law and obey it as the main condition of life: the service of man is the worship of God.

2. Thou shalt learn that the first duty of human life is to find thy work and do it; for by labor ye live and grow and in it is worship, pride and joy.

3. Thou shalt keep an open mind and use it, welcoming new knowledge and new truth and giving them to all.

4. Thou shalt maintain liberty and justice for everyone.

5. Thou shalt maintain thy health and thy chastity. Temperance and purity are required of all men.

6. Thou shalt not lie, break faith or cheat.

7. Thou shalt not gamble, nor live idly on the labor of others, nor by any usury.

8. Thou shalt not steal; nor take from one another save in fair exchange or as a free gift.

9. Thou shalt not do unnecessary hurt to any living thing.

10. Thou shalt not worship the past nor be content with the present, for growth is the law of life.

THE MALINGERER

Exempt! She "does not have to work!"
 So might one talk
Defending long, bedridden ease,
Weak yielding ankles, flaccid knees,
 With, "I don't have to walk!"

Not have to work. Why not? Who gave
 Free pass to you?
You're housed and fed and taught and dressed
By age-long labor of the rest—
 Work other people do!

What do you give in honest pay
 For clothes and food?
Then as a shield, defence, excuse,
She offers her exclusive use—
 Her function—Motherhood!

Is motherhood a trade you make
 A living by?
And does the wealth you so may use,
Squander, accumulate, abuse,
 Show motherhood as high?

Or does the motherhood of those
 Whose toil endures,
The farmers' and mechanics' wives,
Hard working servants all their lives—
 Deserve less price than yours?

We're not exempt! Man's world runs on,
 Motherless, wild;
Our servitude and long duress,
Our shameless, harem idleness,
 Both fail to serve the child.

GENIUS, DOMESTIC AND MATERNAL

Most of us believe the human race to be the highest form of life—so far. Not all of us know why. Because we do not properly realize the causes of our superiority and swift advance, we do not take advantage of them as we should.

Among various causes of human supremacy, none counts more than our social gift of genius, the special power that is given to some more than others, as part of social specialization. In social life, which is organic, we do not find each one doing the same work, but some, especially fitted for one thing, doing that thing for the service of the others. No creature approaches us in the degree of our specialization, and the crowning power of individual genius.

Because of this power we, as a whole, have benefited by the "genius for mechanics," for invention, for discovery, for administration, and all the commoner lines of work, as well as in the fine arts and professions. The great surgeon is a genius as well as the great painter or poet, and the world profits by the mighty works of these specialized servants.

For the development of genius we must allow it to specialize, of course. The genius of Beethoven would have done us little good if he had passed his life as a bookkeeper or dealer in ironware. The greatest of poets could produce little poetry if he worked twelve hours a day in a rolling mill. Genius may overcome some forms of opposition, but it must be allowed to do the work it has a genius for—or none will be manifested.

We can easily see what a loss it would have been to the world if all forms of genius had been checked and smothered; if we had no better poetry than the average man writes when he is in love, no better surgery than each of us could perform if he had to, no better music than the tunes we make up to amuse ourselves, no better machinery than each of us is capable of inventing. We know full well the limitation of the average mind.

Now, suppose we had no better guide than that, no specialization at all, no great financiers, no great administrators, no great astronomers or architects, no great anything—simply the average mind, doing everything for itself without any help from others. A nice, flat, low-grade world we would have! Think of the houses, each of them "the house that Jack built," and not a building on earth bigger or better than Jack alone could make! No sciences, no arts, no skilled trades (one cannot develop much special skill while doing everything for oneself); no teachers and leaders of any sort—just the strength and ingenuity of each one of us, trying to meet his own needs by his own efforts.

This would be stark savagery, not civilization.

All this is as true of women as it is of men; women also are human beings, and members of society. Women have capacity for specialization, for strong preference and high ability in certain kinds of work. But since a man's world has viewed women only as females, since their feminine functions were practically uniform, and since everything they did was considered a feminine function, therefore women have not been allowed to specialize and develop genius. All women were required to do the same work (a) "keep house"; (b) "rear children."

These things we have at no time viewed as arts, trades, sciences or professions; they were considered as feminine functions, and to be performed by "instinct." Instinct is hereditary habit. It is developed by the repeated action of identical conditions. It is a fine thing, for animals, who have nothing else.

In humanity, instinct disappears in proportion as reason develops. Our conditions vary, even more and rapidly, and we have to have something much more rapid and alterable than instinct. No great man runs a business by instinct; he learns how. For the performance of any social service of importance, three powers are required. First, special ability or genius; second, education; third, experience. When we are served by special ability, education and experience, we are well served. Any human business left without these is left at the bottom of the ladder.

That is where we find the two great branches of human service left to women, the domestic and the maternal. These universal services, of most vital importance not only to our individual lives but to our social development, are left to be performed by the average mind, by the average woman, by instinct.

Our shoemaking is done by a shoemaker, our blacksmithing by a blacksmith, our doctoring by a doctor; but our cooking is done not by a cook, but by the woman a man happens to marry. She may, by rare chance, have some genius for cooking; but even if she does, there is no education and experience, save such as she may get from a cook book and a lifetime of catering to one family. Quite aside from cooking, the management of our daily living is a form of social service which should be given by genius, education, and experience; and, like the cooking, it is performed by any pretty girl a man secures in marriage.

This vast field of comfort or discomfort, ease or disease, happiness or unhappiness, is cut off from the uplifting influence of specialization.

But it is in the tasks and cares we call "maternal" that our strange restriction of normal development does most damage. We have lumped under their large and generous term all the things done to the little child—by his mother. What his father does for him is not so limited.

A child needs a house to live in—but his father does not have to build it. A child needs shoes, hats, furniture, dishes, toys—his father does not have to make them. A child needs, above all things, instruction—his father does not have to give it.

No, the fathers, humanly specialized, developing great skill and making constant progress, give to the world's children human advantages. A partly civilized state, comparative peace, such and such religions and systems of education, such and such fruits of the industry, trade, commerce of the time, and the mighty works of genius; all these men give to children, not individually, as parents, but collectively, as human beings. The father who, as a savage, could give his children only a father's services, now gives them the services of carpenters and masons, farmers and graziers, doctors and lawyers, painters and glaziers, butchers and bakers, soldiers and sailors—all the multiplied abilities of modern specialization; while the mother is "only mother" still.

There are three exceptions: that most ancient division of labor which provided the nurse, the next oldest which gave the servant, and the very recent one which has lifted the world so wonderfully, the teacher. The first two are still unspecialized. As any woman is supposed to be a competent mother, so any woman is supposed to be a competent nursemaid or housemaid. The teacher, however, has to learn his business, is a skilled professional, and accomplishes much.

Teaching is a form of specialized motherhood. It gives "the mother love"—an attribute of all female animals toward their own young—a chance to grow to social form as a general love of children, and through specialization, training, experience, it makes this love far more useful. The teacher is to some degree a social mother, and the advantage of this social motherhood is so great that it would seem impossible to question it. Motherhood is common to all races of humanity, down to the Bushmen, as well as to beasts and birds. Education is found only with us; and in proportion to our stage of social progress. Where there is no education but the mother's—no progress. Where the teacher comes, and in proportion to the quantity and quality of teachers, so advances civilization. In Africa there are mothers, prolific and affectionate; in China, in India, everywhere. But the nations with the most and best education are those which lead the world.

Similarly in domestic service. Everywhere on earth, to the lowest savages, we find the individual woman serving the individual man. "Home cooking" varies with the home; from the oil-lamp of the Eskimo or brazier of the Oriental, up to the more elaborate stoves and ranges of to-day; but the art of cooking has grown through the men cooks, who made it a business, and gave to this valuable form of social service the advantages of genius, training and experience.

The whole people share in the development of architecture, of electric transportation and communication, of science and invention. But no such development is possible to the general public, in these basic necessities of child care and house care, for the obvious reason above stated, that these tasks are left to the unspecialized, untrained, unexperienced average woman.

The child should have from birth the advantages of civilization. The home should universally share in the progress of the age. To some extent this now takes place, as far as the advance in child-culture can spread and filter downward to the average mother, through the darkness of ignorance and the obstacles of prejudice, and as far as public statutes can enforce upon the private home the sanitary requirements of the age. But this is a slow and pitifully small advance; we need genius, for our children; genius to insure the health and happiness of our daily lives.

Motherhood pure and simple, the bearing, nursing, loving and providing for a child, is a feminine function, and should be common to all women. But that "providing" does not have to be done in person. The mother has long since deputed to the father the two main lines of child care—defence and maintenance. She has allowed her responsibility to shift in this matter on the ground that he could do it better than she could.

In instruction she has accepted the services of the school, and of the music-teacher, dancing-teacher, and other specialists; in case of illness, she relies on the doctor; in daily use, she is glad to patronize the shoemaker and hatter, seamstress and tailor. Yet in the position of nurse and teacher to the baby, she admits no assistance except a servant. But the first four or five years of a child's life are of preeminent importance. Here above all is where he needs the advantage of genius, training and experience, and is given but ignorant affection and hired labor.

Some, to-day, driven to the wall by glaring facts such as these, that babies die most of preventable diseases, and that their death rate is greatest while they are most absolutely in their mother's care, do admit the need of improvement. But they say, "The mother should engage this specialist to help her in the home," or, "The mother must be taught."

If all normal women are to be mothers, as they should, how are any specialists to be hired in private homes? A young nursemaid cannot reach the heights of training and experience needed. As to teaching the mother—who is to teach her?

Who understands this work? No one! And no one ever will until the natural genius for child culture of some women is improved by training, strengthened and deepened by experience, and recognized as social service. Such women should be mothers themselves, of course, They would be too few, by the laws of specialization, to be hired as private nurses, and too expensive, if they were not too few. The great Specialist in Child Culture should be as highly honored and paid as a college president—more so; no place on earth is more important.

The average mother is not, and never can be, an eminent specialist, any more than the average father can be. Averages do not attain genius. Our children need genius in their service. "Where are we to get it?" demand the carpers and doubters, clinging to their rocky fastnesses of tradition and habit like so many limpets.

It is here already.

Some women have a natural genius for the care and training of babies and little children. Some women have a natural genius for household management. All this wealth of genius is now lost to the world except in so far as it is advantageous to one family.

And here, by a paradox not surprising, it io often disadvantageous. A woman capable of smoothly administering a large hotel may be extremely wearing as a private housekeeper. Napoleon, as a drill sergeant, would have been hard to bear.

A woman with the real human love for children, the capacity for detail in their management, the profound interest in educational processes, which would make her a beneficent angel if she had the care of hundreds, may make her a positive danger if she has to focus all that capacity on two or three.

(To be concluded.)

PRISONERS

A MAN IN PRISON.

His cell is small.

His cell is dark.

His cell is cold.

His labor is monotonous and hard.

He is cut off from the light of day, from freedom of movement, from the meeting of friends, from all amusement and pleasure and variety.

His hard labor is the least of his troubles—without it he could not support life. What he most suffers from is the monotony—the confinement—from being in prison.

He longs for his wife. He longs for his children. He longs for his friends.

But first and last and always; highest and deepest and broadest, with all his body and soul and mind he longs for Freedom!

A WOMAN IN PRISON.

Her cell is small.

Her cell is dark.

Her cell is cold.

Her labor is monotonous and hard.

She is cut off from the light of day, from freedom of movement, from the meeting of friends, from all amusement and pleasure and variety.

Her hard labor is the least of her troubles—without it she could not support life. What she most suffers from is the monotony—the confinement—from being in prison.

She longs for her husband. She longs for her children. She longs for her friends.

But first and last and always; highest and deepest and broadest, with all her body and soul and mind she longs for Freedom!

THE MAN OF ALL WORK.

A man is doing all the housework of one family. He loves this family.
It is his family.

He loves his home.

He does not hate his work; but he does get tired of it.

He has to sleep at home all night, and he would prefer to go away from it in the morning; to go out into the air; to join his friends; to go to the shop, the office, the mill, the mine; to work with other men at more varied tasks.

He loves his children; and wishes to do his duty as a father, but he has them with him by night as well as by day; and even a father's patience sometimes gives out. Also he has to do the housework. And even a father, with all his love and strength cannot be a cook, a teacher, and a nurse at the same time.

Sometimes the cooking suffers, but more often it is the teaching or nursing or both—for his wife is rather exacting in the matter of food.

He has a kind wife and they are happy together.

He is proud of his children and they love him.

But when he was a young man he had a strange ambition—he wanted to Be Somebody—to Do Something—to be independent, to take hold of the world's work and help.

His children say, "We need you, Father—you cannot be spared—your duty is here!"

His wife says, "I need you, Husband! You cannot be spared. I like to feel that you are here with the children—keeping up our Home—your duty is here."

And the Voice of the Priest, and the Voice of the Past and the Voice of
Common Prejudice all say:

"The duty of a father is to his children. The duty of a husband is to his wife. Somebody must do the housework! Your duty is here!"

Yet the man is not satisfied.

THE WOMAN OF ALL WORK.

? ? ? ? ?

MAY LEAVES

My whole heart grieves
 To feel the thrashing winds of March
On the young May leaves—
The cold dry dust winds of March
 On the tender, fresh May leaves.

WHAT DIANTHA DID

CHAPTER VIII.

See, "Locked Inside," January No.

Behind the straight purple backs and smooth purple legs on the box before them, Madam Weatherstone and Mrs. Weatherstone rolled home silently, a silence of thunderous portent. Another purple person opened the door for them, and when Madam Weatherstone said, "We will have tea on the terrace," it was brought them by a fourth.

"I was astonished at your attitude, Viva," began the old lady, at length. "Of course it was Mrs. Dankshire's fault in the first place, but to encourage that,—outrageous person! How could you do it!"

Young Mrs. Weatherstone emptied her exquisite cup and set it down.

"A sudden access of courage, I suppose," she said. "I was astonished at myself."

"I wholly disagree with you!" replied her mother-in-law. "Never in my life have I heard such nonsense. Talk like that would be dangerous, if it were not absurd! It would destroy the home! It would strike at the roots of the family."

Viva eyed her quietly, trying to bear in mind the weight of a tradition, the habits of a lifetime, the effect of long years of uninterrupted worship of household gods.

"It doesn't seem so to me," she said slowly, "I was much interested and impressed. She is evidently a young woman of knowledge and experience, and put her case well. It has quite waked me up."

"It has quite upset you!" was the reply. "You'll be ill after this, I am sure. Hadn't you better go and lie down now? I'll have some dinner sent to you."

"Thank you," said Viva, rising and walking to the edge of the broad terrace. "You are very kind. No. I do not wish to lie down. I haven't felt so thoroughly awake in—" she drew a pink cluster of oleander against her cheek and thought a moment—"in several years." There was a new look about her certainly.

"Nervous excitement," her mother-in-law replied. "You're not like yourself at all to-night. You'll certainly be ill to-morrow!"

Viva turned at this and again astonished the old lady by serenely kissing her. "Not at all!" she said gaily. "I'm going to be well to-morrow. You will see!"

She went to her room, drew a chair to the wide west window with the far off view and sat herself down to think. Diantha's assured poise, her clear reasoning, her courage, her common sense; and something of tenderness and consecration she discerned also, had touched deep chords in this woman's nature. It was like the sound of far doors opening, windows thrown up, the jingle of bridles and clatter of hoofs, keen bugle notes. A sense of hope, of power, of new enthusiasm, rose in her.

Orchardina Society, eagerly observing "young Mrs. Weatherstone" from her first appearance, had always classified her as "delicate." Beside the firm features and high color of the matron-in-office, this pale quiet slender woman looked like a meek and transient visitor. But her white forehead was broad under its soft-hanging eaves of hair, and her chin, though lacking in prognathous prominence or bull-dog breadth, had a certain depth which gave hope to the physiognomist.

She was strangely roused and stirred by the afternoon's events. "I'm like that man in 'Phantastes'," she thought contemptuously, "who stayed so long in that dungeon because it didn't occur to him to open the door! Why don't I—?" she rose and walked slowly up and down, her hands behind her. "I will!" she said at last.

Then she dressed for dinner, revolving in her mind certain suspicions long suppressed, but now flaming out in clear conviction in the light of Diantha's words. "Sleeping in, indeed!" she murmured to herself. "And nobody doing anything!"

She looked herself in the eye in the long mirror. Her gown was an impressive one, her hair coiled high, a gold band ringed it like a crown. A clear red lit her checks.

She rang. Little Ilda, the newest maid, appeared, gazing at her in shy admiration. Mrs. Weatherstone looked at her with new eyes. "Have you been here long?" she asked. "What is your name?"

"No, ma'am," said the child—she was scarce more. "Only a week and two days. My name is Ilda."

"Who engaged you?"

"Mrs. Halsey, ma'am."

"Ah," said Mrs. Weatherstone, musing to herself, "and I engaged Mrs.
Halsey!" "Do you like it here?" she continued kindly.

"Oh yes, ma'am!" said Ilda. "That is—" she stopped, blushed, and continued bravely. "I like to work for you, ma'am."

"Thank you, Ilda. Will you ask Mrs. Halsey to come to me—at once, please."

Ilda went, more impressed than ever with the desirability of her new place, and mistress.

As she was about to pass the door of Mr. Matthew Weatherstone, that young gentleman stepped out and intercepted her. "Whither away so fast, my dear?" he amiably inquired.

"Please let one pass, sir! I'm on an errand. Please, sir?"

"You must give me a kiss first!" said he—and since there seemed no escape and she was in haste, she submitted. He took six—and she ran away half crying.

Mrs. Halsey, little accustomed to take orders from her real mistress, and resting comfortably in her room, had half a mind to send an excuse.

"I'm not dressed," she said to the maid.

"Well she is!" replied Ilda, "dressed splendid. She said 'at once, please.'"

"A pretty time o' day!" said the housekeeper with some asperity, hastily buttoning her gown; and she presently appeared, somewhat heated, before Mrs. Weatherstone.

That lady was sitting, cool and gracious, her long ivory paper-cutter between the pages of a new magazine.

"In how short a time could you pack, Mrs. Halsey?" she inquired.

"Pack, ma'am? I'm not accustomed to doing packing. I'll send one of the maids. Is it your things, ma'am?"

"No," said Mrs. Weatherstone. "It is yours I refer to. I wish you to pack your things and leave the house—in an hour. One of the maids can help you, if necessary. Anything you cannot take can be sent after you. Here is a check for the following month's wages."

Mrs. Halsey was nearly a head taller than her employer, a stout showy
woman, handsome enough, red-lipped, and with a moist and crafty eye.
This was so sudden a misadventure that she forgot her usual caution.
"You've no right to turn me off in a minute like this!" she burst forth.
 "I'll leave it to Madam Weatherstone!"

"If you will look at the terms on which I engaged you, Mrs. Halsey, you will find that a month's warning, or a month's wages, was specified. Here are the wages—as to the warning, that has been given for some months past!"

"By whom, Ma'am?"

"By yourself, Mrs. Halsey—I think you understand me. Oscar will take your things as soon as they are ready."

Mrs. Halsey met her steady eye a moment—saw more than she cared to face—and left the room.

She took care, however, to carry some letters to Madam Weatherstone, and meekly announced her discharge; also, by some coincidence, she met Mr. Matthew in the hall upstairs, and weepingly confided her grievance to him, meeting immediate consolation, both sentimental and practical.

When hurried servants were sent to find their young mistress they reported that she must have gone out, and in truth she had; out on her own roof, where she sat quite still, though shivering a little now and then from the new excitement, until dinner time.

This meal, in the mind of Madam Weatherstone, was the crowning factor of daily life; and, on state occasions, of social life. In her cosmogony the central sun was a round mahogany table; all other details of housekeeping revolved about it in varying orbits. To serve an endless series of dignified delicious meals, notably dinners, was, in her eyes, the chief end of woman; the most high purpose of the home.

Therefore, though angry and astounded, she appeared promptly when the meal was announced; and when her daughter-in-law, serene and royally attired, took her place as usual, no emotion was allowed to appear before the purple footman who attended.

"I understood you were out, Viva," she said politely.

"I was," replied Viva, with equal decorum. "It is charming outside at this time in the evening—don't you think so?"

Young Matthew was gloomy and irritable throughout the length and breadth of the meal; and when they were left with their coffee in the drawing room, he broke out, "What's this I hear about Mrs. Halsey being fired without notice?"

"That is what I wish to know, Viva," said the grandmother. "The poor woman is greatly distressed. Is there not some mistake?"

"It's a damn shame," said Matthew.

The younger lady glanced from one to the other, and wondered to see how little she minded it. "The door was there all the time!" she thought to herself, as she looked her stepson in the eye and said, "Hardly drawing-room language, Matthew. Your grandmother is present!"

He stared at her in dumb amazement, so she went on, "No, there is no
mistake at all. I discharged Mrs. Halsey about an hour before dinner.
The terms of the engagement were a month's warning or a month's wages.
I gave her the wages."

"But! but!" Madam Weatherstone was genuinely confused by this sudden inexplicable, yet perfectly polite piece of what she still felt to be in the nature of 'interference' and 'presumption.' "I have had no fault to find with her."

"I have, you see," said her daughter-in-law smiling. "I found her unsatisfactory and shall replace her with something better presently. How about a little music, Matthew? Won't you start the victrolla?"

Matthew wouldn't. He was going out; went out with the word. Madam Weatherstone didn't wish to hear it—had a headache—must go to her room—went to her room forthwith. There was a tension in the athmosphere that would have wrung tears from Viva Weatherstone a week ago, yes, twenty-four hours ago.

As it was she rose to her feet, stretching herself to her full height, and walked the length of the great empty room. She even laughed a little. "It's open!" said she, and ordered the car. While waiting for it she chatted with Mrs. Porne awhile over the all-convenient telephone.

*

Diantha sat at her window, watching the big soft, brilliant moon behind the eucalyptus trees. After the close of the strenuous meeting, she had withdrawn from the crowd of excited women anxious to shake her hand and engage her on the spot, had asked time to consider a number of good opportunities offered, and had survived the cold and angry glances of the now smaller but far more united Home and Culture Club. She declined to talk to the reporters, and took refuge first in an open car. This proved very unsatisfactory, owing to her sudden prominence. Two persistent newspaper men swung themselves upon the car also and insisted on addressing her.

"Excuse me, gentlemen," she said, "I am not acquainted with you."

They eagerly produced their cards—and said they were "newspaper men."

"I see," said Diantha, "But you are still men? And gentlemen, I suppose? I am a woman, and I do not wish to talk with you."

"Miss Bell Declines to Be Interviewed," wrote the reporters, and spent themselves on her personal appearance, being favorably impressed thereby.

But Miss Bell got off at the next corner and took a short cut to the house where she had rented a room. Reporters were waiting there, two being women.

Diantha politely but firmly declined to see them and started for the stairs; but they merely stood in front of her and asked questions. The girl's blood surged to her cheeks; she smiled grimly, kept absolute silence, brushed through them and went swiftly to her room, locking the door after her.

The reporters described her appearance—unfavorably this time; and they described the house—also unfavorably. They said that "A group of adoring-eyed young men stood about the doorway as the flushed heroine of the afternoon made her brusque entrance." These adorers consisted of the landlady's Johnny, aged thirteen, and two satellites of his, still younger. They did look at Diantha admiringly; and she was a little hurried in her entrance—truth must be maintained.

Too irritated and tired to go out for dinner, she ate an orange or two, lay down awhile, and then eased her mind by writing a long letter to Ross and telling him all about it. That is, she told him most of it, all the pleasant things, all the funny things; leaving out about the reporters, because she was too angry to be just, she told herself. She wrote and wrote, becoming peaceful as the quiet moments passed, and a sense grew upon her of the strong, lasting love that was waiting so patiently.

"Dearest," her swift pen flew along, "I really feel much encouraged. An impression has been made. One or two men spoke to me afterward; the young minister, who said such nice things; and one older man, who looked prosperous and reliable. 'When you begin any such business as you have outlined, you may count on me, Miss Bell,' he said, and gave me his card. He's a lawyer—P. L. Wiscomb; nice man, I should think. Another big, sheepish-looking man said, 'And me, Miss Bell.' His name is Thaddler; his wife is very disagreeable. Some of the women are favorably impressed, but the old-fashioned kind—my! 'If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence!'—but it don't."

She wrote herself into a good humor, and dwelt at considerable length on the pleasant episode of the minister and young Mrs. Weatherstone's remarks. "I liked her," she wrote. "She's a nice woman—even if she is rich."

There was a knock at her door. "Lady to see you, Miss."

"I cannot see anyone," said Diantha; "you must excuse me."

"Beg pardon, Miss, but it's not a reporter; it's—." The landlady stretched her lean neck around the door edge and whispered hoarsely, "It's young Mrs. Weatherstone!"

Diantha rose to her feet, a little bewildered. "I'll be right down," she said. But a voice broke in from the hall, "I beg your pardon, Miss Bell, but I took the liberty of coming up; may I come in?"

She came in, and the landlady perforce went out. Mrs. Weatherstone held Diantha's hand warmly, and looked into her eyes. "I was a schoolmate of Ellen Porne," she told the girl. "We are dear friends still; and so I feel that I know you better than you think. You have done beautiful work for Mrs. Porne; now I want you to do to it for me. I need you."

"Won't you sit down?" said Diantha.

"You, too," said Mrs. Weatherstone. "Now I want you to come to
me—right away. You have done me so much good already. I was just a
New England bred school teacher myself at first, so we're even that far.
 Then you took a step up—and I took a step down."

Diantha was a little slow in understanding the quick fervor of this new friend; a trifle suspicious, even; being a cautious soul, and somewhat overstrung, perhaps. Her visitor, bright-eyed and eager, went on. "I gave up school teaching and married a fortune. You have given it up to do a more needed work. I think you are wonderful. Now, I know this seems queer to you, but I want to tell you about it. I feel sure you'll understand. At home, Madam Weatherstone has had everything in charge for years and years, and I've been too lazy or too weak, or too indifferent, to do anything. I didn't care, somehow. All the machinery of living, and no living—no good of it all! Yet there didn't seem to be anything else to do. Now you have waked me all up—your paper this afternoon—what Mr. Eltwood said—the way those poor, dull, blind women took it. And yet I was just as dull and blind myself! Well, I begin to see things now. I can't tell you all at once what a difference it has made; but I have a very definite proposition to make to you. Will you come and be my housekeeper, now—right away—at a hundred dollars a month?"

Diantha opened her eyes wide and looked at the eager lady as if she suspected her nervous balance.

"The other one got a thousand a year—you are worth more. Now, don't decline, please. Let me tell you about it. I can see that you have plans ahead, for this business; but it can't hurt you much to put them off six months, say. Meantime, you could be practicing. Our place at Santa Ulrica is almost as big as this one; there are lots of servants and a great, weary maze of accounts to be kept, and it wouldn't be bad practice for you—now, would it?"

Diantha's troubled eyes lit up. "No—you are right there," she said.
"If I could do it!"

"You'll have to do just that sort of thing when you are running your business, won't you?" her visitor went on. "And the summer's not a good time to start a thing like that, is it?"

Diantha meditated. "No, I wasn't going to. I was going to start somewhere—take a cottage, a dozen girls or so—and furnish labor by the day to the other cottages."

"Well, you might be able to run that on the side," said Mrs. Weatherstone. "And you could train my girls, get in new ones if you like; it doesn't seem to me it would conflict. But to speak to you quite frankly, Miss Bell, I want you in the house for my own sake. You do me good."

They discussed the matter for some time, Diantha objecting mainly to the suddenness of it all. "I'm a slow thinker," she said, "and this is so—so attractive that I'm suspicious of it. I had the other thing all planned—the girls practically engaged."

"Where were you thinking of going?" asked Mrs. Weatherstone.

"To Santa Ulrica."

"Exactly! Well, you shall have your cottage and our girls and give them part time. Or—how many have you arranged with?"

"Only six have made definite engagements yet."

"What kind?"

"Two laundresses, a cook and three second maids; all good ones."

"Excellent! Now, I tell you what to do. I will engage all those girls. I'm making a change at the house, for various reasons. You bring them to me as soon as you like; but you I want at once. I wish you'd come home with me to-night! Why don't you?"

Diantha's scanty baggage was all in sight. She looked around for an excuse. Mrs. Weatherstone stood up laughing.

"Put the new address in the letter," she said, mischievously, "and come along!"

*

And the purple chauffeur, his disapproving back ineffectual in the darkness, rolled them home.

THE ROOM AT THE TOP

There is room at the top?
Ah yes! Were you ever there?
Do you know what they bear
Whose struggle does not stop
Till they reach the room at the top?

Think you first of the way,
How long from the bottom round,—
From the safe, warm, common ground
In the light of the common day—
'Tis a long way. A dark way.

And think of the fight.
It is not so hard to stand
And strive off the broad free land;
But to climb in the wind and night,
And fight,—and climb,—and fight!

And the top when you enter in!
Ah! the fog! The frost! The dark!
And the hateful voices—hark!
O the comfort that you win!
Yes, there's room at the top. Come in!

OUR ANDROCENTRIC CULTURE; or, THE MAN-MADE WORLD

VIII.

EDUCATION.

The origin of education is maternal. The mother animal is seen to teach her young what she knows of life, its gains and losses; and, whether consciously done or not, this is education. In our human life, education, even in its present state, is the most important process. Without it we could not maintain ourselves, much less dominate and improve conditions as we do; and when education is what it should be, our power will increase far beyond present hopes.

In lower animals, speaking generally, the powers of the race must be lodged in each individual. No gain of personal experience is of avail to the others. No advantages remain, save those physically transmitted. The narrow limits of personal gain and personal inheritance rigidly hem in sub-human progress. With us, what one learns may be taught to the others. Our life is social, collective. Our gain is for all, and profits us in proportion as we extend it to all. As the human soul develops in us, we become able to grasp more fully our common needs and advantages; and with this growth has come the extension of education to the people as a whole. Social functions are developed under natural laws, like physical ones, and may be studied similarly.

In the evolution of this basic social function, what has been the effect of wholly masculine influence?

The original process, instruction of individual child by individual mother, has been largely neglected in our man-made world. That was considered as a subsidiary sex-function of the woman, and as such, left to her "instinct." This is the main reason why we show such great progress in education for older children, and especially for youths, and so little comparatively in that given to little ones.

We have had on the one side the natural current of maternal education, with its first assistant, the nursemaid, and its second, the "dame-school"; and on the other the influence of the dominant class, organized in university, college, and public school, slowly filtering downward.

Educational forces are many. The child is born into certain conditions, physical and psychic, and "educated" thereby. He grows up into social, political and economic conditions, and is further modified by them. All these conditions, so far, have been of androcentric character; but what we call education as a special social process is what the child is deliberately taught and subjected to; and it is here we may see the same dominant influence so clearly.

This conscious education was, for long, given to boys alone, the girls being left to maternal influence, each to learn what her mother knew, and no more. This very clear instance of the masculine theory is glaring enough by itself to rest a case on. It shows how absolute was the assumption that the world was composed of men, and men alone were to be fitted for it. Women were no part of the world, and needed no training for its uses. As females they were born and not made; as human beings they were only servants, trained as such by their servant mothers.

This system of education we are outgrowing more swiftly with each year. The growing humanness of women, and its recognition, is forcing an equal education for boy and girl. When this demand was first made, by women of unusual calibre, and by men sufficiently human to overlook sex-prejudice, how was it met? What was the attitude of woman's "natural protector" when she began to ask some share in human life?

Under the universal assumption that men alone were humanity, that the world was masculine and for men only, the efforts of the women were met as a deliberate attempt to "unsex" themselves and become men. To be a woman was to be ignorant, uneducated; to be wise, educated, was to be a man. Women were not men, visibly; therefore they could not be educated, and ought not to want to be.

Under this androcentric prejudice, the equal extension of education to women was opposed at every step, and is still opposed by many. Seeing in women only sex, and not humanness, they would confine her exclusively to feminine interests. This is the masculine view, par excellence. In spite of it, the human development of women, which so splendidly characterizes our age, has gone on; and now both woman's colleges and those for both sexes offer "the higher education" to our girls, as well as the lower grades in school and kindergarten.

In the special professional training, the same opposition was experienced, even more rancorous and cruel. One would think that on the entrance of a few straggling and necessarily inferior feminine beginners into a trade or profession, those in possession would extend to them the right hand of fellowship, as comrades, extra assistance as beginners, and special courtesy as women.

The contrary occurred. Women were barred out, discriminated against, taken advantage of, as competitors; and as women they have had to meet special danger and offence instead of special courtesy. An unforgettable instance of this lies in the attitude of the medical colleges toward women students. The men, strong enough, one would think, in numbers, in knowledge, in established precedent, to be generous, opposed the newcomers first with absolute refusal; then, when the patient, persistent applicants did get inside, both students and teachers met them not only with unkindness and unfairness, but with a weapon ingeniously well chosen, and most discreditable—namely, obscenity. Grave professors, in lecture and clinic, as well as grinning students, used offensive language, and played offensive tricks, to drive the women out—a most androcentric performance.

Remember that the essential masculine attitude is one of opposition, of combat; his desire is obtained by first overcoming a competitor; and then see how this dominant masculinity stands out where it has no possible use or benefit—in the field of education. All along the line, man, long master of a subject sex, fought every step of woman toward mental equality. Nevertheless, since modern man has become human enough to be just, he has at last let her have a share in the advantages of education; and she has proven her full power to appreciate and use these advantages.

Then to-day rises a new cry against "women in education." Here is Mr. Barrett Wendell, of Harvard, solemnly claiming that teaching women weakens the intellect of the teacher, and every now and then bursts out a frantic sputter of alarm over the "feminization" of our schools. It is true that the majority of teachers are now women. It is true that they do have an influence on growing children. It would even seem to be true that that is largely what women are for.

But the male assumes his influence to be normal, human, and the female influence as wholly a matter of sex; therefore, where women teach boys, the boys become "effeminate"—a grievous fall. When men teach girls, do the girls become ——-? Here again we lack the analogue. Never has it occurred to the androcentric mind to conceive of such a thing as being too masculine. There is no such word! It is odd to notice that which ever way the woman is placed, she is supposed to exert this degrading influence; if the teacher, she effeminizes her pupils; if the pupil, she effeminizes her teachers.

Now let us shake ourselves free, if only for a moment, from the androcentric habit of mind.

As a matter of sex, the female is the more important. Her share of the processes which sex distinction serves is by far the greater. To be feminine—if one were nothing else, is a far more extensive and dignified office than to be masculine—and nothing else.

But as a matter of humanity the male of our species is at present far ahead of the female. By this superior humanness, his knowledge, his skill, his experience, his organization and specialization, he makes and manages the world. All this is human, not male. All this is as open to the woman as the man by nature, but has been denied her during our androcentric culture.

But even if, in a purely human process, such as education, she does bring her special feminine characteristics to bear, what are they, and what are the results?

We can see the masculine influence everywhere still dominant and superior. There is the first spur, Desire, the base of the reward system, the incentive of self-interest, the attitude which says, "Why should I make an effort unless it will give me pleasure?" with its concomitant laziness, unwillingness to work without payment. There is the second spur, Combat, the competitive system, which sets one against another, and finds pleasure not in learning, not exercising the mind, but in getting ahead of one's fellows. Under these two wholly masculine influences we have made the educational process a joy to the few who successfully attain, and a weary effort, with failure and contumely attached, to all the others. This may be a good method in sex-competition, but is wholly out of place and mischievous in education. Its prevalence shows the injurious masculization of this noble social process.

What might we look for in a distinctly feminine influence? What are these much-dreaded feminine characteristics?

The maternal ones, of course. The sex instincts of the male are of a preliminary nature, leading merely to the union preceding parenthood. The sex instincts of the female cover a far larger field, spending themselves most fully in the lasting love, the ceaseless service, the ingenuity and courage of efficient motherhood. To feminize education would be to make it more motherly. The mother does not rear her children by a system of prizes to be longed for and pursued; nor does she set them to compete with one another, giving to the conquering child what he needs, and to the vanquished, blame and deprivation. That would be "unfeminine."

Motherhood does all it knows to give to each child what is most needed, to teach all to their fullest capacity, to affectionately and efficiently develop the whole of them.

But this is not what is meant by those who fear so much the influence of women. Accustomed to a wholly male standard of living, to masculine ideals, virtues, methods and conditions, they say—and say with some justice—that feminine methods and ideals would be destructive to what they call "manliness." For instance, education to-day is closely interwoven with games and sports, all of an excessively masculine nature. "The education of a boy is carried on largely on the playground!" say the objectors to women teachers. Women cannot join them there; therefore, they cannot educate them.

What games are these in which women cannot join? There are forms of fighting, of course, violent and fierce, modern modifications of the instinct of sex-combat. It is quite true that women are not adapted, or inclined, to baseball or football or any violent game. They are perfectly competent to take part in all normal athletic development, the human range of agility and skill is open to them, as everyone knows who has been to the circus; but they are not built for physical combat; nor do they find ceaseless pleasure in throwing, hitting or kicking things.

But is it true that these strenuous games have the educational value attributed to them? It seems like blasphemy to question it. The whole range of male teachers, male pupils, male critics and spectators, are loud in their admiration for the "manliness" developed by the craft, courage, co-ordinative power and general "sportsmanship" developed by the game of football, for instance; that a few young men are killed and many maimed, is nothing in comparison to these advantages.

Let us review the threefold distinction on which this whole study rests, between masculine, feminine and human. Grant that woman, being feminine, cannot emulate man in being masculine—and does not want to. Grant that the masculine qualities have their use and value, as well as feminine ones. There still remain the human qualities shared by both, owned by neither, most important of all. Education is a human process, and should develop human qualities—not sex qualities. Surely our boys are sufficiently masculine, without needing a special education to make them more so.

The error lies here. A strictly masculine world, proud of its own sex and despising the other, seeing nothing in the world but sex, either male or female, has "viewed with alarm" the steady and rapid growth of humanness. Here, for instance, is a boy visibly tending to be an artist, a musician, a scientific discoverer. Here is another boy not particularly clever in any line, nor ambitious for any special work, though he means in a general way to "succeed"; he is, however, a big, husky fellow, a good fighter, mischievous as a monkey, and strong in the virtues covered by the word "sportsmanship." This boy we call "a fine manly fellow."

We are quite right. He is. He is distinctly and excessively male, at the expense of his humanness. He may make a more prepotent sire than the other, though even that is not certain; he may, and probably will, appeal more strongly to the excessively feminine girl, who has even less humanness than he; but he is not therefore a better citizen.

The advance of civilization calls for human qualities, in both men and women. Our educational system is thwarted and hindered, not as Prof. Wendell and his life would have us believe, by "feminization," but by an overweening masculization.

Their position is a simple one. "We are men. Men are human beings. Women are only women. This is a man's world. To get on in it you must do it man-fashion—i.e., fight, and overcome the others. Being civilized, in part, we must arrange a sort of "civilized warfare," and learn to play the game, the old crude, fierce male game of combat, and we must educate our boys thereto." No wonder education was denied to women. No wonder their influence is dreaded by an ultra-masculine culture.

It will change the system in time. It will gradually establish an equal place in life for the feminine characteristics, so long belittled and derided, and give pre-eminent dignity to the human power.

Physical culture, for both boys and girls, will be part of such a modified system. All things that both can do together will be accepted as human; but what either boys or girls have to retire apart to practice will be frankly called masculine and feminine, and not encouraged in children.

The most important qualities are the human ones, and will be so named and honored. Courage is a human quality, not a sex-quality. What is commonly called courage in male animals is mere belligerence, the fighting instinct. To meet an adversary of his own sort is a universal masculine trait; two father cats may fight fiercely each other, but both will run from a dog as quickly as a mother cat. She has courage enough, however, in defence of her kittens.

What this world most needs to-day in both men and women, is the power to recognize our public conditions; to see the relative importance of measures; to learn the processes of constructive citizenship. We need an education which shall give its facts in the order of their importance; morals and manners based on these facts; and train our personal powers with careful selection, so that each may best serve the community.

At present, in the larger processes of extra-scholastic education, the advantage is still with the boy. From infancy we make the gross mistake of accentuating sex in our children, by dress and all its limitations, by special teaching of what is "ladylike" and "manly." The boy is allowed a freedom of experience far beyond the girl. He learns more of his town and city, more of machinery, more of life, passing on from father to son the truths as well as traditions of sex superiority.

All this is changing before our eyes, with the advancing humanness of women. Not yet, however, has their advance affected, to any large extent, the base of all education; the experience of a child's first years. Here is where the limitations of women have checked race progress most thoroughly. Here hereditary influence was constantly offset by the advance of the male. Social selection did develop higher types of men, though sex-selection reversed still insisted on primitive types of women. But the educative influence of these primitive women, acting most exclusively on the most susceptible years of life, has been a serious deterrent to race progress.

Here is the dominant male, largely humanized, yet still measuring life from male standards. He sees women only as a sex. (Note here the criticism of Europeans on American women. "Your women are so sexless!" they say, meaning merely that our women have human qualities as well as feminine.) And children he considers as part and parcel of the same domain, both inferior classes, "women and children."

I recall in Rimmer's beautiful red chalk studies, certain profiles of man, woman and child, and careful explanation that the proportion of the woman's face and head were far more akin to the child than to the man. What Mr. Rimmer should have shown, and could have, by profuse illustration, was that the faces of boy and girl differ but slightly, and the faces of old men and women differ as little, sometimes not at all; while the face of the woman approximates the human more closely than that of the man; while the child, representing race more than sex, is naturally more akin to her than to him. The male reserves more primitive qualities, the hairiness, the more pugnacious jaw; the female is nearer to the higher human types.

An ultra-male selection has chosen women for their femininity first, and next for qualities of submissiveness and patient service bred by long ages of servility.

This servile womanhood, or the idler and more excessively feminine type, has never appreciated the real power and place of the mother, and has never been able to grasp or to carry out any worthy system of education for little children. Any experienced teacher, man or woman, will own how rare it is to find a mother capable of a dispassionate appreciation of educative values. Books in infant education and child culture generally are read by teachers more than mothers, so our public libraries prove. The mother-instinct, quite suitable and sufficient in animals, is by no means equal to the requirements of civilized life. Animal motherhood furnishes a fresh wave of devotion for each new birth; primitive human motherhood extends that passionate tenderness over the growing family for a longer period; but neither can carry education beyond its rudiments.

So accustomed are we to our world-old method of entrusting the first years of the child to the action of untaught, unbridled mother-instinct, that suggestions as to a better education for babies are received with the frank derision of massed ignorance.

That powerful and brilliant writer, Mrs. Josephine Daskam Bacon, among others has lent her able pen to ridicule and obstruct the gradual awakening of human intelligence in mothers, the recognition that babies are no exception to the rest of us in being better off for competent care and service. It seems delightfully absurd to these reactionaries that ages of human progress should be of any benefit to babies, save, indeed, as their more human fathers, specialized and organized, are able to provide them with better homes and a better world to grow up in. The idea that mothers, more human, should specialize and organize as well, and extend to their babies these supreme advantages, is made a laughing stock.

It is easy and profitable to laugh with the majority; but in the judgment of history, those who do so, hold unenviable positions. The time is coming when the human mother will recognize the educative possibilities of early childhood, learn that the ability to rightly teach little children is rare and precious, and be proud and glad to avail themselves of it.

We shall then see a development of the most valuable human qualities in our children's minds such as would now seem wildly Utopian. We shall learn from wide and long experience to anticipate and provide for the steps of the unfolding mind, and train it, through carefully prearranged experiences, to a power of judgment, of self-control, of social perception, now utterly unthought of.

Such an education would begin at birth; yes, far before it, in the standards of a conscious human motherhood. It would require a quite different status of wifehood, womanhood, girlhood. It would be wholly impossible if we were never to outgrow our androcentric culture.

COMMENT AND REVIEW

With the May issue of the American Magazine closes the first set of papers on "The American Woman," by Miss Ida Tarbell. She has to a high degree the historian's power to collate facts and so marshall them as to give a clear picture of the time and scenes in question. I always read her work with admiration and respect, also with enjoyment, personal and professional. The strong, far-seeing mind at work; the direct style; and the value of the subject matter, place this writer high among our present day teachers.

For these reasons I was wholly unprepared for the painful shock caused by reading the opening page in the March number of these articles. Preceding issues had treated of the rise of the Equal Suffrage movement in this country; while not wholly sympathetic, these were fair, and ably treated.

The March number begins: "What was the American Woman doing in the '40's and '50's that she went on her way so serenely while a few of her sex struggled and suffered to gain for her what they believed to be her rights?" And she goes on to show for what reason she kept out of the Woman's Rights Movement, "reasons, on the whole, simple and noble."

Here are the reasons.

"She was too much occupied with preserving and developing the great traditions of life she had inherited and accepted. . . . She was firmly convinced that these traditions were the best the world had so far developed, not merely for women, but for society. She did not deny that women had not the full opportunity they should have; but as she saw it, no more did men. She saw civil and educational and social changes going on about her. She feared their coming too fast rather than too slow.

"And it was no unworthy thing that she was doing. Take that part of her life so often spoken of with contempt—her social life. Those who would pass society by as a frivolous and unworthy institution are those who have never learned its real functions—who confuse the selfish business of amusement with the serious task of providing an intimate circle for the free exchange of ideals and of service, for stimulus and enjoyment.

"It is through society that the quickening of mind and heart best comes about—that the nature is aroused, the fancy heightened. It is the very foundation of civilization—society. The church and state work through it. Morals are made and unmade in it. Ideas find life or death there."

The italics are mine.

For so clear-headed a woman as Miss Tarbell to commit herself to statements like these was a keen disappointment to a sincere admirer. I have quoted at length that there may be no mistake as to her meaning. The "society" referred to is unmistakably that business of exchanging entertainments which most of us do pass by as "a frivolous and unworthy institution;" but which some find the sufficient occupation of a lifetime.

That human intercourse is profoundly important no one will deny; we know that contact and exchange does quicken the mind and heart, does give stimulus and enjoyment. It is even true in a large sociological sense that human intercourse is the foundation of civilization. But to call "society" the foundation of civilization does seem like putting a very long train of carts before the horse.

Women who work for suffrage, like other women, and men also, need to meet other people, need relaxation, need the stimulus of contact with differing minds, and get it. Being a suffragist is not like being a leper—or a pauper—or excommunicated. There is nothing about the belief itself to cut off the believer from her kind, and make it impossible to invite her to dinner.

"Society" is of course averse to meeting persons who talk seriously of important things. We are all taught as children that religion and politics must not be discussed in society—and the cause of woman suffrage is often both.

"The selfish business of amusement" is so predominant in "society" that amusing people are the preferred guests; and if some earnest and noteworthy person is drawn into "society" as a temporary exhibit, he is expected to be amusing if he can, and not talk "shop."

It may be admitted at once that Miss Tarbell's main contention is true. It was of course because most women were so occupied in "preserving and developing the great traditions of life" that they could not open their minds to new convictions. They were of course suspicious of change, so is the mass of people at all times, in proportion to their ignorance. The deadening effect of a ceaseless round of housework keeps most women from grasping general issues of importance; and the deadening effect of a ceaseless round of entertainments does the same thing to the few who represent "society." But to have that "society" presented to us as a noble soul-satisfying rightfully exclusive occupation, is a shock.

If it is a natural, simple right form of meeting together it is in no way forbidding to woman suffragists. If it is the "round of gaieties" to which our newspapers give columns—how does it accomplish all those invaluable achievements Miss Tarbell enumerates?

What are the occupations of "society?" Its members are always getting together in expensive clothes, to visit and receive, to eat and drink, to ride and drive, to dance and play games, to go to the opera; and to travel from town to country, from beach to mountain, from land to land, to repeat these things or to hire some one to invent new ones. But these pleasures cannot be in themselves the foundation of civilization! The "exchange of ideals and service" alleged to take place in "society" must be in conversation! It is by this medium that we get our minds and hearts quickened—our natures aroused—our fancy heightened—that the ideas find life and death, and morals are made and unmade.

During which process of "society" does the conversation which promotes the exchange of ideals and service best come about? Is it in the talk of women who are "paying calls?" Is it in the talk at a "tea" or reception? Is it in the talk at a luncheon or a dinner? Is it in the talk over the card-table, or while dancing? Is it in talk at the horse-show or opera? (The pressure of ideas in society is so great that its members do converse at the opera.)

Surely it cannot be "society" which Miss Tarbell means! She must mean human intercourse—the meeting of congenial minds. But no; that is open to the suffragist as well as to any; and no one ever called it a frivolous and unworthy institution.

The meaning is clear enough, but the claims made are to say the least unconvincing.

PERSONAL PROBLEMS

My own, partly personal and partly professional.

Q. Why don't people send questions to this department?

A. 1. Because it does not interest them.

A. 2. Because they have no problems.

A. 3. Because they see no reason to expect satisfactory answers.

A. 4. Because they do not understand that questions are asked for.

Now if any of the first three answers are correct, there is nothing to be said—and no use for this department.

But if its the last—herein it is stated that the purpose of this department is to seriously discuss real "personal problems" such as do arise in most lives; and to which neither the minister nor Ruth Ashmore do justice.

It is not proposed to furnish absolute wisdom; only comparative.

One question was considered in the January issue; and a very earnest letter of inquiry was answered at great length for this number but proved too long—will appear in July.

What has always been a problem to me is how people can be alive and take so little interest in the performance.

Here is Life—Death—and a discussable Immortality. Here is Love—of all kinds and sizes. Here is Happiness—so big that you can't swallow it; and Pain—an unlimited assortment.

Here are Things Going On—all kinds of things.

And here are we—making button holes in the back parlor—breaking our heads in a sham fight in the back yard!

Question. Why don't people wake up and LIVE! World-size?

Answer ……………………..

Some of you send an answer!

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What is The Forerunner? It is a monthly magazine, publishing stories short and serial, article and essay; drama, verse, satire and sermon; dialogue, fable and fantasy, comment and review. It is written entirely by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

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AS TO CONTENTS:

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"Our Androcentric Culture." this is a study of the historic effect on normal human development of a too exclusively masculine civilization. It shows what man, the male, has done to the world: and what woman, the more human, may do to change it.

"What Diantha Did." This is a serial novel. It shows the course of true love running very crookedly—as it so often does—among the obstructions and difficulties of the housekeeping problem—and solves that problem. (NOT by co-operation.)

Among the short articles will appear:

"Private Morality and Public Immorality."
"The Beauty Women Have Lost"
"Our Overworked Instincts."
"The Nun in the Kitchen."
"Genius: Domestic and Maternal."
"A Small God and a Large Goddess."
"Animals in Cities."
"How We Waste Three-Fourths Of Our Money."
"Prize Children"
"Kitchen-Mindedness"
"Parlor-Mindedness"
"Nursery-Mindedness"

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THE FORERUNNER

A MONTHLY MAGAZINE BY

CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN
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1.00 A YEAR .10 A COPY Volume 1. No. 9 JULY, 1910 Copyright for 1910 C. P. Gilman

Genus Homo is superior to all other animal species.
Granted. The superiority is due to some things—and in spite of others.