tal subjection, and ecclesiastically
assigned inferiority, woman has been bred to servility in mind and
morals. She does not need training in the tricks of caucus and
wire-pulling politics, but she does need freedom and choice of action
that will give her the powers of her own mind and nature in full
possession, as a woman.
She does not need that men shall instruct her what a woman ought to
be, but she needs to be let alone to find out for herself this
precious and important knowledge.
It is not an incident or an accident that the agitation of woman's
advancement and the agitation of industrial reform are simultaneous
movements. The priority of woman's demand for equal rights before the
law in this country, has placed woman in literature, on the platform,
in the press, and even in the political field of action, in the
position of co-worker with man to achieve the highest outcome and
greatest blessing of civilization, the right of every person to an
opportunity to achieve subsistence, and the right of every worker to
the full reward of his labor.
Already in Kaweah Colony in California, woman is an equal participator
in the administration of affairs. She has equal opportunity to achieve
subsistence and equal pay for her labor.
The star of equity, justice, and fraternity, is shining in the west.
When the fraternal order of society is established, woman as mother
will be, in her training and her conception of her high office, and in
the position and advantage provided for her, exalted as the artist of
humanity.
She will be so furnished mentally, and so provided for materially,
that she can furnish to her babes what no textbooks, or Scripture, or
statutes can convey to them. The mother who can recite to her children
the songs of the American poets, the character of Dickens, and Eliot,
and Scott, who can portray the noble characters of Lincoln and
Lucretia Mott, who is able to devote the time required to entertain
her children, will become the most effective moral educator.
The woman of the good time coming will not hold lightly the moral
education of labor, for she will learn that many solid virtues are
carved into the beautiful character by the blessed exercise that
manual industry and regular duties alone can furnish.
But she will have leisure also to cultivate the finer sentiments, and
paint for the admiration of her babes the grand ideals of noble
manhood and womanhood.
Two problems belong to the woman
|