FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97  
98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   >>   >|  
genius of its womanhood and homes. And when a woman does these things, as called of God--not talks of them, as to whether she may make claim to do them--she carries a weight from the very sanctity out of which she steps, as woman, that moves men unlike the moving of any other power. Shall she resign the chance of doing really great things, of meeting grand crises, by making herself common in ward-rooms and at street-corners, and abolishing the perfect idea of home by no longer consecrating herself to it? If individual woman, as has been said, may gain and influence individual man, and so the man-power in affairs--a body of women, purely as such, with cause, and plea, and reason, can always have the ear and attention of bodies of men; but to do this they must come straight from their home sanctities, as representing them--as able to represent them otherwise than men, because of their hearth-priestesshood; not as politicians, bred and hardened in the public arenas. That the family is the heart of the state, and that the state is but the widened family, is the fact which the old vestal consecration, power, and honor set forth and kept in mind. The voice which has of late been so generally conceded to women in town, decisions as regarding public schools, is an instance of the fittingness of relegating to them certain interests of which they should know more than men, because--applying the key-test with which we have started--it has direct relation to and springs from their motherhood. But can one help suggesting that if the movement had been to place women, merely and directly, upon the committees, by votes of men who saw that this work might be in great part best done by them; if women had asked and offered for the place without the jostle of the town-meeting, or putting in that wedge for the ballot--the thing might have been as readily done, and the objection, or political precedent, avoided. It is not the real opportunity, when that arises or shows itself in the line of her life-law, that is to be refused for woman. It is the taking from internal power to add to external complication of machinery and to the friction of strife. Let us just touch upon some of the current arguments concerning these external impositions which one set is demanding and the other entreating
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97  
98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

individual

 

public

 

family

 

things

 

external

 
meeting
 

machinery

 

motherhood

 

schools

 
direct

relation

 
springs
 

decisions

 

demanding

 

movement

 

suggesting

 

complication

 

friction

 

fittingness

 

interests


applying

 

instance

 

started

 

entreating

 

strife

 

relegating

 

directly

 

jostle

 

opportunity

 

putting


arises

 
arguments
 

ballot

 

current

 

avoided

 
precedent
 

political

 

readily

 

objection

 

offered


refused

 

impositions

 

committees

 

taking

 

internal

 

politicians

 
crises
 

making

 

common

 

resign