A group of younger women, under Diantha's sympathetic encouragement, agreed to take a small cottage together, with Mrs. James as a species of chaperone; and to go out in twos and threes as chambermaids and waitresses at 25 cents an hour. Two of them could set in perfect order one of the small beach cottage in an hour's time; and the occupants, already crowded for room, were quite willing to pay a little more in cash "not to have a servant around." Most of them took their meals out in any case.

It was a modest attempt, elastic and easily alterable and based on the special conditions of a shore resort: Mrs. Weatherstone's known interest gave it social backing; and many ladies who heartily disapproved of Diantha's theories found themselves quite willing to profit by this very practical local solution of the "servant question."

The "club girls" became very popular. Across the deep hot sand they ploughed, and clattered along the warping boardwalks, in merry pairs and groups, finding the work far more varied and amusing than the endless repetition in one household. They had pleasant evenings too, with plenty of callers, albeit somewhat checked and chilled by rigorous Mrs. James.

"It is both foolish and wicked!" said Madam Weatherstone to her daughter-in-law, "Exposing a group of silly girls to such danger and temptations! I understand there is singing and laughing going on at that house until half-past ten at night."

"Yes, there is," Viva admitted. "Mrs. James insists that they shall all be in bed at eleven—which is very wise. I'm glad they have good times—there's safety in numbers, you know."

"There will be a scandal in this community before long!" said the old lady solemnly. "And it grieves me to think that this household will be responsible for it!"

Diantha heard all this from the linen room while Madam Weatherstone buttonholed her daughter-in-law in the hall; and in truth the old lady meant that she should hear what she said.

"She's right, I'm afraid!" said Diantha to herself—"there will be a scandal if I'm not mighty careful and this household will be responsible for it!"

Even as she spoke she caught Ilda's childish giggle in the lower hall, and looking over the railing saw her airily dusting the big Chinese vases and coquetting with young Mr. Mathew.

Later on, Diantha tried seriously to rouse her conscience and her common sense. "Don't you see, child, that it can't do you anything but harm? You can't carry on with a man like that as you can with one of your own friends. He is not to be trusted. One nice girl I had here simply left the place—he annoyed her so."

Ilda was a little sulky. She had been quite a queen in the small Norwegian village she was born in. Young men were young men—and they might even—perhaps! This severe young housekeeper didn't know everything. Maybe she was jealous!

So Ilda was rather unconvinced, though apparently submissive, and Diantha kept a careful eye upon her. She saw to it that Ilda's room had a bolt as well as key in the door, and kept the room next to it empty; frequently using it herself, unknown to anyone. "I hate to turn the child off," she said to herself, conscientiously revolving the matter. "She isn't doing a thing more than most girls do—she's only a little fool. And he's not doing anything I can complain of—yet."

But she worried over it a good deal, and Mrs. Weatherstone noticed it.

"Doesn't your pet club house go well, 'Miss Bell?' You seem troubled about something."

"I am," Diantha admitted. "I believe I'll have to tell you about it—but I hate to. Perhaps if you'll come and look I shan't have to say much."

She led her to a window that looked on the garden, the rich, vivid, flower-crowded garden of Southern California by the sea. Little Ilda, in a fresh black frock and snowy, frilly cap and apron, ran out to get a rose; and while she sniffed and dallied they saw Mr. Mathew saunter out and join her.

The girl was not as severe with him as she ought to have been—that was evident; but it was also evident that she was frightened and furious when he suddenly held her fast and kissed her with much satisfaction. As soon as her arms were free she gave him a slap that sounded smartly even at that distance; and ran crying into the house.

"She's foolish, I admit," said Diantha,—"but she doesn't realize her danger at all. I've tried to make her. And now I'm more worried than ever. It seems rather hard to discharge her—she needs care."

"I'll speak to that young man myself," said Mrs. Weatherstone. "I'll speak to his grandmother too!"

"O—would you?" urged Diantha. "She wouldn't believe anything except that the girl 'led him on'—you know that. But I have an idea that we could convince her—if you're willing to do something rather melodramatic—and I think we'd better do it to-night!"

"What's that?" asked her employer; and Diantha explained. It was melodramatic, but promised to be extremely convincing.

"Do you think he'd dare! under my roof?" hotly demanded Madam Weatherstone.

"I'm very much afraid it wouldn't be the first time," Diantha reluctantly assured her. "It's no use being horrified. But if we could only make sure—"

"If we could only make his grandmother sure!" cried Madam Weatherstone. "That would save me a deal of trouble and misunderstanding. See here—I think I can manage it—what makes you think it's to-night?"

"I can't be absolutely certain—" Diantha explained; and told her the reasons she had.

"It does look so," her employer admitted. "We'll try it at any rate."

Urging her mother-in-law's presence on the ground of needing her experienced advice, Mrs. Weatherstone brought the august lady to the room next to Ilda's late that evening, the housekeeper in attendance.

"We mustn't wake the servants," she said in an elaborate whisper. "They need sleep, poor things! But I want to consult you about these communicating doors and the locksmith is coming in the morning.—you see this opens from this side." She turned the oiled key softly in the lock. "Now Miss Bell thinks they ought to be left so—so that the girls can visit one another if they like—what do you think?"

"I think you are absurd to bring me to the top floor, at this time of night, for a thing like this!" said the old lady. "They should be permanently locked, to my mind! There's no question about it."

Viva, still in low tones, discussed this point further; introduced the subject of wall-paper or hard finish; pointed out from the window a tall eucalyptus which she thought needed heading; did what she could to keep her mother-in-law on the spot; and presently her efforts were rewarded.

A sound of muffled speech came from the next room—a man's voice dimly heard. Madam Weatherstone raised her head like a warhorse.

"What's this! What's this!" she said in a fierce whisper.

Viva laid a hand on her arm. "Sh!" said she. "Let us make sure!" and she softly unlatched the door.

A brilliant moon flooded the small chamber. They could see little Ilda, huddled in the bedclothes, staring at her door from which the key had fallen. Another key was being inserted—turned—but the bolt held.

"Come and open it, young lady!" said a careful voice outside.

"Go away! Go away!" begged the girl, low and breathlessly. "Oh how can you! Go away quick!"

"Indeed, I won't!" said the voice. "You come and open it."

"Go away," she cried, in a soft but frantic voice. "I—I'll scream!"

"Scream away!" he answered. "I'll just say I came up to see what the screaming's about, that's all. You open the door—if you don't want anybody to know I'm here! I won't hurt you any—I just want to talk to you a minute."

Madam Weatherstone was speechless with horror, her daughter-in-law listened with set lips. Diantha looked from one to the other, and at the frightened child before them who was now close to the terrible door.

"O please!—please! go away!" she cried in desperation. "O what shall I do! What shall I do!"

"You can't do anything," he answered cheerfully. "And I'm coming in anyhow. You'd better keep still about this for your own sake. Stand from under!" Madam Weatherstone marched into the room. Ilda, with a little cry, fled out of it to Diantha.

There was a jump, a scramble, two knuckly hands appeared, a long leg was put through the transom, two legs wildly wriggling, a descending body, and there stood before them, flushed, dishevelled, his coat up to his ears—Mat Weatherstone.

He did not notice the stern rigidity of the figure which stood between him and the moonlight, but clasped it warmly to his heart.—"Now I've got you, Ducky!" cried he, pressing all too affectionate kisses upon the face of his grandmother.

Young Mrs. Weatherstone turned on the light.

It was an embarrassing position for the gentleman.

He had expected to find a helpless cowering girl; afraid to cry out because her case would be lost if she did; begging piteously that he would leave her; wholly at his mercy.

What he did find was so inexplicable as to reduce him to gibbering astonishment. There stood his imposing grandmother, so overwhelmed with amazement that her trenchant sentences failed her completely; his stepmother, wearing an expression that almost suggested delight in his discomfiture; and Diantha, as grim as Rhadamanthus.

Poor little Ilda burst into wild sobs and choking explanations, clinging to Diantha's hand. "If I'd only listened to you!" she said. "You told me he was bad! I never thought he'd do such an awful thing!"

Young Mathew fumbled at the door. He had locked it outside in his efforts with the pass-key. He was red, red to his ears—very red, but there was no escape. He faced them—there was no good in facing the door.

They all stood aside and let him pass—a wordless gauntlet.

Diantha took the weeping Ilda to her room for the night. Madam Weatherstone and Mrs. Weatherstone went down together.

"She must have encouraged him!" the older lady finally burst forth.

"She did not encourage him to enter her room, as you saw and heard," said Viva with repressed intensity.

"He's only a boy!" said his grandmother.

"She is only a child, a helpless child, a foreigner, away from home, untaught, unprotected," Viva answered swiftly; adding with quiet sarcasm—"Save for the shelter of the home!"

They parted in silence.



WE EAT AT HOME

RONDEAU

We eat at home; we do not care Of what insanitary fare; So long as Mother makes the pie, Content we live, content we die, And proudly our dyspepsia bear.

Straight from our furred forefather's lair The instinct comes of feeding there; And still unmoved by progress high We eat at home.

In wasteful ignorance we buy Alone; alone our food we fry; What though a tenfold cost we bear, The doctor's bill, the dentist's chair? Still without ever asking why We eat at home.



OUR ANDROCENTRIC CULTURE; or, THE MAN-MADE WORLD

IX.

"SOCIETY" AND "FASHION"

Among our many naive misbeliefs is the current fallacy that "society" is made by women; and that women are responsible for that peculiar social manifestation called "fashion."

Men and women alike accept this notion; the serious essayist and philosopher, as well as the novelist and paragrapher, reflect it in their pages. The force of inertia acts in the domain of psychics as well as physics; any idea pushed into the popular mind with considerable force will keep on going until some opposing force—or the slow resistance of friction—stops it at last.

"Society" consists mostly of women. Women carry on most of its processes, therefore women are its makers and masters, they are responsible for it, that is the general belief.

We might as well hold women responsible for harems—or prisoners for jails. To be helplessly confined to a given place or condition does not prove that one has chosen it; much less made it.

No; in an androcentric culture "society," like every other social relation, is dominated by the male and arranged for his convenience. There are, of course, modifications due to the presence of the other sex; where there are more women than men there are inevitable results of their influence; but the character and conditions of the whole performance are dictated by men.

Social intercourse is the prime condition of human life. To meet, to mingle, to know one another, to exchange, not only definite ideas, facts, and feelings, but to experience that vague general stimulus and enlarged power that comes of contact—all this is essential to our happiness as well as to our progress.

This grand desideratum has always been monopolized by men as far as possible. What intercourse was allowed to women has been rigidly hemmed its by man-made conventions. Women accept these conventions, repeat them, enforce them upon their daughters; but they originate with men.

The feet of the little Chinese girl are bound by her mother and her nurse—but it is not for woman's pleasure that this crippling torture was invented. The Oriental veil is worn by women, but it is not for any need of theirs that veils were decreed them.

When we look at society in its earlier form we find that the public house has always been with us. It is as old almost as the private house; the need for association is as human as the need for privacy. But the public house was—and is—for men only. The woman was kept as far as possible at home. Her female nature was supposed to delimit her life satisfactorily, and her human stature was completely ignored.

Under the pressure of that human nature she has always rebelled at the social restrictions which surrounded her; and from the women of older lands gathered at the well, or in the market place, to our own women on the church steps or in the sewing circle, they have ceaselessly struggled for the social intercourse which was as much a law of their being as of man's.

When we come to the modern special field that we call "society," we find it to consist of a carefully arranged set of processes and places wherein women may meet one another and meet men. These vary, of course, with race, country, class, and period; from the clean licence of our western customs to the strict chaperonage of older lands; but free as it is in America, even here there are bounds.

Men associate without any limit but that of inclination and financial capacity. Even class distinction only works one way—the low-class man may not mingle with high-class women; but the high-class man may—and does—mingle with low-class women. It is his society—may not a man do what he will with his own?

Caste distinctions, as have been ably shown by Prof. Lester F. Ward, are relics of race distinction; the subordinate caste was once a subordinate race; and while mating, upward, was always forbidden to the subject race; mating, downward, was always practiced by the master race.

The elaborate shading of "the color line" in slavery days, from pure black up through mulatto, quadroon, octoroon, quinteroon, griffada, mustafee, mustee, and sang d'or—to white again; was not through white mothers—but white fathers; never too exclusive in their tastes. Even in slavery, the worst horrors were strictly androcentric.

"Society" is strictly guarded—that is its women are. As always, the main tabu is on the woman. Consider carefully the relation between "society" and the growing girl. She must, of course, marry; and her education, manners, character, must of course be pleasing to the prospective wooer. That which is desirable in young girls means, naturally, that which is desirable to men. Of all cultivated accomplishments the first is "innocence." Beauty may or may not be forthcoming; but "innocence" is "the chief charm of girlhood."

Why? What good does it do her? Her whole life's success is made to depend on her marrying; her health and happiness depends on her marrying the right man. The more "innocent" she is, the less she knows, the easier it is for the wrong man to get her.

As is so feelingly described in "The Sorrows of Amelia," in "The Ladies' Literary Cabinet," a magazine taken by my grandmother; "The only foible which the delicate Amelia possessed was an unsuspecting breast to lavish esteem. Unversed in the secret villanies of a base degenerate world, she ever imagined all mankind to be as spotless as herself. Alas for Amelia! This fatal credulity was the source of all her misfortunes." It was. It is yet.

Just face the facts with new eyes—look at it as if you had never seen "society" before; and observe the position of its "Queen."

Here is Woman. Let us grant that Motherhood is her chief purpose. (As a female it is. As a human being she has others!) Marriage is our way of safeguarding motherhood; of ensuring "support" and "protection" to the wife and children.

"Society" is very largely used as a means to bring together young people, to promote marriage. If "society" is made and governed by women we should naturally look to see its restrictions and encouragements such as would put a premium on successful maternity and protect women—and their children—from the evils of ill-regulated fatherhood.

Do we find this? By no means.

"Society" allows the man all liberty—all privilege—all license. There are certain offences which would exclude him; such as not paying gambling debts, or being poor; but offences against womanhood—against motherhood—do not exclude him.

How about the reverse?

If "society" is made by women, for women, surely a misstep by a helplessly "innocent" girl, will not injure her standing!

But it does. She is no longer "innocent." She knows now. She has lost her market value and is thrown out of the shop. Why not? It is his shop—not hers. What women may and may not be, what they must and must not do, all is measured from the masculine standard.

A really feminine "society" based on the needs and pleasures of women, both as females and as human beings, would in the first place accord them freedom and knowledge; the knowledge which is power. It would not show us "the queen of the ballroom" in the position of a wall-flower unless favored by masculine invitation; unable to eat unless he brings her something; unable to cross the floor without his arm. Of all blind stultified "royal sluggards" she is the archetype. No, a feminine society would grant at least equality to women in this, their so-called special field.

Its attitude toward men, however, would be rigidly critical.

Fancy a real Mrs. Grundy (up to date it has been a Mr., his whiskers hid in capstrings) saying, "No, no, young man. You won't do. You've been drinking. The habit's growing on you. You'll make a bad husband."

Or still more severely, "Out with you, sir! You've forfeited your right to marry! Go into retirement for seven years, and when you come back bring a doctor's certificate with you."

That sounds ridiculous, doesn't it—for "Society" to say? It is ridiculous, in a man's "society."

The required dress and decoration of "society"; the everlasting eating and drinking of "society," the preferred amusements of "society," the absolute requirements and absolute exclusions of "society," are of men, by men, for men,—to paraphrase a threadbare quotation. And then, upon all that vast edifice of masculine influence, they turn upon women as Adam did; and blame them for severity with their fallen sisters! "Women are so hard upon women!"

They have to be. What man would "allow" his wife, his daughters, to visit and associate with "the fallen"? His esteem would be forfeited, they would lose their "social position," the girl's chance of marrying would be gone.

Men are not so stern. They may visit the unfortunate women, to bring them help, sympathy, re-establishment—or for other reasons; and it does not forfeit their social position. Why should it? They make the regulation.

Women are to-day, far more conspicuously than men, the exponents and victims of that mysterious power we call "Fashion." As shown in mere helpless imitation of one another's idea, customs, methods, there is not much difference; in patient acquiescence with prescribed models of architecture, furniture, literature, or anything else; there is not much difference; but in personal decoration there is a most conspicuous difference. Women do to-day submit to more grotesque ugliness and absurdity than men; and there are plenty of good reasons for it. Confining our brief study of fashion to fashion in dress, let us observe why it is that women wear these fine clothes at all; and why they change them as they do.

First, and very clearly, the human female carries the weight of sex decoration, solely because of her economic dependence on the male. She alone in nature adds to the burdens of maternity, which she was meant for, this unnatural burden of ornament, which she was not meant for. Every other female in the world is sufficiently attractive to the male without trimmings. He carries the trimmings, sparing no expense of spreading antlers or trailing plumes; no monstrosity of crest and wattles, to win her favor.

She is only temporarily interested in him. The rest of the time she is getting her own living, and caring for her own young. But our women get their bread from their husbands, and every other social need. The woman depends on the man for her position in life, as well as the necessities of existence. For herself and for her children she must win and hold him who is the source of all supplies. Therefore she is forced to add to her own natural attractions this "dance of the seven veils," of the seventeen gowns, of the seventy-seven hats of gay delirium.

There are many who think in one syllable, who say, "women don't dress to please men—they dress to please themselves—and to outshine other women." To these I would suggest a visit to some summer shore resort during the week and extending over Saturday night. The women have all the week to please themselves and outshine one another; but their array on Saturday seems to indicate the approach of some new force or attraction.

If all this does not satisfy I would then call their attention to the well-known fact that the young damsel previous to marriage spends far more time and ingenuity in decoration than she does afterward. This has long been observed and deprecated by those who write Advice to Wives, on the ground that this difference is displeasing to the husband—that she loses her influence over him; which is true. But since his own "society," knowing his weakness, has tied him to her by law; why should she keep up what is after all an unnatural exertion?

That excellent magazine "Good Housekeeping" has been running for some months a rhymed and illustrated story of "Miss Melissa Clarissa McRae," an extremely dainty and well-dressed stenographer, who captured and married a fastidious young man, her employer, by the force of her artificial attractions—and then lost his love after marriage by a sudden unaccountable slovenliness—the same old story.

If this in not enough, let me instance further the attitude toward "Fashion" of that class of women who live most openly and directly upon the favor of men. These know their business. To continually attract the vagrant fancy of the male, nature's born "variant," they must not only pile on artificial charms, but change them constantly. They do. From the leaders of this profession comes a steady stream of changing fashions; the more extreme and bizarre, the more successful—and because they are successful they are imitated.

If men did not like changes in fashion be assured these professional men-pleasers would not change them, but since Nature's Variant tires of any face in favor of a new one, the lady who would hold her sway and cannot change her face (except in color) must needs change her hat and gown.

But the Arbiter, the Ruling Cause, he who not only by choice demands, but as a business manufactures and supplies this amazing stream of fashions; again like Adam blames the woman—for accepting what he both demands and supplies.

A further proof, if more were needed, is shown in this; that in exact proportion as women grow independent, educated, wise and free, do they become less submissive to men-made fashions. Was this improvement hailed with sympathy and admiration—crowned with masculine favor?

The attitude of men toward those women who have so far presumed to "unsex themselves" is known to all. They like women to be foolish, changeable, always newly attractive; and while women must "attract" for a living—why they do, that's all.

It is a pity. It is humiliating to any far-seeing woman to have to recognize this glaring proof of the dependent, degraded position of her sex; and it ought to be humiliating to men to see the results of their mastery. These crazily decorated little creatures do not represent womanhood.

When the artist uses the woman as the type of every highest ideal; as Justice, Liberty, Charity, Truth—he does not represent her trimmed. In any part of the world where women are even in part economically independent there we find less of the absurdities of fashion. Women who work cannot be utterly absurd.

But the idle woman, the Queen of Society, who must please men within their prescribed bounds; and those of the half-world, who must please them at any cost—these are the vehicles of fashion.



ONLY AN HOUR

"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven," said the Second Hand, and then he lost count. "One, two, three, four, five—" It was no use.

"There is no end to it," said he, under his breath. "Hundreds of times I do it! Thousands! Millions! A positive eternity—in constant action. What a thing Life is!"

The Minute Hand was very patient with him. "My dear little Busybody," he said. "Look at me and learn some dignity. See, you have to make those little jumps sixty times before I move! Sixty times!" And the Minute Hand took a short step. "There—now you begin again, while I wait. Watch me, take courage! If you can count up to sixty you will understand Life!" And he took another short step.

The Hour Hand smiled. He was too proud to talk with the Minute Hand—considering him to have a Limited Intellect. As for the Second Hand, he did not acknowledge his existence. "I am no microscopist!" he would say if you pointed out that there was a Second Hand.

No, the Hour Hand did not converse, he Mused. He mused much upon life, as was natural. "Twelve of them!" he thought to himself—"twelve of these long long waits, these slow terrible advances. And then twelve more—before Life is over. I can count. I have an intellect. I am not afraid. I can think around Life." And he kept on thinking.

*

The man pulled out his watch and looked at it; yawned, took an easier position on the car seat. "Bah!" he said. "Only an hour gone!—And I can't get there till the day after to-morrow!"



COMMENT AND REVIEW

The first thing that struck me in reading this novel was the style. Not often, in a first publication, is this the main impression.

There is a delicate finished personal touch in Mrs. Schoonmaker's work, that would indicate years of application. Next I slowly gathered interest in the story; not at once—it grew gradually—but later on, when the characters were well placed and a grave danger threatened the lives of several.

The flat, peaceful, limited life of rural Kentucky and its contented inhabitants is drawn in soft assured touches—the reader feels the sweetness and peace as well as the deadly dulness.

The picture of life among the studios of Paris hints at more than is said, much more; indicating a philosophic judgment; yet withholding it. There is a restraint, an economy of expression throughout; even where the writer feels most strongly.

As to the heroine—her young life-struggle is part and parcel of that universal stir and uprising among the women of to-day; so much of it blind and undirected; so much wasted and lost in reaction; so much in lines of true long-needed social evolution. This girl's share in it will be differently judged by different readers. Many of our young college women will sympathize with it most, I fancy.

THE ETERNAL FIRES By Nancy Musselman Schoonmaker, Broadway Pub. Co., N. Y.

*

Dr. Stanton Coit, prominent in ethical and social advance in England, is a valuable supporter of the woman's movement. His booklet, "Women in Church and State," is a concise and impressive presentation of her position in those great social bodies. He treats of the militant movement in England, its wise period of quiescence, and offers reasonable suggestions as to further policy.

The attitude of the church toward women, from the miserable past up through the changing present to the hopeful future, is given succinctly, and the unfortunate reaction of a servile womanhood upon the church is shown.

It is a clear presentation of the relation of woman to the state, in politics, education, marriage and the home.

This booklet is for sale, in England, as one of the Ethical Message Series, at 6d. net; and may be rebound for American circulation, at 15c.

WOMAN IN CHURCH AND STATE By Stanton Coit, Ph.D., West London Ethical Society, Queen's Road, Bayswater, England.

*

The ethical movement of the last twenty years is a strong proof of humanity's natural bent toward the study and practice of that first of sciences, the science of conduct.

How to behave, and Why, are universal questions; decided first by conditions, then by instinct, then by custom and tradition, then by religion, then by reason. We are rapidly reaching the reasoning stage; hence the popularity of ethics, and of such papers as The Ethical World.

We have ethical publications in this country, good ones, but it is inspiring to get from other lands the vivid sense of that common movement which so marks the uniting of the world.

Mere verbal language was necessary to the faintest human development; written language, in the permanent form of books, established the long roots of our historic life, with its sense of continuity; today the multiplication of periodic literature, widely specialized, speaks our social consciousness. We no longer have to think alone, but the smallest cult has its exponent, giving to each member the strength of all.

In the issue of March 15th of this paper, Dr. Stanton Coit has an article on "The Group Spirit," which treats sympathetically that marvel of social dynamics, "the interpenetrating Third," appearing where two or three are gathered together.

I should like to have discussed with Sir James Mackintosh, however, his contention that moral principles are stationary. They are not, but vary from age to age in accordance with conditions.



PERSONAL PROBLEMS

A friend and subscriber writes me thus:

"There are one or two questions I want to ask—not because I disagree, but because I want to be able to meet objections.

"Those who believe in restricting "Woman's Sphere" to its present—no, its former narrow boundaries may say,—"Yes, man is the only species which keeps the female—or tries to—in the home and restricts her to the strictly female functions and duties. But it is just because man is higher than the other animals, and because the period of infancy is so much longer for human babies. The animal mother bears her young, nourishes them a short time, and is no longer needed. The human mother is something more than an agent of reproduction and a source of nourishment. By just so much as her motherhood is more and higher than that of the ewe, it must take more of her time, her strength, her life. How can a woman who is giving birth to a child every two or three years for a period of ten years, for example, and "mothering," in the fullest sense of the word, those children, find time or strength for anything else?

"Then, too, what you call "Androcentric Culture" has existed by your own statement practically ever since our historic period began—that is, since man first advanced from savagery to human intelligence and civilization. Is it not fair to assume that a condition of affairs non-existent among lower animals, but co-existent with the development of the intelligence and civilization of mankind is a higher condition than that found among the animals?"

Here we have five premises:

1. Man is the only species which segregates the female to maternal functions and duties.

2. Man is higher than the other animals.

3. The human period of infancy is longer.

4. The human mother has to devote longer time to maternal cares.

5. The Androcentric Culture is coexistent with the period of progress.

On these premises,two questions are based: On the first four:

A. How can the human mother find time or strength for anything else?

On the fifth:

B. Is not the Androcentric Culture evidence and conditions of our superiority?

To clearly follow and answer this line of reasoning requires close attention; but it is well worth doing; for this inquirer fairly puts the general attitude of mind on this matter.

Premise one we may grant. It is true as applied to all higher species. There are some low ones where the female is a mere egg-layer; but with those creatures the male is not much either.

Premises two and three we grant freely.

Premises three and four require consideration.

Is the existence of human infancy accompanied by a similar extension of maternal cares?

Our Children are infants in the eyes of the law till they reach legal majority; and in the arts, professions, and more complex businesses, a boy of twenty-one is still an infant.

To bring a young animal up to the age where it can take care of itself is a simple process and can be accomplished by the mother alone; but to bring up a young human creature to the age where he or she can fitly serve society is a complex process and cannot be performed by the mother alone. Our prolongation of infancy is a result of social progress, and has to be met by social cares; is so met to some degree already.

The nurse and the teacher are social functionaries, performing the duties of social motherhood. The female savage can suckle her child and teach her to prepare food, tan hides, make baskets and clothing, and decorate them. The male savage can teach his child to hunt and trap game, to bear pain and privation, to put on warpaint and yell and dance, to fight and kill.

But the civilized mother and father cannot teach their children all that society requires of its citizens. When trades went from father to son they were so taught; and the level of progress in those trades was the level of personal experience. Our real progress has coincided with our educational processes, in which suitable persons are selected to teach children what society requires them to know, quite irrespective of their parent's individual knowledge. Should the learning of the world, the discoveries and inventions, be limited to what each man can find out for himself and teach his son?

No one expects the father's wisdom to be the limit of his son's instruction; nor the mother's either. She loves her child as much as ever; and for its own sake is willing to have it learn of music-teachers, dancing-teachers, and all the allied specialists of school and college.

In all higher and more special cases, it is clear that the mother is not required to parallel her attentions to our "period of infancy," but perhaps it will still be contended that in the simpler and more universal tasks of earlier years she is indispensable; and that these years so overlap that she is practically confined to the home during her whole period of child-bearing.

The answer to this is, first; that the simpler and more universal the tasks the more there may be found capable of performing it. As a matter of fact we are so accustomed to take this view that we cheerfully entrust the most delicate personal services of our babies to hired persons of the lowest orders; as in our Southern States the proud white mother gives her baby often to be suckled and always to be tended by a black woman.

It is idle to talk of the indispensability of the mother's care in the first years when any mother who can afford it is quite willing to share or delegate that care to women admittedly inferior. If the human race has got on as well as it has with the care of its lower class children solely ignorant mothers, and the care of its higher class children given mainly by ignorant servants; why should we dread to have the care of all children given mainly by high-class, skilled, educated, experienced persons, of equal or superior grade to the parents?

The answer to this usually is the child needs the individual mother's love and influence. This is quite true. The baby should be nourished by his own mother—if she is healthy—and nothing can excuse her from the loving cares of parentage. But just as an ordinary unskilled working woman loves and cares for her child—and yet does ten hours of housework, to which no one objects; or just as an ordinary rich woman loves and cares for her child—and yet does ten or twelve hours of dancing, dining, riding, golfing, and bridge playing (to which no one objects!)—so could a skilled working woman spend six or eight hours at an appropriate trade, and still love and care for her child. A normal motherhood does not prevent the mother from suitable industry. In other words: The prolongation of human infancy does not demand an equal prolongation of maternal services; but does demand specialized social services. When these services are properly given our children will be far better cared for than now.

The best answer of all is simply this. Almost all mothers do work, and work hard, at house service; and are healthier than idle wholly segregated women; yet there are many kinds of work far more compatible with motherhood than cooking, scrubbing, sweeping, washing and ironing.

The fifth premise, and its accompanying question also calls for study. It is true that our Androcentric Culture is co-existent with human history and modern progress, with these qualifications:

Practically all our savages are decadent, and grossly androcentric. Their language and customs prove an earlier and higher culture, in which we may trace the matriarchate. Among the less savage savages—as our Pueblos—the women are comparatively independent and honored.

Almost all races have a "golden age" myth; faint traditions of a period when things were better; which seems to coincide with this background of matriarchal rule. The farther back we go in our civilization the more traces we find of woman's power and freedom, with goddesses, empresses, and woman-favoring laws.

Again in our present Age, the most progressive and dominant races are those whose women have most power and liberty; and in the feeblest and most backward races we find women most ill-treated and enslaved.

The Teutons and Scandinavian stocks seem never to have had that period of enslaved womanhood, that polygamous harem culture; their women never went through that debasement; and their men have succeeded in preserving the spirit of freedom which is inevitably lost by a race which has servile women. Thus while it is admitted that roughly speaking the period of Androcentric Culture corresponds with the period of progress, these considerations show that the coincidence is not perfect. Even if it were, there remains this satisfying rejoinder:

The lit space in our long life-story begins but a short time ago compared with the real existence of human life on earth. On the conditions preceding history we know little save that they were matriarchal as to culture and of an industrious, peaceful and friendly nature. Of the conditions brought about by the androcentric culture we know much, however.

We have developed some degree of peace and prosperity; marked progress in intelligence, learning, and specialized skill; immense material and scientific development and increased wealth.

But we have also developed an array of diseases, follies, vices, and crimes, which distinguish us from the other animals as markedly as does our androcentric culture.

Not all of these disadvantages con be clearly traced to its door; but these three are plainly due to it; prostitution, with all its devastation of its ensuing diseases; drug habits of all sorts, as alcohol, tobacco, opium—which are preponderantly masculine; and warfare; with its loss of life and wealth; its cruelty and waste; its foolish interference with true social processes.

If the matriarchal period can be shown to have produced worse evils than these then it was a blessing to lose it. If at all the splendid gains we have made under man's rule can be traced to his separate influence then we might say even these world injuries may be borne for the sake of the benefits not otherwise obtainable. But if it can be shown that real progress is always paralleled by improvement in the conditions of women; that the most valuable human qualities are found in women as well as men; that these three worst evils of our present day are clearly of a masculine nature and removable by the extension of feminine influence—then our inquirer's last question is easily answered; the existence of our androcentric culture during our period of modern progress distinctly does not prove that it is a necessary condition of that Progress.

*

A number of most interesting Personal Problems have come in this month, but the length of the above, postponed from June, prevents due answers in this issue. This one had to be long, its questions were so general.

The earnest friend who asks as to the right attitude of a mother toward her children, born and unborn, asks too much. No explicit "answers" can be given to such life-covering queries. One may reply epigrammatically (and unsatisfactorily) as this:

The first duty of a mother is to be a mother worth having.

The second duty of a mother is to select a father worth having.

The third duty of a mother is to bring up children worth having—and to have children worth bringing up!

Motherhood is a personal process, Child-culture is a social process.

A vigorous well-placed wisely working woman should take her child-bearing naturally, not make too much ado about it. But child-rearing—that is another matter.

We can advise as to one wanting a gardener, "Get a good one."

If there are none—then it is not time we made some?



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

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



THE EARTH'S ENTAIL

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

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

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



THE COTTAGETTE

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

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

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

"How about meals?" asked Lois.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I think Lois knew before I did.

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

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

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

I said yes, I thought I was.

"Does he love you?"

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

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

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

I liked his looks, but I liked him better.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Is anyone else going?" I asked.

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

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

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

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

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

And then he asked me to be his wife.—

We were very happy.

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

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

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

I stared at him dumbly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"But—how do you want to live?"

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

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

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

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



WHOLESALE HYPNOTISM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You Can Alter Human Nature!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



[Untitled]

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



THE KITCHEN FLY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why not keep the food and leave out the fly?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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