Urbana union. [volume] (Urbana, Ohio) 1862-1872, 1869-03-31
WnMAN,s RrGHrs

READ before the llfInpalgn County
Union Teachers Institute, BY Miss Mary
Woods, of tile ST. Paris Union School
As we announce our subject, we imag-
inc we see q shade of disdain pass over
the faees OF our hearers, especially Of
these who think practical acknOWl-
ell1enr cf Wcmanis rights would ieO-
pardize theirs. Do not be alarmed. We
nay nave the right, but We do not aspire
10 q place IN the Jury room, 10 hang up
on a difHeUit case, amid tobacco smoke
and its accOmpaniments, nor around the
polls on election days. Neither do we
wish to dabble in the impure waters OF
the political pool, we dOnOt wish our gar
ments sOiled by its slime and mud, nOI
to inhale the miasma arising theTefrOm,
a miasma almost universally fatal to the
moral health Of all who breathe it. No
we ask to share none Of these rights
with the sterneF sex; rights connected
with the suffrage they cherish SO fOndly
and guard so jealOusly from all encrOach'
ments. Fc 6iCle Ol,r time IN these things.
The right we claim for women Is, the
right of compensation for labor.
But three occupations are open for wO'
men; three that all allow, they are ca.
pable of filling, maid of all works, seam
stresses and teachers; the kitchen, the
needle and the schoOlrOOm. Surely, mar
rOwed down as our emplOyInents are,
leaving such q wide field for men, III
which, undisputed, to display his talents
and accumulate fortune, il might, with
Justice be expected, that here, woman
would be, not only paid, but well paid
for her labor. 1t costs. her as much tC
live, she must pay as high q price fol
board, clothing, and all life's necessarie'
as men do, yet for her labor she rarely
receives one fourth as much as he.
What dOmen work for? A present live
Iihood, and future competence. What
man of energy or spirit is content tC
work for only daily food and clothing
for what barely suftices for each day
making no provision for the time of sick,
ness and age, knowing that, as Year.
advance, strength will fail, and wage;
fail too when most needed? If an hon,
est, true man, would not his heart sink
and despair take hold upon him Yet
such is the position of every woman who
depends solely upon her labor for home
and sustenance. The present is all she
can care for. Mans chivalTOus care fol
his welfare, or rather, jealousy for hi:
own, bars the way to all emplOyments
Welding crater emOluments than those
named as if, perchance, she has cOur.
age to step into some other field, she
must bear SCOTS and jeers from which g
sensitive woman shrinks, knowing, that
at q breath, the thoUghtless and malici,
Gus may sully her character, and make
her almost an Outcast.
The most inexperienced and ineffici
ent clerk receives a salary four or five
times as great as the woman who enter;
a household and performs all the work
of a family; work that couples all hel
time from dawn until long after night
fall. She is at the call of the men, wo
men and children of the family; mus
please all; must, under all provacatiOT
keep a strict control over her tongue, le
the heart burn as it may over injustice
unkindness and wrong. She must hdV'
/ 10 feelings. If there is a position in thC
world, that renders the possession of re
/ finement, delicacy and dignity unnec
4 essary, indeed, highly injurious to the
I pOssessOr, it is that Of the woman who
/ does kitchen work; work just as impor
( tant and necessary as any in all thC
range of domestic economy. What {
I nleager pittance she receives; what 4;
seanty sustenance; and scanty as it is
! rarely sweetened by that love and kind
ness that makes light the hardest labor
! yet q grOaning goes up in all the lanC
over the enormous expense of household
help.
A gentleman will so smilingly vacatt
his seat in a railway car, concert or lee
! tUre room to a well dressed lady, and q,
she accepts, and if a true lady, thanks
him, his heart swells with that sense O.
chivalry and gallantry towards women
which is the peculiar boast of the AmePi
can gentleman We fear he forgets
that at home is a woman, may be {
a'yOUng girl, who has a greater claim
upon his honor as a gentleman, than she
to whom he awards an inexpensive
courtesy; the claim of just cOmpensa,
ton for labor. No wonder this class o.
women are continually changing from
place to place, taught by unkindness anC
reconsideration to hate and distrust al
employers; in nine cases out of ten seek.
ing in hasty and imprudent marriage
I to escape life of servitude and still
worse to escape the close of such life
There is a dark side to this picture
which we dare not dwell upon, that side
which Hood thought of when he said.
" Alas for the rarity of Christian Charity
Under the sun;
Oh it was pitiful in whole city full.
Home she had none.
The same applies to needle woman
If the OcUpatiOn is entered upon in early
life, it is, fortunately, of such q nature
that life rarely lasts to middle age. Sick.
ly plants, a kind Gardener transpIants
them early to a more genieI cline. How
sad to sell a life that ought to be three
score and ten, to sell two-thirds of il
that she may receive two and q half dol
lars per week for one-half of the first
third.
"Oh men with si-ters dear, On men with mother,
and wives!
It is not linen you're wearing out but human crca
ature's lives"
Itmay be answered that these women
can work for small wages because they
support none but themselves. How
abused Look about you. Thousands
of women, women in widows weeds,
with hearts and faces doubly saddened
by want, and by thinking, not of a life
that went out quietly at home, soothed
by WOman's nursing, bathed by her
tears; not of grave on some pleasant
home hillside but of life that went
out in blood as torture on some battle
field or in some prison pen Of a grave
unmarked and unknown, it may be in
ditch or swamp. Does the needle wo-
man who does your sewing belong to
this class? A class that gave all, and
now receives a pittanee so small that q
whole nation should blush.
Look to it, you that make and control
the laws of compensation, that hold the
purse strings !; you so decree it, you de-
eide that women who have no right to
be paid in proportion, to their labor, be-
cause they are women. Ii is work with
out honest wages.
We come to that which more nearly
concerns us woman as a teacher. WO-
men are born teachers, else God had not
made them mothers. And it is daily
becoming more firmly established fact,
that III government and ability to i'm
part instruction they are equal to, il
they do not surpass men. All the low
er grades Of our public schools i'll towns,
and the majority of schools in the cOun-
try, are taught by women, we are sorry
to say, not because of their superior fit
ness, though that might be proved, but
on the score of economy. Surely in her
influence upon so many persons, in that
she must beias the minds of the boys
and girls that will soon be the men and
women who will come into power, SO
that She, remotely at least mOulds the
destinies Of our county, hers is an all i'm
pOrtant calling. The teachers now in
our schools, almost as much as the par
ents, won the minds of the children
for good or evil. What an important re-
sponsibility! How keenly felt by the
faithful and conscientious instructor.
A woman, to be q teacher, should have
a cultivated mind, mind stored with
far more than merely the branches she
is expected to teach; these are but a
Il L. LII Il. Il i