The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1876-09-08
THEN AND NOW.

and each woman's world was bounded
by her kitchen, or, at most, her garden
walls, the subordination or secondary
place of woman in the vast plans Of ma
ture seemed as much a part of the
scheme of the Universe as did the sun
or moon. It was looked upon by both
men and women as a matter of course.
The Bible sustained it, custom sane
toned it. The more charitable, when |
the hardships it sometimes
wrought, looked upon it as thing to be
deplored, and perhaps to be sympathized
with, if because of 1t a woman and her
children, when deprived of husband and
father, beat about the neighborhood
helpless, the sport and prey of poverty;
but its amelioration by teaching wo1-
an to be independent was never thought
of.
Closing our eyes, we can see now in a
far away memory chamber a sweet
faced woman standing by rude hearth
ablaze with oak logs; her family of half
a dozen girls and boys bereft of father;
we see the coarse homemade gar
ments that attested her industry and
thrift, the heavy puncheon floor of the
only room, its rough-hewn sides
chinked with mud, and the little four
paned window that let in the winters
sunlight. We can see her sad smile of
thanksgiving as we told her that our
father would draw her load of wood on
the morrow and bring her a sack of
meal on his sled. From our present
standpoint we can see that this woman
was not poor unto beggary because she
was unable or unwilling to work, but
because custom had forbidden her to
qualify herself for any labor that would
bring remuneration, or opportunity to
do so had been denied to her. AS she
depended upon relatives already over
crowded with their own cares to aid her
in bearing the burdens of rearing her
family, little thought she of woman's
rights or the extension of woman's
sphere, yet to-day her daughters, capa-
BILE, energetic women like she was ere
yet care had drawn his deep furrows in
her brow, are as we'll able to take care
of themselves financially as are her
sons. What was in the mothers time
considered fact indisputable and uni
versal, is to-day regarded as an evil
which proper care and training of girls
will easily obviate.
A glance backward at what has been
accomplished for woman in the past
twenty-five or thirty years gives us
courage to press on toward the summit
of the "Hill Difficulty" which has ever
lowered gloomily in the pathway oi
every reform. We can all remember
but few years ago when slavery was g
fact, quite respectfully endorsed by the
clergy and by public opinion, pitied
and wept over and deplored. Finally il
came to be recognized that this heniou'
thing was mans work, not the work o
the Creator; that man was responsible
for it; that it was removable and avoid
able, and being so, it was the duty o
every man 10 assist in removing it
This conviction gained ground, ant
finally it was done. So also in the cas-
of the political emancipation of woman
Persons are beginning slowly to perceiv
that her political and financial enslave
ment is not the order of nature nor tn
] x>fC OI hui IL r,aaralxr pFdo mad n
man and by him perpetuated. In
stances innumerable might be citet
where women have overcome in th
very face of obstacles that seemed in
surmountable the prejudices existing
against woman's labor in professiona
and mercantile pursuits, and it is clea
that as nature never suspends her law
for any purpose, she cannot Ge accuse
so doing in favor Of these women.
We have too much faith in God t
believe that He would frame laws ths
would operate constantly as a hardshi
upon one-half of His children, and to
much faith in woman to fear that sh
= will, if left to her own devices and intu
itions, work against the highest an
holiest destiny of her sex.
And for the sake of the patient, sweet
voiced woman of the long ago, who's
dust has for years slept in prematur
grave, and whose pure spirit has Ion
: walked serenely in clearer light tha
= gilds these earthly morns, as well as fc
the rising generation of blooming an
happy girls who ere long will assum
u woman's share in the work of the rt
> public, we are willing to work an
watch and wait in the vanguard of th
great movement for the emancipatio
{ and elevation of women. Breaking th
( stubborn glebe of prejudice with th
v sharp plough-share of justice, and sea
u tering therein the immmortal seeds
truth, we wait in the ranks of the gres
{ army of toilers in this mighty vineyrd
i for the golden sheaves that the wakin
's seeds will in due time bring forth.
REAR TT TN MIND