The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1876-02-11
Why Don't Women Read Z?

Jne com unity. she is klnQ-nearteQ,
agreeable, and fond Of him and her
child, but is constantly complaining of
being lonesome, and feels obliged to
spend the afternoons visiting acquaint-
ances, and laments, when the little
round is completed, that she has no
other places to visit.
"Wby not spend your leisure in read
ing?"
"Oh, I am not fond of it." she an
swered. al read stories sometimes"
Yesterday, pretty little wife visited
us. Her husband is thoroughly cuI-
tured, and a fine scholar and scientist.
She has leisure, and enough for all
Iife's needs.
"What a grand opportunity you have
for self-improvement," we sasd to her.
"Oh, yes my husband wishes that I
would read more, but l am not fond of
itp' And the young wife lives on,
willingly and willfully his inferior; no
more fitted to be his companion in the
coming years than the sloth is fitted for
the antelope.
And these are not, unfortunately, two
exceptional cases. The world has hosts
of them, and why? Surely not because
woman is inferior to man in mind.
This might have been the prevailing
opinion a century ago, but her entrance
into many of the best colleges of the
land after equal examinations with
young men, the various prizes she has
taken in high schools and colleges,
where her sex were not alone compet-
itOrs, her success In medicine, science,
literature, theology even, saying moth
ing of her attainments in the ceaseless
struggles for money in America, which
God has given her powers quite eqnal to
any of his creatures, and the use de-
pends upon herself and the society
which she permits to mould her;
which, alas fills her hands and brain
with frivolities, instead of things which
tend to higher womanhood. Elizabeth
Blackwell, Mary SOmerville, George
Eliot, Sarah Smiley, and host of 9TH
ers, have opened the doors so wide for
woman that she may enter if she will.
She is no longer, as in the beginning
of this century, taught to believe that to
tread, write, and cipher" are enough
accomplishments for woman. She is
no longer told that she must not be in
terested in the affairs of government,
because it is work enough to adorn her
precious body. The church is saying to
her as it never said before, "There is a
robing of righteousness more comely
for beautiful woman even than gold,
or pearls, or costly array" The world
is beginning to learn what Napoleon
kneW-that ignorant mothers never can
train and develop grand men and
women. educate a woman and you
educate race" has been drilled into
the brain of the nineteenth century.
Truly, says Victor Hugo, "Man was the
problem of the eighteenth century;
woman of the nineteenth" There is
no greater question before the civilized
world to-day than this: "What type of
woman will we have in Americas great
future ?''
There are mighty matters looming up.
Catholicism is one. When nine-tenths
of all in the Catholic church are brought
there by women; when this church
holds in its hands its schools and all its
benevolent associations, and makes
woman a teacher in all that marvel
Ously organized institution, save the one
of public ministry, it is pertinent to ask
what kind of Protestant women shall
We have to meet the On-coming of the
hosts of Rome? Trained as are their
women in missionary work and devo-
tion, accustomed to transact business
and bear responsibilities, go anywhere
duty calls, rather than be left to drift
out into the glittering whirlpool of So
ciety and fashion, is it strange they are
a power? Politicians may make it a
party cry, the press may echo it, but
the Protestant women will have a most
important part to act in this Catholic
movement.
How can they act their part unless
they read? How train their children,
how counsel their husbands, how help
make public opinion ? A man with a
frivolous and inefficient wife is like a
boat rowed against the tide. He only
makes half the man he might have
been, and goes heavily freighted with
his burden, when he ought to have had
hand at the helm.
Intemperance is another vital issue.
The whole world, with a few excep-
tions, is convinced of the enormity OF
the evil. Men walk straight over the
precipice, knowing it is there. 1t is the
old story of the sirens, and few are wise
enough, like Ulysses, to stop their ears
as they sail by the charmed spot.
They do not drink because they love the
maddening draught, but because court
esy and custom rule the hour. They
think successful trade requires It, show
of generosity requires it, mistaken
idea of a good time requires it, and
fashion has taken
q Vice, a monster of so frightful mien,
That, TO be hated, needs but to be seen,
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face
We first endure, then pity, then embrace"
into the very presence of woman, anG
made a beautiful hand send a dagger
through soul by the proffer of the
wine-cup. The evil hardly seems to be
abating. Appetite and avarice have
locked hands. The boys learn to drink
before they know its fatal power. The
brightest and the best of the mothers
sons go down. Public opinion keep,
the girls away from the saloons, bu
not away from the tears and poverty O
drunkards' wives. Men and wOmer
will love each other while the worlC
stands, and if pure, what more blessed
And yet shall woman always, in he
virtue and her trust, learn Jean Inge
lows sad lesson of ''giving more thar
she receives ?'-giving clean body anC
soul, and receiving too often man whC
has learned to swear, to be immoral, tC
be unsafe as companion and guardian
because he has entered the way of deatI
through the open dram-shop.
The blood-money from this traffic hai
found its way into respectable society
into affairs of government, and into th,
churches, even. Good men have beer
too busy to grapple with this sin
Women have been content to live il
the sunlight of a home which a true