The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1876-06-16
TTo be continued.l
Mrs. LiYermore's Lecture.

Mrs, LlVermOre Lecture
Mrs. Mary A. Livermore delivered her
first lecture before a San Jose public
at Music Hall May 25th. She was
greeted by an immense audience, all the
seats being filled and all the standing
room occupied, and was introduced by
Mrs. Sarah l.. Knox. Mrs. LivermOre
is some 90 years of age, has a fine physi
cal presence and the bearing of lady
of culture and refinement. She is tall,
rather robust, and gives the impression
of great vigor of body and mind. Her
features are of a purely intellectual
type, plain, but exceedingly winning,
full of sympathy and earnestness,
marked by determination and the evil
dence of mental force, and overcast by
a constant thoughtful shade. There is
an utter absence in cOuntenance, man
ner, or expression of voice or eye, of
anything fiippant, of any vanity, of any
art to catch or please or attract. She
uses beautiful language, her voice is
clear, musical, and expressive, and
her manner that of one who feels in
tensely. Even those who differ with
her i'm sentiment were most favorably
impressed with her lecture and the style
and manner in which it was delivered.
umns and the lateness of the hour, we
are unable to give only brief synopsis
of the principal points made.
Her subject was "Superfiuous WOm-
en-" and after brief preface, in which
she summed up the gains of women
during the last twenty-five years, such
as the abrogation of unjust legal stat
utes, the opening to them of colleges
and professional schools, their admis-
sion to an ever-increasing number of
remunerative employments, and their
recognition in the highest and best So
ciety as the honored peers and beloved
companions of noble men, she pro-
ceeded: 1t is not of the general eleva-
| tiOn of woman that l propose to speak
! tonight. 1t is rather with the gener-
ally accepted theory of woman's life
! that propose to deal-with the theory
that the final cause of woman, the rea-
son why God created her, was simply
that man needed her, and that she has
answered the end and aim of her being
when she has become some mans wife
and the mother of his children. She
said she did not wish to be understood
as depreciating marriage, but she OBJ
jected to the theory that marriage is the
final cause of woman, the sole object of
and harmful. The theory that marriage
IS the only business of wOman's life
cannot be practically carried out with
all women. Facts are against it.
While there are, ou an average, usually
about 105 or l06 boys born into the world
to l0) girls, there has been such waste of
life among men through war, dangerous
pursuits, drunkenness, and prOt1igacy,
that, taking the world over, there are,
and always have been, since the days Of
authentic history, more marriageable
women in the world than men. In 1860
the average number of marriages in the
United States were IS to 100 marriagea-
BILE women. Since then we have passed
through the five years war of the rebel
lion, in consequence of which nearly
one million of men lost their lives. In
addition, there has since then been
growing a morbid luxury among both
men and women, which, added to the
eXpensiveness of living, have tended to
greatly restrict marriage. The State
census of Massachusetts, just completed,
informs US that there are now 63,O84
more women than men in the State,
and that the disparity is increasing
yearly.
The theory that marriage offers to
|
leads US to do injustice to the great arm y
of the unmarried, and to call them old
maids and superfiuous women, and also
neglect to properly provide for them.
The difference between the supertluOus
women of the old time and the new is
this: In the old time, the unmarried
women, partly from dullness, partly
from abundance of daily employment,
and more from the absolute submission
in which they had been educated, re-
signed themselves to their fate and the
worlds treatment. But the superfiuOus
women of to-day breathe freer and more
. invigOrating air. In common with the
whole community in which they move,
they have fuller knowledge, a finer
sense of justice, nObler conceptions oi
r existence, and desire for larger sphere
r of usefulness and cOngenial activity
She thought the only way by which
provision could be made for superfiuous
) women was to train them intellectually
morally, and industrially, so that they
can make their own way in life, whether
married or single. AS a large proper.
tion do not marry, women should have
= as free admission to professional and in
r dustrial training as men, that there
: should be no monopoly of sex and nc
, protective duty on either side. There
is hope, for there is a growing dissat,
sfaction with our system of popular ed
s ucation-there is too much for the heaC
and too little for the hands. With in.
dustrial education the women coulC
succeed as well as the men.
Mrs. Livermore said she could no
, close without asking her audience for
} moment to consider who these womer
: were, and had been, who are denomi
: mated ''superfiuous," because unmar
e ried. She made resume of the granC
: work done by the Catholic sisterhood