The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1879-09-11
Women's Praises of Women.

Oiued It's time. DOM PEDRO
Women's Praises of Women.
The advance in women's education
has been much greater, in tile last
twenty five years, than that made in
the education of men. In spite Of this,
the impression is still uushaken, in the
minds of most educated men, that wom-
en will never do more than very secon-
Diary aud subnriiuate work in any de
partment of intellect. And women in
newspapers and sp4 4eches still play into
the hands of this prejudice, think, by
the way in which they speak of Que an
Others work Ii may he that once
when the acknowledgement was still
greater, every woman's achievement
was performed al great disadvantage be-
cause Of opposition but We have now
reached q point when the disadvantage
comes from a different diTectinu-from
too indiscTiminate warmth of eOmmen-
dation. Women have now so large II
hold on the public pre~s-especially ia
that department of personals" so un-
healthily prominent in Americs-that
every wnm4u's work IL easily brought
into Prominence hy other women; II IL
claimed rs meritn.iuus merely h,ctuse
women have doue 10, aud tn apply 10 IL
any other standard Of demand Is thought
a kind of faithlessutss 50 10 the sex from
which il came.
Perhaps the valuable column "Cnn-
cerning Women" in the WOmdn's Jour
nat il not always free from this blame 90
taken as its Items necessarily are from
other papers. IL is there stated, for iu-
stance, that Mrs Brooks bust Of IoIanthe
in butter, or some other work 10y the
same lady, was excluded by Commis-
siouer Mccormick from the Paris exhi-
biliOn, after he had once promised to
accept IL. / should wish for some def
mite tes imouy on this latter point he
fore condemHing the Commissioner ;
and a. To admitting the bust of IOlauthe,
the Judgment uf experts iu ART would h,.
ure,ied, Hs tn whether IL had amy value
a- art. II uat-if il was 80 be. admitted
merely - Do suria-itN-it had hardly
uIste claim fhhu "a saiuFl- continuing O,
c-tttlu uuuihrT of thou-au,l stitches
!, Is undoubtedly desirable tu give
women as much a. possible tO do iu
harmless and lucrative ways; but IL the
object - really To raise the tone Of their
work, II must be done by rigid self
criticism on the part OF women. They
must refuse To- admire anything merely
because woman does 10, aud must dis
crimiuate between womeu's work that
Is merely ordinary and women's work
that is OF high value. So long as no
difference is made between the praise
given to Winnie Rpam's statues aud
that given to Anne Whitney's, between
a shallow little tritie like 'One sum
mer" and the expuisitrly faithful aud
con-cieutIuus art OF "Deephaven - be-
tween poetry like that of Alice Carey.
which l. after all commonplace and
shoft-iited, and poetry like that Of
Helen jackson III. Ii y rich Ia the GIa-
turity Of thought and passiou-sO long
all high progress is discouraged.
The average intellectual career Of
a mericau women Is now pretty well Sc
cured popular advantages Of schooling
are generally HSsJfed to her, and acad-
emicai advantages are being rapidly
gained; the ny j. we'll opened To tai
ents. What women now most need is a
standari-to aim At the high prizes TO
be dissatisfied with inferior results
I They are justified in saying that in
times past they have been AT great dis
advantage; hut as these disadvantages
vanish, the allowance to be made must
also disappear.
Nothing is more discouraging than to
see how ready women are, when de-
layed i'm their just efforts to get into
print, for instance, TO lay the blame on
/ everybody but themselves. / do not
know how il is with others, but | re-
ceive letters from time to time, written
/ by literary aspirsuts, complaining that
| editors have prejudice against all new
/ applicants, and especially against WON
en-; that there are "Tings" in all maya
zine and newspaper offices; that il is
all-shameful narruwness which j. in the
way, and 50 on. For my part, / have
no belief that such "rings' amount tn
much, since no editor eau afford long To
forego a really good thing. Why not
take more pains to make sure that we
write really good things, then-write
them better and better, so as To break
down all opposition by sheer merit ?
/ Nothing Is more wholesome for genius.
after all. than To- he moderated snr a
time Why should every woman who
has trlrut expect To Toe popular aud
famous immediately, when Hawthorne.
by his own statement, WAS for twenty
years the ohscurrst literary man in
America What pearls were maturing,
meanwhile, beneath that dark sea oi
tempOra.ly obscurityi Great and per-
manent success needs certain heroic
qualities, whether in men or women
opposition rOuses, but lattery enervates
and belittles Literature aud art. be.
yohd all other things, needs patient.
ceaseless, heroic self-criiicism. II. W.
HigginsOn, iH WOmaH'S Journal.