The Russellville Democrat., 1880-12-02
WOMEN IN PUBLIC.
Obstacles in the way ot Intellectual Life
 fOr Women.

l Obstacles Tn the way Ot Intellectual Life for Women.
 | The obstacles which women have l found in the way of publia -c=sss sayyss say $ the London Spectator in an ai1,e and in- l teresting article on ssThe Political Char acteristics of Woman" so far as they arise from general sense of its being unwomanly, will disappear in the future. and have, to considerable extent, dis appeared already. But so far as these obstacles belong to the nature of the empIoyments which they already carry on, and which they cannot give up, we have no right to expect any change. Speaking generally, we should say that the charge of feeling will liberate single Somen from the barriers that have made a career difficult. and them alone. No change of feeling can set free for a career the mother of 10 children. We could not say. indeed, that all our re- l formers have been single women. Mrs. Fry is not the only wife whose activity
 will be remembered in connection with the welfare of class, but an exception here and there does not invalidate the obvious rule that household gives work enough for one person to do. And not only the amount of work must be con- sidered. but it's character A mans work is continuous, and a great many women might make their work continuous if they would exercise sufficient self. trol; but the mother of family. under ordinary circumstances, must consent to be interrupted at any moment. The leasure that reThains after work that is interrupted is as unlike the leisure that remains after work that is continuous, as the cornfelds, quilted by foraging party in the enemy's country, are to the cornfields left by reapers who have finished their days work. The demands of the nursery and the household could never be compressed into compact di- vision of the day, from which no strag- gling detail should ever invade the ter ritory given up to study of social or political problems. The attention of women to such problems is always affected by its fragmentary nature. Work is not interfered with by homo geneous interest" says one of the most profound observers of human nature | Aristotle-"but by heterogeneous" The mind, therefore, unconciously seeks to preserve certain continuity of interest through any change of attention, and sits out what is familiar from much that may be far more important, not froll any frivolous tendency, but from a healthy desire to grasp only what can be incorporated with possessions already gained.
 1t is not difficult to foresee what aspect of political matters will alwyas prove most homogeneous with a woman's in- terests. A difficult political problem re- quires the same kind of attention as a volume of history; hardly ony one could read a volume of Hallam or Hume at odd 10 minutes while he was kept wait ing; and any valuable opinion, for in stance, on Mir. Forster's Irish bill, would be equally difficult to form under these circumstances. The truth is, says the writer, in conclusion, that the old no- tions about a woman's place were right at their centre, and wrong only at their circumference. We have only to take the starting point of our ancestors and pass beyond their boundaries. It is true, as the Noodle says in Sydney Smiths "Oration," that woman's proper place is in the sick room; give her, then, authority in those large sick rooms which we have built for many sick, and call hospitals It is true that woman's proper occupation is with the poor; allow neT, tueu, VOlce III WIdt IS Surely a very important part of the duty oi the state-its dealings with the pauper class It is true that woman's especial vocation is the bringing up of children; give her, therefore, an influential position with regard to the still more important part of the duty of the state, that, indeed, which, on the whole, seems to us it's most important duty-the education of it's future citizens.
 When we go beyond this, and enter the circle of questions which, in the last resort, must be settled by the arbitra- ment of arms, we enter on ground which appears to us much more questionable It is wise general rule, though subject to many exceptions, that people should abstain from interference with their equals in those questions Of duty the strain of which will in no case fall upon them; and those who cannot allow that one-half of mankind are justified in putting any limit on the activity of the other, except such limit as we all mu- tually impose in asserting our own claims, may yet feel that the danger of strong impulse from womanly sym pathies, given in direction in which it could not be followed up by womanly activity, is neither unreal ner insignf- cant.