Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1889-11-22
WOMAN IN HER REALM.
WHAT SHE is DOING IN THE PROFESS
SlONS AND IN BUSINESS.
Ideas on Cooking Utensils How and
When to Bathe the Baby - The
Born Nurse - Two Beautiful
Home Pictures.

Home PICTURES
1t is clear from the recent discussions about
female suffrage that there is good deal of
uncertainty and difference of opinion at the
present day as to womans sphere in the
world The movement which led to the i'm
provement in women's education is still SO
Young that its results can hardly yet be
tested We have no sufficient material to
enable us to decide whether, and if so in what
direction. the female intellect differs from the
male. We have no adequate means of judg-
ing whether those special womanly qualities
which are universally valued and admired
are inherent in a woman's nature or are due,
in part at least, to the circumstances of her
past life, sheltered as it has been from much
of the strdggle and competition of life. 1t
must still he considered uncertain whether
the particular direction taken by the higher
education for women is the ideally right one.
The advance has been so rapid that we nave
hardly had time to breathe, still less to pom
der and Judge But the cry is for further
advance or rather for more change, for new
openings, for fresh developments.
Ii might perhaps be wiser, seeing that we
have done SO much to be content for the
present to move a little slower, and take time
TO the work that has been already done.
There seems something selfish in our haste.
We wish that the changes should, at any rate,
come in our day, that we may have the merit
and the benefit of them. little more eau
ton is surely needed before we take steps
which it would be impossible to reNace. Is
1t too much to ask that those who wish for
more changes should at least take time to
formulate what is their conception of wom-
ans share in the work of society. have
been told that the only way to decide this is
10 open everything to woman for which ma
ture has not obviously untitled her. This
SUGGESTION for Christians at least, has one
decided Objection. There ls nothing in the
nature of women to unfit them for holy or
ders, but we cannot imagine that any Chris
tan, however advanced an advocate OF wom-
ems rights She may be, would wish to see
women as priests Nature does not there
fore, seem to be an altogether safe guide in
this tangled question. l should like TO ask
my fellow Christians whether revelation has
not something to say to us on this subject
The old story Of the creation of woman
tells us that she was made as helpmeet for
man. l doubt whether modern claims have
advanced ner to u nobler place st. Pauls
views about women are well known but
they are, as rule, dismissed with some re-
statement that st. Paul did not appreciate
women-was a misog ynist, in fact Yet even
he had valued women frends-Priscila,
Phoebe Lois, Eunice. St. Peter was a mar
ried man and lived with women round him,
and he had found out that the ornament of
women was "a meek and quiet spirit" The
political platform Of the Nineteenth century
does not, somehow, seem akin TO the meek
and quiet spirit.
| fancy that | have seen in America among
the best women a better ideal of woman S
sphere than is often to be found in our own
country I seem to have noticed there some
glinln.rings of an idea that women should
regard it as duty to bring sweetness and
light, intellectual as well as moral, into the
lives Of their male relations and friends,
and that with that object each woman
should ain at making herself as com
pleto a character as she could If we
women would only take the trouble TO be
something, to have character, to have in
terests. to have ideals, to have true religion
who could say where our power would stop
But no, We want our rights, we want tC
make noise we want to be of consequence
We are afraid that our opinions are not suf
ficiently valued, we clamor for an appre
ciable test of our influence.
The gospel teaches us "a different lesson
1t would be well if we could content our
selves for n time with bringing the fruits OF
our improved education, of our enlarged OPP
portunities, to bear upon the duties imposed
upon US within our old sphere, and those
others which are intimately connected witt
it. Meanwhile we might well study, with {
little more care than we have hitherto done
what are the peculiar characteristics of the
female intellect. Too much time has beer
wasted in the desire to prove that it is the
same or equal to that Of man If we beliey,
that the fact that the world is peopled witt
beings OF different sexes is not due to chance
but To the Will of tho Creator, we are bounC
~ believe that he has appointed work of diff
rerent kinds for each sex. We cannot be
lIeve that in the revelation he has given u
he has left Us without guidance in the per
picking task of how this work is to be appor
toned. Louise Creighton in Guardian.