Woman's chronicle. (Little Rock, Ark.) 1888-1???, 1890-01-18


reward or appreciation. To those brave women
we owe our modern sewing schools, our schools for
nurses, mending bureaus and many other admir-
able institutes for women. The successors of the
women of 1741 still carry on the good work, not
only for their own sex but for humanity
APuritan woman anxious to relieve an over
worked mother, organized the first "Dame SCHOOL,
in the country, and if local history can be relied
upon, the first savings bank in America was opened
by woman That marvellous woman and wise
mother, Mary Somerville, says of her sex "Three
OF the most beneficial systems of modern times are
due to the benevolence Of English ladies: the i'm
provement of prison discipline, savings banks, and
banks for lending money to the poor"
In our own favored land we find some superb
cal selfish women, it is true but hundreds also of
noble souls who are not manacled by convention
alities or bound with iron chains Of outgrown GUS
TOMS The fact that Mrs. A., of small fashion
able coterie, snubbed Mrs. B., who lost her for
tune through the mismanagement of others, does
not affect women as a class, end only reflects on
Mrs. A. to her own injury. Why should we waste
precious time in thinking of Mrs. A. IS vulgarity
when all the other ladies of the social alphabet are
absorbed in caring for their own families or in
efforts to elevate the race? Mrs. A. becomes a
very small factor in society when we estimate the
grand army of women who constitute the bulk of
our church memberships and the thousands who
are engaged in philanthropic work. The woman
who is narrow enough to ignore the power Of re-
fnement in any member of her sex, is too narrow
to become the mother of children.
The eagerness with which women seize upon
new suggestions for the good of their sex contro-
verts all cynical utterances as to their hardness of
heart. Most women are complex creations; let
an emergency arise and the veriest butterfly be-
come sensible, practical, helpful woman.
Micheet, who made the sex study, boldly de-
clared that "every folly of woman was born of
the stupidity of man."
There is no limit to the heroic element in wom-
ans nature; she dares all things for her children,
suffers privations for them without murmur, and
will face death with courage, rather than sacrifice
her loved ones Even the uJra-fashionable women
are women of tender, sympathetic natures when
the crust of conyentionalism is penetrated They
are by no means given over to frivolity, and are
seldom too busy, or too tired to listen to tale of
woe if properly presented. Our civil war brought
out the pure metal of many woman's character
and many belle became modest Florence Night
WV
for our women of wealth. the demands upon them
are incessant, aggressive, and often impertinent,
and yet they give lavishly of their abundance and
their time. In country like ours, where wealth
is an uncertain quantity and the millionaire of to-
day is the pauper of tomorrow, the conduct of
wolren who suffer most by such sudden changes is
heroic almost beyond belief. They not only
"come up through great trbulation," but, like
successful warriors ask for suitable recognition for
their companions in arms. In all our large chart
ties, the women who are doing the hard work are
almost without exception women who have under
gone some baptism of sorrow, women so finely
balanced, so divinely harmonzed that all suffering
becomes personal to them.
When devastating floods swept through the great
Mississippi valley and large fortunes went down in
the seething waters, society bellies stood side by
side with women of foreign birth and labored day
and night to relieve the sufferers. When an In