The advocate., 1894-11-07
ADVANCED WOMEN.
THEY ARE ABLY DEFENDED FROM A
sENsELESS ATTACK.

lty-shlning Examples Of Persons and
Performances.
There are many people Of otherwise ex-
cellent intelligence who take an insane or
maudlin delight in attacking women.
They turn up about once q year, as the
hares do In March, and with CaCopho-
nous howl pour out the few minims Of their
vial Of wrath upon her devoted head.
Then, with a melodramatic chuokle, they
vanish into the obscurity Of their alleged
thought and hibernate for an indefinite
period.
This time the offender Is a woman, and
the offense appears In the columns Of The
Sun in the form Of what purports to be an
argument that advanced women advance
and agitating women agitate merely be-
cause they are not beautiful.
The cleverness and charming diction Of
the lady's sCreed render 1t enjoyable for
the moment and sweeten the sting which
1t contains. 1t we'll illustrates the old
saw ''of serving the devil in heavens liV-
cry" 1t is bad enough for men, especially
those who have never been married and
who are brought up by q stepmother, to
decry the sex, but 1t Is much worse when
an able woman indulges In TRADE en-
bodying the platitudes Of old fogies, the
opinions Of dullards In whose brute brain
no new idea ever burst into being, and the
poetic but somewhat forid regeneration
Of her own intellect. Still, however, there
lg certain force to the lady's letter. just
Rs the temperance orator likes to have
drUnkard in his audience to point out as a
terrible example and to illustrate the ex-
Ceeding sinfulness Of gin, so the fact Of the
attack shows that there are women Of
some mentality who cannot be and will
not be advanced, and to whom such
things as a thorough education, broad
culture and high moral purpose are
either meaningless terms or something,
like the measles, to be avoided.
There are advanced women and adj
vGnCed women. DR.. Mary Walker and
Miss Mary johnson represent one tpye in
their own esteem, and the correspondent OF
The Sun represents another, very different
from the first, but equally Objectionable
and discordant. The true advanced wom-
an Is one who develops her intellectual ma
ture as far as she can and wants society to
do the same with all womankind by the
same means as they employ in converting
the boy from the farm and the forest into
the university graduate, the scientist and
the statesman. The advanced woman be-
heves that life is not mere course Of en-
joyment, had or pursued, but an existence
which should contain some lofty moral or
spiritual purpose. She believes in the eff
"a ~ AvNko nd ,oopal affont mn
matter wherO 1t is applied, whether in es-
tablishing a ragged school or club for
political study; In making a mineralog-
ical collection or pleading the cause Of
temperance; in starting Chautauqua cir
ole or in instructing poor young women in
embroidery, drawing or technical design;
In founding kindergartens where little
folks may be nationally developed, or in
conducting trade schools where men can
be made into skilled workmen. 1t Is not
a new type. There have been hundreds
and thousands Of such women the world
over. The only thing Is that these st.
Johns were isolated individuals while to-
day their name Is legion, and they are en-
deSvoring to SO improve the social world
a. to make their type universal. Ii iS
against this type that The Suns CORE
gpondent kicks, with the usual accom-
paniment Of much noise and leVeling Of
long ears.
There Is ssmall amount Of argument in
her article, but 1t Is buried beneath will
dsrness Of pleonasm, mixed metaphor and
altisonant sentences. Her opening pre-
mise that all advanced women are ugly to
hideousness Is as false as it is foolish and
could have been made only by one who
reoklessly fits facts to theory, or who
has never been admitted across the thresh-
old Of literary and intellectual society.
The truth is that advanced women are
as q class handsomer and healthier than