The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1897-10-23

read nor write. But the prince has
changed all that. He is a great lover
OF education and has covered his prin-
cipalty with elementary schools for the
benefit of boys and girls alike. while at
Cettinje is the Russian institute. where
a certain number OF Montenegrin girls
receive a more or less European educa-
ton and are initiated into civilized
ways and customs. Every year educa-
tion is spreading; the girls are learning
TO read and write and finding out more
of the position of their sisters in the
great countries OF Europe.
Soon Montenegro will be face TO face
with the awkward question, Who is to
do the work of the principality? VIII
these educated girls be content to go
back TO their villages and resume their
peasant life? Will they be content TO
lapse into what their mothers are, 10
forget useless education which has led
10 nothing, and TO resume the heredita-
ry tasks of digging i'm the fields and
staggering under heavy loads. while
the men smoke cigarettes in the sun or
swagger down the narrow street In
gay coat with belt full of revolvers
and yataghans?
1t is more than probable that their
education, by taking them away fron
held work while they are yet young
Will unfit them for heavy labor, AMI
that their glimpse of the position a
fairly we'll TO do women i'm Europe will
make them unwilling To be beasts OF
burden, while the men idle through long
years of peace. parading useless weap-
ons and standing in readiness to be
called out To fight an enemy who never
comes. But il the Montenegrin con-
tinues to think work beneath the dig
nifty OF warrior after his wife has
risen from her condition Of slavery, the
barren rocks will refuse the scanty
crops they now yield. and an increased
subsidy from both Russia and Austria
will alone save the little principality
from ruin,
For the time being the position OF
half educated girls I'm the Montenegrin
villages is a very awkward one. Many
of them become governesses, but they
must needs be in the minority, and those
who do not reach so high a standard OF
excellence are out OF place when they
return TO their native cottages They
cannot work and they are not wanted to
teach, and, though greatly improved
and emancipated, they suffer from be-
,, ing more advanced than the rest of the
country people. In time, as the older
spreads. this isolation will disappear,
but meantime those in the forefront OF
the change must suffer
Perhaps peace and independence will
bring about what the Turks could never
effect. Now that the tide OF Islamism
has ebbed away from the rocks of Mon
| tenegro, all reason for the existence OF
the little principally as a separate
state has also passed away. Montene-
| gro is but a part of Herzegovina,
| and now that that province is no longer
ruled by the Turks, but administered by
a Christian power. the necessity for
| Slav state artifcially separated from
other Slav states is rapidly and obvi-
| ously ceasing to exist. In the old days
| the men were warriors and the women
workers; but now the men will have TO
| DO their share of the work. and the
education and emancipation of the
women is one " the first symptoms. as
| il will assuredly be one Of the final
causes. of Montenegro finally ceasing
! to exist as a separate isolated and in
| dependent state, at any rate with her
present restricted boundaries.