The copper country evening news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 18??-1907, 1898-06-11
THE NEW WOMAN.
What Real Impression Are Feminine Clubs
Making on Their Time?

Fifteen years ago the newspapers ig-
nored women's clubs. Masculine editors
thought the doings of these organiza-
tions were so trivial as not to be worth
mentioning and women who belonged
to clubs deserved to be sat upon and
silenced anyhow. Well, that is changed.
Reporters are now sent regularly TO the
meetings of women's clubs and columns
are devoted to them. No woman can
longer complain that no report of the
doings of her society can be got into the
newspapers But what are women clubs
doing? They meet, they read papers,
they elect officers, they dress in the lat
est fashion, they have exciting can
vases and campaigns, they even black
ball candidates sometimes. All this eX-
perience is useful 1t teaches women
parliamentary usage; it makes them
claw and criticise one another less; in
tercourse with one another rubs off the
wire edges and the bristles of those who
otherwise never would have tried to
control their tempers In order to get
ON at all i'll club it is necessary for us
TO be at least moderately generous and
kindly toward one another. They have
q social eclat these women clubs. The
ladies crack their brains and electioneer
to get themselves elected president or
secretary or something so they will be
thought somebody. But of the deeper,
sweeter experiences of humanity, Of
that intense, finer, higher development
| to get which the soul was sent to this
! earth, how much of these do the women $
clubs foster? OF that enthusiasm which
| thrills human being through and
| through till he is ready to give his life
| for great cause and devote all his
powers to it, how much of this is awak-
| ened in ladies' clubs? l do not know.
Without such enthusiasm, without up
! lifting aims and desire for something
| better than mere clothes, offices, tea
drinkings, receptions, newspaper men
ton and the like, do know, though,
that the doings and sayings OF all the
women's clubs in America are the mere
cracking Of thorns under pot l have
read somewhere in the writings OF an
old Brahman that people in general were
like monkeys running hither and thither
in O palm forest. What is this life with
only the aim of the average human be-
ing to get more money, to get social dis
tinction, to pamper up his perishable
body with good clothes and delicate
viands-what more is it than the life OF
monkey in palm forest? In heavens
name what real difference will 1T make
whether you or somebody else is presi-
dent of that club?
In Chicago there is q woman surgeon
who is rapidly rising to more than local
distinction. Mrs. Augusta Siegmund, q
lady of German birth, studied medicine
after she was married. She had natu'
raj gift for handling the scalpel. She
knew by strange, intuitive faculty
where to strike and what the trouble
was 1t seems sometimes almost like q
second sight the skill she shows i'll di-
agnosing obscure surgical cases. The pro-
fessors at her college were amazed and
delighted at her expertness with the
shining steel instruments. They advised
her to make speciality of surgery. She
has now lucrative practice. The most
difficult and delicate cases are sent to
her by physicians who feel that they
themselves have not the skill or nerve
to undertake the operations.
l have read lately a poem which
speaks of how woman since the world
began in regard to her love for man has
always "bargained and bartered and
lost and been glad of the loss. " What
mean, slave soul the woman has who
could write or think such thought
There is a lamentable lack in the
training of our young men. In all the
education they get there is not single
course of study that prepares them Tor
fatherhood. We recommend the endow-
ment at Yale and Harvard of profess
orship to train young men to be fathers
What good for u man to be an expert
lawyer or civil engineer If he knows
nothing about his God given mission to
be father. The raising of fund for
the endowment of such a professorship
would be n noble work for those ami
able old ladies of both sexes who are
trying to stop the emancipation OF wo-
men.
The fussy trifling of women in many
of their clubs reminds one OF children
playing with dolls
Choose your task, whether running
an engine or doing homework, and then
90 ON and accomplish it without any
fuss Do what you want to do and don't
cackle over it.
Il has been suggested that boys be
taught to do homework and girls be
taught the use Of tools as an addition TO
the education Of both. Boys who can
make beds, sweep and wash dishes Will
| not be apt TO look down ON women and
their work.
ELIZA ARcHARD CONNER.