The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1899-11-18
s
In WOman'S World.

With the growth and development Of
new field of endeavor for women, of which
they are rapidly taking advantage. This
Is the lecture field. The lyceum no longer
lives and f1ourishes as it did in former
days. and lecturing before indiscriminate
audiences is no longer-except in rare and
isolated cases. when to see some celebrity
from abroad is as much the attraction as
to hear him speak-a popular means of en-
t~ertainment. The great public does not
wish to be instructed; it simply desires to
be amused. But the large army of wom-
en- who make up the clubs are in the most
receptive attitude possible, and are all
ready to listen to anything that is told
them in a pleasing manner.
There is great danger Of the field be-
coming overworked, because so many
women. with a smattering of information
and a limitless ambition, rush to enter the
lists, but there must come a Sitting out,
as the women who constitute the listeners
become more critical, and begin to discern
between the woman who really knows her
subject and she who has just STUDIED up
for the occasion.
There are certain necessary quali1ca-
tons that one must possess in order to
win permanent success. In the first place,
one must be a thorough mistress of the
| subjects upon which she proposes to talk.
She must be scholarly, and must possess
a fund of general knowledge, for she is
likely to be consulted as an authority up
on many things. Then she must have a
talent for public speaking, a magnetic
presence, a gracious manner and a pleas
ant voice. This talent she must cultivate
bringing out all that is best in her, and
avoiding all affectation and pose. Her art
must be nature at its best, so perfectly
developed as to hide the art. Indeed, this
is one Of the most important points of her
preparation in the mere mechanics of her
| profession. The most important of all is.
of course, the preparation of the subject
matter.
Too many women are trying to get be-
fore the public who are not only not pre-
pared, but who are poorly equipped. A
woman is asked to prepare a paper for
her own or for a sister club, and posi-
bly, she does it by choosing a subject for
whose development she has only to con-
suit an encyclopedia. She copies directly
from her source of information, and pre-
| sents nothing that is fresh or original.
She does not try to infuse life or a bit
of brightness or a particle of enthusiasm
into it. Really, it is not very much to
be proud of; it stands for nothing but a
| few hours busy examining; there is no
real study, no thought, no development
in it. Any school girl could have done
| just as much, and probably more, be-
cause she is accustomed to getting the
kernels out of things in the course of her
study.
But she goes with her paper before a
friendly audience, a small one, too, which
! knows even less than she does about
the subject, since she has looked
it up in the encyclopedia and she. is
praised and all sorts of -extravagant
things are said about the paper by those
whose province it is to praise-since, prob
ably, they did not pay-until her head is
turned, and she imagines that she is the
peer of Julia Ward Howe. Immediately her
ambition becomes fired, and she deter
mines upon a career as a lecturer. Pos
sibly she has a grain of wisdom and
keen sound sense, which guides her to
the correct result. She realizes what
there is lacking in her performance, and
She says to herself: ST surely can do bet
ter than that"
That is only a possibility, however, for
the woman who has the real root of the
matter in her shows 1t, even when she
is asked to get up for her club a paper
which must of necessity have the en-
| c~yclopaedia for its source of Informal
ton. There is something about it that
reveals the power of the compiler to do
better things, and the discovery Of these
powers may be as great a surprise to
| herself as to any of her friends-possibly
a greater surprise, since the very fact
that she has been invited to do this thing
proves that somebody believed she could
do it.
If she says to herself, after the first
| success, 81 know, if they do not, that 1
| could do a great deal better than thai"
and then she goes to work to improve
with all the mental power she has, She
will succeed, and will reap an abundant
harvest in this field of labor; but If she is
| satisfied with ner achievement, plumes
herself upon her success" and accepts
the praise of wel1-meaning but ill-quali-
fed critics, and then goes before a
larger, really well-informed, keenly crit
ical audience, with her encyclopaedia per-
Torrance, what bitter disappointment
awaits her, what a rude awakening from
| her dreams of fame and %fortune! For
she is doomed to failure from the very
beginning.
There is no hope for her. In this, al
most more than in any other field, earn
| est, thorough, study tells, and it is sui
| cidal to enter it without a perfect equip
| ment.
There are many women in this coun-
try and in England who are succeeding
| along this line in a wonderful way. Most
/ of them are specialists, talking upon the
| topics which they have made their own
| by long and careful study. They do a
most benefcent work in the education
of the people, and more especially in sup
| plementing the training derived in the
| schools, and in bringing education down
| to date among those who have been too
busy in other avocations to pursue their
studies after leaving school or college.
'"The universal frailty of our human ma
| ture which dislikes to be told of faults
must be taken into consideration when
we I'VE with our wn-u children, .
writes Kate Upson Clark In the November
.sWoman's Home Companion" after
| they pass the age of fourteen or fifteen
| they usually betray a greater sensitive
-.-1 xLr~ h.fc~a A. II ~~o