The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1901-06-01

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village could learn that 1t is
not tire United States. and that its
"gildcd rich people in what arrosat"s
the title of society" to itself do not
compose the whole of the "Amcrcan'
ppople--nor even form either the chief
class numerically nor the typical class
of Americans.
Here is the Commercial Advertiser.
of which better things might have
been expected. in discoursing of recent
utterances by President Thwing, of the
Western Reserve university, and by
German professor. Hugo Munster
burg, at presen, in the faculty of Ilar
which we speak.
President Thwing. as many of our
readers know. has been discoursing on
the fact that in forty states of this
Union the number of girls in public
and private schools exceeds the num-
Der of boys. and remarks that this
stat. of things "will result in making
Of women as u whole an educated class
and of men collectively an uneducated
class Professor Munsterburg says
that this result is already here. Then
he goes on to say that. in his view.
the higher edlca tion of women is lln-
favorable to marriage and to domestic
life, because woman no longer re-
CARDS man as her supelior"-th her
''diSillusionment' in regard to this
makes ner Indifferent to marriage.
We may remark. in passing. that the
statistics of marriage among women
c"llrgians do not bear Professor Mum
Sltibur2's peSSimiSlic view out. But
it is not these two distinguished "edli-
GATORS" but the Advertisers far-fetch-
ed and contradictory conclusions from
their text. that we speak of. First 1t
declares that, with this state of
ihines-''men devotins themselves
more and more to purely material in
tereSts and women cultivating as never
before not only their intellectS but their
aesthetic tastes. the women who
really count. the women who are real
ly best worth while. will remain un-
married. and men will marry their in
feriors and rerpetuale the race on
the principal of the survival Of the un-
iiitest.' We'll. then. the race descend
Ell from strong ''material minded"
fathers and mothers who are intel
l"rtnallN their interiors ought at least
To be physically and merry, uSly strong
Yet the Advertiser follows this up i'm
mediately by saying: "if .as President
Thwins declares. woman Is to embody
leadership, superiority. control. this
means that our higher cultivation will
become feminiZed and that in the end
and in the absence of the virile uual.
i'y which is necessary to wholesome
ness, there will ensue a reign of NOR
bidity and neuroticism."
The educated college woman so far
has been the woman most free from
'morbidity and neuroticism." Through
her brief reign as the unmarried Wo-
man, therefore,. the 'wholesomeness"
Will suffer no loss: and according to
the Advertisers own showing the per
pei'laled race Of the future is to he
that of the strong man and the less
highly educated woman. That should
be satisfactory to the people who OBJ
j"rt /" women learning the alpha
bet"
All this is rather amusing. But when
the Advertiser goes on to state some
thing else as american" which is not
so. outside OF Il certain class of the
society rich forming Il romparatively
snai! class even in New York. Chicago
ana one or two other cities where they
have residence, ii ceases to be- anus
ing. 1t writes: THE real defect I'm
our present system is not an edl,ca-
lional defect at all. |, is rather to be
found in the unnatural separation of
interests between man and woman
which forms so striking Il feature of
our social and domastc life. In
France, in Germany, in E.nsland-
every where. indeed, in the western
world outside of the United States
a woman does not view her husbands
life work as segregated from her own
interest. In other countries. the wife
is IN reality her husbands partner,
his confidante, his inspiration in what
ever constitutes the serious occupa-
lion OF his life. She is Interested in
HIS business, in the details of his pro-
fession she shares his ambitions. she
enjoys his triumphs. and she makes
his failures bearablr. This binds the
two together as nothing else can do.
for II involves the honest recoenition
by woman that what man does he does
Tor her no less than for himself In
our country. however ii very different
and very unnatural state of things
prevails. Henry James has very we'll
described ii in his cpisram to the ef-
feet that the only thing which an
American woman knows about her
husbands business is that it DOESN'T
signify"
Henry James is a fitting person to
quote TO uphold this llbellous
view of the American woman.
An American only by birth
and in name, loving and lv-
ing in Europe by preference, knowing
there only the "soccty' class and SO
far as his books are concerned ignor-
ing the besI of them, h has
shown himself from first TO
last an absolute stranger 10 the Amer
lean woman-maiden, wife and mother.
One woman out of tens of thousands is
all that the Advertisers picture re-
sembleS.
At the annual convention of the Ma
tional American Woman's Suffrage as
sociatlon, which chose Memorial Day