The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-03-19
A DISCUSSION OF WOMEN.
DY MRS. !. N. de

The following is very interesting and was taken from Kansas City journal:
 Before a women's club at Oskaloosa the other day a lot of maids and madams discussed the question:: Are the wo- men of today an improvement on their foremothers? Mrs. Mcconnell led off with the statement that she would take neither the affirmative nor negative of this proposition, inasmuch as q am unable to see single defect in woman kind from the earliest settlement of the American continent down to the present" Mrs. Mcconnell Is evidently of the right sort. She doesn't propose to admit a female lacking of any kind-not even of modesty in proclaiming their graces But we must note that before she had finish ed her most admirable description of the virtues Of the sex she confessed to cer- tain physical weaknesses in the modern female. We cannot imagine" she said, that our foremothers of the Pilgrim Father days ever had rheumatism in their knees or neuralgia in their heads, or even faint feling in the pits of their stomachs. Coming down to the present day, of course the broad shoulders and well developed waist are not so much in evidence as in former days, and it also is true that in order to- possess the highest type of physical beauty straight line drawn from the back of the shoulders to the ground should fall in front of the abdomen, yet strength and endurance are still characteristic of the women of to- day."
 Another showing made by Mrs. McCon- nell is that Intellectually the women of today are far advanced over the women of 300 years ago. But that Is true of the men also-it is the progress of the world, not the progress of a single sex and comparison of mental attainments Is not convincing.
 Following Mrs. Cornell came Mrs. Hamilton, who bluntly declared that wo- men had retrograded. "I hold" she said a Wn of hn al al da,y were stronger physically, mentally and morally than the women of today" She showed that the women of Colonial times were capable of physical tasks such as the women of today are unable to per form.
 "The women of today" she said, Ego shopping and haven't strength enough to carry home their bundles. They buy their coffee. not only Drowned, but to concoct the beverage for breakfast. I contend that the women of that day were stronger mentally than the women of today. Girls were not sent through colleges then: in fact, they were not even yet they were the mothers of such men as Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams and James Monroe. The uneducated women of today are only one step above the monkey, and they are the mothers of the toughs on the streets. I contend that our foremothers were stronger morally. Their children were compelled to go to church; they had to learn the catechism; and when a thing was right they did 1t, whether it was against their comfort or not For instance, the throwing over board of the tea. There were but few leftover blessings in that day. Almost every woman was a mother. In this day there are a great many wives, but I have seen it estimated somewhere that only jseven-tenths of the wives are moth ers.r
 And so the debate clashed and counded among the maids and matrons, some claiming that woman had advanced until she radiated all the virtues in perfec- ton; others pictured her as retrograd- ing thing, full of vice and vanity, while still others concluded wisely that she was the same always and forever. reminding us of the verse of some cynical poet or the long ago who said:
 'The same are women, maids or crones.
 In every age and cline;
 Mems hearts they use for stepping stones
 Across the stream of time"