Omaha daily bee., 1908-10-11
Throueh woman,r E,es.

- hAAaE an unprecedented NUMBER
XAT OF women have become wage
" earners, and Investigators and
N uracticers in fields formerly
tG1ftESI monopolized by men, this NUM-
49, Der Is large and conspicuous
chiefly by contrast with former times. says
Anna Mcclure Sholl in the October Apple
tons. The immense majority Of women
still fulfil their chief and. in the last an
alysis, greatest destiny by being wives
mothers and homemakers. And IL they
were truthful, even the women who live
welded to their work would confess that
a book or a painting or a successful law
suit or a new discovery Is but a barren
substitute for a little child, and the vast,
echoing, empty crowded corridors Of the
world a poor makeshift for the freight Of
the home hearth. Some Of them boast that
escape from economic servitude is compen-
sation for all the ills of solitude, and Il
Is undeniable that the economical depend-
ence Of women on men has produced many
unhappy marriages, making chivalry an
empty name. But there are other slaveries
besides the slavery Of dependence. which
ceases to be, as soon as love enters into
the question, and women have not always
rid themselves Of letters by living their
own Ives unless. indeed. as is the case
with women physicians and with women
nurses, those lives are essentially lives OF
service, bringing out the maternal spirit
In them, and thus expressing their true
mission.
II the changes wrought by electricity are
stupendous, the changes brought about by
the new occupations and aims Of women
are scarcely less so. Within the last
twenty-five years-an astonlshingly short
period for so great a
emerging from the home, from the old
conventional narrowness Of spinsterhood
and the uncertain conditions Of dependence
whether happy or unhappy, have entered
almost every field Of activity once sacred
to men. They demanded first higher
\ education, and obtained It, so that in less
than a generation an unheard-of thing
became a commonplace. Somber. intense
women of the early seventies made II DOS
sible In a few short years for any pink
checked child of IS to enter college and
take her curls and picture hats and airy
graces with her, square waists and flat
heels being no longer synonymous with a
knowledge Of Greek. After they had be-
come trained in the higher branches the
next step was easy. They entered the
professions of medicine, of law, or archi-
lecture. They invaded newspaper offices
ana business offices; and there are now
strong signs that they are invading politics
though 1t is probable that they are taking
their felnininity with them, according to
the evidence of Mrs. Cobben sanderson. who
told IN a speech at Cooper Union that the
first remark made by one OF her devoted
band, after she had been hustled into the
Black Maria, was the immortal rs nv
hat on qtr1fohf pr Ag I,ru .,
care for the proper tilt Of their millinery.
you may scratch a suffragette and find
Eve.
Inc old toast was r~ight-women are the
superiors Of men, but not in intellect. nor
in those brawny qualities which are neces-
sary for a tussle with the world, SAYS a
writer in October Appleton's. They are
superior by right of gentleness, purity.
taith and the old sweet instinct to serve
and to bless. Men haven't time I'm these
crowded modern days for the fairer aspects
of existence, just as in the days of Aucas-
sin and Nicolette they were too occupied
with fighting and hunting to do more than
place their hopes of nobler, holier Things
in the white hands of some woman whose
heart would cherish for them what they
could not cherish for themselves. This
then, was and is the real nature Of chiv.
airy, despite enthronod women and guarded
pages and madrigals and sonnets and the
sp!endor falling on castle walls and all the
rest of it-this recognition of heaven seer
in the sweet face Of a beloved woman. this
need to be prayed for and forgiven. thi,
remembrance of some diviner world made
real by the soul of a fair woman-fail
whether In kings courts or tending sheer
by the meadow brooks, this reaching GU.
toward beauty because a girls hair wa.
gold and her eyes blue, this belief in mys
terious things because a girl passed out Of
vision and was hungered for and when seer
again brought all heaven with her. "And
} saw a damosel, as me thought, all in white
with a vessel in both her hands, and for
withal 1 was whole"