New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1911-04-29
THE WOMAN QUESTION
It's Significance to the Welfare
of the Race.
WOMAN AND LABOR. BY Olive schrein-
err limo. PIP. 2S9. The Frederick A.
Stokes Company.

err l2mo. PIP. 299. The FREDERICK a.
Stokes Company.
This study, 1t is now sufficiently well
known, is a resume OF far larger work
on its subject begun by Mrs. Schreiner
in her youth, partly finished In the
course Of many years, but destroyed by
fire during the Boer war before Its COM
pletion. Throughout the book. as writ
ten. bears evidence to the scope OF the
preliminary researches made by Its
author to equip herself for her task.
She never digresses, but furnishes a mass
Of illustrations from the past OF our race
and from the organization of the life OF
animals that adds much to the color ana
interest of her main argument.
Woman's "parasitism" "a subject
much to the fore just now. thanks, no
doubt. to this very book-forms the chief
subject discussed by Mrs. Schreiner. In
its original social significance, that OF
the idleness of the women Of the rich
and mighty, imposed upon them by the
men as evidence Of their own wealth and
Importance, Mrs. Schreiner attaches but
little importance to this parasitism. she
even seems to suggest that it may have
performed its part in evolution by ac-
celebrating the passing Of decadent aris-
tocracies for the benefit Of newer. more
virile and useful ones. 1t is with the en-
forced parasitism Of modern women, the
restriction of their many fields of labor
by machinery, by the transferrence OF
their housewifely tasks TO the factory
that she deals. Her point Of view here
sets her book apart from many others
for II is not the economical side Of the
problem that appears to her to be OF frst
Importance. but the welfare Of the race.
Woman. she argues, has labored by
mans side since the days Of the cave
dweller. Together they have struggled
inward her share Of the giant task
being added unto the children she bore
in increased brain and Drawn, in mind
and muscle. Parasitism, she continues
enforced idleness, will rob her of this
training by life for the benefit of her
offspring. The generations to come Will
be less capable in proportion to this ex-
clusion from the work of the world.
1t is a question of the future Of the
whole race, intellectually as we'll as
physically, and this woman. the mother
feels. If she cannot always state it in
exact terms:
That the woman's movement OF our day
has not taken its origin from any mere
process OF theoretic argument; that II
breaks out, now here and now there, IN
forms divergent and at times superfclally,
almost irreconcilable; that the majority or
those taking part IN II are orlVeh INTO az.
tion as the result Of the immediate pressure
of the conditions Of life. and are not al
ways able logically TO state the nature OF
all causes which propel them or TO paint
clearly all results OF ther acton, so iaI
from removing it from the category or the
vast recognizing movements OF humanity,
places It in line with them, showing now
vital, spontaneous and wholly organic and
unartifcial Is It's nature.
Mrs. Schreiner strikingly illustrates
her argument by suggesting that not
impossibly 1t has been the degenera-
ton and parasitism Of the female which
has set its limitation of the evolution
of ants, creatures, which. having
reached a point Of mental development
in some respects almost as high as that
Of man, have yet become curiously and
immovably arrested
AS for woman's share in the govern
ance of the state, the author holds that
her influence there will put an end to
war as the means of settling interna-
fiOnal disputes not because she has less
courage than man, but because she
knows the cost of human life to her,
whose heroism in creating it Erasmus
exalted so high above mans courage
in destroying ii. In some OF her pas
sages Mrs. Schreiner rises to heights
Of fine elOquence as where she invokes
the free, courageous women Of the Teu-
tonic races. immortalized by the Roman
historians-the mothers of the women
who to-day lead i'm seeking to continue
the work Of their men and children
among new conditions.
The changing relations between the
sexes. the new forms they must take
under the new dispensation that is grad
TALLY evolving itself but whose form
cannot yet be foreseen, form the sub
ject Of the third section OF the book,
which is profitable reading in it's large
outlines, even when one cannot agree
with her.
-T---
DR.. JOHNSON'S HOUSE.