Norwich bulletin., 1912-02-17

husbands q your children. and it was
obtained only after 80 years of strug
gle by theie pioneers in woman suf-
frase. The. same narrow, selfish course
of reasoning; was used against these
women by women and men of their
generation that is used today. History
repeats itself.
1t is profitable to study history. and
we women n eed to do lot of thinking
while We read Just look back. Swamp
Apple, to hess than a. century ago
1S3T-girls only went to school in the
summer, and that only in some towns.
Lucy Stone dared not let anyone know
that she studied Latin-so great was
the prejudice among even women
against any special education. Votes
for women is not half as much of an
innovation as was the educational in
novation Of those days-when women
and even children were hung as
witches
Fifty thousand women have gradual
e,l from cf)llege in late years. Every
step of progress for women has been
made over thorny paths for some
womens feet-yes, and men, too, have
trod the same path-fOr only as men
WIDEN in knowledge and goodness do
women gain fresh rights. They all
have to come to us through the help Of
noble men, and the world is full Of
them.
1t was mans money that founded
Nassar college, which opened in 1865
with 40 students and this last year
had something like a thousand.
How was the first woman's club
formed? 1t was when Charles Dickens
came to this country and the New
York press gave him dinner. There
were women who then did press work
and were excluded because they were
women. and these women said: We
will have q. club" and Sorosis was
born. What q storm it raised! 1T
would ruin the home" was the cry,
far and wide. The home is sweeter
and nobler for it. There are now more
! than 100000 clubwomen.
Let me give my anti-suffrage Social
Corner friends, for we must be friends,
| the pictures Of two homes that l know
OF In one was the mother, a club
/ woman. with two sons. IA and 16. A
guest at dinner gave me this picture,
l which is too common: beautifully
! appointed house, the dinner table was
\ exquisite with its cut glass, silver and
! linens. At one end sat the father
! looking over the evening paper be-
| tween courses; at the other the wife
I and mother; at the right of the father
! the elder son; at the right Of the
mother the younger. During the meal
! the younger asked his father about
wireless telegTaphy He told him he
was too young to understand, and
went on with his paper. The boy
turned to his mother. She explained it
1 SO simply and intelhgently that the
! father lowered his paper and gazed at
| his wife in establishment and said
] why, mother where did you learn
| so much?'
. She replied "At the club
! The boy looked at his father and
said triumphantly:
/ Mother knows everything"
1t was a happy moment for that
| recognize that a mother must know in
| these days many things beside fixing
: up fancy dishes which have ruined
| many a stomach.
The other home The mother brewed
! and baked. scrubbed and fused over
! her children from morn until night;
/ no time to go to q club, or even to
keep up with the daily papers. Her
| boy came home with odor of cigarettes
| about him. The ! mother questioned
! him and found he was acquiring the
habit and when she reproved this lad
! Of IA he said scoFnfully:
Mother. you don't know; you never
| go anywhere"
She sat long irto the small hours of
| the night review ing how she spent
| those IA years that her boy had been
! approaching the crisis of his life, and
! too late she saw her mistake Yes, she
| had been a devoted. loving mother. but
| narrow, ignorant one She did not
know-she had not kept pace with her
| boy or her husband, either, for he too
went out evenings to his club-1or
mental relaXa1on-which he might
have found at home, if she had read
| more and scrubbed less.
My own blessed mother had and
reared seven children, of which I was
the youngest. She never went to he'd
until she had read carefully the daily
| papers and I have heard my brothers
say:
y would rather hear my mother talk
| politics than any man | know"
| cannot remsmbor If my father
| ever spending an evening away from
home unless my mother went with him
| fhe home where the mother kesps
| paSe with the intellectual life of the
| world, or the progress of the world Is
! the home that holds the husband and
| children.
Woman suffrage has come to stav
/ and or high school boys and girls are
( debating 1t all over the country. and
woo to the mother who finds it heavy
reading-when she finds it in the So.
cial Corner some day her boy win
say: But, mother, you do not knoV
and her heart will culver.
| Eternal progress moves on
From state to state the spirit steps -
Let US help each other TO ster
couraEeously and intelligently onward
| with an open, receptive mind If there
Is any one thing that thank God for
more than another it is that 7 had a
mother who thought and read and
stepped from state to state"-liftIuE
us UP with her.
MARrFDA c. BUTLER ROBINSON
Daniaison