River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1915-02-25
WOMAN OF YESTERDAY,
TODAY AND TOMORROW
Continued from page y

women Of today have no cows to
milk, no milk to skim, no butter
to churn, no bread to bake, no fruit
to can, no carpets to beat, no win
doWs to wash, no floors to pol
ish-nachinery does it all.
Viewing woman in such q posi-
ton today we may easily see h
danger Olive Schreiner fears for
her. She fears, in her book writ
ten rs late as 1911, that if woman
leaves the new fields Of labor to
man, she, herself, will become a
narasite, like the women Of Rome.
Her book contains many sentences
like these: "Not slavery nor the
most vast accumulation of wealth
could destroy a nation by enerVa-
ton, whose women remained &C
tive, virile and laborious." "Only
an able and laboring .WOmanhood
can produce an able and laboring
manhood.O at is the woman who
is the final standard of the race
from which there can be no e
parture for any distance, for any
length Of time in any direction;
as her brain Weakens, Weakens the
man she bears, as she decays so
does he"
But. reviewing the work woman
is doing today, there seems to be
no national trend toward parasit-
ism.
Our women Of recent yesterday,
with a serene and invincible cour-
age, began the work which t h cir
lives were too short to complete,
the work which still speaks Of
them and which the women Of to-
day are carrying toward compile
ton. On the white marble slab
which marks the grave Of Lydia
Maria Child, are these words:
"You call us dead. We are not
dead but truly living now
For centuries women have been
working for their own betterment
and to better the conditions Of the
human race. About her early
struggle in education Mrs. Fields
told you some time ago. But
desire to say before / go farth-
er that woman never asked for
admission into any field of use
fulness until she had shown her
capabilities there, and there was
never a door at which she knock
ed that she did not find strong
manly hands on the other side
willing to open it for her.
s'Social conditions, like individu-
al conditions, become familiar by
use, Nand cease to be observed"
Women in educational religious and
philanthropic work appear to every
one now to be engaged in that
which is especially designed for
woman, yet the time is not very
distant in which a woman's voice
was never heard even in a religi-
Gus council. 1t was becoming in
her to sit meekly still, hear
obey. When she first raised her
voice for freeing the slave, pas
tors over the land asked other pas
tors to denOunce from their pulpits
such unwomanly conduct. If she
met with opposition in such lines
of work we may we'll wonder how
she ever became a doctor or law
yer.
Americas first M. D. was Eliza
beth Blackwell, and the history OF
her perseverance, in medicine until
she finally was allowed her de-
gree, is typical of every other
woman's, who was the first to en-
ter some profession hitherto bar
red to woman.
St. Louis was the first city in the
United States to open it's law
schools to women; Miss Phebe
Couzins being the first woman a J.
mitted to the bar This city also
has the honor of preparing the
first woman sculptor, Harriet Hos
mer, after admission had been re-
fused her in eastern colleges.
The mission of the first wom-
en- in the legal profession is still
one among the things for which
women are working today-the re
moval of legal disabilities Of
women. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
was one of the pioneers in this
movement and the following little
story is told of how the resolution
to do this was formed in her child
hood: A poor old woman came
into Judge Cady's law office and
told her story of dissipated son,
a shrewish daughter-in-law a
her life of servitude. When she
was married her own father gave
her the home in which she had
boon roared since childhood an6