New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-06-01
SAYS Fall of Death Rate
Makes Large Families
Unnecessary.
SPEAKS TO COLUMBIA
PHI BETA KAPPA MEN
Miss Gildersleeve First Woman
to Address Morningside
Chapter of Scholars.

the tOlumDlh tHaptef Va III wv"
Kappa the annual address was deliv-
cred last night by a woman. Dean
Virginia c. Gildersleeve Of Barnard
spoke before $50 members OF the So
cIety in Schermerhorn Hall. Dean
Frederick Keppel Of Columbia Col
lege presided over the meeting, which
followed the annual dinner
Taking for her subject Some Guides
for Feminine Energy" Dean Glider
sleeve vigorously defended a lower
birth rate. and said she believed the
decrease in the marriage rate was
opening UP new fields Of activity for
women outside the family.
"The chief reason why our sex has
been so strenuously thrustinR itself
toward the front Of the stage" she
said. "is that for the last fifty years
or so. because Of rapid social and eco
nomic changes. we have been storing
up a great reservoir Of unused femi-
nine energy. Years hence the his
torian will doubtless record the va
carries of the militant suffragettes In
England as mere surface ripples before
the terrible tidal wave Of violence and
madness which was so soon to rise
and overwhelm Europe. But they were
also extreme examples Of this damned
up feminine energy bursting out in un-
expected and somewhat destructive
torrents. L,
"The problem of directing into new
channels Of useful labor this immense
supply Of energy has been thrust sud
denly upon our sex. We should be for
given for not solving IL at once and
for occasionally making fools Of our
selves as we feel our way toward a So
luton.
ITO enumerate briefly some of the
reasons for this storing up of surplus
feminine energy: Fifty years ago the
house was an industrial organization
which supplied enough work to absorb
all its feminine members in directing
and laboring, in bearing and caring
for children, in educating young girls
who had no other mode of training
save this home apprenticeship.
This labor has been done away with
by the removal of work from the home
to the factory. Spinning, weaving and
garment making have gone. When
secure light by clicking button re-
member my fathers account of how
his mother and other women of ;ie
househol labored long to manufacture
candles.
Specialization is also taking away
from women two tasks which their
tastes and affections made them reluc-
tant to surrender-th education Of
their children and the nursing Of their
sick.
Even more important in releasing
feminine energy has been the fall of
the death rate and the birth rate.
There is no longer need for such a
high birth rate to keep population suf-
ficiently numerous. In large families
of former days many children d;I not
survive infancy. Who that has ever
known the tragedy of one of these
brief lives can regret that changing
conditions have at least partially done
away with the fearful drain on wom-
ans vitality of bearing and losing chill
dren?
Ear better is it that they should
perform their vital and precious SER
vice of perpetuating the race through
a lower birth rate and the devotion Of
some of their energy to the reduction
of the percentage of infant mortality.
Another cause of the release of
feminine energy has been the post
ponement of the age of marriage. Be-
tween leaving school and marrying the
time seems to be about four years.
What outlets are to be found during
these four years for the intelligent,
energetic girl who cannot endure an
idle, futile existence as a social para
site, however pampered and petted?
"A wife is far less economically
necessary to husband than she was
in the past. A husband is both eco
nomicslly and socially far less neces-
sary to woman
As new fields for women to work in
Dean Gldersleeve mentioned medicine
and surgery, social work, architecture
and the ministry.
"In England" she said, women are
even being employed as district mes
sengers, as upholsterers, elevator boys
and workers in the ammunition fac
tories.
81 have omitted the field Of house
hold and family. This may lead you
to believe am prophesying women's
complete emancipation from all do
nestle duties. Nothing could be fur
Their. from my thoughts. Work con-
nected with husband, family and home
will. believe, absorb the energies of
some women all the time and of most
women part of the time.
The so-called new woman appears
to some observers of both sexes an in
truding, abnormal, vociferous and
rather dangerous creature. But an
immensely complex task has been
thrust upon us. Though we may
stumble frequently, we are really max
ing honest efforts.
a.. u