, 1921-05-05

4, CLEAN of light. OF n sudden / remembered that in
Gods own country the primary schools have for many
and that in the high schools they constitute an over.
whelming majority Then. in my minds eye, / saw
the male youth Of the United States being led in the
way II should go, from childhood to the very portals
OF manhood. by women, and most of these unmarried.
And In that vision / found a possible explanation of
the artificial development of woman's Intellectual and
social superiority over man in the land of the brave
and the free. Herein. t seems to me, lies the onIy
rational Interpretation of the fact that the idea of
woman has come to be instinetively, unconsciously
associated in the mind Of the American man with the
idea of superior wisdom and incontestable authority.
III the young American idea, during the whole pc
nod Of its receptive development, is taught to shoot
by anc for womcn; il all its earliest and keenest i'm
pressions are dominated by the gentle but very firm
figure of Her Who Must Be obeyed, is it matter for
wonder il the resultant Man continues all his DAYS
to walk humbly before one whom he has learned to
reverence and to fear7 Is it strange if. for the sake
of her white spinster soul, he chivalrously assumes
virtues to which his real Adam can lay no valid claim!
Is it any wonder il he consents, and even expects, to
be treated as a child naughty or good. as the case
may bel, to be patronized and supervised in all his
goings out and comings in, to be admonished and
chastened through life, keeping a wistful eye all the
while on the baek-door fence and the trail to the
woods, where no squaw rules the wigwam?
"h the hand that rocks the cradle does all that
they say, is it not equally certain that the hand that
SOUL will appeal to che Mans Imagination to the end
of his days? viii he not walk, 30 to speak, contin-
ually under the shadow and menace of that spank7
And IL the hand of the spanker be a spinster hand,
will it not impress upon the young idea, and the Man
who grows out Of it, much of the spister's moral and
physical nervousness-her sentimentalhty and scnsi-l
tive avoidance Of realities,
In tho light thus youchsafed / seem to descry be-
hind many of the facts and phenomena peculiar to
American civilization TIE shadow of the 'schoolmarm
quietly but firmly imposing her individuality and her
authority upon the mind of the nation; a benign and
intelligent being, no doubt, but, rs an educative in
fluence, suffering from the obvious limitations and
defects of her femininity. / see her form looming
large behind the historic figures of Mr.. and Mrs. Will
son at Versailles; l hear her accents in the Fourteen
Points. l detect her feverish inspiration in that ma
tional disposition or disorder which Bairnsfather's old
Bill has defined as a rush of righteousness to the
head |
Il see her shadow Gas that Of a godmother), au-l
thoritative but irresponsible, at the christening of the
League of Nations; / see her (chewing gum) in the
Anti-Saloon League and the counsel chambers of pro-
hibition. i discern her clearly behind all the POLITICAL
panaceas and moral crusades to which America has
given a local habitation and a name. Very vigilantI
she looms behind the activities Of purity leagues, a.
gigantic Mrs. Grundy. / detect distinct echoes of her
admonitory tones in the winged words of statesmen
and philanthropists, in the pious platitudes of Mr..
Bryan, yes, even in the boisterous bellows of Borah. |
l seem to catch a glimpse of her pale but determined
expression in the features Of the Statue of Liberty"
The real author of the League of Nations has been
discovered. 1t was not Wilson, neither was it SHUTS.
IT any one is sufficiently interested in the subject at
this time to inquire, the answer is Einstein.