Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-10-04

The eccentric win Of the Iowa law
yer endowing q library from which
women and all her works be barred,
while not taken very seriously by the
public at large, brings forth comment
on womans growing stature in litera-
ture that would make its misogynistic
donor turn IN his grave.
Provision in the will that the words
mo woman admitted" shall be CHS
eled over the entrance of the proposed
building inspires the statement by the
Newark Evening News, Perhaps some
thing near the truth might be expressed
were there to be added to the inscrip-
ton designated in the will the further
words of Bernard Shaw, 'Woman's dear
est delight is to wound mans self-con-
ceit.'" The Evening News also offers
the comment on the purpose of the
institution: His dislike Tor women, Mr..
links will declared, came from expert
ence and the study of philosophy, his
tory and science. Maybe somewhere in
his science or philosophy he got his
conc option, which seems somewhat
vague, of now his womanless library Is
going to curb the influence of Ewes
daughters. After that influence has
increased, at the present rate, rs more
years, the womanless library may serve
DIS u IluSCuIl VI Liidl dHCleIlJ lille WIleIl
man was, or imagined he was, the domi-
nant SEX
Mr.. link apparently believed the
hand that rocks the cradle wrecks the
world" says the Grand Rapids Press,
setting forth the difficulties that must
be met in carrying out these provisions:
THE trouble Is that he failed to in
clude current events and future proba-
bilitiss. BY the year zoos, when his
will becomes active and his library is
put up, 1t won't be library at all. 1t
worlds literature by that time will be
written by women that the trustees will
have to draw chiefly on the past-and
even then they will be very busy dodg-
ing writer's of romance like George Eliot
and George Sand, not to mention the
westerns OF B. M. Bower. who also
wears skirts. and various other works
indistinguishable as to the sex of their
authorship"
1.-THE monument he plans by its very
omissions, according to the Rockford
Daily Republic, will if it is allowed at
last to be created, stand as the greatest
| monument to the genius of women.
Take the feminine influence out of
architecture and there is little left sa&e
roof and walls to incloSe one, for its
has been womans influence, working
on mans creative genius, that has in
spired beauty in building. Take woman's
| influence out of literature and philos-
ophy and there is nothing left. The
| truth Is that men without women are
lazy and uninspired. slothful beasts.
And the same is probably true of women
without men,"
"GruH old Stephen Girard of Phila-
delphia." suggests the San Antonio
HUAT1tnu ~rg,, IL
| OF the clergy enduring FORM but this
Iowan has set his executors a far more
difficult task. Suppose they carried his
| taboo to the logical conclusion and
barred all books in which women fig
llre-Mother Eve, Rebecca, Ruth, Esther
| and Mary Magdalene are in the Bible;
Hera, Pallas Athene, Helen and An
dromache move through Homer's pages
Don Quixote' would have to go out
with his fair Dulcinea; Shakespeare,
| Faust Ella and George Bernard
Shaw would be expelled. Schopenhauer
might stay, but Plato would be under
a cloud. Even mathematics would
require close scrutiny lest Hypatia
creep in"
at is just about impossible to have
| womanlesS world or a womanless part
of the world" contends the Albany Eve
ming News, holding that "a public
| library cannot be such If it Is barred
! to one sex" The Muncie Star advises
that lit will be more than a joke rs
years from now" and that nobody can
say what library needs or conditions will
be three generations from now"
At that time. in the opinion of the
Fort Worth Record-Telegram, 1T is
| highly doubtful if there will be any
libraries and lis equally doubtful If
there Is even 50 much as a womanless
plumber shop" The Record Telegram
comments further: For the first time