Woman Again !

THE publication in the Atlantic of a second article on the American woman by Mrs. Anna A. Rogers recalls to my mind the fact that once, in a valorous moment, I formed a plan for discussing a few of the points taken up in the first, “ Why American Marriages Fail,” in the September issue, 1907. Surely, so long as womankind exists, comments on this notable piece of work will not be out of place. Far be it from me to attack the main body of the arguments there presented; I am not of that large body of maiden ladies who are eagerly settling, in print, the ultimate problems of matrimony. Only one or two chance shots in all that splendid fire shall I try to follow. Perhaps it should have been done long ago, but I could not summon courage. Reading the stinging paragraphs makes one feel as if the leader of the Amazons had suddenly turned to rend her following; mine is only a weak voice out of the débris.

Let us admit at the outset that these large sayings contain much truth and much good sense. Occasionally it seems as if —in a Penthesilea moment — an already too good case were being overpressed. The inferiority of womankind being established by nature, by man, by law, is it necessary to adduce in proof such a thundering indictment as that no woman ever started a great religion ? It is not my intention to suggest that great religions are not commonly the result of individual invention; my only feeling is one of apprehension. It is hardly safe to give womankind a dare; is not Mrs. Rogers afraid that some woman may try to make good the lack ? For my part I know one or two who I hope have not read the article, for they are quite capable, if they hear the challenge, of starting great religions before to-morrow morning.

In some way, too, it seems a bit contradictory to blame us both for the fact that we have founded no great religions, and for the fact that gourmet has no feminine. One or the other form of success might perhaps fairly be expected, but not both! Even as I write, however, I realize that if gourmet has no feminine it should have, for no other term could so perfectly describe Blanche, my white cat. Is there any way in which I could make known to Mrs. Rogers the fact that one of our sex, at least, deserves the term r

But this is not what I started to write about. My real interest in the article lies in its arraignment of the modern girl as too brusque, too independent, too muscular, too loath to accept masculine assistance in getting off street-cars, — a creature with over-developed body and over-developed mind. I want to make a bit of a plea for the modern girl! It is not that 1 fail to have my moments of uneasiness about her, as, for instance, when I meet her, three abreast, striding along the board-walks of New England. On these occasions, as on many another, I retreat before her, and the action is perhaps symbolic. We older women are retreating before her! In all her varieties, social, collegiate, domestic, I can see great promise, even if I cannot share the entire enthusiasm of a beaming orator in addressing a Sunday-school, upon seeing “so many beautiful young women all growing up to manhood.” Instead of finding, with Mrs. Rogers, that the modern girl sincerely loves herself alone, I find her a far more generous creature than her predecessors, and far less selfcentred. It has been my lot for some time past to watch representative groups of girls of the type Mrs. Rogers calls over-educated, and the quick shifting of their centre of interest from the personal to something larger than their personal claim suggests to me great gain over the past. Their pride in one another’s achievements is greater than in their own: their sense of civic need and of civic responsibility in their college world is full of abnegation of individual claim. The swift rush of a defeated candidate in an election to share in the ovation to her successful rival, the quick and hearty cheering for the victors of the body worsted in intercollegiate contests, brings an odd feeling to even my hardened throat. These young women are generous to a fault, eager to share with one another garments, money, and compliments. Does not this growing impersonality mean an enlargement of life for womankind ?

I confess that our now-a-days girl is sometimes a bit brusque; I share in the often expressed feeling of dismay that we shall have no more elderly ladies of the old-fashioned sort; but I claim for the new girl, not only the generosity already spoken of, but transparent honesty, a virtue hitherto much appreciated in boys, but not expected in young women. She is honest in so many ways! About her looks, for she scorns disguises, and constantly bares her head to the sunshine; about her emotions, for she does not pretend a quivering sensibility which she does not feel; about her physical strength, for she is proud, not ashamed, of her muscle, and does not demand help in getting off the street-car when she does not need it. The blushing, protesting, fainting, Harriet Byron type of women, deeply self-conscious and profoundly concerned with her own physical and spiritual make-up, has never wholly disappeared until these later days. In the sounder body and more vigorous and open mind of the modern type I see great hope for the race, though I, too, could wish a trifle of softening in manner. I have an idea that a remedy for many of the marriage evils of which Mrs. Rogers complains lies in those very qualities in the modern girl against which the lady doth protest too much, and that the mental development accompanying the physical in the training of the present generation of young women will fit them nobly to be the mothers of noble sons. Would it not be well to apply here, too, Amiel’s advice, for which the author makes a plea at the end of her paper: “To be patient, sympathetic, tender; to look for the budding flower and the opening heart; to hope always? ”