REFERENCES1 GOVERNMENT PUBLICATIONS making the mber that well as ind * Annual Reports of the United States Commissioner of Immigration. Report of the United States Immigration Commission (42 vols.). *See especially Vols. I and II, which are an abstract of the whole report. m Report of New York State Commission on Immigration, 1909. GENERAL * COMMONS, JOHN R., Races and Immigrants in America, 1907. * FAIRCHILD, H. P., Immigration, a World Movement and its American Significance, 1913. * HALL, P. F., Immigration and its Effects upon the United States, 1906. JENKS, J. W., and LAUCK, W. J., The Immigration Problem, 3d edition, 1913. ROBERTS, PETER, The New Immigration, 1912. *Ross, E. A., The Old World in the New, 1914. WARNE, F. J., The Immigrant Invasion, 1913. SPECIFIC RACES BABCOCK, K. C., The Scandinavian Element in the United States. University of Illinois Studies in the Social Sciences, Vol. III, No. 3 (September, 1914). BALCH, E. G., Our Slavic Fellow Citizens, 1910. COOLIDGE, M. R., Chinese Immigration, 1909. FAIRCHILD, H. P., Greek Immigration, 1911. FAUST, A. B., The German Element in the United States (2 vols.), 1909. JOSEPH, SAMUEL, Jewish Immigration to the United States from 1881 to 1910. Columbia University Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law, Vol. LIX, No. 4, 1914. LORD, TRENOR, and BARROWS, The Italian in America, 1903. DESCRIPTIVE AND NARRATIVE * ANTIN, MARY, The Promised Land, 1912. * BALCH, E. G., Our Slavic Fellow Citizens, 1910. BRANDENBURG, B., Imported Americans, the Experience of a Disguised STEINER, E. A., The Immigrant Tide, 1909. 1 Starred references are those worthy of first attention in additional reading. second m as the ΤΙ fit f W BOOK III THE WOMAN PROBLEM CHAPTER X THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY IDEAL OF WOMAN AND THE EARLY MOVEMENT FOR WOMEN'S RIGHTS early nineteenth-century estimate of the character and duties of women, 424. Attitude of the orthodox clergy toward the early women's-rights movement, 427. Rousseau's ideas on the proper education for girls, 428.- Mary Wollstoneft on the influence of education and social surroundings, 433. — Declaration of Sentiments adopted by the first Woman's Rights Convention, 440. [We may perhaps get a fair understanding of some social situons without going back to their historical setting, but hardly of feminist movement. While some knowledge of the anthropoical background and still more of the position of women in eece and Rome and under Canon Law and Medieval Chrisa sentiment is desirable, it is essential that we know something the position of woman and of the accepted ideals of her haracter and duties" in the eighteenth and early nineteenth turies, especially in England and the United States. Only if see clearly the significance of this historical aspect of woman's ce in society, are we in position to understand the animus and meaning of the early women's-rights movement or of the radic early literature of the question, from Mary Wollstonecraft John Stuart Mill. It is a question how much of the eightth-century ideal of woman still remains. Certainly it lasted down past the middle of the nineteenth century. There doubtless still many survivals of it in our unconscious atties, and even now, here and there, a writer is found who ks back to it as a forsaken ideal which should be returned to.1 In any case it is most instructive to compare the social, economic, and moral status of woman to-day with what it was before the Industrial Revolution and modern democratic ideals had begun to work their profound change on woman's relation to society.] 39. AN ESTIMATE OF THE CHARACTER AND CAPACITY OF WOMEN 2 The Power who called the human race into being has, with infinite wisdom, regarded, in the structure of the corporeal frame, the tasks which the different sexes were respectively destined to fill. To man, on whom the culture of the soil, the erection of dwellings, and, in general, those operations of industry, and those measures of defense, which include difficult and dangerous exertion, were ultimately to devolve, he has imparted the strength of limb, and the robustness of constitution, requisite for the persevering endurance of toil. The female form, not commonly doomed, in countries where the progress of civilization is far advanced, to labors more severe than the offices of domestic life, he has cast in a smaller mold, and bound together by a looser texture. But to protect weakness from the oppression of domineering superiority, those whom he has not qualified to contend he has enabled to fascinate; and has amply compensated the defect of muscular vigor by symmetry and expression, by elegance and grace. To me it appears that he has adopted, and that he has adopted with the most conspicuous wisdom, a corresponding plan of discrimination between the mental powers and dispositions of the two sexes. The science of legislation, of jurisprudence, of political economy, the conduct of government in all its executive functions, the abstruse researches of erudition, the inexhaustible depths of philosophy, the acquirements subordinate to navigation, the knowledge indispensable in the wide field of 1 See, for instance, Ferrero, "The Problem of Women from a Bio-Sociological Point of View," in the Monist, Vol. IV, No. 2, pp. 262 ff. Also Lyman Abbott, The Home Builder, 1908. 2 By Thomas Gisborne. From An Inquiry into the Duties of the Female Sex, 13th edition, pp. 12-16, 21-23. London, 1823. commercial enterprise, the arts of defense and of attack by land and by sea, which the violence or fraud of unprincipled assailants render needful; these and other studies, pursuits, and occupations, assigned chiefly or entirely to men, demand the efforts of a mind indued with the powers of close and comprehensive reasoning, and of intense and continued application, in a degree in which they are not requisite for the discharge of the customary offices of female duty. It would therefore seem natural to expect, and experience, I think, confirms the justice of the expectation, that the Giver of all good, after bestowing those powers on men with a liberality proportioned to the existing necessity, would impart them to the female mind with a more sparing hand. It was equally natural to expect that in the dispensation of other qualities and talents, useful and important to both sexes, but particularly suited to the sphere in which women were intended to move, he would confer the larger portion of his bounty on those who needed it the most. It is accordingly manifest that in sprightliness and vivacity, in quickness of perception, in fertility of invention, in powers adapted to unbend the brow of the learned, to refresh the overlabored faculties of the wise, and to diffuse throughout the family circle the enlivening and endearing smile of cheerfulness, the superiority of the female mind is unrivaled. Does man, vain of his preeminence in the track of profound investigation, boast that the result of the inquiry is in his favor? Let him check the premature triumph, and listen to the statement of another article in the account, which, in the judgment of prejudice itself, will be found to restore the balance. As yet the native worth of the female character has been imperfectly developed. To estimate it fairly, the view must be extended from the compass and shades of intellect, to the dispositions and feelings of the heart. Were we called upon to produce examples of the most amiable tendencies and affections implanted in human nature, of modesty, of delicacy, of sympathizing sensibility, of prompt and active benevolence, of warmth and tenderness of attachment; whither should we at once turn our eyes? To the sister, to the daughter, to the wife. These endowments form the glory of the female sex. They shine amidst the darkness of uncultivated barbarism; they give to civilized society its brightest and most attractive luster. Of the errors and vices which infest human nature, some are equally prevalent in the two sexes; while others, in consequence of the peculiarities by which the character of the one sex is discriminated from that of the other, peculiarities which gain additional strength from the diversity in the offices of life respectively assigned to each, do not exercise an equal power over both. Thus, among women in whom feminine delicacy and feeling have not been almost obliterated (I am not, at present, taking religious principle into the account), intemperance in wine, and the use of language grossly profane, are nearly unknown; and she who would be guilty of either sin, would be generally regarded as having debased herself to the level of a brute. On the other hand, there are failings and temptations to which the female mind is particularly exposed by its native structure and dispositions. On these treacherous underminers, these inbred assailants of female peace and excellence, the superintending eye of education is steadfastly to be fixed. The remains of their unsubdued hostility will be among the circumstances which will exercise even to the close of life the most vigilant labors of conscience. It is necessary, therefore, to be explicit on the subject. The gay vivacity, and the quickness of imagination, so conspicuous among the qualities in which the superiority of women is acknowledged, have a tendency to lead to unsteadiness of mind; to fondness of novelty, to habits of frivolousness and trifling employment, to dislike of sober application, to repugnance to graver studies, and a too low estimation of their worth, to an unreasonable regard for wit, and shining accomplishments, to a thirst for admiration and applause, to vanity and affectation. Sensibility itself, singularly engaging and amiable as it is, comes not without its disadvantages. It is liable to sudden excesses; it nurtures unmerited attachments; it is occasionally the source of suspicion, fretfulness, and groundless discontent; it sometimes degenerates into weakness and pusillanimity, and prides itself on the feebleness of character which it has occasioned. |