WOMAN'S SPHERE.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1750, 15 May 1913, Page 6

WOMAN'S SPHERE.

SOME CANDID ADMISSIONS. AND A SUGGESTION, BEMAEKS BY MISS M. E. RICHMOND.

Speaking at the meeting of llic liichinoiul Free Kindergarten Union, Miss 31. E. Richmond nuulo some interesting remarks 011 women's present activities in society, and then stated the direction in which, it seemed to her, those energies could be better applied. She was speaking of I'reß kindergartens. "They minister to a need no other institutions touch," sho said, "the need of the mothers for help, and the need ol tlie children for nurture, the need olthe "iris for training in motherly ways. I hey help in a wonderful fashion to unite nil classes of women. They are, to my mind, the only practical remedy lor the serious defects in girls' education which to-day make sober-thinking ' people feel anxious. We are allowing a wrong standard for women to bo set tip in our educational places. The greatest honour a young, ambitious woman can imagine and aspire to is to follow the career of a man, and in this her womanhood is at a discount; it is a clog to her, a drawback. "I do not believe the great vexed question of the Bible in schools matters uioro than tho question I am speaking of now— a question which is not vexed at all, beeauso nobody troubles about it. \\ c women of the Dominion, wo free women, theoretically emancipated, tho envy of political women agitators all over the world, permit the whole of our girls to be educated by men, along the lines suitable for the development of the masculine intellect. What is happening to our peculiar and particular excellencies? They aro being educated out of us. The Up-to-dateflProduct. "Women are becoming athletic—good sports. They aro becoming political—agi-tators-disturbers of the public peace. Thev aro becoming theorists of an advnnced type, and daringly set conventionality at" nought. They aspire to and achieve the highest intellectual honours. As yet they do not seek the bubble reputation at the cannon's mouth, but they claim tho right to exercise violence in the pursuit of their \ ends. If they get their own way fully and entirely, what will bo the end of it? I suppose these leaders of our sex wish for tho right to work at. men's work, because they think it grander, better work than any women have ever found to do along feminine'lines. I entirely disagree with this view. I say, don't let us cast aside tho fact of our sex as if it were au indignity and a disability; rather let us regard it as a splendid opportunity. Let lis remember there is a kind of strength which is made perfect in weakness. Why is this monstrous regiment of women moving along these unwomanly lines, to tho dismay of many of us, both men and "women? They are brave and unscrupulous enthusiasts, and as they go they make willing sacrifices of themselves, and unwilling victims of other people. Why do they demand a just and reasonable thing in such an unjust and unreasonable way?

Wrong Standards. "To my mind, there is a plain answer to this plain question.- Because modern education has induced in the feminine mind a man's standard. lie has taught her about tho struggle for life, and- the survival of the fittest, and she has begun to struggle, determined at all costs to become lit from her own point of view. Why : aro wo women so lacking in initiative? Why do we accept holus bolus tlisso mnsculino notions without question, and without test of any sort. Is there no' peculiar and particular excellence of our own that we may aspiro to? Is there 110 ideal standard of womanhood? Is it nothing;- 'does it mean nothing,-, that Christendom for centuries worshipped at tho shrine of divine motherhood ?_ I believe myself there is a new time coming for Ihe world when we get back to .some of tho old- truths. "Women should be trained up primarily to deal with individuals; men to deal with sooiety. Every ordinary girl from twelvo years old to sixteen years old should be trained amongst baby children,. Let the unusually intellectual girl go her own way, and let every facility be provided for lisr, but do not force the ordinarv girl through an academic courso which sho detests. Let us found kindergartens everywhere, let every high school have a creclie and a'kindergarten attached to it, and let us givo our ordinary girls .the training they Icyo, which will make them ■'effective ill life. If this course were carried out, house help- would not be so hard to find, domestic science would bo lifted to its proper position of dignity, and places in offices would bo less run after by young women. Unoriginal Woman! "And women would become • truly original. Wo can never couch man in. his own walk. I don't believe when all is said and done that Mrs. Fa.nkhuvst would make as good a Primo Minister as Mr. Asquitli or Mr. Balfour. If you . consider the pathetic want of originality in women it is quite startling. Why, even our garments are invented by man! Man dictates tho very shapes of our hats! Man, qua trado organiser, does, this; and man, qua men- man, .growls at us for wearing such abominations. Man invents tho cradles for our babies, and their go-carts, and even tho socks and. shoc.s for their little feet. I don't Wains man for all this; I simply admire him. . . . Hut I should like to see women as a sex turning their mind? to those. . subjects in which they are fitted by nature to excel man, subjects to which in the main they ore still indifferent—health, education, charitable aid, the problem of poverty, tho need of individual thrift and competency, th 3 adequate control of environment Tlisso matters' aro somewhat, at a standstill waiting for our sex to take ! lium IV in a serious spirit.