THE FREE KINDERGARTEN. AN APPEAL TO WOMEN.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 74, 30 March 1910, Page 8

THE FREE KINDERGARTEN. AN APPEAL TO WOMEN.

A meeting wa» held at Mrs*. Howden's, Vogeltown, to-day to form committeeb tor a garden fete- in aid of the free kindergartens, to be held iv the giounds kindly lent by .Mr. and Mr*, ilowden at Vogeltown on Saturday, 9th April. If the dny proves wet thp fete will be held in one of the Brooklyn hall. 1 -, ho ticket-holdern need f«ur no disappointment on account of the weather. There wa* a large assembly of representative people at Mt>. Howden's. Mrs. T. H. Gill, president of the Free Kindergarten Union, presided, and Mibß Richmond, oigani.-ing secretary, in the course of her addieos said :— VVe women of New Zealand are emancipated women ; we have intellectual, financial, and political freedom. We are better off than any other women in the world — better off, even, than the Americana, because votes for women have only been accorded in some of the States, and it will be a 'long time before woman's suffrage can be obtained by the nation ab a whole. We women in New Zealand have more power than any oilier women in the world. We must realise that this is absolute fact — not theory, not fine talk; it is the plain truth, and then we must «»sk ourselves what are we going to do with this power ? Dr. Drum, mond, in his "Ascent of Man," says :—: — "The struggle for life does not represent the whole effort of the human lace from the earliest ages to raise itself. There has always been another side, and from t'te beginning this sids has been repre»ented by the woman. Her struggle is not for her own life ; it han always been a strode, for the life oF others. It has Fometimes been the duty of men to uproot, to destroy, to kill— it is always the duty of women to cherish, • to foster, to make alive. This is true evidently enough on the physical side. The women of the world, being the motheis of the world, are the caretakers and guardians of th« children during tht'ir tendered and mott impressionable years, und tliib natural law gives woman her opportunity if i-lie has a w>ul and mind and heart trained alert and loving enough to >-cize it. "Now I believe nil women would seize this opportunity, this splendid chance, if they understood rightly the value of it. But we educate our girls so badly as re* gaids their most important business that many women do not understand. Wv think that a boy's education is good enough for a girl, which it is not. We are teaching her and fitting her to struggle for herself, whereu* natuie means her to be taught and fitted to struggle for the life of others. I wish the women of New Zealand would me up and say how they wunt thrir girls taught, and whnl they wish them to l«arn. We women, free nnd able n* 110 doubt we nrc. f>till leave the whole burden of detei mining tho curriculum of girl*' schools on tho shoulder* of the men. We women, standing for the freedom of our sex in the eyes of the whole world, do not trouble ourselves even to look after our own atfaits. Let us rouse ourt>elves from the bleep of independence, the torpor of ignoinnco. to seize the golden opportunity, the *p!endid cliunee, that lies befor** n«. Let us take advantage of our uuirjue position, moving along the nalui»l lines of womanly d«\«?!opment to inspire, to cherish, and to footer spiiitual life."