THE AMERICAN WOMAN

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 29, 3 August 1921, Page 13

THE AMERICAN WOMAN

SHARING HER LIFE WITH HER

NEIGHBOUR

A New York correspondent of the Manobcßter Guardian furnishes a remarkable description of the conditions of home life in the United' States, isepeoiaUy from tit© woman's point of view. The writer, Mice Muriel Harria, says: —

The word "pioneer" is slightly overworked in Amerioa, but one of the most direct consequences of pioneering is undoubtedly the compmity spirit of the country. It obtains largely among men, but to a far greater extent among women, and.it is significant that (settlement work, with all it implies in. the community spirit, is organised and directed chiefly by women. In a sense the community spirit savours very much of herd instinct. For all its hundred millions, America ie not nearly full. People are etill mutually interdependent to a degree far greater than is the oase in Europe. Conditions of life, moreover, positively demand the oommunity spirit. In a oountry of no servants — for there are no servants ir our eenee of the word —there is no second line; of defence upon which to fall haok. In illraesj, in any domestic crisis, for liberty even to go out and leave the children, for help in taking in the milk or answering the telephone, thousands of middle-claw women are dependent solely upon their neighbours.

The extreme.kindoees of nedgaboum to each other, which strikes the foreigner m one of the, characteristics of the oountry, is based on the interdependence of one family upon another. In America, in short, the tradition of equality holds, and while there ie little real equality among people—l mean that castes and olaaaes, while different, exist in America as elsewhere —there/ is yet more than in Europe. Pilgrim Fathers' wive* had to do their own work and help each other in time of need. In their successors in a strange land the samo obligation is reoognised >n the "community of spirit." :

Of recent years the 1 community spirit has been definitely fostered and encouraged— particularly in the big cities.- The settlement is here in full blast, aid it i 3 a very much more living concern than is the case in England. .The settlement itself is in theory, and quite often in practice, really run by its members. There are the same university young men and women as settlement workers, and they give a general direction to affairs, but the settlement itself really is the people, and in some cases the border line between the ministering and the ministerees completely disappears, and the settlement is the neighbourhood _ centre, just as a community church might be a religious centre. But the settlement is, of course, based on something fundamental in the people. It \vorkn so much better here just for that reason. It is simply cultivating something which has .always existod. and is carrying it a little farther'in the Babel which constitutes the great eastern cities of America.

In the small towns and villages it exists without any fostering, and the mpre homogeneous the population the more striking it is. Your neighbour's house is your own in a sense quito inovedible in England. lour senso of obligation to your neighbour is quite on the. lines of Little Red Riding Hood's taking cakes and honey to grandmamma. If you bake, your neighbour lias to have some. If your noisjhbour is ill, you look after her 'as a matter of course, because in similar circumstances she would look after you. You take care of each other's children, bo that one of you may be freo for a few hours to undertake a special task or pleasure. You dress-make together; you wash together; you use each other's apparatus, and there is no sense of obligation about it —merely a give and take sense, which deprives the notion of anything in the nature of an obligation. Conditions of life in America demand it; that is all. i There is, of course, the reverse side to the community spirit here. It implies extradrduiarily little privacy either of thought or action. Americans cannot yet afford to transgress the herd instinct, with the result that would-be transgressors have a very hard time indeed. Local popular ppiniori is very much more active than is the case in Enftl&Md, and it touches subjects ,which in Kngland would be a person's own bnsiness. Privacy in Bmall localities is almost unknown. It is certainly resented, especially among women If you are not open to the day (and ospeoially to your neighbour) you must have something to hide Incidentally, the majority of Americans like living- in crowds, ond "(retting together is the most popular of pastimes. To pnfc a wall round your garden is really resented, and gardens touch and run down to th« road, and people walk over the lawn in the most public fashion. This mates very much for publio beauty. A road of gardens, i for instance, looks like ono big more or Vless cultivated publio garden. But the garden in the English, intimate sense is an exotic, and eve., people who plant hedges or build walls—very low ones, too —rarely put up a gate, but compromise with gate posts only, or now and again a ohain aoross the road. You are liable to receive calls at any hour of the day, and the "Not at home" is also a foreign institution, chiefly because you yourself would havo to deliver the message. To the foreigner the community spirit seems at first-a rather beautiful state of things, with everybody readily and mutually helpful. American hospitality almost overwhelms him, and there is a sense of freedom about it whioh is most refreshing. Later, the laok of privaoy becomes almost a tyranny, chiefly because it is so nnaocustomed. Generally speaking, it is a necessity in a country where practice still takes the place of theory. There is a luxurious class in America, but there is no leisured olass. The time is not yet when a leisured class is possible. Perhaps that time will never oom«. Thus, while olasa distinctions obtain to a marked degree, they we muob less real distinctions than in England. John D. Bockefeller, for all his millions, takes pride in being called "John" by his old friend the ferryman. And there are a. great many, John D's. of lesser degree. Thus there are fewer caste barriers, and there is little ceremony in knowing the community. Attempts among women to institute caste are more rtdioulous in America than in Europe, .chiefly because of the interdependence of women npon one another. You may be hauglfty, but your pride may have a fall any day, an<l, moreover, that day is pretty sure to come.

Of the merite or demerits of snch a social system it is hard to jndge. In America, it is oertainly suited to America, and upon it the American "home" is largely based. What is quit© certain is that the average person in America h«s o» the. whole a fuller hipnan life than does the average person in purope. There ia none of the isolation which pan be th« penalty of privfioy Pcesibly the 4ifferenoe might be expressed in the term levelling down, instead of levelling up. The community spirit has no use lor tae exception, tn« exoieaoenoe. For its own typ« it provides on aa «»oeption*llT bountiful «06l«.