THE WOMAN OF TO-DAY

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 100, 30 April 1927, Page 21

THE WOMAN OF TO-DAY

"The Women's Side." By Clomonce Done. London: Herbert Jenkins.

Clemonco Dane at the outset of her very interesting disquisition on tho women's side of modern matters recalls- that nearly a hundred years ago Jano Austen makes one ■ of her girl characters declaro, during a gamo of "Speculation" that she will stake her last like a woman of spirit; that she was not born to sit still and do nothing, andj finally that if she lost the gamo that it should not be for want of striving. Tho writer takes this for the text of tho modern outlook, and shows how wonderful it was that a writer of so long'ago should have uttered such sentiments. Those of to-day are just a continuation and broadening of the samp. About youth and tho vote Clemenco Dano' says: "The trouble about having a vote, and boing on juries and tho rest of it, the trouble, that is to say, of being a citizen instead of a cipher, is that a woman has always to bo using her brain nowadays as well as her heart." Eegarding the vote, tho writer thinks tht twenty-five is amply soon for cither sex to have the gift of tho voto, but if the age is to continue at twenty-one, she is of opinion that the mind of tho girl is far more niaturo at that ago than that of tho boy. "A woman of twonty-ono matches the man of twenty-Seven," she remarks, and adds that it is not reasonable to suppress the more reliable, tho steadier of tho sexes. Sho finds that women aro less imaginative than men, but in them all tho imagination is at its quickest, fullest, wildest vigour round about tho twenty-first year. Clomonce Dane is also . sure that in making tho rule that women shall not bo enfranchised for such a long period, men havo made a mistako, and largely becauso they know nothing about girls. She wonders sympathetically how the young will look on tho tragedies of life, divorce, cruelty to children, and child assault, will they, with their childhood so near, bo content to leave the laws as they arc? And in asking "this the writer opens a big vista to the thinker. In tho chapter which is headed, "Petty Tyrannies," Miss Dane . mentions tho Board of Guardians, which interfered with the hairdressing of the nurses and would not allow them to havo the •clean and sensible shingle, insisting on long tresses. "What would the Board of Guardians say if Parliament passed a law that all guardians should grow boards? The question of married women 's dismissal from all employments is touched upon sympathetically, with tho argument that personal freedom, of thought, speech, action, and'habit, consistent with that of tho rest of tho world, is the right thing, other action being like unto that of Bussia of to-day.

The "Death Penalty" chapter contains deep thought, and then the writer passes on to the difficult question of coeducation, arguing that as the sexes are brought up together in a family, so ought they to continue, and a plain, straight-forward comradely attitude be encouraged and taught. Women who have been the victims of the separated education are not suited to educate either sex, and Miss Dane shows the strained and dangerous attitude of girls to some of these teachers, causing injury to health, and a number of complications of character. People who are afraid and ashamed of sex are dealt with somewhat severely, and the writer says:. "There is something calming and satisfying about truth. That does not mean, of course, hurling facts at an incurious baby; but if a child is not old enough to be worried about its own ignorance, it is old enough to have explained simply and generously the facts that are puzzling it." The selfeonsciousneas of girls who are brought up without boy companions is dealt with, and the separation of ideals, occupations,, and outlook, which makes a failure of so many marriages later on in life. "Segregation," we say, and "Family" says Nature—and we are bound to lose. Go partners with Nature, and what do we get? Family life. The under-paying of teachers comes in for hearty condemnation, with its accompanying evils, which react on the young ones from their earliest age. Education is so much more than book-learning, pure and- simple, for the young idea needs storing with truths, beauties, and standards of conduct, and is the tired and underpaid person to do that in the best way? The wisdom of the ages is sought in the chapter on "Twentieth Century Eeligion" and the qualities insisted upon in each age collected together—power, beauty, law, wisdom, love; and Clcmenco Dane utters a great truth when she finds that in the individual and in the nation religion must grow, or it must die. Regarding marriage, there is a powerful chapter against the idea of the Eoman and Anglican Churches, and the writer quotes, "The letter killcth; the spirit malteth alive." The fact Jhat God has not joined so many people, but merely circumstances, makes a vast difference, to the writer's thought. The necessity and propriety of business women m tho world is argued powerfully, and there is an interesting chapter on women geniuses, and a showing that women have not, in the past, had opportunity, encouragement, .or education to produce genius, with the suggestion that the "Divine afflatus," which might haye been very frequently present, out died of inanition in sordid- and miserable. lives, with no possibility of cultivation of wonderful talents. The last thought given is that the "thirteenth fairy" must como and give women the gift of laughter, and with that they will be able to enter into their kingdom. Bitterness will be lost ana power will remain.—M.H.C.