THE AVERAGE WOMAN

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 6315, 16 September 1907, Page 5

THE AVERAGE WOMAN

"The average woman'* does not sound like a phrase of high compliment. Yet th© average woman is doubtless the most needed wqmjsn in modern civilisation. It r is interesting and inspiring to see that she has made marked progress during "the centuries. She is much more capable -and more lovable than three hundred years ago. Her advance* is somewhat due. to the work of those few leaders who make now paths, and encourage more timid souls to follow them. But for the most part it can be traced to the steady, slow improvement all along the line—an improvement traceable directly to th© average woman herself. She makes better bread end better soup than she used to make; she read® more books and better ones; she has a firmer hand and a more understanding heart with children; she gives more discriminatingly in charity; her household, small er large,, is better ordered; her love has more purity and more fire; her religion is more Christ’lik© in its wisdom and its compassion. Perhaps every average woman in the world longs to do more than the average. Even that longing is her part in the general store of aspiration and works for good. But it is a kind of graspingness of which circumstances are pretty sure to cure hert"" The Persians have a proverb. "God takes good care the trees do not grow into the sky.** Wordsworth translates that into English poetry, and tells us that oven a woman who is a "phantom of delight*' must also, be "A creature not too bright or good . For human nature’s daily food.