"WOMAN IN THE 20TH CENTURY."

Otago Witness, Issue 2056, 20 July 1893, Page 28

"WOMAN IN THE 20TH CENTURY."

Mrs D. W. M. Burn met a densely packed audience at the Library Hall last evening to hear her lecture on the above subject. There must have been 250 persons present, many were unable to gain admittance, and though the charge for admission was small, the funds of the Library Social Club will bs considerably augmented by the lecture. The speaker was listened to with rapt attention for over an hour anda-half, and when 6he concluded was heartily applauded. The following is a brief resumi of thelecfcure : —

Mrs Burn began by saying that it was scarcely creditable to the world at this late stage of its progress that there should be a woman question. Other questions, such as the land question and the labour question, meant that new conditions, new ways, required new laws and customs ; wrongs had to be righted that had existed for ages. It hardly meant so much in this case, yet woman's part had in the past ever been a minor one. The world was awaking to the fact, and was a little ashamed of ' it. Woman's state in the twentieth century would be the outcome of the woman's state to-day. I Evolution governed here as elsewhere. They were wrong who thought that Nature had perminently fixed the limits of the sex. Referring to Greece and Rome we could see the tremendous change that had taken place in woman's condition; that change was not ended yet— indeed, not by a very great deal. Man need no longer judge for woman — He could not. Woman's possibilities were her affairs and hers alone ; she must prove her own strength and weakness. , There had always been women of glorious strength of character, from Deborah to Queen Elizabeth, to witness for their sex ; now it was not one in a generation, but tens and hundreds. To. predict the future watch not the majority but the leaders. What the leaders urged in clear emphatic tones was that marriage and the home were not the one and only end of woman's existence ; not even necessarily an end, at all. Woman was first a human being, and only afterwards a wife and mother. Nine-tenths of human life was common to the sexes, and only one-tenth differentiated. Mrs Burn then treated very fully the progress of her sex in regard to home, education, politics, and cccupation. She treated the physical side of education very minutely on the principle that a sound body formed the best basisf or all-round development. It was being slowly recognised that in matters physical as well as matters mental women had an absolutely even chance with men. In politics, equality was coming — this very session justice might be done. The vote was good in itself, but still more valuable for what it brought with it — responsibility, consciousness of value to the State, and self r respecfc, boons that would deepen life immeasurably. In occupation, all the professions were now open to women — the Church, law, medicine, teaching, journalism— and nearly every trade to-day had women in its ranks. Mrs Burn concluded with an attractive vision of the future, when men and women should walk hand in hand «nd look into each other's eyes, nor be afraid ; when godlike reason and not passion or convention' would be men's guide.