DOI article:
Women: wives or mothers
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27812#0020
i6
Women—Wives or Mothers
moon on the tides, which, we are informed, employs ail to itseif a
whole and highly paid professor with a yearly average of three
pupils at Cambridge. But what are these save mere fads, on a par
with leapfrog and skittles, in the presence of the momentous
problems about and around us ? Let these gentlemen jockeys look
to it. The hour is not far distant when public opinion shall
discover their uselessness and send them about their business.
In humbler ways, too, much might be done to stem the morbid
activity of the collective female conscience. Big sins lie at the
doors of the hosts of good men and women who turn out year by
year tons of " books for the young " to serve as nutriment for the
hungry nestlings of culpable, thoughtless parents. It is hard to
overstate the pernicious effect of this class of literature.
TArL in old or new dress is the only nourishing food for the
happy child who is to remain happy. The little girl, aged seven,
who lately wrote in her diary before going to bed, " Of what rr#/
use am I in the world ?" had, it is certain, been denied her
Andersen, her Grimm, her Carroll, even her Blue fairy book.
Turned in to browse on "Ministering Children,"" Agatha's First
Prayer," and the fatal " Eric "—into how many editions has this
last well-meaning but poisonous romance not passed—the little
victim of parental stupidity is thus left with an organ damaged for
life by over-much stimulation at the start. This new massacre of
the innocents is of purely nineteenth-century growth. It dates
from the era of the awakened conscience, and is coincident with
the formation of all the societies for the regeneration of the
human race.
Trr rwtw, the wife-woman, though but seldom to be met
with in the multitudinous pages written by women, is the well-
beloved, the chosen of the male artist. Week-days and Sundays
he paints her portrait. Shakespeare returns to her again and again,
as
Women—Wives or Mothers
moon on the tides, which, we are informed, employs ail to itseif a
whole and highly paid professor with a yearly average of three
pupils at Cambridge. But what are these save mere fads, on a par
with leapfrog and skittles, in the presence of the momentous
problems about and around us ? Let these gentlemen jockeys look
to it. The hour is not far distant when public opinion shall
discover their uselessness and send them about their business.
In humbler ways, too, much might be done to stem the morbid
activity of the collective female conscience. Big sins lie at the
doors of the hosts of good men and women who turn out year by
year tons of " books for the young " to serve as nutriment for the
hungry nestlings of culpable, thoughtless parents. It is hard to
overstate the pernicious effect of this class of literature.
TArL in old or new dress is the only nourishing food for the
happy child who is to remain happy. The little girl, aged seven,
who lately wrote in her diary before going to bed, " Of what rr#/
use am I in the world ?" had, it is certain, been denied her
Andersen, her Grimm, her Carroll, even her Blue fairy book.
Turned in to browse on "Ministering Children,"" Agatha's First
Prayer," and the fatal " Eric "—into how many editions has this
last well-meaning but poisonous romance not passed—the little
victim of parental stupidity is thus left with an organ damaged for
life by over-much stimulation at the start. This new massacre of
the innocents is of purely nineteenth-century growth. It dates
from the era of the awakened conscience, and is coincident with
the formation of all the societies for the regeneration of the
human race.
Trr rwtw, the wife-woman, though but seldom to be met
with in the multitudinous pages written by women, is the well-
beloved, the chosen of the male artist. Week-days and Sundays
he paints her portrait. Shakespeare returns to her again and again,
as