The Forerunner Part 78

This is a simple thought after you see it; but it has been generally overlooked. Mr. Lee has clear eyes and a silver tongue. His perceptions are important and his expressions convincing. He speaks plainly also, calling some millionaires by name, and designating others almost as plainly.

"What could be more pathetic, for instance," he says, "than Mr. ----- as an educator--a man who is educating-and-mowing-down two hundred thousand (?) men a day, ten hours a day, for forty years of their lives; that is, who is separating the souls of his employees from their work, bullying them into being linked with a work and a method they despise, and who is trying to atone for it all--this vast terrible schooling, ten hours a fay, forty years, two hundred thousand men's lives--by piecing together professors and scholars, putting up a little playhouse of learning, before the world, to give a few fresh young boys and girls four years with paper books?--a man the very thought of whom has ruined more men and devastated more faiths and created more cowards and brutes and fools in all walks of life than any other influence in the nineteenth century, and who is trying to eke out at last a spoonful of atonement for it all--all this vast baptism of the business world in despair and force and cursing and pessimism, by perching up before it ----- University, like a dove cote on a volcano.

"It may blur people's eyes for a minute, but everyone really knows in his heart--every man in this nation--that the only real education Mr.

----- has established, or ever can establish, is the way he has made his money. Everyone knows also that the only possible, the only real education Mr. ----- can give to a man would have to be through the daily thing he gives the man to do, ten hours a day, through the way he lets him do it, through the spirit and expression he allows him to put into it ten hours a day. Mr. -----'s real school, the one with two hundred thousand men in it, and eighty million helpless spectators in the galleries, is a school which is working out a daily, bitter, lying curse upon the rich, and a bitter, lying curse upon the poor, which it is going to take the world generations to redeem."

This is a long quotation; but it shows our prophet is not blinded by sentiment; he knows an un-inspired millionaire when he sees him.

He makes this observation of one of the first important acts of Governor Hughes. "He did one of the most memorable and enlightened silences that has ever been done by any man in the United States." And then he goes on to show the power that lies in simply being right.

There are plenty of epigrams in the book, plenty of imagination, plenty of hard sense; and some mistakes. Various readers will a.s.sort these to suit their several minds. But it is funny, having so many men, with so much money, and so little idea of what to do with it, is it not?

Why shouldn't they, or some of them at least, really do business with it as Mr. Lee suggests?

PERSONAL PROBLEMS

Question:--What can one do with a bore? I am not over strong, and very sensitive to people. When some people come to see me--and stay--and they always do stay--it makes me ill--I cannot work well next day.

--Sufferer.

Answer:--My dear Sufferer. Your problem is a serious one. Bores are disagreeable to all and dangerous to some. They cannot be arrested or imprisoned; and kerosene does not lessen their numbers. They commit no active offence--it is not by doing that they affect us so painfully, but simply by being. Especially by being there.

Sub-question:--Can a bore be a bore when no one else is present.

Sub-answer:--We suspect they can. It is because he bores himself when alone that he seeks continually to bore others.

Yet some of them are well-intentioned persons who would be grieved to know they were injurious. Even the dull and thick-skinned are open to offence if it is forced upon them.

We suspect that the only real cure is courage on the part of the victim.

If the suffering host or hostess frankly said, "My dear Sir--or Madam--you are making me very tired. I wish you would go away," the result would leave nothing to be desired. "But," says the sufferer in alarm, "they would never come to see us again!"

Well. Do you want them to?

"But--sometimes I like to see them." Or, "I cannot afford to quarrel with So and So!"

Ah! We will now quote Emerson. "It you want anything, pay for it and take it, says G.o.d."

Question:--"I have a sick parent. What is my whole duty in the case?"

--Filial Devotee.

Answer:--It depends on your s.e.x. If you are a man, your duty is to provide a home for the patient, a servant, a nurse, a physician, food, medicine, and two short calls a day. You will be called "A Devoted Son."

If you are a woman, you need provide none of these things; but must wait upon the patient with your own hands as nurse and servant; regardless of your special ability. If you do at does a devoted son you will be called "An Unnatural Daughter."

Question:--"Why do the shapes of shoes change from year to year? Surely the shapes of our feet do not.

Answer:--This is one of the inscrutable minor problems of Fas.h.i.+on and The Market. The desire for novelty; the lack of a real feeling for beauty; a savage indifference to physical comfort, the pressure of necessity or greediness urging the manufacturer to sell more shoes than people need; the brow-beaten submissiveness of most purchasers and the persuasive--or insolent--compulsion of salesmen; all these combine to make our feet ugly and painful.

SUFFRAGE

I became an advocate of full suffrage for women as soon as I was old enough to understand the value of democratic government, to see that a true democracy requires the intelligent partic.i.p.ation of all the people, and that women are people. With further knowledge I advocate woman suffrage on two grounds: first because a dependent and servile womanhood is an immovable obstacle to race development; second because the major defects of our civilization are clearly traceable to the degradation of the female and the unbalanced predominance of the male, which unnatural relation is responsible for the social evil, for the predatory and combative elements in our economic processes, and for that colossal mingling of folly, waste, and horror, that wholly masculine phenomenon--war.

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THE FORERUNNER CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN'S MAGAZINE CHARLTON CO., 67 WALL ST., NEW YORK

AS TO PURPOSE:

_What is The Forerunner?_ It is a monthly magazine, publis.h.i.+ng stories short and serial, article and essay; drama, verse, satire and sermon; dialogue, fable and fantasy, comment and review. It is written entirely by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

_What is it For?_ It is to stimulate thought: to arouse hope, courage and impatience; to offer practical suggestions and solutions, to voice the strong a.s.surance of better living, here, now, in our own hands to make.

_What is it about?_ It is about people, principles, and the questions of every-day life; the personal and public problems of to-day. It gives a clear, consistent view of human life and how to live it.

_Is it a Woman's magazine?_ It will treat all three phases of our existence--male, female and human. It will discuss Man, in his true place in life; Woman, the Unknown Power; the Child, the most important citizen.

_Is it a Socialist Magazine?_ It is a magazine for humanity, and humanity is social. It holds that Socialism, the economic theory, is part of our gradual Socialization, and that the duty of conscious humanity is to promote Socialization.

_Why is it published?_ It is published to express ideas which need a special medium; and in the belief that there are enough persons interested in those ideas to justify the undertaking.

AS TO ADVERTISING:

We have long heard that "A pleased customer is the best advertiser."

The Forerunner offers to its advertisers and readers the benefit of this authority. In its advertising department, under the above heading, will be described articles personally known and used. So far as individual experience and approval carry weight, and clear truthful description command attention, the advertising pages of The Forerunner will be useful to both dealer and buyer. If advertisers prefer to use their own statements The Forerunner will publish them if it believes them to be true.

AS TO CONTENTS:

The main feature of the first year is a new book on a new subject with a new name:--

_"Our Androcentric Culture."_ this is a study of the historic effect on normal human development of a too exclusively masculine civilization.

It shows what man, the male, has done to the world: and what woman, the more human, may do to change it.