Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" Part 7

The royal and imperial order of the Hadraschin in Prague, Germany, is the most imposing relic remaining of the religious orders of women, though not the most numerous. There are about forty chapters still in existence of this ancient order, with a royal residence at Prague. The abbess possessed the right to crown the queen at coronation ceremonies, and exercised it as late as 1836, wearing all the magnificent insignia of her rank in the order.

A more numerous order of consecrated women, presided over and governed by one "mother-general," is that of St. Joseph de Cluny. This was founded by a woman, Madame Javonbey, in the beginning of the present century, about ninety years ago. It has one hundred and twenty-eight houses in France, and two in the United States. It has others in South America, one in Italy, several in the West Indies and some in Africa.

All its property is in community, and its members.h.i.+p--about six thousand women--teach in its schools, and care for the sick poor in hospitals and in their homes. Two hundred are a.s.signed to the care of the insane, by the French Government.

The mother-general administers, from the mother-house _(maison mere)_ at Paris. She has two a.s.sistants and a council of six sisters. Under the mother-general there are mother-superiors, one to each estate, administering and governing it, but under this mother-superior at Paris. These lesser governing women send in weekly reports to the home convent at Paris, giving brief accounts of transactions and events, such as the entrance of pupils, the purchase of lands, and extra dole of food to the poor, the death of a member and the like. They are a prosperous, working sisterhood, and have preserved the integrity and independence of their beginning.

It was the spirit of protest against church and monastic abuses, embodied in Martin Luther, which broke up the monastic system for both men and women. Doubtless also it had outlived its usefulness in any large or general sense. A more settled social and domestic life was becoming possible through the development of trades and industries, while the domestic virtues in women began to acquire a value, and furnish guarantees to the State.

The discovery of printing gave a tremendous impulse to the spread of civilizing and educational influences, to the multiplication of schools, and the desire for knowledge. It was the dawn of intellectual freedom, and the school of the people was the open door for it.

Spiritual freedom had to wait longer. It waited the unfolding of the woman. At the beginning of this century she was still under the dominion of the church and its leaders, and her efforts were controlled by sects and doctrines.

The first a.s.sociated work of women in this country, and in this century, was still religious and philanthropic. The "Sisters of Charity" in America owes its origin to a young and beautiful New York woman, Elizabeth Seton, who was born in 1774, married at twenty, but lost her husband by death in a very few years. Obliged to support herself, she opened a school in Baltimore. But her tendency was toward the devoted life of a _religieuse_, and the gift of a foundation fund enabled her to gratify this strong desire. She a.s.sumed the conventual habit, and opened a convent school on July 30, 1809, in Emmetsburg, of which she became mother-superior. The character of "Mother" Seton was considered saintly by Protestants and Roman Catholics alike. She died at her post in 1821, after a life the last half of which was entirely spent in self-denying work. Mrs. Seton was exceedingly lovely as a young woman; and her sweet, serene face and presence, as she grew older, was said to exert a magical influence upon all who came in contact with her. This was particularly seen in her care of the sick, and in dealing with turbulent spirits: they came immediately under her influence without any effort on her part.

The first ten years of the present century saw the beginning of a number of religious societies of women, organized to create funds, and aid in church mission work. First among these were the "cent"

societies, 1801 and 1804, and later the Woman's Auxiliaries to the Board of Foreign Missions. These grew in size and strength, until in 1839 there were six hundred and eighty-eight of these societies. But, unfortunately, their limited and purely subjective character afforded small basis for the wider growth necessary to perpetuity, and they gradually declined, until in 1860 they had become nearly extinct.

A little later, 1864, the first independent "Union" of women missionary workers was formed in New York by Mrs. Doremus, and within a few years every denomination, beginning with the Congregationalists, had its organized Woman's Auxiliary to the American Board of Home and Foreign Missions. The "Missionary Union" remains, however, the only independent society of women workers in this field, managing its own affairs, raising its own funds, and sending out its own missionaries, both men and women. Its very existence has been a great strength to the Woman's Auxiliaries, stimulating them to independent action, and especially to the demand for a voice in the disposal of the large sums they raise and turn over to the treasury of the American Board.

The oldest purely women-societies in this country were also started for missionary and church work. The first is the "Female Charitable Society" of Baldwinsville, N.J., and is still existent.

The object of the Baldwinsville society, as stated in the const.i.tution, was "to obtain a more perfect view on the infinite excellence of the Christian religion in its own nature, the importance of making this religion the chief concern of our hearts, the necessity of promoting it in our families, and of diffusing it among our fellow sinners." A further object is "to afford aid to religious inst.i.tutions, and for the carrying out of this purpose a contribution of twelve and a half cents is required at every quarterly meeting."

Mrs. Jane Hamill presided at its first meeting; the Rev. John Davenport opened it with prayer. Mrs. Hamill was still the presiding officer at its jubilee anniversary in 1867. At its seventy-eighth annual meeting Mrs. Payn Bigelow was elected president.

The "Piqua (Ohio) Female Bible Society" was founded in 1818. It consisted at first of nine women. In those early days the country was a wilderness. Other members were added later. It has had in all, over nine hundred members. Mrs. Elizabeth Pett.i.t was its presiding officer from 1840 until 1881--forty-one years. The daughters and the granddaughters are all made members by right of inheritance, and in several instances four generations have been represented at one time.

It held its seventy-fifth anniversary in 1893, when all the descendants of the early members were notified, and many were present.

It has held a meeting on the first Monday afternoon of each month for seventy-eight years, and the records are preserved intact. The founder was Mrs. Rachael Johnston, wife of the Indian agent. It has sent over fifteen thousand dollars to the parent Bible Society in New York.

It should be remembered that down to the last quarter of the present century, there was little sympathy with organizations of women, not expressly religious, charitable, or intended to promote charitable objects. "What is the object?" was the first question asked of any organization of women, and if it was not the making of garments, or the collection of funds for a church or philanthropic purpose, it was considered unworthy of attention, or injurious doubts were thrown upon its motives. In Germany, even yet, societies of women are not permitted, except such as have a distinctly religious, educational or charitable object.

The Moral Awakening[1]

The life of the world is continuous, morally and spiritually as well as materially. The individual sees it at short range and in fragments.

That is the reason why it so often seems dislocated and out of joint.

A thoughtful writer, Mrs. L.R. Zerbe, says: "When Goethe made his discovery of the unity of structure in organic life, he gave to the philosophers, who had long taught the value, the 'sovereignty' of the individual, a physiological argument against oppression and tyranny, and put the whole creation on an equal footing."

[Footnote 1: _History of the Woman's Club Movement in America_.]

The dignity of mind, and the right of the individual to its conscious use and possession, had been already clearly enunciated by Fichte, Herder, and others, who antedated Goethe. But Goethe went farther. He carried the discovery of the rights of the individual to its logical conclusion, which was, that the rights of every created thing should be given a hearing. This was absolutely new doctrine. It brought women and children within the pale of humanity. It moralized and humanized nature itself; bringing birds, trees, flowers, all animate life, into the "brotherhood" of creation.

The writings of Rousseau and Chateaubriand extended the idea, and Madame de Stael and Mary Wollstonecraft were the natural outgrowths of it. It may be said indeed to have been the actuating principle of modern literature, especially of modern English poetry, which vitalizes and idealizes children and nature. Whatever credit may be given to others, it should never be forgotten that to Goethe we owe the discovery of structural unity, that the cell of all organic life is the same.

The ideas that grew out of this discovery reached the higher, thinking cla.s.s, and inspired the poets with a new enthusiasm for humanity long before it reached the ma.s.ses. The French n.o.bility were satiated with power. The "Little Trianon" was the only reaction possible to a queen, from the wearisome magnificence of Versailles, the gilded slavery of the court. The people recognized no sentiment of human sympathy in the so-called "whims" and "caprices" of the luxurious occupants of palaces; and maddened by countless wrongs, precipitated the French Revolution, which, it has been said, turned back the tide of progress for one hundred years.

From this movement were developed all those reforms which have made the nineteenth century glorious, monumental in the history of progressive civilization. The abolition of slavery, the development of a spirit of mercy towards dumb animals, the recognition of the human rights of women and children--all these may be traced through many a winding way, back to the German scientists and philosophers, who rediscovered the inner life while working from its outer side.

Yet, as in history there are no sporadic instances, no isolated facts, so this flower of our century--the recognition of the rights of all created things, with all that it involves--belongs to universal history. It is the product of the Reformation and the Renaissance, with roots only the records of Rome and Greece and Egypt may discover.

The quickening of moral and spiritual life in our day, its accelerated movement, is not to be claimed by or traced to any one set of influences or propaganda. The awakening has been all along the line; and it has resulted in a new mental att.i.tude toward the human life of the world, both as a whole and in its various parts. Its great outcome is the learning to live with, rather than for, others.

This new view, this great advance of the moral and spiritual forces, addressed itself with singular significance to women. To those who were prepared, it came not only as an awakening, but as emanc.i.p.ation--emanc.i.p.ation of the soul, freedom from the tyranny of tradition and prejudice, and the acquisition of an intellectual outlook; a spiritual liberty achieved so quietly as to be unnoticed except by those who watched the progress of this bloodless revolution, and the falling away of the shackles that bind the spirit in its early and often painful effort to reach the light.

The broadening of human sympathy, the freedom of will, gave rise to a thousand new forms of activity; some of these an expansion of those which had previously existed; others opening new channels of communication; all looking towards wider fields of effort, a larger unity, a more complete realization of the eternal ideal, the fatherhood of G.o.d, the motherhood of woman, the brotherhood of man.

Realization of this ideal brought a new conception of duty to the mind of woman, unlocked the strong gates of theological and social tradition, and opened the windows of her soul to a new and more glorious world. The sense of duty is always strong in the woman. If she disregards it she never ceases to suffer. Her convictions of it have made her the most willing and joyful of martyrs, the most persistent and relentless of bigots, the most blind and devoted of partisans, the most faithful and believing of friends, and the only type out of which Nature could form the mother. This quality has made women the constructive force they are in the world, and gives all the more importance to the new departure, to the influences of the new sources of enlargement that have come into their lives.

Thus it became a necessity that the quickening of conscience, the widening of sympathy, the influence of aggregations, the stimulus to desire and ambitions, should be accompanied by corresponding growth in knowledge and a love beyond the narrow confines of family and church.

The cry of the woman emerging from a darkened past was "light, more light," and light was breaking. Gradually came the demand and the opportunity for education; for intellectual freedom for women as well as men; for cultivation of gifts and faculties. The early half of the century was marked by a crusade for the cause of the better education of women, as significant as that for the physical emanc.i.p.ation of the slave, and as devoted on the part of its leaders.

Simultaneous with this were two other movements--the anti-slavery agitation, inspired by the new enthusiasm for human rights and carried on largely by the Quakers of both s.e.xes. The woman's-rights movement was the natural outgrowth of the individual-sovereignty idea which the German philosophers had planted, and of which Mary Wollstonecraft was the first great woman-exponent.

The keynote of the educational advance was struck by Emma Willard in 1821. She was followed by Mary Lyon, Mary Mortimer, and other brave women who dared to ask for women the cultivation of such faculties as they possessed, without let or hindrance. This demand has taken the century to develop and enforce. The work was so gradual that it is not yet, by any means, accomplished. Schools and colleges exist, but not yet equally, except here and there. They are, however, giving us an army of trained women who are bringing the force of knowledge to bear upon questions which have heretofore only enlisted sympathies.

Simultaneously with this question of educational opportunity, has arisen an eager seeking after knowledge on the part of women who have been debarred from its enjoyment, or lacked opportunity for its acquisition. The knowledge sought was not that of a limited, sectional geography, or a mathematical quant.i.ty as taught in schools, but the knowledge of the history and development of races and peoples, of the laws and principles that underlie this development, and the place of the woman in this grand march of the ages.

The woman has been the one isolated fact in the universe. The outlook upon the world, the means of education, the opportunities for advancement, had all been denied her; and that "community of feeling and sense of distributive justice which grows out of cooperative interests in work and life, had found small opportunity for growth or activity."

The opportunity came with the awakening of the communal spirit, the recognition of the law of the solidarity of interests, the sociological advance which established a basis of equality among a wide diversity of conditions and individuals, and opportunities for all capable of using them. This great advance was not confined to a society or a neighborhood; it did not require subscription to a tenet, or the giving up of one's mode of life. It was simply a change of a point of view, the opening of a door, the stepping out into the freedom of the outer air, and the sweet sense of fellows.h.i.+p with the whole universe that comes with liberty and light.

The difference was only a point of view, but it changed the aspect of the world. This new note, which meant for the woman liberty, breadth and unity, was struck by the woman's club.

To the term "club," as applied to and by women, may be fitly referred the words in which John Addington Symonds defines Renaissance. "This,"

he remarks, "is not explained by this or that characteristic, but as an effort for which at length the time has come." It means the attainment of the conscious freedom of the woman spirit, and has been manifested first most strongly and most widely in this country, because here that spirit has attained the largest measure of freedom.

The woman's club was not an echo; it was not the mere banding together for a social and economic purpose, like the clubs of men. It became at once, without deliberate intention or concerted action, a light-giving and seed-sowing centre of purely altruistic and democratic activity. It had no leaders. It brought together qualities rather than personages; and by a representation of all interests, moral, intellectual, and social, a natural and equal division of work and opportunity, created an ideal basis of organization, where every one has an equal right to whatever comes to the common centre; where the centre itself becomes a radiating medium for the diffusion of the best of that which is brought to it, and where, all being freely given, no material considerations enter.

This is no ideal or imaginary picture. It is the simplest prose of every woman's club and every clubwoman's experience during the past thirty years.

It has been in every sense an awakening to the full glory and meaning of life. It is also a very narrow and self-absorbed mind that sees in these openings only opportunities for its own pleasure, or chances for its own advancement on its own narrow and exclusive lines. The lesson of the hour is help for those that need it, in the shape in which they need it, and kins.h.i.+p with all and everything that exists on the face of G.o.d's earth. If we miss this we miss the spirit, the illuminating light of the whole movement, and lose it in the mire of our own selfishness.

The tendency of a.s.sociation upon any broad human basis is to destroy the caste spirit, and this the club has done for women more than any other influence that as yet has come into existence. A club that is narrowed to a clique, a cla.s.s, or a single object, is a contradiction in terms. It may be a society, or a congregation of societies, but it is not a club. The essence of a club is its many-sided character, its freedom in gathering together and expressing all shades of difference, its equal and independent terms of members.h.i.+p, which puts every one upon the same footing, and enables each one to find or make her own place. The most opposite ideas find equal claims to respect. Women widest apart in position and habits of life find much in common, and acquaintance and contact mutually helpful and advantageous. Club life teaches us that there are many kinds of wealth in the world--the wealth of ideas, of knowledge, of sympathy, of readiness to be put in any place and used in any way for the general good. These are given, and no price is or can be put upon them, yet they enn.o.ble and enrich whatever comes within their influence.

We are only at the threshold of a future that thrills us with its wonderful possibilities--possibilities of fellows.h.i.+p where separation was; of love where hatred was; of unity where division was; of peace where war was; of light--physical, mental and spiritual--where darkness was; of agreement and equality where differences and traditions had built up walls of distinction and lines of caste. This beautiful thing needs only to be realized in thought to become an actual fact in life, and those who do realize it are enriched by it beyond the power of words to express.

Women have been G.o.d's own ministers everywhere and at all times. In varied ways they have worked for others until the name of woman stands for the spirit of self-sacrifice. Now He bids them bind their sheaves and show a new and more glorious womanhood; a new unit--the completed type of the mother-woman, working with all as well as for all.

The Advantages of a General Federation of Women's Clubs[1]