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Page 69
Their sense is with their senses all mix'd in,
Destroyed by subtleties these women are.
George Meredith's prayer for us, "more brain, O Lord, more brain!" we
shall still need when "votes for women" has become an outworn slogan.
No one claims that character is produced only by college training or any
other form of education. There are illiterate women whose wills are so
steady, whose hearts are so generous, and whose spirits seem to be so
continuously refreshed that we look up to them with reverence. They have
their own fountains. It would be a mistake to suppose that because they
are "open at the outlet" they are "closed at the reservoir." But there is
a class of women who are impelled toward knowledge (as still others are
impelled toward music or art) and whose success in anything they do will
depend upon their state of mind. We ought to assume that the girls who go
to college belong to this class, however far from the springs of Helicon
they mean to march in the future. It is a terrible thing that we should
think of taking one hour of their time while they are in college for any
course that does not enrich the intellect and add to the treasury of
thoughts and ideas upon which the woman with a mind will always be
drawing. Spirit is greater than intellect, and may survive it in the
course of a long life. But in the active years, for this kind of woman,
the mental life becomes one with the spiritual. A lusty serviceableness
will issue from their union. If mental interests seem sterile, the cure,
as far as the college is concerned with it, is to deepen, not to lessen
the love of learning. The renewal of sincerity, humility and enthusiasm in
the age-old search for truth is more necessary than the introduction of
new courses, which must be applied to be of value, and which at this time
in a girl's experience, and under these conditions, can give only partial
and superficial data.
Our lives are subject to a thousand changes. In the home as well as out of
it, we shall meet, face to face, fruition and disappointment, rapture and
pain, hope and despair. In these tests of the soul's health what good will
_domestic_ science do us? Not by sanitation is sanity brought forth. Women
do not gather courage from calories, nor faith from refrigerators. But
every added milestone along the road from youth to age shows us the truth
of Cicero's claim, made after he had borne public care and known private
grief, for the faithful, homely companionship of intellectual studies:
"For other things belong neither to all times and ages nor all places; but
these pursuits feed our growing years, bring charm to ripened age, adorn
prosperity, offer a refuge and solace to adversity, delight us at home, do
not handicap us abroad, abide with us through the watches of the night, go
with us on our travels, make holiday with us in the country."
Upon women, in crucial hours, may depend the peace of the old, the fortune
of the middle-aged, the hopefulness of the young. In such an hour we do
not wish to be dismissed as were the women of Socrates's family, who had
had no part in the bright life of the Athens of which he was taking leave.
Shall we become the bread in the sacrament of life, ourselves unfed? the
fire on the hearth, ourselves unkindled?
THE LAND OF THE SLEEPLESS WATCHDOG
If from almost any given point in the United States you start out towards
the Southwest, you will reach in time the Land of the Sleepless Watchdog.
On each of the scattered farms, defending it against all intruders, you
will find a band of eager and vociferous dogs--dogs who magnify their
calling because they have no other, and who, by the same token lose all
sense of proportion in life. It is "theirs not to reason why," but to put
up warnings and threats, and to be ready for the fight that never comes.
If you enter a domain without previous understanding with them, you are
powerless for mischief, for you are in the center of a publicity beside
which any other publicity is that of a hermit's cell. The whole farm knows
where you are, and all are suspicious of your predatory intentions. You
can have none under these conditions. Meanwhile the whole pack voices its
opinion of you and your unworthiness.
This is supposing that you are actually there. If you are not, it amounts
to the same thing. Every dog knows that you meant to be there, or at any
rate, that to be there was the scheme of someone equally bad. The
slightest rustle of the wind, the call of a bird, the ejaculation
responsive to a flea--any of these, anything to set the pack going.
And one pack starts the next. And the cries of the two start the third and
the fourth, and each of these reacts on the first. The cry passes along
the line, "We have him at last, the mad invader." There being no other
enemy, they cry out against each other. And of late years, since the
barbed wire choked the cattle ranges, and gave pause to the coyote, there
has been no enemy. But the dogs are there, though their function has
passed away. It is but a tradition--a remembrance. Only to the dogs
themselves does any reality exist.
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