THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
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is so lavishly displaying. These are all the works of genius. We wish to know a little something about the common, everyday, ordinary kind of a woman, to whose eminence we may any of us hope to attain. It is of her I wish to speak to you to-day. Not in a spirit of criticism or captiousness, not to detract a particle from the credit due to achievements unparalleled in any age, not to quench the ardor or cool the enthusiasm of any woman, but because I feel, in common with many thoughtful people, that there is much now in the so-called woman’s movement which is superficial and much that may be ephemeral, much that depends for its support upon artificial means and that may be reactionary. We will be apt to take promise for fulfillment, shadow for substance, the means for the end. I believe a little wholesome reflection just at this time is greatly needed. We need to realize that cities do not grow in a day. Characters are not formed in six months, and that the great principles of growth are as absolutely essential in this movement as they have proven to be in all others.
Now the thought which I wish to leave with you today is: That our ideal woman has become a reality. She is here. She is the inspiring cause of much, if not all, of this work; and I wish to present her to you, as I believe she is worthy of emulation, and I believe she will compare favorably with the ideals of other times. She is not drawn from imagination, she is a living, breathing reality, and while I must admit that I have failed to find all of her qualities in many women, she is in the main drawn sufficiently from life to convince us of her existence. She is only here and there among the crowds, but if we search for her we may find her. She is not on exhibition, as I intimated before; she is no genius, and the kind of work she does is not susceptible of statistics or exposition. In the lecture-room she is more often on the benches than upon the stage, and only among her friends is her true worth fully known. None of the superlatives are required to describe her, but when she is once known and fully understood she can always be counted on. She is neither young nor old, she may be rich or poor, plain or beautiful; these are accidents she is in nowise responsible for— but she has a beauty of soul which shines out of her face and makes her seem lovely. Time has not hardened her nor has he passed her by unmarked. She is not over- popular with the world. She cannot train with every passing wind of doctrine, her convictions are strong and she changes them only upon the most unquestionable proof that they are untenable. She has been to school in the great world and is a part of it. Not from choice, nor from the realization of broader opportunities for women, but through stern and bitter necessity. She has learned the great lessons of life under a discipline as unflinching as that of the German army. She long since realized that the greatest good she could do the world was to find the place she was fitted for and to fill it to the best of her ability. She understands herself, is well poised and ready for emergencies. She is not easily diverted from the great purposes of life and devotes herself with great fidelity to the pursuit of her chosen avocation. She realizes that the great drawback to the success of woman in the higher professions, as well as in the less skilled callings is the lack of permanency. And herein is the great secret of absolute equality between the sexes. It is useless to talk of equal work and equal wages until women do give equal work. And we are sure that so long as work is made only a convenient stepping-stone instead of the great object of life, women do not and will not give a service as satisfactory as men do. And I maintain that she may do this without sacrificing any of her higher interests, or the interests of those whom affection or relationship may have made her responsible for. Indeed, all the interests of her life may be adjusted to those of her profession without loss to any.
She does not depend for her success so much upon her knowdedge of the amount of gray matter she has in her brain as she does upon the faithful performance of each day’s duties. Industry, punctuality and a keen intelligence of the subject matter are more important factors in her work than her influence of a diploma. In work she knows no sex, and while she recognizes the necessity for many such distinctions now, she hopes that if she lives to see another World’s Fair there will be no Woman’s Building, no woman’s separate exhibit, but men’s and women’s work exhibited