Page:Oread August 1891.djvu/5

Rh We find this spirit of unrest in all phases of life, not only in the social sphere, but on the religious, the political, the mental, the intellectual and the physical.

Whence comes this great feeling of revolt? It is not altogether imported. Why are not our people content to like things as they are and be satisfied? For instance, why have the working women of Massachusetts' factory towns found it necessary to organize before they can raise their standard of living? Because they are slowly being ground down to a life where comfort must be bought at the price of honor. They have already reached a stage where one-fourth of all those committed to the State's under twenty-one years of age, while seventy-one per cent. of all are under thirty-one years. Individually they are almost powerless to alter the existing conditions. They are trying organization as a means by which to enforce their claims. To be sure, intemperance is a very great factor in this condition of affairs; many of the individuals would not help themselves if they could, but this is not true of a majority of the girls. They would grasp a better life if they but had an opportunity. Their lives at home are full of unhappiness, of poverty, of liquor fumes, of filth, immorality and discord.

When Massachusetts' State Reformatory for women was first established, it was customary, on account of the crowded condition of the city jails, to send the thirty and sixty days' women to the Reformatory. Those who had nursing babes brought them with them. These women were not as carefully searched at first as after the officers had further experience. The resident physician grew to wonder why the infants were so naturally quiet. At last, by careful watching, it was discovered that the women made a practice of smuggling a flask of liquor into the institution for the express purpose of keeping the children quiet—drunk. Can we then wonder that intemperance enters so largely into the lives of these people?

As soon as these children leave actual infancy they are pushed out into evil thoughts, evil ways and evil places. Would it not be almost miraculous if every element of their later lives is not wrong? Is it any wonder that the mental, moral and social standing of these boys and girls is what it is? We send missionaries abroad, but we have barbarity at home.

Many noble men and women are striving to turn this great tide of evil; many great fortunes have been devoted to this work. Still the evil sweeps on with almost no sign of abatement. Yet we may say with true feeling, what might have been our condition had not all this home work been done? For truly it is the home that must be reached. It has been said that individual thinking and education of the working people are the greatest elements in the cause of these uprisings, and that further individuality and higher education is the help for them.

Miss Willard says: "My eyes are not riveted on the slums, but on the heights." Still, we must dip down to the slums if we would take with us all that may be carried to the height, never losing sight, however, of the altitude.

If the children under these evil influences can be reached and taken from the surroundings of their birth, and educated as the children of our republic should be, we may hope for their redemption. Make the home pure and you make the nation pure, and our one great hope of this is through education.

Alice Freeman Palmer, who, when she was at its head, did so much for Wellesley, says that this year there are forty thousand women in the colleges of America. These schools furnish training not only of an intellectual order, but of moral and spiritual nature; for any system which, nowadays, ignores the latter, is to be itself ignored. Then, what may we reasonably hope for from these forty thousand?

Statistics for the past few years show that a majority of college-educated women enter homes of their own (despite all the hue and cry to the contrary). Among these we look for a great stride forward and upward toward pure homes. Of the remainder, may we not say that nearly all are engaged in this work of bettering those around us? All are teachers in one way or another, and have we not every reason to look for good and truth only from those who have received the good and the true?

One of the speakers before the National Educational Association last July said: "Fellow teachers, I want first of all to tell you that your indirect influence is the greatest power you have."

I wonder if those of us who are not engaged in the special work of teaching realize how much of truth that holds for us! When, in what way and how far each one of us is a teacher we never know, and the women of America are taking more and more positions where these unseen influences go out.

It has been said that at the close of the nineteenth century there will be more college-educated women than men; whether this be true or not, the circumstances which called forth the remark are such as force us to conclude that woman begins to realize that she has a work to do, and that it can not be done successfully without the help of an education. Every year we find more and more women among the number of those reaching out after the less fortunate; every year we find more and more trying to aid their sin-bound sisters.

So we look to our sisters for a full share in the lifting of the burden of distress and sin among our women. With what grateful hearts it is, then, that we see young, fresh minds entering upon their life-work fortified with a good, solid training from any of the higher institutions of learning. Still, like Alexander, we sigh for more, for it seems that, however many there are striving for the better ways of life, there are not yet enough, or rather there are still so many who do not seem to realize the great need of it. Then, let us urge higher education, not only for its own sake, but for the sake of the good we may do with it, and for the sake of those who now know little or nothing of it, "reaching forth unto those things which are before, and pressing toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God."

Fruit is very abundant on the grounds and farms of the Seminary this season. Strawberries and cherries have been canned in liberal quantities, the latter limited only by the ability to take care of the generous quantity supplied by the trees.