Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 82.djvu/79

Rh work if they are Christians. Nor should one forget to speak of the women in the church who go about as teachers of the Bible or on errands of mercy to the poor and suffering. Some of these are ladies of fine families and great learning, while others are poor country women, whose chief qualifications are a tender heart and a sympathetic mind rather than literary attainments.

During the late revolution the women bore no inconsiderable part. They were active in plotting and many women dedicated their fortunes and their lives to the dangerous work of propagating revolutionary doctrines or smuggling in arms from foreign countries. Young women everywhere were determined to enlist as soldiers, and in a few places "Amazon corps" were formed. Many others offered their services as nurses and the trained nurses and Bible women are said to have done effective work. Public meetings were held in all the large cities at which women spoke in behalf of the revolution, and wealthy women pledged their jewels to raise the much needed funds.

One of the most hopeful signs of all is the fact that the government promises to provide educational advantages for all girls in the same schools with the little boys until the age of ten, and afterwards by a separate system which is to end for the present in a higher normal school for girls. There seems to be a really awakened conscience on the matter of the education of women and there is something pathetic in the pleas which the educated young men of China are making that their wives and sisters may be educated. With their modern education, they are beginning to realize what it means to a man to have an uneducated woman for a wife or as the mother of their children. They are not ambitious therefore for an education which shall fit women for public positions so much as for good home makers. They realize that in China's present condition woman's greatest work lies in establishing new ideals of home life.

China has always been a moral rather than a religious nation, which means that the family rather than the individual sense has been developed. This may militate against the rapid growth of freedom for women in public life, but in the end will give her a secure and honored position. Perhaps the greatest problem in that country at present is the struggle which is on between family loyalty and individualism. It is hoped that this agitation will not so shake the moral foundations of the people that it will bring on a demoralization before it has had time to adjust itself to that broad socialism which is founded on individualism rather than is opposed to it. In the trying time that is coming, we believe that the women may hold the power to regulate the pace of the change which is inevitable. For the women of China are strongly moral, and the power of women in moral things has been recognized by the Chinese. One writer says: "Purification of morals, from the time of creation until now, has always come from woman."