When any considerable number of men have advanced sufficiently in moral and spiritual excellence to be swayed by principles of abstract right, the scales will fall from the eyes of the law-maker, and he will perceive that Woman should be lifted from her low legal estate, now on a par with minors, idiots, lunatics, criminals, etc., first by legislative enactments. While, from constitutional difference, Man cannot feel the indignities inflicted upon Woman with a woman's sense of wrong and injustice, he is swiftly led to its realization, whenever their manifest effects surge up to his own fireside, encroaching upon the rights of his own mother, wife or sister. He entertains too great a veneration, too tender a regard for these relations, to hold back his hand when, in the increasing light of reflection, he is led to see that he has power to open to the sex opportunities for pleasure, profit and usefulness, from which, under the present regime, they are debarred. The time draws near when he will brush away the cobwebs of tradition, and dissolve the illusion that his own nature is supreme and inclusive; that it is typified by the fruit of creation, and that women are but the ornamental blossoms designed to be sacrificed to swell and increase the fruit. The bounds and limits denominated spheres are simply absurd. If any man desires to perform that which is usually termed Woman's work," if he can use the needle, and construct garments better than Woman, and preside over a milliner's and dressmaker's establishment with equal or greater skill, if he can sweep and attend to household drudgery, the faculty determines the sphere for him. On the other hand, if a woman can successfully use the scalpel in performing surgical operations, administer law in our courts, preside over a bank, navigate a ship, or fill a pulpit to edification, who shall deny that, in following the bent of her impulse or the lead of her judgment in these directions, her acknowledged capacity does not equally determine her sphere? "She claims her license in her work." Exercise is the law of our being. What man or woman can accomplish with the most profit to the world, in the present chaotic state of society, is an open question, which experience has yet to determine, Meanwhile let Woman continue to avail herself of every opportunity to show what she can accomplish. The world will not always resist the logic of facts. The time is rapidly approaching when women, as well as men, will be gauged by mental culture and the attainment of a lofty character, when the former will continue to be respected, after the irresistible charms of youth and beauty have departed, and the axis of life is turning from the sun. The greatest drawback to the attainment of this larger and fuller life for Woman, is her willing submission to the authority of laws and customs degrading to her nature,--her ignoble content,-engendered by countless ages of subordination, which, vampire-like, while consuming her noblest energies, renders her unconscious of the silken fetters by which she has been bound. How many minds, brilliantly endowed by nature, hindered from development by the accident of sex, are slumbering in the deepest lethargy. The time has fully arrived for that large class of women who are still under the delusion that weakness and dependence are the prime attractions of the sex, to throw off the shackles which have been so insidiously forged about them. In consequence of hereditary dealing with little plans and little things, she has contracted a mental stoop, which can be rectified only by the full recognition of her rights-legal, social and domestic. "The ballot is the best preparation for the ballot." To an American citizen, Suffrage is the key-stone of all other rights. So long as woman supinely submits to taxation without representation, to being governed without her consent, thereby being herself compelled to augment the power which holds her in the gripe of subjection, legislators can never be brought to feel that women have political rights which they are bound to respect. Did Woman but comprehend fully what might be the power, the extent of her influence, her true status, the place God meant she should occupy, she would at once take possession of her rights, and no hand would be found to thrust her back. History repeats itself on an ever ascending scale. The conservatism of to-day was the radicalism of by-gone years. Innovations blossom into institutions. The successive triumph of each reformatory movement is a pledge that Woman Suffrage, the most advanced reform of the age, will surely be fulfilled. When the Alphabet was. reluctantly vouchsafed to Woman, only those who stood on the heights of thought, saw and comprehended what that concession involved, and, calculating its inevitable consequences, they were enabled to project a Caroline Herschel, or a Maria Mitchell. The auguries of the present are not less certain. Long before the dawn of another Centennial anniversary, the struggle for the equality of the sexes will have given place to higher and nobler issues for the advancement of humanity. In promoting these new measures, Man and Woman will co-operate on an equal platform. The dual nature of the race being better understood, there will be: Two heads in council, two beside the hearth, Two in the liberal offices of Life, Two plummets dropped for one to sound the abyss Of science, and the secrets of the mind." A cordial invitation having been extended to Mrs. Lucy Stone to address the Congress, that lady spoke about ten minutes on the good time coming, when the nation would be governed by the suffrage of men and women alike. Remarks were also made upon the same subject by Abby W. May and Mrs. A. J. Dunniway. THE GENESIS OF CRIME. BY JEANNE C. CARR. I KNOW of no reason why I should have been asked to furnish a paper for the Congress under this title, unless it be that my husband's presentation of this subject before the medical societies of California has attracted the attention of friends on this side of the continent. Several years ago he began to urge the consideration of it upon the only professional class which he believes are yet prepared to examine it in a truly scientific spirit, and if I quote somewhat liberally from those papers, it is because I have not access at this moment to those of other writers, bearing upon the same points. In Dr. Carr's Address to the California State Medical Society, he says: "The medical profession ought to stand as the informing spirit of the legal in all that' relates to crime. "I believe that the admission of women into that profession will bring new and much needed assistance to the study of all social phenomena, and that familiarity with scientific methods of thought and inquiry will emancipate the sex from the tyranny of custom and superstition. The selfishness which has marked our treatment of the mothers of the race, their shallow and superficial education is already giving way to a better regimen, and with the greater freedom of Woman, with the exaltation of marriage and maternity, will come that better day, when, as Horace Mann said, "Men who were not born to be hung, will not be hung for having been born." Within the last few days I have visited the State Reform School of Michigan, where society atones for the neglect of two hundred and fifty boys whose greatest crime is having been born under or into conditions unfavorable to moral development. I saw these boys under circumstances which enabled me to compare them fairly with a like number in other schools. I saw them in the school-rooms and shops, and in the performance of their various tasks in the house and on the farm, with nothing either within or without to remind me that this was a penal institution. A fragment of the original stone wall, too high to be scaled, and a few long and narrow grated windows were pointed out as monuments of the old system when these little waifs and estrays were dropped by the sheriffs at the door of a prison, where fear and disgust were their jailors, and where the performance of tasks under penalties was their education. At sundown, each boy was then locked securely into his cell, at sunrise he went forth under the eye of the guard to do what was required of him. "When we had less than forty boys, we averaged fifteen escapes in a year, now that we have neither bolts nor bars, and the boys are made to understand that character tells here and determines a boy's standing and position, we rarely have an escape," said the Trustee who was my guide. With a pardonable pride he invited me to find in the records of an institution little more than twenty years old, the names of graduates well known as useful members of society. I could but wonder if its founders had builded better than they knew, in the treatment of crime as moral disease, and rejoice in the results of this noble curative experiment. Doubtless much of its success is due to the fact that Satan is checkmated by the varied employments of the boys; there are no idle hands to be engaged in mischief. The boys are their own cooks, housemaids, tailors and shoemakers. It is something to be remembered that in providing for the education of our people we have forgotten the moral value of industry, only orphans, paupers and young criminals being thus far eligible to the training of hands, hearts and heads into that harmonious activity which will make good citizens. The recognition of a fundamental principle enables the Reform School to accomplish its work with great economy of outlay, and of supervisory force. The Superintendent is twenty-three years old; the Matron, a lady of gentle presence and refined manners, would honor the highest social position. The best boys live in 'family" houses under the care of one of the teachers. These are a few noticeable features of the Michigan State Seminary for vagabonds. How many victims of the gallows, of solitary confinement in prisons, in lands called Christian, have expiated the crime of "having been born," only the books of the dead will show. The arrest of moral development from want of proper nourishment of the intellect and the affections, is analogous to the arrest of development in the bodily organs, causing malformation. Among what Theodore Parker called the "perishing classes," we find all planes of it, all degrees--from the partially imbruted to the human monster like Jesse Pomeroy, with whom the law knows not how to be just. Who is wise enough to discriminate between the criminal by constitution or education? How lately have we begun to study the moral evolution of the race? How long must it be before Nations recognize in War the greatest of crimes, the crime against posterity? THE GENESIS OF CRIME. The classification of crimes and criminals will give us a better understanding both And here I feel myself treading on delicate of their causes and proper remedies. ground. A friend once repeated a conversation with her clergyman, who had taken the liberty of a spiritual adviser to remonstrate with her upon the use of anæsthetics in childbirth, which he contended was impious to the last degree. A pious mind, he said, would accept with resignation this reminder of the temptation and fall, which was, without doubt, intended to make Woman feel her weakness and her dependence Why, then," said the bright little lady to whom this rebuke was adupon God. dressed, "why do you not teach the farmers to accept with resignation the thorns and thistles which grow in their fields, instead of exterminating them, root and branch?" 66 This is an apt illustration of the different stand-points from which the question of moral evils, their origin, treatment and cure is approached to-day, a large class accepting them as a part of the human constitution, irremediable save by the intervention of supernatural agents, the other as a series of causes and effects to be rationally apprehended and modified. We should naturally expect a great difference in the practical results of these two views--those who look upon moral imperfection as the normal state of mankind will logically accept spiritual regeneration as the only way of escape from it, while those who consider it abnormal, morbid, the resultant of imperfect conditions, pernicious associations, sometimes epidemic, as disease is, often contagious as physical ills are also, will look towards a cleaner, more conscientious generation for its gradual exThe true ground of reformatory work lies in believing that we tinction and cure. cannot gather grapes from thorns or figs from thistles. Though the heavens be filled with redeemed and rejoicing spirits, the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness, will be an evolution, a growth out of the world that is, through a better understanding of the laws of Heredity, of Reproduction, through the diffusion of scientific knowledge. says, He "In In a recent book on "The Wages Question," Gen. Francis A. Walker quotes, under the "Relations of Food to Work," "Unsanitary Abodes," "Industrial Environment," &c., many facts having an indirect relation to my theme. France, where the principle of natural selection has been violently reversed, and the men of superior size, strength and courage have been shut up in barracks or torn to pieces on the battle-field, while the feebler males have been left at home to propagate the stock, the standard of the army has been reduced from five feet four inches to five feet one and a half inches, while during the same period the French horse has been steadily gaining in size and weight." If "hardiness, aptness, fertility of resource become congenital in some communities, so that a child is born into the world half an artisan," may not a child be born to an inheritance of indolence and thriftlessness also? We know how poverty consorts with these, and what vile progeny they bring forth; the dead and morbid tissue in the living social body. The higher we rise in the scale of being, the more is reproductive force widened in its action, until in man we find not only the impression of physical but of moral and spiritual types, of dispositions and qualities strong enough to determine the character of many generations. When we reflect that the criminal who has served out his time, is at liberty to repeat himself in his children, and how small a portion of the criminal classes are marked by any form of punishment, we are forced to comfort ourselves in the law Vice and crime not only weaken the individual, they that only the fittest survive. undermine the whole social structure. We may escape the hangman's noose, the felon's cell, but how shall we guard the children against the moral miasma of deceit and lust, against a bias towards insincerity, unfairness or cruelty? The ocean currents do not more continually mix and mingle than do the social currents we impart and absorb inevitably, without thought or intention. Is it not time for society, gravely and sincerely to consider the influence of woman in determining the upward or downward direction of these currents? Can the stream rise higher than the fountain? Woman under the burden of unjust and oppressive laws, the tyranny of custom and her own ignorance is unequal to the demands made upon her by the modifying creative force of civilization. She must be taught that health is the virtue of the body, as virtue is the health of the soul. Habits of industry, temperance and frugality are the springs of these blessed conditions, as habits of idleness, sensuality and extravagance are of the various crimes which deform society. Characters are not built up, and dispositions engendered by chance. The restraints of law, the counteracting medicines of reform, the works of benevolence which engage the hands and hearts of so many of our sex, will go for nothing in the elevation of society, compared with the mystical magnetic attraction of pure and enlightened womanhood. CLOSING REMARKS. Upon invitation of the Association, Mrs. Margaret E. Parker, of Dundee, Scotland, President of the International Woman's Christian Temperance Union, made a brief speech, expressing her sense of the grandeur and nobility of such a convocation of women for high and holy purposes. After repeated calls from the audience, Mrs. Mary A. Livermore appeared again, and made a brief but eloquent and thrilling speech. A cordial vote of thanks was tendered to Prof. Maria Mitchell for her able management as presiding officer of the Congress. After passing a hearty vote of thanks to the Philadelphians, for their courtesy and hospitality, the Congress adjourned with the singing of the Doxology. An interesting paper on “Women in the South American Republics” would have been read if time had permitted. RESOLUTIONS PASSED AT SECOND QUARTERLY CONFERENCE. At a conference of the Board of Directors, held at Vassar College, April 4th, 1877, voted: "That one session of members only of the next Congress be devoted to brief reports from the officers and members of the Association, through the Vice President of each State, upon the intellectual, moral and industrial condition and needs of the women of their States or sections, and brief debate thereon; and that notice of this action of the Conference be given to each officer and member of the Association. Also Resolved, That the Fifth Congress of Women shall be held at Cleveland, Ohio, October 10, 11 and 12, in Case Hall; the daily sessions beginning at 10.30 A. M., I P. M. and 7 P. M. Also Resolved, That a Report of the Papers read at the Fourth Congress of Women in Philadelphia, October 4, 5 and 6, 1876, and a list of names and addresses of officers and members of the A. A. W. since its organization, shill be published in a pamphlet, not to exceed 120 pp.” The President, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, appointed as Publication Committee, Sara J. A. Spencer, of Washington, D. C.; Elizabeth K. Churchill, of Providence, R. I., and Dr. Mary J. Safford Blake, of Boston, Mass. |