Art of Public Speaking

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breadwinner for his wife and children, and that the primary duty of the woman is to be the helpmate, the
housewife, and mother. The woman should have ample educational advantages; but save in exceptional cases
the man must be, and she need not be, and generally ought not to be, trained for a lifelong career as the family
breadwinner; and, therefore, after a certain point, the training of the two must normally be different because
the duties of the two are normally different. This does not mean inequality of function, but it does mean that
normally there must be dissimilarity of function. On the whole, I think the duty of the woman the more
important, the more difficult, and the more honorable of the two; on the whole I respect the woman who does
her duty even more than I respect the man who does his.
No ordinary work done by a man is either as hard or as responsible as the work of a woman who is bringing
up a family of small children; for upon her time and strength demands are made not only every hour of the
day but often every hour of the night. She may have to get up night after night to take care of a sick child, and
yet must by day continue to do all her household duties as well; and if the family means are scant she must
usually enjoy even her rare holidays taking her whole brood of children with her. The birth pangs make all
men the debtors of all women. Above all our sympathy and regard are due to the struggling wives among
those whom Abraham Lincoln called the plain people, and whom he so loved and trusted; for the lives of
these women are often led on the lonely heights of quiet, self-sacrificing heroism.
Just as the happiest and most honorable and most useful task that can be set any man is to earn enough for the
support of his wife and family, for the bringing up and starting in life of his children, so the most important,
the most honorable and desirable task which can be set any woman is to be a good and wise mother in a home
marked by self-respect and mutual forbearance, by willingness to perform duty, and by refusal to sink into
self-indulgence or avoid that which entails effort and self-sacrifice. Of course there are exceptional men and
exceptional women who can do and ought to do much more than this, who can lead and ought to lead great
careers of outside usefulness in addition to--not as substitutes for--their home work; but I am not speaking
of exceptions; I am speaking of the primary duties, I am speaking of the average citizens, the average men and
women who make up the nation.
Inasmuch as I am speaking to an assemblage of mothers, I shall have nothing whatever to say in praise of an
easy life. Yours is the work which is never ended. No mother has an easy time, the most mothers have very
hard times; and yet what true mother would barter her experience of joy and sorrow in exchange for a life of
cold selfishness, which insists upon perpetual amusement and the avoidance of care, and which often finds its
fit dwelling place in some flat designed to furnish with the least possible expenditure of effort the maximum
of comfort and of luxury, but in which there is literally no place for children?
The woman who is a good wife, a good mother, is entitled to our respect as is no one else; but she is entitled
to it only because, and so long as, she is worthy of it. Effort and self-sacrifice are the law of worthy life for
the man as for the woman; tho neither the effort nor the self-sacrifice may be the same for the one as for the
other. I do not in the least believe in the patient Griselda type of woman, in the woman who submits to gross
and long continued ill treatment, any more than I believe in a man who tamely submits to wrongful
aggression. No wrong-doing is so abhorrent as wrong-doing by a man toward the wife and the children who
should arouse every tender feeling in his nature. Selfishness toward them, lack of tenderness toward them,
lack of consideration for them, above all, brutality in any form toward them, should arouse the heartiest scorn
and indignation in every upright soul.
I believe in the woman keeping her self-respect just as I believe in the man doing so. I believe in her rights
just as much as I believe in the man's, and indeed a little more; and I regard marriage as a partnership, in
which each partner is in honor bound to think of the rights of the other as well as of his or her own. But I think
that the duties are even more important than the rights; and in the long run I think that the reward is ampler
"1_2_4">APPENDIX D. SPEECHES FOR STUDY AND PRACTISE 231
The Art of Public Speaking
and greater for duty well done, than for the insistence upon individual rights, necessary tho this, too, must
often be. Your duty is hard, your responsibility great; but greatest of all is your reward. I do not pity you in the
least. On the contrary, I feel respect and admiration for you.
Into the woman's keeping is committed the destiny of the generations to come after us. In bringing up your
children you mothers must remember that while it is essential to be loving and tender it is no less essential to
be wise and firm. Foolishness and affection must not be treated as interchangeable terms; and besides training
your sons and daughters in the softer and milder virtues, you must seek to give them those stern and hardy
qualities which in after life they will surely need. Some children will go wrong in spite of the best training;
and some will go right even when their surroundings are most unfortunate; nevertheless an immense amount
depends upon the family training. If you mothers through weakness bring up your sons to be selfish and to
think only of themselves, you will be responsible for much sadness among the women who are to be their
wives in the future. If you let your daughters grow up idle, perhaps under the mistaken impression that as you
yourselves have had to work hard they shall know only enjoyment, you are preparing them to be useless to
others and burdens to themselves. Teach boys and girls alike that they are not to look forward to lives spent in
avoiding difficulties, but to lives spent in overcoming difficulties. Teach them that work, for themselves and
also for others, is not curse but a blessing; seek to make them happy, to make them enjoy life, but seek also to
make them face life with the steadfast resolution to wrest success from labor and adversity, and to do their
whole duty before God and to man. Surely she who can thus train her sons and her daughters is thrice
fortunate among women.
There are many good people who are denied the supreme blessing of children, and for these we have the
respect and sympathy always due to those who, from no fault of their own, are denied any of the other great
blessings of life. But the man or woman who deliberately foregoes these blessings, whether from viciousness,
coldness, shallow-heartedness, self-indulgence, or mere failure to appreciate aright the difference between
the all-important and the unimportant,--why, such a creature merits contempt as hearty as any visited upon
the soldier who runs away in battle, or upon the man who refuses to work for the support of those dependent [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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