THE POWER OF WOMAN.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 1936, 6 February 1919, Page 4

THE POWER OF WOMAN.

Four years ago few people coaid have been found to prophesy that one of the results of a war unexampled in scale, horror, and destructiveness would he the quiet concession to women of a large first instalment of that Parliamentary suffrage which they had so long vainly demanded, says a_writer in an exchange. “Nothing happens but the unforseeu,” say our witty neighbours and allies, and the manner, if not the fact, of this happening justifies (he pithy saying.

Now it is obvious that a great power is being committed to the hands of women, and it is for them to show that they 'can exercise it worthily. It will not do for women to put their responsibilities upon others, and to adopt without examination the views of either male relatives and friends or of other women with more intellectual activity and more social zeal than themselves. The first essential for citizenship is education —we cannot serve if we do not know. Education for citizenship begins as soon as a child is old enough to realise that she must not, in order to gratify herself, do what will hurt others. Women have often been accused of lack of this “community” feeling, and while it has been granted,that they are very generally unselfish in their devotion to husband and children, they have been reproached with a want of that large unselfishness which refuses to accept advantage, personal or family, at the cost of injury to the community. Food hoarding and food grabbing, for example, would have been rarer in recent times it the sense of citizenship had been stronger.

The next step in education for citizenship should be the awakening of a sense of responsibility. Wo are citizens of a great democratic Slate —(hat is of a State which has adopted the principle of government of the people by the people for the people, ll is we citizens ami no others who are responsible for its good government, for its institutions. good and bad, for the condition of the masses of its people, for the execution of its. Jaws, ll has no rulers (hat we, its citizens, cannot, if we exert ourselves, both make and unmake, no institutions that we cannot mend or end, no laws that we cannot replace by others. Now the best preparation for carrying out this great task of government which is laid upon each citizen of a democratic State is to learn to govern herself. Barents and schools alike have, I think, much to do in developing among their children the power of selfgovernment. In the past schools have relied greatly upon rules and punishments for those who, broke them. Too often, both in the family ami in the school, it was thought unnecessary to explain the reason and the justification of the rules to those who were expected to obey (hem, and the result has been 100 often resentment and disobedience.