WORLD'S MOST FAMOUS WOMEN

Shannon News, 30 March 1926, Page 4

WORLD'S MOST FAMOUS WOMEN

"JPOES THE WORLD REMEMBER?" "The world lias never failed to honour her great men —though too frequently only when they have passed into the Great Silence —but how rarely the world \ has remembered her great women," writes Miss M. Preston Stanley, who" was the first woman to be elected to the Parliament of New South Wales. Yet (writes Miss Stanley) there have been great women,-and in greatness there is no first I nor last. God never duplicates the great f oik' of the earth, so that, while,we cannot compare the great women with the great 'men, we must remember that if the world known a Shakespeare, a Shelley, a Goethe, a Pericles—so have we known a Hypatia, an Aspasia, a Joan of Arc, an Elizabeth Browning, an Edith Cavell. And they deserve to rank with the greatest men who have ever lived. Let us turn back some of the pages of the calender of time, and recall some of the women who had a mighty influence upon the life and culture of their times. Turning right back into history, we have: — SAPPHO: Poet, teacher, philosopher. Aristotle said of Sappho: "Her work in poetry is equal to that of Homer and all poets and philosophers since her time have been profoundly influenced by her utterances." EUTERPE: Philosopher, diplomat, teacher, mother. She incurred the jealously and the wrath of many men in Athens. Commonplace people are never so honoured. They accused her thus: "You are an alien!" Her answer was: "Yes, I am an alien, but my son is Themistocles."

ASPASIA: Counsellor, inspirer, friend and wife of. Pericles, who took up the work of Themistocles, and carried it through to a successful conclusion, and under whose leadership sculpture, drama, poetry, and physical culture reached perfection, if ever. CORNELIA: Mother of the Gracchi. When some Koman Ladies at a Four-o'clock were boasting of their jewels and their finery, the two sons' of Cornelia entered the room. The mother led them forward and said "These are my jewels." She was the teacher of her sons, and when their power became supreme she was their chief counsellor and adviser.., „ HYPATIA: The world's first martyr to new thought and free thought organiser of a university for women and of women's clubs: She was the first women to demand equal rights for women before the law. She pleaded for opportunity. FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE: The lady of the lamp. Humanist .nurse organiser. Real founder of the Red Cross movement. A woman whose name will be enshrined in the hearts of her nation while history lasts. MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT author of the Rights of Women, and the able assistant of Doc-tor Johnson in compiling his dictionary. No author writes on the aubjest of women's rights or human rights to-day without auoting Mary WoUstonecraft. MARY BAKER G. EDDY, who has diluted the power of the male preacher and the male doctor. Two million people believe in-her implicitly. A hundred million are influenced in their daily thinking, through hev

philosophy* ; ■ -^ . ■ • ■•'... ELIZABETH FRY, a Quakeress, who reformed the prison system of England, and gave us a new treatment of the insane. She was the mother of a big family, a good cook .' and a model housekeeper. She knew : . . JSI

how to make money and save it. She ! was an orator and a writer. She said to the King of France: "Thee should build'no dark ceu3 in any prison." And the King said "Why?" and her answer was: "Because thee and thy children shall occupy them." SUSANNAH WESLEY, founder of the Medodist Church, mother of John and Charles Wesley, and of 17 other little Wesleys. She, preached to the people from tavern ' steps, in graveyards, on the streets. She did her own housework, and was a woman of singular power and strength, of character. CAROLINE HERSCHELL, astronomer, musician, scientist. She lived to be io.o years old, efficient to the last. ANNE HUTCHINSON; who first expressed free thought in America; orator and thinker; mother of IB children. CLARA BARTON, teacher, executive, founder of the American Red Cross Society; spoken of by Abraham Lincoln as the most able and npble woman he had ever met. Exponent of peace, of common sense in religion and education, advocate of the rights of women, children and dumb animals. Recipient of the Legion of Honour from France and many other decorationa. _^ MADAME CURIE, teacher, scientist,, discoverer of radium; recipient of the Nobel prize. SUSAN B. ANTHONY, friend by instinct, orator, writer, humanitarian for more than 60 years living an active expanding public life; expressing herself forcibly, yet without heat, on every: proper occasion. Those who knew her loved her; those who did not love her did not know her. EDITH CAVELL, Englishwoman, patriot, victim of Germany's most barbarous crime, who paid for her humanities with death. Fate held on decoration for this grand and valiant woman, but she died with honours full upon her. Her last words were: "I have no fear of shrinking: I have seen death so often . that it is not strange or feai'ful to me." And at 2 o'clock in the morning, with bandaged eyes, led to a place of execution, her physical strength, unequal" to her matchless spirit, failed, and Edith Cavell fell unconscious, and was shot where she lay. But the unconquerable soui which passed out joined the deathless army, and has flung far and wide its undaunted message to the world. "I have done ,my part—let not my sacrifice be in yain." - Such woman are the embodiment of a force which is the most evergreen, potent, and irresistible thing in this world.