The Daily News. MONDAY, APRIL 22, 1914. "THE WOMAN PERIL."

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 272, 22 April 1914, Page 4

The Daily News. MONDAY, APRIL 22, 1914. "THE WOMAN PERIL."

That woman's hand and brain lie heavy upon modern civilisation is the contention of a writer in the American "Educational Review," from whom is quoted the phrase that heads this article. Has is it in sober reality come to this—that a whole sex is looked upon as the foe of progress, of law, order and decency, of all the virile virtues, of all that we are accustomed to call civilisation? It must be confessed that there is much in current events, current fashions and current sentiment that lends color to the assertion, that the world is threatened with a very real "woman peril." In Great Britain there are bands of wild women devoting ail their time to incendiarism, violence and destruction, on the insane plea that these tactics will enable them to obtain a voice in the government of the country. In London, according to police reports, thero are 50 per cent, more habitual women drunkards than there are men drunkards. In the Old Country, too, the crime of wife-beating, once so common, is being displaced- by that of hus-band-beating, while cases of husbandmurder are by no means unknown. In the United States of America, women have developed a most alarming species of hysteria, which lately took the form of scores of women making false charges against men of attempting to drug them. Tn one city of that progressive land there is a proposal to establish public-houses for women only. Several cities have enrolled corps of women policemen, who have developed a ferocity tha't no male constable has ever approached. In the American colleges for women, the practice of "ragging" has become fashionable, and several girl students have sustained serious injuries as the result. All this seems decidedly alarming. Women appear to be desirous of imitating men in every sphere of life; and of course they (like aboriginal races in contact with civilised men) take more readily to the vices than to the virtues of those they imitate. What does it all men? What is the cause, and what the cure? Rear-Admiral F. 13. Chadwick, in the article to which we have already referred, puts part of the evil down to the wrong educational policy of allowing women to teach boys. Out of 033,000 public school teachers in tho United States, he finds that 423,278 are women, and the result is that "a destructive influence is exercised on the masculine character of the boy," and we assume a race of male milksops is produced alongside a race of Amazons and viragoes. The Admiral doea not question women's "power to teach." That, unfortunately, is undoubted; but he holds "that no woman, whatever her ability, is able to bring up properly a man child. She does not in the main recognise that the masculine and feminine natures are as far apart as the poles. Men think in terms of steamships, railways, battleships, war, finance; in a word, the great energies of the world, which the woman's mind never in a practical way really concerns itself with, nor can it do so." The general truth of this statement cannot be denied. It has, hows-rcr, been generally assumed hitherto that the gentle, peaceful disposition of woman specially fitted her for the training of youth, and that boys were all the better for being in their susceptible years subjected to the influence of woman. Xow it has been discovered that this is a menace to progress. A point that ought to impress English people is made by the writer of the article when be holds up Prussia as a model state. Prussia, he says, is, perhaps, the most advanced and highly civilised state in the world. Tt is foremost in municipal, chemical, metallurgical, and military development, and it is so, he says, because "no boy is ever, at any age, under woman's tutelage." It is so because of its "masculine training." An Unglish observer roeentlv remarked that the boys at Ocrum, schools showed far more zest and delight i" their work than ,lo the boys at 1-ng-li*l» "cl'ools. The same zest will no doubt be shown in drill and the use of sows. Knglish boys are becoming such "moH.y coddles" that (lie authorities at KI -"» H'H-h School l,ave abolished, the rule making it compulsory for boys to l! ' ,; ' 1 ' ):,ri '» Sanies. Are women re-spni!-o:de for this? We du „ ot i, t .ij ovu that they are. Put, nevertheless the

woma'i problem :< a. serous one. There :!'■" t'.-day l..'G!\(K)f) surplus women in '■!'<• I ; !iifcp<l Kiiirrclom, and it is natural ">«t these, siionld seel; to enter industrial opt-ujiiitions as a mean? of livelihood. ff «-uii..'ii arc hf<-or.iii,jrr ,„;„,, IlliW( ,„ii..p. •"i.-i men move feminine than formerly, it '<_<■>!<' result o{ laws an,] lendrnojos, wider, deeper anil stronger Ihau are yet •■'PP'vhemled; but thai, the ultimate ',-,.. suit will he for the »■.,„! „f humanify and hum:;,, progress is perfectly elear- !"-<■« r!ra.r iis (hat the p,es„nr 1 r:,;i>i- '"'" nU "" '"'■■* produced a number n f undesirable developments.