The Daily News. MONDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1914. WOMEN'S WORK.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 167, 21 December 1914, Page 4

The Daily News. MONDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1914. WOMEN'S WORK.

1A feature of tlie Girls' High School function last week was the high ideal of education upheld by the noble and inspiring address of the distinguished visitor, Mrs Evans, of Wellington, for. merly lady principal of tlio Girls' College at Nelson. There was indeed nothing new in the leading ideas of Mrs. Evans' address. The keynoto of the address was the idea that the supreme function of education is equipment for the work of after life. It reminded us of the fine sayiii.; of 'Or. Fairbairn, the principal of Mansfield College, Oxford, many years ago, tuas the object of all education is to teach r.um "how to combine the maximum of effort with the minimum of exhaustion." That ideal of education is at last beginning to saturate the minds of both teachers and pupils to an extent which it has never done before. Education is now Vicoming recognised, not as an end in itself, but as a means to an end. And that end is the service of our fellow creatures. Education is a trust. It is given us to enable us to serve others. The only real proof of the worth of our education is the service it gives us power to render the world. Mrs. Evans therefore very properly made the special object of her address to emphasise the imperativeness of the two main features of all true work inculcated by Ruskin in his "gospel of work,'' viz., thoroughness and honesty. She then went 011 in the latter part of her address to transfigure the second feature, honesty, into helpfulness, and to show in her own happy way how specially important it is for woman to take care that her life work, whatever it may be, is so done, that it breathes a benediction and sheds a sunshine 011 all those for whom she works. We trust that the effect of the address will be to make all the pupils ask themselves more earnestly than ever the question, "What is the work by which I can do the world most good?" Woman's opportunities for work are multiplying and expanding every year. Doors once closed against her are now opened wide before her. In the teaching profession her work is now as welcome as man's. In literature she lias won a place as high as that of man, and even in the medical profession the prejudice against her is subsiding. Some of the most successful doctors living are women. There is, however, one profession which is specially woman's mission, that of nursing. The nurses in our hospitals to-day are doing a work as holy as that of the doctors themselves. In fact, it may be questioned whether there arc any human beings living who are doing better work than that of the women who give up their lives to the task of nursing the sick back to health. If this terrible war lasts long, as there seems every probability that it will, thousands more nurses will be needed to attend the soldiers wounded in battle. We should be very proud to hear that sonic of the girls in 0111- own High School have decided to join that band of beneficent workers. And, in the meantime, we hope that they will all seize the opportunity of qualifying themselves for that service if called to it, by joining the ambulance classes. But it is not for us to prescribe, scarcely even to suggest the particular form of work which any woman should take up. Every woman will do the best work by following the call of her own taste, temperament and circ-um-I stances, llio point \ye wish to emphasise is tiint for every woman there is a work waiting somewhere whh'ti liO one else can do as well as herself. The well, trained woman is sure to be wanted somewhere. What every woman has to do is simply to keep up the splendid start given her in the school by training eye and ear, hand and heart and brain to such thoroughness, such symmetry, such perfection, that the way she does the work of the sphere to which she finds herself called may make her the sun of a solar system round which shall revolve the planets of peace, cheerfulness, and goodwill. After all, it is not professional service but home influence that is the best work woman can do. The women to whom the world owes most are those of whom it has heard least, because they have been content to live mainly in other lives made better for their influence. The men who have inade the world arc the men who arc what women have made, them. The world will never lie able to estimate what it owes to the mothers and sisters and wives of its Wcsleys, its Washiugtons, its Gordons, its Gladstones. Woman's most immortal work is her unconscious influence. The work of the women whose purity lias refined mail's coarseness, whose gentleness has sweetened his asperity, whose honor lias restrained his ambition, whose love has subdued his pride, and softened his selfishness, will live when "victors' wreaths and monarclis' gems are blent in common dust." THE OANDOl! OF IlEliß lIAKDISW Herr Maximilian Harden, the editor of Zukunft, has an uncomfortable habit of revealing secrets. A few years ago, lie was sentenced to a term of imprison, mciit, through his trenchant penmanship, when he made a revelation of Court seerets of a distinctly unsavory nature. The .startled readers of his periodilal saw the highest 0!' the laud dragged into pillory through its pages. Serene Highnesses. • high military officers, Court officials, Majesty itself, had their names coupled with fortune-tellers, adventurers, anil ladies of tile demi-monde, in a most sac-religious fashion. Berlin and the whole world were both shocked and amused at the giddy goings on at the Kaiser's Court, sensations which were only surpassed a year or two before, when a journeyman shoe-maker purchased a captain's uniform in a second-hand shop, and acting ostensibly as a special envoy of the Em. pcror, impressed a passing squad of sol-

diers in his serYiec, and arrested lha burgomaster of Kopenick, and incidentally took possesion of the municipal cash-box. Europe and tlio whole world were convulsed with laughter at the latter incident, the comic Prosa of two continents made capifcil out of thia farcical example of Prussian officialdom; vaudeville artists and comic opera librettists mado it a subject for song and dance items. The world was more Sight, hearted than ever when Maximilian Harden made his revelations a year or two later, and the Court of Berlin was merely looked upon as an institution which existed to add to the gaiety of nations. Herr Hardcn's latest revolution is of a more serious nature (writes tlio Christchurch Star.) He deprecates the official hypocrisy which pretends that Germany was dragged into the present war very much against her will; he scouts the idea that European public opinion has any right to question Germany's action from any moral standpoint, and practically challenges the jurisdiction of the tribunal of the law of nations, Germany, says Kerr Harden, is no longer to be cooped up, she wants elbow-room for her trade, wants Belgium and part of Northern ■ l'ranco to get an outlet 011 the Channel and the Atlantic. Of course, all this lias been an open secret for some time to those not afflicted with incipient 1 idiocy, lint it is refreshing to find a | great German writer make such admissions in this brutally frank fashion. Herr Hardcn's statements, if somewhat startling, are at least honest; his earlier writings, such as his pcn.pietures of Kuropcn celebrities, if rather tedious, show at least a keen insight into men and affairs, and any statements made by him arc by no means to be ignored. As he is certainly not an official journalist—unless he has very much mended his wicked ways—his utterances are tho more significant. Another sign of tho times is the feelers thrown out by Germany and Austria through the Italian Press, and which confirm Herr Hardcn's attitude on the subject. Apparently, according to Rome papers, if the Allies were to sue for peace in a nice humble manner, the German and Austrian Governments might graciously accord it, oil the basis of a Belgian and Servian occupation and a status quo ante bellunt. It is gratifying indeed to learn that such magnanimity still exists in this sinful world, and that the sack of London,' Paris and Petrograd is not insisted upon, nor that a demand be made that King George, President Poincairc or the Czar must be exhibited at country fairs in a cage. It is pleasant to note that such chivalry still exists iw these degenerate days, but, unfortunately, there is some reason to fear that the generous terms of the German and Austrian Governments may not be. accepted. IThe present state of mind of the, British, French, Belgian, Russian and Servian Governjncints is of a regrettably quarrelsome nature, and that they will insist upon a different status quo pest helium is almost certain. Herr Hardcn's statements open tlie question whether the actions of the court lie himself has helped to ridicule lias played a year-long farce, to leave the world unprepared for a tragedy, and, whether the chief personage of that eourt, has consciously played the part of Hamlet, occasionally varied with that of Tartuffe to gain this end To organise and enmesh practically the whole civilised world in a net of j espionage is certainly not the work of 1 fools. While the world was laughing at the gyrations of the Berlin court, a vast I army of spies of various kinds did their | work; opened pork butchers' shops and J garages in Belgium with concrete floors | intended for future gun-platforms, bough quarries in France for growing mushrooms, but really intended for trenches; pretended tourists gaped and photographed and measured everywhere, with an eye to future contingencies. Hospitable countries were, inundated with humble waiters, who, really army reservists, made their presence unpleasantly felt at the outbreak of hostilities. In times of war ruses are recognised from the time of the wooden horse of Troy, right down to the present day, when even the colors of uniforms are intended to make the enemy believe that their opponents are portions of the land- > scape, but the -Machiavellian policy of tho I court of Berlin has made the time of I peace a mere space between wars, wliiled j away with espionage, treachery, and de- j ceit. {