WOMANHOOD AT THE CROSS-ROADS 
 
2HIS is one of a series written 
 mainly by present or past Church of 
 England Chaplains to the Forces, 
 and edited hy the Reu. F. B. 
 Macnutt, formerly S.C.F., Editor 
 of * The Church in the Furnace? 
 
 UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME 
 
 7j X 5. Paper Cover, each, is. ; 
 Cloth, 2s. net. 
 
 THE GREATEST RELATIONSHIP. By 
 the Rev. A. C. BOUQUET, B.D. 
 
 THE WAY OF UNDERSTANDING. By 
 
 KENNETH E. KIRK, Keble College, Oxford. 
 Preface by ALBERT MANSBRIDGE. 
 
 WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A CHURCH- 
 MAN. By W. J. CAREY, Chaplain R.N. 
 
WOMANHOOD AT 
 THE CROSS-ROADS 
 
 By the Hon. Mrs. CELL, Author of 'The 
 Cloud of Witness,' 'The Happy Warrior,' 
 'The Empire's Destiny,' etc. etc. 
 
 SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING 
 CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE 
 
 NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1920 
 
T70REWORD 
 
 r 
 
 READERS of ' Womanhood at the Cross-Roads ' will 
 realise that it is largely addressed to the problems con- 
 fronting the more educated section of society, not because 
 these problems are the most important, but because 
 they have apparently received less attention than those 
 primarily C9ncerning the wage-earning section of the 
 '^ontmunit^.; ;Xher^ is among the more leisured classes 
 , an. ijnmense. reserve of force, hitherto very imperfectly 
 y.tilfee4 r i f^f! b'enefijc of the body politic. In the crisis 
 of our fate, our country needs every gift of daughters 
 as well as sons, if wise solutions are to be reached ; and 
 those to whom wealth of opportunity has given balanced 
 judgment, organising power, above all a lofty vision, are 
 not justified in hoarding their treasures for the delectation 
 of a narrow circle, but are bound to seek every means 
 of rendering them available for the country as a whole. 
 The capacity for leadership is often strongest in sensitive 
 souls which shrink from anything approaching publicity. 
 The degree of vision is the measure of responsibility. 
 
 Time was I shrank from what was right 
 
 From fear of what was wrong. 
 I would not brave the sacred fight 
 
 Because the foe was strong. 
 
 But now I cast that finer sense 
 
 And surer shame aside, 
 Such dread of sin was indolence, 
 
 Such aim at Heaven was pride. 
 
 So when my Saviour calls, I rise 
 
 And calmly do my best, 
 Leaving to Him with silent eyes 
 
 Of hope and fear the rest. 
 
c 
 
 ONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. Whither? 3 
 
 II. Womanhood as an Economic Force . . 16 
 
 III. Womanhood as a Social Force . . . 31 
 
 IV. Womanhood as a Spiritual Force. . . 46 
 
 574213 
 
* Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it ! ' 
 
 ' Hear ye not the voices, ringing down the ages, 
 
 Echoing still the message, though their task be done 
 Voices born of heroes, monarchs, poets, sages, 
 
 Yearning still to share the wisdom they had won ? 
 
 ' Listen ! Thronging round you, deafening with their clamour, 
 
 Fashion-tyrants mock at your vaunt of self-control ; 
 Wake ! Delusive visions, fraught with poison glamour, 
 Daze your eyes to blindness, while they paralyse your soul. 
 
 * Yet the Cloud of Witness solemnly advances, 
 
 Widening as each clarion voice is hushed in death below ; 
 Yet the Heavenly Vision gleams on raptured glances, 
 
 Prompt through changing vesture their changeless Lord to 
 know.' 
 
/CHAPTER I : WHITHER 
 VJ 
 
 ' I am the master of my fate, 
 I am the captain of my soul.' 
 
 THE altered outlook of women on life as a result of the 
 War is fraught with possibilities so vital to the future 
 of our country, that it is important the position should 
 be squarely faced, if disaster is to be avoided. At present 
 we are pursuing a policy of drift. Opinions are crystallising 
 fast. The whole attitude of Womanhood is changing ; 
 and apparently leaders are making little attempt to safe- 
 guard the heritage of the past. In every direction the 
 spirit of opportunism is rife. 
 
 We are a prey to a peculiarly acute form of indivi- 
 dualism. Self-expression is considered to be of primary 
 importance. The body politic has become a secondary 
 consideration, and under the altered conditions, which, 
 rightly manipulated, might be productive of untold good, 
 there is danger that the fundamental principles on which 
 our country's greatness is founded will suffer eclipse. 
 
 Women have tasted the sweets of freedom. They 
 have discovered their economic value. Their adminis- 
 trative ability, hitherto absorbed in domestic activities, 
 where it was largely unrecognised, has been appreciatively 
 utilised in the service of the State. Physically, whether 
 on the land or in munitions and the like, they have proved 
 equal to undertaking laborious tasks hitherto considered 
 beyond their powers ; and the net result is that many 
 of them are determined never to go back to the pre-war 
 conditions. 
 
 As usual, the swing of the pendulum is excessive, 
 and the whole situation needs wise and judicious con- 
 
 3 
 
WOMANHOOD. AT THE CROSS-ROADS 
 
 jideration, sb ; t&at the fine old tradition of the past, in 
 which British womanhood has played so noble a part, 
 may be fitly wedded to the new age so full of inspiring 
 possibilities. Subversive spirits would persuade us that 
 a breach of continuity is inevitable. The very reverse 
 is the case. We relinquish angels, that archangels may 
 come in. But the essential nature of both is the same. 
 The new age of womanhood should not be diverse, but 
 rather the child grown to full stature, uplifted, glorified. 
 Its ascent should not be marred by squalid sex-antagonism 
 or egotistical self-seeking. 
 
 The spirit of the Eternal Mother in woman should be 
 brought to bear on the whole gamut of national life, and 
 should not be relinquished when dealing with the larger 
 family of the State. It would not conduce to civic welfare 
 if we introduced what would practically be a neuter sex, 
 viz. a class of women who abjured domestic life in favour 
 of public activities. But this is a contingency to be 
 reckoned with. Feminine ambition has been aroused, and 
 there is a very real danger that the ablest among us 
 the very women whose children should be an asset to 
 the State may shun marriage in order to devote them- 
 selves unreservedly to causes in which they believe they 
 may render more direct service to their country. 
 
 This tendency is not confined to one class, but pervades 
 society from highest to lowest. The educated woman 
 in many cases no longer regards the wise governance of 
 a household, the nurture and guidance of the rising genera- 
 tion, the hundred and one beneficent and gracious activities 
 which together make up the English home at its best, as 
 affording a sphere commensurate with her talents. If 
 she is already married, she does not aim at a large family, 
 and her daughters, finding countless outlets for their 
 budding energies, are apt either to postpone marriage 
 
 4 
 
WHITHER ? 
 
 indefinitely, or to enter into one of those semi-detached 
 unions which cannot be said to deserve the name of 
 matrimony in the true sense of the word. 
 
 Meanwhile her respectable wage-earning sister, having 
 adopted a higher standard of comfort and refinement, is 
 unwilling to jeopardise it through a houseful of children. 
 She knows her strength will not suffice for all the count- 
 less needs of the big families of the past, if the new level 
 is to be maintained ; and she hankers after time for some- 
 thing beyond the incessant cooking, washing, and mending 
 which a yearly baby in arms means. Often she does 
 not realise that new life is sacred from its first inception. 
 Why is not specific teaching on this subject given to 
 brides before our Church solemnises Holy Matrimony ? 
 The result is the same as with her more educated sister : 
 she ceases to regard motherhood as the noblest vocation 
 a woman can fulfil. Year by year the birth statistics 
 fall. Families dwindle, and too frequently it is only 
 among the least desirable elements of the population 
 that babies are regarded as a matter of course, and not 
 merely incidental, to be, or not to be, at will. 
 
 All thinking people recognise the gravity of this state 
 of affairs. No student of history can overlook the fact 
 that a falling birth-rate is a sure sign of decadence in a 
 nation. It has been the precursor of the fall of all the 
 great empires of the past. It brings its own Nemesis. 
 We know how nearly it proved the undoing of our great 
 ally, France. But for our ability to provide the necessary 
 men, Germany, with her annual increase of population, 
 would have completely overwhelmed her stationary neigh- 
 bour. Race-suicide has now shown its ghastly face 
 in our midst, and if our great Empire is not to share the 
 terrible fate of Greece and Rome, we must arrest its 
 inroads without delay, and build up an enlightened public 
 
 5 
 
WOMANHOOD AT THE CROSS-ROADS 
 
 opinion to counteract the baneful influences of Malthusian 
 advocates. 
 
 We need also to arrive at a truer estimate of values 
 as regards the service which women can render to their 
 country. Their contributions, whether in politics, ad- 
 ministration, literature, or religion, are of immense value, 
 but they pale into insignificance before the achievement 
 of the Christian wife, who in holy wedlock gives birth 
 to immortal souls and devotes the best years of her life 
 to bringing them up to carry on the highest traditions 
 of the race ! Yet it is this achievement which in the 
 past has too often been belittled and scorned. Advanced 
 women have looked down on motherhood and even regarded 
 a large family as positively indelicate and a slur on the 
 dignity of womanhood, while every difficulty is placed 
 in the way of parents with a group of children. Many 
 landlords absolutely decline to take them as tenants for 
 unfurnished houses, and for furnished ones the advertise- 
 ment often includes ' no children or dogs. 9 This is a 
 pendant to that of employers desiring ' married servants 
 without encumbrances? 
 
 The national conscience is at present dormant on 
 this point, so vital to the nation's very existence. The 
 policy is inconceivably short-sighted, for, as our King 
 has well said, ' The strength of our nation is in the homes 
 of its people.' Everything should be done to facilitate 
 the parents' task not only among the wage-earners, but 
 also among the professional classes, whose sons and 
 daughters form the very backbone of the nation both 
 in the Mother Country and overseas. The struggle for 
 them at this time is heartrending. Many wage-earners 
 are better off than they have ever been before ; there 
 is no proportionate increase for clergy, doctors, clerks, 
 writers, to counterbalance the great rise in the cost of 
 
 6 
 
WHITHER ? 
 
 living. For them a large family (unless they happen to pos- 
 sess independent means) too often spells grinding poverty 
 or, worse still, debt. They suffer in silence, and because 
 they do not clamour, their cause remains practically 
 unchampioned. It is short-sighted policy, from the patri- 
 otic point of view, to leave their wrongs unredressed, 
 for these professional classes have indeed deserved well 
 of their country. In every service, the Church, the Army, 
 the Navy, the Civil Service, above all in the far corners 
 of the Empire, their sons and daughters are to be found 
 holding the fort for God and for Britain. They form 
 an absolutely invaluable asset of uprightness and stability, 
 and were their numbers in the future to be largely 
 diminished by the force of cruel necessity, the results 
 to the Empire would be disastrous. 
 
 Other nations rate them at their true value and envy 
 us the apparently inexhaustible supply of clean-living 
 officials with a genius for managing men of alien race, 
 impervious to bribes and with a sense of fairness which 
 commands universal respect, and often affection. 
 
 The home life of our country is threatened in a thousand 
 ways. The War loosened home bonds in many directions. 
 The educated mother undertook patriotic activities often 
 involving the sacrifice of domesticity ; while among the 
 wage-earners the absence of the husband and father and 
 consequent loneliness frequently drove the wife to seek 
 distraction and employment outside the home. The 
 result in both cases is the same. The girls just emerging 
 from childhood in 1914 have grown up without the home 
 ideals of their predecessors. They have found their 
 interests elsewhere. Their ambition has been stimulated, 
 and the question ' Will the women go back ? 9 is being 
 debated, often with scant regard for the welfare of the 
 nation, and a general assumption that woman is free to 
 
 7 
 
WOMANHOOD AT THE CROSS-ROADS 
 
 decide her future in her own interest alone, not in that 
 of the race. 
 
 That blessed word ' self-determination,' in the name 
 of which the most glaring injustices may be perpetrated, 
 is the watchword of a certain section, and when applied to 
 the sanctities of human relations is peculiarly disastrous 
 so true is it that 'No man liveth unto himself, and no 
 man dieth unto himself.' The wife and mother of an 
 only child who ordains for him loneliness though c God 
 setteth the solitary in families,' may be gloriously c self- 
 determined,' but what of her tyranny over the lives of 
 husband and child ? Similarly, the woman who refuses 
 to use her powers for home-making because public life 
 brings more definite renown, has surely, in Ruskin's phrase, 
 c grasped at authority in the least things while she abdi- 
 cates in the greater.' 
 
 It is natural that under the new circumstances women 
 should claim to be the arbiters of their own fate ; but 
 such a claim carries with it an overwhelming responsibility. 
 If it be true that we cannot, if we would, cast off that 
 responsibility on other shoulders c No man may redeem 
 his brother or make agreement with God for him ' it 
 is no less true that if we fail to take account of the claims 
 from other lives entwined with ours, we may defraud 
 them of their rights in selfish pursuit of our own. 
 
 And is it so sure that ' self-determination,' when it 
 runs counter to the leading of God as expressed in the 
 circumstances wherein we are placed, really achieves the 
 highest of which we are capable ? 
 
 A man's best things lie nearest him, 
 
 Are close about his feet ; 
 It is the distant and the far 
 
 Which we are sick to greet. 
 8 
 
WHITHER ? 
 
 The problem of proportion is not an easy one. The 
 question is not one of private preference, but of what is 
 fundamentally best for the common weal. Women stand 
 at the parting of the ways. It seems tolerably certain 
 that with the political power conferred by the vote there 
 will shortly be few positions hitherto held by men which 
 will not be thrown open to them. They will be theirs 
 to take or leave. Is it desirable that an increasing number 
 of our ablest should be withdrawn from family life and 
 that the destinies of our country should be largely shaped 
 by those who have avoided its responsibilities ? 
 
 It must be borne in mind that c the neuter sex ' 
 frequently by no means represents the views of the wives 
 and mothers of our country. Its aims and aspirations 
 tend more and more to communise life, in the interest 
 of what they consider to be good organisation. We 
 owe an immense debt of gratitude to the moderate section, 
 whose niotto is ' Evolution, not Revolution.' But the 
 extremists are very powerful, and should they gain the 
 upper hand, family life would be swept away, children 
 would be nationalised, and the home life on which, since the 
 days of our Saxon forefathers, the greatness of our country 
 has been built up, would become a thing of the past. 
 
 There is a fallacy that the genius of Britain is unalter- 
 able that it is inherent in the race and will endure what- 
 ever else changes. There is no foundation for such a belief. 
 The genius of Britain, as we know it, is the outcome 
 of centuries of patient, duteous obedience to a higher law. 
 Not self-determination, but, as Tennyson finely has it : 
 
 Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, 
 All these lead life alone to sovereign power. 
 
 These are the very basis of national character, on which 
 our vaunted freedom is founded, and if for these tried and 
 
WOMANHOOD AT THE^ CROSS-ROADS 
 
 tested qualities self-expression is to be substituted, the 
 liberty of the chosen few will be purchased only at the 
 expense of the cruel slavery of the many. To take an 
 extreme case : self-expression for the murderer or the 
 thief means untold terror and misery for thousands of 
 their fellow-creatures; and in the social and religious 
 spheres alike the New Testament paradox must be 
 reconciled : ' Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil 
 the law of Christ.' * Every man shall bear his own burden/ 
 
 Many among us believe that hitherto the special 
 gifts of womanhood have been quite inadequately used 
 in the service of the community outside home life. We 
 are now inclined to rush to the other extreme, and in 
 the exhilaration of newly awakened powers to assume 
 that philanthropic and political activities of all kinds 
 constitute the greatest, the most fruitful contribution 
 women can render to the common weal. 
 
 There is some justification for this assumption, for we 
 have certainly suffered woefully in the past from lack of 
 foresight and attention to detail, the very qualities which 
 women are specially fitted to supply. But it would be 
 short-sighted policy indeed to perfect the State at the 
 expense of the home ; and it is greatly to be desired 
 that our leading women should seriously consider how 
 home-making may be elevated into a profession so that 
 those who look forward to marriage may come to its 
 high and holy functions really prepared for the inspiring 
 possibilities which surround the founding and guidance 
 of a home. It is to be remembered that here is pre- 
 eminently woman's kingdom. This is her undisputed 
 sphere. Here she may work out ideals which, like the 
 apostle's converts, will become living ' epistles, written 
 in hearts, known and read of all men.' 
 
 It does not redound to our credit that, day by day, 
 
 10 
 
WHITHER ? 
 
 year by year, thousands of young women are entering 
 on the most sacred and important of human (may we not 
 say also of divine ?) possibilities without the haziest 
 notion of even the material part of home-making, such 
 as is comprised in the conduct of a house, food values, 
 economic proportions, and the like. And when it comes 
 to the spiritual side, the deficiency is even more marked. 
 Some are quite unaware that there is a spiritual side to 
 marriage, and as for the finer influences which should 
 emanate from the wife and mother, making of the home 
 a real centre both for husband and children, they have never 
 been taught to develop what is frequently latent within 
 them ; the outcome being a roof with four walls used by the 
 family for eating and sleeping, but in no real sense a home. 
 
 It is true that the very best training for a home-maker 
 is the practical training of a well-ordered home. But, 
 as indicated above, this, during the five years of war, 
 has been largely missed even in the homes fitted to 
 provide it. The result is we have a generation growing 
 up with no personal experience of home ideals, and it is 
 they who, it is to be feared, often too lightly enter on 
 a relation the responsibilities of which they are quite 
 unprepared to fulfil, and then seek relief in the divorce 
 court, thus pulling down the whole institution of marriage. 
 
 It is advisable to consider whether the present educa- 
 tion given to girls in elementary, secondary, high schools, 
 and at home is of the kind which will enable them to 
 employ their talents in the best interests of the common 
 weal. What is the ideal set before them ? As a rule, 
 in the nature of things, the able women who preside over 
 educational institutions are unmarried. The result is 
 that unconsciously the bias is rather towards so-called 
 professions than towards what has so far not been 
 regarded in the light of a profession the home. Girls 
 
 II 
 
WOMANHOOD AT THE CROSS-ROADS 
 
 are great hero-worshippers. They naturally admire the 
 gifted teachers to whom they owe so much, and in the 
 absence of any incentive in the domestic direction, insen- 
 sibly are fired with ambition to emulate them. 
 
 Then, too, the fact that in all schools tangible honours 
 are, for the most part, only to be achieved on the in- 
 tellectual or technical side, naturally inclines teachers to 
 prepare their pupils for examinations which will redound 
 to the credit of the school. So far the most exemplary 
 home life and management on the part of a scholar does 
 not bring specific recognition to her alma mater, and 
 though domestic science is now taught, it is apt to be 
 regarded rather as an extra, whereas it should be just 
 as much a fundamental of a girl's education as reading, 
 writing, or arithmetic. 
 
 It should not pass the wit of woman to devise a course 
 embracing home-making in all its aspects, for which 
 honours could be conferred, so that it should not be 
 penalised. 
 
 Expert knowledge is certainly not less necessary to the 
 successful conduct of a family than in the public service. 
 Yet how few brides know the ABC of domestic hygiene 
 or the management of babies ! It is fatal to leave this 
 knowledge to be acquired till after marriage, and most 
 unfair on helpless infants that they should form a field 
 of experiments for ignorant mothers. The essentials of 
 both subjects should be part of every girl's education ; 
 for whether she marries or no, there are few women 
 on whom sooner or later the care of children does not 
 devolve, and if women were conscious of competence in 
 this direction there would be much less distaste for wife- 
 hood and motherhood. 
 
 It is vitally important that the wisest among us should 
 consider these questions in all their bearings, and should 
 
 12 
 
WHITHER ? 
 
 form public opinion in the right direction. In a recent 
 publication by a girl writer, a strong case is made out 
 for educated married women pursuing professions. She 
 alleges that c under certain conditions the home is more 
 likely to benefit than suffer because the wife earns her 
 living elsewhere? It is difficult to visualise the kind of 
 home in which this would be the case. Professions carried 
 on away from a wife's own house surely strike at the root 
 of home life. In the case of wage-earners we have seen 
 the disastrous results during the War. And the educated 
 woman who leaves children and household to fend for 
 themselves while she adds to her income has surely 
 a strange appreciation of relative values. The same 
 objection does not lie against those professions which 
 can be carried on in the home, such as literature, art, 
 market gardening, fruit-growing, and that least recognised 
 but most important though unpaid profession of the 
 clergyman's wife. The governance of a home may be, 
 and has been, successfully carried on in conjunction with 
 most fruitful work in such directions ; but no occupation 
 which means absence for the greater part of every day 
 is consistent with genuine home life. There is a significant 
 phrase used by the authoress, which we should do well 
 to ponder. c Provided there are no infant children, there 
 is no reason why the wife should not do some kind of 
 productive work.' And as it is assumed that the woman 
 is to decide what work she shall do, whether she be married 
 or single, in the unequal competition between the pro- 
 fession and possible babies, it is to be feared that the 
 weaker will go to the wall. 
 
 Yet from time immemorial brave and public-spirited 
 sons, pure and inspiring daughters, have been the richest 
 diadem with which any woman's brow can be encircled. 
 And such results do not eventuate spontaneously. They 
 
 13 
 
WOMANHOOD AT THE CROSS-ROADS 
 
 are the product not of an absentee mother, who regards 
 the rearing and guidance of a family as a secondary con- 
 sideration, but of the abiding presence of an ' angel in the 
 house, 5 a centre for all, to whom the welfare and develop- 
 ment of each" little one is a constant study, who regards 
 each expanding life as infinitely precious, and whose 
 highest ambition it is so to build up their characters that 
 they may be worthy servants of God and their country 
 and a crown to both parents in their old age. 
 
 Such a woman will, as the children grow up and cease 
 to need her care, be invaluable on the many religious 
 and philanthropic organisations to whom her ripe judg- 
 ment and practical experience will bring the balance 
 and foresight so essential to success. This will be a real 
 contribution to the service of the country. For it is 
 not advisable in the interests of the rising generation 
 that these should be wholly conducted by spinsters or 
 widows. The fact that a wife has the advantage of dis- 
 cussing the many new problems which arise with her 
 husband and adjusting her angle of vision to his, makes 
 for sane judgment and a generous attitude towards 
 those who differ. The masculine and feminine points of 
 view are mutually complementary, and their combina- 
 tion reaches conclusions nearer perfection than either can 
 attain to singly. 
 
 To sum up. We cannot rate the importance of home 
 life too high. Nothing must interfere with the primary 
 duty and privilege of women to aid in the fashioning of 
 immortal souls ; and this privilege does not terminate 
 with infancy, but continues to hold the field till each 
 child has reached adolescencfc and is launched in the 
 world. But subject to this primary claim, the spiritual 
 quality of motherhood in womanhood should be placed 
 at the service of the State in every direction, 
 
 H 
 
WHITHER ? 
 
 The payment for such service will be the least part of 
 the considerations involved. Women desire public work 
 in order that they may help their day and generation. 
 They believe that in the State as in the family, ' It is not 
 good for man to be alone.' They see that, single-handed 
 in the past, man has been unable to cope with a tithe of 
 the urgent problems on which the welfare, possibly the 
 very existence, of our country depends. In no spirit of 
 competition, but as true &nd loyal helpmeets, they feel 
 it is right they should take their share of the burden. 
 
 In the general unrest, there has been an attempt on 
 the part of a small section to add to all the other wars 
 that most futile and unnatural of conflicts, a sex-war. 
 The vast majority, including the best men and the best 
 women, will have none of it. These terrible years have 
 left both with a greater reverence and admiration for the 
 fine qualities displayed in an overwhelming crisis by the 
 other sex. They realise that hand in hand, each supple- 
 menting the other, there is nothing they cannot accomplish. 
 We have difficult times before us, we have also unexampled 
 opportunity. Only in closest communion with the Divine 
 can we find the destined solution : 
 
 Drop Thy still dews of quietness 
 
 Till all our strivings cease ; 
 Take from our souls the storm and stress, 
 And let our ordered lives confess 
 
 The beauty of Thy peace. 
 
 Breathe through the heats of our desire 
 
 Thy coolness and Thy balm ; 
 Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire, 
 Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire 
 
 O still small voice of calm. 
 
 IS 
 
/CHAPTER II : WOMANHOOD AS AN 
 ECONOMIC FORCE 
 
 6 Provide things honest in the sight of all men.' 
 
 ' What woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one 
 piece, doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and 
 seek diligently till she find it ? And when she hath found 
 it, she calleth together her friends and her neighbours, 
 saying, Rejoice with me for I have found the piece which 
 I had lost i ' 
 
 ' Repentance, courage, sacrifice, 
 
 Unceasing prayer we freely give ; 
 Yet these alone will not suffice 
 
 To bid our far-flung Empire " Live ! " 
 Vainly shall we have yielded all, 
 Spurning our Land's most urgent call. 
 
 Not ours th' heroic battle-field 
 
 Yet none the less a sacred trust 
 Is ours, and should we flinch or yield 
 This realm were humbled to the dust 
 For great ideals count nothing small : 
 Thrift is for us our country's call.' 
 
 THE advent of women in large numbers to spheres hitherto 
 occupied by men is raising economic questions of vital 
 importance to the whole community. Many of those who 
 took war work as substitutes for men at the Front have 
 proved admirably adapted to their tasks, and having 
 tasted the joy of work, are by no means anxious to be 
 superseded. Moreover, a new conscience has developed 
 among the more leisured classes as regards the obligation 
 of definite service in some form towards the common 
 
 16 
 
WOMANHOOD AS AN ECONOMIC FORCE 
 
 weal. Young girls are no longer content, when their 
 education is completed, to spend some years frolicking 
 and dancing. They feel that these enjoyments, however 
 natural to youth, are only justified if they form the 
 relaxation from substantial work of some kind. They 
 see the girls who laboured side by side with them in 
 hospitals, canteens, munitions, and the like, now the 
 War is over, returning to their task of earning their daily 
 bread, and their inner consciousness tells them that they 
 have no right to go back to the ineffectiveness of the 
 past. They ask themselves, ' What is all our education 
 worth if it does not render us capable of " doing our bit " 
 in some form or another ? ' and they have discovered, 
 somewhat to their surprise, that there is infinitely more 
 zest about the dance or theatre-party which follows on 
 work accomplished and comes as the relaxation, not as 
 the business of life, than in the old times when pleasure 
 was pursued from late breakfast one day till dawn of 
 the next. 
 
 The new attitude opens up infinite possibilities, but 
 it bristles with problems, foremost amongst them being the 
 question : c Is it advisable or no, in the interests of the 
 race, that woman should be economically independent ? ' 
 The power of the purse is a very potent force, and was 
 certainly responsible for many most difficult and complex 
 situations during the War. Amongst the wage-earners 
 the disastrous incidents of light conduct, and worse, on 
 the part of quite young girls were directly traceable to 
 high wages, which rendered them independent of parental 
 control ; and it appears to be recognised that once a 
 girl, however immature, earns enough to support herself, 
 the mother has no further right to interfere in her comings 
 and goings, the company she keeps, or the places she 
 frequents. 
 
 17 B 
 
WOMANHOOD AT THE CROSS-ROADS 
 
 The same thing holds good in the leisured classes 
 where a girl is entitled to an income of her own on attain- 
 ing her majority. She does not necessarily even wait 
 for her twenty-first birthday, being perfectly aware that 
 it is possible to raise money upon expectations and in 
 her case the certainty of independence is possibly more 
 dangerous than in that of her humbler sister, because the 
 latter has at any rate the chastening knowledge that 
 independence is conditional on her personal exertions. 
 
 How far such economic independence is salutary in 
 any class until years of discretion have been reached, 
 apart from corresponding responsibilities, is open to 
 question. The recent enactments fixing minimum wages, 
 by which a mere lad receives the same remuneration as 
 the father of a family, obviously do not make for content- 
 ment. They tend to foster habits and a scale of living 
 which must be lowered when the lad marries and has 
 other mouths to fill. They place him in the same position 
 as an undergraduate with an income of 600 a year 
 at the University who is then richer than he will ever 
 be again, whatever his future prospects, and is often 
 deterred from ever making a mark in life by the possession 
 of a fatal though moderate competence. 
 
 It will be argued by feminists that, on grounds of 
 justice, equal wage for equal work, regardless of sex, is 
 the only fair solution. But it is important, before sub- 
 scribing to a change which will revolutionise society, to 
 rise above the merely sordid aspect of the case and con- 
 sider its influence on the future of family life, which forms 
 the basis of both stability and prosperity. The disquieting 
 truth which emerges is apparently this : If the remunera- 
 tion of men and women is to be the same, one of two things 
 will happen either the scales will be heavily weighted 
 against marriage, entailing as it would the halving of the 
 
 IS 
 
WOMANHOOD AS AN ECONOMIC FORCE 
 
 joint income, or the woman would enter upon it with the 
 deliberate intention of continuing her profession, whether 
 it were compatible with children or no. 
 
 It is necessary to face matters squarely, not to pursue 
 a policy of drift, because the direction in which we are 
 tending has so far hardly been realised, and through 
 judicious foresight possibly a way out may be found. 
 For it is evident that if our country is to hold her own 
 amid the vigorous competition for the world's trade, 
 every economic force she can bring into the field is needed 
 only it must be persistently borne in mind that the 
 greatest economic force of all which woman can contribute 
 to the service of the country is a healthy, God-fearing, 
 educated population ; and unless she looks to this point, 
 and regards it as of paramount importance, all the 
 financiers and economists in the world cannot enable 
 Britain to retain a foremost place. 
 
 The problem then before us is, how to utilise woman's 
 undoubted administrative and economic gifts to the full 
 without drawing her off from her primary responsibility. 
 
 These feminine qualities have long been recognised 
 by our clever allies in France, The French woman of 
 business is a great factor in their national life. Some 
 well-known commercial undertakings are managed, and 
 most ably managed, by women, and apparently there is 
 little of the jealousy of such management which often crops 
 up in a very acute form among ourselves. The advantage 
 to the State of using such abilities is beyond question 
 for it liberates some man possibly for activities unsuited 
 to feminine powers. But, before we decide to follow 
 in their train, it would be well to endeavour to ascertain 
 whether there is not a definite connection between these 
 attractive openings and the dwindling population which 
 gives French thinkers and statesmen so much anxiety, 
 
 19 
 
WOMANHOOD AT THE CROSS-ROADS 
 
 and if, as seems probable, the two are intimately con- 
 nected, we should be foolish indeed not to endeavour to 
 avoid the evils which they are laboriously striving to 
 remedy. 
 
 It is certain that unless in every direction the com- 
 munity co-operates to facilitate marriage we shall have 
 the same disasters to deplore, for already the position is 
 gravely anxious and requires statesmanlike treatment if it 
 is not to develop. 
 
 It is strange that this has been so little recognised 
 that, far from being subsidised, marriage, as distinct 
 from irregular unions, is actually penalised by taxation. 
 Families are assessed on the joint income of husband and 
 wife, regardless of the fact that not only does their private 
 expenditure remain the same as before marriage, but in 
 addition, in the majority of the cases, they have a smaller 
 or larger number of children to provide for, with no funds 
 of their own ; and though it is true that recently an allow- 
 ance has been made by which a small reduction on the 
 assessment is permitted for each child, this only applies 
 to incomes below a certain figure, and does not in any 
 way meet the extra expense involved. It is almost in- 
 credible that in the Indian Army everything is done to 
 deter married officers from increasing their families. 
 The birth of a child, always involving as it does the expense 
 of nurse and doctor, not to speak of many other incidentals, 
 is the moment chosen for actually decreasing his pay by 
 the sum of 15 for a boy, .24 for a girl, 1 in order to lay 
 the foundation for a pension fund for the new-born babe. 
 Parents have literally to ask themselves : ' Shall we be 
 able to afford this sum when the time comes ? ' 
 
 Yet no body of men has given to the service of the 
 
 1 The exact sum varies with the value of the rupee, and is ex- 
 clusive of a subsequent monthly subscription for the same purpose. 
 
 20 
 
WOMANHOOD AS AN ECONOMIC FORCE 
 
 Empire a finer or more loyal supply of citizens than the 
 Army and Navy. It is for the welfare of the common 
 weal that this supply should be increased, not diminished, 
 in the future, for to it we owe our ability to hold our own 
 in the far corners of the earth. The service families 
 start with special qualifications for Empire-building ; 
 they have been unconsciously trained to it from infancy. 
 They know the ropes, and, in the interests of the future, 
 it should be made economically possible for such families, 
 whether in India or in England, in the Army, the Navy, 
 the Civil Service, or the Ministry, to contemplate the 
 advent of a new-comer without overwhelming financial 
 anxiety. It has been decided in the case of the wage- 
 earners that it is good policy to relieve the mother of 
 sordid cares when the supreme moment of life-giving 
 is upon her. Now, through the rise of wages and other 
 causes, she is often actually better off than her more 
 highly educated sister. The fact that officials in the 
 Army and Navy and the Church do not air their grievances, 
 but suffer for the most part in silence, is no reason for a 
 judicious Government, alive to the highest interests of 
 our country, to ignore them. 
 
 If population is to be encouraged, two things are 
 needful : 
 
 1. Some kind of maternity grant. 
 
 2. Greater educational facilities provided by the State 
 in view of the fact that, to qualify for the professions, 
 boys and girls must remain far longer in statu pupillari 
 than in manual occupations. It is being urged in labour 
 circles that a boy of eighteen should be entitled to full 
 man's wages. The young doctor or lawyer or clergyman 
 cannot look forward to earning anything at all till he is 
 twenty-three or twenty-four, and often then his stipend 
 is more in the nature of pocket-money than a maintenance. 
 
 21 
 
WOMANHOOD AT THE CROSS-ROADS 
 
 Subalterns can seldom live on their pay, let alone set up 
 a home. The immense rise in necessaries which, in the 
 case of wage-earners, is compensated by higher emolu- 
 ments, has gravely reduced the purchasing power of 
 salaries already far too meagre, and unless means are 
 promptly found of redressing the balance, the matter will 
 go by default and we shall find ourselves twenty years 
 hence without the very elements in the body-politic which 
 we most need. 
 
 Another great and obvious deterrent to the rearing 
 of families is inherent in the housing shortage. This 
 holds good in all classes. Before the War the evil was 
 far-reaching, yet no attempt at a statesmanlike solution 
 was made. It is true that a number of slum areas were 
 cleared. But this too often aggravated the evil, for 
 adequate provision for the evicted was seldom made, 
 and this meant scandalous overcrowding in other 
 directions. Private building enterprise was frequently 
 throttled by taxation and unnecessary and impracticable 
 local bye-laws, while the cost was rendered prohibitive 
 by failing to take account of materials on the spot, and 
 substituting for those which had served for centuries 
 modern brick and" slate, quite regardless of the expense 
 of transit. 
 
 Now, owing to the enormous rise in wages and materials 
 of all kinds, it is obvious that only by large subventions 
 from the State can leeway be made up, and unless there 
 is to be much waste in the disposal of this subvention, 
 every detail will require the most minute supervision. 
 Women have already been called into council by the 
 central authority, but if on local bodies they were not 
 only consulted but given administrative powers, the 
 saving to the nation's pocket would be great. Moreover, 
 by making them actually responsible, it is probable that 
 
 22 
 
WOMANHOOD AS AN ECONOMIC FORCE 
 
 genuinely economic homes would result. At present 
 many of the household arrangements are wasteful in the 
 extreme ; this is true not only as regards materials and 
 necessaries, but also as regards that which, after all, is 
 far more economically important, namely, the time and 
 strength of the mistress of the house. Owing to faulty 
 disposition of the floor-space, to the position of the water 
 supply, to the cleaning necessitated where coals have 
 to be brought through the house, hours of needless daily 
 toil result, which might easily have been obviated had 
 the architect been conversant with the occupant's actual 
 needs. 
 
 When the day of a working-class mother is considered 
 one cannot but feel that every hour of a woman's time 
 wasted is a loss to the community, for the days are rarely 
 long enough for all she has to do, while her health is a 
 national asset, and that it should be impaired by over- 
 exertion which might have been avoided is a criminal 
 blunder. 
 
 Nor is the housing question less acute in higher ranks 
 of society. Here again every obstacle is put in the way 
 of those with families, as we have seen. It would appear 
 as though some enactment were needed by which married 
 people with children should have a prior claim for house- 
 room. This would be economically sound from a national 
 point of view, for it is more important that six citizens 
 should be housed than two, and the more so if both em- 
 ploy the same number of domestics. 
 
 This brings us to another point. We are seriously 
 asking ourselves f How far is it right that the economic 
 force of women should be diverted from production in 
 order to minister to luxury and pleasure in great houses ? * 
 And this holds good also of the monster hotels. 
 
 There is nothing derogatory in so-called ' service/ 
 23 
 
WOMANHOOD AT THE CROSS-ROADS 
 
 and a modest household which enables the master and 
 mistress to use their gifts in the service of the Common- 
 wealth, whether in business, in positions of public utility, 
 or in the bringing up of children, is more than justified 
 especially if it be regarded in the light of a training school 
 which shall afterwards enable the pupil to run a home of 
 her own. But it is impossible to justify the hordes of 
 extravagant servants necessitated by the selfish refusal 
 of modern young people to make plans beforehand, or 
 to be bound by them when made. A big country house 
 has now many of the least pleasing characteristics of a 
 caravanserai hotel guests arrive and depart without 
 notice, with no regard to the hours of meals or the trouble 
 to which they put the household. The advent of motors 
 has proved a curse to order, and as a result the old bad 
 methods of labour in excess of normal requirements at the 
 docks have had to be adopted ; but as this cannot be had 
 at a moment's notice for country houses, it results in 
 extreme pressure at one time, combined with disastrous 
 idleness at others, and this in an atmosphere of luxury and 
 pleasure-seeking which engenders habits forming the worst 
 kind of preparation for the realities of life. 
 
 Just as it cannot be regarded as economically sound 
 that stalwart young fellows should waste their manhood's 
 strength behind women's haberdashery counters, so the 
 same thing holds good of a large domestic household, 
 unless the mansion is contributing definitely to the com- 
 mon weal, as so many did, to their honour be it recorded, 
 when they turned them voluntarily into hospitals during 
 the War. 
 
 These considerations are often never taken into 
 account. In the rush of life it is difficult to see ourselves 
 in due perspective. During the War, when the majority 
 were reducing their households almost to vanishing point, 
 
 24 
 
WOMANHOOD AS AN ECONOMIC FORCE 
 
 in order that as many as possible might be liberated for 
 munitions, hospitals, the land, and other work of national 
 importance, there were in our midst an appreciable 
 number of unpatriotic souls who, despite the servant 
 shortage, maintained their households on the old extra- 
 vagant basis. In very moderate-sized London dwellings 
 a family of father, mother, one child at home and another 
 returning for holidays, would absorb the whole time of 
 nine or ten servants, merely to save themselves the 
 trouble of rearranging the staff and persuading them to 
 ' do their bit ' as patriots. 
 
 Such a lack of public spirit brings us appreciably 
 nearer to the rationing of service. It would be most 
 regrettable should it be found necessary to interfere with 
 individual liberty in this direction ; but if it is to be 
 avoided, we must rid ourselves once for all of the fallacy 
 that so long as we can pay for labour we have a right to 
 employ any number of citizens we like, quite regardless 
 of whether the work which, absorbs them is productive 
 or unproductive. 
 
 Such a policy is economically unsound, and should not 
 be tolerated. It creates a class of sybarites both among 
 employers and employed ; and is a most provocative 
 challenge to all who do the real work of the world. It 
 is a contributing cause of much of the unrest we deplore. 
 Servants carry into their own homes tales of the reckless 
 extravagance and luxury indulged in by their masters ; 
 of high play, horse-play, and worse. These tales never 
 lose in the telling. What wonder that exasperation is 
 produced when, on a single night's entertainment, a sum 
 is expended which would keep two average working-class 
 families for a year or more ! 
 
 If womanhood is to be the economic force she well 
 might be, she must take these matters seriously and not 
 
 25 
 
WOMANHOOD AT THE CROSS-ROADS 
 
 revert to the senseless, competitive race for a front seat in 
 Society which she temporarily abandoned during the War. 
 
 Her value as an economist has been proved both in 
 the Dominions and in the Motherland. In the former 
 the Women's Auxiliary is the mainstay of Church finance ; 
 in the latter the Co-operative Women's Guild is a standing 
 testimony to feminine brains and foresight. 
 
 It is of the first importance for the welfare of our 
 country that in the future far more attention should be 
 given to economic questions in the education of our 
 children than in the past. The teaching of arithmetic is 
 of little avail unless it is correlated with practical facts. 
 At present the virtue of thrift, far from being regarded 
 as a root-principle, is in too many cases scoffed at and 
 reprehended by all classes. c Call him a gentleman ? 
 Saving 's what / call him ! 9 is a common attitude. People 
 are positively proud of making the money fly like the 
 miner's wife who informed a visitor complacently, * Yes, 
 my husband and sons brought .20 into the home last 
 week, but I managed to spend it all ! * It was her educa- 
 tion which was to blame ; the rudiments of true economy 
 had never been impressed on^her. Nor are matters likely 
 to improve so long as it is assumed that what is earned 
 in the week may reasonably be spent in a week. There 
 is no doubt that the weekly wage encourages the habit 
 of living from hand to mouth. If it were possible, now 
 that incomes are larger, to pay wages fortnightly, and 
 eventually monthly, it would be a great encouragement 
 to foresight and true economy. It would change the 
 attitude of mind and militate against the practice of 
 spending money before it is received. The introduction 
 of War-saving Certificates has been a step in the right 
 direction, which needs widespread expansion. 
 
 If boys of eighteen are to receive men's wages, they 
 26 
 
WOMANHOOD AS AN ECONOMIC FORCE 
 
 would have no difficulty in laying by sufficient for the 
 first month's housekeeping after they married ; and once 
 the principle of ' money in hand ' were established, the 
 comfort and security it gives would ensure the con- 
 tinuance of the practice. 
 
 It is noteworthy that domestic servants, who receive 
 their emoluments monthly or quarterly, frequently save 
 on a considerable scale, and this nest-egg is invaluable 
 either for helping in furnishing when they marry, or as a 
 provision for old age. 
 
 Want of economic training, with its attendant draw- 
 backs, is equally prevalent among the more educated 
 classes ; it is a slur on womanhood that this should be 
 so, and is largely the outcome of the last century. Train- 
 ing in housewifery by the mother has degenerated since 
 the days when even great ladies, with a retinue of well- 
 born maidens as well as a posse of serving maids, did not 
 think it beneath them to superintend the production of 
 vegetables and herbs, the rearing of pigs and chickens, 
 the weaving of linen and of wool, the making of cheese 
 and butter, the preserving of fruit, and the concoc- 
 tion of simple household remedies, with a hundred other 
 domestic activities. 
 
 It is greatly to be desired that many of these arts 
 should be revived, and in all classes girls should be taught 
 such rudimentary particulars as, for instance, the right 
 proportion of house-rent to income, or the amounts of 
 different kinds of food necessary to secure good health 
 for each individual. Many girls marry without the 
 vaguest notion of how much butter, milk, bread, meat, 
 a human being should consume weekly ; or, again, what 
 is the right proportion to spend on dress. Moreover, 
 few maidens in any class are ever taught how to shop. 
 True economy is not necessarily saving money, it is rather 
 
 27 
 
WOMANHOOD AT THE CROSS-ROADS 
 
 laying it out wisely. It is to be feared that Dickens' 
 child-wife, spending a sovereign upon a salmon for her 
 own and her husband's consumption because fish was 
 a cheap form of food, has her counterpart in many homes, 
 and much misery in the first year of married life might 
 be spared had the mother only done her duty by her 
 daughter and * put her wise ' as regards profitable joints, 
 right 'proportions, and the like. 
 
 Home-craft of the sort should not be left to be acquired 
 till a girl is grown up on the chance that she may repair 
 its omission before she marries. It should be an integral 
 part of her education from the earliest years. 
 
 We have left the most difficult problem of all to the 
 last. 'Women through the War have tasted the sweets 
 of an income of their own and an independent sphere. 
 Will this fact tell against marriage ? It would be harmful 
 to the race if the most capable women should decide to 
 carry on their professions and to abjure motherhood. 
 Yet if they are fulfilling the highest duty which can fall 
 to the lot of anyone, they are surely entitled to some 
 definite income within their own control. It is galling 
 to have to go even to the most considerate husband for 
 every shilling, and to explain the why and the where- 
 fore of small expenditures, inexplicable to the masculine 
 mind. 
 
 Surely the time has come when we should take a leaf 
 out of the book of our French ally and provide a dowry 
 of some kind for daughters, just as we endeavour to start 
 our sons in business. This should be the rule in all classes 
 instead of being confined, as it is at present, to those 
 in comparatively easy circumstances. But though this 
 would ease the situation, it is not sufficient. Marriage 
 is a partnership, and on the economic side both partners 
 have definite economic responsibilities. Roughly speak- 
 
 28 
 
WOMANHOOD AS AN ECONOMIC FORCE 
 
 ing, it is the husband's part to provide the income, the 
 wife's no less onerous responsibility, by wise foresight 
 and judicious governance, to see that it is laid out to the 
 best advantage. It ought to be possible to arrive at 
 an understanding as regards the proportion at the wife's 
 disposal. This might even have a statutory basis. 
 Nothing militates more against good management than 
 an injunction to ' spend as little as you can,' and where 
 this is the attitude it often means small luxuries for one 
 partner, while the other is scraping and saving, going 
 without things which are really needed. The house 
 accounts are the wife's affair. The general expenditure 
 should be carefully scrutinised by husband and wife 
 together ; a budget for the ensuing year should be drawn 
 up, the proportion at the wife's disposal being clearly 
 defined, and so long as she loyally observes the compact 
 the less the man interferes the better. It is an axiom in 
 business that it does not pay to ' job a capable employe 
 in the mouth.' A woman will never put forth her best 
 powers if she feels she is not trusted. 
 
 The picture of the true wifely economist drawn by 
 the wise mother of the king of old stands for all time. 
 Can we better it ? 
 
 Who can find a virtuous woman ? For her price is 
 far above rubies. 
 
 The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so 
 that he shall have no lack of gain. 
 
 She doeth him good and not evil all the days of her 
 life. 
 
 She seeketh wool and flax and worketh willingly with 
 her hands. 
 
 She is like the merchant-ships ; she bringeth her 
 food from afar. 
 
 29 
 
WOMANHOOD AT THE CROSS-ROADS 
 
 She riseth also while it is yet night and giveth meat 
 to her household and their task to her maidens. 
 
 She considereth a field and buyeth it ; with the fruit 
 of her hands she planteth a vineyard. 
 
 She girdeth her loins with strength and maketh strong 
 her arms. 
 
 She perceiveth that her merchandise is profitable; 
 her lamp goeth not out by night. 
 
 She layeth her hands to the distaff, and her hands 
 hold the spindle. 
 
 She spreadeth out her hand to the poor ; yea, she 
 reacheth forth her hand to the needy. 
 
 She is not afraid of the snow for her household : for 
 all her household are clothed with scarlet. 
 
 She maketh for herself carpets of tapestry ; her cloth- 
 ing is fine linen and purple. 
 
 Her husband is known in the gates, when he sitteth 
 among the elders of the land. 
 
 She maketh linen garments and selleth them, and 
 delivereth girdles to the merchants. 
 
 Strength and dignity are her clothing ; and she 
 laugheth at the time to come. 
 
 She openeth her mouth with wisdom ; and the law 
 of kindness is on her tongue. 
 
 She looketh well to the ways of her household, and 
 eateth not the bread of idleness. 
 
 Her children rise up and call her blessed ; her husband 
 also, and he praiseth her saying : 
 
 ' Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou 
 excellest them all ! ' 
 
 Favour is deceitful and beauty is vain ; but a woman 
 that feareth the Lord she shall be praised. 
 
/CHAPTER III : WOMANHOOD AS A 
 SOCIAL FORCE 
 
 * Be always doing something serviceable to mankind : and 
 let this constant generosity be your only pleasure, not 
 forgetting in the meantime a due regard to the Deity.' 
 Marcus Aurelius. 
 
 ' Be useful where thou livest, that they may 
 
 Both want and wish thy pleasing presence still 
 Kindness, good parts, great places are the way 
 
 To compass this. Find out men's wants and will, 
 And meet them there ! All worldly joys go less 
 To the one joy of doing kindnesses.' 
 
 George Herbert. 
 
 THE social sway of women has been a factor in national 
 life from very early times. The part of the man was to 
 hunt and fish and shoot for the provision of food, to culti- 
 vate the land, to build the family dwelling, and, above all, 
 to defend the hearth by force of arms ; while to the woman 
 fell the governance of the home, with its thousand and one 
 activities, and the organising of social life in all its phases. 
 With the development of civilisation, the part played 
 by women in this respect became ever more important. 
 We find the destinies of empires swayed by the influence 
 of a Cleopatra before the Christian era. The dignity 
 and purity of home and public life alike owed infinitely 
 much to the Roman matrons, under the Republic in its 
 prime ; and in our own land we find our ancestresses, Saxon, 
 whether by birth or marriage, Bertha and Ethelburga, 
 potent factors for raising the whole tone of civilisation 
 in backward kingdoms, as well as for introducing Chris- 
 tianity into regions hitherto heathen. 
 
 31 
 
WOMANHOOD AT THE CROSS-ROADS 
 
 In the age of chivalry fair ladies did much to maintain 
 high ideals in social life. Great queens like Eleanor and 
 Philippa of England habitually accompanied their lords 
 on their travel, however arduous the journeys. They 
 braved every discomfort and risk in order to preserve 
 the traditions of the family, as the birthplaces of their 
 children testify. To Philippa in addition we owe the 
 introduction of the Flemish method of weaving a boon 
 to the whole community. Scattered throughout the 
 length and breadth of our land were institutions, presided 
 over frequently by ladies of royal birth, which formed 
 centres for social development even more important than 
 the castles and halls. We are wont to regard the convents 
 and abbeys chiefly from the religious standpoint, but 
 their social value was also incalculable. They were at one 
 time the hospitals, the schools, the training seminaries, 
 the agricultural colleges for rich and poor alike. Moreover, 
 art was not forgotten. The most artistic embroideries 
 and delicate illuminations owed their genesis to con- 
 ventual teachers, while the father of English poets, 
 Caedmon, would never have emerged from oblivion but 
 for the influence of Abbess Hilda. 
 
 Nor does this exhaust the beneficent social activities 
 of these centres. Hospitality was one of their chief 
 functions. In early days, when inns were either non- 
 existent or both scarce and squalid, all travellers looked 
 on the monasteries or abbeys as their natural halting- 
 places, where they were sure of a welcome and the best 
 entertainment the house could afford according to their 
 degree. In those days there was constant movement 
 both within our own islands and in foreign parts. Kings 
 and queens were often on progress ; great lords moved 
 from one property to another, and they carried with them 
 a great train of attendants, maids of honour, knights 
 
 32 
 
WOMANHOOD AS A SOCIAL FORCE 
 
 and squires, men-at-arms, minstrels, serving -men, cooks, 
 farriers, armourers, so that the Lady Abbess of long ago 
 was faced with social responsibilities before which even 
 the most princely entertainment of the present day pales. 
 Her influence was far-reaching. She acted as a channel 
 of information between successive parties of guests in a day 
 when communication by letter was slow and not always 
 safe. She was often highly educated, and her opinion 
 was valued in matters of State as well as in religion, and 
 she shared with the great chatelaines the forming of the 
 character of noble maidens committed to her care. The 
 debt our country owes to these able women in countless 
 instances is often forgotten ; for attention has been 
 focused on the comparatively small number of failures, 
 many of which were deliberately exaggerated or even 
 invented by way of justification for the cupidity of a 
 sacrilegious king and his courtiers. 
 
 But the sphere in which women have held practically 
 undisputed sway throughout our history' is the sphere 
 of so-called society, where, in ancestral homes, great 
 ladies have largely set the tone and fixed the standard 
 for morals and manners, and have also influenced diplomacy 
 and politics and wielded powers none the less potent 
 because they were intangible. What a famous bishop was 
 wont to term ' the law of indirectness ' is often as effective 
 a weapon as the boomerang, and in the salons of famous 
 hostesses for at least four centuries the fate of peoples 
 has often been decided. Within the last ten years matters 
 have altered. Bridge, theatre parties, music halls, jazz 
 dances, have played havoc with the dignified salons 
 of the past. Those who should have been our leaders 
 in social affairs, who should have been the arbiters and 
 set the tone, have largely abdicated ; and we may well ask 
 ourselves : ' Is it in the fundamental interests of the com- 
 
 33 c 
 
WOMANHOOD AT THE CROSS-ROADS 
 
 mon weal that liberty should degenerate into licence, and 
 every form of vulgar extravagance in dress, deportment, 
 and manners be condoned, so long as it emanates from 
 a certain section ? ' 
 
 Is it not time, for the sake of our country, that we 
 should make a concerted effort to restrain the frankly 
 anarchical spirit which has recently invaded dress, 
 amusements, and the general conduct of life ? Why 
 should we allow the minority possibly quite a small 
 minority to degrade the habits of our young people, 
 and substitute for the dignified self-control of the past 
 the decadent conditions which followed on the heels of 
 the French Revolution ? The social force of womanhood 
 is incalculable, if only it is consolidated by concerted 
 action. 
 
 Much of what we deplore is the result of ignorance. 
 Those who adopt foolish and provocative dress are few 
 of them calculatingly vicious. Equivocal situations are 
 often the result of heedlessness, and a false step once 
 made is hard to retrieve. Then, again, extravagance is 
 obviously promoted by the large space allotted to adver- 
 tisements of women's dress in some of our leading papers, 
 to say nothing of the extreme indelicacy of illustrating 
 underwear in journals intended for general reading. 
 
 Now that women are regarded as responsible members 
 of the nation, it is a poor compliment to them to assume 
 that a quarter or a fifth part of a newspaper must be 
 given up to clothes, as though that was the space they 
 occupied in the feminine mind. At a moment when we are 
 told that as patriots we should minimise our personal 
 expenses, it is surely unworthy and .impolitic to allow 
 such traps to be baited for the weak ! There should be a 
 close time for clothes advertisements. Perhaps an orgy 
 of them might be permitted for a week at the beginning 
 
 34 
 
WOMANHOOD AS A SOCIAL FORCE 
 
 of each of the four seasons spring, summer, autumn, and 
 winter. Then shoppers would be encouraged to set them- 
 selves up for three months at a time, and not spend 
 unnecessarily, golden hours of a life already too short, 
 on what is after all a mere accessory, not life itself. As a 
 young married woman pathetically exclaimed, ' Clothes 
 take so long to buy, one never seems to have time to 
 wear them.' 
 
 It is true there is nothing virtuous in dowdiness, and 
 the duty of beauty needs emphasising for some of our 
 saintliest souls. It is not a matter of unimportance 
 whether or no we make the sacred cause we represent 
 unattractive by personal negligence. It is to be remem- 
 bered that the King's daughter is not only * all glorious 
 within,' but ' her clothing is of wrought gold ' ; and of 
 our Pattern it is recorded that c He is chief among ten 
 thousand, and altogether lovely.' But everything should 
 be proportioned, and becoming and appropriate attire is 
 to be achieved with a very moderate expenditure both 
 of time and money, once the principle is conceded. 
 
 It is clearly unthinkable that our food-supply should 
 be jeopardised that we may flaunt in smart costumes. 
 Now, as of old, the body is more than raiment ; and in 
 the need for increased production which is so urgently 
 pressed upon us, it would surely be reasonable to diminish 
 the teeming drapers' and milliners' shops, that the land 
 might receive its due. 
 
 The economic aspect of the dress problem is no new 
 one, for we find a Bishop of Chichester, in 1441, rebuking 
 a prioress of noble birth at Easebourne Priory for the 
 very costly fur trimmings in which she indulged. He 
 characterises them as f superfluous to her condition,' and 
 bids her dispose of them to discharge the debts of her 
 house. 
 
 35 
 
WOMANHOOD AT THE CROSS-ROADS 
 
 As regards some of the most vital social questions of 
 the day, such as housing, baby welfare, and maternity 
 care, women are already in the forefront. Their action 
 has undoubtedly been a potent factor in the decrease of 
 the infant death-rate, and if their administrative capacity 
 only receives a free hand as regards housing and maternity 
 benefits, there is every reason to hope that these two 
 great problems, on which social advance largely depends, 
 may profit equally by their judicious consideration. 
 
 It is not yet clear that in determining the education 
 of girls, the experience of the girls of the past, the wives 
 and mothers of the future, will be adequately used. A 
 Ministress of Education is just as urgently needed as a 
 Minister, and on all Education Committees it would be 
 advisable that women should sit in equal numbers with 
 men. 
 
 The capacities of the girlhood of our country, from 
 the lowest to the highest, have never yet received the 
 sympathetic consideration they deserved. ' Woman is 
 not undeveloped man, but diverse.' The wisest of men, 
 never having been a girl himself, is at sea as regards a 
 hundred and one tendencies which should be taken into 
 account in deciding the curriculum best suited to so delicate 
 an organism. The result of our elementary education so 
 far is in many cases frankly tragic. It does not prepare 
 girls to play their parts as wives and mothers ; it sends 
 them out after seven or eight years moderately versed 
 in reading, writing, and arithmetic, with possibly a 
 smattering of history, singing, and other subjects, and 
 very imperfectly instructed in needlework. It is only 
 in exceptional cases that the most important object of 
 all has been attained, and that they leave school with a 
 desire deeply implanted in their bosoms to delve yet 
 deeper into the book of knowledge. Yet ' the seeking 
 
 36 
 
WOMANHOOD AS A SOCIAL FORCE 
 
 soul ' is the normal characteristic of childhood. Most 
 little ones begin by c wanting to know ' ; indeed their 
 incessant questions are apt to tax the patience of their 
 elders. Is there not something wrong in our methods 
 if education, instead of drawing out (its true meaning), 
 actually stifles the desire for knowledge ? 
 
 Surely it is time we adopted the plans so fruitfully 
 applied by Miss Charlotte Mason in the Parents' Union, 
 by which learning becomes to children a constant unfold- 
 ing of fresh wonders to which they look forward with 
 most eager anticipation ! These same plans are now 
 being tested in a few elementary schools with marked 
 success. It is to be hoped that they will become national, 
 and that the next generation will leave school determined 
 to carry on some branch of study and regarding the world 
 of books as one in which friendship is always awaiting 
 them, however uncongenial may be the human intercourse 
 to which they are restricted. 
 
 It has appeared advisable to dwell on some of the 
 blunders of the past, not from any pessimistic outlook, 
 but because the material for building up a better England 
 is so promising, it would be pathetic were we to fail for 
 lack of practical perception. The War has taught us 
 what splendid qualities are inherent in boys and girls 
 alike, of all classes, under the aegis of discipline, foresight, 
 and co-operation. It has also taught us that without 
 these three essentials many dangers beset their paths. 
 
 The social force of women from highest to lowest 
 cannot be better employed, above and beyond the material 
 improvements alluded to above, than in securing for all, 
 intellectual, musical, artistic opportunity which shall 
 tend to brighten and irradiate the whole of life. In 
 towns, though much still remains to be done, a hundred 
 agencies are already at work. In the country, the Women's 
 
 37 
 
WOMANHOOD AT THE CROSS-ROADS 
 
 Institutes have made an admirable beginning, and should 
 be supported in every way ; but they can only accomplish 
 a tithe of what is needed to give back to rural life the 
 colour and brightness it possessed in days of old. It is 
 only within the last century that these have disappeared ; 
 and that disappearance is largely due to failure on the 
 part of those who should have been leaders to see where 
 their primary duty lay. 
 
 We must admit that women are largely to blame for 
 this. Even in early Victorian days the squire's wife 
 and daughters were content with a few weeks' absence 
 in London or elsewhere, and spent the bulk of their 
 lives among their own people, sharing their joys and 
 sorrows, developing interests in common and organising 
 many activities which contributed to the welfare of all. 
 But during the last quarter of a century matters have 
 changed. Unrest has infected the young people. Because 
 they dislike being tied, although at any rate a part of 
 their father's income is drawn from the land, they have 
 felt little obligation towards their humbler neighbours, 
 and have considered themselves justified in seeking both 
 interest and recreation elsewhere. This has meant in- 
 creasing dullness and dreariness on the country-side, and 
 has fostered a natural spirit of resentment, akin to that 
 created by absenteeism in Ireland, against those who 
 appear in the eyes of the villagers to take much and give 
 little. It is not charity they want, but friendship. Cheques 
 are a poor substitute for personal service. A gift may be 
 spoilt by remoteness. The personal touch is essential ; 
 as the poet has it, 
 
 Not what we give, but what we share, 
 For the gift without the giver is bare. 
 
 We know that fortunately the oblivion to obvious 
 
 38 
 
WOMANHOOD AS A SOCIAL FORCE 
 
 duties is by no means universal. There are up and down 
 our country-sides still shining examples of what the * big 
 house ' may be to the neighbourhood, gentle and simple 
 alike. But, as usual, an institution is judged by its worst 
 specimens ; the innocent suffer for the guilty ; and it is 
 to be feared that unless the latter can be brought to reform, 
 an influence which has been potent for good throughout 
 the centuries may be swept away in obedience to demo- 
 cratic demands. In the interests of democracy itself, 
 this disaster should be averted, for where c the hall ' takes 
 its destined place in the life of the village it is capable 
 of rendering incalculable service in all the new develop- 
 ments now being initiated. Only in the future it must be 
 regarded by the many, instead of by the few, not in the 
 light of a possession, but a trust. Its occupants must no 
 longer consider that its primary purpose is to serve as a 
 centre of pleasure and amusement to a posse of idle people, 
 who, having spent the best part of the summer in dancing, 
 theatre-going, racing, card-playing, and the like, come down 
 to the country in search of fresh stimulus to enjoyment 
 in the shape of shooting, fishing, and hunting. However 
 legitimate as a relaxation, sport ceases to be defensible 
 when it becomes the business of life, and the bitter criticisms 
 of the workers on such drones are only too well deserved. 
 There is a splendid future before the country-houses 
 if they will only take themselves seriously and play the 
 part in the resurrection of the nation for which they 
 are obviously designed. The sense of responsibility re- 
 emerged during the War when one stately home after 
 another turned itself voluntarily into a hospital. Women 
 bearing some of the proudest names in history as hostess- 
 commandants turned all their organising talent to pro- 
 vision for the comfort and solace of our wounded heroes, 
 while their young daughters thought no manual labour 
 
 39 
 
WOMANHOOD AT THE CROSS-ROADS 
 
 too menial which could contribute to the welfare of those 
 who had suffered so much. 
 
 Let the great houses but continue to count as they 
 counted during the War, and the desirability of maintaining 
 them will be recognised by all. It is of vital importance 
 that their owners should not allow the crucial moment 
 to pass. The opportunity is great. Many of the ideals 
 on which we believe the welfare of our country depends 
 are at stake, not because the majority are anarchists and 
 revolutionaries, but because no one takes the trouble to 
 put into their hands, in a form which appeals to them, the 
 information which will enable them to grasp the magnitude 
 of the gulf into which extremists would persuade them 
 to plunge. 
 
 Meanwhile the lack of interest and stimulus in rural 
 centres renders them a ready prey to agitators. Life is 
 so dull, they say, ' Anything for a change.' And the 
 pathos of the situation lies in the fact that all around these 
 very centres cluster the elements of an existence full of 
 vitality and charm, if only someone will take the trouble 
 to organise it. Those who have done so can testify to 
 the ready response elicited, and also to the latent talent 
 lurking even among the inhabitants of remote upland 
 hamlets. 
 
 There are countless directions in which the Big House 
 may be a centre of light and leading for its less fortunate 
 neighbours. Foremost among them is the revival of the 
 old pageants, once such a feature of Britain, and for which 
 the instinct is not dead, but dormant. This has been 
 proved recently by the avidity with which the musical 
 War and Peace masques have been taken up and per- 
 formed in hundreds of centres. There is a movement on 
 foot to send professional theatrical troupes touring through 
 the villages. Surely it would be far better to train the 
 
 40 
 
WOMANHOOD AS A SOCIAL FORCE 
 
 inhabitants to provide their own entertainment. This 
 has many advantages. The meeting of high and low 
 for rehearsals effectively levels distinctions or, perhaps, it 
 would be more accurate to say that it uplifts all in a 
 generous competition as to who can contribute most to 
 the body politic. The common study of good music, 
 the attempt adequately to set forth great ideas, the sub- 
 ordination of self in the service of the community, form 
 precious links, and the qualities of perseverance, patience, 
 and insight which go to make a successful performance, 
 are none the less valuable because they are fostered in- 
 directly. It is to be hoped that those who organise 
 such undertakings will not be afraid of aiming high. 
 There is not the smallest excuse for descending to artificial 
 or stupidly vulgar entertainments, for noble conceptions 
 have proved their power to attract beyond a doubt. A 
 time may come when each county will have a series of 
 such musical masques for performance by the villagers, 
 embodying the chief historical events within its boundaries. 
 
 It is found that open-air performances in the setting 
 of fine old trees in the Hall garden are specially welcomed. 
 
 These same gardens should form a school of horti- 
 culture for the youth of the parish. Few villagers have 
 yet been fully initiated into the freedom of the garden. 
 In many cases dull potatoes and cabbages form their 
 staple food, just for want of the helpful suggestions as 
 regards choice and culture, which the squire's trained 
 head gardener can supply. It is possible completely 
 to revolutionise the monotonous fare in cottages by a 
 judiciously arranged schedule of prizes in a country flower- 
 show. The interest taken in the growing of unaccustomed 
 dainties is exhilarating, while the culture of flowers under 
 skilled advice adds a joy to life which garden-lovers know 
 is quite independent of the size of the plot. For all this 
 
 4 1 
 
WOMANHOOD AT THE CROSS-ROADS 
 
 the Hall garden forms an admirable object-lesson, and 
 periodical visits to it for ocular demonstration and advice, 
 given as one neighbour to another, will stimulate both 
 energy and ambition. 
 
 The lady at the Hall and her daughters may be of 
 incalculable service to those engaged on the land, whether 
 farmers or labourers, and their families, by bringing to 
 their doors information as regards new methods and modern 
 developments. In many cases, while the major operations 
 may be satisfactorily and economically carried out, the 
 minor activities (mostly falling to the share of the women) 
 are often far less productive than they might be for want 
 of up-to-date instruction. Yet the wife of a farmer or 
 labourer, with her closely-packed day, cannot find time 
 to go off to lectures at the county town, though one at 
 the Hall would be warmly welcomed. 
 
 The enormous number of eggs imported from foreign 
 sources before the War was a scathing reproach to our 
 national housekeeping. The Egg and Poultry Union 
 has done much to remedy this, but its beneficent activities 
 need to be far more widely known, and its co-operative 
 principles carried into the marketing of fruit, vegetables, 
 honey, and the like. 
 
 The revival of village industries would add greatly 
 to the interest of rural life. The initiative of the Hall 
 would get over the preliminary difficulties such as the 
 securing of tuition and materials.* Wood-carving, brass- 
 work, basket-weaving, toy-making, the manufacture of 
 rugs, form delightful occupations for winter evenings, 
 and if those employed in the quieter pursuits were gathered 
 together and a bright story read aloud, varied by songs, 
 we should have less of the loafing after dark which is 
 often the first step to evil. 
 
 The patronal festival and village feast should be 
 42 
 
WOMANHOOD AS A SOCIAL FORCE 
 
 made an outstanding event, the religious basis being 
 emphasised to give a high tone to all the revelry. Each 
 parish should have its own appropriate masque for that 
 day, centering round the patron saint. 
 
 A lending library, with special regard to books bearing 
 on the history of the county, its churches, its famous 
 men, and its life generally in bygone centuries, would be 
 greatly appreciated. The people of to-day are keenly 
 interested in those who went before them, but they seldom 
 have any opportunity of satisfying this interest. They 
 listen with rapt attention to addresses on such subjects. 
 
 But the activities of the Hall should not stop short 
 at the village. They should cover a wider field. A 
 special blessing rests on the entertainment of guests who 
 cannot ask us again. 
 
 Far more pains should be taken to give such associa- 
 tions as the Mothers' Union, G.F.S., Young Women's 
 Christian Association, Co-operative Women's Guild, and 
 other women's associations, the joy of a happy afternoon 
 in a beautiful garden, while cricket matches for men and 
 boys promote good fellowship and are greatly appreciated. 
 But beyond these there are three classes of men and 
 women whose position in country districts is often very 
 isolated and who would do far better work if they met 
 with more sympathy and encouragement, viz., elementary 
 teachers, organists, and country clergy. For all three 
 the big houses might be most valuable rallying grounds. 
 
 Elementary school teachers frequently find no kindred 
 souls among the parents of their pupils ; their status is 
 somewhat nebulous, they have little opportunity of 
 meeting and exchanging ideas with others engaged in 
 the same important task. Yet on their ability to inspire 
 the citizens of the future the progress of the Empire 
 depends. 
 
 43 
 
WOMANHOOD AT THE CROSS-ROADS 
 
 If from time to time they were invited from several 
 surrounding parishes to the Hall, on a Saturday afternoon, 
 as honoured guests, given the opportunity of meeting 
 one another, playing tennis and croquet (it is to be remem- 
 bered many of them are quite young), and a simple tea 
 in summer ; while in winter an interesting address might 
 take the place of games they would go back to their 
 schools refreshed by contact with fellow-workers and 
 encouraged by the sense that their hosts fully appreciated 
 the dignity of the profession they represent. It would not 
 be without its influence, too, on their status in the eyes of 
 children and parents. 
 
 The same thing holds good of the organists, to whom 
 we owe so much for their contribution to our worship. 
 As a rule, the pay allotted to them is quite inadequate. 
 Three-quarters of their service may be reckoned as volun- 
 tary ; yet they seldom receive any social recognition in 
 virtue of their office. 
 
 Possibly, as in many parishes the schoolmaster and 
 organist are one, a combined gathering at stated intervals 
 of both organists and teachers might be congenial. Any- 
 how, it is high time that those of us who happen to inhabit 
 large houses with beautiful gardens, bethink ourselves 
 how we can pay back to those less fortunate something 
 of what we have received in such a large measure, not 
 in any spirit of patronage, but with a genuine desire to 
 strengthen the hands of these hard-working public servants 
 to whom the nation owes so much. 
 
 As regards the third section, the country clergy, far 
 greater efforts ought to be made to give them a share 
 intellectually in whatever advantages the big house 
 affords. The run of a good library, the loan of the latest 
 book, is not always offered through sheer thoughtlessness. 
 Again, little attempt is made to give them the relaxation 
 
 44 
 
WOMANHOOD AS A SOCIAL FORCE 
 
 of congenial society in a form which their low stipends 
 makes financially acceptable. A dinner-party often means- 
 expense for transit, but luncheon in these days of bicycles 
 is possible, and experience proves that a most interesting 
 party may be gathered from different parts of the county 
 at mid-day, which is a real refreshment to any clergy 
 among the guests, or picnics at convenient centres may 
 be arranged. There is yet another development for which 
 the big house is -specially adapted. It is scarcely realised 
 that for many hard-working clergy holidays are a great 
 difficulty ; yet how can they preserve freshness and vigour 
 for their sacred task if the machine is always in action ? 
 It is much to be desired that the principle of rest-weeks 
 for clergy should be widely adopted. Often they can get 
 away from Monday to Saturday, as this does not involve 
 finding a substitute, and even those few days' complete 
 change, in the company of other clergy with whom they 
 can gain a larger outlook and discuss difficulties which, if 
 shared, assume their due proportions, may be an almost 
 unthinkable refreshment to body, soul, and spirit. There 
 is no doubt that the hostess will be amply compensated 
 for any trouble to herself by the physical improvement 
 in her, guests, and by the added restfulness the slackening 
 of the bow affords. 
 
 These are only a few of the possibilities open to the 
 big house as a social force. Circumstances have changed ; 
 and if their owners cling to all the old traditions it may 
 well be that their day is done. But if the chatelaines of 
 the past will seize the immense opportunity of the new 
 conditions, as they did during the War, and make of our 
 historic homes centres for the uplift of the whole com- 
 munity, they may well be crowned by future generations 
 as saviours of their country. 
 
 45 
 
/CHAPTER IV : WOMANHOOD AS A 
 SPIRITUAL FORCE 
 
 ' Quench not the Spirit ! ' 
 
 * A Duty, an absolute Duty, governs man from the cradle 
 upwards ! growing with his growth, and accompanying 
 him to the tomb ; a Duty towards his brothers as well as 
 to himself ; a Duty towards his Country, towards Humanity, 
 and, above all, towards the Church ; the Church which, 
 rightly understood, is but the home of the Universal 
 Family ; the great city wherein dwells Christ, at once 
 Priest, King, and Ruler of the world ! ' Lamennais. 
 
 1 And so on us, at whiles, it falls to claim 
 
 Powers that we dread, or dare some forward part ; 
 Nor must we shrink as cravens from the blame 
 Of pride in common eyes, or purpose deep ; 
 But with pure thoughts look up to God and keep 
 Our secret in our heart.' 
 
 Newman. 
 
 THE spiritual forces embodied in womanhood have not 
 for centuries past been used as they might have been in 
 the service of the community. Looking back through 
 the ages we find that from early times onward the capacity 
 of women to act as channels for the transmission of the 
 Message of the Holy Ghost was both recognised and 
 welcomed. Deborah is both a prophetess and a leader. 
 Without her support Baruch declines to go to war. The 
 Psalmist, in his wonderful ascension poem, refers exultantly 
 to the great company of preachers, to whom the Lord 
 gave the Word ; and though it is not brought out in Miles 
 Coverdale's translation (the Prayer-book version which 
 we use), the Hebrew word for preacher is feminine. Anna 
 
WOMANHOOD AS A SPIRITUAL FORCE 
 
 the Prophetess is found in the Temple ; Phoebe is a 
 Deaconess with a recognised office ; Priscilla instructs 
 Apollos further in the faith, though he was already 
 6 an eloquent man and mighty in the Scriptures.' Through 
 the ministrations of Lois and Eunice the Church gains 
 a notable Bishop in Timothy, the beloved of St. Paul. 
 Holy women of noble birth, both in Italy and elsewhere, 
 made their homes the recognised centres for Church life 
 and activities. They were habitually taken into counsel 
 by the Fathers, as is proved by their writings. They 
 witnessed to the death with their brothers and husbands 
 and shared with them the martyr's honour, so that their 
 blood became the seed of the Church. 
 
 Far from the influence of women in spiritual matters 
 being resented or deprecated in early days, they were 
 regarded as potent means to the conversion of heathen 
 lands to Christ. At least two of the kingdoms of the 
 Heptarchy owe their Christianity to women. Bertha 
 brought the light of the Gospel to the kingdom of Kent, 
 and her daughter, Ethelburga, to Northumbria. 
 
 There is still extant the beautiful letter of Gregory 
 the Great, affectionately known in Britain as * Our Father 
 Gregory who gave us Baptism,' to Queen Bertha, written 
 in 60 1. He gently rebukes her for having been so tardy 
 in christianising the kingdom of Kent. He evidently 
 does not understand how difficult had been the position 
 of the girl-wife as almost the only Christian in the midst 
 of heathen surroundings ; how lonely must have been 
 her worship with her chaplain and two or three attendants 
 while her husband and children did homage to their 
 gods in the Temple hard by. But Gregory graciously 
 assures her that what she has at last done and her support 
 of St. Augustine, has made the Romans pray for her long 
 life, and has excited interest even in Constantinople. He 
 
 47 
 
WOMANHOOD AT THE CROSS-ROADS 
 
 enjoins her to take Helena, the mother of the Emperor 
 Constantine, as her model, and make up for past neglect 
 by greater zeal in regard to the Mission. 
 
 Ethelburga and her chaplain Paulinus may well 
 be termed the founders of the Northumbrian Church. 
 Her husband Edwin, after months of hesitation, decided, 
 with a large band of his nobles, to embrace Christianity, 
 and on Easter Eve, 627, the great baptismal service took 
 place which sealed Northumbria for Christ, whilst among 
 those on whom the sacrament was conferred was a girl 
 of fourteen, destined in the future to become the greatest 
 spiritual force to which womanhood has attained in 
 England Hilda, the great-niece of the King, afterwards 
 Abbess of the first important conventual institution for 
 women in England. 
 
 It is recorded of her that ' the grace of this sacrament 
 she always preserved without spot ; and from the moment 
 she became a member of the kingdom of God, the obliga- 
 tions and happiness of this great spiritual dignity engrossed 
 her whole soul.' She little dreamed of the immense 
 responsibility to be laid upon her. Till the age of thirty- 
 three c she lived very nobly in the secular habit.' Then 
 but for Aidan she would have been lost to England, for she 
 and her sister, Hereswid, Queen of East Anglia, purposed 
 devoting themselves to the religious life at Chelles in 
 France. But Aidan, divining her exceptional gifts, for- 
 bade her departure, and urged her to found and develop 
 the conventual system in the north of England. The 
 whole tale of Hilda's life is of thrilling interest. She had 
 a genius for the liberation of spiritual force. She was 
 quick to detect it wherever it existed, however humble 
 the casket in which it was enshrined. As we have seen, 
 but for her the shepherd-poet Casdmon, to whom we owe 
 the first English hymns, would have remained unknown. 
 
WOMANHOOD AS A SPIRITUAL FORCE 
 
 It is not always realised that the great Abbey of Whitby 
 was a double foundation both for men and women. Over 
 it Hilda presided for nearly a quarter of a century. * Her 
 prudence was so great, that not only meaner men in their 
 need, but sometimes even kings and princes sought and 
 received her counsel.' To Whitby bishops repaired for 
 ordinands trained by Hilda, and from these candidates 
 no fewer than five bishops emerged, one of them being the 
 renowned Wilfrid. Under her roof the famous Synod 
 took place in 664, and she took part in the deliberations. 
 
 Nor, though Hilda was the greatest of the abbesses, 
 was she by any means the only one of importance. 
 Throughout the country similar positions were held by 
 royal or noble ladies, many of whom exerted widespread 
 spiritual influence, while saints like Juliana of Norwich 
 have left their impress not only on contemporaries, but, 
 through their writings, on succeeding generations. 
 
 Our queens regnant have (with one exception) made 
 substantial contributions to the spiritual life of the nation. 
 
 It was by command of Elizabeth that the Bible was 
 translated into Welsh ; Queen Anne surrendered the 
 large income of the firstfruits to the clergy, whence the 
 name of the fund, ' Queen Anne's Bounty,' while the 
 influence exerted by the late Queen of blessed memory, 
 Victoria, is too fresh in the minds of all to need emphasis 
 here. They trod nobly in the steps of their great ancestress 
 Margaret of Scotland, herself a great-niece of Edward 
 the Confessor, who after her marriage with King Malcolm 
 lifted religion in Scotland on to a higher level. 
 
 It has seemed advisable to dwell on these examples 
 of the past because there is a tendency in some quarters 
 to regard spiritual activities on the part of women, and 
 their recognition as speakers and leaders, in the light of 
 a new departure, whereas it is, in fact, merely a return to 
 
 49 D 
 
WOMANHOOD AT THE CROSS-ROADS 
 
 customs prevailing in earlier and less sophisticated days. 
 Why women should not only have failed to keep pace 
 with the general advance, but should have actually dropped 
 out of official service to the Church, it is difficult to under- 
 stand. Apparently, when, by the dissolution of the mon- 
 asteries in the sixteenth century, the positions many of 
 them had filled so nobly disappeared, no other method 
 was evolved by which their services could be retained. 
 For three and a half centuries this state of affairs has 
 endured, and it is only within our own recollection that 
 a small beginning has been made once more to use the 
 gifts of the daughters of the Church. 
 
 It is indeed time that the whole question should receive 
 sympathetic and far-sighted consideration by our ecclesi- 
 astical leaders. At present more than half of the baptised 
 members of the Church are ineligible for positions where 
 their gifts could be utilised to the full. Is it any wonder 
 that clergy are over-taxed, that congregations dwindle, 
 that the numbers on our communicants rolls and of our 
 Confirmation candidates leave much to be desired, while 
 the failure of the Church to appeal to the wage-earners 
 as a whole is deplored by us all ? And the tragic element 
 is this : that the lack is of our own creating. The 
 material for remedying it is all there, ready and willing. 
 Nay, more, in many a woman's heart burns the Apostle's 
 compelling fire, ' Necessity is laid upon me ; yea, woe is 
 me, if I preach not the gospel." It is to be remembered 
 that the Church makes no distinction between daughters 
 and sons. She claims from each the same whole-hearted 
 allegiance ; she lays on both the same inspiring pledge 
 that they will manfully fight under Christ's banner against 
 sin, the world, and the devil. Sons are free to fulfil this 
 vow as the Spirit moves them. For daughters with an 
 equal vocation, as a rule, so far no definite official position 
 
 So 
 
WOMANHOOD AS A SPIRITUAL FORCE 
 
 of responsibility is available in our own country, though 
 in mission stations the case is different. It is true that 
 a few become heads of communities or sisterhoods, and 
 a small number have been admitted as deaconesses. 
 But neither of these give full scope to feminine powers, 
 and the contrast between the service open to deacons 
 and deaconesses shows how different is the estimate of 
 the Church of their functions. 
 
 The result is what might be expected. You cannot 
 make an expert organist out of a one-armed man, however 
 able. Without two hands to draw out its sweetness and 
 strength the instrument will never rise to the full height 
 of its possibilities. And until the services of Church- 
 women are better organised and co-ordinated, till hamper- 
 ing and needless restrictions are removed, we cannot 
 expect the advance for which we have all been praying. 
 
 Our present rules as regards the ministrations of 
 women are curiously inconsistent. For instance, a woman 
 may train the choir and Sunday by Sunday at the organ 
 influence the congregation by the subtle spell of music, 
 entirely at her own discretion ; but she may not relieve 
 the tired voice of the incumbent who is taking many 
 services single-handed, by reading the lessons appointed 
 for the day, where no divergence from rule is possible. 
 
 As a diocesan Messenger she may in some dioceses 
 address women and children in Church ; but should any men 
 wish to attend, the congregation must adjourn to the 
 school or the open air. It seems strange, as a leading 
 rural dean remarked, that a woman's ministrations 
 should be regarded as unsuitable in any Lady Chapel, 
 but so it is. Many of us hope that the great Report on 
 * The Ministry of Women ' will prove to be a veritable 
 Women's Charter, and that the administrative action taken 
 as a result of it will open new fields of fruitful activity 
 
 51 D 2 
 
WOMANHOOD AT THE CROSS-ROADS 
 
 for Churchwomen. It is obviously undesirable that dio- 
 ceses should act independently. The matter is one for 
 the whole Church. Only it is much to be hoped that 
 further delay may be averted. For the loss will be great 
 if the gifts of able women are welcomed in all kinds of 
 secular positions of responsibility, while the Church of 
 which many of them are such loyal adherents can only 
 use them in subordinate and comparatively unimportant 
 posts. 
 
 It should be clearly understood that there is no desire on 
 the part of Churchwomen to usurp prerogatives belonging 
 to others. Their whole concern is not to lay themselves 
 open to the charge of resisting the Holy Ghost, by failing 
 to exercise gifts conferred at Confirmation. ' Ghostly 
 strength ' is not given for our own selfish delectation ; we 
 hoard it at our peril. It is our bounden duty to pass it 
 on. By what method this may most fitly be carried 
 out, it lies with the Church to decide ; only it is essential 
 as a condition that the obligation to use the gift be not 
 called in question, but that this great spiritual force be 
 directed into the right channels. 
 
 Now in the minds of many there is a sense that the 
 public ministrations of women raise a number of complex 
 problems which must be thoroughly threshed out and 
 will take long to solve. But there is a sphere in which 
 it would appear that the services of women might be 
 used with untold advantage to the girlhood of our country, 
 and about which it is difficult to see where controversy 
 could possibly arise. 
 
 Year by year thousands of maidens are brought to 
 Confirmation. Surely no more touching sight can be 
 witnessed than these bands of young neophytes in virginal 
 white, vowing their young lives to the Highest. It should 
 be a moment full of hopefulness for all concerned, and 
 
 52 
 
WOMANHOOD AS A SPIRITUAL FORCE 
 
 yet underlying it is the poignant reflection, piercing our 
 hearts like a sword : c How many of these, so full of high 
 aspirations and good resolutions now, will be found five 
 years hence to have remained staunch to their vows ? ' 
 The question has been put to many an earnest priest who 
 sorrowfully admits that if even one-third have not fallen 
 away there is cause for profound thankfulness. The 
 voice of the Master rings down the ages, accusing our 
 methods, and giving pause to every member of the sacred 
 body. ' Were there not ten cleansed, but where are the 
 nine ? ' Is there no remedy for this ever-recurring tragedy 
 of souls ? Must we acquiesce in the loss to our ranks year 
 by year of those who should be our chiefest strength ? 
 Can any cause be assigned for so pitiful a descent from 
 heights once attained ? Is not the answer all too plain, so 
 that they who run may read ? ' These have no root ; which 
 for a while believe, but in time of temptation fall away.' 
 
 We need to face the situation, however painful it may 
 be. The religious foundation, especially in the educated 
 homes of England, has not been well and truly laid during 
 the last quarter of a century, as it was previously. 
 Obviously there has always been a section of society 
 which c cared for none of these things.' It is not with 
 these we are concerned. But amongst professing Church- 
 people it is generally recognised that daughters are less 
 well instructed in the Bible, in the Faith, in all that 
 pertains to spiritual life, than their mothers were, and 
 immeasurably less than their grandmothers. And it is 
 a grave consideration that the clergy to whom they are 
 brought for instruction testify that frequently there is 
 little or no foundation in the soul of the educated girl 
 on which the spiritual structure may be built up. Often 
 she is far more ignorant of the truths of religion than her 
 humbler sister who in the G.F.S. or Y.W.C.A., Sunday 
 
 S3 
 
WOMANHOOD AT THE CROSS-ROADS 
 
 school, Bible classes, and the like has received regular 
 instruction. It may be that a mother's own convictions 
 are too nebulous to enable her to point the way to her 
 daughter. The Higher Criticism has unsettled her. She 
 has not been intellectually capable of piercing through 
 the cloud of doubt. She does not know what to teach, 
 and so adopts the fatal policy of masterly inactivity. 
 How is it possible for the most devoted priest to make up 
 in a few short weeks for the neglect of years ? There is 
 another point to consider. Confirmation synchronises for 
 a girl with the approach of womanhood, when she will be 
 faced with a thousand and one problems, moral, spiritual, 
 and practical, connected with a side of life on which she 
 would find it impossible to speak openly to anyone but a 
 woman. Yet for want of wise counsel how many have 
 made shipwreck ! It is idle to say that these are matters 
 for the girl's own mother. In nine cases out of ten the 
 mother is the last person to help her daughter in this 
 respect. She does not even recognise it as a duty. And 
 so these young souls are left to flounder, to pick up in- 
 formation from chance acquaintances, to fall a prey to 
 the machinations of a certain section of women whose 
 aim it is to stir up sex-antagonism and to rob the most 
 sacred of human relations of all its nobility and beauty. 
 In the indignant words of a modern poet : 
 
 What an abyss for woman ! Lo, what a depth to fall ! 
 She who might be the helper, angel, and guide of all ! 
 Woe unto those who did it, the elder women who taught 
 English girls base lessons, poisoning soul and thought ! 
 Woe unto those who, knowing nothing of love or of man, 
 First the pitiful story of wrong and deceit began ; 
 These, these most, these only, have changed the current 
 of life 
 
 54 
 
WOMANHOOD AS A SPIRITUAL FORCE 
 
 To a torrent of blood-red waters and changed love's joy 
 
 to a strife : 
 
 Mixing their base ambitions, hatred, anger, and greed 
 With the thoughts of flower-white girlhood, with our 
 
 maiden's pure, sweet creed. 
 What can set right or atone for it ? Nothing, till death's 
 
 waves whirl 
 Round the throat of a woman who lies to the soul of a 
 
 girl! 
 
 4 These have no root.' What is the cause ? Is it 
 not that the time of preparation for Confirmation is among 
 ourselves far too short ? We were told over and over 
 again at the Pan-Anglican Congress that ' Confirmation 
 is the layman's ordination. ' If so, how can we feel 
 that a few weeks are sufficient to achieve all that is needed? 
 In other countries a year, or even two years, is the period 
 of instruction given. It would appear that here accredited 
 Churchwomen might be of infinite assistance to their 
 younger sisters in the Faith. They would not, it need 
 hardly be said, in any way infringe on the definite, doctrinal, 
 and spiritual preparation which only a priest can give. 
 This would continue exactly as it does now. But, in 
 addition, for a year before they become full members of 
 our Church, educated girls would be commended to the 
 care of some able and godly woman in the diocese, duly 
 appointed by the Bishop, whose charge it would be during 
 that time to direct their reading, to arrange classes and 
 courses of addresses for them, to come into personal touch 
 with each one, and to give her the help and guidance, 
 as regards the many problems of budding womanhood, 
 which she so sorely needs. If in every diocese there were 
 such a band of women, preferably married and living 
 in the world, so that they had personal knowledge of 
 
 55 
 
WOMANHOOD AT THE CROSS-ROADS 
 
 actualities, many a girl would be thankful for such an 
 adviser ; and the friendship then formed would be of 
 untold advantage in case of subsequent difficulties. Half 
 the catastrophes which have occurred might have been 
 averted had the girl possessed some tried and trusted friend, 
 whom she knew would be actuated purely by a desire for 
 her highest welfare in any counsel that she gave. To such 
 a one she would go before evil had developed. 
 
 One of the crying needs is that girls of the leisured 
 classes should have a course of addresses on the Ten 
 Commandments, setting forth as regards each one the 
 modern application. Many a one, as she hears them 
 Sunday by Sunday, brushes them aside with the mental 
 ejaculation : ' / shall never be tempted to break that 
 command.' Such a course would bring in the lessons 
 of the Seventh Commandment naturally, and afford the 
 opportunity for special advice and warning without 
 giving the topic undue prominence. The positive in- 
 ferences contained in the Decalogue are often ignored, 
 as, for example, in the Fourth. Attention is concentrated 
 on the injunction to keep holy the Sabbath, but the no 
 less stringent injunction to all classes to labour for the 
 other six days is frequently overlooked. 
 
 Similarly the Gospel correlatives of the Sixth, Seventh, 
 and Eighth, illustrated by the aphorism c Love is the 
 fulfilling of the law,' come home with special appeal to 
 a young and ardent soul. 'A new Commandment I give 
 unto you that ye love ' (Sixth). ' See that ye love one 
 another with a pure heart fervently ' (Seventh). ' Owe 
 no man anything but to love one another ' (Eighth). 
 These positives reveal that a sin can only be finally for- 
 saken when the corresponding virtue is exercised in 
 obedience to the higher Law of Christ. 
 
 Such a scheme as is outlined above, if it were generally 
 
 56 
 
WOMANHOOD AS A SPIRITUAL FORCE 
 
 adopted, should be potent for deepening the spiritual life 
 of those for whom it is designed. It should also secure 
 for the Church the services of many who, for want of a 
 clearly indicated sphere, drift into other activities. From 
 it should surely eventuate a band of competent Sunday 
 school teachers, one of our most crying needs. Personal 
 service in this direction would grow out of it naturally. 
 
 There is another educational opportunity which might 
 be specially delegated to the powers of Churchwomen. 
 In connection with Mr. Fisher's scheme there are to be 
 established in various centres secondary schools which 
 pupils from a distance will attend from Monday to Friday. 
 The status of religious instruction in these schools is at 
 present under debate. But should some such schools be 
 under the aegis of the Church, there is sure to be a large 
 number also which will be at best undenominational. 
 For these it is all-important that residential Church hostels 
 shall be provided where the atmosphere will carry on the 
 influence under which the children have been brought up. 
 We do. not believe in a mere Sunday religion. God should 
 permeate the whole of life. The establishment and super- 
 vision of such hostels should appeal to all Churchwomen. 
 
 But this does not exhaust possibilities. Why should 
 not educated Churchwomen take a far greater share than 
 in the past in the training of the rising generation in 
 elementary schools ? There is ample room for such 
 service. In fact, there is a crying need for it. It is 
 estimated by the Board of Education that to keep up 
 an adequate supply of teachers, nine thousand fresh 
 candidates are needed annually. As a matter of fact, 
 the figures for 1918 were under six thousand showing a 
 drop of three thousand from those of 1908. The vast 
 majority of these candidates are girls. In 1918 the 
 figures were : boys, 780 ; girls, 5,087. 
 
 57 
 
WOMANHOOD AT THE CROSS-ROADS 
 
 The shortage is gravely disquieting. The profession 
 of a teacher is becoming more honourable with every 
 year. It affords a field of service infinite in its possi- 
 bilities ; and it has been suggested that, pending the full 
 organisation of continuation schools, much might be 
 done by high school girls and women graduates to bridge 
 the gulf until a sufficient supply of fresh teachers has 
 been trained. Headmasters of elementary schools have 
 offered their assistance to teach such volunteers how to 
 teach in class. 
 
 In the special women's societies, such as the Mothers' 
 Union, Girls' Friendly Society, Young Women's Christian 
 Association, and Women's Help Society, the spiritual oppor- 
 tunity is so well known and so clearly defined that it is 
 unnecessary to dwell upon it here. We are far from 
 having exhausted its possibilities ; with every year fresh 
 openings arise. Fellowship is strengthened ; the joy of 
 being permitted to minister to them is greater ; links are 
 cemented, and it may well be that through such organisa- 
 tions the tragedy which has been enacted in Russia may 
 be averted. In these bodies and kindred societies the 
 sense that we are members one of another is no mere 
 figure of speech. 
 
 As Messengers and Pilgrims, souls come closely in 
 touch, and quietly and gradually a spiritual force is 
 growing up which links womanhood in indissoluble bonds, 
 and will in due course do much to mould the next genera- 
 tion. In Retreats and Quiet Days the power of collective 
 prayer, and the wonderful sense of fellowship under the 
 One Master, are more and more developed, and, as of old, 
 men wonder whereunto this shall grow. 
 
 But perhaps one of the most hopeful elements of all 
 is that embodied in the holiday camps of the Boy Scouts 
 and Girl Guides. The women who captain the latter 
 
 58 
 
WOMANHOOD AS A SPIRITUAL FORCE 
 
 association are revolutionising the whole outlook, alike 
 of Brownies and their seniors. They are performing a 
 truly Christlike work. Like their Master, they empty 
 themselves that they may fill others. But beyond the 
 responsibilities of these devoted leaders, there is oppor- 
 tunity for all Churchwomen who possess a coachhouse 
 or barn and a garden or meadow. At Easter, Whitsun, 
 and in August, thousands of Scouts and Guides desire to 
 camp. They cater for themselves, and with the help 
 of straw or new-mown grass, make their own beds. The 
 trouble to the hostess is really infinitesimal. Yet the 
 spiritual opportunity is often great. To begin with, the 
 hospitality is deeply appreciated ; the boys or girls, as 
 the case may be, regard it as practical Christianity ; and 
 as a result they are peculiarly open to higher influences. 
 An address or service under the trees is cordially welcomed, 
 while in one such camp the factory girls from one of our 
 great towns joined in family worship, with inspiring 
 hymns, in the old panelled hall of the mansion night 
 after night for the week of their stay, and confided to their 
 captain that of all the varied delights of their day it was 
 the one to which they most looked forward. 
 
 It is impossible to set limits to the results of these 
 movements. They promote understanding and dispel false 
 impressions. The eight o'clock breakfast bell and nine 
 o'clock prayer bell every morning were a revelation to 
 this party, who imagined that * the rich ' lay abed habi- 
 tually till the middle of the day. 
 
 Spiritual force awaits liberation in every direction. 
 The appalling experiences of the past five years have 
 rent the veil from many eyes, have driven home the 
 realities, have shown us how trivial are the differences 
 between class and class in comparison with the funda- 
 mental fact of our common human nature. They have 
 
 59 
 
WOMANHOOD AT THE CROSS-ROADS 
 
 aroused in many hearts an indomitable determination to 
 right the wrongs of the past. We have emerged may 
 we not say so ? with the spiritual sense quickened to 
 see the heavenly vision of what our earth might be. And 
 we count it the highest honour which could fall to the lot 
 of any mortal to have a hand in the resurrection of our 
 country. Angels have rolled away the imprisoning stone. 
 In days of yore the Master used a woman to bear to the 
 waiting world the Message of the living Christ. Is not 
 the command ringing in our ears : ' Ephthatha, be 
 opened ! ' Shall we not joyously respond, * Behold the 
 Handmaid of the Lord ! ' 
 
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