Woman and Life

The aim of learning is not confined to paralyzed, mute knowledge; it is the spirit that gives life to work, speech to matter, and activity and ardor to the powers buried within man.

Whoever looks at woman as she was twenty years ago, and then sets her state in the past beside her state today, sees a palpable change that has come over her condition in every sphere.

This swift change was the result of an effective revolution of thought, which in every quarter yielded brilliant results in the direction of souls and the forming of opinions. Its source goes back to the spread of learning among the classes of the nation, and to the girl's turning to education and her sharing with the boy in the various stages of instruction.

He erred who believed that the nation consists of its men alone. And the deviation of those who held that learning must be restricted to the boy and withheld from the girl has become plain; the results of their mistaken opinions showed in the nation as a whole, which in the past sank to the lowest of conditions. For the fineness of temper that is woman's special portion, and the mercy, kindness, tenderness, and long patience that mark her, make her worthy of performing a special mission in life, whose delicate duties, demanding patience and endurance, man cannot bear, nor can he discharge them in the most complete way.

But everything that suffers neglect is exposed to torpor and scant yield. The human faculties show their living effect only after they have been quickened by learning and polished by refinement.

Among the first aims of true learning is refinement: the refinement of the soul and of the inclinations, feelings, and desires that issue from it. And among the most important goals of learning is the awakening of minds, that they may interact in their thoughts and rise in their opinions, so that human works in their entirety may move toward mastery and perfection. This besides the knowledge that existence demands, for walking a straight and even path that guarantees ease of living and peace of conscience.

Rabelais, one of the French men of letters of the sixteenth century, says, in effect: "Parents live a second life in their children, in body and in soul; therefore care must be taken with their refinement and their instruction."

And I say: the lives of some mothers dwindle away that they may live a single life in their children, and their own desires fade so that new desires take root, turned toward what their children require. This is what moves us to insist on demanding for the girl a true and higher education, that she may be shaped by its influences — for on her depends the success of the rising generation.

Nor is the girl who does not enter upon marriage any less in need of learning and of the light of its benefits than the married woman; for then she will not be a heavy burden on a brother or a kinsman, but will devote herself to ordered work built upon scientific preparation, as a useful, living individual enjoying the refined human qualities and the merits which learning has brought her, and which culture has raised to the rank of a useful, reforming life, in the world of production that rests upon the inspiration of the elevated mind.

As for the basis of refinement as this man of letters, Rabelais, defined it — he of whom it was said that his brain was a valley of the sciences, for all the knowledge it held — he said: "The basis of refinement is three things: helpfulness, love, and the fear of God."

And I hold that love is the clear spring that turns man's works toward the good. Nor is there any doubt that the clearness of this spring is at its fullest in the heart of woman, if it receives its due of protection and refinement.

So too, if efforts are spent on refining the girl from childhood, her instincts come forth in their splendid forms and become a haven of goodness and righteousness.

For among woman's original instincts is the readiness to help, and haste to answer the call of the weak and the distressed.

Among woman's traits also is that she finds a pleasure in suffering for the suffering of others, and finds rest in sharing the pain of the afflicted and in easing it.

This suffering and this sharing spread contentment through her soul and carry her spirit soaring into luminous horizons, making her rise above the pettiness of this world, make light of its troubles, and stand above the evils of man, swimming in holy airs of faith, forgiveness, kindness, compassion, and the fear of God.

Victor Hugo spoke truly when he said, in effect: "Eyes that weep much see much." For the true tears of woman, which drip from the fount of mercy, and with which she grieves over the wretched and the deprived, are like the drops of dew that open the buds of the flowers at dawn: they open the buds of a strange sense, a wondrous feeling of tenderness and devotion, in woman's heart, just as they open her inner sight upon a kind of knowledge and a true inclination to help.

Yet these qualities cannot perform their lofty mission in life, nor can the world profit from them, unless they receive their due of care and refinement through instruction and training.

Therefore we hope that education among us will be made compulsory for girl and boy alike, after the example of the advanced Western countries, lest we lose the benefit we could reap if learning spread among all the individuals of the people: its poor and its rich.

The revolution that fermented in secret in the souls of the past generation had a manifest effect in turning the point of view on the matter of the girl's education. Its influence has appeared in the present generation, and in the changing of woman's condition — a total change which, no doubt, still calls for reform and refinement.

But it promises well and invites optimism. Here is the girl walking beside the boy at the stage of higher education, after she had been content with the merest scrap of it. And here is woman bestirring herself for works of charity and reform in the various women's associations.

And the revolution that has overturned most of the conditions touching woman in Europe and America — this unbridled revolution — will doubtless have its effective part in overturning our own settled conditions. We must therefore look ahead to it, preparing the girl to accept only its results and its wholesome requirements, lest recklessness harm us and drag us into ruinous states from which there is no release.

Ali ibn Abi Talib, may God honor his countenance, said: "A man remains learned so long as he seeks learning; when he supposes that he has learned, he has become ignorant."

Therefore we hope that the girl will not take incomplete learning as a means of display, a mount for vainglory, and a ladder for climbing to a station better than that of her generation. Rather we want from the fields of learning a motive force for our latent powers — powers which, in woman in our country, still show only a small, local activity that is not in harmony with the world's wakefulness, and does not keep pace with the life opening in the breasts of men throughout the world and the burning wakefulness in their minds and brains.

The woman who in our country has come to share with man his stages of education must also share with him in the work of building an independent national existence in its vital domains. For the aim of learning is not confined to mere paralyzed, mute knowledge; it is the spirit that gives life to work, speech to matter, language to art, and activity and ardor to all the powers buried in the depths of man.

Still waters grow stagnant; motion is the order of existence; retreat is passing away and loss; and stagnation is death and inevitable extinction.

Woman still falls short in the field of scientific production, by comparison with man, in the various countries of the world. Perhaps this goes back to what her natural life demands of keeping to the house and caring for the children. For experience has shown that when she comes down into the arena she is man's equal in every fruitful scientific work. But experience has also shown that every lagging behind, in whatever field it may be, brings defeat and loss, and every one-sided truce brings humiliation and abandonment.

We hope, then, that our renaissance will rest on the joint activity of woman and man for learning, that it may be a beacon for us in the work of reform desired for our people and for all humanity.