THE FEMINIST MOVEMENT IN CHINA. lished; numerous young women's clubs have been formed, and some of the members have boldly proclaimed themselves as "girls who follow their own will." At Peking and Shanghai a "gazette for young women and girls" has appeared; and in a recent number of the Pei king niu pao one reads the following: IN recent numbers of the REVIEW we have bilities of government, and in which the two noticed the remarkable awakening among sexes should enjoy equal rights." Since then the women of Persia, Turkey, and Algiers. the movement has been steadily growing. Now China has to be added to the list of Anti-footbinding societies have been estabcountries the women of which are striking for their rights." According to M. Albert Maybon, in La Revue (Paris) for October 15, the signs are unmistakable that Chinese family life is destined at no distant date to undergo a complete transformation. It must be admitted that the present condition of woman in China cries aloud for amelioration. It is an axiom in the Middle Kingdom: "The daughter is subject to her father; the wife to her husband; the mother to her son." The family is the basis of the state, and the subordination of the woman is the fundamental law of the family. The raison d'être of the legal marriage in China is to give to the deceased members of the family male descendants who shall care for their sepulchral existence: in due course these descendants will celebrate the domestic rites, and the entombed ancestors will be made happy. The daughter does not count for anything. At eight years of age her feet are deformed. She enters the gyneceum, or women's apartment, thoughtless and ignorant. Between twelve and thirteen she is married, her husband having been selected without consulting her. From this moment she is free of parental control and devotes herself entirely to her new life. If she presents her lord with no children, he may repudiate her. Commonly the husband purchases other women, who become wives of the second rank; and the children of these are admitted to a woman has borne numerous sons does she at- green. The feminist movement in China may be said to have originated with K'ang Yeou Wei, who is known as the "modern Confucius," and who was the author of the revolution of 1898. In 1891 he published some exegetical works on the Chinese classics, and in connection therewith created no small surprise by anticipating "a democracy in which the masses should partake of the responsi O ye two hundred millions of Chinese, our sisters, listen! In China it is said that man is superior and woman inferior; that man is noble and woman vile; that man should command and woman obey. But we are not under the domination of man. The nature of man and of woman is the universal sense of Heaven. How, then, can one make distinctions and say that the nature of man is of one sort, and that of neither form nor figure. woman of another? for the celestial principle has Recently the second wife of the celebrated Yuan Che-k Bai, president of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said in the course of an address: bers 400,000,000. But, if one deducts from this as ciphers, China has but half of its inhab- A notable sign of the times is the eagerness with which translations of European books are being read by Chinese women. In place of the works of native authors there is a constantly increasing demand for those of Dumas, H. G. Wells, Jules Verne; and Robinson Crusoe has had such a even vogue that "Man Friday" has become quite a popular hero. The adventures of the indomitable Sherlock Holmes (who in Chinese becomes Fou-euell-mo-se) have “capped the most marvelous in the national literature." It is noteworthy, too, that one of the prominent romances recently published in Chinese has for its title "Free Marriage." One feature of the feminist movement is that to a certain extent it is receiving official endorsement, indirectly if not directly. At the suggestion of the wives of certain ministers the court has decided to send thirty young women abroad to study medicine and the industrial and the fine arts. And in the new code of education for women occur the following: The good education of the citizens of the empire depends upon the good education of its women. There are certain undesirable customs in China: some men regard women with scorn; others treat them harshly. Women, like men, should practice the professions they ought not to pass their lives in eating and gossiping and with no employment. But the same act recites that: Women should remain subject to their fathers, mothers, and husbands. When proposals are made tending to a free rapproachement of the sexes, these should al ways be combated: The woman should not have the right to choose her husband, etc. And the Minister of Public Instruction forbids the pupils in the schools to take part in meetings for the purpose of criticising the administration, and in conferences organized by young men; to form clubs, associations, to direct journals, to write on the social evolution, etc. From all of which it will be seen that the fair "progressivists" have still some fighting before them. A TRIBUTE TO CHARLES ELIOT NORTON. "MORE than he could deeds of each passing year, we grew experienced and secure in faith that Norton knew it all bemoment, should opportunity serve, for instant, fore us, that we might turn to him, at any resolute opinion. This opinion would often differ from your own; it might even excite you to passing resentment; but it could never be ignored. It became, you could hardly tell when or how, a factor in your habitual estimates of life. When such an influence has persisted through five and thirty years, the world can never again seem quite the same without it. ever have dreamed, the passing of Mr. Norton has stirred among those whose lives came within his influence a deep sense of loss in all familiar things.' There can be no more tender consecration of a human memory. What he meant for so many of us is shadowed in the fact that, when one tries to write of him, the pen will hardly trace any prefix to his name. Norton alone we have always called him among ourselves,-partly in adAs a teacher, his supreme trait was his miration, partly in affection. Any intrud- « exquisite precision,-of manner, of speech, ing word now seems tinged with perfunctory of knowledge, and even still more of convicuntruth." These words occur in a graceful tion. . . . He used to make his instrucand touching tribute to the late Harvard pro- tion penetrate natures on which the instrucfessor from the pen of Prof. Barrett Wen- tion of so many other men only impinged.” dell, in the current number of the Atlantic An interesting example of this is cited: Monthly. Himself a former pupil of Professor Norton, Professor Wendell is able to draw largely on college reminiscences, and his observations on his old mentor indicate the peculiarly cordial relations which existed between the teacher and his students. Referring to the fact that thirty years ago it was the fashion of some to pretend that, compared with his erudite colleagues, Norton was a man rather of culture than of learning, Professor Wendell admits that temperamentally this might be true. Mere information he valued at its own insignificant worth. Whatever he knew, throughout the years of his unceasing acquisition, he cared for only when he could perceive its relation to the system of truth and of wisdom toward which his aspiration stayed courageous. His learning was never a thing apart; it was a part of himself. Yet the better you knew him the more you marveled, not only at its range, but at its accuracy,―an accuracy superficially submerged in the ease of his mastery. Thus, whenever we found ourselves in the presence of literature of fine art, of history or philosophy, of even of the men and the of In a lecture about some aspects of the fine arts of Greece he uttered devastating comments on the contrast between Greek articles of personal adornment and the machine-made scarf-pins, or watch-chains with dangling appendages, then observable in any company of American youth. A in private, for lack of sentiment. The boy posclassmate of mine subsequently reproached him, sessed some golden ornament, in the form of a horseshoe, affectionately given him by his mother; he was proud to wear it, he said, for her sake. Norton's reply, I believe, was gentle but final: an object of piety, he pointed out, is not consequently a thing of beauty. My friend's ardor of resentment took some time to cool. Years afterward, though, I met him at a Roman goldsmith's, choosing some trifle for his wife. The horseshoe still gleamed not very far from his heart, where it belonged; but, as he showed me two pieces of delicate workmanship between which he was hesitating, he asked me, seriously and simply, which I thought Norton would prefer. The least salient yet perhaps the most extraordinary phase of his culture was his faculty of acquisition, which he had learned to use with remarkable certainty and swift ness. Professor Wendell recalls a notable instance of this: In 1891 a committee of which we both were members authorized me to select, during a short visit to London, a number of books, to be given as prizes to Harvard students. At different times, for a good many days, the matter engaged my punctilious attention. The books, finally chosen, were sent to America. Lists of them, left in my possession, reminded me from time to time of what they were. If any one could carry in mind what that invoice contained, I should have supposed it would have been I. Meanwhile, having agreed with other members of the committee to intrust the purchase to me, he never saw either list or books until we assembled at Harvard, one autumn afternoon, to assign the prizes. The books were spread on a large table. For ten minutes or so he looked them over; and I like to remember that he said something approving my choice. Then he sat down in some comfortable place from which he could not see the titles. The assignment of prizes began; one book allotted to this student, the next to that, and so on. By the time we had dealt with a half dozen I could not have told you what was on the table or what had never been there,still less what had been assigned to whom, and what not. Norton, meanwhile, not only kept the whole fortuitous collection, of forty or fifty volumes, clearly and firmly in mind; from his distant chair he reminded us with unfailing accuracy of just how we had disposed of every book already dealt with. Of Norton's relations with his students, Professor Wendell says: He not only encouraged us; he was always willing that we should turn to him for counsel. Of the men who thus youthfully came within range of his influence, all who survive are now older than he was then. None of us, I think, has been very close to him in later life; yet none has ever forgotten him. So far as we have accomplished anything in literature or in art, and even though our work may mostly have lit tle endurance,-we have tried to make it sweeten life and never vulgarize,-a constant element of our strength has sprung from the welcome he gave us when want of welcome might have meant starvation. He never pretended to approve us without reserve; but he understood that we were trying to be real. We can never fail in gratitude for our passing share in the greatness of his friendship. The personal reticence of the late professor had a peculiar grace, counting intrusion beneath the dignity of friendship. When he spoke or wrote, publicly or in private, about friends who had gone before him, he was scrupulous to extenuate nothing nor aught to set down in malice. Above all else, however, he was punctilious in respect for their domesticity. Anecdote he loved; gossip he disdained: scandal he despised; shameless intrusion he so detested that his incessant care was to guard others, perhaps excessively, from the consequences of their own unpremeditated utterance. Not to reverence his example were disloyal. PROF. CHARLES ELIOT NORTON. (The late New England scholar, student, and man of culture.) At times there was something almost repellent about the calm certainty of his conviction. "In controversy, he would sometimes appear so sure of himself that you were prone to fancy his vision infirm." In this connection the Boston Transcript remarked (anent the late professor's attitude toward art and artists of the present day): Professor Norton has been accustomed to say that there had been no sculpture since the ancient Greeks and no painters since the great Italians of the sixteenth century and the Renaissance. So conscientious in his convictions has he become. as to be unable to change them. This trait was, however, more apparent than real. His students who sat under him knew the inspiration of his encouragement; and perhaps what was most helpful to them, says Professor Wendell, was his friendliness to aspiration. Equally was he the friend "of men themselves called great." Carlyle, Ruskin, Matthew Arnold, Emerson, Longfellow, Curtis, Lowell, and Howells,-the list of his friends might lengthen long. And, adds Professor Wendell: Seek, and you shall not find a single one, among the seemingly greater about him, ignobly distorted by his companionship. GUGLIELMO FERRERO: ROME'S NEW HISTORIAN. FEW visits of eminent foreigners to the United States have evoked so much interest in American literary circles as that of Signor Ferrero, the historian, of whom an appreciative notice, from the pen of Sibilla Aleramo, appears in the December Putnam's. And the interest is fully justified by both Copyright, 1908 by G. G. Bain. GUGLIELMO FERRERO. 66 Ten or twelve there appeared ideas,- -a rarity the man and his work. years ago," says this writer, in Italy a new writer full of in this country. He was a young man of only twenty-five, but his book, "Young Europe," a collection of studies made in Germany, Russia, England, and Scandinavia, -had an immediate success." Thus Guglielmo Ferrero became instantly famous. The son of a Piedmontese railway engineer, he was born at Portici, near Naples, in 1871. Educated in Tuscany and Umbria, he studied law at Pisa, and took a diploma in belleslettres at Bologna in the school of the great poet Carducci. At an early age he began his travels. At eighteen he was invited by Cesare Lombroso to collaborate in his work, "La Donna Delinquente" ("The Female Of fender"), and his name may be seen on the title-page beside that of the famous psychologist. His doctoral thesis, "Les Symboles dans le Systême juridique," had the honor of an immediate translation into French. Italian and foreign periodicals immediately solicited contributions from Ferrero's pen; a great Milanese journal engaged him to write a weekly article; and the Lombard Society for Peace asked for a course of lectures on militarism. Then came an interval of quiet, and in 1902 the first volume of his masterwork, The Greatness and Decline of Rome," proclaimed to the world that a new name must be added to the list of great historians. Ferrero's intellectual activity, "which had been spread over a variety of subjects, now became concentrated." Since then only a few articles, suggested by important events, have appeared from his pen. He has also rounded out his life by his marriage with Gina, the youngest daughter of Professor Lombroso, herself laureate in science and medicine. Tall and thin, ascetic and imperious at once, he is more a man of the North than of the South. In speaking, he becomes animated, and his words flow rapidly and easily like his written prose. ROMAN HISTORY FROM A NOVEL VIEWPOINT. o the present, five volumes of Signor Ferrero's history of Rome have appeared. According to the preface, those yet to come will treat of "The Cæsars,' The Cosmopolitan Empire," and "The Decadence of Rome." The five volumes already published tell the story of "The Conquest of the Empire." Concerning these the writer says: In Signor Ferrero's history, for the first time in Italian literature, this past, which formerly has only revealed to us almost fabulous heroes, -called Pompey, Cæsar, Cleopatra, Brutus, Augustus, etc.,-unfolds before us like a vast stage on which the masses play a great part, the agricultural aristocracy, the new commercial middle class, the turbulent people of Rome, the provinces, the tax-collectors in all the centres of the empire. Figures stand out on this background, agitators such as Cataline, governors enriched ians such as Cornelius Nepos, Cicero, and Varby graft, such as Verres, young provincial Italron, hurrying to exercise in the capital their oratorical, poetical, and scientific talents; later like Atticus the friend of Cicero, and Mecenas on, Horace and Virgil, and powerful bankers the friend of Horace. Then the great enemies of Rome emerge, such as Mithridates and Cleopatra. Finally, in high relief appear the great Cæsar, Augustus,-makers of empire and playcaptains, legislators, and conquerors,-Lucullus, things of fate. It was in the ordinary course of things that such a vast work should be criticised as well as admired. Such a work of interpretation and synthesis could not obtain unreserved assent from delvers in the same fields, philosophical and historic. But, after every critic has had his say, it cannot be denied that, from the point of view presented by Signor Ferrero, the actions of historic personages acquire a new value. He shows us the work of Lucullus completely unappreciated by his contemporaries; Cicero is no longer a mere advocate or dilletante philosopher; his orations gain high political signifiDe Republica cance, his "De Officiis" and become socially influential works. Cæsar, seen in his actions, is no longer the demigod of many historians, but a man who wished to reconstitute the democratic party, enlarge the policy of Lucullus, and form a personal government, and who did not succeed; a great man, but not a great statesman. Augustus, who was not the comedian some historians have thought him, but wished sincerely to construct the republic without sacrificing the old institutions, having tried several times to retire to private life, had to resign himself to becoming the head of the state. He governed wisely for forty years, during the dissolution of the ancient institutions. The empire was consolidated, to remain united for two centuries. It has been asked "Was a new history of Rome needed?" To this question Signor Ferrero's work is itself the best answer. CLÉMENCEAU, THE "MARVELOUS OLD MAN." NO other European Premier has had as checkered a career as Georges Clémenceau, First Minister of the French Repubic. Just how varied and strenuous this life has been is set forth in virile graphic style by Mr. Vance Thompson in a recent issue of Human Life. In general characterization of Clémenceau Mr. Thompson says: It is when you see him in parliamentary battle that you get the full measure of the man. You see his courage, his contempt for fools, his superb self-confidence. He is no orator as French orators go, full of the Jauresque fury of words. There is wit; there is irony, and there is a dangerous power of invective. Few men, other than Paul Déroulède, have cared, or care now, to face Clémenceau in debate, for of all these politicians of to-day and yesterday he knows so many things. And of that discouraging fact they are aware. A very important point in Clémenceau's career, we are told, was his sojourn in the United States. Kindly memories must stir in him, for Clémenceau has thrown all his influence for many years to bring about the friendliest relations with the United States. England, too, succored him when he was an outlaw from his own country. And Clémenceau has paid his debt in full From Illustration, Paris. to England. To him and to no other man is due the entente cordiale which has bound the two nations, so unfriendly five years ago, into a kind of brotherhood. He has made popular,-in the Latin civilization of France,-the hardier ideals CLÉMENCEAU, IN HIS NATIVE VILLAGE. (The French Premier loves to steal away from the cares of state to his native town of Bocage, in the Vendees. He is here walking with a cousin, for the Premier is of peasant stock.) |