foreign market, the probable demand for any class of goods, and best methods of introducing and marketing a commodity.

The greatest achievement of modern advertising, however, is the almost complete changing of public opinion in America, relative to goods of American manufacture. Through logical advertising many manufacturers have succeeded in so explaining the superiority of American materials and particularly American methods of manufacture, that the public, once prejudiced in favor of foreign makes, now not only prefer, but demand American products.

Vol. 10-26

THE AMERICAN WOMAN.

BY HUGO MUNSTERBERG.

[Hugo Munsterberg, professor of psychology at Harvard; born June 1, 1863, at Danzig, Germany; he was graduated from the Danzig gymnasium in 1882, and took postgraduate studies at Leipzig and Heidelberg for the next five years in philosophy, the natural sciences and medicine; he then became instructor in the University of Freiburg, Germany, and four years later, in 1891, was appointed assistant professor in the same university; in 1892 he became professor of psychology in Harvard university; he was a vice-president of the International Congress of Arts and Sciences at the Louisiana Purchase exposition; he has written a number of books, including Psychology and Life, Grundzuege der Psychologie, American Traits, The Americans, and other works in German, besides contributions to magazines, and educational and psychological journals.] Copyright 1901 by Frederick A. Richardson

Not long ago, I had an enjoyable call from a young German whose purpose in crossing the ocean was to catch a glimpse of American life. Very naturally we talked, as fellow countrymen do, of the impressions which the new world makes upon the foreigner who has just reached its shores. I asked him whether he kept a diary. He declared that he did not have time for that; but he showed me a little pocket registry in which he was accustomed, as a man of business, to enter his debits, credits, and doubtful accounts. Further on in it, he had instituted a similar reckoning with America. He explained that this was the briefest way of grouping his impressions. I have forgotten the most of these, since the record was one of considerable length; but of the credits I remember distinctly such items as the parlor cars, oysters, waterfalls, shoes, autumn leaves, libraries, after dinner speeches, the city of Boston, the ice cream, the hospitality, the Atlantic Monthly, etc. Then came the doubtful accounts: the newspapers, mince pics, millionaires, sleeping cars, furnaces, negroes, receptions, poets, the city of New York, etc., etc. And finally came the debits: monuments, politicians, boarding houses, the spring weather, servants, street cleaning, committee meetings, pavements, sauces, and at least three pages more. But what impressed me most of all-and by reason of which the little book comes to my mind at this moment-was a simple family

division that I found there; under the debits the children, under the doubtful accounts the men, and under the credits the women.

It gave in so simple a formula what all of us had felt during our first months in the new world. We were all amazed at the pert and disrespectful children, and we were all fascinated by the American women. Now and then arose in our souls, perhaps, a slight suspicion as to whether these two things can really go together; it seems so much more natural to expect that a perfect woman will provide also for a perfect education of her children; but whenever we met this woman herself, whenever we saw her and heard her, all skepticism faded away; she was the perfection of Eve's sex. And one group always attracts our attention the most keenly-the college bred woman. There are beautiful and brilliant and clever and energetic women the world over, but the college girl is a new type to us, and, next to the twenty four story buildings, nothing excites our curiosity more than the women who have studied. Some, to be sure, mingle with their curiosity certain objections on principle. They remember that the woman has some grains less of brain substance than the man, and that every woman who has learned Greek is considered a grotesque bluestocking. But even he who is most violently prejudiced is first reconciled, and then becomes enthusiastic. He wanders in vain through the colleges to find the repulsive creature he expected, and the funny picture of the German comic papers changes slowly into an enchanting type by Gibson. And when he has made good use of his letters of introduction, and has met these new creations at closer range, has chatted with them before cosy open fires, has danced and bicycled and golfed with them, has seen their clubs and meetings and charities-he finds himself discouragingly word poor when he endeavors to describe, with his imperfect English, the impression that has been made upon him; he feels that his vocabulary is not sufficiently provided with complimentary epithets. The American woman is clever and ingenious and witty; she is brilliant and lively and strong; she is charming and beautiful and noble; she is generous and amiable and resolute; she

is energetic and practical, and yet idealistic and enthusiastic; indeed, what is she not?

And when we are in our own country once more, we of course play the reformer, and join heartily the ranks of those who fight for the rights of women and for their higher education. I have myself stood in that line. Some years ago, at the moment of my first visit to America, the problem of women and the universities was much discussed in Germany, and about one hundred university professors were asked for their opinions, which were published in a volume entitled The Academic Woman. And when I sat down to furnish my own contribution to this subject, there appeared before my grateful imagination the lovely pictures of the college yards which I had seen from New England to California; I saw once more the sedate library halls where the fair girls in light colored gowns radiated joy and happiness; I saw before me the Ivy procession of the Smith college students; I saw again the most charming theatrical performance I have ever enjoyed, the Midsummer Night's Dream, given by Wellesley students on a spring day in the woods by the lake; I saw once more the eager students in cap and gown in front of Pembroke Hall, at Bryn Mawr, and I saw once more the Radcliffe Philosophy club where we prolonged our discussions through so many delightful evenings. A German Wellesley and Bryn Mawr, I exclaimed, a German Smith and Vassar, that is the pressing need of our Fatherland! My enthusiastic article was reprinted and quoted in the discussions, up and down the land; thus I found myself suddenly marching in line with the friends of woman's emancipation; and I was proud that I-the first one in my German university to do so-had admitted women as regular students into my laboratory, years before I came to America.

All that was long ago. I do not now see American life with the eyes of a newcomer. That does not mean that I to-day admire American women less than before, nor does it mean that I falter in my hopes that Germany will absorb American ideas in the realm of higher education for girls. All these feelings remain the same, and yet, since the surface view of the tourist has been replaced by insight into the deeper

mechanism, my creed has changed. I believe to-day that it is no less important for America to be influenced by the German ideals of a woman's life than for Germany to learn from America. Of course when I speak of German ideals, I do not mean that witless parody which decorates the speeches of woman suffragists. I mean the real German woman, who is to Americans who have a chance to come into full contact with German life mostly something of a surprise. They expected a slave or a doll, a narrow minded creature without intelligence and interests, and now their experience is like that of a lady from Boston-if I may be allowed to make use of her home letter-who finds that every woman with whom she becomes acquainted in Germany has her serious special interests; that they are all quite other than she had imagined them. And what is much to the point, the Germany of to-day is not that of twenty years ago. The immense industrial development of the whole country, which has brought wealth and strength and fullness of life into the whole organism, and which has raised the standard of social existence, has left no sphere of German life untouched.

The efforts of this new Germany in the interests of the woman have taken four different forms, four tendencies, which naturally hang together, but externally are sometimes even antagonistic. The first movement, which applies to the largest number of individuals, is that which tends to soften the hardships of the female wage earner, especially among the laborers. The second seeks to raise the character of the general education of girls in the higher classes. The third endeavors to open new sources of income to the better educated woman of narrow circumstances, and the fourth has as its aim the clearing of the way for women of special talent, that they may live out their genius for the good of humanity. I have said that these impulses move partly in opposite directions; to widen the horizon of the women of the higher classes and to prepare them for professional work means to draw them away from the hearth, while all the efforts in behalf of the women in the mills and shops tend to bring them again to the hearth of the home. The one group gave too much time to the mere household, in its narrowest sense; the other group had too little time