Aug.
WHEN China once more settles down, when the upheaval due to the collapse of old ideas and the; ferment of new has given place to something orderly and coherent and the historian feels that! he may review the past without too much danger of his conclusions being falsified by the: events of the morrow, no subject, will be better worth studying than the change in the status of Chinese girls, Whatever critics may think of the effect of Western training on boys, on girls it would seem to have been singularly happy. Some time ago a foreign lady teacher remarked to the writer on the extraordinary influence that this training has, physically as well as_ mentally. girl comes to she said, "dull, lumpish and plain. Four or five months later we are wondering what has become of the ugly duckling, who has given place to a creature equally bright, graceful and pretty." Even' foreigners _who mix little with Chinese have daily ocular proof of the trans formation. Twenty years ago tone saw no Chinese woman in public except servants, sing-song girls and rich ladies driving in closely sealed carriages.—But now the girls are everywhere, shopping, dancing, going to cinemas and theatres, even driving motor-cars. And if we may say so, a very pleasant object they are for the eye to rest upon.
So there should be a good-deal of interest im the article which Miss Agnes Fung contributes today, showing how all this hi come about ani whither it is! leading. To some extent the Chinese girl has been helped in liber battle for freedom by new, tendencies in the spirit of the age, Whereas, twenty years ago, Chinese fathers scarcely seem to have thought that a daughter needed education, they now not only admit her claim thereto, but even insist that she must have it; and districts which lonce had never heard of a girls' school now can show half-a-dozen, But when it comes to making use of her knowledge, Miss Fung finds that the Chinese girl is seriously handicapped. Inferior employment only is open to them:
Instead of lifting a helping hand, men Took with disapproval, upon those who wish to work outside their home, Not satisfied with mere disapproval, they must create obstacles, and the majority make it a point not to engage a woman, When questioned they give the old, old stereotyped answer that women are inferior in every respect and, therefore, cannot perform satis. factorily. Does not the statement sound rather. stale?
The Republic, to its shame, has done nothing to help girls by abolishing concubinage and slavery, indeed there is more of the former now, says Miss Fung, than there was in Imperial days, And the prejudices of family and society are against the young lady's self-determination, Epper. si move. Already the position of Chinese girls is more enviable than that of Japanese and as the new generation become wives and mothers, the de facto changes already visible will be recognized de jure.
Miss Fung may be surprised to learn that English girls too, of whose freedom she speaks with evident envy, feel them most as much at a dis it comes to entering a profession as do their Chinese sisters, A writer in "Time and Tide" complains that 'a girl's professional training leaves' much to be desired; that their working days are merely 'a transition on the road to marriage as their natural d tiny; and that—"Without much deliberation the girls are told to undertake anything {in order to bring money home, or—and this is most characteristic. of the attitude of these girls to. their profession—to earn the money they want for their clothes. For their apparel must increase their attractiveness, must facilitate the acquist. tion of 1 husband.
"How different is it with the man! For him, his profession is not a temporary state, but the means to build up his life. From 8 boy, he is systematically' trained for this profession, it becomes: a matter of course, the contents of his life And the writer goes on to complain that wherever the same payment for both sexes is fixed; the man of the professional mind is preferred; the higher positions are reserved for him and for the women there are only, the humbler.
At the risk of being dismissed terribly Philistine and reactionary, we cannot help thinking that the fault, if such it be, lies with Dame Nature, to whom the vast majority of girls consciously but none the less inexorably adhere; and that: if they regard a profession merely as an interlude before marriage; it is because they were constructed with the definite object of perpetuating the race. That is no doubt 4 hideously old-fashioned doctrine; but it is the one key which unlocks the many so-called mysteries of feminine nature, its amazing courage; fortitude and endurance, its very caprices, its reserve and its instinetive antagonism—towards and. withdrawal from all other members of the same sex. Nor do we think that one girl in a thousand is secretly hostile to Nature's ideas for her future:
If it were in their power to choose between becoming a great barrister. or doctor, let us sayy "a joyful mother of children,"
(Continued: on Page 208.)
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.