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EQUAL MORAL STANDARDS

Why are girls brought up with more care as to their personal habits than boys? And why do women have fewer vices than men? It is an undeniable fact that what is looked upon with indifference in a man would be regarded with disgust, if not horror, in a woman. Boys do things that would not be tolerated in girls. Why are there two standards of behavior? Why is one sex held to stricter moral account than the other? Why is a man allowed to do what is condemned in a woman?

The average daughter is better behaved, has better personal habits, than the average son. The average mother has fewer vices than the average father. The average woman is less vicious than the average man. Whose fault is it that this is so? It is somebody’s. Whose is it? It is time to find out. Have men fixed the standard for women, and women for men? It is approximately true that either sex is what the other demands of it. Women are too indulgent towards the other sex. We believe it lies with them more than with men to elevate the moral standard of the world.

A father would not take his daughter to places where he takes his son, would not condone in her habits which he overlooks, if not encourages, in his boy. Picture a father going to a saloon with his daughter, and there treating her to a “Tom and Jerry,” or a “beer,” and then calling for cigars for two, and sitting there smoking together for half an hour or so! A man will do this with his boy but not with his girl. Why not? If it is right and harmless for one, why not for the other? Is it true or not that what is right for men is wrong for women?

We ought to have only one moral standard. The sexes should be held to like behavior. Men can have just as good habits as women. We do not believe in forgiving in one what we condemn in another, in allowing a young man to do with impunity what we will not tolerate in a young woman.

If we are to have one standard of morals, which shall it be? Shall it be the highest or lowest? Shall it be the standard for man or for woman? Shall we permit women to do as men do, or shall we insist that men shall be equally pure in personal habits with women? The divided standard of conduct which now exists should be done away with. Let us demand equal behavior of the sexes, and let that behavior be fashioned after the highest moral demand of society. We do not wish to educate boys to be girls, but we can educate boys to have as good habits as girls have, which would be a great gain to the world.

We must hold women largely responsible for the vices of men. There is not a vicious habit which a man would not lay at the feet of woman did she demand it. Not a man would tolerate in a woman what a woman tolerates in a man. Let us have one moral standard for men and women, for both sexes, and mete out to each the same punishment for violation of its restrictions.

AUTHORITY

The man that does what his reason says is right is the man that should be honored by men. There can be no higher authority for doing a thing than that it is right. It is not whether a thing has ever been done before, but, Is it right? If there is no precedent, then it is a duty to establish one.

How many accept the opinions of others because they fear to question their authority! This regard for what other people think and say is well enough only when it does not destroy independence of thought and speech in ourselves. Another’s opinion is not to be respected when it is a fetter to our freedom.

We need not rehearse the evils which the world has borne on account of its fear to do right alone. Man must have someone to share the danger, to share the blame, but a dozen cowards are not worth so much as one brave man, and right is no more right because ten say it instead of one. A thousand felt what Luther said; a thousand believed what Parker did. The best man in us is often the one that does not speak. The truest belief of the heart is the one never confessed. Man seldom comes to the surface. He rarely has a call to be himself, but to be somebody that will please the world. Man is obliged to make himself into a theological likeness; into a political representation. It will be centuries before men can assert themselves fearlessly without injury.

It is no easy matter for a man to set himself against popular opinion and maintain his position. Every power is brought to bear upon him that falsehood can invent and malice employ. A person who refuses to acknowledge the authority of the hour asserts a higher. When a man slaps the world in the face he should have truth on his side and courage to meet the stake and the cross. The majority never forgives him who denies its judgment. The individual that challenges the majority must prove his right of defiance. When a man is greater or better than men he must pay the penalty. The world cannot yet forgive anyone for excelling it. Authority when it debases man should be disputed; when it denies man his rights should be rejected.

It is plain to be seen, without illustration or example, that man’s authority is not found in his own mind. He has no history that reaches beyond custom. Man begins with man so far as facts prove. Society rests upon hearsay and religion upon tradition. A claim has only to be made upon ignorance to be granted. This good-natured world of ours would believe anything, or make-believe believe it, to save its soul. It takes either a very shrewd man or a moderately mean one to dodge every duty of life and remain respectable. It is dangerous to go outside the beaten path, not only on account of the persecution of the present but on account of the folly of the future. The world can easily twist an action into a law or a man into a God if profit hang on the end of its deed. The authority of half man’s actions to-day depends upon some accident or fraud of the past. Man wants a little of the fabulous yet in his meat and drink. He loves to think that Jesus is present when he drinks his wine and eats his bit of bread, although it is a mystery.

Popular opinion is the authority of most words and actions. We speak to men as to children—to please them. We tell them some parable or fairy story instead of telling them their faults honestly and trying to make them better. Most men begin by bowing to public opinion and end by carrying it on their backs.

The authority of the world may be disputed without any of the stars being thrown out of their course or any of the processes of life being disturbed. The notion that all has been discovered that is essential to the welfare of man is a mistaken one. The other notion that the preservation of whatever is elevating and refining depends upon the religious opinions of mankind, is equally delusive. The authority of the Bible, of Jesus, of the church, has been quoted until the world is prepared for a better. We might lose the Bible and not lose our place in the ranks of civilization. Jesus might be forgotten and man would still strive for a higher life. The church might perish in a night and not a single particle of goodness be lost. If we speak honest words, do honest work and live honest lives, we need not ask for God’s help or the help of anybody. We do not give to immorality the hours we redeem from superstition. We give to manhood and womanhood every hour which we make natural and free. It is not necessary for a man to go to church in order to be righteous. The world found assistance before Jesus was born. There has always been saints outside of a convent. We need no book holy that good counsel shall be valuable. The highest authority is the highest human enlightenment. It needs no priest back of opinion to give it force.

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Why does a man enter the Christian ministry?

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The reason that revelation is always made to the simple is that the wise could not be imposed upon.

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There is no sadder grief than that which lies at the bottom of a life that has been wrecked through deception.

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An organization that requires the suppression of facts and the discouragement of knowledge in order to maintain its supremacy, is the relic of a tyranny which our free age and our free thought are in duty bound to remove from the earth.

A CLEAN SABBATH

In a discussion with a lady, recently, upon the Sunday question, after the various pros and cons had been set up and bowled down, she exclaimed: “For mercy’s sake, don’t say any more against the sabbath. Why, if it were not for Sunday, most people would never wash themselves nor change their clothes.” Sunday, then, is to be established for the sake of cleanliness. The command for keeping the sabbath should therefore read: Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work, and on the seventh day wash thyself and change thy clothes. If people will not keep clean without a divine command, we are in favor of cleanliness. We do not know of any better use to put God’s name to. Sunday is certainly the cleanest day of the week. If people will make themselves clean and neat only for God’s sake, we are willing to endure a little superstition for the blessing of cleanliness. But is there any ground for the assertion of the lady? As everyone knows, religion has produced the filthiest specimens of humanity that ever offended the senses of man. Dirt, and not cleanliness, was deemed next to godliness by the saints of old. The filthier a human being became, the holier he grew. It was regarded in the middle ages, that is, in the ages when everything was sacrificed to religion, as almost a sin to keep clean. It was waste of time to care for the body. It was taught that it was holier to worship than to wash. Nor did these dirty old saints of old go nasty entirely on their own authority. They were nasty for Christ’s sake. They went unclean because Jesus had encouraged nastiness. He believed more in clean hearts than in clean hands. He taught his disciples that “to eat with unwashed hands defileth not a man.” Dirty Christians are still plenty, but civilization prevails over superstition and the reign of dirt is doomed. The follower of Jesus quotes his master to defend his filthy condition in vain to-day. The gospel of decency has been preached, and what is manly and womanly is honored more than what is godly and pious. Clean infidelity is preferable in good society to nasty piety. There may be honor in rags, but there is none in dirt. Soap and water cost less than religion, but are worth a thousand times as much to the world. If Romanism required its devotees to take a bath instead of going to mass, it would confer a greater boon upon the world.

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No man gets estimated for exactly what he is, and it is lucky he doesn’t.

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A great many men and women are remembered for what somebody has said about them.

HUMAN INTEGRITY

It is hard for a man to be a man. It is easier to be almost anything else. We do not find the reason for what we do in ourselves, but seek it in someone else, or somewhere else. Manhood is not our standard of action. Human integrity is generally looked upon as an eccentricity. We almost despise a person who is more upright than the conventional man. Throughout society there runs a stream of circumstance upon which lives float like chips. The man who turns against this stream, and seeks to stem it, is looked upon as a madman or a fool. Everybody admits that the world is hardly going right, but everybody goes with it. The current of human life can be turned into a larger channel by a larger man. Mind follows mind.

We do not demand the truth; we do not insist upon the right; we are satisfied with less than integrity. It is not in a spirit of carping that we say this, but because it is true. Let us glance at the world as it lies before us. Theories pass for facts, faith for evidence. We assert without knowledge; we are positive without proof. Man is condemned for not believing, although living a pure and noble life; he is praised for believing, although living a selfish and cruel life. Men are not judged by human nature, but by opinions which are uppermost in public esteem. Men and women are bad according to the standard of one age; good according to that of another. Theologies, which may be wrong, condemn men who may be right. Justice is never man’s precedent. The world quotes Moses, David, Paul, Jesus, to defend its conduct or prove its guilt.

Authority is another’s opinion. Law is what has been done and sanctioned by mankind. The decision of one court binds another. One text is quoted to prove another. A man’s act is made a rule of life. We say, to defend ourselves: “He did it.” The world’s power of attorney is in its own handwriting. Our appeal is to some one else. We get our politics from our fathers, our religion from our mothers. The church is preaching what others believed.

The mind still leans. Only a few could stand without a support. The props of the world keep it from falling. Men are not upright of their own strength. No man’s action is the patent of manhood. The world does not ask, “What virtues are yours?” but, “What creed do you accept?” A dozen agree and call some one else a doubter, a Freethinker, an Infidel, an Atheist. To be able to stand alone is to be blamed by those who cannot do so.

Man must learn this, that he has no greater strength than his own; that he has no higher duty than to obey the behest of his own nature. When we forsake the world’s follies and shams we shall find something better. We are never abandoned until we have been abandoned by ourselves.

When we refuse to do our duty we must still expect Nature to do hers. The sun and moon do not stand still at man’s command. It is greater to keep one’s integrity than it is to gain the whole world.

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It is harder to live when those we love are dead.

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The trouble with divine revelation is that we do not know who did the business.

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A person has not much excuse for living who can make no better use of life than passing it in a nunnery.

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Men talk of alleviating the aching hearts and souls of the world, but if they would relieve the aching backs and arms of men and women by being kinder to those who toil, there would be fewer suffering hearts for their sympathy’s consolation. It sounds vulgar, perhaps, to speak of backaching, but the pains of work are among the saddest facts of human life.

IS IT TRUE

There is a lot of sentiment going around the world strangely at variance with human action. No one lives as he professes to believe, as he says he thinks. Men declare a thing to be true but act as though they wished it false. It is frequently stated that:

    “Honor and shame from no condition rise,

    Act well your part, there all the honor lies.”

Who believes it? Did Pope when he wrote it? Does a person that reads it? I doubt it.

It ought to be true, perhaps, that men should be respected, honored, and praised just as much for carrying a hod well as for writing a poem or acting Hamlet well, but it is not so regarded.

A man as a man may be just as worthy, just as honorable, just as much deserving the respect of his fellows who uses a pick and shovel on the highway, but it is a fact that the common laborer as such is not respected nor honored as much as the man who pays him for his labor. All the honor may lie in doing well whatever he has to do, but it is what a man does, not how he does it, that receives the honor of the world, just the same. Probably thousands of women are acting well their part as washerwomen in Boston at this time, but are they honored as Sarah Bernhardt is for acting Cleopatra? Would wealthy women pay ten dollars to see a woman scrub a floor, even if she could scrub better than any woman who ever scrubbed before? We guess not. There is the point.

There is no such epitaph as this on the marble of the world: He acted well his part as a coal-heaver. It is true that Lincoln is pointed to as having been a rail-splitter when a young man, but had he never been anything else he would not have had a monument an inch above the ground. It is not Garfield the tow-boy, but Garfield the statesman, the President, that is honored.

It is a fact that merit is not always appreciated, but it is equally a fact that no merit is seen in the common occupations of life. A person might wear his fingers to bones in what is regarded as menial employment, and all his giant labor would not call forth a single word of praise. A dollar or two a day is all the reward the world gives for manual labor. No one sees heroism in farm work, in kitchen work. No one contributes money to erect a statue to the hod-carrier. Work is not honored. The man or woman who is obliged to work in order to live is regarded with pity or contempt by those who live upon the labor of others.

It is not true that all the honor lies in doing well whatever we have to do. Such a saying is as false as to say “Ask, and you shall receive.” Honor is not given gratuitously. It has to be earned. But it is a fact that we do not honor all labor, all virtue, equally.

KEEP THE CHILDREN AT HOME

Fathers and mothers want to see their children grow up into good, moral, respectable men and women. How to insure this desirable result is a serious problem. It is seen that the school is not sufficient to insure character, nor does the church exert sufficient influence to guide the feet in right paths.

We have the deepest faith in what the school is doing and trying to do, and would help it in every way to promote the instruction in those branches of knowledge which are deemed essential to a sound and useful education, but we cannot fail to see that the school, however much it may assist the child in the formation of good habits, is not of itself competent to build up character. The school cannot take the place of the home, nor can the teacher do the work of the parent. We believe that the best way to have good boys and girls, and therefore good men and women, is to have good homes for them to live in. If parents gave more attention to making their homes attractive to their children, they would not be so apt to seek amusement in other places. The more a child is kept at home, the more certain it will be to escape the evils of life. A good home is the first and most powerful factor in forming the character of children.

There is too much thought given by parents generally to the church and too little to the home. They shirk their duty and their responsibility, and pray God to look after what they neglect. With the father at work and the mother at mass, the children will be in the street. Those parents who put the home above the church are throwing around their children the best influences that earth affords. When children are left to the care of God they too often fall into the hands of the policeman. Let the path between the home and the school be well worn, but never mind if the grass grows in the road that leads to the church.

The child will usually love home if home is made lovely. If parents wish to drive their children into temptation, let them shut the sunshine of joy out of the house, forbid the playing of games, burn up the pack of cards that is found in one of the boy’s rooms, call a ball-room the “devil’s headquarters,” and pronounce a malediction upon all youthful sports. It is easy enough to drive a boy or girl out into the dark. Put out the lights at home. Those parents who know the evil influences of the world will make their homes bright and beautiful and then keep their children there as long as they can.

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The doctrine of salvation by faith is a libel on justice and has done more to undermine the virtue of the world than vice itself.

TEACHER AND PREACHER

There is one great change which we hope to see brought about in the near future, because we think it ought to be brought about as a matter of justice. It is this: the elevation of teachers above preachers. Civilization, and all that this word stands for today, depends more upon the school than upon the church. It is the teacher and not the preacher that trains the growing minds of our children, that builds the structure of character for future men and women, and gives to the young the sacred touch that keeps them in right paths. The world does not half appreciate the work done by the school teacher, while it exaggerates out of all proportion to its worth, the work done by the preacher. The church may fall, but if the school stands, liberty will remain; the paths of knowledge will be free; the brow of civilization will still shine white against the skies of life, and the glorious cup of learning be pressed to the thirsting mouth of youth; but should the school fall, though the church might stand, all this would be reversed;—liberty would be driven from the earth, the highways of knowledge would be closed, civilization would fade into the night of the "dark ages," and the thirsting lips of life be fed with Bible scraps and the logic of dead creeds. The teacher is the mighty power in this republic, the truest friend of our nation’s institutions, the one person above all others that this country should honor and reward. One teacher is worth a thousand priests; one school, a thousand churches.

The person whose duty it is to direct the education of the young holds the sceptre of a nation’s destiny, and the school teacher occupies the most important station to which one can be elected. We fear that the profession of teaching is not rightly prized by the American people, and we are sure it is not justly rewarded. No class in the land are paid so poorly, according to the service they perform, as our school teachers, while no class should be paid so well. Far more valuable to our government is the teacher than the preacher, and yet the salary of the latter exceeds the former in every city and town in the land. This should be changed. Preaching a superstition is no benefit but an injury to a people, while training the mind to read, to think, to gather knowledge is the highest service which one can perform.

We have the greatest respect for the men and women who have prepared themselves for the high office of teacher, and we would see them rewarded for their labor as it deserves. The hope of a country is in the right education of its people, and the way to secure such education is to encourage the teacher by showing a just appreciation of his or her labors. So we say, put the school above the church, the teacher above the preacher.