By A. C. FORSTER BOULTON,
F.R.G.S.
(Member of the English and Canadian Bar)
The early history of
Canada is a record of wars, geographical enterprise, the clearance of
the land, and the gradual establishment of a self-governing colony,
possessing the fullest measure of constitutional freedom. In all this
women had their share, but it was for the most part a silent one. The
early struggles of the colonists were, in the first place, for security
of life and property, and later on for the right to govern themselves.
In those stormy days women’s rights, in a political sense, were unknown.
But as Canada grew and expanded into a young and vigorous nationality,
an agitation arose for the more perfect intellectual development of
women. The education—the higher education—of women once obtained, their
emancipation speedily followed, and now Canada is second to no other
country in the world in the organisation of its women. The pent-up
talent and vigour of the past has broken out into a freshness and mental
strength which seems to carry all before it, and the advocates of
women’s rights in Canada are among the foremost in eloquence and
knowledge in the various women’s societies on the continent of America.
And it is right that it should be so. For Canada is second to no other
country in all movements ot' a progressive nature. Her educational
system is probably superior to any in the world, and it is therefore fit
and proper, in a country where social reforms are ever uppermost in the
thoughts of the people, that women should be especially interested in
the progress of their sex. It is recognised on all sides that the great
changes which have swept over the country during the last hundred years,
transforming politics, business, social and religious life, must
necessarily have had their effect in modifying greatly the condition of
women. It is allowed even by the lovers of the “good old times,” that to
acquiesce, even though it be reluctantly, in the changes wrought by the
ballot-box, the railway, and the factory, and at the same time to
declaim vehemently against the entrance of women into political and
industrial life, is illogical and absurd. We have done with the days of
the mail-coach, the shilling postage, the crinoline, and the poke
bonnet. We have done with the days when gentlemen were not thought
disgraced by nightly drunkenness, and rioting and corruption were the
accepted methods of elections, and the empire was but a name. Those days
are past and gone, and with them has passed away the idea of the
subjection of women. In Canada the woman movement once begun has had
little to retard it; and in the free air of the greatest colony of the
empire the intellectual development of all classes has stimulated the
growth, as it has shown the necessity, of a movement in favour of women
taking a greater share in the social and industrial life of the country.
The growth of the towns, the increase in manufactures and the
accumulation of wealth have brought in their train much the same social
problems which have existed for generations in England. Fortunately for
Canada the class distinctions which so often interfere with English
social reforms are practically unknown, and all classes work together
for the common good. In such a community the liquor interest has not the
same support as it has in England, and public opinion would not tolerate
the III M existence of barmaids. Nor do women frequent the public-house
as they do in England, and it is a rare thin" to see a woman in the bar
of a licensed house.
These facts are not the
outcome of the women’s movement. They are perhaps to be traced in the
origin of the Colony. Canada, it must not be forgotten, was founded by
men of a more or less puritanical mould, descendants of Covenanters and
English Nonconformists, and apart from this the fact that in the early
history of Canada, as in all colonies, women were in a minority, has
from the earliest times caused them to be held in the highest respect,
and a homage paid to them which is to this day unknown in England. But
if public opinion would not tolerate the lowering of women to the extent
of permitting them to serve or drink in a public-house, it had no such
scruple in regard to the sterner sex, and consequently with the growth
of the population, while the old ideas regarding women have remained
unchanged, the drink question has become one of the great problems of
the day. Drunkenness among men must bring misery into the home, and
women have, therefore, a very real interest in meeting the question, and
facing it with a strong determination to stamp out the drink traffic
altogether, or at any rate so limit it as to do away with the evil
effects of intoxication. Hence the foundation of the Women’s Christian
Temperance Union, one of the largest of the many women’s organisations
of Canada, and one which has its branches all over the country. This
Union it was which set in motion the prohibition agitation some seven or
eight years ago, and although it has in concert with kindred societies
so far failed in securing a general prohibitory law, it has none the
less done splendid work in restricting the consumption of strong drink
and increasing the number of total abstainers. Foremost in this work has
been a Toronto lady, Mrs. Aimie 0. Rutherford, who combines a knowledge
of organisation and the energy of an ardent temperance worker with the
gift of high eloquence. In no social work more than temperance is this
great gift more needed, and on the platform both in Canada and the
United States Mrs. Rutherford has won many disciples to the cause she
advocates, as well as shown her ability as a Canadian woman to hold her
own with the women advocates of the great neighbouring Republic.
Another Toronto lady
who has been an active temperance worker with Sirs. Rutherford is Mrs.
Baseom, and it is to the joint exertions of these two earnest women that
the present strong position of women’s temperance work in the Queen City
is largely due. In Ottawa, Winnipeg, Halifax and other centres, there
are branch organisations of the Womens Christian Temperance Union, which
bids fair to take the largest share in the temperance work of the
country. Toronto as the greatest English-speaking community in Canada
naturally includes the head-quarters of many other movements, and among
them may be mentioned the Deaconesses’ Training1 School. The school
building on Jarvis Street is one of the many architectural features of
the city, and cost over £25,000, the money being left for the purpose by
the late H. M. Massey. The objects of the Deaconesses’ Institution is to
afford opportunities for Bible study, and impart an elementary medical
knowledge. With these two powerful aids in hand, the deaconesses then go
forth to minister to the needy, nurse the sick, and afford consolation
to all who may require it. Miss E. J. Scott is the well-known head of
this essentially women’s work. Other institutions whose head-quarters
are in Toronto are the Young Women’s Christian Guild, which is the
centre or rallying place for women coming to seek employment, and of
which Miss Bainbridge is the leading spirit, and the Christian Endeavour
movement, which seeks under the presidency of Miss Lottie Williams to
create a deeper sense of spiritual life in young people, and to bring
about a greater amount of personal work as the outcome of this feeling.
In Ottawa the Women’s Humane Society has done noble work in the
establishment of a City Ambulance, and most of all in its work among
children and young girls. By its exertions a Bill was passed through the
Legislature for the prevention of cruelty to, and the better protection
of, children, and now the law can be successfully appealed to, to
prevent cruelty being done to those who are helpless by reason of their
infancy to resist. All of these organisations and many others, such as
the Rescue Work, Children’s Aid Societies, Guilds, &c., have for the
most part branches in every town and city in Canada. Many of them have
been established for years past; some of them are the creation of quite
recent times. They show that the women’s movement is wide, and that its
ramifications extend into all quarters of the nation’s life. It is,
however, in a comparatively recent period that the more perfect
organisation of women’s work has been brought about. The foundation of a
society which should confine within its borders all the different
spheres of woman’s work was the act of the Countess of Aberdeen, who
marked her husband’s period of administration as Governor-General with
the inauguration of the National Council of Women of Canada.
This great Council was
founded, as its preamble implies, because its founders believed that the
best good of the home and the nation would be advanced by greater unity
of thought, sympathy, and purpose of the women of Canada, and that an
organised movement of women would best conserve the highest good of the
family and the state. The Council is organised in the interests of no
one propaganda, and has no power over the organisations which constitute
it beyond that of suggestion and sympathy, and no Society entering the
Council renders itself liable to be interfered with in respect of its
complete organic unity, independence, or methods of work, or committed
to any principle or method of any other Society, or to any act or
utterance of the Council itself, beyond compliance with the terms of its
constitution. The officers of this National Council are a President,
Hon. Vice-Presidents (the wives of Lieutenant-Governors), two
Vice-Presidents at large (elected by ballot), a Vice-President for each
province, ex-officio Vice-Presidents (the Presidents of all local
Councils, and all federating Societies that are nationally organised), a
Corresponding Secretary, a Recording Secretary, and a Treasurer, and
these officers constitute the Executive Committee to control and provide
for the general interest of the Council. The members of this National
Council of Women consist of Local Councils formed of Federations or
Associations of Women, and Societies of Women nationally organised, who
may have by then- own vote expressed the wish to join, and who have been
approved by the Executive Committee. The National Council has
recommended a constitution for local Councils, and owing to the
suggestion, numerous branches of the National Council of Women now exist
in different parts of the country. The preamble of other local Councils,
which has been drawn up by women most experienced in all branches of
women’s work, reveals the breadth and character of this work. It states
that, as the more intimate knowledge of one another’s work will result
in larger sympathy and greater unity of thought, and therefore in more
effective action, certain Associations of women interested in
philanthropy, religion, education, literature, art, and social reform
have determined to organise local Councils. It will be seen from the
foregoing reference and remarks that the National Council of Women of
Canada is an organisation capable of bringing into close touch the women
of the East with those of the west, and making each understand the needs
and endeavours of the others whose common citizenship with herself had
been hardly realised before except in name. It also enables women in one
Province to find out beneficial laws in force in another, and then work
for their adoption in their own section of the Dominion ; it enables
them to study through Council work all needed reforms, and plans and
methods for benefiting those who in various ways need help and
encouragement; and further it bands together women of different races
and creeds and of varied interests in one national life. Prominent
amongst the matters of importance which have engaged the attention of
the local Councils and National Societies, have been the establishment
of the Victorian Order of Nurses, the housing of the aged and
respectable poor, an inquiry into the number of feeble-minded women in
the country and not in institutions, the problem of finding work for the
unemployed, and the regulations concerning the appointment of women on
School Boards.
The scheme for the
foundation of the Victorian Order of Nurses is a counterpart of the
movement in Great Britain for establishing the Queen’s Jubilee Nurses,
under the special patronage of Her Majesty. To carry out this scheme,
which will place efficiently-trained, skilful, certified nurses within
the reach of all classes of the population, it is estimated that a
considerable sum will be required, averaging five hundred dollars per
annum for every nurse enrolled. The scheme has been warmly endorsed at
public meetings held in all the principal cities of the Dominion, and
has now become an accomplished fact, branches of the order being
established in all the principal cities and towns in the Dominion; even
Klondyke in the far northwest having its local branch, with nurses sent
to it from the older provinces.
The Countess of
Aberdeen, who was the founder of the National Council, and whose steady
work has done so much for its development, is so well known in the
British Empire that it is scarcely necessary to refer to her
personality. It is however not too much to say that she possesses rare
executive ability and great capacity for work. Before going to Canada
she was for years connected with several women’s associations in Great
Britain, and was therefore able to give Canadians the benefit of a large
and varied experience, and in a variety of ways she has contributed
materially in assisting her husband in his work of national unification.
Not the least of her Excellency’s gifts are those which have made her so
widely known as a writer, and her series of descriptive sketches
entitled “Through Canada with a Kodak” has done much to make the
Dominion more popularly and widely known. In acknowledgment of her
public services, her Ex-cellency in 1897 received from Queen’s
University, Kingston, the honorary degree of LL.D. In the United States
she has been elected president of the International Women’s Health
Protective League, and she is also president of the International
Council of Women. To quote the words of a Canadian journalist, Faith
Fenton, in the Home Journal:—
“Ridoau Hall has seen
fair mistresses who have filled well their high office in social
obligations and gracious courtesies, but none have come so closely in
touch with the people as her Excellency has done. By travel through our
broad-stretching land, by sojourn in its cities, by gathering the women
together, and by counsel concerning their needs, by cordial recognition
of all who are working for national progress, by the little personal
word of encouragement to the struggler or the troubled, by the kindly
act that tells of the kindlier thought, by all that tact can suggest and
quick sympathy offer, the Countess of Aberdeen has reached to the very
heart of Canadian womanhood, and stands to-day one with us in our needs,
our strivings, and our fulfilments.”
Lady Laurier is one of
the vice-presidents at large of the National Council of Women of Canada.
She has been described as a woman of “tact, judgment, and enthusiasm,”
and as one born to share with her distinguished husband in the honours
of the exalted position to which he has been called.
Canadian women have
through the establishment of the National Council placed the women’s
movement on a permanent footing, and their work in the years to come
cannot fail to have a great influence for good in the progressive life
of the Canadian people. The literature of the young Dominion is also
being enriched by many charming lady writers, who by their pen are doing
much to awaken the national life. Space is too short to refer even in
brief to more than a few, but the writings of Agnes Maule Machar, Faith
Fenton, Lady Edgar, and Lady MacDonald call for more than passing
notice.
Miss Fenton, who was
born and educated in Toronto, early developed a talent for writing
(inherited from her grandfather, who was a skilful song-writer and
dramatist), which soon led her to find her true vocation. She came into
notice more particularly as a miscellaneous writer during the existence
of the Toronto Empire, her descriptions of public men and the running
comments in that paper being publicly read and admired. After the fusion
of the Empire with the Mail she wrote for a brief period for the New
York Sun, and was afterwards editor-in-chief of the Canadian Home
Journal, established in September 1895. She writes equally well in prose
or verse, and has been placed by well-known English critics at the head
of the lady journalists in Toronto.
Lady Edgar, who is an
active member of the Women’s Canadian Historical Association, is Vice
President of the United Empire Loyalist Association, and has gained
distinction in the literary field as author of “Ten Years of Upper
Canada in Peace and War,” 1805-1815 (Toronto, 1895), a volume that has
received and earned the special commendation of Mr. Gladstone, and the
principal English and Canadian reviews.
Baroness Earnscliffe,
or to give her the more well-known title, Lady MacDonald, has
contributed much that will live in the literature of her country. Her
position for so many years as the wife of the prime minister and by far
the greatest man in Canadian political life, has given her a unique
knowledge of Canadian politics and society. Miss Agnes Maule Machar has
written much that is interesting, but her historical contribution,
“Stories of New Franco,” at once places her in the forefront of
Canadians, who are both chroniclers of their national history and
writers of note.
No sketch of Canadian
women could be complete without a reference to Miss Martin, the first
woman who was admitted to the practice of the law.
Miss Clara Brett Martin
is a native of Ontario, and was educated at Trinity University, Toronto
(B.A. 1890, B.C.L. 1897). She was articled first with Messrs. Mulock,
Miller, Crowther & Montgomery, and afterwards with Messrs. Blake, Lash &
Cassels, and was called to the bar 1897. It required two special
enactments of the Legislature to permit of her enrolment as a solicitor
and barrister. Special regulations were framed by the Law Society of
Upper Canada. Under these regulations every woman admitted to practise
as a barrister-at-law shall pay the same fees as those paid by other
students-at-law. She shall become subject, to the statutes, rules, and
provisions of the society as in other cases. And upon appearing before
convocation upon the occasion of her being admitted to practise, shall
appear in a barrister’s gown, worn over a black dress, wearing a white
necktie, and with her head uncovered. She was an unsuccessful candidate
for school trustee in Toronto, 1894, but afterwards became a member of
the Collegiate Institute Board. |