The Modern Woman's Rights Movement Part 8

Switzerland's existence and welfare depend on the harmony of the German, the French, and the Italian elements of the population. Switzerland is accustomed to considering three racial elements; out of three different demands it produces one acceptable compromise. Naturally the Swiss woman's rights movement has steadily developed in the most peaceful manner. No literary manifesto, no declaration of principles of freedom is at the root of this movement. It is supported by public opinion, which is gradually being educated to the level of the demands of the movement. The woman's rights movement began in Switzerland as late as 1880; in 1885 the Swiss woman's club movement was started. The Federation of Women's Clubs is made up of cantonal women's clubs in Zurich, Berne, Geneva, St. Gallen, Basel, Lausanne, Neuchatel, and in other cities, as well as of intercantonal clubs, such as the "Swiss Public Utility Woman's Club" (_Schweizer Gemeinnutziger Verein_), "la Fraternite," the "Intercantonal Committee of Federated Women," etc. Recently a Catholic woman's league was formed.

Since 50 per cent of the Swiss women remain unmarried, the woman's rights movement is a social necessity. In the field of education the authorities have been favorable to women in every way. In nine cantons the elementary schools are coeducational. There are public inst.i.tutions for higher learning for girls in all cities. In German Switzerland (Zurich, Winterthur, St. Gallen, Berne) girls are admitted to the higher inst.i.tutions of learning for boys, or they can prepare themselves in the girls' schools for the examination required for entrance to the universities (_Matura_). There are 18 seminaries that admit girls only; the seminaries in Kussnacht, Rorschach, and Croie are coeducational.

Women teachers are not appointed in the elementary schools of the cantons of Glarus and Appenzell-Outer-Rhodes. On the other hand in the cantons of Geneva, Neuchatel, and Ticino 59 to 66 per cent of the teachers in the elementary schools are women. They are given lower salaries than the men.

The canton of Zurich pays (by law) equal wages to its men and women teachers, but the additional salary paid by the munic.i.p.alities and rural districts to the men teachers is greater than that paid to the women. In its elementary schools the canton of Vaud employs 500 women teachers, some of whom are married. The Swiss universities have been open to women since the early sixties of the nineteenth century. As in France, the native women use this right far less than foreign women, especially Russians and Germans. The total number of women studying in the Swiss universities is about 700. Most of the Swiss women that have studied in the universities enter the teaching profession. Women are frequently employed as teachers in high schools, as clerks, and as librarians. Sometimes these positions are filled by foreign women.

The first woman lecturer in a university in which German is the language used has been employed in Berne since 1898. She is Dr. Anna Tumarkin, a native Russian, having the right to teach in universities aesthetics and the history of modern philosophy. In 1909 she was appointed professor. In each of the universities of Zurich, Berne, and Geneva, a woman has been appointed as university lecturer. Women doctors practice in all of the larger cities. There are twelve in Zurich. The city council of Zurich has decided to furnish free a.s.sistance to women during confinement, and to establish a munic.i.p.al maternity hospital. In Zurich there has been established for women a hospital entirely under the control of women; the chief physician is Frau Dr. Heim. The practice of law has been open to women in the canton of Zurich since 1899, and in the canton of Geneva since 1904. Miss Anna Mackenroth, _Dr. jur._, a native German, was the first Swiss woman lawyer. Miss Nelly Favre was the second. Miss Dr.

Brustlein was refused admission to the bar in Berne. Miss Favre was the first woman to plead before the Federal Court in Berne, the capital. As yet there are no women preachers in Switzerland. In Lausanne there is a woman engineer. In the field of technical schools for Swiss women, much remains to be done. The commercial education of women is also neglected by the state, while the professional training of men is everywhere promoted.

Women are employed in the postal and telegraph service. The Swiss hotel system offers remunerative positions and thoroughly respectable callings to women of good family. In 1900 the number of women laborers was 233,912; they are engaged chiefly in the textile and ready-made clothing industries, in lacemaking, cabinetmaking, and the manufacture of food products, pottery, perfumes, watches and clocks, jewelry, embroidery, and brushes.[68] Owing to French influence, laws for the protection of women laborers are opposed, especially in Geneva. The inspection of factories is largely in the hands of men. Home industry is a blessing in certain regions, a curse in others. This depends on the intensity of the work and on the degree of industrialism. The trade-union movement is still very weak among women laborers. According to the canton the movement has a purely economic or a socialist-political character. Only a few organizations of workingwomen belong to the Swiss Federation of Women's Clubs. Since 1891 the men's trade-unions have admitted women. The first women factory inspectors were appointed in 1908. According to the census of August 9, 1905, 92,136 persons in Switzerland are engaged in home industry; this number is 28.3 per cent of the total number of persons (325,022) engaged in these industries. The foremost of the home industries is the manufacture of embroidery, engaging a total of 65,595 persons, of whom 53.5 per cent work at home. The next important home industries are silk-cloth weaving, engaging 12,478 persons (41 per cent of the total employed); watch making, engaging 12,071 persons in home industry (or 23.7 per cent of the total); silk-ribbon weaving, engaging 7557 persons (or 51.9 per cent of the total). The highest percentage of home workers is found among the straw plaiters (78.8 per cent); then follow the military uniform tailors (60.1 per cent), the embroidery makers (53.5 per cent), the wood carvers and ivory carvers (52 per cent), the silk-ribbon weavers (51.9 per cent), and the ready-made clothing workers (49.3 per cent). The International a.s.sociation for Labor Legislation, as everybody knows, is trying to ascertain whether an international regulation of labor conditions is possible in the embroidery-making industry. The statistics just given indicate the importance of this investigation for Switzerland. The statistics of the home industries of Switzerland will be found in the ninth issue of the second volume of the Swiss Statistical Review (_Zeitschrift fur Schweizerische Statistik_).

The new Swiss law for the protection of women laborers has produced a number of genuine improvements for the workingwomen. A maximum working day of 10 hours and a working week of 60 hours have been established.

Women can work overtime not more than 60 days a year; they are then paid at least 25 per cent extra. The most significant innovation is the legal regulation of _vacations_. Every laborer that is not doing piecework or being paid by the hour must, after one year of continuous service for the same firm, be granted six consecutive days of vacation with full pay; after two years of continuous service for the same firm the laborer must be given eight days; after three years of service ten days; and after the fourth year twelve days annually. A violation of this law renders the offending employer liable to a fine of 200 to 300 francs ($40 to $60).

In 1912 a new civil code will come into force. Its composition has been influenced by the German Civil Code. The government, however, regarded the "Swiss Federation of Women's Clubs" as the representative of the women, and charged a member of the code commission to put himself into communication with the executive committee of the Federation and to express the wishes of the Federation at the deliberations of the committee. This is better than nothing, but still insufficient. When the civil code had been adopted, every male elector was given a copy; the women's clubs secured copies only after prolonged effort.

The property laws in the new Swiss Civil Code provide for joint property holding,--not separation of property rights. However, even with joint property holding the wife's earnings and savings belong to her (a provision which the German cantons opposed). On the other hand, affiliation cases are admissible (the French cantons opposed them). The wife has the full status of a legal person before the law and full civil ability, and _shares parental authority with the father_. French Switzerland (through the influence of the Code Napoleon) opposes the pecuniary responsibility of the illegal father toward the mother and child. Official regulation of prost.i.tution has been abolished in all the cantons except Geneva; several years ago a measure to introduce it again was rejected by the people of the Canton Zurich by a vote of 40,000 to 18,000. Geneva is the headquarters of the International Federation for the Abolition of the Official Regulation of Prost.i.tution. In 1909 the abolition of the official regulation of prost.i.tution was again demanded in the city council.

By a vote of the people the Canton Vaud accepted a measure prohibiting the manufacture, storage, and sale of absinthe.

Recently the Swiss women have presented a pet.i.tion requesting that an illicit mother be granted the right to call herself "Frau" and use this designation (Mrs.) before her name. The benevolent purpose of this movement is self-evident. Through this measure the illicit mother is placed in a position enabling her openly to devote herself to the rearing of her child. With this purpose in view, not less than 10,000 women have signed a pet.i.tion to the Swiss Federal Council, requesting that a law be enacted compelling registrars to use the t.i.tle "Frau" (Mrs.) when requested to do so by the person concerned. Thirty-four women's clubs have collectively declared in favor of this pet.i.tion.

Women exercise the right of munic.i.p.al suffrage only in those localities whose male population is absent at work during a large part of the year (as in Russia). Women can be elected as members of school boards and as poor-law administrators in the Canton Zurich; as members of school boards in the Canton Neuchatel. The question of granting women the right to vote in church affairs has long been advocated in the Canton Geneva by the Reverend Thomas Muller, a member of the Consistory of the National Protestant Church, and by Herr Locher, Chief of the Department of Public Instruction of the Canton Zurich. In the Canton Geneva, where there is separation of church and state, agitation in favor of the reform is being carried on. The women in the Canton Vaud have exercised the right to vote in the _eglise libre_ since 1899, and in the _eglise nationale_ since 1908. Since 1909, women have exercised the right to vote in the _eglise evangelique libre_ of Geneva. The woman's suffrage movement was really started by the renowned Professor Hilty, of Berne, who declared himself (in the Swiss Year Book of 1897) in _favor_ of woman's suffrage. The first society concerning itself exclusively with woman's suffrage originated in Geneva (_a.s.sociation pour le suffrage feminin_). Later other organizations were formed in Lausanne, Chaux de Fonds, Neuenburg, and Olten. The Woman's Reading Circle of Berne had, since 1906, demanded political rights for women, and the Zurich Society for the Reform of Education for Girls had worked in favor of woman's suffrage. On May 12, 1908, these seven societies organized themselves into the National Woman's Suffrage League, and in June affiliated with the International Woman's Suffrage Alliance.

The Report of the International Woman's Suffrage Congress, Amsterdam, 1908, explains in a very lucid manner the political backwardness of the Swiss women: Switzerland regards itself as the model democracy; time has been required to make it clear that politically the women of this model state still have everything to achieve. The meeting of the Committee of the International Council of Women in Geneva (September, 1908) accomplished much for the movement.

The Swiss Woman's Public Utility a.s.sociation, which had refused to join the Swiss Federation of Women's Clubs because the Federation concerned itself with political affairs (the Public Utility a.s.sociation wis.h.i.+ng to restrict itself to public utilities only), was given this instructive answer by Professor Hilty: "Public utility and politics are not mutually exclusive; an educated woman that wishes to make a living without troubling herself about politics is incomprehensible to me. The women ought to take Carlyle's words to heart: 'We are not here to submit to everything, but also to oppose, carefully to watch, and to win.'"

GERMANY

Total population: 61,720,529.

Women: 31,259,429.

Men: 30,461,100.

German Federation of Women's Clubs.

Woman's Suffrage League.

In no European country has the woman's rights movement been confronted with more unfavorable conditions; nowhere has it been more persistently opposed. In recent times the women of no other country have lived through conditions of war such as the German women underwent during the Thirty Years' War and from 1807 to 1812. Such violence leaves a deep imprint on the character of a nation.

Moreover, it has been the fate of no other civilized nation to owe its political existence to a war triumphantly fought out in less than one generation. Every war, every accentuation and promotion of militarism is a weakening of the forces of civilization and of woman's influence. "German masculinity is still so young," I once heard somebody say.

A reinforcement of the woman's rights movement by a large Liberal majority in the national a.s.semblies, such as we find in England, France, and Italy, is not to be thought of in Germany. The theories of the rights of man and of citizens were never applied by German Liberalism to woman in a broad sense, and the Socialist party is not yet in the majority. The political training of the German man has in many respects not yet been extended to include the principles of the American Declaration of Independence or the French Declaration of the Rights of Man; his respect for individual liberty has not yet been developed as in England; therefore he is much harder to win over to the cause of "woman's rights."

Hence the struggle against the official regulation of prost.i.tution has been left chiefly to the German women; whereas in England and in France the physicians, lawyers, and members of Parliament have been the chief supporters of abolition. I am reminded also of the inexpressibly long and difficult struggle that we women had to carry on in order to secure the admission of women to the universities; the establishment of high schools for girls; and the improvement of the opportunities given to women teachers. In no other country were women teachers for girls wronged to such an extent as in Germany. The results of the last industrial census (1907) give to the demands of the woman's rights movement an invaluable support: _Germany has nine and a half million married women, i.e._ only one half of all adult women (over 18 years of age) are married. In Germany, too, marriage is not a lifelong "means of support" for woman, or a "means of support" for the whole number of women. Therefore the demands of woman for a complete professional and industrial training and freedom to choose her calling appear in the history of our time with a tremendous weight, a weight that the founders of the movement hardly antic.i.p.ated.

The German woman's rights movement originated during the troublous times immediately preceding the Revolution of 1848. The founders--Augusta Schmidt, Louise Otto-Peters, Henrietta Goldschmidt, Ottilie v. Steyber, Lina Morgenstern--were "forty-eighters"; they believed in the right of woman to an education, to work, and to choose her calling, and as a citizen to partic.i.p.ate directly in public life. Only the first three of these demands are contained in the programme of the "German General Woman's Club" (founded in 1865 by four of these women, natives of Leipzig, on the anniversary of the battle of Leipzig). At that time woman's right to vote was put aside as something utopian. The founders of the woman's rights movement, however, from the very first included in their programme the question of women industrial laborers, and attacked the question in a practical way by organizing a society for the education of workingwomen.

The energies of the middle-cla.s.s women were at this time very naturally absorbed by their own affairs. They suffered want, material as well as intellectual. Therefore it was a matter of securing a livelihood for middle-cla.s.s women no longer provided for at home. This was the first duty of a woman's rights movement originating with the middle cla.s.s.

Of special service in the field of education and the liberal professions[69] were the efforts of Augusta Schmidt, Henrietta Goldschmidt, Marie Loeper-Housselle, Helena Lang, Maria Lischnewska, and Mrs. Kettler. Kindergartens were established; also courses for the instruction of adult women, for women princ.i.p.als of high schools, for women in the _Gymnasiums_ and _Realgymnasiums_. Moreover, the admission of women to the universities was secured; the General a.s.sociation of German Women Teachers was founded, also the Prussian a.s.sociation of Women Public School Teachers, and high schools for girls. The Prussian law of 1908 for the reform of girls' high schools (providing for the education of girls over 12 years,--_Realgymnasiums_ or _Gymnasiums_ for girls from 12 to 16 years, women's colleges for women from 16 to 18 years) was enacted under pressure from the German woman's rights movement. Both the state and city must now do more for the education of girls. The academically trained women teachers in the high schools are given consideration when the appointments of princ.i.p.als and teachers for the advanced cla.s.ses are made.

The women teachers have organized themselves and are demanding salaries equal to those of the men teachers. At the present time girls are admitted to the boys' schools (_Gymnasiums_, _Realgymnasiums_, etc.) in Baden, Hessen, the Imperial Provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, Oldenburg, and Wurttemberg. The German Federation of Women's Clubs and the convention of the delegates of the Rhenish cities and towns have made the same demands for Prussia.

The Prussian a.s.sociation of Women Public School Teachers is demanding that women teachers be appointed as princ.i.p.als, and is resisting with all its power the threatened injustice to women in the adjustment of salaries. The universities in Baden and Wurttemberg were the first to admit women; then followed the universities in Hessen, Bavaria, Saxony, the Imperial Provinces, and finally,--in 1908,--Prussia. The number of women enrolled in Berlin University is 400.

About 50 women doctors are practicing in Germany; as yet there are no women preachers, but there are 5 women lawyers, one of whom in 1908 pleaded the case of an indicted youth before the Altona juvenile court.

Although there are only a few women lawyers in Germany, women are now permitted to act as counsel for the defendant, there being 60 such women counselors in Bavaria. Recently (1908) even Bavaria refused women admission to the civil service.

In the autumn there was appointed the first woman lecturer in a higher inst.i.tution of learning,--this taking place in the Mannheim School of Commerce. Within the last five years many new callings have been opened to women: they are librarians (of munic.i.p.al, club, and private libraries) and have organized themselves into the a.s.sociation of Women Librarians; they are a.s.sistants in laboratories, clinics, and hospitals; they make scientific drawings, and some have specialized in microscopic drawing; during the season for the manufacture of beet sugar, women are employed as chemists in the sugar factories; there is a woman architect in Berlin, and a woman engineer in Hamburg. Women factory inspectors have performed satisfactory service in all the states of the Empire. But the future field of work for the German women is the sociological field. State, munic.i.p.al, and private aid is demanded by the prevailing dest.i.tution. At the present time women work in the sociological field without pay. In the future much of this work must be performed by the _professional_ sociological women workers. In about 100 cities women are guardians of the poor. There are 103 women superintendents of orphan asylums; women are sought by the authorities as guardians. Women's cooperation as members of school committees and deputations promotes the organized woman's rights movement.

The first woman inspector of dwellings has been appointed in Hessen.

Nurses are demanding that state examinations be made requisite for those wis.h.i.+ng to become nurses; some cities of Germany have appointed women as nurses for infant children. In Hessen and Ostmark [the eastern part of Prussia], women are district administrators. There is an especially great demand for women to care for dependent children and to work in the juvenile courts; this will lead to the appointment of paid probation officers. In southern Germany, women police matrons are employed; in Prussia there are women doctors employed in the police courts. There are also women school physicians. Since 1908, trained women have entered the midwives' profession.

When the German General Woman's Club was formed in 1865, there was no German Empire; Berlin had not yet become the capital of the Empire. But since Berlin has become the seat of the Imperial Parliament, Berlin very naturally has become the center of the woman's rights movement. This occurred through the establishment of the magazine _Frauenwohl_ [_Woman's Welfare_] in 1888, by Mrs. Cauer. In this manner the younger and more radical woman's rights movement was begun. The women that organized the movement had interested themselves in the educational field. The radicals now entered the sociological and political fields. Women making radical demands allied themselves with Mrs. Cauer; they befriended her, and cooperated with her. This is an undisputed fact, though some of these women later left Mrs. Cauer and allied themselves with either the "Conservatives" or the "Socialists."

In the organization of trade-unions for women not exclusively of the middle cla.s.s, Minna Cauer led the way. In 1889, with the aid of Mr. Julius Meyer and Mr. Silberstein, she organized the "Commercial and Industrial Benevolent Society for Women Employees." The society has now 24,000 members. State insurance for private employees is now (1909) a question of the day.

Jeannette Schwerin founded the information bureau of the Ethical Culture Society, which furnished girls and women a.s.sistants for social work. At the same time Jeannette Schwerin demanded that women be permitted to act as poor-law guardians. The agitation in public meetings and legislative a.s.semblies against the Civil Code was inst.i.tuted by Dr. Anita Augsburg and Mrs. Stritt.

The opposition to state regulation of prost.i.tution was begun by the "radical" Hanna Bieber-Bohm and Anna Pappritz. Lily v. Gikycki was the first to speak publicly concerning the civic duty of women. The Woman's Suffrage Society was organized in 1901 by Mrs. Cauer, Dr. Augsburg, Miss Heymann, and Dr. Schirmacher.

In 1894 the radical section of the "German Federation of Women's Clubs"

proposed that women's trade-unions be admitted to the Federation. This radical section had often given offense to the "Conservatives"--in the Federation, for instance--by the proposal of this measure; but the radicals in this way have stimulated the movement. As early as 1904 the Berlin Congress of the International Council of Women had shown that the Federation, being composed chiefly of conservative elements, should adopt in its programme all the demands of the radicals, including woman's suffrage. The differences between the Radicals and the Conservatives are differences of personality rather than of principles. The radicals move to the time of _allegro_; the conservatives to the time of _andante_. In all public movements there is usually the same antagonism; it occurred also in the English and the American woman's rights movements.

In no other country (with the exception of Belgium and Hungary) is the schism between the woman's rights movement of the middle cla.s.s and the woman's rights movement of the Socialists so marked as in Germany. At the International Woman's Congress of 1896 (which was held through the influence of Mrs. Lina Morgenstern and Mrs. Cauer) two Social Democrats, Lily Braun and Clara Zetkin, declared that they never would cooperate with the middle-cla.s.s women. This att.i.tude of the Social Democrats is the result of historical circ.u.mstances. The law against the German Socialists has increased their antagonism to the middle cla.s.s. Nevertheless, this harsh statement by Lily Braun and Clara Zetkin was unnecessary. It has just been stated that the founders of the German woman's rights movement had included the demands of the workingwomen in their programme, and that the Radicals (by whom the congress of 1896 had been called, and who for years had been engaged in politics and in the organization of trade-unions) had in 1894 demanded the admission of women's labor organizations to the Federation of Women's Clubs. Hence an alignment of the two movements would have been exceedingly fortunate. However, a part of the Socialists, laying stress on ultimate aims, regard "cla.s.s hatred"

as their chief means of agitation, and are therefore on principle opposed to any peaceful cooperation with the middle cla.s.s. A part of the women Socialist leaders are devoting themselves to the organization of workingwomen,--a task that is as difficult in Germany as elsewhere. Almost everywhere in Germany women laborers are paid less than men laborers. The average daily wage is 2 marks (50 cents), but there are many workingwomen that receive less. In the ready-made clothing industry there are weekly wages of 6 to 9 marks ($1.50 to $2.25). At the last congress of home workers, held at Berlin, further evidence of starvation in the home industries was educed. But for these wages the German woman's rights movement is not to be held responsible.

In the social-political field the woman's rights advocates hold many advanced views. Almost without exception they are advocating legislation for the protection of the workingwomen; they have stimulated the organization of the "Home-workers' a.s.sociation" in Berlin; they urged the workingwomen to seek admission to the Hirsch-Duncker Trades Unions (the German national a.s.sociation of trade-unions); they have established a magazine for workingwomen, and have organized a league for the consideration of the interests of workingwomen. In 1907 Germany had 137,000 organized workingwomen and female domestic servants.[70] Most of these belong to the socialistic trade-unions. The maximum workday for women is fixed at ten hours. The protection of maternity is promoted by the state as well as by women's clubs.

Peculiar to Germany is the denominational schism in the woman's rights movement. The precedent for this was established by the "German Evangelical Woman's League," founded in 1899, with Paula Muller, of Hanover, as President. The organization of the League was due to the feeling that "it is a sin to witness with indifference how women that wish to know nothing of Biblical Christianity represent all the German women."

The organization opposes equality of rights between man and woman; but in 1908 it joined the Federation of Women's Clubs. In 1903 a "Catholic Woman's League" was formed, but it has not joined the Federation. There has also been formed a "Society of Jewish Women." We representatives of the interdenominational woman's rights movement deplore this denominational disunion. These organizations are important because they make accessible groups of people that otherwise could not be reached by us.

Another characteristic of the German woman's rights movement is its extensive and thorough organization. The smallest cities are to-day visited by women speakers. Our "unity of spirit,"--praised so frequently, and now and then ridiculed,--is our chief power in the midst of specially difficult conditions in which we must work. With tenacity and patience we have slowly overcome unusual difficulties,--to the present without any help worth mentioning from the men.

In the Civil Code of 1900 the most important demands of the women were not given just consideration. To be sure, woman is legally competent, but the property laws make joint property holding legal (wives control their earnings and savings), and the mother has no parental authority. Relative to the impending revision of the criminal law, the women made their demands as early as 1908 in a general meeting of the Federation of Women's Clubs, when a three days' discussion took place. Since 1897 the women have progressed considerably in their knowledge of law. The German women strongly advocate the establishment of juvenile courts such as the United States are now introducing. The Federation also demands that women be permitted to act as magistrates, jurors, lawyers, and judges.

In the struggle against official regulation of prost.i.tution the women were supported in the Prussian Landtag by Deputy Munsterberg, of Dantzig.

Prussia established a more humane regulation of prost.i.tution, but as yet has not appointed the extraparliamentary commission for the study of the control of prost.i.tution, a measure that was demanded by the women. The most significant recent event is the admission of women to political organizations and meetings by the Imperial Law of May 15, 1908. Thereby the German women were admitted to political life. The Woman's Suffrage Society--founded in 1902, and in 1904 converted into a League--was able previous to 1908 to expand only in the South German states (excluding Bavaria). By this Imperial Law the northern states of the Empire were opened, and a National Woman's Suffrage Society was formed in Prussia, in Bavaria, and in Mecklenburg. As early as 1906, after the dissolution of the Reichstag, the women took an active part in the campaign, a right granted them by the _Vereinsrecht_ (Law of a.s.sociation). In Prussia, Saxony, and Oldenburg the women worked for universal suffrage for women in Landtag elections. Since 1908 the political woman's rights movement has been of first importance in Germany. As the women taxpayers in a number of states can exercise munic.i.p.al suffrage by proxy, and the women owners of large estates in Saxony and Prussia can exercise the suffrage in elections for the Diet of the Circle (_Kreistag_) by proxy, an effort is being made to attract these women to the cause of woman's suffrage.

In 1908 the Protestant women of the Imperial Provinces (Alsace and Lorraine) were granted the right to vote in church elections, a right that had been granted to the women of the German congregations in Paris as early as 1907[71].

LUXEMBURG

Total population: 246,455.

Women: 120,235.

Men: 126,220.

No federation of women's clubs.

No woman's suffrage league.

The woman's rights movement in Luxemburg originated in December, 1905, with the organization of the "Society for Women's Interests" (_Verein fur Fraueninteressen_), which has worked admirably. The society has 300 members, and is in good financial condition. Throughout the country it is now carrying on successful propaganda in the interest of higher education for girls and in the interest of women in the industries. In Luxemburg, after girls have graduated from a convent, they have no further educational facilities. The society has established a department for legal protection, and an employment agency; it has published an inquiry into the living conditions in the capital.

In the capital city there is a woman member of the poor-law commission; ten women are guardians of the poor; one woman is a school commissioner; and there is a woman inspector of the munic.i.p.al hospital. The society is well supported by the liberal elements of the government and the public.