AMERICAN WOriEN IN PHILANTHROPY. 



BY MAY WILKINSON MOUNT. 



[May Wilkinson Mount is a well known contributor to the magazines chiefly on the 

 progress of the movement for the advancement of women, butjalso on philanthropic 

 and charitable work, although more especially that in which women are engaged ; her 

 home is in New York, and she is prominent in the movements for the betterment of the 

 conditions of the masses.] 



Women take to philanthropy kindly — oftentimes vehe- 

 mently, with the consequence that they frequently miscall the 

 object of their endeavors and mistake the true for tfie false, 

 thus producing as an offset to every one philanthropist nine 

 hundred and ninety nine philanderers. This effect of woman's 

 exertions in the cause of philanthropy may be ascribed to the 

 centripetal forces of her nature and habits — a force acquired 

 by centuries of cultivation, or the lack of it, and only reac- 

 tionary in this age when women have been in a position to re- 

 trieve their own destinies and to put into practice concentra- 

 tion of mind and centralization of methods. 



It is especially fitting that the new republic of the west, 

 whose national shield is held by a woman, should be the scene 

 of the greatest development and progress of women in the field 

 of philanthropy. Here came the Sisters of Mercy from New- 

 foundland, where, at the beginning of this century, they suf- 

 fered painful hardships in their work — both charitable and edu- 

 cational — among many tribes of Indians, of whom the Chero- 

 kees were most numerous, and whose tribal feuds furnished 

 not the least part of their perils and called into action an ability 

 to cope with affairs requiring the tact of a diplomat and a 

 power of control equivalent to that of an armed force. 



Philanthropy and charity in the Christian sense mean the 

 same thing — love of fellow men ; but in time the terms became 

 differentiated until to-day philanthropist conveys to the aver- 

 age mind one who serves his neighbor in the way of helping 

 him to help himself, and so reach a high standard of manhood ; 

 and charity means the giving away of one's substance to relieve 

 a person in need. An act of philanthropy is progressive; it 



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