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THE SUNDAY OREGOXIAX, PORTLAND, DECEMBER 28, 1919.
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Sculptor Sherry E. Fry's Remarkable
Presentation of Unfolding Womanhood
Xf$A Afed of Education in Love.
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BT NINA MARBOURQ.
AMERICAN art circles are discuss,
ing with lively Interest the com
pleted "Five Ages of Woman,"
sculptured by Sherry E. Fry, and Mr.
Fry's theories of domestic education
have occasioned scarcely less of com
ment. Mr. Fry rather startles American
complacency by asking, in effect. Are
the women of America many years
behind the rest of the world in their
understanding of love?
Has the education of the women of
this country been such that sex con
sciousness has been lessened to an
extent dangerous to society?
If so, is the state of marriage to be
left here to the foreign population,
and are the American women to con
tinue to regard the serious question
as vulgar, or, absorbed In professional
pursuits, find no time to give to love
and marriage?
Much is said and written on the
matter. But for all that, the large
number of unmarried women in the
United States is not being noticeably
cut down. Some have figured out
the matter from a psychological point
of view. Others lay It to economics
and the entrance of women in busi
ness. The late Theodore Roosevelt
fought race suicide with all his might.
And it would seem now that the time
had come to fight against the ever
Increasing number of bachelors and
single women if there is to be a con
tinuation of true American society.
Studying; the Eternal Feminine.
Sherry E. Fry, one of America's
leading sculptors, has given a great
deal of serious thought and study to
this subject. Mr. Fry was a captain
in one of the camouflage divisions
during the war, and having seen and
studied women of -other countries, he
Is only more strengthened in his opin
ion that the American system of edu
cation on the great issues of life
among American women, is not only
mid-Victorian but is surely a menace
to our future civilization.
Mr. Fry Is not only a sculptor but
student. His Ions study of art has
led him to delve into the art of the
ancients and also the histories of
many countries. For the past six
years he has been slowly working out
a group of five figures carrying the
life of woman from childhood to
motherhood. For this he has given
much study to the philosophers both
ancient and modern, and has produced
a work that holds a, message to the
women and mothers of this time.
These five figures made by Mr. .Fry
speak out boldly; perhaps they hold "a
stronger appeal in their beautiful
modeling and lines than could be
made to the women of the age
through pages of writing. This work
is an appeal to the women to remem
ber their aex. be proud of it rather
than ashamed.
It was in Mr. Fry's studio at 21
Carmine seet in New York's Latin
quarter that he talked on the subject
of this work. The next to the last
figure he is just completing. This was
left unfinished when he went to war.
and is now receiving the last touches.
"The question," said Mr. Fry, "of
the obligations of men and women
toward one another and to society
has been one that has interested me
intensely. The education of women
In such matters is vital to society;
every person capable of thinking at
all knows that marriage is necessary
for the continuance of the race, and
without this our society degenerates.
Danser of Repression.
"It seems to me that the whole
matter centers around ' repression.
Repression not only of desires but of
thought and understanding. In this
we have the most striking instance of
the survival of the Puritanical strain
in the American mind. Hide, cover
up, do not speak with your daughters
of love, marriage, child birth and if
you do speak of these things do so
in hushed, ashamed tones. Do not
properly prepare them for the world
Keep them ignorant of the greatest
thing in the world sex consciousness
and love.
"That is the method that is being
pursued, and has been pursued for
Sfrerrtg.Fry, Sculptor.
years and years in this country, and
now, as never before, the dangerous
result of this training is being seen.
"At one time women had to marry
because they were not in a position
to be economically independent. But
even at that time they were kept in
a state of ridiculous ignorance until
their marriage. Now that many are
independent as far as money is con
cerned, that old and deep training of
repression is coming out strong, and
in a year you cannot change a state
of mind that has been bred for gen
erations. The result is that the busi
ness woman. is not marrying, her sex
consciousness is being repressed, and
to a greater extent thtfn ever before,
for she will tell you plainly that she
'has no time to thir.k of love or ro
mance,' and many, many women will
tell you today that they have never
been in love, and hope they never
will be.
Tfce Effect on Society.
"That is one side of what the re
pression for generations has done to
the society of today. But there is
another side that means that hun
dreds of women are taking the other
extreme, equally upsetting to society,
and that is radicalism and free love.
These two factions in society, the
'conservatives' and the 'individual
ists,' are dominant at present, and it
is only through education that mat
ters may be righted.
"Do not think for a moment that I
mean all restraint is to be thown
aside when 1 say lessen the repres
sion. That is not it. I can think of
no better example than the women of
foreign countries.
"The girls of those countries have
been educated to know that in love
and sex consciousness there is noth
ing wrong, nothing 'bad.' They do
not wear their hearts on their sleeves.
They may outwardly restrain their
emotions-, but as surely as you are
here, they have been taught that love
is the greatest thing in the world,
that it is the ultimate thing, and have
been so prepared for its coming that
they radiate a gentle, suppressed
glow, the thing that means the great
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"It seems to me that the whole matter centers around repression. Re
pression not only of desires but of thought and understanding. In this we
have the most striking instance of the survival of the Puritanical strain
in the American mind. Hide, cover up, do not speak with, your daughters
of love, marriage, childbirth and if you do speak of these things do so
in flushed, ashamed tones. Do not properly prepare them for the world.
Keep them ignorant of the greatest thing in the world sex conscious
ness and love."
feminine appeal. They are not on
the defensive; they are not always on
guard watching for situations that
would prove uncomfortable, neither
do they throw down the bars of con
vention. These women have been so
reared and educated that in thetn one
sees the finest example of repres
sion of the right sort and this is the
thing that must come to America.
"In the work that I have just com
pleted 1 have given a great deal of
thought and study. For this I early
decided that it would be Impossible
to use a model and obtain the desired
result. Using a model destroyed the
ideal. I desired to follow the devel
opment of the woman from childhood
to motherhood as it seems to me that
it should develop. One could not se
lect a child and wait for this and If
he did begin to do so, especially in
this day and are, the result might
have been decidedly opposite to the
one I have tried to attain. In fact
such a thing would be impossible; so
I studied and worked and I have en
deavored to give the amount of re
pression to the modeling that imparts
the spiritual and Intellectual develop
ment of the woman.
"This possibility of development is
in every woman who is truly femi
nine. If you watch you will see the
woman unfold like a beautiful flower.
If ber surroundings are right, her
education clean and pure, without
the drawing of the curtain over the
great things of life, all this will come
naturally.
"Of course one begins with the
child the unawakened little soul, the
clean white sheet ready to record im
pressions. The child grows and from
the little girl one suddenly finds be
fore him a bud, delicate, flushed, on
the brink of the great beginning of
life, and here at this first dawning
of sex consciousness, when the edu
cation of this delicate creature should
be most natural, here at this critical
time the curtain is drawn closely over
'life' and the repression is doubled.
Ideally this bud should gradually, nat
urally unfold until we have the
young woman ready and waiting for
love. As the flower unfolds in the
light, so does the woman's nature un
fold, and as the flower offers its petals
to the sun, so does she offer herself
to love.
'Tou may see this in young women
if you study them, and when educa
tion has been right, when the right
repression has been taught, they are
wonderful in the sweet repose and
waiting. When such has not occurred
there is a restless nervousness that
many times drives away love; at this
period in woman's development comes
the turning point and at this turning
point in the American woman the
'career' has stepped in to kill the
longing for affection.
"And now love has come. She draws
about her a veil of mystery, calm,
content, marveling at the world about
her; she is confident of the beauty of
the world, the greatness of love.
"This complete round of her life
comes with motherhood. Once again
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"Fulfillment.
begins the wonder of the world. Her
child, the wonder, the marvel, the
beauty of it all. Here is fulfillment,
completeness.
"This is the beauty of woman as I
see it, the true course of life. That
such a beautiful unfolding should be
stunted by economic conditions, by
wroni education, is a great crime
and a crime agrainst the men and
women of a country that will be felt
as surely as the world moves by any
nation that cannot or will not learn
the great Importance of the education
of the young men and young women
concerning the great Issues of life."
FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION FURNISHES PROLIFIC
AND PICTURESQUE FIELD FOR NOVELISTS
According to Ex-Members of Famed Body, Actual Facts Are That There la Little Romance Attached to
Difficult Routine Work of Rigidly Ruled Force.
BY EDWIN TARRISSE.
THE French Foreign Legion has
always been a favorite with nov
elists and writers of fiction gen
erally In search of a picturesque back
ground. Since Ouida wrote "Under
Two Flags" probably dozens of ill
used heroes In fiction have donned
the blue capote and red trousers of
the legionary, and, after suffering
incredible hardships and brutal pun
ishment, have at last emerged tri
umphantly to the music of wedding
bells, with their names cleared and
the legion nothing but a memory.
Now this plan was Quite ideal from
Whe fiction writer's point of view.
No one knew much about the legion,
nor, for that matter, did the novelist
Algeria was a long way off. the sur
roundings were picturesque, and,
given a certain amount of imagina
tion and a fluent pen, the virtuous
hero could be made to have quite a
satisfactorily bad time before he
came into his own again.
A British officer, an ex-legionary,
who for some time was attached to a
British military mission in this coun
try, assures us that there is very lit
tle romance indeed in the French
Foreign Legion. Ruined lives there
are, always, but the possessors do not
talk about them, and as a rule only
wish to be forgotten and left to them
selves. The great majority of men.
It appears, have entered the legion
because of some slight offense against
the laws of their own countries, or
else from pure love of soldiering and
adventure.
The life and the discipline in the
legion are hard, necessarily so. but
not hard enough to break either a
man's spirit or his self-respect. The
legion is, above all, a fighting force,
and cowed or broken-spirited men
would be the very last material in
the world to do the work which the
legion requires of its members.
There are many men of good family
In the legion, and occasionally a let
ter bearing a historical name arrives
at one of the legion's stations, and is
eventually claimed, but the majority
of the men are much the same type
as used to fill the Cape Mounted Ri
fles and Matabeleland police in the
old days, that is to say, military ad
venturers pure and simple. Still,
when one has served, in the Foreign
Legion incidents come under one's
notice sometimes humorous and
sometimes tragic and it may be of
Interest In this connection to set down
a few.
First of all. It must be borne In
mind that the cause of nine-tenths of
the unusual occurrences in the legion
Is le cafard. or, in other words, un
bearable ennui with one's surround
ings. When a man has been for some
time in a place, seeing the same faces
day after day. and with a dozen palm
trees and miles of sand for his sole
outlook, he is more than apt to de
velop cafard, and it depends entirely
on the man's nature what form the
cafard is. going to take. It may break
out in the shape of what virtually
amounts to homicidal mania, or it
may express itself in the form of
more or less elaborate practical jokes.
Men have been known to arm them
selves, for no apparent reason, with
rifles and ammunition and maintain
a fusilade on every one within reach,
finally explaining, when captured and
disarmed, that tbey were bored to
death and simply desired excitement.
There have been numerous cases of
this character in the legion, and un
less it is absolutely necessary to kill
the victim of cafard before he will
allow himself to be captured, he is
usually treated more as though he
were in need of medical attention
than as a criminal. Almost all the
long-service soldiers of the legion are
cafards in one form or another, and
so long as their cafard does not bring
them into direct conflict with author
ity they are treated with great for
bearance. Some years ago the battalion of
the 1st regiment stationed at a town
which we will call S. was notified
that a certain Commandant v.. from
the 2d regiment, would arrive on a
certain day to take up command. Now.
Commandant M. (a stranger to his
new battalion) possessed what every
officer in the legion had, an ordon
nance, or soldier servant, and also
what every officer did not possess,
that is to say, a repudiation for ex
treme austerity of life and conduct.
On the day that he was supposed to
arrive at S. to take command Com
mandant M.. not feeling very well,
decided to stay at a small station
about 40 miles up the line, and sent
on his ordonnance with his belong
ings to take over his quarters. This
man was an ex-officer of the Aus
trian army, and had seen about 15
years' service In the legion. On ar
rival at S. he took his master's be
longings to his quarters, then
dressed himself In the commandant's
uniform and proceeded Into the town.
On his way down he passed several
officers, and, as he looked just as a
commandant ought to (or rather more
so), was saluted punctiliously by
them. This was at 10 o'clock in the
morning. At luncheon that fore
noon in the lieutenants' mess an of
ficer arrived from the town In a
state of intense excitement and
asked the assembled officers gener
ally, "Have any of you seen our new
'old man'?" tthe word used in the le
gion among juniors for the command
ing officer). Two or three men said
thjat they had seen him that morn
ing and that there seemed to be no
noticeable difference between him
and other officers commanding bat
talions. But the newcomer was still excited.
"Well," he said, "you had better mind
what you're about. He's in the town
now putting every non-commissioned
officer he sees under arrest for be
ing drunk or improperly dressed, or
something, and he swears that this
battalion is the slackest mob he has
ever seen and that he'll bring it tyi
der discipline If he has to break
every officer In It.
The officers were much impressed
by the keenness of their new com
mandant and departed in various
directions to worry their companies
up to the required pitch of smart
ness. The next heard of the new
commandant was that he had been
retrieved from a low cafe in the vil
lage Negre at 3 A. M. while perform
ing a triumphal dance among the
debris of the furniture over the bodies
of the proprietor and customers,
whom he had scientifically knocked
out with a chair. The man received
a term of Imprisonment, but Com
mandant M.'s reputation for austerity
never recovered. He was reduced to
a state of frenzy for months after
ward by various undesirable charac
ters presenting bills, etc, which his
understudy had incurred. Eventual
ly he exchanged into another bat
talion.