Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XI, Issue 36, 4 January 1884, Page 1

Current Topics

AT HOME AND ABROAD.

As a good deal of attention has lately been directed A to the very interesting and important subject of threatening the education of women, in our own city within abyss. the last few weeks by the glorification of the young lady duces and the proposals made for erecting them into a peculiar caste, and in Ireland where a long and spirited discussion took place as to the wisdom of the convents, for the most part, in refusing to prepare their pupils for the Intermediate Examinations— in which, had the nuns so willed it, no one doubted but that the girls of the Catholic schools could have taken a leading place, as the boys trained in kindred institutions had done, we think it is not out of place for us to devote a portion of our space to the consideration of the question of the education of women and of their rights, as they are called, in general. If there is anything, then, in which, more than another, the modern world differs from the ancient world, it is the position women hold in it. They have long ceased to be looked upon as the slaves of men, and been recognised as their equals— nay, rather, as their superiors, if not exactly in the sense in which certain women of the period desire to claim such a place, who» under the pretence of attaining to the exercise of their just rights 1 would come out into the highways of life and jostle men off the pavement. The age of chivalry had its great part in the civilisation of the world — for not only were the manners of the man refined and his miad cultured by the ideal halo which was thrown around the character of the woman ; but the woman must have felt that it devolved on her to deserve the place in which she was set, and to show herself worthy of the homage paid to her. There have, indeed, reached us talcs of women who trifled with that homage and put those who bestowed it on them to harsh and trying proofs — but the judgment passed on them, and the record kept of their deeds show us that these were exceptional cases, and such as stood out in no honourable way from the general run of things. There was, for instance, Anna de Mendoza, a Spanish lady, who threw her glove into a lion's den, and bade her gallant fetch it back to her — a valliant deed he unhesitatingly performed, but only to fling the glove in the face of its cruel owner, who, nevertheless, had the generosity to confess that he had served her rightly, and to offer him her hand on the spot. If the mairiagc actually took place we may speculate as to the nature of the atmosphere that surrounded it. — It would net be surprising to find that it had been visited by occasional storms, or at least by frequent, if brief, squalls. — Such a couple would, perhaps, at best belong to thai fortunate order of man acd wife that can "neither live with nor without one another. But the age of chivalry is past. — Edmund Burke declared that it was so at the end of the last century, when the French Queen's head had fallen on the guillotine, among the ribald cries of a crowd where there was not found one man to come forward in defence of her, to desciibe whose grace and beauty the splendid language of the orator was not sufficient. — And perhaps the words of Burke were more literally true than he himself believed them to be, and capable of a wider appli. cation than be placed on them. With the fall of the French monarchy — with the success of the Revolution, there was born a Astern of things into which the idea of chivalry hardly entersUnder the Revolution a George Sand becomes the type of a noble woman, and all is forgotten and forgiven, or- altogether overlooked, if there be high intellectual power. All of " pure womanly " may be outraged, morality, common decency may be deserted if only the literary and philosophic tastes of the day be satisfied. — A George Sand, who looks back from old age upon her life, and, in a tone that tellg her listener how terrible she could be, exclaims that she regrets nothing in it — nothing 1 Under the Revolution a matron, far advanced in years, the model ©f all virtues, possessed of a historic name, a motherjwho had willingly given her sons to die on the field of battle for their country, is dragged before a tribunal as having assaulted the police in the discharge of their duty. Yet France is nob a country in which the cry for woman's rights is heard or attended to. — And Germany appears to be still less so if

possible, for there a philosopher of the times has pronoiirified against woman, and recommended that polygamy should qjfe introduced to repress her 'pride. Schopenhauer, in a wor&|s who is the philosopher in question, jjias no other comparison for 'lovely * woman ' than that with the sacred monkeys of Benares, permitted to play what pranks they will, all unrebuked. But probably some even of the disciples of Schopenhauer would adopt for their own the motto of a ceitain ducal house, and, under the circumstances, cry ' Orom Aboo ' — ' Ape for ever. — To return to France,, then, there! "are now some men who fear that the cry for woman's rights may be created by the present system of education, and a writer in a recent number of the Revue ties Deux Mondes, for example, speaks thus of the matter. " When the women have neither the time nor the taste to be mothers of the family, the mca must try to replace them. And this — let it be said in passing — is why a great number among Iho men look with a suspicious eye upon the new systems of female education. They do not find fault with the girls' lyceums for what is learned there; they find fault with them for what is not learned i and that which is unlearned. They see no danger to the household in a young girl's knowing some scraps of algebra and chemistry # They are even so impertinent as to find the matter indifferent enough in itself. They have a grudge against algebra and chemistry for the hours they take away from household occupations. They notice that the ministerial solicitude har not reserved & single moment in the day to teach the young girl to stay at home and content herself there — which, nevertheless is a ' talent more essential to her happiness, that of those belonging to her, than to know how to solve an equatioD, even were it a quadratic one. They have an obscure presentiment that it w : ll appear to her degrading, after having won the university parchments, to handle the sweepingbrush or sit down behind a counter— and the benefits of the State make them fear for her. They calculate that the more dependant classes are destined as things go, to furnish the attendance at the girls' lyceuais— that everyone cannot be a schoolmistress — and they ask ihemselves whether there is not being prepared for us what tie girls' gymnasiums have given to Russia, and begin to give to Berlin, generations of unclassed females. So think all those who fear that they are about to spoil for %s the best thing France produces— thj little French iourr/eoise, so industrious and economical, the queen of housewives, and so charming (jfentille) into the bargain. The answers of the promoters of the lyceums, when these objections ar c submitted to them, are not always reassuring, Some one asked one of them what future his projects were preparing for the pupils of the State. — ' An abyss,' hotly cried this man of sense, 'an 'abyss.' His questioner held his tongue — there was nothing to say to that. 1 ' Perhaps, then, for every country where a class of females are ready or are being prepared to demand their rights, an abyss is also being formed, and verily, if there be no means of preventing this, the less said about the matter the better. We must content ourselves with resolving to get as much good a? we can out of our abysmal future — and to make the best of a ba-i bargain.

Thebe is, nevertheless, no reaeon why a very high A word of degree of education conferred upon women should comfort. produce such dire results. There is do just cause why the intelligence that the sex were hcut on learning all that their heads could contain of what -was good and sound, should make us feel that we had, like Dante, entered across the threshold of a door over which was written a warning to leave all hope behind, and that we stood on the brink of a murky region whence a multitude of sinister sounds reached our ears, revealing the nature of the abyss. In the past women learned much, and were among the foremost scholars of their age, and nothing came of it but what was good and profitable, In the monastic sc'iools of the middle ages learned studies among girls were encouraged, and the names of many nuns distinguished for their deep learning have reached our times. The nun, Bertile, in the 6th century, was famous for her lectures on Holy Scripture, which were delivered to large audiencca of both sexes, and in the same century the nun, St. fiadegonde, was noted for her deep study,— especially of the three Greek fathers, St. Gregory, St. Basil, and St, Athanasius. Some Latin verses, moreover, said to have been dictated by her lo her Secretary, the Italian

poet Fortanatus, are still extant, and, indeed, her patronage alone of the writer of the Veasilla Regis, and the Pange Lingua, bespeaks her cultured tastes. In the tenth century, at Wilton, the nun, Editb, was celebrated for her learning, and at Gandersheim, in the same century, the nun, Hroswitha, produced some plays that show her to have been familiar with the works of Terence, Plautus, Horace, and Virgil, and which are, besides, possessed of a high degree of merit. Another nun of the same name, and in the same convent, about a centurj before had written an able treatise on logic. It is, f urtherj remarkable in connection with the plays of Hroswitha, and in some sort recalls to us Schopenhauer's comparison of the Benares monkeys that, in one of her preludes, praying for poetic inspiration, she pleads that even Balaam's ass had been made to speak with wisdom.— But here we merely recognise the becoming humility of a religious woman. The Latin plays., we may add, that the abbess wrote, were acted in her nunnery, from which we gain an insight into the condition of the whole community. In the eleventh century, again, we find the abbess, Cecilia, a daughter of William the Conqueror, and the abbess, Emma, of StAmand, noted for their skill in grammar philosophy, and poetry, and later on Herrad, of Landsperg, the abbess of an Alsatian convent, produced a work that Montalembert> from whom we take almost all these details, asserts to be the first attempt at a scientific encyclopedia, and which, he says, is remarkable for the breadth of its ideas on painting, geography, philosophy, mythology, and history. The work of transcription, likewise, had been carried on from the earliest times in th« convents of the Benedistine nuns, and Montale-nbertalso tells us in particular of a nun of Wessobrun, in Bavaria, who had transcribed a vast number of important works which she offered as a tribute to St. Peter, in the person of his representative Pope St. Gregory YlL— She had, meantime, kept up with a sister nun a correspondence distinguished by its grace : for, says the historian, these ladies, in transcribing, understood and profited by the works they copied. But these learned women knew how to regulate their learned pursuits so that they should not interfere with their other duties. St. Radegonde, for example, would quit her study of the Fathers, or of Holy Scripture to take her turn in the kitchen, at cleaning the house, or at carrying wood and water— while she never neglected the care of the poor. Ages afterwards, St. Teresa, whose writings occupy a recognised place among the classics of Spain, declares :— " I write against my will, and almost at odd times, for it keeps me from my spinning, and lamin a very poor house, where there is a great deal to do." There would, then, be no reason why deep learning on the part of women should alarm us ; there would be nothing that ought to make our heads turn dizzy as if we stood on the verge of an abyss and knew not what we were about to m,eet with in the inevitable plunge, at the thought that the female part of creation were going to contest the palm of learning with the other half. And, indeed, in the ages we have spoken of such a contest was carried on with profit to all those concerned in it. In the neighbouring monasteries, of men and women respectively, commonly under the control of the same superior— an Abbot or an Abbees, Michelet tells us " there was a happy emulation as well as of study as of piet ." There would be nothing to alarm us in the general and widespread acquisition by women of as much learning as their heads could contain, if only we saw any prospect of a modifying force that would restrain the fair scholars within their proper bounds — that would permit them to enjoy the benefit of all that clucation could confer upon them, without, at the same time, as the French writer we have quoted asssures us has been the case in Russia, and is proving to be the case in Germany — allowing them to be taken out of their groove in society and offered no other in which they could with comfort and utility proceed. It is hardly possible that their coming forward, by means of their learning, to contest the walks of public life with men would have any such wholesome effect.

Into the question of the ability with which women woman's would contest the profession? and other walks of intellect AND public life with men we do not enter.— The course heart. of history, both in ancient and modern times, gives us many examples of women who, for evil or for good, took a part in public affairs, and left nothing to mark that they had failed in strength of intellect. Agrippina, for instance, the mother of Nero, advanced her son to the Imperial throne, in order that, under cover of his name, she might herself hold the reins of empire. And we have no reason to doubt that she was fully equal to the task and might have performed it, had she not, in spite of warning it is said, misjudged the nature of her soa, who, t© get rid of her demands, did not hesitate to have her murdered. What Agrippina had failed to do was done with success, some hundreds of years afterwards, by the terrible Brunebault, who proved herself very capable of wielding the power she secured by the demoralization of her grandson. A grand figure that rises up in the middle ages is that of the Countess Matilda, who was so fine a champion and defender of the Holy See. Blanche of Castile was acknowledged to

have administered the affairs of France with great ability while she maintained her place as regent 5 and Franc?, in her utmost strait, owed her deliverance to a woman — to Joan of Arc. St. Catherine of Sienna gave an example of courage to the Pope, and instructed and exhorted not only the people at large, but cardinalß and prelates. And, in fine, who has ever denied the intellectual power of Queen Elizabeth and Catherine 11. of Rnssia? But one of the greatest voices among those of men, it may be, has borne the greatest testimony to woman's intellect— that of Dante, who represents Beatrice Portinari as having acted as his guide and instructress in his passage through the heavenly regions. Ifc is true that the poet represents this lady as typical of theology, but still, his choice of her shows that he thought there was nothing out of harmony with his magnificent theme in the selection— that there was nothing which would dwarf or mar his poem in the high place a woman held in it. All these women, nevertheless, whatever may have been their intellectual , powers, were still womanly. Joan of Arc, the heroine of the battlefield, bore beneath her armour the heart and nature of a gentle, loving girl. " A sound mind in a vigorous frame," writes M. Dantier in his • Christian Womanhood,' " a soul religious, but of a practical tarn, not disposed to superstition. Jeanne was neither inclined to mysticism nor hallucination. Finely constituted, very beautiful, with great strength and power, as her contemporaries say, she had nothing virile about her appearance, for hers was a modest bearing and a low voice — the voice of a woman, as those attest who heard it." And we know, for King Lear has told us, that a soft, gentle, and low voice, is "an excellent thing in woman." Let us hope that, by means of forensic eloquence, it may never be replaced by one that ia loud and harsh. There was even much that was womanly about Queen Elizabeth, and a piteous mark of it was seen if it be true that when she was old and refused any longer to look at herself in the glass, her tiring-women would sometimes, in their merriment, paint her cheeks white and her nose red. A better trait of the womanly character was shown by Catherine of Russia, when she spoke of how willing she would have been to love her husband if only he had permitted it. When, therefore, Miss Frances Power Cobbe, a wellknown advocate of woman's rights, in a volume ef essays on the ' pursuits of women," published some years ago, points out to us that, of late years, women have produced . great works — statues, paintings, poems, and other literary works, there is nothing in all this to surprise us— nothing that strikes us as very new. The matter is not new, in fact, for, as we have seen, even, for instance, in what is commonly looked upon as the darkest of all the dark ages, aa they are called, the tenth century, able works were written by a woman— the Latin plays of Hroswitba, and art had its exercise in the exquisite transcriptions and illuminations of the Benedictine nuns. Carlyle has left the record of his belief that the genius which has shown itself in one way might as well have been shown in another, and we may reasonably conclude that the great women of whom we have spoken might as well have come before the world as artists or authoresses. They would have been no more remarkable had they done so, and no more able. They would probably have produced no more lasting works, or none, at least, that would more have affected the lot of mankind. When, again, we find a list of authoresses given in advocacy of a university education for women— as being that which must tend to produce a finer list still— and when, at the same time, we know that none of the names in question had ever been inscribed on the books of a university, the argument seems rather to lean in the opposite direction. The painter, Rosa Bonheur, or after her Miss Thomson was not a graduate. Charlotte Bronte, one of the chief authoresses, had in a great degree educated herself, and as for George -Eliot, an over-addiction to science, on her part, spoiled her work — for her later books, 'although they must always hold a high place in literature — fell short of those that preceded them, and which had come more from the fresh uninfluenced mind of the writer. Apart from the question of the ability of women, there is, however, that of how far they would prefer to be led by their sentiments rather than by their reason. There is, at least, one public office in which they have been tried and found wanting, and their failure to fulfil its duties may be taken as an indication that where judgment should be preferred to sentiment, or where judgment should occasionally ■ij^ elude sentiment altogether, their presence would, for the most par^B at least, be far from advantageous. They were given a trial to sit on juries in the United Btateß, and were found to be frequently blinded by their feelings to the evidence laid before them, so that it was thought necessary to strip them of the privileges that had been conferred upon them, and there are no more jury- women to be seen. Miss Cobbe says it has been facetiously remarked " that when a man • has laboriously climbed up step by step to the summit of his argument, he will generally find a wpman standing before him on the top. But of how she got there neither he nor she can give the inallestexplanation." American lawyers, perhaps, whosaw the women o£ their juries standing on the top of arguments altogether different from those to the summit of which they themselves had labouriously climbed up, would hardly have felt very facetious about the matter. And Parliamentary candidates, in turn, who should see female elec

tors standing on what they also might naturally regard as a " bad eminence " would probably feel quite as grave as the lawyers. Miss Cobbe, indeed, proposes that, by education, this power of keeping well in advance of the argument should be taken away from women, but Mr Herbert Spenctr has recently told us that men cannot be prevented by education from bestowing their votes as interest inclines them, and, therefore, we are justified in concluding that neither could women be prevented from being influenced by their sentiments. — We shall not presume to accuse them of being open to the temptations of interest. But, as we have said, we see no reason why women should not have the advantage of the highest education that can be conferred on them. They have been given it in the past and have profited by it fully and most beneficially — why should they not do so in the future ? The thing is to educate them highly with a legitimate object, and not with one that shall take them out of the sphere for which nature has fitted them. Moliere's/e»wra<j* savantes, y for example, would not have been ridiculous merely by their study J^&ngelas, and their resolution to apply his rules strictly in their J^versation. They might even without absurdity have had a certain amount of reverence for the student of Greek. It was when they resolved to set themselves up as the criterion of learning that all their nonsense came to the fore. When Philaminte takes it into her head to have for the end of her studies the establishment of an exclusive academy all the fun begins. Then the need that she and her companions feel of distinguishing themselves by a scientific discovery makes her at once see men clearly in the moon, and brings within the range of Belise's eyesight, which cannot quite attain to discerning the men, the bell-towers that these men have 'erected. Then the whole trio, Philaminte, Beliße, Armande, embrace the p«dant Vadius for the love of Greek.

As, however, in the distinguished women of the THE WOMAN past of wbom we have spoken, there was always the still. woman — and, as in these women of the dramatist's creation, the woman is very present— seen in the spite and envy of Armande— the conviction of Belise that every man she meets with is in love with her over-mature charms, and the very feminine vanity and domineering of Philaminte. So it is to be feared, that, under the learning and professional abilities of our ladies of the medical schools and law-courts, the woman's nature would also be found, and, as everything that is turned from its natural course must do, would act injuriously, and itself suffer in the action. Miss Cobbe, indeed, contenis that, whatever might be a woman's profession, she would resign all connection with it, in order to attend to her household duties on becoming a wife and mother But apart altogether from the consideration as to whether she would desire to do so, there is that of whether she would be able to do so. — And as a fact, we know, it frequently happens that ladies who are on the stage, and who retire on their marriage, return before a very long period of time has elapsed to the exercise of tbeir profession. But would it be open to a professional lady to retire on her marriage, fulfil the duties of her home, and, in case of her husband's death, one of Miss Cobbe's strongest pleas, resume her professional position ?— What, let us ask, is the effect when a professional man gives up his practice for somejyears, and then seeks to resume it? Does he always find it easy to do so ? — And what would be the effect in the case of a lady physician, of which Miss Cobbe paiticularly speaks, who, having retired on her marriage, should, on the death of her husband, seek to renew her list of patients ? The public would have lost all confidence in her.— lt would be known that during her married life she had been otherwise engaged ; she had not kept pace with the medical science of the day. She had neither studied nor practised ; and she would now come forward to compete with those who had done both. There would besides be always the possibility of her throwing up her practice once more in favour of matrimony Her chance of obtaining patients would be very small indeed, and it is to be feared that she would be found, like Eomeo's apothecary "in tattered weeds, with overwhelming brow." But if she did succeed in renewing her connection— except in rare instances, It would in all probability be bo much the worse for them. In all other cases also, there is really no reason why we should desire to see ladies occupying the places of professional men. Miss Cobbe admits that -would not be desirable that.married women should be so engaged, otad as for spinsters, we see no reason why their competition with men. who for the most part would be the heads of families, need be particularly encouraged. A man who adopts a profession by means of which, as a rule, he supports a family, and provides for their future, is infinitely to be preferred to a woman who takes up a profession which she either renounces or practises solely for her own benefit. Some of the reasons, however, that Miss Cobbe gives for throwing open the medical profession to women, as in many places has now been done, are very amusing. In every family, she says, there is Borne woman who is looked upon as the medical authority par excellence. She mentions, for example, a certain cook who, being the household quack, had treated a groom's bad leg by rubbing it with salt and holding it before the fire, and she relates how her grand-

mother on asking a certain Irishman his name had been answered by him — " Ah, dont you know me my lady ? And did not your ladyship give the dose to my wife and she died the next day? Long life to your Ladyship." Does Miss Cobbe then, conceive that in every family there should be a regularly trained lady doctor 1 or does she suppose that the sight of their learned sisters' acquirements would wholly daunt the amateurs ? We are, at least, not so much accustomed to see the sex shrink back abashed before the acknowledged superiority of a favoured member here add there.

But if the effect upon the world of woman's exaltaA RUINOUS tion was a good effect ; if with the exaltation of concession, woman the world was also exalted, may we not believe that with woman fallen from her high estate the world would suffer a harmful retrogression and fall off from its civiliszation and culture ? If woman were to come out into the highways of the world to jostle man there and dispute with him the place he has so long held. If she were to appear there with all that had been ideal about her dispelled, and recognised by man a 9 his rival in the rough pursuits of life, could she any longer expect to be treated with an exceptional deference ? — Or must she not expect that man would struggle to hold his own. against her ? Let her mount upon the hustings then, shall we give her a polite hearing 1 Shall we recall her physical weakness and doff our hats to listen to her with respect ? When she contradicts all our cherished notions about political matters shall we applaud her? Shall we tremble to provoke her lest she appeal to us with what Tennyson calls and what it is to be feared may often happily be called, " the feeble wrath of tears." — And if we greet her feeble wrath as we should greet that of a man, for a man that is feebly angry is not commonly an object that strikes us with awe, in what position shall we find ourselves ? We can hardly fancy any body of decent men deriding the tears of a woman even though they knew them to be expressive only of a feeble wrath, and we assert that to impose such a duty upon any body of men would be to do that which must make them course and brutal. But do we not know that it is often the duty of men to deride the feeble anger of a man. If women then are debarred from taking their place in public by the side of men, if we do not see them admitted to the hustings, the polling booth, or the bar, they are not without their indemnity ; their taking a part in public beside men would, and undoubtedly would justly, tell on their private life It would rob them of the privileges they have inherited from the ages of chivalry, it would take away and should take away the respect paid to their weakness. — For if they chose to assert themselves strong enough to hold their own with men in public, why shou'd men in private look upon them as weak I—lf1 — If they could go into assemblies of men, and, without a tremor, witness roughness, or it may be coarseness, or even take part in it, how should their presence in private ensure restraint? To grant the rights of woman, therefore, as they are sometimes claimed would be to run the certain risk of stripping society of its culture, and relapsing towards the barbarous days of old.

Bttt has not woman the fall exercise of her lights WOMAN'S Iq her hands, truly, are the destinies of the world. TRUE BIGHTS. She it is who moulds each generation and prepares it for its choice of a path in life. — The mother is the ruling spirit of the home, and if Cornelia could boast that her sons were her jewels, her eons might point to her as owning the hands that had brought out the lustre of the jewels. It is probably within the experience of all of U3 who have any experience of life that where the mother is good and wise the children, as a rule, are safe to turn out well, and to take the mother from her home and give her to public life would be to rob the children of their guide and stay. — Charles Dickens has left us the picture of a home where the mother was continually occupied with affaira- abroad ;" the interests of Borrioboolagha had weaned her mind from her family, and the condition of the blacks in Africa was more to her than the state of her own flesh and blood. But it is not only the affairs of religious missions that would produce a similar effect on the woman who should take them vp — and the interests of free trade or protection — the difference between a property tax and a land tax, the principles of the Conserrative candidate or the Radical candidate, might work as much havoc in a household, and make the lives of children as desolate as did the question of salvation for their mother's blacks among the children of Mrs. Jellaby. — The lady is a type to give a warning and to be very carefully shunned. — Miss Cobbe, moieover, speaks of a great artist who was always obliged to leave her children fcr a few weeks before she could recover the " artist-feeling " of her youth. "No great books," she adds, " have been written or works achieved by women while their children were round them in infancy.' No woman can lead the two lives at the same time." Woman has her rights then. — The noblest part in all the world— to mould the future generations, and guide the little feet that stand, as Swinburne beautifully expresses it, on the brink of the world, To guide

them into a path that shall lead them to a brave and useful walk through that world, and so that when they hare grown feeble and tottering once more— or have reached the goal, their steps upon the sands of time may be trodden in with honour by those who are to follow them. That is her first and finest privilege— but she has taught us as well that she has man; others. — who is there but she to soothe the broken-hearted, to raise the fallen, to tend the sick ? — Out of those ages of chivalry she has come doing all this, and showing in its doing a strength and firmness that we should fail to see her exhibit in the public walks of life. There was published the other day by a writer of note in France, the description of a work of such a kind, in which high and noble ladies are now engaged in Paris. — The writer compared their task to that which might be done, were there any one to do it, among the lepers cast out from an Eastern * '"^3 not to b 3 endure Iby its population. Their state ot horror is su fl^tat the description of it is revolting beyond belief ; it is such tha^ the very dogs run hcwlinj away from the contact with the sufferers. — And the ladies who are engaged in the work that may be so compared are they who have inherited ths traditions of the ages of chivalry. In a hundred or two hundred years to come, should we see the women who had inherited the traditions of the public life of women able or willing to undertake such a task ? The experience that would prove the point may indeed fail us, but instinct will bsar us out in denying that it would be so, and as Sir John Falstafi says— «' Instinct is a great matter." We claim, then, that no sufficient cause has been shown for woman's comingforward into the thoroughfares of life to jo3tle, or to endeavour to jostle, men off the pavements. They are not needed there, for men can perform all that is demanded without their competition. There is no room for them in f act,and even if there were the loss they would sustain would not be male up for by any gain that would accrue to them. They would, moreover, be hindered in the tasks that they alone can perform in perfection, and which are necessary for the welfare of mankind. Their advance, finally, in the wrong direction would mean the retrogression of the world, and the world generally might reproach them in words such as those with which King Arthur reproached the fallen Guinevere—" For thou hast spoiled the purpose of my life." — But still let not those women who arc eager for their rights b 3 disheartened if msn continue to monopolize the public place they seek to share. A great princess has said that under the reigns of queens it is the men who govern, and that under those of kings it is the women. Let them console themselves, then, with the knowledge that, after all, woman has her part, and a principal one, in all the movements of mankind. Her sceptre, nevertheless, must remain adorned with roses, as it were, and hidden, if she would retain her sway. But thus she may rule even with a rod of iron, while she is also acknowledged by the modern world for what, in many respects, she actually is — that is, man's superior.