actice,
such as should make every child an eager and serviceable citizen.

What do we find, here in America, in the field of "politics?"

We find first a party system which is the technical arrangement to carry
on a fight. It is perfectly conceivable that a flourishing democratic
government be carried on _without any parties at all;_ public
functionaries being elected on their merits, and each proposed measure
judged on its merits; though this sounds impossible to the androcentric
mind.

"There has never been a democracy without factions and parties!" is
protested.

There has never been a democracy, so far--only an androcracy.

A group composed of males alone, naturally divides, opposes, fights;
even a male church, under the most rigid rule, has its secret
undercurrents of antagonism.

"It is the human heart!" is again protested. No, not essentially the
human heart, but the male heart. This is so well recognized by men in
general, that, to their minds, in this mingled field of politics and
warfare, women have no place.

In "civilized warfare" they are, it is true, allowed to trail along and
practice their feminine function of nursing; but this is no part of war
proper, it is rather the beginning of the end of war. Some time it will
strike our "funny spot," these strenuous efforts to hurt and destroy,
and these accompanying efforts to heal and save.

But in our politics there is not even provision for a nursing corps;
women are absolutely excluded.

"They cannot play the game!" cries the practical politician. There
is loud talk of the defilement, the "dirty pool" and its resultant
darkening of fair reputations, the total unfitness of lovely woman to
take part in "the rough and tumble of politics."

In other words men have made a human institution into an ultra-masculine
performance; and, quite rightly, feel that women could not take part
in politics _as men do._ That it is not necessary to fulfill this
human custom in so masculine a way does not occur to them. Few men
can overlook the limitations of their sex and see the truth; that this
business of taking care of our common affairs is not only equally open
to women and men, but that women are distinctly needed in it.

Anyone will admit that a government wholly in the hands of women would
be helped by the assistance of men; that a gynaecocracy must, of its own
nature, be one sided. Yet it is hard to win reluctant admission of the
opposite fact; that an andr