the
street without a man escort. The Spanish woman regards herself as a person
of the second order, a necessary adjunct to man. Such a fundamental
humiliation and subordination is opposed to human nature. As the Spanish
woman has no power of open opposition, she resorts to cunning. By instinct
she is conscious of the power of her sex; this she uses and abuses. A
woman's rights advocate is filled with horror, quite as much as with pity,
when she sees this mixture of bigotry, coquetry, submissiveness, cunning,
and hate that is engendered in woman by such tyranny and lack of progress.

The Spanish woman of the lower classes receives no training for any
special calling; she is a mediocre laborer. She acts as beast of burden,
carries heavy burdens on her shoulders, carries water, tills the fields,
and splits wood. She is employed as an industrial laborer chiefly in the
manufacture of cigars and lace. "The wages of women," says Professor
Posada,[95] "are incredibly low," being but 10 cents a day. As tailors,
women make a scanty living, for many of the Spanish women do their own
tailoring. The mantilla makes the work of milliners in general
superfluous. In commercial callings women are still novices. Recently
there has been talk of beginning the organization of women into
trade-unions.

Women are employed in large numbers as teachers; teaching being their sole
non-domestic calling. Elementary instruction has been obligatory since
1870, however, only in theory. In 1889 28 per cent of the women were
illiterate. In many cases the girls of the lower classes do not attend
school at all. When they do attend, they learn very little; for owing to
the lack of seminaries the training of women teachers is generally quite
inadequate. A reform of the central seminary of women teachers, in Madrid,
took place in 1884; this reform was also a model for the seminaries in the
provinces. The secondary schools for girls are convent schools. In France
there are complaints that these schools are inadequate. What, then, can be
expected of the Spanish schools! The curriculum includes only French,
singing, dancing, drawing, and needlework. But the "Society for Female
Education" is striving to secure a reform of the education for girls.

Preparation for entrance to the university must be secured privately. The
number of women seeking entrance to universities is small. Most of them,
so far as I know, are medical students. However, the Spanish women have