women have sought state
legislative offices; women members of city councils are rather numerous.
At the present time there is a woman representative in the legislature of
Colorado. The former governor, Mr. Alva Adams, alluded to her as "a
bright, efficient woman," who has introduced many bills and secured their
passage. For, says the governor, "it must be a pretty miserable law which
a tactful woman cannot have enacted, since the male legislators are
usually courteous and kindly disposed, and disregard party interests in
order to accept the measure of their female colleague." From which we
conclude that the women legislators strive especially for measures which
are for the general good.[17]

In the United States there is also an "Association Opposed to Woman's
Suffrage." Its chief supporters are found among the saloon-keepers, the
habitual drunkards, and the women of the upper classes. But the American
women believe "that if every prayer, every tear can be supported by the
power of the ballot, mothers will no longer shed powerless tears over the
misfortunes of their children."[18]

The American women had to struggle not only for their rights as citizens,
but they encountered great difficulty in securing an education. At the
beginning of the nineteenth century the education of girls in the United
States was entirely neglected; the secondary as well as the higher
institutions of learning were as good as closed to them. Woman's "physical
and intellectual inferiority" was referred to, just as with us [in
Germany]; woman's "loss of her feminine nature" was feared, and it was
declared "that within a short time the country would be full of the wrecks
of women who had overtaxed themselves with studies." To all these fears
the American women gave this answer: Women, you say, are foolish? God
created them so they would harmonize with man. As for the rest they
awaited developments. As early as 1821 the first institution for the
higher education of women, Troy Seminary, was founded with hopes for state
aid. In 1833, Oberlin College, the first coeducational college, was opened
with the express purpose "of giving all the privileges of higher education
to the unjustly condemned and neglected sex." Among the first women
students was the youthful woman's rights advocate, Lucy Stone. She wished
to learn Greek and Hebrew, for she was convinced that the Biblical
passage, "_and he shall rule over thee_," had not been correctly
translated b