the "insane emancipational efforts."

These are the Philistines of male and female sex, incapable of finding
their way out of the narrow circle of their prejudices. It is the breed
of the owls, to be found everywhere when day is breaking, and they cry
out in affright when a ray of light falls upon their comfortable
darkness.

Another element among the adversaries of the movement cannot shut its
eyes before the glaring facts. This element admits that there was hardly
a time when a larger number of women found themselves in so
unsatisfactory a condition as to-day, relatively to the degree of
general civilization; and they admit that it is therefore necessary to
inquire how the condition of woman can be improved, in so far as she
remains dependent upon herself. To this portion of our adversaries, the
Social Question seems solved for those women who have entered the haven
of matrimony.

In keeping with their views, this element demands that, to unmarried
woman, at least, all fields of work, for which her strength and
faculties are adequate, shall be opened, to the end that she may enter
the competitive field for work with man. A small set goes even further,
and demands that competition for work be not limited to the field of the
lower occupations, but should also extend higher, to the professions, to
the field of art and science. This set demands the admission of woman to
all the higher institutions of learning, namely, the universities, which
in many countries are still closed to her. Their admission is advocated
to the classes of several branches of study, to the medical profession,
to the civil service (the Post Office, telegraph and railroad offices),
for which they consider women peculiarly adapted;, and they point to the
practical results that have been attained, especially in the United
States, through the employment of woman. The one and the other also make
the demand that political rights be conferred upon woman. Woman, they
admit, is human and a member of the State, as well as man: legislation,
until now in the exclusive control of man, proves that he exploited the
privilege to his own exclusive benefit, and kept woman in every respect
under guardianship, a thing to be henceforth prevented.

It is noteworthy that the efforts here roughly sketched, do not reach
beyond the frame-work of the existing social order. The question never
is put whether, these objects being attained, any real and thoroughgoing
improve