rto found
their account in keeping the large majority of the people in political
childhood. Hence it has ever been the task of a class-conscious minority
to battle with energy and enthusiasm for the collective interest of
society, and to shake up and drag the large inert mass after them. Thus
has it been in all great Movements: it is neither astonishing nor
discouraging that the experience made with the Movement of the working
class is repeated in the Movement for the emancipation of woman.
Previous successes prove that pains, labor and sacrifices are rewarded;
the future brings triumph.

The moment woman acquires equal rights with man, the sense of her duties
will be quickened. Called upon to cast her ballot, she will ask, What
for? Whom for? Immediately, emulation in many directions will set in
between man and woman that, so far from injuring, will materially
improve their mutual relations. The less posted woman will naturally
turn to the better posted man. Interchange of ideas and mutual
instruction follows,--a condition of things until now found most rarely
between husband and wife: it will impart a fresh charm to life. The
unhappy differences in education and view-points between the two
sexes,--differences, that so frequently lead to dissensions between
husband and wife, that place the husband at variance with his many-sided
duties, and that injure the well-being of all, will be wiped out.
Instead of a clog, the husband will gain a supporter in a compatible
wife; whenever prevented by other duties from personal participation,
she will spur her husband to fulfil his own. She will find it legitimate
that a fraction of his earnings be spent in a newspaper, for agitational
purposes, because the paper serves to educate and entertain her also,
and because she realizes the necessity of the sacrifice, a sacrifice
that helps to conquer that which she, her husband and her children
lack,--an existence worthy of human beings.

Thus, the joining of hands by husband and wife for the common weal, so
closely connected with the weal of the individual, will exert a most
ennobling influence. The very reverse is called into life of that which
is claimed by near-sighted people, or by the foes of a commonwealth
based upon the equality of all. Nor would it end there. The relation
between the two sexes would be beautiful in the measure that the social
institutions will liberate husband and wife from material cares and from
excessive wor