longer submit, without remonstrance, to
the bondage of ancient dogmas and customs. In the retirement and
seclusion of life, the stirring impulse of the times has reached
even the heart of woman, and she feels the necessity of a more
thorough culture and a wider field of usefulness. She sees the
glaring injustice by which she has long been deprived of all fair
opportunity to earn an independent livelihood, and thus, in too
many instances, constrained to enter the marriage relation, as a
choice of evils, to secure herself against the ills of impending
poverty. The wrong she so deeply feels she is at length arousing
herself to redress.

What, then, is the substance of our demand? I answer, we demand
for woman equal freedom with her brother to raise her voice and
exert her influence directly for the removal of all the evils
that afflict the race; and that she be permitted to do this in
the manner dictated by her own sense of propriety and justice. We
ask for her educational advantages equal to those enjoyed by the
other sex; that the richly endowed institutions which she has
been taxed to establish and support, may be open alike to all her
children. We claim for her the right to follow any honorable
calling or profession for which she may be fitted by her
intellectual training and capacity. We claim for her a fair
opportunity to attain a position of pecuniary independence, and
to this end that she receive for her labor a compensation
equivalent to its recognized value when performed by the other
sex.

These demands, we think, must be admitted to be essentially wise
and just. We make them in no spirit of selfish antagonism to the
other sex, but under a deep conviction that they are prompted by
an enlightened regard for the highest welfare of the race. Some
one has justly said that God has so linked the human family
together that any violence done at one end of the chain is felt
throughout its length. The true interests of the sexes are not
antagonistic, but harmonious. There can be no just conflict
between their respective rights and duties. For the coming of the
day when this great truth shall be universally received, we must
work and pray as we have opportunity. When that day shall arrive,
it will be clearly perceived that in the true Har