r forty, and children under the age of five; earnestly and
impartially investigate the cause, and you can trace it directly
or indirectly to woman's inefficient education; her helpless,
dependent position; her inexperience; her want of confidence in
her own noble nature, in her own principles and powers, and her
blind reliance in man. We ask, then, for woman, an education that
shall cultivate her powers, develop, elevate, and ennoble her
being, physically, mentally, and morally; to enable her to take
care of herself, and she will be taken care of; to protect
herself, and she will be protected. But to give woman as full and
extensive an education as man, we must give her the same motives.
No one gathers keys without a prospect of having doors to unlock.
Man does not acquire knowledge without the hope to make it useful
and productive; the highest motives only can call out the
greatest exertion. There is a vast field of action open to man,
and therefore, he is prepared to enter it; widen the sphere of
action for woman, throw open to her all the avenues of industry,
emolument, usefulness, moral ambition, and true greatness, and
you will give her the same noble motives, the same incentives for
exertion, application, and perseverance that man possesses--and
this can be done only by giving her her legal and political
rights--pronounce her the equal of man in all the rights and
advantages society can bestow, and she will be prepared to
receive and use them, and not before. It would be folly to
cultivate her intellect like that of man without giving her the
same chances to use it--to give her an industrial avocation
without giving her the right to the proceeds of her industry, or
to give her the right to the proceeds of her industry without
giving her the power to protect the property she may acquire; she
must therefore have the legal and political rights, or she has
nothing. The ballot-box is the focus of all other rights, it is
the pivot upon which all others hang; the legal rights are
embraced in it, for if once possessed of the right to the
ballot-box, to self-representation, she will see to it that the
laws shall be just, and protect her person and her property, as
well as that of man. Until she has political rights she is not
secure in any she may