e portion of it printed in the regular
report of the proceedings.

The papers read by the women, in style and argument, were in no way
inferior to those of the men present.

Letters were read from Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Rev. Samuel J. May, L.
A. Hine, Elizur Wright, O. S. Eowler, Esther Ann Lukens, Margaret
Chappel Smith, Nancy M. Baird, Jane Cowen, Sophia L. Little, Elizabeth
Wilson, Maria L. Varney, and Milfred A. Spaford.[43]

Mrs. Abby H. Price, of Hopedale, made an address on the injustice of
excluding girls from the colleges, the trades and the professions, and
the importance of training them to some profitable labor, and thus to
protect their virtue, dignity, and self-respect by securing their
pecuniary independence.

She thought the speediest solution of the vexed problem of
prostitution was profitable work for the rising generation of
girls. The best legislation on the social vice was in removing
the legal disabilities that cripple all their powers. Woman, in
order to be equally independent with man, must have a fair and
equal chance. He is in nowise restricted from doing, in every
department of human exertion, all he is able to do. If he is bold
and ambitious, and desires fame, every avenue is open to him. He
may blend science and art, producing a competence for his
support, until he chains them to the car of his genius, and, with
Fulton and Morse, wins a crown of imperishable gratitude. If he
desires to tread the path of knowledge up to its glorious
temple-summit, he can, as he pleases, take either of the learned
professions as instruments of pecuniary independence, while he
plumes his wings for a higher and higher ascent. Not so with
woman. Her rights are not recognized as equal; her sphere is
circumscribed--not by her ability, but by her sex. If, perchance,
her taste leads her to excellence, in the way they give her leave
to tread, she is worshiped as almost divine; but if she reaches
for laurels they have in view, the wings of her genius are
clipped because she is a woman.

Dr. Harriot K. Hunt, of Boston, the first woman who practiced medicine
in this country, spoke on the medical education of women.

Sarah Tyndale, a successful merchant in Philadelphia, on the business
capacity of woman.

Antoinette L. Brown, a graduate of Oberlin College, and a student in
Theology, made a logical argument on