Mrs. Coe said: The signs are truly propitious, when man begins to
complain of his wrongs--women not fit to be wives and mothers!

Who placed them in their present position? Who keeps, them there?
Let woman demand the highest education in our land, and what
college, with the exception of Oberlin, will receive her? I have
myself lately made such a demand and been refused simply on the
ground of sex. Yet what is there in the highest range of
intellectual pursuits, to which woman may not rightfully aspire?
What is there, for instance, in theology, which she should not
strive to learn? Give me only that in religion which woman may
and should become acquainted with, and the rest may go like chaff
before the wind.

Lucy Stone said: I think it is not without reason that men
complain of the wives and mothers of to-day. Let us look the fact
soberly and fairly in the face, and admit that there _is_
occasion to complain of wives and mothers. But while I say this,
let me also say that when you can show one woman who is what she
ought to be as a wife and a mother, you can show not more than
one man who is what he should be as a husband and father. The
blame is on both sides. When we add to what woman ought to be for
her own sake, this other fact, that woman, by reason of her
maternity, must exert a most potent influence over the
generations yet to be, there is no language that can speak the
magnitude or importance of the subject that has called us
together. He is guilty of giving the world a dwarfed humanity,
who would seek to hinder this movement for the elevation of
woman; for she is as yet a starved and dependent outcast before
the law. In government she is outlawed, having neither voice nor
part in it. In the household she is either a ceaseless drudge, or
a blank. In the department of education, in industry, let woman's
sphere be bounded only by her capacity. We desire there should no
walls be thrown about it. Let man read his own soul, and turn
over the pages of his own Book of Life, and learn that in the
human mind there is always capacity for development, and then let
him trust woman to that power of growth, no matter who says nay.
Laying her hand on the helm, let woman steer straight onward to
the fulfillment of her own destiny. Let her ever rememb