arguments, entreaties and "continual coming"
of a persistent few. In each case the advocates of progress have
had to contend not merely with the conservatism of men, but with
the indifference of women, and often with active opposition from
some of them.

When a man in Saco, Me., first employed a saleswoman the men
boycotted his store, and the women remonstrated with him on the
sin of which he was guilty in placing a young woman in a position
of such publicity. When Lucy Stone tried to secure for married
women the right to their own property, they asked with scorn, "Do
you think I would give myself where I would not give my
property?" When Elizabeth Blackwell began to study medicine, the
women at her boarding house refused to speak to her, and those
passing her on the streets would hold their skirts aside so as
not to touch her. It is a matter of history with what ridicule
and opposition Mary Lyon's first efforts for the education of
women were received, not only by the mass of men, but by the mass
of women as well. In England when the Oxford examinations were
thrown open to women, the Dean of Chichester preached a sermon
against it, in which he said: "By the sex at large, certainly,
the new curriculum is not asked for. I have ascertained, by
extended inquiry among gentlewomen, that, with true feminine
instinct, they either entirely distrust or else look with
downright disfavor on so wild an innovation and interference with
the best traditions of their sex." Pundita Ramabai tells us that
the idea of education for girls is so unpopular with the majority
of Hindoo women that when a progressive Hindoo proposes to
educate his little daughter it is not uncommon for the women of
his family to threaten to drown themselves.

All this merely shows that human nature is conservative, and that
it is fully as conservative in women as in men. The persons who
take a strong interest in any reform are always comparatively
few, whether among men or women, and they are habitually regarded
with disfavor, even by those whom the proposed reform is to
benefit. Thomas Hughes says, in School Days at Rugby: "So it is,
and must be always, my dear boys. If the Angel Gabriel were to
come down from heaven and head a successful rise against the most
abominable and unr