ysically developed women, of uncorseted women, he said, we
might have the ideal woman, and could then begin to talk about freedom
for her.

When the rabbi sat down there was a shout from the audience for me to
answer him, but all I said was that the ideal woman would be rather
lonely, as it would certainly take another thousand years to develop an
ideal man capable of being a mate for her. On the following night Prof.
Howard Griggs, of Stanford University, made a speech on the modern
woman--a speech so admirably thought out and delivered that we were all
delighted with it. When he had finished the audience again called on
me, and I rose and proceeded to make what my friends frankly called "the
worst break" of my experience. Rabbi Vorsanger's ideal woman was still
in my mind, and I had been rather hard on the men in my reply to the
rabbi the night before; so now I hastened to give this clever young
man his full due. I said that though the rabbi thought it would take a
thousand years to make an ideal woman, I believed that, after all, it
might not take as long to make the ideal man. We had something very near
it in a speaker who could reveal such ability, such chivalry, and such
breadth of view as Professor Griggs had just shown that he possessed.

That night I slept the sleep of the just and the well-meaning, and it
was fortunate I did, for the morning newspapers had a surprise for me
that called for steady nerves and a sense of humor. Across the front
page of every one of them ran startling head-lines to this effect:

DR. SHAW HAS FOUND HER IDEAL MAN
The Prospects Are That She Will
Remain in California

Professor Griggs was young enough to be my son, and he was already
married and the father of two beautiful children; but these facts were
not permitted to interfere with the free play of fancy in journalistic
minds. For a week the newspapers were filled with all sorts of articles,
caricatures, and editorials on my ideal man, which caused me much
annoyance and some amusement, while they plunged Professor Griggs
into an abysmal gloom. In the end, however, the experience proved an
excellent one for him, for the publicity attending his speech made him
decide to take up lecturing as a profession, which he eventually did
with great success. But neither of us has yet heard the last of the
Ideal Man episode. Only a few years ago, on his return to California
after a long absence, one of the leading Sunday newsp