iberties of the rest
of humanity is the real goal of the race--not of man only, but woman
too."

The ladies dimly feeling that liberty was a safe thing to cheer,
clapped their hands softly under the cover of the nosier clapping of a
few radicals who knew what the speaker was really saying. Bradley did
not cheer--he was thinking too deeply.

"The woman question is not a political one merely, it is an economic
one. The real problem is the wage problem, the industrial problem. The
real question is woman's dependence upon man as the bread-winner. So
long as that dependence exists there will be weakness. No individual
can stand at their strongest and best while leaning upon some other. I
believe with Browning and Ruskin that the development of personality is
the goal of the race."

The ladies took it for granted that this was true as it was bolstered
by two great names. A few, however, sat with wrinkled brows scenting
something heretical in all that.

"The time is surely coming when women can no longer bear to be
dependent, to be pitied or abused by men. They will want to stand
upright and independent by their husbands, claiming the same rights to
freedom of action, and demanding equal pay for equal work. She must be
able to earn her own living in an _honorable_ way at a moment's notice.
Then she will be a free woman even if she never leaves her kitchen."

It was trite enough to a few of the audience, but, to others, it was
new, and to many it was revolutionary. She was destined to again set a
stake in Bradley's mental horizon. The woman question had not engaged
his attention; at least not in any serious way. He had not thought of
woman as having any active part in living. In the thoughtless way of
the average man, he had ignored or idealized women according as they
appealed to his eye. He had not risen to the point of pitying or
condemning, or in any way consciously placing them in the social
economy.

The speaker had appealed to his imagination before, and now again he
sat absolutely motionless while great new thoughts and impersonal
emotions sprang up in his brain. He saw women in a new light, and the
aloofness of the speaker grew upon him again. He felt that she was
holding her place as his teacher. Around him he heard the rustle of
approval upon the gown she wore, upon her voice, and some few favorable
comments upon her ideas. He saw some of the people crowd forward to
shake her hand, while others went out talki