liar province of
the woman, that she has almost no duties out of it; and hence, naturally
enough, that the husband has almost no duties in it. If he is amused there,
let him stay there; but, as it is not his recognized sphere of duty, he is
not actually violating any duty by absenting himself. This theory even
pervades our manuals of morals, of metaphysics, and of popular science; and
it is not every public teacher who has the manliness, having once stated
it, to modify his statement, as did the venerable President Hopkins of
Williams College, when lecturing the other day to the young ladies of
Vassar.

"I would," he said, "at this point correct my teaching in 'The Law of Love'
to the effect that home is peculiarly the sphere of woman, and civil
government that of man. _I now regard the home as the joint sphere of man
and woman, and the sphere of civil government more of an open question as
between the two._ It is, however, to be lamented that the present agitation
concerning the rights of woman is so much a matter of 'rights' rather than
of 'duties,' as the reform of the latter would involve the former."

If our instructors in moral philosophy will only base their theory of
ethics as broadly as this, we shall no longer need to advertise "Homes
Wanted;" for the joint efforts of men and women will soon provide them.

THE ORIGIN OF CIVILIZATION

Nothing throws more light on the whole history of woman than the first
illustration in Sir John Lubbock's "Origin of Civilization." A young girl,
almost naked, is being dragged furiously along the ground by a party of
naked savages, armed literally to the teeth, while those of another band
grasp her by the arm, and almost tear her asunder in the effort to hold her
back. These last are her brothers and her friends; the others are--her
enemies? As you please to call them. They are her future husband and his
kinsmen, who have come to aid him in his wooing.

This was the primitive rite of marriage. Vestiges of it still remain among
savage nations. And all the romance and grace of the most refined modern
marriage--the orange-blossoms, the bridal veil, the church service, the
wedding feast--these are only the "bright consummate flower" reared by
civilization from that rough seed. All the brutal encounter is softened
into this. Nothing remains of the barbarism except the one word "obey," and
even that is going.

Now, to say that a thing is going, is to say that it will prese