birth-rate of
Wisconsin instead of New Hampshire. If in a given city the births among the
foreign-born population are twice as many in proportion as among the
American, we have not the whole story until we learn whether the deaths are
not twice as many also. If so, the inference is that the same recklessness
brought the children into the world and sent them out of it; and no
physiological inference whatever can be drawn. It was clearly established
by the medical commission of the Boston Board of Health, a few years ago,
that "the general mortality of the foreign element is much greater than
that of the native element of our population." "This is found to be the
case," they add, "throughout the United States as well as in Boston."

So far as I can judge, all our physiological tendencies are favorable
rather than otherwise: and the transplantation of the English race seems
now likely to end in no deterioration, but in a type more finely organized,
and more comprehensive and cosmopolitan; and this without loss of health,
of longevity, or of physical size and weight. And, if this is to hold true,
it must be true not only of men, but of women.

THE LIMITATIONS OF SEX

Are there any inevitable limitations of sex?

Some reformers, apparently, think that there are not, and that the best way
to help woman is to deny the fact of limitations. But I think the great
majority of reformers would take a different ground, and would say that the
two sexes are mutually limited by nature. They would doubtless add that
this very fact is an argument for the enfranchisement of woman: for, if
woman is a mere duplicate of man, man can represent her; but if she has
traits of her own, absolutely distinct from his, then he cannot represent
her, and she should have a voice and a vote of her own.

To this last body of believers I belong. I think that all legal or
conventional obstacles should be removed, which debar woman from
determining for herself, as freely as man determines, what the real
limitations of sex are, and what restrictions are merely conventional. But,
when all is said and done, there is no doubt that plenty of limitations
will remain on both sides.

That man has such limitations is clear. No matter how finely organized he
may be, how sympathetic, how tender, how loving, there is yet a barrier,
never to be passed, that separates him from the most precious part of the
woman's kingdom. All the wondrous world of motherhoo