he friends of reform had
desired.

The first petition to the Massachusetts legislature, asking that
women might be allowed to serve on school-boards was presented in
1866 by Samuel E. Sewall of Boston. The same petition was again
presented in 1867. About this time Ashfield and Monroe, two of the
smallest towns in the State, elected women as members of the school
committee. Worcester and Lynn soon followed the good example, and
in 1874, Boston, for the first time, chose six women to serve in
this capacity.[138] There had hitherto been no open objection to
this innovation, but the school committee of Boston not liking the
idea of women co-workers, declared them ineligible to hold such
office. Miss Peabody applied to the Supreme Court for its opinion
upon the matter, but the judges refused to answer, and dismissed
the petition on the ground that the school committee itself had
power to decide the question of the qualifications of members of
the board. The subject was brought before the legislature of the
same year, and that body, almost unanimously, passed "An Act to
Declare Women Eligible to Serve as Members of School Committees."
Thus the women members were reinstated.[139]

This refusal on the part of the Supreme Judicial Court of
Massachusetts to answer a question relating to woman's rights under
the law, was received with a knowing smile by those who remembered
the three adverse decisions relating to women which had been given
by that august body. The first of these was on the case of Sarah E.
Wall of Worcester. The second was concerning a clause in the will
of Francis Jackson of Boston, who left $5,000 and other property to
the woman's rights cause. Its third adverse decision was given in
1871. In that year, Julia Ward Howe and Mary E. Stevens were
appointed by Governor Claflin as justices of the peace. Some member
of the governor's council having doubted whether women could
legally hold the office, the opinion of the Supreme Court was asked
and it decided substantially that because women were women, or
because women were not _men_, they could _not_ be justices of the
peace; and the appointment was not confirmed.

Changes in the common law began in 1845 with reference to the
wife's right to hold her own property. In 1846 she could legally
sign a receipt for money earned or deposited by herself.[140]
Before 1855 a woman could not hold her own property, either earned
or acquired by inheritance. If unmarried, she w