emselves in the presence of the wisest men, and enabled them to
present to the public the woman side of some great questions. Women
are officers as well as members of many societies originally
established exclusively for men. A national society for political
education, formed in 1880, of which women are members, has at least
one woman on its board of officers. What would have been thought
thirty years ago, if women had studied finance, banks and banking,
money, currency, sociology and political science?

The Summer School of Philosophy at Concord was founded in
1879.[155] A majority of the students are women, as was not the
case in the elder schools of philosophy, and they come from far and
near to spend a few weeks of their summer vacation in the enjoyment
of this halcyon season of rest. Day after day they sit patiently on
the aesthetic benches of the Hillside chapel and bask in the calm
light of mild philosophy. Its seed was sown forty years ago, in
what was called the Transcendental movement in New England. The
Concord school finds in Mr. Sanborn its executive spirit, without
which it could no more have come into existence at this time than
its first seed could have been planted forty years ago, without the
conceptive thought of Mr. Emerson, Mr. Alcott and Margaret Fuller.

Boston University long ago offered the advantages of its law-school
to women, but they do not much avail themselves of this privilege.
Lelia J. Robinson, in March, 1881, made her application for
admission to the bar. In presenting her claim before the court,
April 23, Mr. Charles R. Train admitted that it was a novel one;
but in a very effective manner he went on to state the cogent
reasons why a woman who had carefully prepared herself for the
profession of the law should be permitted to practice in the
courts. At the close, Chief-Justice Gray gave the opinion,
informally, that the laws, as they now exist, preclude woman from
being attorney-at-law; but he reserved the matter for the
consideration of the full bench. The Supreme Judicial Court
rendered an adverse decision. Petitions were then sent to the
legislature of 1882, and that body passed an act[156] declaring
that, "The provisions of law relating to the qualification and
admission to practice of attorneys-at-law shall apply to women."
The petition of Lelia Josephine Robinson to the Supreme Court was
as follows:

1. The best administration of justice may be most safely secured