ch, testifies as follows:

When to queens and emperors we add regents and viceroys of
provinces, the list of women who have been eminent rulers of
mankind swells to a great length. The fact is so undeniable
that some one long ago tried to retort the argument by
saying that queens are better than kings, because under
kings women govern, but under queens, men. Especially is her
wonderful talent for governing evinced in Asia. If a Hindoo
principality is strongly, vigilantly, and economically
governed; if order is preserved without oppression; if
cultivation is extending, and the people prosperous, in
three cases out of four that principality is under a woman's
rule. This fact, to me an entirely unexpected one, I have
collected from a long official knowledge of Hindoo
governments. There are many such instances; for though by
Hindoo institutions a woman cannot reign, she is the legal
regent of a kingdom during the minority of the heir--and
minorities are frequent, the lives of the male rulers being
so often prematurely terminated through their inactivity and
excesses. When we consider that these princesses have never
been seen in public, have never conversed with any man not
of their own family, except from behind a curtain; that they
do not read, and if they did, there is no book in their
languages which can give them the smallest instruction on
political affairs, the example they afford of the natural
capacity of women for government is very striking.

In view of these facts, does it not appear that if there is any
one distinctively feminine characteristic, it is the
mother-instinct for government? But now with clearer vision we
reread the record of the past. True, we find no Raphael or
Beethoven, no Phidias or Michael Angelo among women. No woman has
painted the greatest picture, carved the finest statue, composed
the noblest oratorio or opera. Not many women's names appear
after Joan of Arc's in the long list of warriors; but, as a
ruler, woman stands to-day the peer of man.

While man has rendered such royal service in the realm of art,
woman has not been idle. Infinite wisdom has intrusted to her the
living, bre