e period
of maximum physical vigor. We believe that the magnificent health which
distinguishes our women from those of your day, who seem to have been
so generally sickly, is owing largely to the fact that all alike are
furnished with healthful and inspiriting occupation."

"I understood you," I said, "that the women-workers belong to the army
of industry, but how can they be under the same system of ranking and
discipline with the men, when the conditions of their labor are so
different?"

"They are under an entirely different discipline," replied Dr. Leete,
"and constitute rather an allied force than an integral part of the
army of the men. They have a woman general-in-chief and are under
exclusively feminine regime. This general, as also the higher officers,
is chosen by the body of women who have passed the time of service, in
correspondence with the manner in which the chiefs of the masculine
army and the President of the nation are elected. The general of the
women's army sits in the cabinet of the President and has a veto on
measures respecting women's work, pending appeals to Congress. I should
have said, in speaking of the judiciary, that we have women on the
bench, appointed by the general of the women, as well as men. Causes in
which both parties are women are determined by women judges, and where
a man and a woman are parties to a case, a judge of either sex must
consent to the verdict."

"Womanhood seems to be organized as a sort of imperium in imperio in
your system," I said.

"To some extent," Dr. Leete replied; "but the inner imperium is one
from which you will admit there is not likely to be much danger to the
nation. The lack of some such recognition of the distinct individuality
of the sexes was one of the innumerable defects of your society. The
passional attraction between men and women has too often prevented a
perception of the profound differences which make the members of each
sex in many things strange to the other, and capable of sympathy only
with their own. It is in giving full play to the differences of sex
rather than in seeking to obliterate them, as was apparently the effort
of some reformers in your day, that the enjoyment of each by itself and
the piquancy which each has for the other, are alike enhanced. In your
day there was no career for women except in an unnatural rivalry with
men. We have given them a world of their own, with its emulations,
ambitions, and careers, and I ass