3 o2 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



The history of civilization, however, is only half written when all the 

 departures from mediocrity have been listed and analyzed, for tradition 

 clings inevitably to the coat-tails of departure, and holds it close to 

 solid ground. If the greater variability of men is the gift that fits them 

 to explore new fields, nothing is more certain than that the less erratic 

 organization, both physical and mental, of women, fits them for admin- 

 istration, conservatism, tradition and culture. 2 



These special aptitudes are sexual differentiations no less truly than 

 bristling beards and flowing tresses, and under modern conditions, 

 infinitely more important. Nothing, however, could be more fatal to 

 any cause, involving either men or women, than failure to recognize 

 that the natural endowments of the sexes are complementary, racially 

 essential and, fortunately, bred in the bone. 



It is at bottom, failure to recognize this that has given rise to the 

 current opinion that the emancipation of women through suffrage would 

 destroy maternity. This, if it means anything at all, means that it will 

 destroy sex. Those who have fears in this direction will do well to 

 remember that the sex of woman is no less solidly grounded than tbe sex 

 of man, and that both are infinitely older than our civilization whose 

 earliest date is only this morning in the complete history of the race. 

 We are the descendants of untold generations before Adam and Eve, 

 and sex is more strongly inbred than the ten fingers. 



Biology knows only racial justice, but racial justice in the long run 

 will require suffrage for women, because they are constitutionally fitted 

 for the exercise of the conservative influences of which, as a body politic, 

 we stand so much in need. That the enlightened woman will wield her 

 power without blocking progress, and, within human limits, for the 

 prevention of errors, and the conservation of things worth while, follows 

 both from her organization and her training. Society to-day is losing 

 the services of a specialist in these matters, one too, not only endowed 

 by nature but strengthened by education. When once this becomes 

 clear, shall we continue to doubt her ability to face the waves of jingo- 

 ism that periodically unsettle our markets and industries, distort the 

 prices of living, and even carry us into trivial yet costly war? 



2 W. K. Brooks, "Woman from the Standpoint of a Naturalist," The 

 Forum, Vol. 22. 



