6oz THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ence, as well as the future to which they point, offer a unique 

 temptation to the theorist. The appearance of the article already- 

 alluded to gave me a long-desired opportunity, and I at once laid 

 it before my friends, asking for it their serious consideration. 

 Nowhere in America, I am sure, could the opportunity be more 

 complete, or the response more telling ; and I trust that what these 

 women have to say for themselves will not be without interest, to 

 those at least who have read Mr. Allen's frank and, on the whole, 

 liberal article. 



In a charming cottage, occupied by two of this misguided sis- 

 terhood, to whose menage the most critical eye could find nothing 

 lacking, there was gathered, a week or two since, an unmistaka- 

 bly striking assemblage of single women, well looking, well 

 dressed, ranging from twenty to fifty years of age, every one of 

 whom could have, in the past, married, or could still marry, were 

 it her desire to do so. 



There was not a fanatic among them ; they were sensible, ear- 

 nest, in some cases brilliant women, who had, with more or less 

 intention, turned their backs upon marriage, and chosen instead 

 lives of self-supporting indejDendence. Why have they done this ? 

 Undoubtedly it is to more than one cause that we must look for 

 this result ; but, at the outset of the discussion, it was universally 

 admitted that Mr. Allen is right in considering the " higher edu- 

 cation," to which he objects, to be the most potent factor in the 

 situation. Furthermore, the knowledge of life in all its phases, 

 which these women have gained, both from their intellectual train- 

 ing and their practical experience as bread-winners for them- 

 selves and others, makes them ready to accept most of his other 

 premises. 



They admit, that is, the physical necessity for maternity, and 

 no man can appreciate its sacredness as they do. 



They admit, again, the necessity for that tremendous over- 

 loading of the sexual instinct, whose meaning Emerson interprets 

 when he says : " The lover seeks in marriage his private felicita- 

 tion and perfection, with no prospective end ; and Nature hides in 

 his happiness her own end, namely, progeny, or the perpetuity of 

 the race." 



They admit, too, the value of the institution of marriage, and, 

 as in the case of the ideal motherhood, put its beauty and its 

 possibilities of happiness far beyond the usual masculine concep- 

 tion. 



As to the continuance of the race, they are far too keen to 

 blink any facts, even when they count against themselves. The 

 race, at all costs, must go on, and women must be wives and 

 mothers, or, to keep exactly to the lines laid down by Mr. Allen, 

 must at least be mothers, to the end of time. And, following 



