THE MISSION OF EDUCATED WOMEN. 605 



own showing, these women should remain unmarried, and, if this 

 involves a sacrifice on their part, it is left for him to show us that 

 such sacrifice is ignoble, or in any sense threatening to the public 

 welfare." 



A response to this comes from the women physicians, who, in 

 their work for their own sex and for children, feel, in all humility, 

 that they are doing more for humanity than if they limited them- 

 selves to the reproduction of their kind. Granting that each of 

 these women might leave behind her the ideal four successors, 

 what is this in comparison with the many women whom she may 

 have saved from disease and death ; the households to which she 

 has taught better ways ; the new standards of purity and self- 

 restraint for which she has bravely fought ? 



In such a discussion it is difficult not to individualize ; but, 

 well as I know these women, I am surprised at the breadth of 

 their views, their candor, and their humility in regard to their 

 own achievements. But it is a humility which permits no abate- 

 ment of their just claims. They no longer admit any question as 

 to their intellectual capacity. With the simplicity of conscious 

 strength they take their place beside the men who challenge them, 

 and are not at all afraid to face the result of their own actions. 

 It is also plain that they are, on the whole, contented with the lot 

 which they have chosen. The sacrifice, if it be such, has been 

 made with open eyes and of free will, and there is no sighing after 

 the possibilities which they have rejected. 



" But," I ask, " do you never feel, especially as you grow older, 

 the lack of some young strength upon which to lean, some fresh 

 energy to which to bequeath your own experience ? " 



As might be expected, the answer to this is varied. In some 

 instances the strength of the maternal instinct has led to the 

 adoption of children ; in others, to some special work which keeps 

 up the connection with childhood ; while again there are women, 

 as there are men, in whom the instinct is lacking, and who find 

 other interests sufficient to fill the gap. 



Mr. Allen's suggestion as to the possible readjustment of the 

 marriage relation, and his pledge that men will meet women half- 

 way in any such attempt, is received without special enthusiasm. 

 That is, the general feeling is, that it is not in the marriage rela- 

 tion, either in its legal or social aspect, that the root of the diffi- 

 culty is to be found. Rather, they consider, it must be looked for 

 in the standards with which men and women enter into that rela- 

 tion. It is constantly proved, by the evidence of happy marriages, 

 that the contract easily adjusts itself where the parties to it com- 

 prehend and accept its terms. Not that there is not room for 

 improvement in minor particulars, especially in the direction of 

 certain legislative changes ; but that, fundamentally, the monoga- 



