THE MISSION OF EDUCATED WOMEN. 607 



It is now a fair give and take, and it is no longer required of us 

 that we niake up for the light weight of our intellects by throw- 

 ing in a double measure of sentiment. Neither is it any longer 

 necessary that we marry for the sake of a somewhat uncertain 

 support. We are able to take care of ourselves, and we find 

 nothing uncongenial or unsexing in our success. 



" Furthermore, and above all, we see that, while the processes 

 of evolution have pushed us so far forward that there is no 

 longer, in our dealings with men, any serious question as to infe- 

 rior or superior abilities, there still remains between our moral 

 standards and theirs the same gap that has existed ever since the 

 purity of woman has been tacitly recognized as essential to civi- 

 lization. 



" The moral sense is, in us, more highly developed than in the 

 men who are otherwise our peers ; and now that this is no longer 

 deflected in its action by the pressure of unfair conditions, it is 

 equivalent to a new factor in the relation of the sexes. It is evi- 

 dent, however, that this factor can not have full play except as 

 the individual is independent ; and it is to the single, self-support- 

 ing woman only that this independence is possible. Women who 

 are dependent, in any direction, upon men, must, almost of neces- 

 sity, condone their vices, and as a result gradually approximate 

 to their standards, which is a consummation most devoutly not to 

 be desired. We believe that there is no personal conceit in claim- 

 ing that we are morally upon a higher level than men, this being 

 a recognized fact in modern sociology; but it is a fact which 

 repels us from the close relations of marriage, in which we now 

 believe that we have a right to a return for all that we give. 

 When, therefore, we find that, while we are offered intellectual 

 companionship and provision for our physical needs, the higher 

 demands of our spiritual nature are ignored or set aside, we natu- 

 rally hesitate, and hesitating are, from Mr. Allen's point of view, 

 lost. He looks at our problem from without, we from within. 

 We realize, often in bitterness of heart, that our moral life, the 

 life of our aspirations, is upon a plane which, as yet, the average 

 man has not reached. We can never go back to him, but we stand 

 ready to welcome him whenever he can bridge the chasm and 

 make our standard his. 



" This is our position as individuals ; as a class we see no evi- 

 dence that we are ' accidents/ still less that we are to be deplored. 

 We believe indeed that, so far from this being true, we in reality 

 represent an important phase in human development, that we are 

 a distinct product of evolutionary forces, and that in the future it 

 is not impossible that the ' balance of power ' may be found to lie 

 in our hands." 



The value of this statement is in the fact that it comes not 



