Social Science and Woman Suffrage. 89 



innovator in common law, Lord Mansfield or Byron Paine, 

 never dreamed of revolutionizing the wliole legal fabric wlien 

 it was necessary to reverse a former decision or lay down a new 

 principle. He pruned simply what was effete. He intro- 

 duced just what was required for the case in hand. He did 

 not try to make his reform so broad as to cover all possible con- 

 tingencies of the need of reform. 



The evil of this suffrage movement for woman is that it asks 

 for more than is needed. In the attempt to relieve certain 

 evils it brings greater calamities than it cures. It prays for 

 the deluge, to carry on irrigation. The question of woman's 

 wrongs needs to be divided and considered item by item. 

 Ee medics can then be devised that will meet intelligently the 

 case in hand. If it seem best, we can advance so far as to 

 make woman eligible to all office. We can do this without 

 compelling the whole class to take up suffrage. If a woman 

 wants to enter political life let it be a matter of option with 

 herself without compelling all womanhood to drag through 

 the drudgery of politics for her sake. 



While society exists in anything like its present conditions, 

 suffrage ought not to be imposed upon woman. The only re- 

 sult will be to add to an already oppressed class the heavy 

 burdens of our political system. 



