482 FAEMERS' INSTITUTES. 



that "woman enter every field for which she proves herself fitted, saying that 

 there is no reason why women should not become drivers and conductors of 

 tram-ways — citing Chili in the late Peruvian war as being compelled to call 

 women to such work, as the men were all engaged in military service — add- 

 ing that "such satisfaction was given that owners of lines kept them on the 

 cars, where they may be seen to-day in Santiago and the other towns, clad in 

 a tasteful uniform, and doing their work without the aid of men." He fur- 

 ther asks, " why in the name of justice is it any more unwomanly to be a 

 female car-driver and thereby keep body and soul together, than it is to drive 

 a fancy vehicle through crowded streets and parks, with only a tiny page at 

 the back to represent the man?" Whatever ground is taken between these 

 two extremes, we must admit that though the sacred relation of mother was 

 fore-ordained for woman a large number of women must fail of their ordina- 

 tion. 



There is a large class who, having a high ideal of manhood and marriage, 

 prefer a "single life" to the desecration of that ideal by accepting in a hus- 

 band a standard of purity and morality inferior to their own. The broader 

 a woman's culture and the higher her theory of marriage, the more is it her 

 conviction that she has no moral right to become the mother of children in 

 whom may be perpetuated, through that terrible law of heredity, the vices of 

 a dissolute father. This growing tendency is only to be obviated by a higher 

 type of manhood, and this can only come of a complete revolution in public 

 sentiment through that beneficent home training where father and mother by 

 noble example and precept, shall instill into the mind of son as well as 

 daughter, the emancipating gospel of the White Cross. Then, and not till 

 then, will this revolution be accomplished, and the sanctities of fatherhood 

 be seen to exceed all others to which a manly spirit can attain in this state of 

 existence; and the malarious dreams of wicked self-indulgence shall slowly 

 but surely give place to the sacred self-restraint which waits to crown with 

 all good fairies' gifts the little life which noble love alone may dare invoke. 



Miss Frances Willard, that noble and brilliant adherent to this lofty ideal, 



gives us a happy prophecy. She says: "Enough specimens have strayed 



into this century to show his outline and make us sure that the 'coming man' 



is not far off. Womanhood in the new age will rejoice in his companionship, 



and thousands now bravely living their true and individual life alone, shall 



find him in the world unseen, and like Endymion to Diana ia Longfellow's 



sweet words : 



'Shall whisper in their song, 

 Whei'e hast thou staid so long.' " 



There is another obvious reason why marriage is not possible for all. Plainly 

 stated it is this. There are not men enough to go round. 



There is not a nation in Europe to-day where women are not in the ma- 

 jority. The same is true, on a smaller scale, in our own country. In Massa- 

 chusetts women outnumber men by seventy thousand, and all this in face of 

 statistics which show that there are more boys than girls born into the world. 



We may wonder at this seeming paradox, but the wars innumerable which 

 deface the pages of all history have told the story for the past, and still to- 

 day war kills its thousands, but licentiousness and strong drink kill tens of 

 thousands; these latter causing, in our own America alone, the death of from 

 60,000 to 100,000, chiefly young men, each year. 



Now, in addition to this feminine majority, who, if unarmed for self-sup- 



