486 FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 



is filling the convents of Europe, and the philosophers and philanthropists of 

 the *'old world" are urging that every possible activity be opened to these 

 suffering millions of working women. Do we need stronger argument for 

 wider fields of work? If so, let us look at the successes which have attended 

 the pioneers in ranks which a half century ago were deemed de-womanizing 

 or beyond her capabilities. Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell received the first medi- 

 cal diploma ever granted to a woman in America, and her successful buffet- 

 ings with the seemingly inevitable, opened the way for that small army of 

 medical women who grace the profession to-day undisturbed by the fierce 

 storm of' opposition which assailed their predecessors. Catharine Beecher 

 and Mary Lyon opened the way for women to higher education, each found- 

 ing an institution. Caroline Herschell and Maria Mitchell in the science of 

 astronomy have commanded the deference and admiration of the world. Rosa 

 Bonheur, Harriet Hosmer and Anne Whitney are representatives of a class 

 undreamed of in the time of Michael Angelo, and whom the world of preju- 

 dice was slow to appreciate in their own time. 



Christine Ladd of Johns Hopkins University is one of the ablest writers on 

 mathematics to-day. 



But why lengthen the list which is glorified by such names as Miss Sey- 

 mour, Mrs. Walton, Elizabeth Peabody, Frances E. Willard, Mary A. Liver- 

 more, and a host of others, whose success shows full well that woman is enti- 

 tled to the world by her inheritance, and there are few places where real 

 skill and brain are needed which do not offer opportunity for those who 

 possess them. 



With a broad field open to woman there is but one word which can stand 

 between her and success, and that word which should be emblazoned along 

 highway and by-way, from oceau to ocean, through every walk in life, is 

 ''inefficiency," the bane of our American civilization. 



Then to the query "How far," we would say: Engage in the highest 

 employment of which your nature is capable and die with the consciousness 

 that you have done your best. 



WOMAN'S WORK ON THE FARM, 



BY MES. A. A. FREEMAN. 

 [ Read at the Hanover Institute. ] 



Poets of all ages have sung of the beauty, glory, and independence of the 

 farmer's life, and of the advantages he possesses over the inhabitants of towns 

 and cities in being able to hold communion with nature in all her varying 

 moods. 



But the farmer's wife! Oh, where is she? What poet has ever sung of 

 the freedom, glory, and independence of her life? Let us give a fair and 

 impartial look, and see if we can discover in what it consists. Let us take 

 the girl, from a home perhaps of a farmer, who knows or thinks she knows 

 of what a farmer's life consists! She may acknowledge that mother has had 

 a hard life, but with her it will be different. The young wife in her humble 



