WOMAN AND FREEDOM IN WHITMAN 385 



gress indispensably needed to prepare the very results" he 

 demands. 



Whitman's idea is one of endless material and spiritual 

 progress. We are constantly being told by students of social 

 matters that we are developing, and slowly approaching a 

 better state of human affairs. In a few of our States some of 

 the inequalities of woman which we have been reciting are 

 met by reform measures. Woman has been granted suffrage 

 in these exceptional States; in one or more States the married 

 woman stands as owner of herself. Acceptable as all reforms 

 are, they are not enough singly, or isolated here and there 

 throughout the land. The field of the world at large is too 

 wide to be protected by one piece of reform artillery. And 

 those of us who are happy in living in the more enlightened 

 community of our own ideas, or actually in these exceptional 

 spots on the earth's surface alluded to a few moments ago, 

 must not disregard the fact, in thinking of woman the world 

 over, that to-day she stands far below the knoll where Whit- 

 man would carry her. 



Whitman speaks of this land as "the great women's land, 

 the feminine, the experienced sisters and the inexperienced 

 sisters." He salutes woman and invites her to a place of equal- 

 ity with man, and he bids one and the other to be free. The 

 situation takes on an awe-inspiring aspect as well as a grue- 

 some one when we consider the conventional idols across the 

 pathway which must be cast aside in this search for equality 

 and freedom. 



By some writers it has been stated that from evolution to 

 revolution is only a hurried step in the process of human af- 

 fairs. Indeed, revolution has been named a hurried evolution. 

 In our present consideration, revolution more particularly 

 applies to bringing the woman question to an issue. But 

 woman's deliverance may be more intimately blended with 

 a social reconstructive scheme than has seemed evident to 

 woman's warmest adherents. 



Whether this general revolution is to be accomplished by 

 violent or pacific means, rests upon the vigor of individual con- 

 victions. If either man or woman is convinced that the exist- 



