1900.] ESSAYS. 101 



she traveled from one end of the country to the other, begging 

 for an opportunity to make the necessary study of anatomy. 

 When Elizabeth Blackwell determined to consecrate her life to 

 medicine, not one of the standard medical colleges would admit 

 her as a student, and society ostracized her. 



The close of the 19th century finds every trade, vocation and 

 profession open to women, and every opportunity at their com- 

 mand for preparing themselves to follow these occupations. 



A vast amount of the household drudgery that once monopo- 

 lized the whole time and strength of the mothers and daughters 

 has been turned over to machinery ; a money value is placed 

 upon the labor of women. Woman is no longer compelled to 

 marry for support. In the world of literature and art women 

 divide honors with men, and the civil service rules have secured 

 for them thousands of remunerative positions under the Govern- 

 ment. What the woman of the 20th century will be, I cannot 

 say ; one hundred years with the greater equality, the richer 

 opportunities, certain to come, will make her a being as much 

 nobler, higher, and more gifted with every power for good, as 

 the woman of today is superior in these qualities to her sister 

 of a century ago. 



Perhaps no department is better suited to woman's work 

 than is that commonly known as glass farming, which is 

 especially adapted to women, for several reasons. First, it 

 necessitates careful advance calculation, a matter in which 

 women excel. Again, the physical labor involved is compara- 

 tively light, and so fitted to one whose strength is not robust. 

 Thirdly, in it there is room for much artistic taste and discrimi- 

 nation, certainly women's specialties. Glass farming, that is 

 the use of plant houses, greenhouses, pits, frames, etc., is an 

 ancient idea ; we find mention of it in the Latin writers of the 

 first century, Martial, Columella and Pliny, and we have no 

 reason to think that this was the beginning. But until recent 

 years, glass farming has been regarded as a mere luxury, a 

 pastime for the wealthy, rather than a practical method of sup- 

 plying the world with necessaries. 



During the very years, however, in which women were enter- 

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