456 HISTORY OF THE GRANGE MOVEMENT; OR, 



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know the difference between it and one continuously 

 darkened with silence, wrangling, or brutal violence, it 

 may be. What tends more to enlighten the mind and 

 fill it with principles that will shed their lustre down 

 through the whole course of life than a family gathered 

 after the work of the day is completed, engaged in 

 healthy, mind-invigorating, social intercourse? Any 

 one who has paid any attention to the positions of 

 families reared in these different ways cannot fail to bid 

 God-speed to one institution that will improve the 

 social condition of the farmer. 



" Some who are inclined to see a humbug in every 

 new move assert that this is a ' woman's rights ' move- 

 ment ; others that it is a cover for political intrigues. 

 Nothing could be further from the truth. The fact 

 that women are admitted to full membership in the 

 Order I regard as one of its most worthy features. I 

 do not believe in woman suffrage, nor never can. I do 

 not believe in making a plow-point of a gold watch ; 

 but the condition of a people, its customs, its manners, 

 its morals, its social standing, its educational status, 

 depend more upon its women than upon man. Is there 

 not as wide a field for improvement in woman's sphere 

 as in man's? Besides, when men are assembled for 

 mental culture or social chat, what more stimulates 

 them to high-minded action than the presence of 

 woman? But there is no need of my dilating upon 

 this important theme. The solution of a mathematical 

 problem decides the matter. If great good comes from 

 a meeting of only two provided that both sexes are 

 represented how much advantage will result from a 

 gathering of a hundred ? " 



It may be a slight thing to the ordinary reader of a 



