162 WISCONSIN ACADEMY SCIENCES, AKTS, AND LETTERS. 



as long as it was possible to do so, and that these gains have been 

 so generally in the interest of man, that woman has remained out- 

 side of any considerable advantage. And yet, after all these gener- 

 ations of steady advancement for man, the burden-bearer of the 

 world, how little he is advanced, at the best of his aspirations and 

 means! The marvel that he has not been goaded to a fuller con- 

 quest of all barring the way to his rights of manhood and possible 

 achievement stands face to face with that of woman, now moving 

 in her own interest to the most complete and far-reaching revolu- 

 tion the world has yet seen. 



That man, wnfch his constitutional aggressiveness, his aptness for 

 organization, the clear field with nothing but himself to oppose, 

 should up to this hour have missed so much, is not more surpris- 

 than that woman, unaggressive by nature, unsuited to organization 

 and with universal history, precedent, and prevailing philosophy 

 against her, shoull have undertaken at one move, the sum of all 

 revolutions. And yet there it stands, the most conspicuous fact 

 of the times touching either a moral or a political future for so- 

 ciety. 



A demand for rights of one kind and another — in the home, in 

 the schools, in the occupations and professions, with a more equal 

 control of property, and lastly, use of the ballot, as covering all 

 these — has characterized this movement from the beginning. The 

 wholeness of this demand makes the requisite reconstruction easy. 

 Could anything be more simple? The half of society claiming to 

 speak for the whole population, and hitherto exercising that pre- 

 rogative have but to draw a pen across a few prescribing words in 

 sialute and confetitution, and there is freedom for the whole people 

 to be and do, each according to capacity and power. To the 

 thoughtful and just man, it is strange that in the countries most 

 enlightened, especially in our own the very essence of whose institu- 

 tions is freedom without partiality, this sublimest act of emancipa- 

 tion that history can ever record should be so long delayed. For 

 what can be more profoundly moving to the justice and sympathy 

 of the universal mind than the spectacle of one-half of the great 

 people, through sheer force of muscle and ruder force of brain, 

 withholding from the other its dearly purchased and most sacred 

 immunities? 



All things considered, the success of the movement, at last be- 



