244 The Ideal State 



arising out of social conditions which require remedy, 

 and which the franchise could not alter. Our creed 

 ought therefore to remain unchangeable. 1 



This controversy alone proves the necessity of a 

 ministry of medicine in the Government to instruct and 

 guide the nation in matters such as these, for which 

 special study and training is required in order to be 

 capable of sound judgment and necessary courage to 

 resist the cry of the hysteric and the psychopath. The 

 prime fact remains that the women of the nation do 

 not want the vote. The scolding of the morbid, discon- 

 tented, vain woman has attracted too much attention. 

 All the more reason why it must be resisted if the 

 process of social amelioration is not to be interrupted 

 and the spiritual evolution of humanity delayed. 



There is a deep-seated reason for the change in public 

 opinion, which at first seemed to be carried away by 

 the false arguments and system of terrorism which the 

 more violent advocates of this revolutionary move- 

 ment adopted. But just in as far as these methods 

 departed from the " sweet reasonableness," which we 

 supposed characterised the actions of all good women, 

 they were doomed to failure — they violated the most 

 sacred obligations of womanhood — and not only that, 

 they were in direct antagonism to the altruism of our 

 religion, which has always appealed to woman through 

 the innate self-sacrifice of her maternity. For women 

 to violate in this manner the code of Christian ethics 

 was a proof of the morbid psychology of the whole 

 agitation. It was not long before it was hoist with its 



1 " Man for the field and woman for the hearth ; 

 Man for the sword and for the needle she : 

 Man with the head and woman with the heart ; 

 Man to command and woman to obey : 

 All else confusion. . . . 

 The bearing and the training of a child 

 Is woman's wisdom." Tennyson's " Princess." 



