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- 
