mention of foremost leaders of thought.

Of the American woman proper, the author follows the steps from
settlement days when the principles were to be tested which moved the
Pilgrims to self-exile. Her influence and her initiative, illustrated by
characteristic story and narrative of environment, are presented with
precision and clearness so that the reader can grasp the subtle power
exercised by woman during the formative period. Similarly are the women
of the great colony to the South considered, and the points of
divergence and their causes and results noted as compared with the
northern colony.

The typical American woman is remarkable among women not merely as a
type, but also because she is the evolution of only a few generations.
She is without a traditional culture, but, as the author asserts, she
inherited the cultures of all the nations. Beginning with the basic
culture of the mother country she has grafted thereon the native
branches which have sprung from her environment and has absorbed such
mental and temperamental characteristics of introduced nationalities as
have best suited her conditions, and from all together she has created
the American type of womanhood, whose particular characteristic is to
_do_.

In the women of these two mother settlements are found the "foundations
and matrices of American femininity." So the causes and growth of the
American type of womanhood are shown in its evolutionary processes
therein along lines mainly parallel until the need of resistance to the
mother country brings about a near approach to a national type. The
spread of woman's influence to the constantly extending frontier and the
new settlements is broadly but clearly sketched and the potency of the
foreign settlers considered.

A very interesting part of the volume traces the development of society
at the capital, the growth of an aristocracy, the unification of type
that followed the establishment of the republic and marked the early
growth of the nation. Still more interesting is the history of the
dissolution of the courtly influence at Washington when the great strife
reft the national womanhood and twin hatred ruled where unity was so
lately waxing in strength. The author's presentation of this period is
lucid and convincing, while fearlessly just to the woman of both
sections. His emphasis of the causal misunderstanding as regards the
women cannot fail to be appreciated, though it places upon our womanho