ruth enunciated
by Ibsen, that it is to the woman that we must look for the solution of
the deepest moral problems of humanity, and that the key of those
problems lies in the hands of the mothers of our race. They, and they
alone, can unlock the door to a purer and a stronger life. This, in
Ibsen's words, "is the mission that lies before them." And it is this
strong conviction which makes me feel that, even with broken powers and
shattered health, I cannot rest from my labors without, at any cost to
myself, placing the knowledge and experience gained in those years of
toil and sorrow at the disposal of the educated women of the
English-speaking world who, either as mothers or in other capacities,
have the care and training of the young.

No one recognizes more thankfully than I do the progress that the
woman's movement has made during what have been to me years of inaction
and suffering. The ever-increasing activity in all agencies for the
elevation of women; the multiplication of preventive institutions and
rescue societies; above all, that new sense of a common womanhood, that
_esprit de corps_ in which hitherto we have been so grievously lacking,
and which is now beginning to bind all our efforts together into one
great whole--these I thankfully recognize. We no longer each of us set
up in separate and somewhat antagonistic individuality our own little
private burrow of good works, with one way in and one way out, and
nothing else needed for the wants of the universe. We realize now that
no one agency can even partially cover the ground, and conferences are
now held of all who are working for the good of women and children, to
enable the separate agencies to work more effectually into one another's
hands and unite more fervently in heart and soul in a common cause.
Beneath all this, apart from any external organization whatever, there
is a silent work going on in the hearts of thoughtful and educated
mothers, which never comes before the public at all, but is silently
spreading and deepening under the surface of our life.

But when all this is thankfully recognized and acknowledged, I still
cannot help questioning whether the mass of educated women have at all
grasped the depth and complexity of the problem with which we have to
grapple if we are to fufil our trust as the guardians of the home and
family, and those hidden wells of the national life from which spring up
all that is best and highest in the national ch