course of such agitation, many good and true things have been thought
out and made available to the bettering of her condition, besides many
foolish and impracticable, arising from a too grasping desire for a
wider and more exciting sphere of effort, as well as from a palpable
misapprehension of their own nature and their legitimate sphere, which
prevails quite extensively among women. The pioneers of the rights of
woman have done a good work, however, and may well be pardoned wherein
they have gone beyond what might be fairly and profitably demanded for
our sex. They have called the public attention to the subject, and have
enlisted the thoughts and the services of many earnest men as well as
women in their cause; thus provoking that inquiry which will eventually
lead to the finding of the whole truth concerning woman, her rights,
privileges, duties. And for this, in common with the pioneers in every
cause that has for its object the amelioration and advantage of any
class of human beings, they deserve the thanks of all. That there should
be some ultraists, who would not know where to stop in the extravagant
and unsuitable claims they urge, was to be expected. This should not
blind our eyes to the lawful claims of woman upon society, nor is it
sufficient to throw ridicule upon a movement which has, in this day,
indeed, borne its full share of obloquy from the careless, the
thoughtless, the too conservative, all of whom are alike clogs upon the
wheel of human progress.

This is not the age nor ours the people to shun the fair discussion of
any question, much less one which commends itself as of practical
importance. This American people has proved, by the calm and patient
consideration it has accorded to the advocates of woman's rights, that
it has reached that lofty point in the progress of society at which
woman is regarded as a positive quantity in the problem which society is
working out, and it marks an era in the history of the sex, prophetic of
the full enjoyment of _all_ the rights which are hers by nature, or may
be hers by favor. I think that in this country, at least, woman has been
put upon a very clear and unobstructed path, with many encouragements to
go on in the highest course of improvement of which she is capable.
There seems to be a general disposition to investigate, and to allow her
the rights she claims--rights of education, of labor, of property, of a
fair competition in any suitable field of enter