cation in
clerkship, and have most capacity for such employment, I look about for
girls of like mind, and do my best to prepare them for work in offices.
And (here I must become emphatic once more) I am _glad_ to have entered
on this course. I am _glad_ that I can show girls the way to a career
which my opponents call unwomanly.

'Now see why. Womanly and womanish are two very different words; but
the latter, as the world uses it, has become practically synonymous
with the former. A womanly occupation means, practically, an occupation
that a man disdains. And here is the root of the matter. I repeat that
I am not first of all anxious to keep you supplied with daily bread. I
am a troublesome, aggressive, revolutionary person. I want to do away
with that common confusion of the words womanly and womanish, and I see
very clearly that this can only be effected by an armed movement, an
invasion by women of the spheres which men have always forbidden us to
enter. I am strenuously opposed to that view of us set forth in such
charming language by Mr. Ruskin--for it tells on the side of those men
who think and speak of us in a way the reverse of charming. Were we
living in an ideal world, I think women would not go to sit all day in
offices. But the fact is that we live in a world as far from ideal as
can be conceived. We live in a time of warfare, of revolt. If woman is
no longer to be womanish, but a human being of powers and
responsibilities, she must become militant, defiant. She must push her
claims to the extremity.

'An excellent governess, a perfect hospital nurse, do work which is
invaluable; but for our cause of emancipation they are no good--nay,
they are harmful. Men point to them, and say, Imitate these, keep to
your proper world. Our proper world is the world of intelligence, of
honest effort, of moral strength. The old types of womanly perfection
are no longer helpful to us. Like the Church service, which to all but
one person in a thousand has become meaningless gabble by dint of
repetition, these types have lost their effect. They are no longer
educational. We have to ask ourselves, What course of training will
wake women up, make them conscious of their souls, startle them into
healthy activity?

'It must be something new, something free from the reproach of
womanliness. I don't care whether we crowd out the men or not. I don't
care _what_ results, if only women are made strong and self-reliant and
nobly in