even the report of the
society was read by a man, and every inspiration of the occasion
was filtered through the brain of some man. Among other things, Mr.
Godwin, son-in-law of the poet Bryant, said:

We speak of the higher education of women. Why not also of men?
Because they already have the opportunity for obtaining it. The
idea upon which our government is built is the idea of equal
rights for all; and that means equal opportunities. Every society
needs all the best intellect that it can get. We have many evil
influences acting upon our society here, and we need the
all-controlling influence of woman. We cannot fix a standard for
her. History shows what she has done, in a Vespasia, Vittoria
Colonna, De Stael, Bremer, Evans, Somerville and Maria Mitchell.
She does not go out of her sphere when she is so highly educated.
She can darn her stockings just as well if she does know the word
in half-a-dozen languages. There is no longer novelty in this
movement; it has been tried successfully here and abroad in the
universities, and always with success.

Addresses were also made by Rev. Dr. Stowe, Dr. William Draper,
Joseph Choate, and others eminent in one way or another. The
meeting closed by circulating a petition for presentation to the
trustees of Columbia College, asking that properly qualified women
be admitted to lectures and examinations.

The bill to prohibit disfranchisement on account of sex was again
introduced in the Assembly by Hon. J. Hampden Robb, and referred to
the Committee on Grievances, of which Major James Haggerty was
chairman, who gave to it his hearty approval and granted two
hearings to the officers of the State society, on behalf of the
large number of memorialists who had sent in their petitions from
all parts of the State. The women of Albany were indefatigable in
their personal appeals to the different members of the Assembly,
urging them to vote for the bill, while Major Haggerty was untiring
in his advocacy of the measure. On May 3 there was an animated
discussion:[246] the bill passed to its third reading by an
overwhelming vote, which alarmed the opponents into making a
thorough canvass, that proved to them the necessity of some
decisive action for the defeat of the bill. The Hon. Erastas Brooks
presented a resolution, calling on the attorney-general for his
opinion on the constitutionality of the proposed law, whi