ales and 1,491,348 females. In the school
statistics we find about the same proportionate number of women and
girls as teachers and scholars in the public schools and in all the
honest walks of life; while men and boys in the criminal ranks are
out of all proportion. For example, in the state-prison at Joliet
there were, in 1873, 1,321 criminals; fifteen only were women. And
yet the more virtuous, educated, self-governed part of the
population, that shared equally the hardships of the early days,
and by industry and self-sacrifice helped to build up that great
State, is still denied the civil and political rights declared by
the constitution to belong to every citizen of the commonwealth.
The trials and triumphs of the women of Illinois are vividly
portrayed in the following records sent us by Elizabeth Boynton
Harbert, Ph. D.:

His biographer asserts that Bernini, the celebrated Florentine
artist, architect, painter and poet, once gave a public opera in
Rome, for which he painted the scenes, composed the music, wrote
the poem, carved the statues, invented the engines, and built the
theater. Because of his versatile talents the man Bernini has
passed into history. Of almost equal versatility were the women
of the equal-rights movement, since in many instances their names
appear and reaeppear in the records we have consulted as authors,
editors, journalists, lecturers, teachers, physicians, lawyers,
ordained ministers and home-makers; and in many localities a
woman, to be eligible for the lyceum, was expected to be
statesmanlike as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, executive as Susan B.
Anthony, spiritual as Lucretia Mott, eloquent as Anna Dickinson,
graceful as Celia Burleigh, fascinating as Paulina Wright Davis;
a social queen, very domestic, a skillful musician, an excellent
cook, very young, and the mother of at least six children; even
then she was not entitled to the rights, privileges and
immunities of an American citizen. So "the divine rights of the
people" became the watchword of thoughtful men and women of the
Prairie State, and at the dawn of the second half of the present
century many caught the echoes of that historic convention at
Seneca Falls and insisted that the fundamental principles of our
government should be applied to all the citizens of the United
States.

In view of the fearless h