tion of a "manless" Amazon empire is
being preached by some radical women crazed by their mad prejudices.
Womanliness is lost all too often; manly garb imitated, the customs of
male students, which are not always aesthetic, and which are downright
disgusting in woman, are aped. Some women try to force their way by
elbow power, by loud screaming for their alleged rights; some "literary"
women without tact, training, or moderation, create prejudices against
their judicious sisters who try to win their way by the peculiarly
womanly, refined and aesthetic qualities in literature. No wonder that
thousands of the very best women instinctively shrink back from the
movement, and thus withdraw their support from what is legitimate and
needful and desirable to woman.

In similar circles, with equal difficulties and drawbacks, moved the
progress of women in Holland and the Scandinavian countries. Multatuli
(pseudonym for E. Douwes Dekker, 1820-1887), through his genius and
originality, attained in Holland well-nigh the importance of a Goethe
for his nation. He considered the prevailing opinion regarding the
inferiority of woman as the result of her long oppression, and preached
her self-determination to the point of free love. He is the father of
the movement for the liberation of woman in conservative Holland, and
Mina Kruseman and her friend Betsy Perk, the first champions of the
woman's movement, are his direct disciples. Frau Storm van der Chijs
(1814-1895) attempted to introduce educational reforms and higher
scientific culture into Holland. Fraulein W. Drucker sought and obtained
the support of the Dutch women in the agitation against the abuse of
woman, and child labor in the factories, as hod-carriers; for the
protection of illegitimate children, and for a higher training of women
for skilled labor. Frau Klerck, nee Countess Hogendofp, profoundly
touched by the social misery of fallen women, founded with the aid of a
number of noble women, the Woman's League for the Elevation of Morality.
About five hundred societies are scattered through the kingdom and exert
their beneficent influence in all the domains of female activity. The
Netherlandish universities opened their doors wide to female students
after the graduation of the first woman, Alletta Jacobs, as "M. D." in
1879. Many Dutch women are active and successful in arts and letters;
Minka Bosch Reitz is favorably known as a sculptor, Theresa Schwarze as
a painter, Fraul