primitive conditions in the forest, it
became a habit to do new things in new ways. Woman's work and judgment
were indispensable; and these picked women showed themselves capable in
every direction. They did every kind of work; and when it came to
enduring privation or even to starving, they set an example for men.

But while every new movement in ideas always carries with it other
radical ideas, the practical difficulties of mental, social and legal
adjustment always prevent the full and harmonious development of all
that is involved in any new point of view. In the American colonies the
need for new adjustments in religion, government and practical living
made it inevitable that any very important change in woman's position
should linger. In fact, the student of colonial records finds many
traces of ultra conservatism in the treatment of women, though the
forces had been liberated which must inevitably open the way for her
through the New World of America into a new world of the spirit.

And before the quickening influence of the new life had time to become
commonplace, the struggle with England began. The Revolutionary period
was a time of intense political education for every one. War and
sacrifice glorified the new ideas; and even the children and women could
not escape their influence. Why then did not the American Revolution
pass on to full freedom and opportunity for women? For the same reason
that it did not forever abolish slavery in America. The vested interests
involved were so many, and the changes so momentous and difficult, that
only the most imperative needs could receive attention.

But this does not mean that the interest in a larger life for women was
not active or that women were making no advance in self-direction. There
is evidence that women like Abigail Adams realized the abstract
injustice of their position, and the fact that as early as 1794, Mary
Wollstonecraft's "Vindication of the Rights of Woman" was republished in
Philadelphia shows that her ideas must have had some currency in
America.

After the Revolution, the intimate, stimulating influence of Europe,
which the earlier colonists had enjoyed, was for a time almost entirely
lost. The new States became extremely provincial; and minds untouched by
the larger world always tend to conservatism. Noah Webster, in "A
Letter to Young Ladies," published in Boston, in 1790, declared that
they "must be content to be women; to be mild, social and