e of women the chief zest of their lives and
their main incentive to effort, that they permit them to work at all
only because it is fully understood that a certain regular requirement
of labor, of a sort adapted to their powers, is well for body and
mind, during the period of maximum physical vigor. We believe that
the magnificent health which distinguishes our women from those of
your day, who seem to have been so generally sickly, is owing largely
to the fact that all alike are furnished with healthful and
inspiriting occupation."

"I understood you," I said, "that the women-workers belong to the army
of industry, but how can they be under the same system of ranking and
discipline with the men, when the conditions of their labor are so
different."

"They are under an entirely different discipline," replied Dr. Leete,
"and constitute rather an allied force than an integral part of the
army of the men. They have a woman general-in-chief and are under
exclusively feminine regime. This general, as also the higher
officers, is chosen by the body of women who have passed the time of
service, in correspondence with the manner in which the chiefs of the
masculine army and the President of the nation are elected. The
general of the women's army sits in the cabinet of the President and
has a veto on measures respecting women's work, pending appeals to
Congress. I should have said, in speaking of the judiciary, that we
have women on the bench, appointed by the general of the women, as
well as men. Causes in which both parties are women are determined by
women judges, and where a man and a woman are parties to a case, a
judge of either sex must consent to the verdict."

"Womanhood seems to be organized as a sort of _imperium in imperio_ in
your system," I said.

"To some extent," Dr. Leete replied; "but the inner _imperium_ is one
from which you will admit there is not likely to be much danger to the
nation. The lack of some such recognition of the distinct
individuality of the sexes was one of the innumerable defects of your
society. The passional attraction between men and women has too often
prevented a perception of the profound differences which make the
members of each sex in many things strange to the other, and capable
of sympathy only with their own. It is in giving full play to the
differences of sex rather than in seeking to obliterate them, as was
apparently the effort of some reformers in your day, that the
en