fe is the fullest in its opportunity, all
things considered, that any human beings harnessed into a complicated
society have ever enjoyed. To keep up the fight against man as the
chief hindrance to the realization of her aspiration is merely to
perpetuate in the intellectual world that instinct of the female
animal to be ever on guard against the male, save in those periods
when she is in pursuit of him!

But complicating her problem is not the only injury she does her cause
by this ignoring or belittling of woman's part in civilization. She
strips herself of suggestion and inspiration--a loss that cannot be
reckoned. The past is a wise teacher. There is none that can stir the
heart more deeply or give to human affairs such dignity and
significance. The meaning of woman's natural business in the
world--the part it has played in civilizing humanity--in forcing good
morals and good manners, in giving a reason and so a desire for
peaceful arts and industries, the place it has had in persuading men
and women that only self-restraint, courage, good cheer, and reverence
produce the highest types of manhood and womanhood,--this is written
on every page of history.

Women need the ennobling influence of the past. They need to
understand their integral part in human progress. To slur this over,
ignore, or deny it, cripples their powers. It sets them at the foolish
effort of enlarging their lives by doing the things man does--not
because they are certain that as human beings with a definite task
they need--or society needs--these particular services or operations
from them, but because they conceive that this alone will prove them
equal. The efforts of woman to prove herself equal to man is a work of
supererogation. There is nothing he has ever done that she has not
proved herself able to do equally well. But rarely is society well
served by her undertaking his activities. Moreover, if man is to
remain a civilized being, he must be held to his business of producer
and protector. She cannot overlook her obligation to keep him up to
his part in the partnership, and she cannot wisely interfere too much
with that part. The fate of the meddler is common knowledge!

A few women in every country have always and probably always will find
work and usefulness and happiness in exceptional tasks. They are
sometimes women who are born with what we call "bachelor's souls"--an
interesting and sometimes even charming, though always an incompl