In this country and throughout the world women progress toward
the full possession of the ballot, and toward equality with men
in educational facilities.
In one State after another women are beginning to practise law,
they are obtaining new suffrage rights, they flock to newly
opened schools and colleges.
In England and Scotland, but a few years ago, only a few men in
the population were allowed to vote--money was the requisite
quality. To-day, in those countries, women vote at county
elections, and in many cases at municipal elections. In Utah,
Colorado and Idaho women as voters have the same rights as men.
They have certain rights as voters in nine other States. In the
great Commonwealth of New Zealand, so far ahead of all the rest
of the world in humanity and social progress, the wife votes
absolutely as her husband does. ----
The woman who votes becomes an important factor in life, for a
double reason. In the first place, when a woman votes the
candidate must take care that his conduct and record meet with a
good woman's approval, and this makes better men of the
candidates.
In the second place, and far more important, is this reason:
When women shall vote, the political influence of the good men in
the community will be greatly increased. There is no doubt
whatever that women, in their voting, will be influenced by the
men whom they know. But there is also no doubt that they will be
influenced by the GOOD men whom they know.
Men can deceive each other much more easily than they can deceive
women--the latter being providentially provided with the X-ray of
intuitional perception.
The blustering politician, preaching what he does not practise,
may hold forth on the street corner or in a saloon, and influence
the votes of others as worthless as himself. But among women his
home life will more than offset his political influence.
The bad husband may occasionally get the vote of a deluded or
frightened wife, but he will surely lose the votes of the wives
and daughters next door.
Voting by women will improve humanity, because IT WILL COMPEL
MEN TO SEEK AND EARN THE APPROVAL OF WOMEN.
Our social system improves in proportion as the men in it are
influenced by its good women.
As for the education of women, it would seem unnecessary to urge
its value upon even the stupidest of creatures. Yet it is a fact
that the importance of thorough education of girls is still
doubted--usually, of course, by men with deficient education of
their own and an elaborate sense of their own importance and
superiority.
Mary Lyon, whose noble efforts established Mount Holyoke College,
and spread the idea of higher education for women throughout the
world, put the case of women's education in a nutshell. She
said:
"I think it less essential that the farmers and mechanics
should be educated than that their wives, the mothers of their
children, should be."
The education of a girl is important chiefly because it means the
educating of a future mother.
Whose brain but the mother's inspires and directs the son in the
early years, when knowledge is most easily absorbed and
permanently retained?
If you find in history a man whose success is based on
intellectual equipment, you find almost invariably that his
mother was exceptionally fortunate in her opportunities for
education.
Well educated women are essential to humanity. They insure abler
men in the future, and incidentally they make the ignorant man
feel ashamed of himself in the present.