_An original article written for_ THE SCRAP BOOK.
Nothing is more wonderful, in this age of wonders, than the progress of
women in all the civilized countries of the world. Never before were the
doors of opportunity so widely opened; never before were the barriers of
sex so low.
The modern young woman does not face the one choice of her
grandmother--marriage or the fate of the "old maid." Before her so many
paths open that her only trouble is to choose.
Her grandmother's girlhood was spent at home. She was told that "the happy
woman is the woman with no history"; and "a woman's name should be in the
newspapers just three times--when she is born, when she marries, and when
she dies."
This is dead doctrine to the girl who goes whirling across the continent
or around the world, unchaperoned and alone, and returns to meet the
admiration of her friends and the interest of the public.
As she sits on the deck of the incoming steamer, giving opinions on kings
and countries, chatting of the book she is about to write and handing out
her photographs to a group of reporters, she bears slight resemblance to
the fainting Amandas and Clarissas who "raised their weeping eyes to
heaven," or fell swooning every time a mysterious sound was heard or when
even a stray cow crossed their path.