THE ASPASIAS OF MODERN TIMES.
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light shine down upon our pathway we shall get hopelessly lost. For—
New men, new lights; and the fathers' code the sons may never brook.
It is not enough to win rights from a king and write them down in a book:
What is liberty now were license then; their freedom our yoke would be;
And each new decade must have new men to determine its liberty.
THE ASPASIAS OF MODERN TIMES.
MARY MILLER, Classical Department, LAWRENCE, KANSAS.
N all time woman has been denied the use of that supreme factor of her nature, the divine right to stand side by side with man in social, intellectual and religious life, in politics, letters, and trade. Everywhere she has been a cringing, abject slave; in a large measure destitute of intellect and that force of character necessary to elevate her to a place of equality with man. Until recently, it has been thought that woman's brain was an inferior one, lacking in weight, elasticity, vigor; incapable of producing great thoughts, of enduring prolonged exercise in the higher and broader realms of education, and too weak to grapple the complex and multiform questions of human life. But within the past two decades great changes have taken place. Colleges and universities have opened wide their doors, and out of weakness has come a strength of mind and character, that fits woman to rival man in the highest and most difficult fields of original investigation. In the "whole realm of thought and action" she has become a leader. The press, the bar, the professor's chair, the pulpit, the counting-room, wherever mind comes in contact with mind, this new, living, acting, thinking power, this combination of beauty, grace, and intellect is to be found, and the whole world is forced to exclaim with Victor Hugo—"This nineteenth century belongs to woman."
Hitherto the world's progress has been only half what it ought to have been, simply because one-half of its population was practically a dead weight. Woman, disenthralled, under the new regime, brings her wealth of brains to the front, assumes her new responsibilities, freedom, and independence, asks for unrestricted education,
demands the right to choose the field of labor in which she may work, and demonstrates beyond a doubt her ability to hew a pathway through life as successfully as man.
Intelligence and morality are the two great factors in the world's welfare, and if it be true, as is often affirmed, that woman's influence sways the entire race of man, how great then is the necessity that she should present a perfect ideal of womanhood. The more intelligent and moral she is, the better for the home and for society. This question is entitled to still closer consideration, because it affects not only the present but the future. He is certainly ignorant and fails to discern the signs of the times, who does not see that an element hitherto unknown, a new reserve force, is stepping to the front in the grand march of time and to the music of the spheres.
Having successfully attacked and entered those old relics of the feudal ages, the universities, woman has turned her attention to a question of vital importance—the ballot box. It hardly seems just that onehalf the people of our fair land should have no voice or representation in the government. The old, self-evident truth that "governments derive their power from the consent of the governed," probably was for the benefit of the man alone. Are not women governed, and is their consent asked as to whether they shall be ruled in this way or that? Again, it has been said that "all political power is inherent in the people." Do not women constitute a portion of the people? It is sometimes said that she does not have the power of choosing rationally, is too hasty, jumps at conclusions, lacks judgment, and depends upon