no difficulty in understanding the politics of the village.

She who holds over hearts a sway that shakes thrones and rolls crowns down and raises them up — in the words of that great commander, "She who rocks the cradle with her right hand shakes the earth with her left" — is it beyond her power to carry a slip of paper to the ballot box and lift up her voice?

If the basis of the right to vote is learning and understanding, then woman has a better claim to it than most men, for most women have received an ample portion of culture and hold high diplomas. How, then, are the doors of the ballot bolted against them while they stand open to hundreds of men into whose homes and whose minds learning has never entered? And what use is there in debating whether man or woman is the more knowing and the more worthy to vote, when the voting itself proceeds upon a rule that knowledge condemns and that learning and liberty alike refuse? How often does the will of some party chief drive men like herds to the ballot boxes without their having any knowledge of the color, the kind, or the fitness of those they elect — and the balloting may even yield persons other than those they voted for! An election of this character and this destiny — it is woman's good fortune not to take part in it, lest her opinion be buried and her voice be strangled.

Election means the consultation of the nation in an atmosphere pervaded by independence and liberty, and deputyship means the representation of the nation. And what is the meaning of this representation if the deputy is the offspring of an individual will and does not spring from the will of the people?

The people must impose its will upon persons, and it must be condemned that persons should impose their wills upon the people. The deputy must carry up to the parliamentary assembly the free will of the people, that he may be free in his parliament; for the will of the nation is the

inexhaustible wellspring of will and the source of a liberty that knows no servitude.

It is shameful that we should live in a country in whose every corner purity encamps, and under a sky that rains down showers of liberty, and yet possess of liberty not even the freedom to think of it. It is a calamity that our tongues should cry out in the name of liberty while we build nests for servitude in our souls.

Into this broad field of true liberty in elections I call woman to descend, for she is equal to it. If man is stronger than she in some kinds of work, she is stronger than he in other kinds — finer, more sensitive, and more important. And upon my life, life is not mea-sured by material strength but by spiritual and intellectual strength. Nor is there any fear that woman, if she takes part in elections, will turn to politics away from what matters more, such as managing the home and rearing children: for behold, the involvement of most men in politics stops at the limit

of voting alone — the peasant returns to his field, the merchant to his trade, the lawyer to his practice, and the physician to his medicine, and woman will return to her home. Few are those whom politics so captivates that they give themselves over to it entirely, and no rule is drawn from the few. The woman who can found economic, learned, and charitable associations and run them in the best of fashions can enter the battleground of life without any dust clinging to her — above all if she takes learning for her shield and morals for her fortress.

The loftiness of woman's station in a nation is proof of the loftiness of morals, progress, and national consciousness in that nation; and the lowness of her station is proof of the lowness of the station of learning and morals in it. Hence we see that the peoples who have tasted the flavor of civilization establish equality between man and woman, so that she both votes and is voted for — America, England, and France, for example