practical results by educating public sentiment and bringing moral
pressure upon the employing class.

Speaking on this subject, an eminent Swedish writer says: "In the
energetic campaign for the betterment of the condition of women, the
Swedes have taken the first place among European nations. If one seeks
the cause of it, it is found in part in the fact that in Sweden, since
the remotest time, women have enjoyed a respect greater than in most
of the other countries, but without doubt it is also due to the
superiority of the intellect, judgment, and wisdom of Swedish women,
and in later years to the numerical excess of women in our population.
This has made the means of existence to single women a practical
problem. During the present generation a great change has worked
itself out in this sense, that the field of activity for women has
been greatly enlarged. The activity of women, who at other times found
ample domain in the multitude of occupations in the domestic life, has
become less important in that respect and has grown in importance in
the labor and occupations that in other countries are left exclusively
to men."

The advancement of women in Sweden was greatly encouraged and assisted
by the quiet influence of the late Queen Sophia and her sister-in-law,
the late Princess Eugenie, the sister of Oscar II. The queen,
always an intelligent, progressive Christian woman, with a profound
consciousness of the responsibility attached to her official rank
and influence, was a women's woman, and was habitually engaged in
promoting movements for the benefit of her sex, and with due respect
to the proprieties of her position. She never lost an opportunity to
assist and encourage all who were engaged in advancing the physical,
moral, and social well-being of the women of Sweden and Norway.