behind us, we demand entrance into the new.

We make this demand, not for our own sakes alone, but for the succour of
the race.

A horseman, riding along on a dark night in an unknown land, may chance to
feel his horse start beneath him; rearing, it may almost hurl him to the
earth: in the darkness he may curse his beast, and believe its aim is
simply to cast him off, and free itself for ever of its burden. But when
the morning dawns and lights the hills and valleys he has travelled,
looking backward, he may perceive that the spot where his beast reared,
planting its feet into the earth, and where it refused to move farther on
the old road, was indeed the edge of a mighty precipice, down which one
step more would have precipitated both horse and rider. And he may then
see that it was an instinct wiser than his own which lead his creature,
though in the dark, to leap backward, seeking a new path along which both
might travel. (Is it not recorded that even Balaam's ass on which he rode
saw the angel with flaming sword, but Balaam saw it not?)

In the confusion and darkness of the present, it may well seem to some,
that woman, in her desire to seek for new paths of labour and employment,
is guided only by an irresponsible impulse; or that she seeks selfishly
only her own good, at the cost of that of the race, which she has so long
and faithfully borne onward. But, when a clearer future shall have arisen
and the obscuring mists of the present have been dissipated, may it not
then be clearly manifest that not for herself alone, but for her entire
race, has woman sought her new paths?

For let it be noted exactly what our position is, who today, as women, are
demanding new fields of labour and a reconstruction of our relationship