A BOOK FOR

Alice,

FRIEND, HELPER, AND COMRADE.




INTRODUCTION

BY RICHARD T. ELY,

DIRECTOR OF SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS, POLITICAL SCIENCE, AND HISTORY,
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN, MADISON.


The importance of the subject with which the present work deals cannot
well be over-estimated. Our age may properly be called the Era of Woman,
because everything which affects her receives consideration quite
unknown in past centuries. This is well. The motive is twofold: First,
woman is valued as never before; and, second, it is perceived that the
welfare of the other half of the human race depends more largely upon
the position enjoyed by woman than was previously understood.

The earlier agitation for an enlarged sphere and greater rights for
woman was to a considerable extent merely negative. The aim was to
remove barriers and to open the way. It is characteristic of the earlier
days of agitation for the removal of wrongs affecting any class, that
the questions involved appear to be simple, and easily repeated formulas