matter of course that she should study what she chooses, go and come
as she will, support herself unquestioned by trade, profession, or
art, work in public or private, handle her own property, share her
children on equal terms with her husband, receive a respectful
attention on platform or before legislature, live freely in the world,
should think with anything but reverence particularly of the early
disturbers of convention and peace, for they were an essential element
in the achievement.

The great strength of the radical program is now, as it has always
been, the powerful appeal it makes to the serious young woman. Man and
marriage are a trap--that is the essence the young woman draws from
the campaign for woman's rights. All the vague terror which at times
runs through a girl's dream of marriage, the sudden vision of probable
agonies, of possible failure and death, become under the teachings of
the militant woman so many realities. She sees herself a "slave," as
the jargon has it, putting all her eggs into one basket with the
certainty that some, perhaps all, will be broken.

The new gospel offers an escape from all that. She will be a "free"
individual, not one "tied" to a man. The "drudgery" of the household
she will exchange for what she conceives to be the broad and inspiring
work which men are doing. For the narrow life of the family she will
escape to the excitement and triumph of a "career." The Business of
Being a Woman becomes something to be apologized for. All over the
land there are women with children clamoring about them, apologizing
for never having _done_ anything! Women whose days are spent in trade
and professions complacently congratulate themselves that they at
least have _lived_. There were girls in the early days of the
movement, as there no doubt are to-day, who prayed on their knees that