Every good young man considers it disgraceful not to help an old man,
a child, or a woman; he thinks, in a general way, that it is a shame
to subject the life or health of another person to danger, or to shun
it himself. Every one considers that shameful and brutal which
Schuyler relates of the Kirghiz in times of tempest,--to send out the
women and the aged females to hold fast the corners of the kibitka
[tent] during the storm, while they themselves continue to sit within
the tent, over their kumis [fermented mare's-milk]. Every one thinks
it shameful to make a week man work for one; that it is still more
disgraceful in time of danger--on a burning ship, for example,--being
strong, to be the first to seat one's self in the lifeboat,--to
thrust aside the weak and leave them in danger, and so on.

All men regard this as disgraceful, and would not do it upon any
account, in certain exceptional circumstances; but in every-day life,
the very same actions, and others still worse, are concealed from
them by delusions, and they perpetrate them incessantly. The
establishment of this new view of life is the business of public
opinion. Public opinion, supporting such a view, will speedily be
formed.

Women form public opinion, and women are especially powerful in our
day.



TO WOMEN.