Page:Allan Octavian Hume, C.B.; Father of the Indian National Congress.djvu/175

 monious co-operation is essential to the best mental work, so in the nation are there two intellects, the male and the/ female, whose equipoised interaction is indispensable to the evolution of a wise national conduct.

The male intellect, however cultivated, still remains imperfect until supplemented by that of the educated woman. Mill's essay on Liberty — his grandest work — owes its perfection, I firmly believe, as asserted by its author, to his long discussions of the subject with a highly educated lady. A nation whose women are uneducated, let its men have all possible culture, still goes into the world's battle with only one arm.

The superiority of Western over Eastern nations (and in many matters this is beyond dispute) is mainly due to the fact that in the former both the female and the male mind are brought to bear upon all great pubhc questions. Ladies, it is true, do not as yet sit in the House of Commons, but there is not a vote taken in that House on any important national question which has not been fully as much influenced by the female as by the male minds of the educated classes.

In a despotically governed country where the Sovereign associates with himself one or more highly intellectual, if perhaps only self-educated women, the evil of the general mental degradation of the females of the country may not so distinctly and directly react on the public policy ; but where Iby the spread of liberal institutions the popular voice •becomes, as it is even here becoming day by day, a more Lnd more powerful factor in the direction of public affairs the community which retains its women uneducated and deliberately deprives itself of their intellectual co-operation, can never hope to compete successfully with others in which public policy is the joint product of the cultivated male and female mind.

Political reformers of all shades of opinion should never forget that unless the elevation of the female element in the nation proceeds pari passu with their work, all their labour for the political enfranchisement of the country will prove