Page:Co-operative housekeeping.djvu/107

94 of advice and criticism,—two things that men hate so mortally from women, that, unless the advice be wise, and the criticism temperate, we may be sure that they will not listen to us; or if, heeding us, and we persuade them into a mistake, their contempt will be something terrific. Before committing themselves, therefore, our legislatures will need on many topics all the enlightenment they can gain. Wisdom does not come by instinct to women any more than to men. It grows by knowledge and experience, and in order that the sex may possess it, may understand what it is about when it attempts to influence the law-making power, the co-operative housekeepers would do well to encourage the few among them who are fitted for such pursuits to devote their attention to the principles and problems of jurisprudence, and of the other studies whose objects are the regulation and happiness of humanity.—The Council-Hall should be the centre of our palace, but communicating with it must be the Courts of Law and the Bureaus of Charity, of Medicine, and of Education.

It may seem the last outrage of strong-minded-femaleism to suggest that women should study and practise law; since, though there have been stray members of the sex in almost every other masculine profession, no one of them has yet invaded, or asked to invade, this. But, to say nothing of the daughter of the Italian professor who was