Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/340

304 Really, the sex seems to have taken possession of what Carlyle called the "fourth estate"—the literary profession, and they journey into unexplored regions of thought to give the omniverous modern reader something new to feed upon. The census of 1880 reports 445 women as authors and literary persons.

The newspaper itself, that great engine "whose ambassadors are in every quarter of the globe, whose couriers upon every road," has slowly swung round, and is at last headed in the right direction. Reporters for the daily press in Massachusetts no longer write in a spirit of flippancy or contempt, and there is not an editor in the State of any account who would permit a member of his staff to report a woman's meeting in any other spirit than that of courtesy. Teachers occupying high positions and presidents of colleges have given pronounced opinions in favor of the reform. Said President Hopkins of Williams College, in 1875:

I would at this point correct my teaching in "The Law of Love," to the effect that home is peculiarly the sphere of woman, and civil government that of man. I now regard the home as the joint sphere of man and woman, and the sphere of civil government more of an open question between the two.

The New England Women's Club, parent of the modern clubs and associations for the advancement of women, has been one of the factors in the woman's rights movement. Its members have, in their work and in their lives, illustrated the doctrine of woman's equality with man. It was formed in February, 1868. There has never been, from time immemorial, much difference of opinion concerning woman's right to do a good share in the drudgery of the world. But in the remunerative employments, before 1850, she was but sparsely represented. In 1840, when