Page:In the dozy hours, and other papers.djvu/234

 220 purifying, and strenuous has been the gift of these faltering creatures, whom we are now invited to take in hand, and conduct with "tenderness and pity" on their paths. It might also be worth while to remind ourselves occasionally that although we women may be destined to do the work of the future, men have done the work of the past, and have struggled not altogether in vain, for the physical and intellectual welfare of the world. This is a point which is sometimes ignored in a very masterly manner. Eliza Burt Gamble who has written a book on "The Evolution of Woman. An Inquiry into the Dogma of her Inferiority to Man," is exceedingly severe on theologians, priests, and missionaries, by whom she considers our sex has been held in subjection. She lays great stress on certain material facts, as, for example, the excess of male births in times of war, famine, or pestilence; and the excess of female births in periods of peace and plenty, when better nutrition brings about this higher and happier result. She asserts that there are more male than female idiots, and that reversions to a lower type are more common among men than women. She has a