Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 7.pdf/8

2 Long before the founding of Girton and Newnham, the women's colleges at Cambridge, England, an English poet foresaw and prophesied that woman must gain in mental breadth, in larger mind; man in sweetness and moral height. And then may come a statelier Eden, the crowning race of humankind.

Great movements begin in the minds of few persons. The great movement now going on uplifting womanhood throughout the nations and tribes and in every sphere, had its beginning in obscure places and amidst opposition and derision. Mankind is toiling upward through untold struggles in subduing nature, establishing social, political, commercial standards, economical and philanthropical welfare, and in making all these things work together for righteousness. Womankind also must persistently work out its own salvation with gradual aid from the powers, seen and unseen, that prepare for that consummation toward which the whole world moves.

Since those faint pleadings were published in the land of the Magna Charta, no more remarkable change has taken place in civilization than the change in the status and consequent ambitions of woman. Christianity, freedom, education, and organization have worked together side by side. Christianity prepared the way for her to become a partaker in the thoughts and deeds making for human destiny. Modern governments have found it helpful to give her consideration. In our own country, where education is the safeguard and labor is honorable, the richness of learning is hers if she can but ask for it and the right to make her own living, if need be, and so she may be prepared for a life of usefulness, goodness, health, and self-respect.

Our day of organization for effectiveness invites her to ally herself with other women for the closer study of needs and for the surer planning to fit herself to relieve