Page:The Feminist Movement - Snowden - 1912.djvu/110

 select any names in this connection is almost invidious, since the host of women workers of this sort is legion, and all are equally praiseworthy.

The third class of women social reformers includes all those who, on such public bodies as Boards of Guardians, School Boards (in Scotland), Education Authorities, Parish, Borough, and County Councils, for all of which women are eligible at the present time, have sought to represent as elected members the opinion of their constituents. It will be obvious that these three classes frequently overlap, that the propagandist and organiser is frequently the elected representative also, and that there is no necessary antagonism between the work of the elected person and the woman who prefers to use her private influence on behalf of social reform. A few words about some of Great Britain's most famous women reformers will not be out of place in an essay on feminism, though perhaps the connection between the work of these pioneers and the principle of sex-equality is not obvious. These words will at least demonstrate the inherent fitness of women to concern themselves with those matters which touch the race, and will for ever destroy the argument maintained only by the foolish, that women are devoid of public spirit, incapable of turning their minds to anything beyond the petty