Page:The Feminist Movement - Snowden - 1912.djvu/184

 much time and energy that might have been used more profitably in some constructive work; and what has been wrung from a reluctant Legislature is not to be compared, for weight and importance, with the work that remains to be done, and which will be accomplished in half the time when women have political power. Another point escapes the critic on these lines: that it is much better for women to do these things for themselves than to have them done for them by other people. It is a sound educational principle which insists that learning comes by doing. Women are deprived of opportunities of self-education when their affairs are regulated for them without their knowledge and consent. In a sense it is true that a large number of women are not yet fitted to vote, since they have never voted; but nothing will make them so fit as the vote itself. Responsibility is the great educator, and political responsibility will quickly effect a change in the attitude of women towards public questions and will speedily develop their public spirit. All the machinery of politics will be at the disposal of the new voters, canvassers will wait upon them, public meetings will be open to them, literature will be conveyed to them, and all parties will make every effort to see that no misapprehensions are permitted to cloud their minds. Every