Page:Women of distinction.djvu/19

Rh woman" is caricatured and held up as a horror and a warning to that portion of the feminine world who might be tempted into like forbidden paths. "She is out of her sphere, she ought to be in her home, she is trying to be a man, she is losing the tender consideration and the reverence once accorded womanhood." All these things are said, and, as might be expected, are applicable to individual cases. They do not, however, portray the true type of the "progressive woman" of to-day. She is modest and womanly, with a reverence for the high and holy duties of wife and mother. She does not advocate the abandonment of any real duties near at hand for fancied ones afar off. She would not have women neglect home and husband and children to enter professional life, or to further any public cause, however worthy. She only claims the right to admission in the varied fields of employment and usefulness of those who either have no domestic ties, or, having them, are forced, despite this fact, to enter the arena of life in the struggle for bread, or those who, without a disregard of existing claims, yet have leisure and inclination for interests outside of the home.

The woman is a human being as well as a woman. It is within the range of possibility that sometimes she may be endowed with great gifts which it is fortunate for all minds if she can find opportunity to exercise. What would we not have missed had Patti never sung, Rose Bonheur never painted, or Mrs. Stowe never written? Besides, contact with the outer world, a little rubbing against other minds, an occasional directing of the