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ally practical, always ultimately intent on action. To a few of us—and we are happy, if sometimes lonely—knowledge, which began with practical intent, becomes an end in itself, an object for rapturous contemplation. But to most human beings, and these are the best of our citizens, knowledge is the outcome of desire, and is always forging on towards action, action which necessarily takes shape as increased dominion over the world of nature and humanity. You can, it is true, shovel ready-made information into the human mind, without seriously affecting life and character. But the awakening of the desire to know is primarily nothing but the awakening of the intention to act, to act more efficiently and to shape the world more completely to our will.
Mrs. Humphry Ward and Lord Curzon are half-a-century too late. They may entrench themselves on their castle of sand, but the tide has turned, and the sea is upon them. When women first felt the insistent need to know, behind it, from the beginning, unconscious though they were, was for most of them the more imperative impulse to act.
Women qua women may remain, for the better continuance of life, subject to men; women as human beings demand to live as well as to continue life. To live effectively they must learn to know the world through and through, in order that, side by side with men, they may fashion life to their common good.
I am, dear Anti-Suffragist,
Sincerely yours,
