She was at variance with her times, but at this day the most of us would not hesitate to say that in her points of difference with the world Mary Wollstonecraft was in the main right and the world wrong. For the gist of her quarrel with the world was that the activities of women did not have free play.
The volume treats of: (1) her life; (2) her literary work; (3) her religious and ethical views; (4) the rights of man, and her reply to Edmund Burke; (5) the rights of woman, and her polemics against writers on female education; (6) her investigation of the causes of woman's intellectual inferiority; (7) her discussion of woman's moral inferiority; (8) her demands for the education of woman; (9) her vindication of the civil rights of woman; (10) the relation of her views to those of Godwin and later socialists; (11) the reception of her work in Germany. Her biographer points out in conclusion that many of the conceptions of Mary Wollstonecraft have been adopted by society, but wisely refrains from insisting that the changes are directly traceable to her influence and writings. It is perhaps unfortunate that the title should suggest that the volume treats of the question of woman's rights aside from the relation of Mary Wollstonecraft to this question, for the views of Mrs. Rauschenbusch-Clough are not very elaborately expressed and are so reasonable that they perhaps demand no expression in print.
The work of Mr. John Graham Brooks on German Insurance, prepared for the Department of Labor, was a valuable contribution to the subject and made the German experience accessible to English readers. It is still indispensable. But there was need of a general survey, brought up to date, of the experiments in all modern countries. In the book of Mr. Willoughby we have this survey. The elements of the problem, economic and administrative, are clearly presented. The German and Austrian laws providing for sickness, accidents, and old age are discussed in detail. The forms of the movement seen in France, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, Scandinavia, England, and the United States are carefully analyzed, and the limitations of each fairly brought to view. The bibliographical notes at the end enable the student to go to the sources.
