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Co-operative housekeeping

of advice and criticism,—two things that men hate so mortally from women, that, unless the advice be wise, and the criticism temperate, we may be sure that they will not listen to us; or if, heeding us, and we persuade them into a mistake, their contempt will be something terrific.^[1] Before committing themselves, therefore, our legislatures will need on many topics all the enlightenment they can gain. Wisdom does not come by instinct to women any more than to men. It grows by knowledge and experience, and in order that the sex may possess it, may understand what it is about when it attempts to influence the law-making power, the co-operative housekeepers would do well to encourage the few among them who are fitted for such pursuits to devote their attention to the principles and problems of jurisprudence, and of the other studies whose objects are the regulation and happiness of humanity.—The Council-Hall should be the centre of our palace, but communicating with it must be the Courts of Law and the Bureaus of Charity, of Medicine, and of Education.

Law.

It may seem the last outrage of strong-minded-femaleism to suggest that women should study and practise law; since, though there have been stray members of the sex in almost every other masculine profession, no one of them has yet invaded, or asked to invade, this. But, to say nothing of the daughter of the Italian professor who was

↑ The late petition of some New York women in the case of Hester Vaughan, so coldly received by the governor of Pennsylvania, so severely commented upon by the press, is a case in point of how well-weighed any public request by women should be, in order to have effect. Such hasty and ill-judged acts will not be frequent, however, when those who really r&present the sex shall deliberate for it. Enthusiasts, acting from their own impulses, are very different from the well-informed and responsible matrons, who I hope, will one day speak for their fellows, when their general or individual interests require it. The part womanhood will probably play in public affairs should be judged, not by a sporadic mistake like this, but by the long, steady, faithful, yet unobtrusive work of the women of the Sanitary Commission.

[1] The late petition of some New York women in the case of Hester Vaughan, so coldly received by the governor of Pennsylvania, so severely commented upon by the press, is a case in point of how well-weighed any public request by women should be, in order to have effect. Such hasty and ill-judged acts will not be frequent, however, when those who really r&present the sex shall deliberate for it. Enthusiasts, acting from their own impulses, are very different from the well-informed and responsible matrons, who I hope, will one day speak for their fellows, when their general or individual interests require it. The part womanhood will probably play in public affairs should be judged, not by a sporadic mistake like this, but by the long, steady, faithful, yet unobtrusive work of the women of the Sanitary Commission.

[1]