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NATIONAL-AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1898.
297

gle of women to gain admission to the colleges, the embarrassments they suffered, the obstacles they were obliged to overcome, reading from published reports the hostile demonstrations of the male students. In closing she bore testimony to the encouragement and assistance rendered by those men who were broadminded and generous enough to recognize the rights of women in this profession and help secure them. The Ministry of Religion as a Calling for Women was the subject of an able and interesting address by the Rev. Florence Buck of Unity Church, Cleveland, Ohio. Mrs. Ella Knowles Haskell, assistant attorney-general of Montana, spoke on Women in the Legal Profession, giving many incidents of the practice of law in the far West.

Samuel J. Barrows, member of Congress from Massachusetts, was called from the audience by Miss Anthony, and closed his brief remarks by saying: "I believe in woman suffrage; it has in it the elements of justice which entitle it to every man's support, and we all ought to help secure it." A leading feature of the program was the speech of August W. Machen, head of the free delivery division of the national post office, on Women in the Departmental Service of the United States. He gave the history of their employment by the government, declared they had raised the standard of work and testified to their efficiency and faithfulness.

The Civil Rights of Women were ably discussed by the Rev. Frederick A. Hinckley of the Second Unitarian Church, Philadelphia, who reviewed the existing laws and pointed out the changes in favor of women. In regard to the prevalence of divorce he said: "There is a large class of our fellow-citizens who greatly misinterpret, in my opinion, the significance of the increase in the number of divorces. No one would counsel more earnestly than I, patience and consideration and every reasonable effort on the part of people once married to live together. But I can not dispute the proposition, nor do I believe any one can dispute it, that in the great process of evolution divorce is an indication of growing independence and self-respect in women, a proclamation that marriage must be the union of self-respecting and mutually respected equals, and that in the ideal home of the future that hideous thing, the subjugation of woman, is to be unknown."

Mrs. Catharine Waugh McCulloch (Ills.) discussed The Eco-