"The masculine and feminine elements, exactly equal and balancing each other, are as essential to the maintenance of the equilibrium of the universe as positive and negative electricity or the centripetal and centrifugal forces, the laws of attraction which bind together all we know of this planet whereon we dwell and of the system in which we revolve."

- Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

"The inequality of the sexes in the human race is a disastrous anomaly in creation due to the artificial barriers against the full and free development of woman's moral and mental powers." - Emily P. Collins.

No one can dispute the fact that the position of woman has changed very decidedly in the English-speaking countries of the world, in the past twenty-five years. While many will declare that she has gained materially in all things which go toward a more advanced civilization, there are others who look upon the changes with disfavor, not to say antagonism, unfavorable opinions coming at times from quarters least expected. Nikola Tesla, in an article in The Century, deplores the condition arising from the new order of things:

"Society life, modern education and pursuits of women, tending to draw them away from their household duties and make men out of them, must needs detract from the elevating ideal they represent, diminish the artistic creative power, and cause sterility and a general weakening of the race."

It is singular how advanced a mind may be in one direction and how behind the times in another. The statement made by Tesla in his otherwise remarkable article seems born of a prejudice coming from the belief in man's superiority over woman. Notwithstanding my great admiration for the writer, I must say this statement is weak in the extreme, if not absolutely false. One naturally expects a judicial utterance from a scientific mind that is supposed to weigh the evidence in the case. In viewing any subject from an impartial standpoint, one must look beyond the present conditions and consider the case in all its bearings.

Suppose great wrong and injustice are found; in the righting of those wrongs, in abolishing the injustice, there must inevitably follow a certain amount of friction and discord until society has readjusted itself to the new conditions. And the more complex the wrongs the greater will be the temporary disturbance of social conditions; but the final outcome is no less sure and no less to be desired. The onlooker who sees nothing except that which has taken place on the surface, and compares that with previous conditions, may find apparent reason for believing the old order of things better than the new. Nevertheless, in the most highly civilized countries, women enjoy the greatest amount of freedom. Would the United States or England care to go back and take lessons from Turkey or Persia in regard to women? Are the women of England and America any the less womanly because of their greater freedom and their consequent greater intelligence? If, therefore, we acknowledge a little liberty as a good thing, why should not more of it be still better?

The Master said, "the truth shall make you free." Was this freedom meant for man alone, or was woman to have some share in it?

The Declaration of Independence affirms that all are born free and equal. If there is any truth in this statement, why should men turn later and repudiate it, denying to women equality and the same rights and privileges that men enjoy. No, gentlemen. The day is certainly coming when no right or privilege looked upon by man as his sole prerogative shall not be as fully and freely enjoyed by woman. Some day in a free country right not might shall prevail. In the meantime, unrest and controversy must engender friction and disorder until the new order becomes thoroughly established.

But should the social friction of a generation be allowed to stand in the way when we are trying to work out the highest welfare of the human race? In the larger freedom which has come to woman there can be nothing which in the end will prove in any way detrimental to the well-being of the race. The highest development on any plane of life is attained only when there is perfect freedom. Resistance offered to freedom of natural thought and action in the life of man hinders and dwarfs growth and brings about abnormal conditions of mind and body. And that which in any way retards the highest development of woman interferes to exactly the same degree with the natural growth and development of man. The sinner and the one sinned against are both made to suffer because of the violation of the law of growth.

The conservative mind considers any innovation which sets aside the old order of things as being contrary to the law of orderly progression; but if the opinions of the conservative mind were considered as final there would be neither growth nor development, simply stagnation - inaction - death.

Let us point out a few instances in which the new order of things is preferable to the old, and which will in the end prove beneficial to men and women alike. Not only this, but it will have a very decided effect on the generations to come. Just a word as to former conditions and the belief still retained in the minds of many people of the present day.

The Bible student will quote the Apostle Paul to make good the old order; the scientific mind will dwell on the physical limitations and put forward the thought that the principal office of woman is the reproduction of the race; while the mind that is neither Biblical nor scientific will try to show that there have been but few great women in original or creative thought in the world, and therefore a great woman is an abnormal production of Nature. All this is on a par with nine-tenths of the reasoning that is now in vogue in opposition to the continued advancement and freedom of woman. But these arguments, and a thousand more like them, would not be sufficient to justify the slavery of woman from time immemorial to the present, for we can not in all truth and candor say that woman has been, or is, free. Granting that a greater degree of freedom has come to her, we still contend that nothing short of absolute equality of the sexes will fulfil the eternal law of right. When men pride themselves on intellectual development, do they realize that a development of heart is quite as important as a development of head? Is not he who has developed both head and heart a more complete man than the one who has developed only the intellect? And if this is true of a man is it not equally true of a woman? It would be true of woman to-day if the advantages so freely given to the men had not been withheld from her. In spite of opposition and all the disadvantages women labor under, they are insisting on rights and privileges denied them in the past. In this they are not always successful. The chivalry of many of our college undergraduates is far from what it might be. Coeducation is frowned upon by nearly all young men in college who are yet in their adolescence, and who have not yet lived out the savagery of bygone ages; but why the heads of colleges and universities should be dictated to by the students is more difficult to explain, save on the ground that many college men, through having formed the habit of drawing their opinions from the subconscious mind - the storehouse of accumulated knowledge - are sometimes prone to see the vital questions of the day in the light of past conditions, therefore in only a partial way, because of the automatic action of their minds.