cialism was the product of the revolutionary era from the end of the eighteenth century to the middle of the nineteenth. It has grown rapidly since 1848 in all industrial countries, and in several countries it is the party with the largest number of adherents.

This briefest possible outline of the collective tendencies of our time is justified by the fact that they have given a new direction to the woman's movement and its advocacy. Up to about 1875 that advocacy was based on the individualistic plea that a woman is a personality with the same rights as a man, and should therefore have the same recognition on the part of the state. No doubt this plea is now an effective one in the minds of many men and women; but it no longer has the same weight as formerly. Whether right or wrong in the abstract, that plea for women which now secures attention is not one for rights, but for social responsibilities. It is not the individual but the state which is now the center of attention. It is not what the state can do for the individual woman that we are to

seek for; but what the woman can do for the state. The question is not whether the woman will be advanced individually by the use of the ballot; but whether the state as a collectivity of men, women and children will be advanced and strengthened. Neither men nor women having any abstract right to the ballot, the question of its extension to women is to be urged, if at all, not as a

right, but as a social oppor

tunity, as a means by which women can protect them

George Sand.

selves and their children, strengthen the family and its interests, enlarge the social purposes of the state in its relations to individuals and families, safeguard its workers, and purify its moral functions.

The history of women during the last century has been a testimony to the growth of the collectivist spirit and ideal. The individualistic theory of government or what has been called the laissez faire (let alone) policy in economics, demanded that the manufacturer should buy in the cheapest market and sell in the highest, controlling his own machinery and workmen solely with reference to the profits he could secure. Early in the era of machine production it was found that women and children (as well as men) were working under conditions detrimental to health, home-life and morality, as well as a decent wage. In England first of all nations, because the pioneer in machine production, it was found that state interference was required; and so early as 1802 began that system of control of employment in mills and factories which has now advanced far on the way towards complete state control. The reform legisla

tion of 1832, and the preceding years, gave prominence to this demand for the protection of workers and the safeguarding of their interests. It has culminated in the present year with an old-age pension for all workers.

In the earlier part of the nineteenth century the crueler punishments for women in England were abolished. In 1842 women were forbidden to work in mines. Other acts controlled the hours of labor, time allotted for meals, sanitation of workrooms, period of rest after the birth of a child, and many other phases of the employment of women. All trades are now open to women, and in most countries several of the professions. In our own country no trade or profession is forbidden to women. Margaret Fuller's demand that women should be sea-captains if they wished is now quite possible of accomplishment. If they do not crowd into that profession, it is because it is not suited to their tastes or capacities, and not because legally or socially it is forbidden to them.

The intervention of the state for the protection of women in person and property has been one of the remarkable features of the legislation of the last half-century.

Up to about the middle of the nineteenth century the patriarchial theory of the headship of the man in the family continued practically in full force. Only in a very limited way did the state recognize any other member of the family than the man. In all countries, with some special exceptions, the property of the woman on marriage came into the control of the man, who, during the continuance of the marriage, was its real owner. The wages or other earnings of the wife could be controlled by the husband. In England, a man who remained away from his family, and contributed nothing to its support, could return and secure all the earnings of its members, as well as their savings, sell all they had acquired for his own benefit, the law protecting him in so doing, and even in the repetition of such conduct. An act of 1857 made this impossible, and succeeding acts have not only extended the right of the wife to her own control of property, but secured her own control of property possessed by her on marriage, her earnings during marriage, and also the right to act independently of her husband in business and other affairs connected with her personal interests. In most progressive countries women have come to have essentially the same property rights as men. Women have also been secured rights in their children, sometimes only partial, but almost everywhere far in advance of those possessed by them previous to the middle of the nineteenth century, when the father had practically complete dominion over the children. One country after another has advanced to these progressive forms of legislation, some very recently, and a few in a very imperfect manner. The underlying idea in such legislation has been the recognition of the individuality of women, which is not annulled or modified by marriage. Necessarily such legislation comes into conflict with the old theory of marriage, which assumes that at least legally, the personality of the woman is completely absorbed into that of the man, that he directs her industrial and property interests, and that he represents her politically. Where the

new conception of marriage has found recognition women have secured legal and social right to select their own husbands, and liberal provisions have been made for the annullment of marriage when its continuance has not been found desirable.

Previous to the revolution at the end of the eighteenth century no one even so much as suggested that women should have the privilege of the suffrage. In the English Parliament, in 1787, Charles Fox said that many women were more capable of voting intelligently than many men; but that such a proposal had been made by no one because the law of nations and of nature made the female dependent on the male. John Stuart Mill, in 1869, urged the same action in his Subjection of Women; and he had, in 1865, introduced a bill into Parliament for the full extension of suffrage to women. The agitation thus begun. has been since carried on with great skill and energy, resulting in the extension in Great Britain of every political right to women except that of voting for members of Parliament.

In the United States the agitation for suffrage began in connection with the anti-slavery movement. In 1848 the first convention was held in Seneca Falls, N. Y., for promoting the interests of women. The close of the Civil War, the liberation of the slaves, and the extension to them of the right of suffrage, led to a renewed demand that women should be recognized. If enslaved, ignorant men of a recently savage race, could be granted the right to vote, it was urged, surely women are entitled to the same privilege. The states of Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, and Utah have given women the suffrage on the same basis as men. In other states they have been permitted to vote on certain subjects or for officers connected with education and the protection of the family. At the present time, as never before, this agitation is going forward with a degree of organization, skill and enthusiasm which must ensure its final triumph in the complete political equality of men and

women.