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Review scale of other days, and the verdict is pronounced, mercilessly and irrevocably, "She copies the ways of men, she has unsexed herself, and lost all in gaining nothing." No one asks, Why has she struck out this new line? is it anything more than a whim that she dresses and acts and talks differently from her mother and grandmother?" No one asks, “Is this outward and visible rebellion against long-established canons of taste and custom the sign of an inward and spiritual grace, struggling towards the light, losing its way, and needing aid and wise direction into the paths of legitimate development?" It is time for us to ask ourselves these questions; if we do not, we shall miss an opportunity that may not return; our young girls and women will not wait for us, they will go their own way, whether we like it or not.

What, then, is the jolly girl, very unconsciously and stumblingly, seeking to attain? I reply, without hesitation-the realization of her humanity.

Those who are inclined to smile at these big words, fail to recognise that they stand for a big thing. In the natural development which, in the progress of races, the position of women with regard to men has undergone, matters have at length reached a stage in which the common humanity of the sexes has begun to assert itself as an all-important question. Women are getting tired of the disproportion that has been hitherto enforced upon them between their sex and their humanity. They are getting tired of the gilded chains in which their sex has held and still holds them; they are tired of the thousand restrictions laid upon them falsely in its name; they are, the gods be praised! getting tired of ignorance and idleness, and seek to exercise their faculties of mind and body, which, as Herbert Spencer has told us, is the summum bonum of existence. Some find a vent for their awakening energies in examinations, some in æstheticism, some in athletic sports. It is not their fault that the example offered them is so little worthy of imitation, that the standard of intellectual activity in English society is at so low an ebb, that there is so little seriousness, so little interest in wider questions, so little real knowledge of men and things, so little regard for one's

surroundings as soon as their possibilities of affording amusement are exhausted-it is not their fault, in short, that the young men with whom they are thrown in contact are only schoolboys with a beard and a few more years on their shoulders, but no more ideas in their heads than when they construed "Cæsar" in class and swore to burn their books at the first opportunity.

The English girl is plastic, she can be moulded. If, instead of continually teasing her with petty criticism on her clothes and similar trivialities, we teach her that life is a serious matter, and that there are things better worth living for than flirting, or pigeon-fights, or dress -if we give her examples of useful lives, if we expect her to shew herself energetic and responsible, and repay honest work with appreciation and respect, she will rise to the price that is put upon her-she will become our companion and our equal, and give us no cause to regret the transformation of the jolly girl into a reasonable member of society.

What the English girl is, here and there, beginning to recognise as desirable, the Russian woman has attained. She moves in the security of a position that no longer needs to be claimed or defended, it is entirely her own. Her sex and her humanity are acknowledged to a degree that is without parallel in the civilized world. The "angelic self-possession of the American beauty who has discovered the freedom of her sex," and who reigns supreme in it, but nowhere else, is in itself an admirable thing--but the American beauty has made men her slaves, not her companions: she has taught them to play with her, she has not learnt to work with them; in her intercourse with them her sex is the only thing upon which stress is laid, one sees little or nothing of mutual interests, aims, endeavours, uniting and making themselves felt in many-sided activity-her relations to men are marked by a lack of seriousness, by a superficiality little calculated to justify the hopes placed in these "new feminine epochs" that she seemed destined to inaugurate. In the Russian woman we have a very different type. Sexually free to an extent which the American has not yet dreamed of, she has at the same time freed herself all round, and

thereby avoided that undue preponderance of any one faculty over the others, which is the curse of French and American, and may yet become the curse of English womanhood.

The Russian is, in all respects, the equal of the men with whom she associates, and they do not consider her unsexed by the fact that she is the most perfect of comrades. They know that she can also be an ideal wife. They share their interests with her, whether they be political, scientific, literary, or personal; they appeal to her judgment and value her opinion; they claim and receive her assistance; they make her, in the fullest sense of the words, their fellow-thinker and worker. She smiles at the social conditions imposed on the girls and women of other nations. She herself is her best and only ægis-her own self-respect and inimitable dignity, which are far too deep-seated ever to become obtrusive, invite confidence while they make familiarity impossible. English parents will probably fail to understand how a girl of 18 or 20, living alone, can frequently receive the visits of one or more men of her acquaintance; they will be still more surprised to learn that the demeanour of these men is invariably marked by a respect for the sex and the individual that one may look for in vain in English ball-rooms, lined by protecting chaperons.

The secret of this supreme self-confidence and unrestrained intercourse with the other sex is not far to seek. The interests of the Russian woman do not centre in her own person. She regards herself as a member of a community which it is her part to serve. There is nothing small or stunted in her conceptions of life. I cannot express her attitude better than in Kropotkin's words: "There are periods when whole generations are penetrated with the noblest feelings of altruism and self-sacrifice, when life becomes utterly impossible for the man (or woman) who feels that he is not doing his duty." Everyone who has had anything to do with the Russian woman of this type, knows the intensity with which she recognises the claims of her generation on her work. She is not impelled by ambition, or love, or greed, but simply by the imperative

resolve to fill her place. She is content to work under adverse circumstances, in uncongenial surroundings, in spite of monotony and seclusion, in spite of official persecution and private opposition; she is content to sacrifice her personal wishes and tastes, her health and career, for the sake of rendering service where it seems to her most needed. A life so filled up leaves no time and no inclination for flirtation or extravagances, for copying the ways of men or running after amusement Will our English women learn betimes to direct their energies into kindred altruistic channels, or will they lose themselves in the sandy wastes of selfish pleasureseeking and dalliance?

One word to the English girl:--You are beginning to make a position for yourself-be careful that you make a good one. Evil communications corrupt good manners. The examples offered you by society are seldom worth following. Make a high standard for yourself, and seek to live up to it. The only lasting basis of an honourable life lies in the recognition that you are the member of a community that it is your part to serve, in the fruitful conviction that you have duties in life beyond those to your family and friends. Learn to work, and if no work is cut out for you by circumstances, cut it out for yourself. Count it your duty to know what is going on in the world about you, to form your own opinions on subjects of current interest, to judge objectively and act when occasion offers, to shrink from no investigation and shirk no responsibility. Give up the role of the butterfly and regard yourself as a citizen of the world.

If you are equal to this task, you will make for yourself and others a position superior to small criticism or weightier attacks, you will open out new eras for those who come after. Your humanity will become an accomplished fact.

H. B. ADAMS WALTHER, M.D., L.K.Q.C.P.I.

Mrs. Walther, who is better known to the readers of the Review as Miss Hope Bridge Adams, who won a brilliant degree at Berne, has had frequent opportunities of close observation of the young Russian women students in Switzerland. She is now with her husband, Dr. Walther, who was also a fellow student, established in successful practice at Frankfort-on-Main.-ED.

ART. III.-INSTANCES OF SUCCESS IN "FOOD

PRODUCTION."

As many ladies are beginning to turn their attention to the useful occupation of food producing, we think a few instances taken from the American Press of the success with which women are farming in the United States will be interesting. The first instance is a fruit farm in California. The Western Women's Journal says:

The fruit farm is near Fresno City, California. The ladies owning it and working it are four in numbers, all teachers. Two of them are resident owners, the other two are still teaching in San Francisco. Of the two residing there upon the farm and assisting in the actual labour of the place, one was principal of a ladies' seminary, the other at one time held a professor's chair in a college in Kansas. She writes:

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We have a corporate farm of eighty acres, all devoted to fruit raising, part of it in bearing and part not yet old enough, therefore the returns are but partial, while the larger portion is in anticipation. Of these eighty acres, forty are in grapes, about fifteen of which are in bearing; five acres of apricots, a small part of which bear now, but as this is a fruit grown only in favoured localities, and is in great demand, it is a profitable fruit to raise; five acres of peaches, which grow rapidly, bear early and heavily, in great demand for canning; two acres of nectarines, a very delicious fruit related to the peach, these promise well, and are great favourites; two acres of Bartlett pears, the very perfection of excellence anywhere, but especially so in this climate; six acres of prunes, French variety, these do well. We have also an assorted orchard of apples, plums, quinces and cherries for our own use. The small fruits are not well adapted to this climate, on account of the heat, but as our trees grow to shade them we expect a good supply of varieties of berries.

I almost forgot to mention two acres of almonds, from which we gathered forty pounds the first year, and four hundred the second year they bore. The original cost of this eighty acres was 4,000 dollars. There are now 15,000 dollars invested, including all I have mentioned, also a bored well with windmill and a 10,000 gallon tank, a good barn, small dwelling house, a house for packing raisins; chicken houses, and some rough outbuildings occupied by the man. The farm, you will see, is in its infancy, nothing on it being more than five years old. With age added to our vines and trees, we anticipate a handsome remuneration. We find a ready market for all our fruit, and our raisins have already won a good reputation. Ten tons is our largest yield yet.

Labour, unskilled, is high in this part of California. We average three men all the time. Miss A. and myself spend the greater part of fruitage time among trees and vines, and the pruning knife has become our badge of honour.

Within, we regale ourselves with the Atlantic Monthly, feast in

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