Several times before in the history of the world comparatively large numbers of women have made themselves felt, claiming certain equal rights with the governing sex.  But their ambitions were generally confined to founding religious orders, obtaining admission to the universities, or to playing the intellectual game in the social preserves.  In the wonderful thirteenth century women rivaled men in learning and accomplishments, in vigor of mind and decision of character.  But this is the first time that millions of them have been out in the world “on their own,” invading almost every field of work, for centuries sacrosanct to man.  There is even a boiler-maker in the United States who worked her way up in poor-boy fashion and now attends conventions of boiler-makers on equal terms.  In tens of thousands of cases women have made good, in the arts, professions, trades, businesses, clerical positions, and even in agriculture and cattle raising.  They are brilliant aviators, yachtsmen, automobile drivers, showing failure of nerve more rarely than men, although, as they are not engaged in these pursuits in equal numbers perhaps that is not a fair statement.  Suffice it to say that as far as they have gone they have asked for no quarter.  It is quite true that in certain of the arts, notably music, they have never equaled men, and it has been held against them that all the great chefs are men.  Here it is quite justifiable to take refuge in the venerable axiom, “Rome was not made in a day.”  It is not what they have failed to accomplish with their grinding disabilities but the amazing number of things in which they have shown themselves the equal if not the superior of men.  Whether their success is to be permanent, or whether they have done wisely in invading man’s domain so generally, are questions to be attacked later when considering the biological differences between men and women.  The most interesting problem relating to women that confronts us at present is the effect of the European War on the whole status of woman.

If the war ends before this nation is engulfed we shall at least keep our men, and the males of this country are so far in excess of the females that it is odd so many American women should be driven to self-support.  In Great Britain the women have long outnumbered the men; it was estimated before the war that there were some three hundred thousand spinsters for whom no husbands were available.  After the war there will be at best something like a proportion of one whole man to three women (confining these unwelcome prophecies to people of marriageable age); and the other afflicted countries, with the possible exception of Russia, will show a similar dislocation of the normal balance.  The acute question will be repopulation—­with a view to another trial of military supremacy a generation hence!—­and all sorts of expedients are being suggested, from polygamy to artificial fertilization.  It may be that the whole future of woman as well as of civilization after this war is over depends upon whether she concludes to serve the State or herself.