As I have said before, in the beginning of this movement women who persisted in the study needed uncommon perseverance and firmness of purpose. For the acquisition of these qualities, a certain amount of educational training and concentration of thought and will were requisite. At present, such uncommon perseverance and determination are not so indispensable. It is now very easy to become a physician. If the higher and better medical schools will not admit women, the lower and the less strict are willing to do so. Socially, the woman doctor is respected and in some circles even lionized and ranked far above the teacher; therefore, two great obstacles are removed. All that a young woman needs is the permission of her parents and the means of support while studying. Both of these are now more easily attained, since her social position is likely to improve rather than to decline as it formerly did. Also, the number of schools and colleges has increased and they require a certain number of students in order to exist. Hence arises a rivalry among these institutions, and instead of elevating their standard to make good women physicians some lower it in order to fill their classes. The effect of this sort of education is that the country is rapidly being swarmed with women physicians of very doubtful ability as regards either preparatory or medical education. At the same time, the need for well-educated women physicians becomes the more pressing, as is manifested by the ready employment they all find, though there is no chance for discrimination between the real and the sham article denoted by the sign “Doctor.” Hence, in many places the movement is beginning to be again viewed with distrust by communities which have again and again been disappointed when hoping to find scientific education and practical talent among the women practitioners who were offering their services to the public. In a word, the so hopefully sown good seeds are in danger of being suffocated by the still more thickly sown weeds. It is against this danger that I feel I must warn you. And I wish to call upon every educated woman within my reach to aid in destroying this evil. Every individual can assist in this great reform; first, by trying to get clear ideas on the subject in order to discriminate and to judge; and then, to assist in every possible way those who are striving to elevate the educational and moral standards in medicine. Some highly educated physicians have said to me, “We see no reason why a woman should not study medicine. If she can become wiser and her practice better, then we _must_ have her, for our aim is the _better_; if she cannot do this or cannot even do as well as men, she will work her own destruction in her endeavors.”