Too many of our day, both of men and women, still believe with old John Knox--to glance back even beyond Johnson and Pope--and his sixteenth century “First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women”--a fine example of hysterical shrieking in men, by the way. With the loving estimate of Knox’s contemporary, Mr. John Davidson, we heartily agree when he sings-- “For weill I wait that Scotland never bure, In Scottis leid ane man mair Eloquent, Into perswading also I am sure, Was nane in Europe that was mair potent. In Greik and Hebrew he was excellent, And als in Latine toung his propernes, Was tryit trym quhen scollers wer present. Bot thir wer nathing till his uprichtnes.” We admire Knox’s magnificent moral courage and the fruits of that courage which the Scots have long enjoyed, and yet anent the “cursed Jesabel of England,” the “cruell monstre Marie,” Knox cries: “To promote a Woman to beare rule, superiorite, dominion, or empire ... is repugnant to Nature, contumelie to God, a thing most contrarious to his revealed will and approved ordinance”--just as if he, John Knox, knew all about God’s will and Nature’s designs. What pretence, John! But John took it upon himself to say he did. He _assumed_; and time and events have proved that it was sheer assumption on John’s part. I doubt, were he now here, if he would let a modest, bread-earning woman even make dictionaries at so much a mile--nothing beyond type-writing, surely. He would probably assume authority and shriek hysterically that anything beyond the finger-play of type-writing is repugnant to Nature and contrarious to God. There was a Mrs. John Knox; there were two in fact--ribs. “That servent faithfull servand of the Lord” took the first slip of a girl when near his fiftieth year, long after he had left the celibate priesthood; and the second, a lass of sixteen, when he was fifty-nine. They took care of John, a mother-in-law helping, and with service and money gave him leisure to write. The opinions of the dames do not appear in their husband’s hysteria. “I use the help of my left hand,” dictated Knox when one of these girl-wives was writing for him a letter. With the young women we are considering there is this eternal variation from John Knox and his hysterical kin, Celt, Saxon, or Latin--she does not assume authority. Consequently she makes dictionaries at so much a mile. Such word-spinning was at one time done by drudge men--men who had failed mayhap in the church, or in law, or had distaste for material developments or shame for manual work. Now, with women fortified by the learning their colleges afford, it is oftenest done by drudge women. The law of commerce prevails--women gain the task because they will take much less a mile than men. Men offer them less than they would dare offer a man similarly equipped.