for good laws or bad, however, depends not on government but on civilization. Public opinion is moulded by innumerable forces, of which the home, the church, the newspaper, and the public school are merely illustrations. In most if not all of these, women already play a conspicuous part; through them they wield an incalculable power. The confusion, unconscious or otherwise, of these forces of culture and the forces of government, is one of the prime fallacies of the suffrage position. To make the true state of the case more clear, take a single institution, the public school, with its various bearings on the question of woman suffrage. Pass over the school committee vote which only about two per cent of Massachusetts women regularly use, and consider merely the power which the very nature of our school system puts in women's hands. All the children in our primary grades, and all but an infinitesimal fraction of those in the grammar grades, are taught by women. The preponderance of woman teachers is nearly as great in the high schools where, except in a few cities, men are employed for administration and discipline and only secondarily for instruction. That is to say, women and not men are shaping the minds of future voters during the formative and decisive years. From women rather than men, our children learn the elements of good citizenship,--respect for public property, obedience to law, and the power of independent thought. The degree to which the lesson is learned, depends upon two things; namely, the quality of the teacher and the extent of her influence. Accordingly, two questions arise. Would woman suffrage give us better teachers? Would it increase the power which they already hold? One may get some light on the first point by studying the placing of normal school graduats. The connection between the schools and politics is already lamentably close. Many districts, with administrations predominantly of one party or religious sect choose first teachers of that sect, good or bad, and sisters and daughters of voters of that party; then enough women to complete the necessary number. Suppose that the teacher, instead of being the daughter of the voter, holds the vote herself. The evil would become universal. There is no indication that a woman's salary and position under such circumstances be more directly conditioned upon her abilities as a teacher. The chances are that woman suffrage would tend to make the school more truly the servant of the party in power than of the general good. Moreover, a vote can be used as a commodity of exchange; and the woman-voter who amid the fluctuations of city politics would protect her position by a shrewd use of her ballot would hardly be the best school mistress of American youth.