It is in childhood that the teaching of the sex relation must be given,--with the children that the training of self-control must begin. If men and women are started right in childhood, the later time will take care of itself. I would not belittle the father's influence, nor his teaching of his children; but of the two the mother is the more important, for the man who has talked of all things with his mother, to whom the sacredness of motherhood is indissolubly bound up with the great instinct of reproduction, will find it very hard to go far wrong. The girl, too, who understands the laws of her own nature and that of the young men whom she meets, will be in a position not only to choose her mate more wisely, but in the things that come up every day among young people of opposite sexes she will not excite in him, by word and gesture, through mere careless ignorance, as is so often done, a passion, which, though she go free and ignorant of harm, may bring to him much needless suffering, and may sometimes end in ruin both for him and for some other. Women, through their training of their sons and daughters, hold the future of the world in their keeping. This training cannot be given by the enactment of laws; we cannot legislate the control of human passion. The law-maker bears no relation to the character builder. "They're no more like than hornet's nests and hives Or printed sarmons be to holy lives." Law can only prevent wrongdoing, it is negative at best, for its appeal in the end must be to fear, and a people ruled by fear becomes a race of slaves. In a free country it is impossible to enforce a law unless the will of the people is behind it; and the moulding of this will, its training and development, must come in early childhood and must be done by its women. There is no greater sophistry than that women need the vote to protect themselves and one another from evil men. Were most men libertines today, no law could be enforced against them. Were all men self-controlled and pure in heart, no law would be required. The failure of the women--the good women of the community--to bring up their sons to be such men cannot be corrected by any short and easy road, nor can their responsibility for the present evil be obliterated by talk. Women have failed to do their duty, and the only way to prevent further evil is to do that duty now. XVII SUFFRAGE A STEP TOWARD FEMINISM LILY RICE FOXCROFT _Lily Rice Foxcroft, daughter of the late Rev. Dr. Charles B. Rice of Danvers, Mass., for nearly twenty years Secretary of the Congregational Board of Pastoral Supply; wife of Frank Foxcroft, editor of "The Living Age." Frequent contributor to the religious press, the author of a volume entitled, "While You Are a Girl," and a well-known speaker in opposition to woman suffrage._ _J. A. H._