“We therefore emphatically in this clause record our protest against the system of teaching the young to regard Nature in a false light, in other words, to judge of God’s laws as impure. We believe such a system of education to be, as we have said, an incentive to the male sex to do wrong, while totally unfitting the female sex to do right. The beginning of all immorality on woman’s side has sprung from ignorance, and from the system of mystery and the tendency to declare indecent that which cannot be so, being God’s law. In regard to the physical condition of the sexes, we hold that where equal opportunities are afforded to both of strengthening, developing, and improving the body, little material difference will be found in the two. There are many strong men in this world, and there are many strong women, as there are weakly men and weakly women. I have never heard it yet argued, that because a man is not strong in body he is therefore unfitted to take part in the affairs of State. Yet woman’s weakness is one of the reasons adduced for excluding her therefrom. We believe that in a big public school, say, for instance, at Eton, if girls and boys were admitted together, that girls would very soon prove that neither physically nor mentally were they inferior to boys, nor should such a pernicious doctrine be ever inculcated into the boy’s brain. He should not be brought up as he is now, to look down on his sisters as inferior to him, nor should those sisters be told that he is their superior in strength and mental capacity. It is a doctrine the perniciousness of which is far-reaching, and a distinct infringement of the natural. “This leads us to the consideration of the second clause, the adoption by women of those professions hitherto arrogated to themselves solely by men. We are of opinion that, granted a similar education as men, women are in every way as fitted to occupy those professions. I may be allowed here perhaps, to refer with pride to that magnificent body of women over 200,000 strong who are now enrolled in the regiments of the Women’s Volunteer forces, of which I am proud to call myself a member, and whose uniform I am fittingly wearing on this occasion. We have before us a splendid evidence of woman’s power to combine and come under discipline. These regiments are kept up to their full force, and are all due to individual effort and womanly sacrifice. There is no State aid in the question, and yet the efficiency of each regiment is perfect. Disbanded and scattered, they can be summoned to their ranks at a few days’ notice, without fear that they will fail. I point to this as a brilliant example of what women can accomplish in so short a time, by self-sacrifice and simple determination. The same argument of their efficiency to enter the army applies to the navy, and to any other profession hitherto occupied solely by man.