Somehow, all the students in all our schools get the idea, that a man in order to be "somebody" must be in public life. Now think of the fact that the millions attending school in this country have in some way acquired this idea, and that only one in every one thousand of these is either needed in public life, or can win success there. Let this fact be realized, and it is easy to see that the nine hundred and ninety-nine will feel that they are somehow cheated out of their birthright. They desired to be in public life, and be "somebody," but they are not, and so their life grows tame and tasteless to them. They are disappointed. The men solace themselves with a petty justice's commission, or a town office of some kind, and the women--some of them--talk about "woman's rights," and make themselves notorious and ridiculous at public meetings. I think women have rights which they do not at present enjoy, but I have very little confidence in the motives of their petticoated champions, who court mobs, delight in notoriety, and glory in their opportunity to burst away from private life, and be recognized by the public as "somebodies." I insist on this:--that private and even obscure life is the normal condition of the great multitude of men and women in this world; and that, to serve this private life, public life is instituted. Public life has no legitimate significance save I as it is related to the service of private life. It requires peculiar talents and peculiar education, and brings with it peculiar trials; and the man best fitted for it would be the last man confidently to assert his fitness for it.