As we withdraw our eyes from the past, it is natural to inquire, What late changes have taken place in Great Britain? and what is the strength of the reform tendency? I have often said, yet I must repeat it here, that nothing has ever promised such noble usefulness for woman, nothing has ever occurred to change the popular estimate of her character, in the same degree as the formation of that _out-of-door Parliament_,--the Association for the Advancement of Social Science. It offers a position of entire equality to woman. It encourages her to express herself in the presence and with the sympathy of the wisest men, and gives her an opportunity to speak to the actual Parliament through her own influence exerted on its best members. It has been well said (I think, by Mrs. Mill), that the very best opportunities of education will be opened to woman in vain, until she is practically invited to turn them to account. Here, in this association, is her first practical invitation in Great Britain. God grant that she may understand the responsibility it involves, and bear it well! But the formation of this association in 1857 was preceded by other steps. It was on the 13th of February, 1851, that a petition of women, agreed to by a public meeting at Sheffield, and claiming the elective franchise, was laid before the House of Lords by the Earl of Carlisle; and, in July of the same year, Mrs. Mill's admirable article on the "Enfranchisement of Women," now become commonplace on account of the extensive and thorough use that has been made of it, appeared in the "Westminster." The examination of Florence Nightingale before a commission of inquiry bore witness no less to the surpassing ability of the woman than to the increasing value of such ability to all governments. In connection with it, one could not but smile at the distress felt by certain journals over a single mistake on the part of the lady as to the proper title of a subordinate officer. In the month of March, 1856, the "London Times" published a petition to both Houses of Parliament in behalf of an amendment of the English property-laws. This petition was signed by many women whose names are well known and dear to us,--by the late Anna Jameson, so well known to the world as an accomplished critic in literature and art; by the wife and sister of the poet Browning,--Elizabeth Browning, herself the first poet among women, so far; by Bessie Raynor Parkes and Matilda Hayes, the editors of the "Englishwoman's Journal," the establishment of which of itself constitutes an era in the progress of human thought; by Barbara Bodichon, the well-known artist; by Harriet Martineau, distinguished in political economy; by Mary Howitt, the womanly story-teller and ballad-maker; and Mrs. Gaskell, the author of "Mary Barton." The petition was supported in the House of Lords by Lord Brougham, and in the House of Commons by Sir Erskine Perry.