Although it is a fact that man owes innumerable benefits to woman’s care, devotion, and mental initiative, it is also true that through egoism and self-conceit he has never appreciated woman’s work and achievements at their full value. On the contrary: while she was giving all and asking little, while she shared with man all hardships and perils, she was for thousands of years without any rights, not even as regards her own person and property. From ancient times up to the present day she has been an object of rape and barter, and quite often, for sexual purposes, held in the most horrible slavery. During the Middle Ages innumerable women were persecuted for witchcraft, subjected to the most cruel tortures, dragged to the scaffold to be beheaded, or burnt alive at the stake. Woman’s status to-day is the result of her own energy, efforts and ability. She overcame the prejudice and stubborn opposition of bigoted priests, pedantic scholars and reactionary statesmen, who were unable to see that the advance and emancipation of woman is synonymous with the progress and liberation of the greater part of the entire human race. To short sighted people such as these Tennyson directed his lines: “The Woman’s Cause is Man’s! They rise or sink together, dwarf’d or godlike, bond or free; if she be small, slight-natured, miserable, how shall men grow!” The book submitted here gives an account of woman’s evolution, of her enduring and trying struggles for liberty, education, and recognition. While this account will make every woman proud of the achievements of her sex, man, by reading it, will become aware that it is his solemn duty not only to protect woman from injustice, brutality and exploitation, but to give her all possible assistance in her endeavors to attain that position in which she will be man’s ideal consort and friend. RUDOLPH CRONAU. [Illustration] Women During the Remote Past. [Illustration: ABORIGINAL HUTS AT THE AMAZON RIVER ] PRIMEVAL MAN, HIS ORIGIN AND SEVERE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE. While we were young and credulous, black-robed theologians impressed upon our minds their theory of creation, according to which the first man was moulded by the divine author of all things in his own image and placed in an enchanting paradise. Here he enjoyed with his mate, whom the same deity formed from one of man’s ribs, a state of innocence, bliss and happiness, since want, sickness, and death were as yet unknown, and all animals lived together in peace and harmony.