has dawned, and that through her humanity will reach a higher and nobler civilization than the world has yet known, I feel the most profound interest in all that affects her health, comfort, and happiness; for as I have before observed, her exaltation means the elevation of the race. A broader liberty and more liberal meed of justice for her mean a higher civilization, and the solution of weighty and fundamental problems which will never be equitably adjusted until we have brought into political and social life more of the splendid spirit of altruism, which is one of her most conspicuous characteristics. I believe that morality, education, practical reform, and enduring progress wait upon her complete emancipation from the bondage of fashion, prejudice, superstition, and conservatism.

However little she may realize it, every girl who rides her steel horse is a vivid illustration of one of the greatest waves of progress of this century, the advancement of women in freedom and opportunity.

A wise physician once said that the opinion that a good woman should stay closely at home had killed more women than any other one cause. In the days of our grandmothers the suggestion of regular gymnastic training or athletics for girls would have been received with horror. It was hardly proper for a woman to have any knowledge of the construction of her physical system.

It is a curious historical fact that the first women lecturers upon physiology were women's rights women, and viewed by the majority of people as dangerous to female modesty, while the Ladies' Physiological Institute in Boston was at first much disapproved of by the clergy. So long, too, as old-fashioned "stays" (laced up sometimes by the aid of equally old-fashioned bed-posts) remained in vogue, neither physiology nor athletics stood much chance with women.

But the often derided dress reformer has had her way, to a great extent. Bathing dresses, gymnastic and tennis suits which would have frightened an eighteenth century dame into one of her favorite fainting fits.

Meanwhile the girls have mounted their bicycles. Bless you, my children; what endless vistas of good times are before you! What glorious landscape views and ocean moonrises, what freedom, what fresh, airy delight in young life and strength! Already one young doctor has departed with his bride on a wedding tour to Texas, each upon a bicycle. Other strange affairs will no doubt take place. By and by the bishops will see no more irreverence in bidding Godspeed to girls starting on a journey to California upon bicycles than to girls departing to Europe on a steamship.

UN-AMERICAN TENDENCIES.

BY REV. CARLOS MARTYN, D. D.

THE monarchial conception is that a few are born booted and spurred to ride, and that the many are born saddled and bridled to be ridden. The republican theory is that "Everybody is cleverer than anybody," to quote the epigram attributed to Talleyrand; and that government, in Lincoln's phrase, should be "of the people, by the people, and for the people."

The United States is the only nation in history which has dared to base itself upon an absolute trust in the people.

There have been republics (so-called) ad infinitum and ad nauseam. "Greece," cries one of the foremost of our orators, "had her republics, but they were the republics of one freeman and ten slaves; and the battle of Marathon was fought by slaves unchained from the doorposts of their master's houses. Italy had her republics; they were the republics of wealth and skill and family, limited and aristocratic. Holland had her republic, the republic of guilds and landholders, trusting the helm of state to property and education. The Swiss republics were groups of cousins. And all these which, at their best, held but a million or two within their narrow limits, have gone down in the ocean of time."

The Spanish-American Republics are nondescripts. They owe their existence to pronunciamientos. They are the puppets of successful soldiers, and are administered by generals who follow one another like the ghosts that walked in the vision of Richard Third," and do not hold office long enough to be photographed. They are based on mongrel races, steeped in ignorance, cramped by superstition, and physically rotten before they get ripe.

Our fathers built a commonwealth on the foundation of manhood. They recognized no other qualification, save for a period of inconsistency, color; which, happily, is now wiped out of the fundamental law, though not entirely out of popular prejudice.

The faith in the people which Jefferson, Sam Adams, and the men of '76 cherished as the distinctive tenet of their

political creed, has been justified by results. Their gigantic creation launches into the second decade of its second century, belted with power, aggrandized with El Dorados, the amazement of the world, the "Arabian Nights" translated into every-day reality.

Unfortunately, however, in the face of this unprecedented record of prosperity, certain un-republican tendencies begin to exhibit themselves among us. These may well give thoughtful patriots startled concern.

Half a century ago, before time had been annihilated by the telegraph, and distance abolished by steam, nations were comparatively isolated; and the American most of all. Europe was three thousand miles away. Now-a-days, the old world is next-door neighbor to the new. Saint John's apocalyptic vision is realized; there is "no more sea." It is bridged by steamers, and flashed out of existence by the electric cable. What is the consequence? The consequence is that while Europe borrows many of our ideas, America borrows more of hers. With the increase of travel, the growth of wealth, the enlargement of our leisurely class, there is an aping of English and German habits of thought and modes of life which are utterly repugnant to republican institutions. While Europe should seem to be almost ready to discard baby-house distinctions and the embroidered rags of aristocracy, America, strange to say, appears willing to put on and wear the disreputable finery. We are becoming disagreeably familiar with what Mr. Gladstone characterizes in an inspired phrase, as the classes in contrast with the masses. This interchange of national customs comes inevitably from the facilitated intercourse of our day, from the intimacy begotten by inter-marriage, by commerce, by travel. But it is sad if we are to borrow more than we lend, and if the balance of trade is to be perpetually against us. We must find or invent a remedy if republicanism is to survive. The widespread alarm felt among our humbler citizens shows how real the danger is. Take, for instance, the growing distrust of universal suffrage manifested by our cultivated classes. Certain journals, the organs of wealth and monopoly; social-science conventions, composed of pert specialists poisoned by caste feeling; even pulpits, which should be

the guardians and exponents of democracy,-cautiously, tentatively, but as positively as they dare, discuss the propriety of restraining the ballot, and sigh for a property or an educational qualification.

Now, if there be one feature of American republicanism which is supremely characteristic, it is universal suffrage. This interpenetrates our political system as veins run through a block of marble. The patriots and sages who framed our Constitution grouted it with this principle. They believed and declared that it was safe to trust men with self-government. They recognized, of course, the fact that in every community there would be an element of ignorance and inefficiency. But by putting the ballot in every hand they deliberately took bonds of wealth and culture to enlighten this ignorance and train this inefficiency. They enlisted the self-interest of the Commonwealth on the side of popular education. They said, practically, to the well-to-do and to those who had interests at stake: See to it, if you would save your possessions, that you share them with the poorest and the lowest, at least to the extent of lifting them to the level of self-control and self-respect. In fact, this is the meaning of our free schools, of trial by jury, and of the ballot-box. Tocqueville, whose insight into republican institutions was marvellous, distinctly traces our prosperity, in his survey of American democracy, to universal suffrage, with all that it necessitates. So on the other side of the water, when, in 1867, Parliament doubled the English franchise, Robert Lowe leaped to his feet and cried, amid the cheers of the House of Commons: "Now the first interest and duty of every Englishman is to educate the masses.' Previously, if the Court of St. James stooped to put intelligence on one side and morality on the other side of the cradle rocked by poverty and vice, it was pity that dictated the gracious act. Now it is self-preservation. Who does not know how much stronger self-interest is than pity as a motive? Who cannot see the far-sighted wisdom of our fathers in thus ingrafting this powerful motive upon the fundamental law?

Moreover, universal suffrage is educational in itself. Responsibility educates. Nothing else does. By throwing the responsibility upon the people they are necessarily lifted, sobered, broadened. Our women do not vote. What is the result? Not one woman in a thousand has any interest in,

and not one in two thousand has any acquaintance with, political affairs.. Their ignorance would be laughable were it not sad. Every father, husband, brother, can testify to the impenetrable ignorance of his feminine belongings concerning matters of public moment. It forms the topic of universal comment in male circles. It is not because women are naturally incapable. It is because having no responsibility they naturally have no interest. Why should a woman inform herself of what does not concern her? Occasionally, some woman, exceptionally placed, or born with a genius for politics, studies and masters state-craft. But exceptions do not invalidate, they prove rules. Women, like men, cannot be expected to take any intelligent interest in affairs that lie outside of their life.

Our men, on the contrary, are politicians down to the infant in the cradle. A boy baby cries, "Mr. Chairman!" as soon as he can talk, and calls the next crib to order. Men know that the maturing of politics, the selection of administrations, the distribution of offices, the adjustment of taxes, are their function. This knowledge whets the edge of interest. The significant fact is that it is not the people who are indifferent to politics. This indifference is found among merchants who are too busy making money to attend to the public weal; among scholars buried alive in their books, with no interest in any question that is not musty; among men of leisure, aping old world aristocracy, and out of touch with democracy; among those who say that all men are equal and are afraid they will be, never among the people.

The plainer men are the greater is their political interest. Our naturalized citizens, shut out in their native land from all participation in government, and hence appreciating citizenship here, are among the most alert. These are they who crowd the halls during the recurring canvasses, and who are always early at the polls. And is it possible to overrate the instruction they get at meetings where they hear great questions discussed by master minds, when issues are torn open and riddled with light? Thus universal suffrage is itself a normal school, the people's college.

It is often said that, judged by its power to govern great cities, universal suffrage is a failure. This is true. The failure, however, is due to local causes. It does not come from the inherent incapacity of the masses, but is the spawn