302 INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF EDUCATION. 
ind blindly indorsed all his opinions, would have preferred a woman who 
felt compelled to marry him for a home, or impelled to marry him for 
social station. 
The world needs an intelligent distribution of its wealth. Shall mil- 
lions of men risk their lives exploring the caverns of the earth and the 
depths of the air and sea for gold, silver, plumage, pearls, and diamonds, 
only that a few favored women may be decked in jewels or clad in furs 
and seal skins ? 
¢ To paint the lily, 
Or add another hue unto the rainbow, 
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.” 
This small fractional portion of womankind, whose splendid array and 
orgeous coming and going through the earth make them appear to be 
typical of the sheltered and protected ease and luxury of the entire woman- 
100d of the world, will receive in this paper our late but respectful con- 
sideration. 
It cannot be that womankind has no other interest in the precious 
wealth of the world than to make herself irresistibly attractive to its few 
sossessors, and thus to bear off the palm before all others, and to win and 
wear their gold and jewels. Ignoble destiny! Worthy of the Circassian 
slave or the queen of the seraglio ! 
Few women of America bear that relation to the wealth of the world. 
As a fact, the larger portion of the great fortunes made by men in this 
country were made after marriage, and the wives of these men, having 
shared with them the early days of poverty and struggle, know well how 
to sympathize with their toiling sisters, understanding also, too well, that 
poverty may be the least of their misfortunes. 
The world needs a wiser administration of its charities. If it is still 
largely true that “one half of the world does not know how the other 
1alf lives,” and that, in great cities, the «“ submerged tenth ” continue to 
soison the air that all must breathe, it is also true that there is to-day 
seing done, and wisely done, on this planet more truly benevolent work 
tor the genuine uplifting of humanity, than in all the other ages of 
human history taken together. Evils are no longer accepted as inevita- 
ble, necessary, and eternal, but as symptoms of a state of humanity suscep- 
tible of treatment. The work of redemption is largely in the hands of 
women. And it is work, real brain and heart work, of the finest, most 
subtle and delicate description. If it does, as it does, incidentally, in- 
volve the handling of large sums of money, the money is not generally 
used to pay people for becoming and remaining paupers, and thus sinking 
them deeper in degradation, but for disseminating information, living 
truths, to lift them to a higher plane, educating their children to useful 
labor, and thus permanently improving their condition ; offering ‘not 
alms. but a friend and a helping hand.”