Page:The Business of being a Woman by Ida Tarbell.djvu/252

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THE BUSINESS OF BEING A WOMAN

great educator of the early part of the nineteenth century has recorded—"to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of the most rigid economy, that their daughters might be favored with means of improvement superior to what they themselves possessed." And back of this self-denial was what? A desire that life be made easier for the daughter? Not at all—a desire that the daughter be better equipped to "form the character of the future citizen of the Republic."

It is not alone that justice is wounded by denying women a part in the making of the civilized world—a more immediate wrong is the way the movement for a fuller, freer life for all human beings is hampered. A woman with a masculine chip on her shoulder gives a divided attention to the cause she serves. She complicates her human fight with a sex fight. However good tactics this may

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