Our public school system is the open door to Universal Education. This system is not a machine, but a sensitive and progressive organism, always subject to improvement through change of methods and studies.

The time has come when Educational Reconstruction is one of the most weighty problems which can enlist the thought of American manhood and womanhood. This reconstruction must be along the following lines:

1st. The study of our own language and literature should occupy the place of supreme importance and dignity.

2nd. Other modern languages should no longer be made secondary to the Ancient Languages.

3rd. The study of Natural History and Natural Science should be emphasized from the earliest years.

4th. The Kindergarten and Manual Training should be made essential factors of school work.

5th. Such other readjustments in the way of better coordination of studies and subtraction of unnecessary operations as will make age and fitness, the prevention of cramming, and the substitution of the natural for the artificial, primal considerations must be accomplished.

6th. Our ideal must be orderly, harmonious, unbroken development, beginning with the Kindergarten and continuing through every grade to the college.

In the interest of these changes we welcome the "Report of the Committee of Ten" and heartily respond to its summons. This testimony was unanimously adopted.

SAMUEL PENNOCK, chairman of the committee on nominations reported that after examining the report of the Treasurer the committee had found it correct with a shortage due the treasurer of $1.72. The committee reported the name of AARON MENDENHALL for treasurer and he was elected.

On behalf of the Memorial Committee, HENRY S. KENT read fitting tributes to the memories of Longwood's friends who had gone to a higher life during the year. Memorials had been prepared for the following persons and all were read, but it was advised that only the last two be published: FRANK

LIN HANNUM, PRISCILLA LAMBORN TAYLOR, JOSIAH JACKSON, ELIZABETH JACKSON and JACOB T. STEARN.

MEMORIALS.

ELIZABETH JACKSON.

Elizabeth Jackson who recently left this sphere for the higher life has furnished illustration of the growth and expansion of human thought and positive knowledge in this progressive age. She was borne a short distance from Longwood, descending from ancestry of note and influence in the society of Friends. She possessed an independent and progressive mind, and greatly enjoyed that freedom of thought and expression manifested at our Longwood Yearly Meetings. Through her personality has been illustrated the grand unity of the material with the spiritual life, linked together and rationally co-existent under the rule of Divine, Infinite, all-pervading and inexorable law.

Often when in health her inner vision was opened to perceive spiritual personages and to commune with them soul with soul, rationally and sensibly; Aware, as was our admirable Whittier, that

"The sphere of the supernal powers

Impinges on this world of ours,

And very near about us lies

The realm of spiritual mysteries."

JACOB T. STEARN.

We are forcibly reminded that we must add to our long and still lengthening list of Progressive Friends who have passed from this life's labor to its rest the name of JACOB T. STEARN, of Iowa. He was one of that little company of heroic spirits who, finding no worthy altar elsewhere on which to lay their gifts of love to God through service of man, built for themselves this simple shrine so sanctified to us, who still linger here, by sweet and holy memories of our sainted dead. We remember him as a fearless, outspoken opponent of every form of oppression, and in an especial manner the enthusiastic champion of the doctrine of Total Abstinence from the body

and soul defilements of rum and tobacco. In his adopted home in Iowa, he set a worthy example of good citizenship, and was eminently recognized by his fellow citizens as a leader in the true development of the State. His long and eventful life was not without hardships and severe trials,which he passed through with the fortitude that becomes a man. His example is a legacy which the world consciously or unconsciously puts at in

terest.

The report was accepted in silence as read.

After remarks by MR. HINCKLEY. the meeting joined in singing the hymn beginning:

"Still through the cloven skies they come

With peaceful wings unfurled."

REV. HENRIETTA G. MOORE was then introduced, and spoke substantially as follows on "Woman Suffrage."

I am glad to stand on a platform where I do not feel hampered. I go to many places where they say to me, "Miss Moore you must not say this" or "it will not do to say that," but here I feel perfectly free to say whatever I think I ought. Paul has said the greatest of all things is love. Henry Drummond has emphasized this and many beautiful lives have given example of it. Love is only an essence though a part of the truth. In the scriptures it says "God is Love" and it is equally true that God is truth. In securing the truth and searching for it we create a stir among the masses who cannot accept these teachings as the truth. In my work I am often reminded of the words of John Stuart Mill when he said that every great reform must pass through three stages; ridicule, discussion and adoption. We cannot be so much surprised that this man ridicules the reform, we must expect it, for we are not yet fully out of the first stage of development. We are fast getting out of it though and are entering the second stage of discussion. I believe this to be true also of every great reform we are striving for. The voice of ridicule is not so loud to-day as it was yesterday, and when the sun of to-morrow shall rise many of the scoffers of to-day will themselves be in line. No individual or organization of individuals can long exist unless

it keeps step with God's evolutionary law of progression. This change is constantly taking place all around us and we see its effects every day. For this reason, if no other, I am glad to stand for this reform movement, this comparatively new truth.

I believe man and woman should stand side by side in the home, there should be two heads to every family. We ask for the freedom, liberty and political enfranchisement of woman. We ask for nothing more than that woman be allowed to represent herself, we do not want to represent you, the men. With this minister I would say, "let woman keep her place," but first let her get into her place and then keep it, and I would say also let this man keep his place and I don't think it's his place to tell woman where she belongs in the world.

We do not want to crowd the men out, but we do want to be our own representatives. Women have proven that they are neither angels nor idiots. The men who get to the highest positions in the nation often believe that women are one or the other. In the legislative halls of Ohio when this question was being discussed recently one man said he would vote. against the bill and emphatically too, for he loved women too well to allow them to be imposed with the responsibilities of government. Now this man thought we were angels. If I used slang I would say this "Is too sweet for any use." We don't want to be loved to this extent. Another man in the same hall said that women do not know enough to vote. He thought we were idiots. We can support ourselves, having proven it often, and in some instances a husband and family of children too. The question is not what can women endure, but what can she not do? She is not only capable of self-support, but of self-protection. If there is anything she needs to be protected from it is men, especially men in the liquor business and men in the christian pulpit who vote a ticket you cannot distinguish from a rum seller's ticket. Do you think when women vote they will allow the rum-shops to exist? This government is in accursed partnership with the liquor business, and woman's influence will be thrown on the side of right and justice. If any woman does not reach forward for

this reform it is because she does not see the ill effects of the one-sided affair. This nation is run by the money and liquor powers, but strong men will feel different when the women stand side by side with them.

I recently drove through the mining camps where the striking miners live. The morning was a cold, rainy one, but the little boys and girls of the miners were out insufficiently clad hunting for coal, and they seemed much rejoiced when they would find a small piece no larger than a walnut. God forgive the manhood of this nation for bringing about the state of affairs under which this condition can exist. If women were allowed to vote it would be different. This sad condition in which we find ourselves has not come upon us suddenly either, but has grown gradually upon us. We women grow out of the narrow places we have been occupying, and get out into the world of thought, putting our shoulders to the wheel and helping to solve the questions of the day.

A traveler on entering a certain town asked a boy whom he met if there was a lawyer in the town "Oh yes," replied the boy "he lives over yonder on the way to the court house." "And have you a minister?" inquired the traveler, "yes, he lives on the road to the church." "And a doctor?" "Yes,

a doctor too, he lives over by the cemetery." Now I believe in consistency of arrangement and I think we women should live on the road to the ballot box; we must take up our line of march for Washington, and when men and women stand on this higher ground of equality together they will bring about a better condition of affairs.

There are more men willing to grant the ballot to women than there are women demanding it. We have been in the slavery so long we don't know how to ask for freedom. Woman must come to realize however, that her influence is needed, and she is not doing her full duty if she fails to exert it.

Some of you think the government would be better if no women were in it. Is this the reason there are so many men and SO few women in the penitentiaries, and so few men and so many women in the churches? Let us not