rHE CONGRESS OE WOMEN.
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United States inaugurated her reign, and like all American inventions, no matter how ultra and radical the innovation may appear, the indorsement of the inaugurator is a sufficient guarantee for its propriety and legality. Since June, 1869, upward of three hundred women have been admitted to practice law in the various state and federal courts, and at least one-third of these are in actual practice. It is as impossible to give the exact number of women lawyers in the United States, as it would be to state the actual number of practitioners among men. Twenty-two states have reported seventy- four women lawyers in active practice. Four states, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana and Maryland have statutory prohibitions comprised in the words “ male citizens.” In the remaining eighteen states and territories there is no agitation of the subject at present, but nothing in the law's to prevent their admission.
That the proportion of women engaged in the law' is less than in the other professions is, in a measure, due to the peculiar requirements of the law'. Woman may be the weakest in this profession, but in it she lifts w'ith the longest lever the social and legal status of her sex. A certain sentimentality concerning sex, supplemented by her innate dread of criticism, are the tw T o monstrous lions that intimidate her at the entrance to the Palace Beautiful.
Also it is no trifling education that is needed for successful competition in this profession. The ramifications of the law are infinite, and the successful lawyer must be versed in all subjects. The law' is not a mere conglomeration of decisions and statutes; otherwise “ Pretty Poll ” might pose as an able advocate. A mind unadapted to investigation, unable to see the reasons for legal decisions, is as unreliable at the bar as is a color-blind person in the employ of a signal corps. The woman lawyer w'ho demands an indemnity against failure must offer as collateral security not only the ordinary school education, but also a knowledge of the w'orld and an acquaintance w’ith that most abstruse of all philosophies—human nature. She must needs cultivate all the common sense and tact with w'hich nature has endow'ed her, that she may adjust herself to all conditions. She must possess courage to assert her position and maintain her place in the presence of braggadocio and aggressiveness, with patience, firmness, order and absolute good nature; a combativeness which fears no Rubicon; a retentiveness of memory which classifies and keeps on file minutest details; a self- reliance W'hich is the sine qua non of success; a tenacity of purpose and stubbornness of perseverance which gains ground, not by leaps, but by closely contested hair breadths; a fertility of resource w'hich can meet the “ variety and instantaneousness ” of all occasions; an originality and clearness of intellect like that of Portia, prompt to recognize the value of a Single drop of blood; a critical acumen to understand and discriminate between the subtle technicalities of law and an aptness to judge rightly of the interpretation of principles.
No more is required of woman than of man, for it is said: “God made her to match the men,” not rival them, but perhaps not one in ten of the men who enter the legal profession succeeds, and not one in fifty of these attains any degree of eminence.
It is premature to attempt to judge of the effect of women lawyers on the bar, for as a class they are yet minors. The universal verdict concerning their reception by their brothers-in-law’ is that of courtesy, kindness, and cordial w'elcome.
PAen if woman’s achievements were placed at issue with those of the Alexanders, the Caesars, the Hannibals and the Napoleons of the other sex, woman would not enter a nolle pros., nor lose her case by default, for it must be remembered that there are conquerors w'ho do not inscribe the record of their conquests on the landscape, with sw'ord and spear, nor w'rite their victories with blood. In the enlargement of her legal privileges woman has invaded and conquered realms unknown to the Macedonian madman; by her identification with economic and political questions she has been an important factor in a type of civilization unimagined by the dread arbiter of Rome; in a successful campaign against civil disabilities and the allegations of incompetency she has executed vows more ennobling than the oath of the Carthaginian general, and in the uplifting of her sex she follows a diviner star of ambition than that which set