THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.

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antiquarian sources, but the conditions of today in remote countries known usually through the works of travelers are shown here, in the World’s Fair, by actual investi­gation of methods among the semi-civilized peoples located with all their native cus­toms and appliances in the Midway Plaisance; they accord with the archaeological remains shown in the Anthropological Building in the South Park. Dr. Mary E. Green and Professor Kinsie, with whom the writer was associated on the judges’ com­mittee for the examination of food-products, by Prof. W. O. Atwater, made exact investigation of the methods in operation at the native villages; their conclusions accorded with the writer’s, which were formed after continued research among the records and relics of the progenitors of these and other so-called uncivilized races. The fundamental principles of cookery are the same among all peoples; those are the best fed who have adhered to slow, moderate heat, and the long-continued process now advocated by modern science. The woman seemed naturally to perform the cul­inary office; she is fitted for it in all ages and countries, and should comprehend its mysteries for that reason; if other were needed modern medical and sanitary science show how entirely by its agency she can mold the mental and physical condition of humanity. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes said, thirty years ago, that medical curative treatment would resolve itself into modifications of the food and natural stimuli; and medical science today verifies his prediction. This same modern science repeats the lessons learned by man when he lived closest to the heart of Mother Nature. The stone-age man in the South Pacific still uses the earth-ovens of hisTorefathers, and the epicures of the Eastern seacoast cook their clam bakes in just such way. This is only one of the parallels afforded by the latest discoveries among the ruined civilizations of this great continent, whose re-discovery we are now celebrating with such pomp and circumstance.

In the last of the great American empires the domestic virtues of women were most highly esteemed. We have already seen that they were prominent in civil and religious capacities, and even the stern Franciscan, Torquemada, who came to Mexico before the conquerors had vanished from the scene of their glory and their shame, says that the Aztec women were an “admirable example for our times, when women are not only unfit for the labors of the field, but have too much levity to attend to their own households.” These Aztec women became the mothers of some of Spain’s noblest houses. While today we honor the children of Columbus and the memory of Isabella within the precincts of this our City Beautiful, shall we wholly neglect the homage due to merits so transcendent as to stir to enthusiasm that grave Franciscan’s heart?

When we leave this Congress let us go to those sections of our White City which contain the sad mementoes of this dead and gone greatness, through the galleries of our Government Building, to the Central and South American sections of the Liberal Arts, to the exhibits of Mexico and Peru; above all, to that vast repository of our country’s vanished glories, which overflows with relics of the oldest of the great civil­izations of this changeful earth. Let us stand before the remains of this grandest of man’s ruined supremacies, and yield the homage of a few short moments to the mem­ories of those noble wives and mothers. A woman’s hand will point us to the monu­ments of that noble wife and queen who raised to her murdered husband’s memory one of the greatest mausoleums that ever weighted the bosom of Mother Earth with carven images of human grandeur. Let us follow where Madame Le Plongeon lets in the light of modern day upon the palace and tomb of the queen long dead, dust with the dust she lamented—work well worthy a place in our most beautiful of modern cemeteries. The colors, fresh as when laid upon the walls, show the beautiful queen weeping beside her dead lord; and the superb photographs of Mandsley bear out all that Madame Le Plongeon has written about the Tiger King’s wife. These architect­ural links are no closer than the religious and ethical, which show a degree of enlight­enment that will bear comparison with our own.

So far as women are concerned, if the test of their advancement be the degree of