the function of keeping up the level of culture devolves upon women.  It is safe in their hands.  They are quick and keen-witted, less fond of open-air life and physical exertion than English women are, and obliged by the climate to pass a greater part of their time under shelter from the cold of winter and the sun of summer.  For music and for the pictorial arts they do not yet seem to have formed so strong a taste as for literature; partly perhaps owing to the fact that in America the opportunities of seeing and hearing masterpieces, except indeed operas, are rarer than in Europe.  But they are eager and assiduous readers of all such books and periodicals as do not presuppose special knowledge in some branch of science or learning, while the number who have devoted themselves to some special study and attained proficiency in it is large.  The fondness for sentiment, especially moral and domestic sentiment, which is often observed as characterizing American taste in literature, seems to be mainly due to the influence of women, for they form not only the larger part of the reading public, but an independent-minded part, not disposed to adopt the canons laid down by men, and their preferences count for more in the opinions and predilections of the whole nation than is the case in England.  Similarly the number of women who write is infinitely larger in America than in Europe.  Fiction, essays, and poetry are naturally their favorite provinces.  In poetry more particularly, many whose names are quite unknown in Europe have attained wide-spread fame.

Some one may ask how far the differences between the position of women in America and their position in Europe are due to democracy? or if not to this, then to what other cause?

They are due to democratic feeling, in so far as they spring from the notion that all men are free and equal, possessed of certain inalienable rights and owing certain corresponding duties.  This root idea of democracy cannot stop at defining men as male human beings, any more than it could ultimately stop at defining them as white human beings.  For many years the Americans believed in equality with the pride of discoverers as well as with the fervor of apostles.  Accustomed to apply it to all sorts and conditions of men, they were naturally the first to apply it to women also; not indeed as respects politics, but in all the social as well as legal relations of life.  Democracy is in America more respectful of the individual, less disposed to infringe his freedom or subject him to any sort of legal or family control, than it has shown itself in Continental Europe; and this regard for the individual inured to the benefit of women.  Of the other causes that have worked in the same direction, two may be mentioned.  One is the usage of the Congregationalist, Presbyterian, and Baptist churches, under which a woman who is a member of the congregation has the same rights in choosing a deacon, elder, or pastor, as a man has.  Another is the fact that among the westward-moving settlers women were at first few in number, and were therefore treated with special respect.  The habit then formed was retained as the communities grew, and propagated itself all over the country.