that I might meet with you and join with you in celebrating on this occasion the progress of woman, in a country in which women continue the work of my ancestors. American ladies, from their colossal progress, may be considered the younger sisters of the women of ancient Greece. Have you not done in this age what they did twenty centuries ago? Are not you the athletic heroines of progress who have raised up the flag of woman's intellectual independence, and have achieved by your native intelligence and by your ardent devotion to science and art the realization of the great idea. of Christ - the equality of the sexes?

Have not your great nation and your great men, the wealth of your country, the millions of dollars to your credit in your national budget proved that the developed woman is the greatest and richest factor in a commonwealth? that women with systematic culture, with purpose and with heart, not only fashion honorable men and invaluable patriots, and consolidate homes, but also make nations and countries strong? As the first Christians looked intently toward Jerusalem as the spot whence, through Christianity, the regeneration of nations was to be effected, so all the civilized world looks intently toward America as the point whence shall issue the true civilization and the permanent progress of the people. We, far away to-day in our small Greece, with our beautiful sky, our smiling landscapes, and with the living and instructive monuments of our ancestors we, the small descendants of great progenitors, follow your course with enthusiasm.

Age-long servitude has rendered our minds inert, our bodies weak. The darkness of the Middle Ages has spread a thick cloud over Greece, and the tyrannical yoke which but just now we have thrown off has left ineffaceable scars. Nevertheless we advance, if only slowly. The monuments. of our ancestral fame are colossal evidences of genius which remind us of our descent. They say to us that a nation does not die whose works time, the great destroyer, has not been able to render tame and weak.

I shall not try, ladies, to inform you as to my ancient country. You know its great and glorious history, from which has been nurtured all the human race. Generally the name of Athens has been accepted to mean light, progress, civilization, letters, art, science; but before all these it had another meaning, to many unknown. It meant in general the predomination of the goddesses in Olympia, and the predomination of woman in society. Our women in ancient times, according to a very old tradition, had the same civil rights as men. When it was to be decided what deity should be the protector of their city, while the men, who were more lazy than the women, voted, in small numbers, for a god, the women all voted for a goddess. Thus Athens came under the rule of Pallas Athena - of wisdom.

JOSEFA HUMPAL-ZEMAN OF BOHEMIA.

What can I say for the Bohemian women to you? We have come thousands of miles, as have many other noble representatives. I only regret that my friend who was to represent the women of Bohemia to-night is not able to be here, because she has been delayed on the voyage and may not arrive until a week later. We have in our country, among those high hills, and in those quiet valleys, women who are to-day struggling for the same ideas, the same aims which you are struggling for; and the very fact that I, a Bohemian, a descendant of that famous educator who dared to advocate equal education for women and men- that I stand here a Bohemian woman, Bohemian born, Bohemian educated, to assist in this Congress, proves my statement.

Ladies, I need not make any excuses for the women of my nationality. They have struggled; they have tried to perform their duties in their own homes. They have also gone to the wars and stood side by side with their husbands in the Thirty Years' War, where they fought bravely. They have

become educators, artists, and students; and more than that, they have tried three years ago to establish the first school for the higher education of women in Central Europe, and did establish at Prague a private school to prepare women for the university of that city; and the Reichsrath has said that just as soon as the women of Bohemia get the young women prepared for the university, that it shall be open to them, and women will have equal education. The women. of Bohemia are now out of their own private money supporting this school, where they have over eighty students studying the classical languages, mathematics, and medicine. More than that, the first two physicians that have been appointed by the government of Austria as state physicians, as army physicians, in the county of Bosnia, are Bohemian women. I know that women in our land are interested in your good work, because I have been requested by the leading newspaper men of Bohemia to keep this Congress before the eyes of our women. I wish that I could make you understand how happy, how proud I am that I can have a part in this great movement, in this great current which is pushing with all its force forward, and which is bound to sweep away all narrow prejudices and put woman where she belongs, by the side of man, as a human being.

KAETHE SCHIRMACHER OF GERMANY.

If you will give me your attention a few minutes, I will tell you how I happen to be here, because I think it is such a fine illustration of the liberal mindedness of American women. Ever since I heard of the World's Fair at Chicago, I set my heart on being here, because I wanted to see great things, because I wanted to see great men and great women. For a long time I found it very hard to get any opportunity for gratifying my wishes. Then it came to me all at once. We have at the place I live a woman's association, the president of which was asked to take part in the World's Con