We praise it less because it is everywhere. We hardly see it, but we know that it is present, and that society—frontier society—could not long exist without that penetrating, shaping, elevating force. And so while we applaud the heroine we may not forget the patient and often unconscious educator.
When the philosophical historian of the future collects the myriad facts upon which he is to base those generalizations which show the progress of the race upon this continent, and how that progress was induced, he will draw from woman's record a noble array of names and virtues, and a vast multitude of good, kind, and brave deeds, but he will not forget to take note also of the silent agencies, and the unobtrusive but ever-present influence of woman which will be found to outweigh the potency of the stronger and more brilliant virtues with all the acts that they have wrought.
And so it is to-day. As we gaze fixedly on the great expanse which the record of our time unrolls, we see high up on the majestic scroll a thousand bright and speaking evidences of woman's silent agency in the building of a new empire upon our dark and distant borderland.