Those whose names are signed to the Suffrage Woman's Bible, and who are therefore responsible for that disgraceful effusion, have little right to claim to be intelligent instructors of their sex. With an ignorance that is monumental, Frances Ellen Burr glories in the fact that "the Revising Committee refer to a woman's translation of the Bible as their ultimate authority for the Greek, Latin, and Hebrew text," and they add that "Julia Smith, this distinguished scholar," is the only person, man or woman, who ever made a translation of the Bible without help. They say: "Wycliff made a translation from the Vulgate assisted by Nicholas of Hereford. He was not sufficiently familiar with Hebrew and Greek to translate from those tongues. Coverdale's translation was not done alone. Tyndale, in his translation, had the assistance of Frye, of William Roye, and also of Miles Coverdale. Julia Smith translated the whole Bible absolutely alone, without consultation with any one"! Again they say, "King James appointed fifty-four men of learning to translate the Bible. Seven of them died, and forty-seven carried the work on. Compare this corps of workers with one little woman performing the Herculean task without one suggestion or word of advice from mortal man "! Yes, compare it! Uncultured Julia Smith, stirred by the Millerite prophecies, did the best she could to enlighten her own mind, and should be honored for so doing; but what is to be said of the women who in this day, in cool print, are willing to show that they have no comprehension of her grotesque errors or of the difficulties that beset a real scholar in his noble task? Protest at woman's educational deprivation comes with ill-grace from those who have thus revealed their own lack of knowledge of the oldest literature in the world, the model of poetry and prose, the guardian of the purity of our English speech.
Educated women desire that woman should do all that strength and time allow in the care of the public schools. The school suffrage ought to be a boon for them. But it does not, so far, look as if women could make it so. The figures of the school vote of women in Connecticut, for three years, occasion serious question whether the use of the ballot is the way in which woman is to effect anything. In Staten Island, ignorance in women voted out education, and a tremendous effort had to be made to vote it in again. The number of men who voted at the last general election in Connecticut was about 164,000. The women outnumber the men, but the following table represents the school vote in the State of Emma Willard. It certainly does not represent the amount of interest taken in education, nor in the common schools: