sapientia tantum generis humani ornamentum sit, ut ad omnes et singulos (quoad quidem per sortem cujusque liceat) extendi jure debeat, non vidi, cur virgi

, since wisdom is so great an ornament of the human race that it should of right be extended (so far as practicable) to each and every one, I have not per

ERI

ter of course, and the thing is done? Thus, when Harvard College was founded, it was not regarded as an experiment, but as an institution. The "General Court," in 1636, "agreed to give 400 l. towards a schoale or colledge," and the affair was settled. Every subsequent step in the expanding

the position of women in law and society, it is clear that their educational disadvantages have been a prolonged disgrace to the other sex, and one for which women themselves are in no way accountable. When Fran?oise de Saintonges, in the sixteenth century, wished to establish girls' schools in France, she was hooted in the streets, and her father called together four doctors of law to decide whether she was possessed

hours a day."[1] It appears from President Quincy's "Municipal History of Boston,"[2] that from 1790 girls were there admitted to such schools, but during the summer months only, when there were not boys enough to fill them,--from April 20 to October 20 of each year. This lasted until 1822, when Boston became a city. Four years after, an attempt was made to establish a high school for girls, which was not, however, to teac

me such a collection of platitudes that I hardly see how I dared come before an intelligent audience with such needless reasonings. It is as if I had soberly labored to prove that two and two make four, or that ginger is "hot i' the mouth." Yet the subsequent discussion in that meeting showed that around even these harmless and commonplace propositions the battle of debate could rage hot; and it really seemed as if even to teach women the alphabet ough

e it will also be reached in political life, and women's voting be

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y, "Stand off! let him alone! let him strive patiently until he has achieved something positively valuable, and he may be sure of prompt and generous recognition--when he is fifty years old." If such a course would have been mistaken and ungenerous if applied to Professor Safford, why is it not something to be regretted that it was applied to Mrs. Somerville? In her case, the mischief w

d? and if to men's minds, why not to women's? Why use for men's intellects, which are claimed to be stronger, the forcing process,--offering, for instance, many thousand dollars a year in gratuities at our colleges, that young men may be induced to come and learn,--and only withhold assistance from the weaker minds of women? A lit

s life, according to some comfortable critics! "All that for which too many women nowadays are content to sit and whine, or fitfully and carelessly struggle, came naturally and quietly to Mrs. Somerville. And the reason was that she never asked for anything until she had earned it; or, rather, she never asked at

her came home for a short time, and, somehow or other finding out what I was about, said to my mother, 'Peg, we must put a stop to this, or we shall have Mary in a strait-jacket one of these days'" (p. 54). "I continued my mathematical and other pursuits, but under great disadvantages; for, although my husband did not prevent me from studying, I met with no sympathy whatever from him, as he

ers loud in her praise, when the prince at last took her from the chimney-corner, and married her. They had kept for themselves, to be sure, as long as they could, the delights and opportunities of life; while she had taken the place assigned her in her early days,--"which was very low," as Mrs. Somerville says. But, for all that, they were very kind to her in the days of her prosp

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men of Girton College and Newnham College--both of these being institutions for their benefit, in or near Cambridge--not only enjoy the instruction of the university, but they share it under a guaranty that it shall be of the best quality; because they attend, in many cases, the very same lectures with the young men. Where this is not done, th

d and heart which is the best result of all training. One of the worst evils of the separate education of the sexes has been the easy assum

d and a m

ll the brains poured into one human being, and christened "man;" and all the affections decanted into another, and labelled "woman." Nature herself rejects this theory. Darwin himself, the interpreter of nature, shows that there is a perpetual effort going on, by unseen forces,

inkubus." It is as well to admit it first as last: Cupid-and-Psychology will be taught wherever young men and women study together. Not in the direct and simple form of mutual love-making, perhaps; for they tell the visitor, at universities which admit both sexes, that the young men and maidens do not fa

posed by her for it was "a professorship of the heart," though they after all called it only a professorship of "Christian mo

PPORTIN

ufficiency of employment to be the only normal and healthy condition for a human being; and where there is not work enough to employ the full energies of all at home, it seems as proper for young women as for young birds to leave t

ily fortunes as the very different toil of the out-door partner. For young married women to undertake any more direct aid to the family income is in most cases utterly undesirable, and is asking of themselves a great deal too much. And

ework, and leave the mother free. There is no way of organizing the labors of this household better than this: the married pair toil together during the day, and go home together to their evening rest. A happier couple I never saw; it is a delight to see t

ild, that in a true state of society I think she should be utterly free from all other duties,--even, if possible, from the ordinary cares of housekeeping. If she has spare health and strength to do these other things as pleasures, very well; but she should be relieved from them as duties. And as to the need of self-support, I can hardly conceive of an instance where it can be to the mother of young ch

ept pure. One of the most devoted young mothers I ever knew--the younger sister of Margaret Fuller Ossoli--made it a rule, no matter how much her children absorbed her, to read books or newspapers for an hour every day; in order, she said, that she should be more to them than a mere sour

OR

h as clumsy man cannot rival, and can hardly estimate. No general plans his campaigns or marshals his armies better than some women of society--the late Mrs. Paran Stevens, for instance--manage the circles of which they are the centre. Day and night, winter and summer, at city or watering-place, year in and year out, such a woman keeps open house for her gay world. She has a perpetual series of guests who must be fed luxuriously, and amused profusely; she talks to them in three or four languages; at her entertainments she notes who is present and who

to do. A distinguished woman, who earns one of the largest incomes ever honestly earned by any one of her sex, off the stage, told me the other day that she left all her business affairs to the management of others, and did not even know how to draw a check on a bank. What a melancholy self-exhibition was that of a clever American woman, whom I k

for women as for men, in America,-- the payment the same, the honor the same, the obstacles no greater. Collegiate education has until quite recently been denied them, but how many men succeed as writers without that advantage! Yet how little, how very little, of permanent literary work has yet been done by American women! Young girls appear one after another: each writes a single clever story or a single sweet poem, and then disappears forever. Look at Griswold's "Female Poets of America," and you are disposed to turn back to the title-page, and see if these utterly forgotten names do not really represent the "female

delity into those. If she will work as hard to shape the children of her brain as to rear her bodily offspring, will do intellectual work as well as she does housework, and will meet her moral responsibilities as she meets her social e

RY ASP

erary career is now almost greater among women than among men. Perhaps this is because of some literary successes lately achieved by women. Perhaps it is because they have fewer outlets for their energies. Perhaps they find more obstacles in literature than young men find, and have, therefore, more need to w

pses of American social life, and of the present tendencies of American women. They sometimes reveal such intellectual ardor and imagination, such modesty, and such patience un

d?" How can this be answered, my dear young lady, when you leave it to the reader to guess what your definition of success may be? For instance, he

success to have secured a sale like that for your books, and then to die, and have your brother penmen ask, "Who was he?" Yet, certainly, a sale of seventy-five thousand copies is not to be despised; and I fear I know many youths and m

s of Marion Harland and Mrs. Southworth, let her seek it. It is possible that she may obtain it, or surpass it; and though she might do better, she might do far worse. It is, at any rate, a laudable aim to be popular: p

were striking instances of this; and authors of far less fame have yet the same choice which they had. You can take the standard which the book market offers, and train yourself for that. This will, in the present age, be sure to educate certain qualities in you,--directness, vividness, animation, dash,--even if it leaves other qualities untrained. Or you can make a standard of your own, and aim at that,

n his way, and Mr. M.T. Walworth in his way; and each of these would have been very unreasonable if he had expected to succeed in both ways. There is always an opening for careful and conscientious literary work; and by such work many persons obtain a modest support. The

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, or any life about which it is harder to give counsel. The work of a newspaper correspondent, especially in the "society" direction, is so full of trials and temptations, for one of either sex, in our dear, inquisitive, gossiping America, that one cannot help watching with especial solicitude all

to see his name in print, no matter how. Unhappily, there is a great deal to encourage this belief: I have known men to express great indignation at an unexpected newspaper-puff, and then to send ten dollars privately to the author. This is just the calamity of the profession, that it brings one in contact with this class of social hypocrites; and the "personal" correspondent gradually loses faith that ther

essful writers he thus describes: "She succeeds by pushing her way into society, and extracting information from fashionable people and officials and their wives.... She flatters the vain, and overawes the weak, and gets by sheer impudence what other writers cannot.... I would not wish you

ly an American institution, and not one of those in which we have reason to feel most pride. It is to be observed, however, that foreigners, if in office, take to it very readily; and it is said that no people cultivate the reporters at Washington more assiduously than the diplomatic corps, who like to send home the personal notices of themselves, in order to prove to their governments that they

G AND

ix heads on a walnut-shell,--all observers shout applause. "There's a woman for you, indeed! Instead of talking

he others. To talk is to make a beginning, at any rate. To catch people with your ideas is more than to contrive a rat-trap; and Isotta Nogaro

ecided to begin reading again, she said she was doing it "for her butter." So long as women are often obliged to support themselves and their children, and perhaps their husbands, by their own labor, they have no right to work cheaply, unless driven to it. Anna Dickinson had no right to make fifteen dollars a week by sewing, if, by stepping out of the ranks of needle-women into the ranks of the talkers, she could make

just now circulate very freely as currency. Even literature in America is utterly second to oratory as a means of immediate influence. Of all sway, that of the orator is the most potent and most perishable; and the student and t

ished to secure anything for her sex, she must ca

e de Sta?l heard of it, she said, "The question is not what I want, but what I think." Henceforth women, like men, are to say what they think. For all that flattery and seduction and sin, we have substi

uld talk all the time. When they have obtained, as a class, absolute equality of rights with men, their appeals on this subject may ceas

SPEAK I

. Not necessarily very much in public, or before mixed audiences, but perhaps merely to say to a roomful of ladies, or before the committee of a Christian Union, what they desire to say. "How shall I make myself heard? How shall I learn

t your hearers go to sleep), to think out some good arguments (because you are trying to convince somebody), and to guard against weak reasoning or unfounded assertion (lest your opponent trip you up). Speaking in a debating society thus gives you the same advantage that a lawyer derives from the presence of an opposing counsel: you

gh enunciation of every syllable. So great is the delight, to my ear at least, of a perfectly distinct and clear-cut utterance, that I fear I should rather listen for an hour to the merest nonsense, so uttered, than

at a public dinner,--instead of standing up and talking about his surprise at being called on, should simply make his last remark to his neighbor at the table the starting-point for what he says to the whole company. He will thus make sure of a perfectly natural key, to begin with; and can go on from this quiet "As I was just saying to Mr. Smith," to discuss the gravest question of Ch

red," or to "lose the thread." Think it out so clearly that the successive parts lead to one another, and then there will be little strain upon your memory. For each point you make, provide at least one good argument and one good illustration, and you can, after a little practice, safely leave the rest to the suggestion of the moment. But so much as this you must have, to be secure. Methods of preparation of course vary extremely;

e anguish of spirit; and they may be of some use to others now. I write, then, not to induce any one to talk for the sake of talking,--H