Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1857-08-27

Saragossa, which has hlled the entire pres
of the world with biographies and articles oil
one who had been sung by Byron, involunta
rlly suggests tie fact that much as we prais
de!icacy, reserve, timidity, and child ike at
tributes IN woman generally, we are seldom
really offended at force of character manifest
ed by them, however firm or energetic, whei
1t exhibits itself in good cause. No womel
have ever had so many admirers or awakened
such intense attachments as those who's,
minds were highly cultivated, and who conlC
form and express thoughts OF firm and orig
inal character and it is hardly worth while
TO remark that all such women are naturally
energetic, since such is the invariabie effect Of
education and thought on every mind, wheth-
| er male or female.
The TACT is, that as the world grows older
| the most intelligent minds are beginning to
| perceive that woman has too long been treated
as a mere child-as an Oriental odalisque-
meant to be merely petted, hedged about with
! laws of gallantry, and incapable of mental de-
yelopment beyond a certain point. The spir-
it OF the present age, which asserts that mind
is progressing, has given the lie to all such
| frozen tradition. While the world was gov
erned by mere force, while the strong man in
| armour was the iaeaE of humanity, this was
all well enough. 1t was necessary part of
condition in which this question OF the fu-
ture position which women are to occupy is
becoming one OF fearful interest If we dare
to assume that work and education are at no
distant date to rescue thousands of women
from vice and the helplessly humiliating po-
sition which they now occupy, we may as
well make up our minds to the inevitable fact
that women are TO become a more energetic
class than the majority now are less the
wearers of gay apparel and creatures of orna-
ment, and tar more occupied with the serious
duties of life. We are not advocating the ex-
travagant doctrines of what are popularity
known as Woman's Rights we are simply
saying that when then the lime comes to pass
that women will be enabled to maintain them
selves by industry in a liberal manner, and
one corresponding with their rights, then they
must, OF course, be practically educated and
when this comes to pass we shall witness the
Development among them OF more real eharac-
ter and common sense energy, and we find
far fewer OF those sentimental blossoms whom
milk and water novelists love SO well to de-
pct.
1t may be urged that there are insurmount.
able physical laws and barriers to further
development of female strength of character,
but we do not believe it. 1t may be urged
delicate health or sckly, ana vet that does
not prove that they need be SO, when we re-
member that their mothers before them were
healthy enough. Among the Greeks, even in
semi Oriental age, when woman was a
slave, we find an energy and force Of character
illustrated by the most glorious NEUROLOGICAL
types. Where is soft "eHeminate" weakness
III the Juno, the Minerva, the Venus of Milo,
the Venus Triumphant, the thousand types of
female nature III Classic Arts With perhaps
the single exception of the perfect in form,
out utterly lacking IN sentiment, Venus de
Medlcls. there is not an ancient Greek female
statue eXtant, which does not present a far
more powerful physique than that which our
modern artists and poets-to say nothing of
dressmak ers- commend. How much more
this was the case with these splendid appre-
ciators of life, the Etruscans, il evident from
the glorious broad armed and trmly- poised
priestesses on their funeral urns, figures in
whose every feature and position we read
strength Of character and an intellectual com
partnership with man, such as the gloomy and
fantastic Monkish Middle Age, with its dirt
and "abasement of the flesh" to saw nothing
OF the true moral nature, never dreamed Of
Ii cannot be denied-we may as well look
the truth in the face and speak it out plainly
-that woman is too generally at the present
day a being invested with merely ornamental
attributes, which the very great majority of
the educated and sensible of them would
gladly lay aside. The world, especially the
male portion of it, has peculiar blind obsti
macy OF insisting that every fashion and folly
OF fashion which people adopt is voluntary
and responsible effort of theirs = when the
truth is, that in almost every instance it is a
thing no more to be resisted than the peculiar
condition Of the atmosphere. To eradicate a
popu ar weakness we must go below the in
dlvidual-'it is not with the twigs, but with
the roots, that we must begin-and the only
ettectual cure for the deprivalions and suffer-
ing under which so many Of the sex now la
Dor. must be sought in an elevated standard
OF useful education, with wider sphere of
industrial exertion. Philadelphia Bulletin.