The penny press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1859-1860, 1859-09-14
PRICE ONE CENT.
The Right Training of Women.


The CEwch Of Enyiand ReuielC has an article
on female education, from which We takO the
following passage:
Much remains to be done in winnowing out
of peoples minds ridiculous ideas Of a certain
purely Fictitious style of living, without which
it is impossible to keep house. There are
plenty CT young men who have yet to unlearn
tho foppery Of expenses disproportioned to
their means, and the sordidness of luxuries
which feed, not self-rcspect, but gluttony and
pride. Tho possibility must be secured to
daughters and younger sisters growing up to
be rational, appreciative companions; girls
who, If they ever married, will choose and
value their husband for what he is, and be in-
terested in his calling and his opportunities for
observation; women who will estimate the
grave and sweet realities of wife and mother
hood, beyond any accident of precedence or
superauity. BY dismissing false and foolish
notions of rcspcctability, by refusing the cheap
fascinations of paltry education of display,
by discountenancng restraints misdirected or
too rigorous by cultivating an intelligent and
unassuming mode of intercourse, by careful
foresight in assisting young people to prepare
themselves for the exertion and cost Of one day
being the center of peaceful, hospitable home;
in these and other ways much may be done to
remove distractions to that gradual acquaint-
ance, and that unaffected respect and attach
ment, which lead on to happy marriage.
In the meantime it may be we'll to think,
with not only the sympathy, but the venera-
ton they deserve, of many among those who
will never marry to assist in multiplying the
too few occupations suitable to women or open
to them; above all, not to preach By implica-
ton or otherwise that a woman's life need ever
be dwarfed to q ncgation, or consumed misera
bly, away by causes absolutely out of her con-
troll. There are women strong enough to keep
their womanly dignity and sweetness, and to
organize around them the moral elements, at
all events, of an Independent existence. They
whose steps are feeble need the more to be
helped, rather than hindered, in the struggle
with their fainter and more yielding self. If
they fail here, is it at all certain that in wodded
life their lot would have been auspicious?
Alas how many falterins will has bent and
"given" beneath sanguino, unfulflled resolu-
tions to reclaim and humanize the husband
who has pulled the wife down instead to his
own mean and wretched level? Marriage is
not lottery; but it is mere willful blindness to
forget that in all its higher aspects it may be
wofully inverted or appallingly debascd. Not
| all tH5 BTduu pIONlelUL w lOlucE tiCS tuu bih
cous instincts which surround ono Of the great
est of Divine ordinances will mako people purc
or happy who insist on being pccvish or friv-
Olous, or worldly, sensual and deviliah.
Welded life is great and holy mystery,
and source of power for good, often far beyond
estimation; but unless thore bo at least one
soul filled with unse!fSh love, and strong in an
unhagging faith, tho formal union of two
persons is no guarantee whatever for will
ennObol or affections enlarged and cleanscd.
And tho faith which SO works by love can
make sunshine in shady place, without an
Infants or husbands ego to look into. Tho
harmonies of developed and transdgured
womanhood have been set many time to
other music than that of wedding bells. She
who is onthroned never, undor any root, in a
mothers holy sovereignty, may earn her right
in many house of compelling evory soul to
lovo her. Sho will create or find an atnos-
phero in which to keep, unwithercd and in full
pulsatiOn, "thc heart out of which arc the
issues Of liio.' Hcr hands will redeem the
time, and her brain not be idlo. Living singly,
yet not solitary, when shO dies it will not be
till "Smote,' by many Il touch of gratitude and
cheerful, rcvercntial sympathy, "the chord ol
self has, trembling, passed in music out Of
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