The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1868-04-15
Education of Women.


The following is from the able and
polished pen of Mr.. Ruskin. Our lady
readers will find in it lesson worthy OF
their study, and deserved tribute to
their sex:
"YOu have first to mould her physical
frame, and then, as the strength she
gains will permit you, to fill and temper
her mind with all knowledge and thoughts
which tend to confirm IT'S natural instincts
of Justice, and refine its natural tact Of
love.
All such knowledge should be given
her as may enable her to understand,
and even to aid, the work of men; and
yet it should be given, not as knowledge,
not as if it were or could be an object to
know, but only to feel and to Judge. 1t
is of no moment, as a matter of perfect
ness in herself, whether she knows many
languages or one, but it is of the utmost
importance that she should be able to
show kindness to a stranger, and to un-
derstand the sweetness of stranger S
tongue. 1t is of no moment to her
worth or dignity that she should be &C
quainted with this science or that; but
it is of the highest Importance that she
should be trained in habits of accurate
thought, that she should understand the
meaning, the inevitableness and the love-
illness of natural laws, and follow at least
some one path of scientific attainment,
as far as to the threshold of that bitter
Valley of Humiliation, into which only
the wisest and bravest of men can de-
scend, owning themselves forever chill
dren, gathering pebbles on boundless
shore. 1t is of little consequence how
many positions of cities she knows, or
how many dates of events, or how many
names of celebrated persons-it is not
the object of education to turn a woman
into dictionary, but it is deeply neces.
sary that she should be taught to enter
with her whole personality into the his
tory she reads; to picture the passage:
of it wildly in her own bright magina
ton; to apprehend, with her fine instincts
the pathetic circumstances and dramatic
relations which the historian too otter
only eclipses by his reasoning, and dis
connects by his arrangement. 1t is fol-
her to trace the hidden CAPABILITIES of di
vine reward, and catch sight, through
the darkness, of the fatal threads O.
woven fire that connect error with it.
retribution. But, chiefly of all, she ii
to be taught to extend the limits of hel
sympathy with respect to that history
which is being forever determined - 81
moments pass In which she draws hel
peaceful breath, and to the contemporary
calamity which, were it but rightly
mourned by her, would recur no NOR,
hereafter. She is to exercise herself il
imagining what would be the effects upor
her mind and conduct if she were brough
into the presence of the suffering which
is not the less real because shut from hel
sight. She is to be taught somewhat tt
understand the nothingness of the pro
portion of that little world in which she
lives and loves, and soleInnly she is to b.
taught to strive that her thoughts of piety
may not be feeble in proportion to thu
numbers they embrace, nor her prayer
more languid than it is for the momeu
tary relief from pain of her husband Oh
her child, when it is uttered for the null
titudes of those who have none to love
them, and is for all who are desolate and
oppressed"