The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1874-01-16


cessitates the spending of more money
than common sense approves, or the
profits of the years business Justify
vet the majority of these men will spend
the money, for two reasons:
1. Because they want their wives and
daughters to look as well as other mems
wives and daughters.
2. Because they know that, as society
is constituted, the majority of women
hold their rank solely by the expendi-
ture of money. Men have made So
ciety.
"HaIt, now p cries the indignant
father &c let us unmake society,"" Very
well, let us. How? Time cannot be
annihilated. Women must have occu-
patton as well as men. There are
twenty -four hours for her, as well as for
the sex whom a kind Providence and
society permit to be daily employed in
active, honorable work-work that sat
isles the brain, that fills the mind to
repletion, and keeps the faculties and
the hands busy. Suppose men did not
work during the day, what is to prevent
them from becoming the frivolous,
fashionable fools that idle, uneducated
women are -? We halt again Women
should not be idle 4; need not be unedu-
Gated. Very true. But men are re-
sponsible for the ialeness and they
have insisted on the uneducatiOn. Men
have had the mold in their hands since
the creation. God made men, and men
have made the mold and women. 1t is,
as Milton said, "He, for God only she,
for God in him ;" and quoted the Scrip
lures 80 Man is the image and glory
Of God she is the glory of the man -
if she be any glory unto him.
The idleness and uneducation of
women are directly the result of sex
policy; that policy, begun by men /;
| handed down, maintained and per-
sisted in by men. They have COM
PEELED her to be idle; they have refused
her education. If she work, they frown,
| and cast her out of-God help us p
out of society p If she seek for
! higher education, they turn the key in
| the college gate, and one President
| says, "YOu are not strong enough -
and another writes, " Education would
| unfit you to be wives and mothers AS
| if mothers ignorance were an essential
! quality in milk for babes And another
! grave1y argues that it is a violation of
| religion, as if Gods religion for woman
includes faith only, and he shall adj
NIT her to salvation in proportion as
she shall lack reason The time is
! that women cry out against the uned-
ucation and the idleness which men
| have imposed upon the sex by Ordi-
nance. The time is that panic comes
and men trace it to wOman's eXtrava-
gance, and trace that extravaganza to
idleness and uneducation, and men re-
| proach women for that vice and this
fault. But who is responsible There
is not active work for all women to
do; it is not desirable or necessary
that all young women should go out into
the world and work.
Now, we halt again. All young men
do not go into the world and work.
What is done with son who does not
need to go into employment at sixteen
He is sent to college. What is done
with daughter at the same time ? She
is sent into society A young woman S
education is completed just when a
young mans begins The young men
come home mentally robust, intellect
ually arrogant. They patronize their
sisters, and other young mems sisters.
They are certain women are unable to
bear the labor of college education.
| They are convinced that higher educa-
!
! Christianity They laugh at women S
weaknesses; they sheer at intellectual
| inferiOrity they denounce her extrava-
gance in dress, while insisting on it
and they publicly insult and defame the
few ultra women who dare tell these I'M
! deniable truths on stolen rostrUms and
whose lives, upright, self-sacrifcing
| honorable, and pure as the snow falling
from heaven are living and eloquent IL
| Illustrations that women need not be idle,
may not be uneducated. While the sons
have been away at college, acquiring the
| dogmatism of sex, amid the rest of then
! learning, what have the daughters beer
doing? What men demand of them
learning the profession of extravaganza
making of themselves birds of plumage
with a proper regard to keeping theil
Threats closed, because the voices o.
women are offensive to mans public ear
All the birds applaud the peacock''
plumes, but they unite in a request thai
the lovely creature remain silent.
The proposition that women have
nothing TO say worth saying, is proved
by prohibiting her from saying any
thing. The proposition that she is no.
capable of college training is demon
strated by keeping her out of college
The proposition that she is inferior tx
man intellectually, is established by
throwing a challenge in her face, anC
then refusing to choose weapons or APP
point place of meeting. at comes
to this having by force taken posses
sion of the means of education, mel
turn to cast shame ON women that they
are left outside" says the Westminster
RcUieU
The late panic is n practical ant
pointed discourse on this question o
better education for girls. Men hav'
the issue in their own hands. Shal
young ladies be passed through the so
ciety-gate into the domain of persona
extravaganza which has done its grea
} work in producing the panic, and b,
confined in the curriculum of useless
ness, of dissipation, of money-spend
ing, of novel-reading, of bonnet
studying, of contemplate worthless
ness for mems wives, and mothers o
children who will not be born with sill
yer spoons in their mouths? Or shall
the years from sixteen to Twenty-Five
and four be devoted to school work, t,
science, language and literature t,
: mathematics, which make a woman
practical and teach her to count pen
mes TO music ana In6 arts, WHICH rem
: der her agreeable and graceful; to lit
! erature, whose benefcence will so sur
) round her later life that she will no
waste unnecessary time on dress max
, ers and novel factors. Shall a younj
| girl be made an educated, useful woman
= or a frivolous, extravagant woman
t Shall she be brought up to thoughtful
ness and modesty and self-denial, o
/ will fathers persist in making a walking
, show-window of her, to her ruin ant
his &?
The question of expense cannot b
raised. 1t will cost one-fourth the sun
l to send a girl to school, from sixteen t,
, twenty-three, that dresses a young lad.
= in society during that time. The ques
l ton of marriage is not pertinent
: American women are not ready to b.
; married under twenty-five. 1t is non
{ sense to say that she should be learnin!
2 housekeeping. There is nothing in do
, nestle work that an educated woman
; will not learn in a month. The ques
ton of religion retires, blushing.
Science is pure and holy society i