The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1878-04-06

already by her fifteen years. Of even
ings she studies going from one book
to the other like very pale and reso-
lutte butterfly, scarcely allowed time to
sip the honey from each, and getting
sadly confused as to the relative mer-
its of white clover and blossom of bean,
if the pretty get-up' of the modern
school-book will justify the metaphor.
We have set our faces against juvenile
parties as they are conducted at pres
ent; so she goes to bed at ten, as she
closes the last book
"But she has Saturday?'
80 yes, Saturday! Well, she sits by
the heater and reads some trash or
other, or she goes out shopping and to
pay calls. If it be near Christmas
time, she works away like beaver on
a rug strap for me, much too fine for
use, and cramps her arms against her
breast, and breathes short and shallow
over the hurried stitches. q wonder,
by the way, why women were provided
with lungs! Since all their gentle and
feminine pursuits, with hands, breath
ing, and eye-sight concentered on the
tiny shaft of ivory or steel, tend to elm
mate these organs, surely they are al
most as unnecessary in the objects of
their creation as is the brain en- Ell
denceD
"Not very Astounding and rejoicing
existence, certainly, this penitential
youth we have prescribed for our
daughter. We shall have a platoon of
medical muskets leveled at her by and
by. They will dispose of her at the
first charge, and the charge is this:
Poor thing! she has tried to study as
boy does; and behold the consequences
total wreckn
"Too much co-education? Ny dear,
believe me, we haven't half enough.
We don't begin to understand co-edu-
cation; we don't dream for a minute of
giving our girls the chance for life and
strength that we secure to our boys.
Look at Debby Ann. She UnS educated
with boys. She went to the primitive
Quaker school at Straitville Corners,
where those shrewd old merchants, my
uncles, got their store of the English
Reader and Comley's spelling-book In
school and out she had the same chances
as they for simple nutrition of her act
i've brain, and room for her healthy
young body to disport itself and grow
in the wild fields under summer and
winter suns. They sent their ships
over the world, walked godly among
their fellows, and were gathered to
their rest years ago. She, keen-witted
as they, has been as active, as useful.
as useful? Who shall compute her
thousands of hours spent in weary sick
rooms, winning frail babies back to life,
or soothing the racked and weary soul
to its last quiet sleep? No trace of wear
and tear upon her. For a sample of
co-education, | know none better.
And for the higher education, de-
MED to my uncles and Debby Ann, how
many years is it since the whole curri-
culum of the Boston Latin School had
to be changed, because the boys were
breaking down? Cramming intemper-
ate study is good for neither girl nor
boy; but happily the system of elective
studies wisely coming into favor in our
high universities will correct this evil
eff | were to send Bessie to Cornell
or Michigan University just now, she
might or might not be able to stand the
| paw, I'll ClDCldl, iDllOl llldl uIldu
we have made her. But if | were to
capture Tom to-day, and put him under
glass till he is tifteen-for year, let
us say-load him down with heavy and
inconvenient dress, 'tender him. as
Debby Ann would say, with fancy-work
over the heater, frOwn upon every effort
at noise or romp, deny him the fresh air
save in an overburdened and decorous
walk, multiply his studies, and add
biano-blaying' and practice for his sins
in short, rear him for one year as we
have reared Laura and Bessie all their
lives-Tom wouldn't 90 to Michigan
University, but his grave!
"No one has sufficiently computed,
it seems to me, the grand elasticity of
womanhood. The good God has given
her a brain as well as her sacred office
of maternity. Not by spasmodic intel
lectual effort, with intervals of indo-
lence and vague imaginings, are the
great mothers of the race reared and
formed. The perfectly healthful wom-
an, whom the doctors never see, will
laugh if you tell her she was created
an intermittent invalid. She knows the
sustaining force, the healthful reserve
of power, which keeps the balance of
her pulses under all the complex con-
ditions of her life. Nature, foreseeing
the various demands upon her., has
gifted her with powers of endurance, of
rebound under care, of patient pulling
and steering through shoals of harass-
ing and complicated duties, before
which the stoutest stroke of the uni
versity crew would break his oar in ex-
ASPIRATION, and lay himself down in de-