The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1879-08-07
Woman's Sphere.

One Of the most foolish questions ever
asked is, What is going To be the sphere
Ot woman when she is so educated
The sphere If she don't make her
own we may stop prophesying. You
see the little ridge among the Alps, a
thread Of water, aud you find that IL is
arrested by rocks, and you see how more
and more il iills the chasm behind them
till il cuts Its way across the rock and
through the rock, aud at last you 90
into the gOrges aud see the mighty
chasms that have been clOven through
the rocky hills, and there is the power
that has done 1t, flashing above in the
shadows, musical in its Tipples, tum-
bling gladly over the rocks. All, that
little stream, il has made its sphere.
The woman's nature, cultured as | have
said, will make this thing form a part
Of il. How she takes the house where
the builder leaves it aud transforms il
into a thing Of beauty, hanging the
walls with the pictured thought of every
mind, filling its rooms with the atmOs-
phere Of her own sweetness, Of her own
delicate and educated thought. How
her influence works through her hus-
band as the influence of the sanity and
lovely wife of President Edwards, the
heroic widow Of Judson, through the
children, as Goethe even, whose rela-
tiOus TO women were so intolerable and
unspeakable, yet attributed his inherit
ance Of genius to his mother as the min
lister through whom il came to him. 1t
is like the ancient perfume whose fra
grance filed the house when the alabas-
ter that held IL was broken. In society
woman is the queen OF society She
ripens its manners, its laws, its tastes,
- a. Fnf al HfHn Nna. -.
spires it more and more as society ad-
vanees, and social life in the civilization
which Is to come will be supreme As
related to political life, for example, it
will govern where political life is
merely for the exterior advance Of IL.
In education her nature, demOnstrative
aud distributive, her interest in persons
stronger than mans, her interest in
itself more intense, the work Of educs-
tiOn becomes not for the occupation
merely, but for the possession even. As
in this State, | don't know what the
| figures are now, but / remember five or
six years ago reckoning them up, and
there were nearly 1900 women teachers
Of the public schools in this old COM
mOnwealth as against little more than
a thousand, / think exactly l,O2S, male
teachers. Probably the disproportion is
greater still at this hour-not primary
edncatiOn merely.
You remember what | have already
referred to, that for six centuries women
| taught at Bologna, taught in mathe-
MATES, the classics, natural science,
| philosophy, the civil and the eanOnical
law, anatomy and surgery and medi-
cine, taught when sometimes they must
veil their faces lest the thoughts Of the
students should be distracted from the
beauty Of the subject to the beauty Of
| the speaker. Applause Authorship
is all open tn women in every depart
ment. Mrs. Browning, Mrs. Jameson,
/ Mrs. Hemans, Mrs. Lewes, Mrs. Stowe,
/ Mrs. Howe, and many others in this
country-how they illustrate this, their
| touch upon the hearts Of multitudes of
men aud women in all the lands in
which the English tongue Is spoken
I some departments Of literature woman
has made her own. Every one is open
/ TO her, every one will be identified with
her fame aud her success az these semi
naries dive longer and do their work
with more ample equipment, with more
generous instruments To larger circles of
the coming mind. But previous, even,
woman has been a physician since the
days OF the Had aud the Ojessy. The
story Of Askonice, the Greek girl, is one
Of the "reminiscences Of medical history.
In France and in Russia to-day, as in
the medieval time, women are freely
I received into the ranks of medical prac-
itiOners, and often Instructors In
England and America il is going to be
so. / don't know about the law, but
they do say a woman is one of the most
skilifui cOnveyanceTs IN London.
don't know about the ministry, though
il is scandal in parishes sometimes
that the minister's wife writes the most
brilliant passages in his discourse.
stopped writing mine long ago, lest il
should be said about me.-ReU. DR..
.StOTrs' AndOUer address
No man can be free unless he governs