River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1879-11-27
THE INTELLECTUAL YOUNG LADY.
Is Feminine Culture Dangerous 10 Both
Sexess

Is FEMININE culture Dangerous 10 Bctn
Sexess
London World.
Although Lord Burghley has just had
to apologize for the remarks which he
made on the subject of education of
the wives and daughters of farmers,
there Is no doubt that there are many
who. openly or secretly,ag with him,
and extend his view beyond the limits
of that class 10 which he made them
applicable. To all such the present
aspect of " the higher education of wo-
men must afford materials for bitter
reflection. That not only there should
be large and fourishing high schools
for girls all over the country, but that
in Cambridge there should exist the
Girton aud Nunecham colleges, and that
in Oxford an animated effort should
have been made to secure liberal in
structlon for girls over seventeen and
eighteen, must be peculiarly painful to
sensitive males of Lord Burghley's type.
Rightly or wrongly, the tendency IS to
higher feminine culture, and those who
are neither bigols nor supporters OF
female suffrage must accommodate
wave of public opinion.
Meanwhile there is no very clear idea
as to what young ladies of intellect are
like. The ordinary male creed is very
shortly summed up in a fear of them
before marriage and detestation OF
them after. The ordinary verdict OF
sisterly opinion is that they have bad
manners, large hands, ard do not care
about Partisan fashions. The criticism
of Their elders is that they are much
too forward, that they know nothing
about butchers meat, and probably
have never darned stocking in their
lives. Much of these aspers;ons may
be true, but they are decidedly old
fashioned. 1t is irritating to find the
question discussed as if it was yet an
open one, at the very moment, when
the intellectual young lady is living
reality. 1t is fatuous to doubt the ad-
visibility when the thing is done. The
phenomenon is 20 be seen In our draw
lng-rooms, in our published literature,
and in our art schools; and many meO
find conversing with it to be by 10
means unpleasant, though how far they
like to make it their wife is, of course,
another question. The fact is that
there are as many differences between
educated young ladies as there are
among uneducated. The traditional
Tyre, which represents the lady of cul-
ture with certain angularity of expires.
sion and with spectacles, is now only
known for its morbid activity with re
gard to vivisection and platform rhetoric.
To it has succeeded types with more
pleasing characteristics, and with fas-
cinations which have been known
to lower the alarming average of spins
tiers. The young lady who will talk to
you SO agreeably and flippantly on law
tennis will after dinner sing some weird
songs of Schumann, and overthrow the
pessimistic paradoxes of Mallock. The
bright, quick Keyed damsel, who was first
of her year at Girton college, is hurt if
you do not also consider her finished
UaLseuSe. The girl with the wealth of
ruddy-golden hair, which is the passion
of artists, has probably been the author
of that striking criticism on Laplace's
nebular hypothesis, which made sensa-
ton among the readers of solid month
lies"
But of these modern combinations of
elegance and wide learning, the most
dangerous specimens are the artistic
young lady and young lady who is also
a philosopher. Probably the first is
the most dangerous of all, for she has
not only the wit TO be bewitching, but
enough human sympathy to become so.
The artistic and aesthetic young lady
can attack you on e3ery side. If you
have a weakness for archaic furniture
and wall papers of the approved Nor
rissonian type, so has she; if you own
to the attractions of Venetian glass, she
will discourse to you about Salviati by
the yard; if you are constant attend
ant at the Grosvender gallery she will
confess to you, with a grace which is ali
ously condescendlng, that Burne-Jones'
Annunciation Is the finest picture in
the modern world. She can play and
she can sing; she knows all literature,
and has often read Lessing's "Ntthan
der Neise;" she will show you why
Theophile Gautier is a good novelist, or
what elements of poetry there are in
Walt Whitman. If you are great
friend, she will send you some OF her
own sopnets, full of spirit and fire,
though possibly with too much insist
ance on attributes like Solemn" and
" intense" and melodeous-hearted."
And with all this astonishing knowledge
there is an obvious liking on her part
to sit at the end of the conservatory
and forget all about the time.
Less dangerous, though with social
powers of her own, is the philosophic
young lady. 1t is always pleasant for
languid and impassive manhood to
sit al the feet Of Gamaliel, especially
if the Gamaliel be of the sex by cour-
tesy called weaker. 1t is charming to
learn from full and eloquent lips that
possible descent from apes does not
lower the attributes of developed hui
manity; and that conscience is on the
whole, an incumbrance, which it is,
therefore, "more worthy" to consider
non existing. Besides, the philosophic
young lady can always prove to you by
her own reading, if not by experience,
that life is worth living for its own sake,
and immediate contignity to her chair
certainly does not tend TO lower your
appreciation of the fact. The abstract
labor of metaphysics does not in the case
vi NOutAi diillltltoiI bAiC NOt1NACbC NAinbN
of very attractive personality; and
though it may be doubtful whether
Herbert Spencer be right in the CLASH |
fcation of the sciences, there is no
danger of doubt that pretty woman
who decides such points in the intervals |
of valse is more than match for
your own celibate philosophy.
From al. which considerations the
conclusion is patent that more danger
turks in the eyes of an intellectual
young lady than the world is won't to
imagine. Such types as have heen de-
scribcd may not, indeed, be common
but they are tending to become more
so. Even our fashionable beauties are
learning Latin, and the rage Of the last
season, was an actress who could dis
course on metempsychCsis. If intel !
Low 90 q pooo ofeNnF1n OI,r