Litchfield enquirer., 1880-04-08
MILTON'S DAUGHTERS.

! brought up, so te speak, on large engraving. l published probably by some forgotten Art l Onion, and representing-or misrepresentine -"Milton and his daughters. "-a smirk and smiling gentleman, with vast expaDse of brow
 and hyacinthine locks, reclined majestic ID a glorited m-chair, while three ministefine I priestesses served this enthroned domestic ged. The poets ''garlauds and singing robes" show. | ed as fashionable suit of velvet and lace | and if he .'soared in the high region of his ! fancy" that upper air had imparted an ex. l precision of marked vacuity to hiscountsnance. The attendant damsels were pretty copies soi | this pretty ori giual. One read from ahuges vol
 ume, one held her pen suspended, ready to set down the thought that trembled on thein,
 spired lips, and one busily ruf1ed shirt for the exalted back. The whole utterancs of the picture, and the moral lesson inculcateds was a lofty condescension on the part of the supe- rior male being, servie obedience, an ignor- ant adoration, on the part of the inferior femi nine satellites. This conjunction of differ. ences was seen to result in beautiful dsmes. tic harmony and peace.
 But what if History had painted the pic
 ture In bare, plain room, where, any grace would have been condemned as friyolty, where the ponderous tonnes seemed weights tO crush all joyOusness from their young lives, three reluctant girls in severe garb would have made unwilling sacrifice of their time and youth to the exaction of a stern, sightless
 father, harder to understand than the dreary Hebrew and Greek they haltingly read, or the
 pedantic English they mechanically wrote. There would have appeared and unyieldipg authority on the one hand, an on the other all ungracious submission of stubborn disobe- dience. And for domestic harmony we should read pickering, discontent, and turbulent household The new and faithful and lament. able portraiture would reveal a good, great man mistaking his duty to his children, and suffering through them. and three ignorant girls throwing their happiness away in sullen disappointment.
 Milton, indeed, had gotten step beyond St. Augustine, who maintained that, but for the continuance of the race, Adam would have been vastly better off with some male friend than as the companion "for so many secret years, in and empty world, of one woman" !" The later polemic had a respect for marriage and a liking fer women folk about him. as his splendid lines and his three wives go to show. But he held woman to be distinctively inferior in nature, subject to man, and incapable of comprehending his highest moods or sharing his pursuits. That his daughters should read theology, philosophy, history, languages, to him, that they should write the loftiest ab- stractions at his dictation seemed the natural duty of those born thralls That they should understand the tasks, or desire to do SO, was simply preposterous. That they rebelfed, hat ing their occupation, and in time their father, and that he could not comprehend their griev- ances. was as natural as painful. And per- haps his accusation that they tried to sell his books was but their feeble efforts of self de fcnse against those tyrants.
 For two centuries all these wranglings have been hushed in the peace of the grave. But the Miltons' daughters on every side are quick and needy. This age, indeed, professes greater respect tor woman's intellectual capac- ity than any which has gone before. To some extent it's practice justifies it's profession. And the notion of the supreme authority of parents has almost been replaced by that of the su- preme authority of children Nevertheless, the daughters of cultivated fathers are. for the most part, as little able to be their intellectual companions and helpers as were those luckless English.girls. At school they mastered the prescribed tasks, which were vast bulks ot knowledge to be committed to memory. Lit- tie enough was done to rouse the perceptive faculties and develop the reasoning ones and of that little the new life out of school makes no use When it becomes the filial duty of the daughter at home to read the newspaper aloud to her father, what is it to her that the
 
 touches her at thousand points, that the dai- ly record is history in the making"9 She is bored by the politics she can not compre- bend the foreign dispatches; the market re- ports are unintelligible; the Washington news meaningless; the book notices for the most part husks and east wind :; and the Person ar' column the only tolerable one.
 Or suppose it be literature, or law, q theol- ogy, which interests her father what can the sweet girl graduate contribute to his pleas ure? Not even an intelligent attention, an untrained appreciation. The boy out of col lege would at least be competent amanuen- SIS. His sister out of school is too indifferent for that.
 The blame is not hers The aim of her instructors has been to make her q charming girl of elegant accomplishments, who shall early secure matrimonial prize. What the or value of her mind might be has not once been asked On leaving school she is to help her mother, to go out with her, and to abbreviate the period of her fathers bill paying on her account as much as pOssi- ble. The means secure the end the end just flies the means. And in time her daughters will go through like preparation.
 But in two centuries might we not have learned to educate our girls for themselves, and.not as adjuncts and servtOrs of another, WueIucT ldtucT OT uuSOduu! SuppOS6 NIlltODS daughters had been taught to understand and to delight in the stately splendor of the folios they abhorred. Suppose the learned father had gently led them to love "the quiet and still air of delightful study" Would their helpfulness have been lessenedp Would not their happiness have increased? Might not the whole bitter domestic history have been unlived and unwritten? Margaret Roper was the intellectual companion and helper of her great father Did her love or her womanli- ness suffer? ssa&k- }ta5+
 If we gave our girls mental training instead of the arbitrary curriculum of the schools, they would enjoy their own minds They would be full of resources against stagnation, against idleness, dlscontent, and that besetting sim extravagance in dress If the True Prince came, they would be ready to put their hand in his,
 And OCT the hills, and far away,
 Beyond their utmost purple rim,
 Beyoud the night, across the day,
 Through all the world to follow him."
 If he came not, there would still be work and love and life. But in the work there would be no mean husband hunting, and in the love no base declining, and in the life no servile dependence on reluctant props. In word, Milton's daughters are cruelty defraud- ed if they have not the thorough mental train ing, the lofty influences, the constant incen- tives to achievement, the chance to develop a rounded character, that. as q matter of nat ural right, would have been given to Milton's son had he appeared oclaim them. HGrper's BQs0r