Year: 1867

| sA4S Aneiuo UNI lncluentAlly. lnslplully
OF mind is perhaps trifle Objectionable, be-
cause there are few young men of property,
VINO dislike insipidity, and who, therefore,
might be lost from the tolls in consequence.
IL Is a crotchet and an eccentricity in man
10 ueslre wife with bright mind, but
since there are such persons, it is just as
wen 10 pay slight attention to the mind in
oud moments when one is not engaged upon
the more urgent business of the body. You
uon Know what may happen, and it is posi-
Die that the most eligible parti of season
may dislike taking female idiot to wife.
SILL, it would be absurd to change the entire
system OF up-bringing for our girls merely
because here and there man has a distaste
for fool.


The majority of men are incapable of
gauging power OF intellect and flneness of
character. But the veriest bloclphead and
slmpieton who ever lounged in doorway
OF hsped in Pail Mall can tell o fine woman
when he sees her, and is probably able to
hnd pleasure and hope in the spectacle. 1t
Is these blockheads and simpletons who
thus set the mode. They fix the standard
OF fashionable female education. Education,
or the astounding modern conception OF it,
means preparation of girls for the marriage
market. If girl does not get well married,
it were better for her and for her mother also
If she had never been born, or had been
cast with a milestone round her neck into
the sea. Whom she neutrality-suspicious. a
man old enough to be her father, whether
pattern of imbecility, whether man of
notoriously debauched character, r,-this mat
ters not jot Only let him have money.
This being the conception of marriage, and
marriage being the aim of all sagacious up
bringing, as most men unhappily are more
surely taken on their animal than on their
rational side, it is perfectly natural that you
should strive TO bring up worthy family of
attractive young animals. And let us pause
upon this. If the idea which, even at its
best, would be so deplorably imperfect, were
nationally carried out, still it would not be
so absolutely pestilent and debasing as it is.
Physical education, rightly practised, is a
line and indispensable process in right living.
If the system had for its end the rearing of
really robust and healthy creatures, it would
mean something. On the contrary, how
ever, anybody who makes tour through
fashionable rooms in the season may see
that, in vast quantity of cases, the heroines
of the night are just as sorrily off in bodily
stamina as they are for intellectual ideas and
interests.


Here we again encounter the fundamental
blunder, that it is only the outside about
which we need concern ourselves. Let a
woman be well dressed Cor judiciously un-
dressed), have bright eyes, whitish skin,
rounded outlines and that sufices. All this
wise English mother will certainly secure,
just as a wise Chinese woman will take care


to have tiny feet, plucked eyebrows, and


black finger nails. If you go into nursery


you will see the process already at work


The little girl, who would fain exercise hei


young limbs by manifold rude sprawlingt


and rushings hither and thither, and single


combats with her brethren, is tricked out in


ribbons and gay frocks, and bid sit still in


solemn decOrum. With every year of hel


growth this principle of attention to outside


trickeries and finenes is more rlgidly pur
sued, Less and less every year are tht


nerves and muscles, the restless activities o


arms and legs, exercised and made TO pur
vey new vigor to the life The blood is al


lowed to grow stagnant. The life of th'
woman even as mere animal, becomes poo
and morbid and artificial By dint Of mucf


attention and many devices, the outside o
the body is maintained comely IN the eye


of people whose notions of comeliness art
thoroughly artificial and sophisticated. Blu


how can there be any health with high eat


ing, little exercise, above all with the mint
6 left absolutely vacant of all interestsp Th
Belgravian mother does not even understand
the miserable trade she has chosen. She |
r as poor physical trainer as she is poo


morally and intellectually.


The truth is that in human being, eve
4 from the physical point of view, it is rathe
v a dangerous thing to ignore the intellect an
= the emotions. Nature resents being ignored
e If you do not cultivate her, she will ASST
n redly avenge herself. If you do not 81
a wheat out of your piece of ground, she wi
n abundantly give you tares. And there ca
d be no other rule expressly invented for Ii
"a benefit of fashionable young women. The
N moral nature, if nobody ever taught them
a keep an eager eye upon IL, is soon overgrowi
' either with Haunting poison plants, or
at best with dull gray moss. The parei
~ dreams that the daughters mind is all swel
r. and garnished. Lo, there are seven or al
ot other number of devils that have entered
leI and taken possession, more or less permaner
he The human creature who has never be-
ia thought to take an interest in what is rig
v and wholesome will, In ninety-nine cas-
ev out of a hundred, take an interest in VIII
a. is wrong and unwholesome. You cam
II. keep minds in state OF vacuum. A 81
ly like anybody else, will obey the bent OF
,r. character which has been given, either
, a the education Of design or the more usr
.Iv education of mere accidental experien
YER Everything depends, in the ordinary cou
,ed of things, upon the general view OF
nd aims and objects of life which you succe
nd deliberately or by hazard, in creating.
NV girl is not taught that marriage has gri
ave moral and rational purposes i1Seii peing
irt- more than means. On the contrary, il
so always figured in her eyes as an end, and
ce an end scarcely at all connected will
has moral and rational companionship, 1t
hat she fancies, the gate to some sort of parad
for whose mysterious joys are not to be analy1
NOT She forgets that there are no such sv


,;,,,, o,,ontapaoue narodiaea in this Wo