Year: 1870

N''N ~ 20 'HlN w 9hJ tlhL lhClo duu dlSu-


ments laid before the public in the course


Of the discussion have done much to


shake the belief, once so universal, that


women are adapted to do nothing well


but the domestic duties If the house


hold


The characteristics of women in Their


most perfect, and, to men, most attract.


i've development tend more and more
from the rude, coarse types of women
as found in savage life, and in the low
est class Of civilized races. Among
these characteristics genlleness, both in
disposition and manner, is a thing iudis-
penSable to refined masculine taste.


Any occupation which is likely to de-
crease the feminine quality, will be re-
pugnant to men in general.


One shrinks in disgust at the idea of


female soldiers and coal beavers, and
the average American farmer feels in
disposed to see bis wife and daughters
at work in the harvest field, as was com
mon in days of yore. We do not like
to think of women in connection with
dirt and the sweat of physical toll, and
the desire if not the tendency of modern
civilization has been to remove women
as far as possible from all that is coarse,
from all that gives hard, stern outlines
to body or mind, and to cultivate in her
delicacy of form and feeling cores
ponding to the masculine ideal. 1t is
true that the cultivation of delicacy in
woman has been so injudiciousIy direct
ed IS in many cases to engender debiI-
ity and disease. A certain amount of
physical labor is as necessary to the
health of women as of men; aud the
neglect of proper exercise, and errors in
diet and dress, are chargeable with hay.
ing weakened the physical constitution
of women to a degree far beyond the
limits of that refinement which men de-
mand in the ideal woman.


Men also shrin from seeing women
in positions and occupations which in
their nature call for the exercise of cour-
age, intrepidity, the faculty OF combat
iveness, or the exercise OF keen satire,
as at the bar or in the forum. Such oc-
cupations call into active play a great
variety of qualities, which are summed
up in the meaning of the slang word
''cheek," and which engrave lines of
character OH the faces of women, and
develop peculiarities of mind and man
ner, which are little admired by most
men.


But there is "a great variety of occupa-
tions which women have begun to claim
as fields forindividual effort from which
no intelligent, refined mar, who views
things as they really are, would seek TO
exclude them. These occupations in
no way injuriously affect the qualities
admired by the other sex. They may
and ought to be made as remunerative
to women as to men now engaged in
them: aud their effect upon men is to
cultivate etfeminacy rather than that
superb masculinity, which should be
the pride of man as it is the admiration
of woman.


Then there is a middle ground on
which they both may meet, and work
with equal benefit, so far asthe cultiva-
ton of those qualities which each ad-
mire in the other is concerned. This
middle ground comprises all the finer
creative or initiative arts, which call in
to play the faculties of constructing
ness and ideality, aud give scope to the
imagination. Among the creative arts
must be classed mechanical invention;
and it may not prove uninteresting, as
bearing upon the question of woman's
natural capacity, to give the results of
our experience Of woman as an in
ventOr. ....,.t


In our practice as patent solicitors we
have frequently been called upon to pre-
pare applications for female inventors,
and to correspond with them in relation
to various inventions and we can say
TO those whe are unbelievers in regard
to the power of women to achieve, as a
class, anything higher than pound
cake or a piece OF embroidery, that the
inventions made by women, and for
which they solicit patents through our
agency, are generally found to be in
their practical character, and in their
and selection of means to ef-
feet a definite purpose, fully equal to
the same number of Inventions selected
at random from among those made by
men.


Only last week we illustrated an i'm
in sewing machine needles,
and the method of securing them in the
needle arm, invented by a woman,
which certainly would not do discredit
10 the most experienced and ingenious
male inventor.


This is no isolated case. Every now |
and then woman comes into our office
md modestly prefers her claims, evil
lently shrinking from the idea that she
will be thought stepping out of her
sphere, but, believing fully in the mer-
lis OF her invention, desiring to secure
some pectlniary benefit by patenting it.


Oar experience teaches us that wo-
men have us much natural inventive tai
cut as men, and that the circumstances
under which most Of them pass their
ives only prevent an equal manifestation
1t this talent on their part. -ScicntGc |
AmericGa