Year: 1871




have before undertaken to say something Ol
the position and influence of the young woman,
adjudgiug her the highest place among the crea-
lions of God, with opportunity and privilege
and power and obligation commensurate.
have spoken of woman as she was made TO be, as
she ought to be- of her capacity, of her dover,
of her mission of the young woman in herself
and her influences when she is true to herself
and to her God. | am now to essay the less
grateful task of working in the shading 10 my
picture, and give the young woman as she too
| largely is under the influence of the mistakes
| others make for her and she makes about herself.
For ii must be owned that the young woman as
we mostly see her to day is hardly the outgrow.
ing of divine creation, budding and blossoming
| in unconscious beauty as Gods other creations
do,-every way natural and so only successful,
but rather is she thing made up by the falses
and most fatal laws which desecrate her true
womanhood, and sap her soul of its vital energy
and purity. The superficial artificial young
woman of society, how unlike in every way is
she to that creation OF God whose chiefest orna'
ment is the ornament of meek and quiet spirit


The process OF vitiating the womanly charac.
ter is begun very early, back in the nursery.
and continued with most persistent and fatal en-
loug -fiftUod o DutvIs, .IUtt,14s
why will you, 10 crafty little vanity, or q
great deal Of Incidence, sow and allow to be
sown such seed as only an enemy should SOW
| Do you remember what Ruskin says about
making girls education as serious as a boys,
and adds that you did not think the courage
of sincerity of your girls of half so much i'm
| pOrlance their way of coming in at a door p
| Your daughters do not start at the vantage their
womanhood insures them and you are TO blame
Asa people, we are not yet educated up TO the
idea OF what education is. With all our talk
about it, and many speak upon it, we have little
genuine conception OF the vast, many y-sided thing
it is. The leading demand of the day is for ed
1cation. The doors of advantage are open, and
set wide and nailed back, and yet such thing
as education is scarcely better than the enthusi-
! asst dream. Our women are not educated, they
cannot be educated as things are. 1t would cost
them their position in society. 1t would upset
| rule and discipline and aim of social life They
! got some smaitering OF some branches OF knowl-
edge, a superficial, snowy accomplishment, but
an educated woman, woman OF thorough cul-
| ture is one OF those rare works no one can come
| in contact with without feeling not only the
beauty such culture gives, but the advantage
that il has. ! cannot help the feeling that a
| more Just and generous culture in our young wo-
men, the laying of broad and deep foundation
COR aftergrowth, would do more for civilization,
for social progress, and for Christianity than any
one thing. So utterly do believe that the race
is to be lifted not upon the Atlaniean shoulders
OF man, but by the full-grown and rounded vir-
tues of woman.


Parents have conceived the idea that education
is thing of books and school, one of the essen
iias of lite, to be crowded into rs brief space
as may be, and got out of the way. Society
takes care still further TO abridge the parental
idea by deciding the direction in which that
time shall be used. Teachers must, | suppose
Il Al a. Al a.
ing, and, for reputation's sake, make the most
Of the time allotted them by parade of quantity
rather than an attempt at quality. The young
girl plods through her allotted tasks, 'neglecting
much that she ought TO be learning, much that
she ought to be doing for body and heart, look
ing eagerly forward to the time when she shall
escape the irksomeuess Of tasks, and the privilege
of life shall begin. But the only privilege IN life
IS that phichs sis earned day By day; it is no al
tendant upon the leisure young people so much
covet, but the regular reward OF earnest doing
Books are laid aside The school desk is closed
tor the last time. Teachers and companions are
left behind. Pupilage ceases, life begins. With
no intermediate time, the schoolgirl becomes
young woman. She feels that the privige Of
life is hers, Society assents, and accepts her,
Parents demur, but must yield, and she is fairly
launched into the seething, tossing, uncertain
sea cf life, the very fraiest and nrseEest erai'
that ever trusted itself to the tender mercies Of
that which is merciless, and parents and society
have done their best to destroy creature they
should have done their best to save.


Education-l mean now simply book education
does not end with the school. A book hence
forth is not to be prescribed thing, or study an
obsolete possibility. The immature mind OF the
girl can only enter the outmost court of the vast
temple of knowledge. School is not the furnish
ing of the mind with the material for life, hut
the preparation Of the mind for the acquisition and
use of material qfterward. 1t is the experience
of every one who has studied profession that
be has his profession tc learn after he gets into
actual practice all the training of school and
college and seminary merely preparing him to
use what he shall afterwards acquire. No less
true is it Of the school from which the young
girl emerges thinking her work in that direction
done. She may have exce.ed in every study,
she may have fritted no time or thought upon
dress and parties and ampsementS, things the
morale of which every teacher knows something
about she may have given herself with most
| unwavering fidelity 10 one work, and yet she
may not pause and fold her hands and call her
education finished. No school ever gave fin
ished education, how much soever many promise
it, or have the credit OF doing it. Schools may
give a polished education, but polish is only OF
the surface, it is not skin deep even, but upon





it off. 1t is impossible TO finish education at the
best school, and all that can make one school or
system pre-eminent beyond another will consist
in the thoroughness with which it shall teach
the rudments of knowledge so as to make them
available in the actual education which life must
take mp and carry on. If with these young per-
son has acquired facility in handling her own
powers, school has done for her is most and best.
If she become educated, the thing lies with her
afterward.


The Young woman should consider that her
intellectual culture--which is a far broader
thing than any book ledge-really begins
when she leaves school. With the aid of the
rudimenls she has acquired, she ought to be
ready to 90 on to wise and full use of her
powers. Every month and every year, until the
actual, inevitable duties of life never would
wholly prevent. Woman would make the time TO
satisfy the demand, as we always make the time
Tor what we consider imperative. As it is, the
period between the school and married life is a
waste PERIOD season Of no definite employment,
a season without system and without aim the
training of the past is useless because not kept III
exercise, while there is little if any thoughtful,
intelligent, direct preparation for the future, and
this broad and fair interval between the school
and married life, if not waste and wilderness,
is given up TO thorns and weeds, which spring
and grow fast, and choke the fairest INTENDED
flowers. Sometimes the young girl sets out by
herself, or with companions, or under teacher,
very bravely, with music, drawing, French,
German Italian. So far as it goes, that is well,
snly ii to be stuck to. But the sticking to is the
difficulty. In itself superficial and inadequate,
directed toward the fancifu and conventional,
rather than the solid and useful, the hours of
practice or of study soon become fearfully
abridged, growing 'smal by degrees and beau
tfnlly less" the imperativeness of other demands
upon time being always recognized and yielded
to, while this the really imperative thing, is
compelled to stand aside. | always doubt such
experiments, because there is more whm than
principle in them because all education of home
and school SO far has only tended to foster that
lack OF method which is said to be native TO
man, while ii has not supplied her with the right
| inducement to just cultivation of her powers and
employment of her time.


! have known Young girls 90 on bravely for
| while, and then abandon the experiment, declar-
ing that they found it dull, il there must not
be great deal that is dull in life, as if dullness
excused duty,--or that there was so much TO do,
the plea always of those who do least and
when have asked what was so pressing in the
way of duty, ! have been given the whole cata-
logue of brilliant nothings which, from horizon
to zenith, so fill young woman 8 day, the myri-
ad useless ingenuities with which they manage
TO Gil out the hours and gill up the mind. Why
is it that the useful thing always has TO make
way for the frivolous thing, and that party or
a concert, opera singer or an actor that people
90 crazy about, should eternally stand in before
employments which are to give tone to character
and dignity to life?


1t is a common notion that solid books and
knowledc ce of subiects are things with which WO-