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334 A QUESTION".
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Transcript
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Are Men Natttbaliiy Cleverer Than Women?
tends to realise itself . If we are convinced that our condition is hopeless inferiority , that wh the should Creator we himself struggle has against fixed our on inevitable us the stamp doom of ?
Let us rather , bear y our lot with resignation , and making no opposition to the decrees of Providence content ourselves with hoping
that in another world we may be promoted to a more honorable position . But though we utterly repudiate this creed , we are not
an generall going assertion to y contend on which an intellectual that the experience as affairs equality of now . almost Far stand every be men it one from and must us women to prove make are to
be untrue ; for to whom do we turn for- assistance in an affair of difficultyto our male or female relatives ? When we want a good
investment , for our money , do we ask the advice of our aunts or of our uncles ? A stout asserter of the present equality of the female
intellect will say , " Yes , but we apply to our uncle instead of our auntnot because she is his inferior in intelligence , but because he
has had , the most experience in money matters and has studied the subject of investments for yearswhile she has never turned her
, mind that way ; " and this is exactly the point at which we wish to arriveMen are superior to women because they know more ,
. and they have this knowledge because they have three times the opportunities of acquiring it that women possess .
Let us now see by what means women could acquire more knowledFirst ba more practical education . We think that there
exists ge . in many y minds a confusion between knowledge and the means of acquiring itthough there is in fact a broad distinction
between the two . For instance , reading is a good means of acquiring knowledge , but if a man who can read never opens a book nor takes
up a newspaper he will be no wiser than he was before he learnt his letters .
Languages likewise are a great means of obtaining knowledge . If a person can read books in two or three foreign tongues , and
does read them , he will doubtless gain much information , but the mere of reading them unless it be exercised will obtain him
no information power whatever . Now girls of the upper classes of society almost invariablyand those of the middle class very generally , are
instructed in two , and often three foreign languages , and as their education extends over a period of only ten years ( for before eight
the education that can be given is trifling ) it is plain that the greatest part of their time will be spent in attaining not knowledge
but the means of acquiring it ; means which are seldom if ever made use offor what do young ladies read in after life in German
and Italian , save ballads , poems , or plays ? and few even do as much as this , but the moment that their governess is dismissed or
they the world are released they put from their school forei and gn books allowed aside to enjoy and never the pleasures open them of
again , and , thus the whole labor of childhood and youth is thrown
away . If during these ten years three languages have to be learnt ,
334 A Question".
334 A QUESTION " .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Jan. 1, 1859, page 334, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01011859/page/46/
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