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    WHAT CAN EDUCATED WOMEN DO? 297

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    *& M Number I Consrciitjded Of This My J...

    time and trouble and money over schemes of less practical import . If they would but give direct countenance to all such new classes

    and workshops , as are opened for those who would otherwise he governesses , it would go a long way to legalise the change in the

    minds of men . From tlie first days in which political economy rose from the

    region of empirics into those of science a covert war has been waged as to -how far it expressed the whole truth in regard to social

    well-being . The great laws which it defines stand up like rocks amidst the wild waves of theory and compel them to retire , yet

    natures in "whom love and reverence predominate insist on supplementing tlieir shortcomings by a higher principle . Nowhere is

    this tendency more clearly to be discerned than in the "writings of John Stuart Mill himself : indeed he occasionally retreats upon

    themoral intuitions of the human heart in a way that exposes him to censure fromthose who are willing to push intellectual conclusions

    , to their farthest limits . The efforts made by the Christian socialist party are striking examples of attempts to interweave religious and

    economical law ; and the necessity of allowing other considerations than those of science to rule our actions is shown with peculiar

    clearness by the social phenomena which accompany the introduction of machinery into any trade previously worked by hand . In the

    long run every such trade ends by employing many more hands at increased wages , but the immediate effect is to throw numbers of the

    old workers out of employ ; and as human beings do not easily migrate from county to county , much less from country to country ,

    and as moreover the grown man and woman cannot easily learn a new tradeeventhough such may be actually waiting for them in a fresh

    lace , the , immediate and invariable result of the introduction of machinery p , is a large amount of human distress , including _hunger

    and cold , and other very real griefs . Therefore , no manufacturer who is not influenced by selfish greed will introduce machinery where it

    was not previously in use , without taking pains to ease the transition to his workpeople . In like manner every effort ouglit just now

    to be made in aid of female emigration ; for the sewing machine is destroying daily the wretched profession of the seamstress , to the

    great future benefit of tlie sex , but to the immediate anguish and destitution of the lowest class of worker .

    And so I believe that though the opening of new paths to educated women -will be a very great economical benefit , I see plainly

    that we have great moral interests also at stake which require to be jealouslguardedthat we may not look to the political economy of

    the questi y on only , , but must take anxious care to build up the new theory in connection withthe old reverence for all that makes a

    , woman estimable : in gaining somewhat we must not lose more . Therefore let us call on English women of social station' to impart

    to this movement just that element of moral repute which it will

    eminently require to insure it from failure ; let them weigh well

    What Can Educated Women Do? 297

    WHAT CAN EDUCATED WOMEN DO ? 297

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Jan. 1, 1860, page 297, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01011860/page/9/