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    THE GENERAL EDUCATION OE WOMAN. 83

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    A Y By Way Of Fixing 1 The Whereabouts O...

    and girls both _niiist be trained most in those tilings which each _, most wants .

    Well has it been said , " Perhaps the training that seems most congenial with each nature

    is that which should be diligently employed upon the other : for the - one , that mental discipline which may seem to have most affinity

    with the sterner constitution , in order to preserve it from weakness ; and for the sterner nature , more of that cultivation which is

    generally appropriated to the gentler , in order to endow it with more kindness , and preserve it from hardness and coarseness . "

    II . —But it will be further said that I would take woman out of her sphere . Of all absurd phrases , this is , perhaps , the most absurd .

    Let the objector define what woman ' s sphere is , or rather _wliat it ought to be . That her present sphere is , in all things , her proper

    sphere , will surely not be contended . It is not unnatural that at every period of the world ' s history the existing should be deemed

    the right and the eternal ; but yet changes steal in , and the thing that is is not what was , or what yet shall be . On such a subject it

    becomes no one to dogmatise ; but thus much I will say , that never will it be known what woman ' s sphere is till the powers with which

    she has been gifted by oiir common Creator shall have been unfolded to the utmost , and till she shall have been qualified , too , for

    the situation which she may be destined to fill . It may be that in every succeeding phase of our social condition woman ' s sphere is

    proportioned to woman ' s merit . Let us increase the merit of woman , then , and trouble not ourselves about her sphere ; it may be safely

    left to provide for itself . It is a problem—like most of our social problems—to be wrought out , not talked out , written out , or thought

    out spher . e A of gain action : as , and it has another been well thing said 1 to , change it is one the thing sphere to . enlarge It is the a

    former , not the latter , that I would propose to do . With a richer culture , a deeper consciousness of duty , outward acts , visibly the

    same , are , in spirit , widely different . It is the loftiest spirit that will best " on itself the lowliest duties lay . " Herbert says : —

    " A Makes servant drud with this d cl iv ause ine , "Who s a gery roomas for God ' s laws

    Makes sweep that and tne , action tine ;" , and so work of all kinds will be better done when its real significance

    is understood and felt , wlien the agent loses the oppressive sense of isolation and inutility , and feels hiniself , however hiimbly , a

    fellowworker with the best and greatest . Let us , then , be careful that we concede not too much to liabifc , to changing habit , in our notions of

    woman ' s fitting sphere . In times not long past , for a woman to write and publish books was as unfeminine as , in the minds of

    who some feel , it is no now comp for unction a woman at beholding to lecture or ; and hearing oven their now , sister many -woman ladies ,

    sing at public concerts , _avIiosc nerves it wuukl not shake to hear her

    The General Education Oe Woman. 83

    THE _GENERAL EDUCATION OE WOMAN . 83

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), April 1, 1860, page 83, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01041860/page/11/