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200 NOTICES OF BOOKS.
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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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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«Ag »"" Why Should We Learn F Short Lect...
I life , while the weak are weakened still more , and surrendered body and soul to its chances .
"With a startling surplus in the female population of Great Britain , as shown in the census of 1851 , a surplus which war and
colonization are not likely to decrease ; with a system of over-tradingand excessive competition which brings in its train at stated intervals _^
wide-spreading * panic and distress , involving whole families in ruinit is no longer time to argue for or against the admission of women
into the industrial and money-making pursuits of the community . They must work , starve , or , as paupers , criminals , and prostitutes ,
fall a burden and a curse upon the nation , which in self-preservation must open the way to women as bread-winners . No
tradesman , no merchant , however prosperous he may for the time be , canso secure the future , that misfortune , loss , and ruin shall not overtake
him and his . In a great commercial nation like ours , very few are the " houses" that hold their ground year after year , very few the
fathers and husbands who leave wives and daughters secure from want or privation ; while their name is legion who having brought
up their young families in luxury , bestowing upon the girls all that general education can accomplish , leave them sooner or later to a
hand-to-hand fight for the means , of existence . If this be true , and we all know that it is , of our trading ,
mercantile , and professional classes , how much more imperative is it that those classes whose daughters look to service as their means of
subsistence , should receive , while at school , such special training as will fit them to undertake and fulfil the different duties upon which _,
they will speedily enter . It is true that
reflection " When , you are taug * ht habits you of are order thereb , regularity y prepared , patience to , exercise perseverance those ,
Qualities in the discharge of afl . home duties . " But , it is not true that
Ci No household arts are hard to learn . " It is a radical error in the education of girls that all special
training is denied them , and till this error be recognised and amended our women will remain , for the most part , helpless and inefficient ;
_dnd where obliged to depend upon their own exertions , will enter - # « the field of labor under disadvantages so overwhelming that only
tlie robust of mind and body may hope to surmount them . It is on this point we find ourselves at issue with the author
of these lectures , which contain in other respects much that is sound and useful on the all important subject of intellectual and
moral training . Nothing can be better than the following observations upon dress .
in of . " an women Among ignorant , is the that , vulgar habits foolish which mind love . I of B should y smart vulgar dress expect , I mean which a better not is one that education of which the surest belongs to correct signs to
200 Notices Of Books.
200 NOTICES OF BOOKS .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), May 1, 1859, page 200, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01051859/page/56/
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