On this page

• Text (1)

  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.

  • 

    FROM' PARIS ' . " 197

• Transcript

  • 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.

    ._———— —^^»— ^ A Phil 17, 1860. To The C...

    tliere is no use in pre-occupying one's mind , as is so constantly done here , upon the structure of the female brain , and the essence of that the

    feminine soul , while it is absolutely and immediately necessary the problems of material existence should receive some sort of solutionWhy should they be disdained ? Do they turn the mind

    . from the ideal ends of life ? Assuredly not ; they lead thereto . The English have felt this well and wiselyand therefore they have

    , not been afraid , as we have been , of lowering the domestic ideal of famillifebconsidering" women as individuals , and endeavoring

    to make y , their y subsistence depend on their own labor , instead of their precariously hang-ing on . the head of the householdand

    , being subject to his death , his commercial failure , and a thousand other accidents of life ..

    'fc Formerly , women deprived of their natural protectors were more to be pitied in England than in France . Things have totally

    changed . In spite of our sympathetic nature , which softens poverty among us ; in spite of our convents , which gather together isolated

    women and utilise their intellectual and manual activity ; in spite of other advantages which it would take too long to enumerate , it is a

    certain fact that at the present day English women possess more facilities than French women for the gaining of an honorable

    livelihood , and that which is a fact now , will be still more incontestable a few years hence , because progress is very rapid there , and

    insensible here . ' Why do we thus allow ourselves to be surpassed ? Let us

    confess the reason to ourselves . It is because we fly too high , because we satisfy our instinct of progress in words , and because the

    French intellect will not descend from the height whereon it loves to dwell , to learn of wise people , each of whom would willingly

    communicate the limited results of their own experience , but do not feel themselves called to a warfare of eloquent words , and have no

    pretension to instruct the human race . " One ought to be very sure of one ' s authoritybefore speaking in

    , the name of eternal principles , as is so customary among us . Does any one among us wish to learn the interests of women ? Let women

    themselves keep silence ; they would inspire no confidence in speaking , they plead their own cause ; only a man's voice , austere and

    disinterested , con Id make itself heard on this subject . _" Among our neighbours , on the contrary , they say , ' Here is a

    woman who comes to tell us of the sufferings of her fellow-women larl m workshop y concern s s , in her famil as y a life woman , in prisons ; she , oug etc ht . to This have subject fathomed particu it - ,

    _W ' _apprqfondi Here the , writer ) let us proceeds listen to to her g . ive ' " some details of the meeting of

    the Association at Bradford last October ; of the discussion on female labor ; and the formation of the committee for investigating the

    the question lectures of the given emp last loyment year by of Dr women . Elizab ; e and th Blackwell speaks further , in London on of ,

    From' Paris ' . " 197

    FROM' PARIS ' . " 197

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), May 1, 1860, page 197, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01051860/page/53/