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156 INSANITY AMONG WOMEN.
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.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
In Directing His Attention To The Import...
exclaiming-, No circumstances shall ever bow me clown to the earth ? - no series of troubles shall ever break my spirit ; nothing- shall ever
prevent me from grappling with an enemy who will be sure to conquer me if I fail to conquer him ; ' this , I say , is all very correct and
very to expect laudable but in with you us men it , is and totall nothing y different more my than dear we : have we haven a right 't
; , the strength , we haven't the nerve to bear up against these things ; we are more sensitive ; our feelings are rnore acute ; our hearts are
more easily wounded , more delicate , more tender , more susceptible of sad impressions ; this boldness is not to be expected from us . "
"I have often , " said Valentine , "I have often thought it a pity that it should be the fashion to cultivate female weakness . "
_" The fashion to cultivate female weakness ! The fashion , my love!—the idea /"
" Doubtless in your view it seems very absurd , but if you examine the morally enervating tendency of the present system of
female education , you will find that weakness in every point is cultivated studiously , and that therefore the application of the term
' fashion' is correct . " I do not adduce the foregoing to prove that even before
Napoleon III ., that perfect gentleman , Valentine , and the amiable Louise battled for " an idea" but to observe that it must be admitted ,
, Valentine's impertinent caricature of the faults of female education contains some grains of truth in it . They are grains , too , which
unhappily may germinate in insanity , for that education which fails to fortify the mind and augment its power of self-control is
that which will undoubtedly expose it to great risk of sudden and anent overthrow . To advocate a healthyrational , _bracing
perm system of female education is one of the various , designs of the English _"Woman ' s _Jotthhstail . So far as it succeedsit will lessen
, the tendency to mental derangement among women arising from the vicissitudes and calamities of life . In this and other ways
will the great and blessed mission of woman on earth be advanced . On this subject of woman ' s mission , a living writer * so well
expresses himself that I need offer no apology for concluding these somewhat desultory observations by citing his remarks . " Much
has been said of late years , " he observes , " about ' woman ' s mission ' and it is well that she should understand that she has a
mission as ; well as man . This consists not in her being called to do the same things that man does . . . . Women are not to be
men , in character , ambition , pursuits , or achievement ; but they are to be more ; they are to be the makers of men ; they are to
affect , for all that is good and great , those with whom they are linked in life ; and they are emphatically to guard and mould in their
infancy the advancing * crowds of the coming age . . . . As I have often saidand will againfor it is a great truththough it may
, say , , be oddly expressed , if < the child is the father of the man , ' the
* The Wife , or , a Mirror for Maidenhood . By Rev . Thomas Binney .
156 Insanity Among Women.
156 INSANITY AMONG WOMEN .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), May 1, 1861, page 156, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01051861/page/12/
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