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NOTICES OF BOOKS. 345
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.
Intellectual Wome Education N. By , Emil...
Tliat is to say she demands that educated women be introduced to would the have " Vocation regarded of the that Scholar vocation , " much She in demands the same that sense women as Fichte shall
. rarel foe taug constituted ht to aspire onl to of a mode male of intelle life cts which and is is possible even by to them the most too y
often y an unhappy failure , in a social sense , ; witness the melancholy career Miss of Shirreff Colerid regards ge , and the of many general a college adoption recluse of professional . life by
women as an impossibility . Though we do not assent to her conclusionsthe reasons she adduces are moderately and intelligently
stated . , But neither , on the other hand , does she favor the idea of " well-to-do " women taking an active part in household concerns .
Here we think is her great and abiding mistake . She does not value actio ? i as the only medium in which any human creature can little
. become maidens either baking good and or brewing great . , cutting Far rather and darning would we , than see spending our all their time in " cultivating their minds" without any definite
ulterior aim . Miss Shirreff quotes the " clear-headed Greeks" as drawing a
broad distinction between " those studies which they called liberal , or or worth professional y of a " free It man is true , and that those our which most are fruitful merel knowled y mechanical ge is
. often that which is acquired apart from the routine of daily duty , but how different is the receptive and combining power of the mind
which is braced up by the strong support of a definite habit of exertion , to that of a mind which perpetually feasts on leisure .
For one divine philosopher who " B Let e seen s his i lamp n som at h midni igh lonel ght y hour tower , "
how many noble youths have been ruined by learned leisure ! Milton knew better when he prayed : —
_" Find And may out the at last peaceful my w hermitage eary age , , The hairy gown and mossy cell ,
. Of "Where I may star that sit and heaven nightl doth y spell shew And Till every old every experience herb that do sips attain the dew ; ,
To something like prophetic , strain . " And if m . en can so hardly , so rarely combine a studious and an
whose emotional inactive whole , life so , sympathetic nature what demands shall , so we active to hope , be in from ever their doing wom own en _sj something ) ; here women ; women for so
somebo The worst dy ? of these discussions about female education is that they
are usually begun and ended in an utter ignorance of the actual facts of life . We would fain ask any of our readers to take twenty
women of their acquaintance , alphabetically , so as to prevent any
Notices Of Books. 345
NOTICES OF BOOKS . 345
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), July 1, 1858, page 345, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01071858/page/57/
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