Education of Southern Women [pp. 381-390]

EDUCATION OF SOUTHERN W(OMEN.
whatever, then, in literature is not merely technical, or
addressed to particular professions, trades or sects of men;
whatever is addressed to mankind as possessed of a common
humanity and a common immortality, deserves equal attention
from men and women:
"The woman's cause is man's: they rise or sink
Together, dwarfd or god-like, bond or free."
And hence we argue the necessity for a higher mental culture
for women than has yet been accorded to them.
There is no need to be perplexed with speculations upon the
true relation of the sexes when we find the truth written in the
Holy Scripture: "And the Lord God said, It is not good that
man should be alone; I will make an helpmeet for him." Thwa,;
copctni?onship) of the sexes is, therefore, a Divine ordinance, and c -+
no speculations of men c(an alter the decree. The following:
lines from Tennyson, in illustration of the subject, are re,plote
with wisdomn:
(She must) "live, and learn, and be
All that not harms distinctive womanhood,
For woman is not undevelopt man,
But diverse: could we make her as the man,
Sweet love were slain, whose dearest bond is this
Not like to thee, but like in difference;
Yet in the long years liker must they grow,
The man be more of woman, she of man;
lie gain in sweetness and in moral height,
Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world;
She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care;
More as the double-natured( poet each:
Till at the last she set herself to man
Like perfect music unto noble words;
And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time,
Sit side by side, full summ'd in all their powers,
Dispensing harvest;
Self-reverent each, and reverencing each,
Distinct in individualities;
But like each other, even as those who love:
Then comnes the statelier Eden back to men."
The Pri-incess.
It may be objected by some that these views savor too
much of the "Woman's Rights" doctrine. We are in favor of
woman's rights in the highest, noblest sense, and therefore we
plead her claim for higher intellectual culture. But for that
pestilent doctrine, springing latest-born and ugliest from the
foul embrace of Yankeeism and infidelity, we have no sympathy.
And yet the woman's rights movement had some basis of truth.
No movement of reform ever commenced that had not some
grievance to be removed; otherwise it can enlist no symnpathy.
The error, into which all such movements are apt to degenerate,
viz: that of not stopping at the proper point, early befell this.
Commencing with the just and reasonable desire of elevating
the condition of woman, it soon became folly run mad in seeking to make woman usurp the place of man. Observing that,
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