United States -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction; Women -- Social conditions -- Fiction
"Much as I love her, so would I; but, Elise, we will anticipate no
such dreadful destiny. She has a clear fine mind, is studious and
ambitious, but certainly not a genius, unless it be in music; and she
can be trained into a cultivated refined woman, sufficiently
conversant with the sciences to comprehend their contemporaneous
development, without threatening us with pedantry, or adopting a
style suitable to the groves of Crotona in the days of Damo, or the
abstruse mystical diction that doomed Hypatia to the mercy of the
monks. After all, why scare up a blue-stockinged ogre, which may have
no intention of depredating upon our peace; for to be really learned
is no holiday amusement in this cumulative age, and offers little
temptation to a young girl. Not long since, I found a sentence
bearing upon this subject, which impressed itself upon my mind, as
both strong and healthy: 'And by this you may recognize true
education from false. False education is a delightful thing, and
warms you, and makes you every day think more of yourself; and true
education is a deadly cold thing, with a gorgon's head on her shield,
and makes you every day think worse of yourself. Worse in two ways
also, more is the pity: it is perpetually increasing the personal
sense of ignorance, and the personal sense of fault.'"
"In that event, may I venture to wonder where and how you and
Douglass stand in your own estimation? If quotations are _en regle_,
I can match your reverence, though unfortunately my feminine memory
is not like yours, a tireless beast of burden, and I must be allowed
to read. Here is the book close at hand, in my stocking basket. Now,
wise and gentle sirs, this is my ideal of proper, healthful, feminine
education, as contrasted with pur new-fangled method of making girls
either lay-figures for millinery, jewellery, and frizzled false hair,
or else--far more horrible still--social hermaphrodites, who storm
the posts that have been assigned to men ever since that venerable
and sacred time when 'Adam delved and Eve span,' and who, forsaking
holy home haunts, wage war against nature on account of the mistake
made in their sex, and clamour for the 'hallowed inalienable right'
to jostle and be jostled at the polls; to brawl in the market place,
and to rant on the rostrum, like a bevy of bedlamities. Now when I
begin to read, listen, and tell me frankly, whether when you both
make up your minds to present me, one a sister, the other a daughter,
you will select your wives from among quaint Evelyn's almost obsolete
type, or whether you will commit your name, affections, wardrobe,
larder, pantry and poultry to a strong-minded female 'scientist,' who
will neglect your socks and buttons, to ascertain exactly how many
_Vibriones_ and _Bacteria_ float in a drop of fluid, and when you
come home tired and very hungry, will comfort you, and nobly atone
for the injury of an ill-cooked and worse-served dinner, by regaling
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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