There is no greater enemy to body and soul than idleness, unless it be the absurd public sentiment which compels to idleness. Thousands and tens of thousands have fallen victims to it. The woman who will not labor, rich or honored though she be, bends her head to the inevitable curse of Heaven. This curse works in failing health, fading beauty, broken temper, and weary days. Let her never fancy, that, being neither wife nor mother, she is exempt from the law: she cannot balance that decree of God by the foolish customs of society or the weak objections of her kindred. Never let her say she does not need to labor. Disease, depression, moral idiocy, or inertia, follow on an idle life. He who never rests has made woman in His image; and health, beauty, force, and influence follow on the steps of labor alone. I shall not pursue this subject; for it is far easier for you to think it out, than to gather the facts I wish to bring before you. Read "Shirley," and let the saddest hours of Caroline Helstone's life bear witness for thousands who never find a vocation. Read the "Professor," and let its sweet stimulus kindle in you some appreciation of the joy which mutual labor can bring to a happy husband and wife. Sad, indeed, then, is it when man himself represses a woman's longing for work, whether from false tenderness, from a dread of public opinion, a shrinking from her ultimate independence, or a small personal jealousy. That he does, in the aggregate and as an individual, so repress it, is unfortunately matter of history: it is no invention of an outraged inferior. I could offer you many private examples of this; but those that carry proofs of their reality with them will, I fear, seem very familiar. The first consists in the opposition shown to the attempt of Mr. Bennett to establish young women as watchmakers. Honorary Secretary to the Horological Department of the great Exhibition, he could not help observing the superiority of the Genevese watches, in cheapness and convenience of carriage. In England, watches are so dear that only the privileged classes can carry them. It would be for the interests of the manufacturers, of course, to be able to compete with the Swiss; but they were too short-sighted to see it. Finding that twenty thousand women and girls were employed in Switzerland in the manufacture of watches and watchmakers' tools, Mr. Bennett undertook to deliver a public lecture on the subject. It was interrupted by hisses, and broken up like a New-York convention. Three well-educated women then applied to him to be taught; but no Englishman could be found to take them. A Swiss, settled in London, did. They made more progress in six months than ordinary boys in six years; but they, as well as their teacher, were so cruelly persecuted, that it was found necessary to relinquish the attempt. My impression is, though I cannot find the account in print, that a further effort was made on a more extended