The course of the world is not retrograde. Massachusetts will not call a convention to insist upon a property qualification for voters, neither will she close her schoolhouses, nor forswear her ancient faith. The time shall yet come when she shall free herself from reproach, and fulfil the prophetic promise of her republicanism, by generous endowment for her women, and the open recognition of their citizenship. It is not our purpose, however, to dwell upon facilities of school education. More conservative speakers will plead, eloquently as we could wish, in that behalf; and suggestions on other topics need to be made. We have already said, that the educational rights of women are simply those of all human beings,--namely, "the right to be taught all common branches of learning, a sufficient use of the needle, and any higher branches, for which they shall evince either taste or inclination; the right to have colleges, schools of law, theology, and medicine open to them; the right of access to all scientific and literary collections, to anatomical preparations, historical records, and rare manuscripts." And we do not make this claim with any particular theory as to woman's powers or possibilities. She may be equal to man, or inferior to him. She may fail in rhetoric, and succeed in mathematics. She may be able to bear fewer hours of study. She may insist on more protracted labor. What we claim is, that no one knows, as yet, what women are, or what they can do,--least of all, those who have been wedded for years to that low standard of womanly achievement, which classical study tends to sustain. Because we do not know, because experiment is necessary, we claim that all educational institutions should be kept open for her; that she should be encouraged to avail herself of these, according to her own inclination; and that, so far as possible, she should pursue her studies, and test her powers, in company with man. We do not wish her to follow _any_ dictation; not ours, nor another's. We ask for her a freedom she has never yet had. There is, between the sexes, a law of incessant, reciprocal action, of which God avails himself in the constitution of the family, when he permits brothers and sisters to nestle about one hearth-stone. Its ministration is essential to the best educational results. Our own educational institutions should rest upon this divine basis. In educating the sexes together under fatherly and motherly supervision,[1] we avail ourselves of the highest example; and the result will be a simplicity, modesty, and purity of character, not so easy to attain when general abstinence from each other's society makes the occasions of re-union a period of harmful excitement. Out of it would come a quick perception of mutual proprieties, delicate attention to manly and womanly habits, refinement of feeling, grace of manner, and a thoroughly symmetrical development. If the objections