The Complete Project Gutenberg Writings of Charles Dudley WarnerWarner, Charles Dudley
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The Complete Project Gutenberg Writings of Charles Dudley Warner
Warner, Charles Dudley
American literature -- 19th century; Literature -- Collections
O my charming young countrywomen, let us never forget that Pericles
elevated the Greeks; and that he did it by cultivating the national
genius, the national spirit, by stimulating art and oratory and the
pursuit of learning, and infusing into all society a higher
intellectual and social life! Pa was this day sailing through seas
and by shores that had witnessed some of the most stirring and
romantic events in the early history of our continent. He might have
had the eager attention of his bright daughter if he had unfolded
these things to her in the midst of this most living landscape, and
given her an "object lesson" that she would not have forgotten all
her days, instead of this pottering over names and dates that were as
dry and meaningless to him as they were uninteresting to his
daughter. At least, O Pa, Educator of Youth, if you are insensible
to the beauty of these summer isles and indifferent to their history,
and your soul is wedded to ancient learning, why do you not teach
your family to go to sleep when they go to bed, as the classic Greeks
used to?
Before the travelers reached Shediac, they had leisure to ruminate
upon the education of American girls in the schools set apart for
them, and to conjecture how much they are taught of the geography and
history of America, or of its social and literary growth; and
whether, when they travel on a summer tour like this, these coasts
have any historical light upon them, or gain any interest from the
daring and chivalric adventurers who played their parts here so long
ago. We did not hear pa ask when Madame de la Tour "flourished,"
though "flourish" that determined woman did, in Boston as well as in
the French provinces. In the present woman revival, may we not hope
that the heroic women of our colonial history will have the
prominence that is their right, and that woman's achievements will
assume their proper place in affairs? When women write history, some
of our popular men heroes will, we trust, be made to acknowledge the
female sources of their wisdom and their courage. But at present
women do not much affect history, and they are more indifferent to
the careers of the noted of their own sex than men are.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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