"It is observable that women in general have less inflexibility of character than men; and though many moral influences contribute to this difference, the principal cause is, probably, something less firm in the corporeal texture. Now, one may have in his constitution a firmness of texture, exceeding that of other men, in a much greater degree than that by which men in general exceed women. "If there have been found some resolute spirits powerfully asserting themselves in feeble vehicles, it is so much the better; since this would authorize a hope, that if all other grand requisites can be combined, they may form a strong character, in spite of the counteraction of an unadapted constitution. And on the other hand, no constitutional hardness will form the true character without those grand principles; though it may produce that false and contemptible kind of decision which we term _obstinacy_; a mere stubbornness of temper, which can assign no reason but its will, for a constancy which acts in the nature of dead weight rather than of strength; resembling less the reaction of a powerful spring than the gravitation of a big stone." In opposition to the system of education which we would defend, a voice of objection has been raised, to which it may not be improper to pay a passing regard. It has been preferred as an objection to manual labor schools, which we shall assume, are, on the whole, the most unexceptionably expedient that has been proposed for connecting exercise with a course of literary training,[3] that _youth who have been unaccustomed to manual labor, and who have been permitted to indulge in idleness and sportive amusements for the purpose of recreation, will feel an insuperable aversion to the toils and restraints which such a revolution in their habits, as the one contemplated, will impose on them_. [Footnote 3: Gymnastic exercises are both dangerous and frivolous.]