English poetry -- 19th century; Women -- History; Women -- Social conditions; Women -- Suffrage
And the same learned professor tells us, on another occasion:—“A liberal
education is an artificial education which has not only prepared a man
to escape the great evils of disobedience to natural laws, but has
trained him to appreciate and to seize upon the rewards which Nature
scatters with as free a hand as her penalties. That man, I think,”
(shall we not include “woman” also, on his own showing as above?) “has
had a liberal education who has been so trained in youth that his body
is the ready servant of his will, and does with ease and pleasure all
the work that, as a mechanism, it is capable of; whose intellect is a
clear, cold logic engine, with all its parts in equal strength and in
smooth working order, ready, like a steam engine, to be turned to every
kind of work, and spin the gossamers as well as forge the anchors of the
mind; whose mind is stored with a knowledge of the great and fundamental
truths of Nature, and of the laws of her operations; one who, no stunted
ascetic, is full of life and fire, but whose passions are trained to
come to heel by a vigorous will, the servant of a tender conscience; who
has learned to love all beauty, whether of Nature or of art, to hate all
vileness, and to respect others as himself.
“Such an one, and no other, I conceive, has had a liberal education, for
he is as completely as a man can be in harmony with Nature. He will make
the best of her, and she of him. They will get on together rarely; she
as his ever beneficent mother, he as her mouthpiece, her conscious self,
her minister, and interpreter.”—_Id._ (“Essay on a Liberal Education.”)
6.—“_In strength alike the sturdy comrades train_; ...”
How largely strength is simply a matter of training may be instanced by
a case or two:—
“The results of practice and training from childhood on the bodily
development can be seen in female acrobats and circus riders, who could
compete with any man in courage, daring, dexterity, and strength, and
whose performances are frequently astonishing.”—Bebel (“Woman,” p. 126).
“I am a medical man. I have spent several years in Africa, and have seen
human nature among tribes whose habits are utterly unlike those of
Europe. I had been accustomed to believe that the _muscular_ system of
women is necessarily feebler than that of men, and perhaps I might have
dogmatised to that effect; but, to my astonishment, I found the African
women to be as strong as our men.... Not only did I see the proof of it
in their work and in the weights which they lifted, but on examining
their arms I found them large and hard beyond all my previous
experience. On the contrary, I saw the men of these tribes to be weak,
their muscles small and flabby. Both facts are accounted for by the
habits of the people. The men are lazy in the extreme; all the hard work
is done by the women.”—(_Westminster Review_, Oct., 1865, p. 355.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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