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Show WOMEN'S EDUCATION AND RIGHTS. We have received the following letter from a strong-minded lady who evidently feels her position, and we willingly publish it, trusting to encourage others to favor us with their views in regard to this fruitful, but oft disputed, topic. Mr. Editor:-The subject of woman's education is so nearly connected with woman's rights, that I thought a short article on that subject in the Journal would not be out of place at this time. Much has been said and much written on this subject already, and yet it is as far from being exhausted as it ever was, and in my opinion much farther. I know gentlemen will readily concede to women the indisputable right to occupy her time with all ordinary routing of household duties, she may knit and sew, bake and scrub, patch and darn continually, and they will look on and smile complacently; but when a woman thinks herself equally competent with men to take up a more honorable or lucrative, yet not more arduous occupation, then she is saluted with the universal masculine cry, "women have no right to attempt such things, they are usurping our places and are out of their sphere, for woman's province is at home." Now, if she is not a woman of determination, with fixed principles, she will be frightened from the position, she has dared to assume, back into the humble, quiet walk of life from which she emerged, leaving the laurels of fame for masculine brows and the harvest of wealth for them to reap. But I am happy that I can say, there have lived many women who, braving the ridicule of the world (including her own sex) have earned a fame which any man might be proud to inherit. Now I think a woman has a right to do just as she pleases, providing she can do well, and I am confident she would be capable of filling all the positions now occupied by the sterner sex with credit to herself and benefit to the world, if her education were not so deficient. I have no fear of your doubting the intellectual capacity of women, while the names of Mrs. Hemans, Mrs. Sigourney, Hannah More, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Miss Landon stand pre-eminent in our literary world, or a Grace Greenwood, who entranced her hearers by the eloquence of her lectures, nor can you doubt her courage since a woman left her home and risked her own life to stab a hated Robespiere and rid France of its feared and detested tyrant, or a Grace Darling, a brief sketch of whose life you gave in the last issue of the Journal, guiding her life boat through the angry billows of a stormy ocean, rescues from the sinking wreck her poor despairing fellow creatures. Recall to your memory that fearful crimson war and see how the world-renowned Florence Nightingale, standing over the dying or wounded soldiers, her cheeks made pale with constant watching, yet with a firm pulse and steady hand binding up the bloody wounds, or still farther back we see a calm and gentle woman treading through the filth and dirt of London's vilest alleys and lanes, and through damp and gloomy prisons, holy bible in hand and a pure faith in her heart ministering to those poor outcasts who with tears of repentance and gratitude prayed that heaven's richest blessings might descend upon Elizabeth Fry. There are few female aspirants to the legal profession; perhaps their inherent love of truth causes them to revolt from a profession so proverbially false; or it may be that they consider the profession already deluged with students, as we all well know, every family deems it their bounden duty to devote at least one son to the study of law. Now I think I have shown very conclusively that women are intellectually capable of filling any position or profession and engaging in any occupation in life, if their education were only such as to fit them for it, and I ask you, dear Mr. Editor, to use your best endeavors to improve the system for women's education. Guardians who have female wards to educate; fathers who have daughters to prepare for life's cares and troubles; give them a liberal education and they will be a credit to their sex and an honor to the community in which they are raised. Yours, ?? |