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WOMAN, HER POSITION, INFLUENCE, AND WISHES.*

THE influence of women on modern | What is the origin of this curious habit, European society, Mr. Buckle tells us, has, on the whole, been extremely beneficial. We presume the influence of men has also, on the whole, been extremely beneficial. Yet it would seem odd to urge this.

*Industrial and Social Position of Women in the Middle and Lower Ranks. London: Chapman & Hall. 1857.

by which we so often speak and think of women as something outside of general humanity, or at least a lesser distinguishable part, whose relation to the whole may be made the subject of estimate? Are they not in reality human society as much as men are? If one looks at the subject with a fresh sudden glance, it seems as strange to speak of women ex

as of the branches and leaves exercising

The Influence of Women on the Progress of Know-ercising a beneficial influence on society ledge. By HENRY THOMAS BUCKLE. Fraser's Magazine, April, 1858. London: J. W. Parker & Son, The Englishwoman's Journal. London. 1858. Remarks on the Education of Girls. By BESSIE RAYNER PARKES. Third Edition. London: John Chapman. 1856.

Woman and her Wishes: an Essay inscribed to the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention. By THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON. London: John Chapman. 1854.

The Right of Women to exercise the Elective Franchise. By JUSTITIA. London: John Chapman.

1855.

VOL. XLVI.-NO. I.

a beneficial influence on the tree. Yet a mode of speech so universal, and of antiquity so undated, must have some true basis. "Man" can not mean both men and women for nothing; and mean it in all times and all languages. Does this expression imply that the nature of the man comprehends, includes within it, that of the woman? Not this probably; but it does imply that society ever since the

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world began has received its characteris tic nature and distinctive impress, not from the women, but from the men who helped to compose it. It does imply, and the world's history confirms it, that the collective body of men are in their nature more strong, more vigorous, more comprehensive, more complete in themselves, than the collective body of women. It is of no use screaming about it; the irrefragable fact remains. It is idle to say it is all owing to the defective education you give us. Why not have secured a higher education? It is no answer to cry, it all depends on your advantage in mere physical strength; for to say so admits the fact, and gives an adequate reason for it. Why tell us of Semiramis and Maria Theresa, of Vittoria Colonna and Mrs. Browning, of Mrs. Somerville and Miss Martineau, down to Brynhilda who tied up King Gunther and Captain Betsy who commands the Scotch brig Cleotus? These great names, which shoot so high, serve but to measure the average growth. Against the great fact of subordination of place in the world's history, however, is to be placed another fact not less marked and important, that the upward progress of the race has always been accompanied by a commensurate increase in the influence of women. The fact to which Mr. Buckle calls attention, that in the palmiest days of Athens the influence of women was at a minimum, is strictly in accordance with the purely intellectual, and therefore narrow, though brilliant civilization to which alone the Greek mind attained. It serves to show how large a part of intellectual cultivation may be independent of the woman, and how incomplete in such independence are its loftiest achievements. Mr. Buckle, with his narrow theory of civilization, rests the matter too purely on considerations of intellectual conformation; yet it can scarcely be denied that the influence of woman is less at the present day than it was before the advent of what may be called the scientific age, that our material civilization is the result of effort and mental activity of a more specially masculine kind. Both our forms of thought and our habits of industrial life have become too narrow and engrossing: and this defect may fairly be attributed (in some degree at least) to the fact that the quick advance and strong leaning in one direction of the men's minds has separated them by a sort

of chasm from the women; and depriving them of the softening and enlarging influence of the closer companionship of the latter, has left these too with inadequate resources for the full development of their faculties and natures.

It is the women themselves who have first become conscious of this; who have felt their wants and their comparative isolation. They have been moved, indeed, by a practical pinch. A denser population, a keener competition for the means of livelihood, thence marriages later and proportionately fewer; the disuse, through superior manufacturing facilities, of a large mass of domestic industry-have at once limited their home avocations and cast them more upon their own resources. They cry for larger opportunities of employment, for means of subsistence less precarious than those they now possess: but they ask also for an enlarged education, for freer scope for their powers, and for a closer interest and sympathy in the intellectual pursuits and practical concerns of men.

It seems strange at first sight that women themselves, and their warmest advccates of modern days, should rather choose to urge the contest for extended freedom and a larger scope in the management of the world's affairs from the basis of the false idea of woman's equality with and similarity to man, instead of the inexpugnable position of her real nature, and the claims which it gives her and the duties it demands from her. The reason, however, is pretty obvious. The advance from the latter position would be too slow: progress thence must be made not by the demand of assent to sweeping assertions and all-embracing principles, but step by step, as practical wants, proved advantages, and safe means prepare and open the way. It is far more tempt ing to be a brilliant intellectual pioneer, leveling the hills and making straight the ways, than one of those quiet engineers of the world's progress who make roads bit by bit, as the occasion for them arrives, and never care to lay them down until there is a certainty they that will be used, and profitably used.

It is a pleasant exercise of the imagin ation to reärrange the world on an hypothesis of what woman would be if her course of training and mode of life were entirely altered. The effect of this, some bold assertors maintain, would be so com

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