sex who are expected more and more to undertake the application of detailed relief for social ills. . . . Secondly, another important reason consists in its excellence as a means of training the mind to attain power as an instrument, for which we so often hear the less daily applicable science of mathematics commended. . . . Thirdly, this study is perhaps the most thorough help in developing the minds of young people. . . . Once imbued with the theoretical principles of social welfare, women would soon learn to feel an active interest in the special application of those principles daily treated of in the public papers," etc. Much more of the same sort. Miss Parkes, however, is not responsible at first hand for the idea of teaching social science to the young. To us it seems a caricature of beginning at the end. That science which is of all others the most complex, the most difficult, and the least ascertained, is recommended as a whetstone to the intellects of boys and girls. The real fact is, that you may get them to learn its more obvious principles by rote, but that not one in a hundred of mature minds is competent to appreciate even its difficulties and short-comings. To recommend it as a training for young people, is as if the ascent of Mont Blanc should be recommended for teaching babies to walk. First, it is important to children who will be expected to walk up-hill; secondly, it is excellent as a means of training the legs as an instrument of progression; thirdly, it is perhaps the most. thorough help in developing the bodies of little people. We are not saying that women ought not to study political economy and social science, that they are incapable of comprehending it as far as it is settled, and of furnishing new ideas for its greater fixity and extension; we do not say that minds, though young, should not, if already trained to steady thought, occupy themselves with its difficult problems: we only say that it is of all things the most preposterous to attempt to use it for either sex as an instrument for early training of the intellect instead of such things as arithmetic and geometry. The preponderating place assigned to it, and the idea of its serving as a substitute for mathematics, indicate truly the feminine tendency to give the slip to those duller things in which girls really most want training, and to substitute for them some thing which shall be immediately interesting and admit of endless discussion. It is not our object here to enter upon the question of non-domestic employment for women in its economical bearings. It is enough to say in passing, that the cb. jection based on the tendency of their interference to lower the wages of male labor is untenable. The social and educational influence of such employment has, however, received an elaborate treatment in one of the books before us; and may properly give occasion for a few remarks in pursuance of what we have said above. The author is in earnest; but is too apt to think that this entitles him to be prosy and interminable. He sometimes overstates his facts, and often over-strains his arguments; but he has patiently and carefully gathered his subject-matter together, and treats it with vigor and not without occasional eloquence. Many of his observations commend themselves by their truth and appropriateness; but we can not help thinking that his main views are pushed to an extreme which deprives them of truth and value. He complains, and justly, of the distinction which so early takes place between the studies of boys and girls, of social conventions which limit their free intercourse, of the everwidening divergence of intellectual culture, especially in the middle classes, and of the too frequent perishing of all mental sympathy and intercourse of thought through pure inanition or want of common grounds of interest. But he is not less eloquent in his description of the evil than he is confident in his proposal of a remedy. The women must join the men in their work. Men and women of the higher classes, says our author, lead a life of leisure, and sympathize on the common ground of their amusements; men and women of the lower classes meet on the ground of their common labor. The men of the middle classes stand apart from the women; they are wrapped up in industry; all their ideas and their wholo life are bound up in it; and before the women can enter into their feelings and share their thoughts, they too must be absorbed in industrial occupation. For this purpose it is that woman is to be educated, that she is to study science, that she is to mingle in the struggle of life; that she may be able to talk shop to her husband; that she may share the nar row-mindedness from which in reality it is her sphere to elevate him. His idea is that this is an industrial age, and that until the women are industrial too they will have no sufficient common interests with the men. He thinks if women thronged the markets and the exchanges, overlooked the mills, navigated the ships, they would have something to talk about to their brothers and husbands, and that men and women would cease to occupy different corners of the room at evening parties. He thinks public spirit would increase; and that there would be fewer bankruptcies if ladies made up their husband's ledgers. If young people would discuss the price of stocks and the prospects of the iron-trade, there would be less idle flirtation, and proposals for marriage would be based upon more solid grounds of preference than "a fascinating manner or a taking look," which he assumes to be their sole foundation as things are now arranged. WHAT MAN WANTS. Man, we are told, comes in jaded and harassed with the cares of the day, and wearied by incessant occupation in practical affairs. What does he want? Rest. Yes; but rather intellectual relaxation. Strange remedy, to provide him a wife and daughters who shall be able to discuss with him the chances of Great-Westerns recovering, or calculate the price at which it is safe to invest in leasehold houses: there being ladies too who, it is to be remembered, ought to come in equally jaded with himself. Strange compliment to the woman is the tacit assumption which prevails throughout the book, and which we have before censured for its injustice, that the most flattering tribute to her capacity is to assume that she can do all that man can; and that the very highest elevation of her destiny is to be permitted to share in his functions, and to go down and partake the vicissitudes of his worldly career. Is this her place and her function? Is this sort of common labor the true ground of union? It is true, many men of the middle class are entirely devoted to "industrial occupation," by which the writer simply means the industrious pursuit of wealth; true that their whole activity, physical and mental, is apt to become absorbed in this occupation, and that they allow themselves no room for relaxation of mind, scarcely even for rest. The writer states it still more strongly, more strongly perhaps than is true: but it is true that there is a tendency to excessive engrossment in "business ;" and this not only among those with whom it is a real and necessary struggle for existence, but among others with whom it is only the gratification of ambition or the adherence to habit. And it is, we are told, because the women do not join in all this, that there is a want of sympathy between them and the men, isolation, and so on. But, we may be allowed to ask, is this a state of things in itself desirable; or is it a danger, to contend against which we should jealously preserve every influence we possess? Is it not rather to be wished that men should aim at a scope of thought beyond the details of their daily avocations; that they should be familiar with higher interests, and think them worth some sacrifice of small ambitions; and that they should seek their relaxation from the unavoidable labor of earning a livelihood, not in talking over their pursuits, or in a state of mental stupefaction like that of an over-gorged boa-constrictor, but in a change of mental pursuits which may give increased width and power to the mind, and may at once refresh and animate? If it be unwise for a lawyer to associate only with lawyers, priests with priests, and women with women-if college dons grow dull and narrow, and tradesmen ineffectually muddle their brains in their clubs-then it surely must be unwise to carry into our homes the atmosphere of our shops. Then the old idea is still true, that it is just in her position, aloof in some degree from the sweat and turmoil of life, from the harassing and exhausting struggles of daily bread-winning, that the woman finds her truest sphere. The deeper the man is drawn into the strife, the more important it is that the woman should stand outside it: then, when the day's work is over, she helps him to rise into a higher atmosphere; then it should be his endeavor to draw near to her. But to profit fully by the opportunities which intercourse with women affords for clearing our mental weather and elevating and refining our tone of thought, we must strive on our side to approach them, to gain something of their facility of apprehension, their power of holding the thought lightly in hand, of using the intellect rea- | find support and assistance. Nor is it dily and gracefully, and on subjects close necessary even for the discussion of busiat hand and not necessarily either imme- ness itself, when occasion calls for it, that diately useful or immensely important; a sensible woman should ever have been we must get rid of the notion that they familiar with its details; still less is this are always wrong when they move too necessary to the exchange of thought on fast for us, and that they were created to questions of social economy or politics, in be defeated in argument and to be re- which, though women will rarely broach proached for not seeing they are defeated. wide views of their own, they will often We must cease to claim a superiority for suggest considerations which will very having once known and since forgotten much widen the views of men. It is said Greek and Latin, and learn how much that the habitual intervention of women in food for discussion and intellectual inter- business would soften its asperities and course is to be found in the literature of raise its morality. We don't the least modern Europe. Women perhaps study believe this. A priori, we should say that accomplishments too much; men-Eng- the disposition of women to give too high lishmen at least-certainly study them a place to the personal interests with too little. It is all very well for Thomp- which matters are interwoven, and to atson to think he is solid, and above that tach an exaggerated importance to the sort of thing; the wife of his bosom aspects of things immediately before them, knows and assiduously conceals the real would make them less scrupulous in pushfect that he is stupid and unequal to it. ing advantages, and less constantly open Brown is a reserved Briton; that is, he is to the claims of justice and the interests totally incapable of conversation. Most of long-sighted prudence. And does not Englishmen are disgracefully ignorant of experience prove the same thing? Do music. It is not because they have no not business-women as a rule exaggerate time that married women give up "play- the defects of business-men? Are not ing;" it is because their husbands are fish-women worse than fish-men-female quite unable to appreciate it, and take no lodging-house keepers worse than male real pleasure in it. ones? Widows are bad; but if you would not be stripped alive, avoid a female orphan. Is not what is called a clever woman of business the most difficult and most disagreeable person to deal with in the whole world? Is not the whole position of antagonistic relations and contest for advantage with the other sex the most perilous to delicacy and simple-mindedness into which a woman can enter? The scolding of the house is bad, but that of the market is worse; the coquetry of the ball-room is more fashionable than desirable, but what shall we say of the coquetry of a bargain and sale?— Fanny using her fine eyes to sell sea-island cotton to advantage, or Georgy offering you a very white hand to seal terms which, but for the sake of pressing it, you would never dream of accepting! A well-principled upholder of the rights of woman says of course, Fie! such things are impossible. We grieve to say they are not; and what is proposed is not only that elderly creatures with peaked noses and coal-scuttle bonnets should join in the struggle, but that the world of industry should be equally open to, and frequented by, all women as it is by all men, with one single exception, made by the less tho The fact is, that in the industrial classes of the middle rank education is equally defective among the men as among the women; and it is the want of cultivation and width of mind on both sides which narrows their intercourse. It is urged, however, that the men have an education in their industrial lives, that their thoughts and ideas must be rooted in their practical occupations, and that it is only through these that they will or can ascend up to a wider range; and that the women should have the same experience, and walk step for step with them. The former part of the proposition may be true, and doubtless often is true, of self-raised circumstance-taught men; but it decidedly ought not to be true of men who have, or possibly can have, secured to them the advantage of external education. Such men ought to possess and tenaciously to keep their hold upon intellectual resources and interests apart from the groove of their daily occupations, and perhaps as widely as possible contrasted with these; and it is in the society of women (not necessarily, as it is too apt to be presumed, those of their own family) that they will must naturally seek and most effectually rough-going advocates of the changethe case of mothers with large families of small children and no nurse-maids. We are strongly of opinion, then, that there are many phases of the life of industry totally unfitted for women to enter on; and that, so far from its being to be desired that she should mingle in and understand by experience the difficulties with which many men have to contend, it is to be wished that her atmosphere should be as serene and her growth as unwarped as the conditions of humanity will allow. On the other hand, we yet more strongly deprecate any thing in the nature of a cloisteral seclusion or an enforced idleness. We believe practical life, employment in affairs of some kind or other, to be essential to the healthy condition and just development of every individual, male or female; and we do believe that the number of unmarried women in modern society requires a widér field of industry than the middle classes at least have hitherto had opened to them. To discuss what this field is to be, would be a long and not very profitable task. It is a question which will decide itself. The advantages seem to point in the direction of some of the many branches of manufacturing occupation, especially those which can be carried on at home, and with the least exposure and publicity. For we do assert, and most strongly, that there is a multitude of avocations which, in the present condition of the world, are totally unfitted for woman; and that it will require a nice discrimination and cautious judgment to select those in which she is most competent to succeed, and which are most in consonance with her nature as it is, not as it is presumed it may become, and with what, notwithstanding Amazonian sneers, we still with Mr. Tennyson believe to subsist-her "distinctive womanhood." They are happiest, and will ever remain so, who can find a place for their activity in administering, or helping to administer, a household; and we do not hesitate to say, in spite of the most enlightened remonstrance, not only that this occupation is more healthy and natural to a woman, but that it is in reality a broader field, calls forth more faculties, and exercises and disciplines them more perfectly, than ninety-nine out of a hundred of the industrial avocations out of doors. It is only in the higher branches of superintendence and conduct of business that any thing like it can be obtained. Women are in a position to suffer much less than men by the excessive division of labor and the narrowing influence it tends to exert. The greater part of them have a sphere in their own homes which calls for more varied faculties and higher powers than the unvaried task of the factory or the workshop. Every woman must govern more or less in her own house, or ought to do so; and to govern is not an easy thing, nor are servants and children the easiest things to govern. But the nature of women specially adapts them to govern; not, indeed, by a wise and far-sighted application of general ideas, but by choice of able ministers or immediate contact with the persons governed. Many women, even those whose minds are entirely uncultivated, show a power and a breadth of capacity in administering their households, and controlling into harmony difficult tempers and unruly wills, which few men could rival. Something we had proposed to have said on the "political rights of women;" but have left ourselves too little either of time or space. Yet we will not conceal our conviction, that if there be two functions for which women are less specially fitted than any others, they are those of the judge and the legislator. If women are indeed only men a little weaker in the body, as "Justitia" maintains in a dogmatic little pamphlet on this subject adorned with a singular apparatus of false logic, then we can understand their entering into direct competition with us, and that the right to vote and legislate is one they may justly claim. If, however, they be really different, and adapted to a sphere of life and action mingling indeed with ours but essentially differing from it, then the question is a more difficult one. It depends upon whether the exercise of such functions would aid the woman's more complete development, and be consistent with the best interests of the whole society. The argument on these questions can not be compressed into very short space. All we can say is, that women seem to us to have more to lose than to gain by entering in their own right into the political arena; and that, constituted as they now are, and before they have passed through the great transformation they promise us, a large admission of the female element into legislation would pro bably carry further than any society has yet experienced the special evils of demoeratic government-its hasty impulsiveness, its rash action, its discords, its unscrupulousness, and its instability. And yet who shall be bold enough to say that the English constitution shall not, with its slow all-assimilating power, find some safe practical method of including by degrees a portion of direct feminine action? As far as representation goes, it is certain that women possess, from their personal relations permeating all classes, an absolute security that their ideas and wishes shall be taken into account. If in some respects they continue in a position of social disadvantage, it is because they have themselves chosen to acquiesce in it and fostered the conventional tone of thought and feeling in which it is based. The sincere desires of any large number of the real women in the country necessarily secure immediate attention, and certainly exercise at least their full share of influence over the action of the men. For women to say they are unrepresented, is as if the sugar in the tea should complain that it was not tasted. Our observations have been directed not to any attempt to discuss the particular claims made for extension of the sphere of women's action; but to draw attention to the false ideas on which such claims are based by what may be called the more neuter members of the sex and their adherents. Two of these ideas may be selected as most commonly put forward, most evil in their results, and most intrinsically untrue. These are, the idea that women are to be considered as forming a distinct class in society, which ought to possess a distinctive class action and a peculiar class position; and the idea that if they are not men, it is only by some great injustice which demands instant remedy, and that the object of their highest ambition should be a successful rivalry in the masculine career. Ar the hour of midnight dreary, At my gates, and loudly knocking Who," said I, "my dreams dispelling, Having heard, and moved to pity Lo! a little child before me, By my hearthstone, burning brightly, Took and warmed his hands in mine, And wrung the moisture from his hair; Looking then from arch brows under"Let us try my bow; I wonder If the bowstring has been injured," Drew an arrow from his quiver, Loudly laughed, and said again, But thy heart will feel the pain." 2 |