in women; the want of _education_, I say,--meaning by
education that which fits a woman for practical and profitable
employment in life, and not mere common-school learning."

"Yes," said my wife; "for it is a fact that the most troublesome and
helpless persons to provide for are often those who have a good medium
education, but no feminine habits, no industry, no practical
calculation, no muscular strength, and no knowledge of any one of
woman's peculiar duties. In the earlier days of New England, women, as
a class, had far fewer opportunities for acquiring learning, yet were
far better educated, physically and morally, than now. The high school
did not exist; at the common school they learned reading, writing, and
arithmetic, and practiced spelling; while at home they did the work of
the household. They were cheerful, bright, and active, ever on the
alert, able to do anything, from the harnessing and driving of a horse
to the finest embroidery. The daughters of New England in those days
looked the world in the face without a fear. They shunned no labor;
they were afraid of none; and they could always find their way to a
living."

"But although less instructed in school learning," said I, "they
showed no deficiency in intellectual acumen. I see no such women,
nowadays, as some I remember of that olden time,--women whose strong
minds and ever-active industry carried on reading and study side by
side with household toils.

"I remember a young lady friend of mine, attending a celebrated
boarding-school, boarded in the family of a woman who had never been
to school longer than was necessary to learn to read and write, yet
who was a perfect cyclopedia of general information. The young scholar
used to take her Chemistry and Natural Philosophy into the kitchen,
where her friend was busy with her household work, and read her
lessons to her, that she might have the benefit of her explanations;
and so, while the good lady scoured her andirons or kneaded her bread,
she lectured to her protegee on mysteries of science far beyond the
limits of the textbook. Many of the graduates of our modern high
schools would find it hard to shine in conversation on the subjects
they had studied, in the searching presence of some of these vigorous
matrons of the olden time, whose only school had been the leisure
hours gained by energy and method from their family cares."

"And in those days," said my wife, "there lived in our families a
cla