only enough to show that the average and
almost universal education of English women is wholly of the old-time
feminine type--useful sewing, reading, writing, and religious
instruction for the girls of the lower classes; ornamental needlework,
music, modern languages, history, and English composition for the girls
of the higher classes. The result is, as far as I have been able to
judge, women who are in a rare degree truthful, pure, and faithful to
recognized obligations, but, as a rule, their range of recognized
obligations is not very wide, and the subjects in which they take an
interest are very limited. Among the lower classes men are said to seek
society in the beer-shops, and in the higher classes, at the clubs and
with their gentlemen friends, because they have little companionship at
home. The education is so different that there is far less of
companionship between men and women than with us. Among the lower
classes, great wastefulness in the family economies is attributed to the
ignorance of the women. In the report of one of the meetings of the
Social Science Congress, I find the statement of a working man which, I
am sure, expresses the general feeling of the people of the country. In
referring to the want of education, and the consequent want of the
home-creating power among the women, he said: "The homes of our artisans
are not nearly equal to the work they execute, nor to the wages they
earn." Among the higher classes, I am disposed to believe, that nowhere
else can women be found so exactly fitted for the place that the popular
sentiment expects them to fill; in short, that the handiwork of man
shows no higher triumph of skill in adapting its instrument to the
purpose it is meant to serve, than is seen in these moral, healthy,
dignified, orderly, executive English matrons; and though the place they
fill in the work of the world is not very large, it is not strange that
the conservative sentiment of the country dreads to disturb the perfect
balance.

The narrow intellectual attainments of these women do not interfere very
much with the general prosperity of the family. Social position depends
so largely upon birth that no amount of intelligence or grace would
enable them to add very much to acquaintance or popularity; and the
servants are so skilful in their departments, that the cleverest amateur
could help them but little.

All these women of the upper class uniformly write and speak better
English t