agrees
with you, 'that girls are trained too delicately to allow the mind to
expand.' Illuminated and expanded by 'philosophy' and 'social
progress' she and Madame Dudevant long ago literally abjured stays,
and glory in the usurpation of vests, pantaloons, coats, and short
hair. Be pleased to fancy my Regina, my blue-eyed snowbird, shorn of
that

'Gloriole of ebon locks on calmed brows'!

I would rather see her in her coffin, shrouded in a ruffled
pinafore."

"Much as I love her, so would I; but, Elise, we will anticipate no
such dreadful destiny. She has a clear fine mind, is studious and
ambitious, but certainly not a genius, unless it be in music; and she
can be trained into a cultivated refined woman, sufficiently
conversant with the sciences to comprehend their contemporaneous
development, without threatening us with pedantry, or adopting a
style suitable to the groves of Crotona in the days of Damo, or the
abstruse mystical diction that doomed Hypatia to the mercy of the
monks. After all, why scare up a blue-stockinged ogre, which may have
no intention of depredating upon our peace; for to be really learned
is no holiday amusement in this cumulative age, and offers little
temptation to a young girl. Not long since, I found a sentence
bearing upon this subject, which impressed itself upon my mind, as
both strong and healthy: 'And by this you may recognize true
education from false. False education is a delightful thing, and
warms you, and makes you every day think more of yourself; and true
education is a deadly cold thing, with a gorgon's head on her shield,
and makes you every day think worse of yourself. Worse in two ways
also, more is the pity: it is perpetually increasing the personal
sense of ignorance, and the personal sense of fault.'"

"In that event, may I venture to wonder where and how you and
Douglass stand in your own estimation? If quotations are _en regle_,
I can match your reverence, though unfortunately my feminine memory
is not like yours, a tireless beast of burden, and I must be allowed
to read. Here is the book close at hand, in my stocking basket. Now,
wise and gentle sirs, this is my ideal of proper, healthful, feminine
education, as contrasted with pur new-fangled method of making girls
either lay-figures for millinery, jewellery, and frizzled false hair,
or else--far more horrible still--social hermaphrodites, who storm
the posts that have been assigned to men ever since