ove the
surrounding atmosphere; and if the page of genius has always been
blurred by the prejudices of the age, some allowance should be made
for a sex, who, like kings, always see things through a false
medium."

The truth is, were girls allowed the same freedom in the choice of
amusements as boys, they would manifest an equal fondness for out-of-door
sports, to the neglect of dolls and frivolous pastimes. But it is denied
to them. Directors of their education have, as a rule, been blind
adherents to the doctrine that whatever is, is right, and hence have
argued that because women have always been brought up in a certain way
they should continue to be so trained.

The worst of it is that the artificial delicacy of constitution thus
produced is the cause of a corresponding weakness of mind; and women are
in actual fact _fair defects_ in creation, as they have been called. And
yet, after having been unfitted for action, they are expected to be
competent to take charge of a family. The woman who is well-disposed, and
whose husband is a sensible man, may act with propriety so long as he is
alive to direct her. But if he were to die how could she alone educate
her children and manage her household with discretion? The woman who is
ill-disposed is not only incapacitated for her duties, but, in her desire
to please and to have pleasure, she neglects dull domestic cares.

"It does not require a lively pencil, or the discriminating outline
of a caricature, to sketch the domestic miseries and petty vices
which such a mistress of a family diffuses. Still, she only acts as
a woman ought to act, brought up according to Rousseau's system.
She can never be reproached for being masculine, or turning out of
her sphere; nay, she may observe another of his grand rules, and,
cautiously preserving her reputation free from spot, be reckoned a
good kind of woman. Yet in what respect can she be termed good? She
abstains, it is true, without any great struggle, from committing
gross crimes; but how does she fulfil her duties? Duties--in truth,
she has enough to think of to adorn her body and nurse a weak
constitution.

"With respect to religion, she never presumes to judge for herself;
but conforms, as a dependent creature should, to the ceremonies of
the church which she was brought up in, piously believing that
wiser heads than her own hav