men
without schools and colleges, there is no need of admitting them to
these institutions. If they work as well on half-pay, it diminishes the
inducement to give them the other half. The safer position is, to claim
that they have done just enough to show what they might have done under
circumstances less discouraging. Take, for instance, the common remark,
that women have invented nothing. It is a valid answer, that the only
tools habitually needed by woman have been the needle, the spindle, and
the basket, and tradition reports that she herself invented all three.
In the same way it may be shown that the departments in which women have
equalled men have been the departments in which they have had equal
training, equal encouragement, and equal compensation,--as, for
instance, the theatre. Madame Lagrange, the _prima donna_, after years
of costly musical instruction, wins the zenith of professional success;
she receives, the newspapers affirm, sixty thousand dollars a year,
travelling-expenses for ten persons, country-houses, stables, and
liveries, besides an uncounted revenue of bracelets, bouquets, and
_billet-doux_. Of course, every young _debutante_ fancies the same thing
within her own reach, with only a brief stage-vista between. On the
stage there is no deduction for sex, and therefore woman has shown in
that sphere an equal genius. But every female common-school teacher in
the United States finds the enjoyment of her two hundred dollars a
year to be secretly embittered by the knowledge that the young
college-stripling in the next school-room is paid a thousand dollars for
work no harder or more responsible than her own,--and that, too, after
the whole pathway of education has been obstructed for her and smoothed
for him. These may be gross and carnal considerations; but Faith asks
her daily bread, and Fancy must be _fed_. We deny woman her fair share
of training, of encouragement, of remuneration, and then talk fine
nonsense about her instincts and her intuitions,--say sentimentally,
with the Oriental proverbialist, "Every book of knowledge is implanted
by nature in the heart of woman," and make the compliment a substitute
for the alphabet.

Nothing can be more absurd than to impose entirely distinct standards,
in this respect, on the two sexes, or to expect that woman, any more
than man, will accomplish anything great without due preparation and
adequate stimulus. Mrs. Patten, who navigated her husband's ship