Prince
Frederick, and was subject to some reproach for learning, though a
girl, so much more rapidly than he did.--Christina of Sweden ironically
reproved Madame Dacier for her translation of Callimachus: "Such a
pretty girl as you are, are you not ashamed to be so learned?" But
Madame Dacier acquired Greek by contriving to do her embroidery in the
room where her father was teaching her stupid brother; and her queenly
critic had learned to read Thucydides, harder Greek than Callimachus,
before she was fourteen.--And so down to our own day, who knows how
many mute, inglorious Minervas may have perished unenlightened, while
Margaret Fuller and Elizabeth Barrett Browning were being educated "like
boys"?

This expression simply means that they had the most solid training which
the times afforded. Most persons would instantly take alarm at the very
words; that is, they have so little faith in the distinctions which
Nature has established, that they think, if you teach the alphabet, or
anything else, indiscriminately to both sexes, you annul all difference
between them. The common reasoning is thus: "Boys and girls are
acknowledged to be distinct beings. Now boys study Greek and algebra,
medicine and book-keeping. Therefore girls should not." As if one
should say: "Boys and girls are distinct beings. Now boys eat beef and
potatoes. Therefore, obviously, girls should not."

The analogy between physical and spiritual food is precisely in point.
The simple truth is, that, amid the vast range of human powers and
properties, the fact of sex is but one item. Vital and momentous in
itself, it does not constitute the whole organism, but only a small part
of it. The distinction of male and female is special, aimed at a certain
end; and apart from that end, it is, throughout all the kingdoms
of Nature, of minor importance. With but trifling exceptions, from
infusorial up to man, the female animal moves, breathes, looks, listens,
runs, flies, swims, pursues its food, eats it, digests it, in precisely
the same manner as the male; all instincts, all characteristics, are the
same, except as to the one solitary fact of parentage. Mr. Ten Broeck's
race-horses, Pryor and Prioress, were foaled alike, fed alike, trained
alike, and finally ran side by side, competing for the same prize. The
eagle is not checked in soaring by any consciousness of sex, nor asks
the sex of the timid hare, its quarry. Nature, for high purposes,
creates and guards