to age of training and methods of work, concerning which I shall by and
by have something more to say. Neither would I forbid to her any
profession or mode of livelihood. This is a human right. I do not mean
to discuss it here either as citizen or physician; but, as man, I like
to state for my fellow-man that there are careers now sought and won and
followed by her which for him inevitably lessen her true attractiveness,
and to my mind make her less fit to be the "friendly lover and the
loving friend."[7] AEsthetic and other sacrifices in this direction are,
however, her business, not mine, and do not influence my practical
judgments as to what freedom to act is or should be hers in common with
men. For most men, when she seizes the apple, she drops the rose. I am a
little afraid that Mrs. Lynn Linton is right as to this, but it took
some courage to say what she said,[6] and she looks at the matter from a
more practical point of view, and deserves to be read at length rather
than quoted in fragments.
[Footnote 6: One would like to know how many women truly want the
suffrage, and how, when it was won, the earnest anti-tariff wife would
construe the marriage service in the face of the husband's belief in
high tariff. The indirect influence of women in politics is worth a
thought. We felt it sorely in 1861, and thence on to the war's end, and
to-day it is the woman who is making the general prohibition laws
probable. For ill or good she is still a power in the state.]
[Footnote 7: _Fortnightly_, 1886.]
I return to the subject. We want our young girl to be all that Romanes
says she is. We desire, too, that she shall be as thoroughly educated in
relation to her needs as her brothers, and that in so training her we
shall not forget that my ideal young person is to marry or not, and, at
all events, is to have a good deal of her life in her home with others,
and should have some resources for minor or self-culture and occupation
besides the larger ones which come of more distinctively intellectual
acquirements.
I turn now to the mother who asks this question, and say, "What of your
boys? Why are you not concerned as to them?" "Oh, boys are never
nervous. One couldn't stand that; but they never are. Girls are so
different." My answer is a long one. I wish I could think that it might
be so fresh and so attractive as to secure a hearing; but the preacher
goes on, Sunday after Sunday, saying over and over the same old truths
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