is determined by
themselves. If, however, by conquest, annexation and absorption, we
acquire new territories, and strange races and nations of men, and yet
neglect education, every step will but increase our burdens and perils,
and hasten our decay.

FEMALE EDUCATION.

[An Address before the Newburyport Female High School.]

I accepted, without a moment's delay, the invitation of the principal of
this school to deliver the customary address on this, the fifteenth
anniversary of its establishment. My presence here in connection with
public instruction is not a proper subject for comment by myself; but I
have now come, allow me to say, with unusual alacrity, that we may
together recognize the claims of an institution which furnishes the
earliest evidence existing among us of a special design on the part of
the public to provide adequate intellectual and moral training for the
young women of the state.

Those movements which have accomplished most for religion, liberty, and
learning, have not been sudden in their origin nor rapid in their
progress. Christianity has been preached eighteen hundred years, yet it
is not now received, even intellectually, by the larger part of the
human race. Magna Charta is six centuries old, but its principles are
not accepted by all the nations of Europe and America; and it is not,
therefore, strange that a system of public instruction, originated by
the Puritans of New England, should yet be struggling against prejudice
and error. In Asia woman is degraded, and in Europe her common condition
is that of apparent and absolute inferiority. When America was settled
she became a participator in the struggles and sufferings which awaited
the pioneers of civilization and liberty on this continent, and she thus
earned a place in family, religious, and even in public life, which
foreshowed her certain and speedy disenthrallment from the tyranny of
tradition and time. Her rights with us are secure, and the anxiety and
boisterous alarm exhibited by some strong-minded women, and the
horror-fringed apprehensions and prophecies of some weak-minded men, are
equally unreasonable and absurd. Woman is sharing the lot of humanity,
and therewith she ought to be content. Man does not remove the burden of
ignorance and oppression from his sex, merely, but generally from his
kind. At least, this is the experience and promise of America. If woman
does not vote because she is woman, so and for the same