ii.] EMANCIPATION— BLACK AND WHITE. 23 



that, even in physical beauty, man is the superior. He 

 admitted, indeed, that there was a brief period of early 

 youth when it might be hard to say whether the prize 

 should be awarded to the graceful undulations of the 

 female figure, or the perfect balance and supple vigour of 

 the male frame. But while our new Paris might hesitate 

 between the youthful Bacchus and. the Venus emerging 

 from the foam, he averred that, when Venus and Bacchus 

 had reached thirty, the point no longer admitted of a 

 doubt ; the male form having then attained its greatest 

 nobility, while the female is far gone in decadence ; and 

 that, at this epoch, womanly beauty, so far as it is inde- 

 pendent of grace or expression, is a question of drapery 

 and accessories. 



Supposing, however, that all these arguments have a 

 certain foundation ; admitting for a moment, that they 

 are comparable to those by which the inferiority of the 

 negro to the white man may be demonstrated, are they 

 of any value as against woman-emancipation ? Do they 

 afford us the smallest ground for refusing to educate 

 women as well as men — to give women the same civil 

 and political rights as men ? No mistake is so commonly 

 made by clever people as that of assuming a cause to be 

 bad because the arguments of its supporters are, to a 

 great extent, nonsensical. And we conceive that those 

 who may laugh at the arguments of the extreme 

 philogynists, may yet feel bound to work heart and soul 

 towards the attainment of their practical ends. 



As regards education, for example. Granting the 

 alleged defects of women, is it not somewhat absurd to 

 sanction and maintain a system of education which 

 would seem to have been specially contrived to ex- 

 aggerate all these defects \ 



Naturally not so firmly strung, nor so well balanced, 

 as boys, girls are in great measure debarred from the 



