ON FEMALE EDUCATION AND OCCUPATIONS. 223 



buoyant elasticity of spirits, the careless joys of youth 

 are all restrained by the sedentary habits which modern 

 female education necessarily imposes. The writer of 

 these remarks knew of one instance in which, by an 

 over excited emulation and ardour for success, the 

 reason of a young and talented female was actually 

 unsettled ; and another, wherein a most alarming case 

 of hysteria, threatening life and intellect, was the re- 

 sult of faculties overstrained. Women have, by nature, 

 from a less solid structure, a more sensitive and deli- 

 cate organization than man, are more easily excited, and 

 more susceptible of excess and enthusiasm in their 

 pursuits ; but the same delicacy of structure renders 

 them less able to sustain that intenseness and continu- 

 ity of attention which the more robust constitution of 

 man cannot with impunity long support. This con- 

 stant application, this tension of the nerves, is still 

 more prejudicial at an immature period of life, before 

 the bodily organs have attained their full developement 

 and firmness. But, from the hapless female, who 

 laudably proposes to procure from her acquirements 

 independent support, almost superhuman powers are 

 demanded. The advertisements and requisitions for 

 private governesses, in the families of the nobility and 

 gentry, would be ridiculous were they not melancholy. 

 A poor young creature has no chance of success, unless 

 she professes, with the modern languages, (and not 

 unfrequently to these the Latin is added) all the scien- 

 ces and arts. In the short space of time, from twelve 

 to eighteen or twenty, for earlier the faculties can 

 scarcely be roused, and in the volatile and tender peri- 

 od of youth, attainments are expected and called for, 

 each of which, to acquire properly, it would take a life 

 to mature. The delusion, the inconsistency and ab- 

 surdity of such expectations are too obvious and glaring 

 to require being exposed. To the cultivation of the 

 understanding, to informing the mind, to developing 

 the reasoning powers, and implanting just principles, 

 to these, which seem to be considered as of very infe- 

 rior importance, no time whatever has been spared. 



