ON FEMALE EDUCATION AND OCCUPATIONS. 227 



feet, why has Nature, that does nothing in vain, en- 

 dowed them with reason, with capacities and powers, 

 similar to those of man ? Has Providence given them 

 talents merely to fold in a napkin ? Are they unac- 

 countable and unresponsible for the use or abuse of 

 such talents ? Can they benefit society in no other 

 way than by increasing its numbers ? Are they, be- 

 cause less corporeally robust than man, incapable of 

 any productive labour, of any useful exercise of the 

 intellectual powers ? This will not be affirmed, because 

 experience has proved to the contrary. 



Why then not lay open to female exertion and 

 industry more liberal sources, more various and res- 

 pectable modes of occupation? If woman must be 

 accomplished in the arts, for which by her taste and 

 sensibily she is eminently fitted, why fritter away her 

 time and talents by exacting from her a smattering of 

 all, instead of inciting her to pay attention to one onlyy 

 and thus, by concentrating her powers, to invigorate 

 and render them really productive ? Woman wants 

 only opportunity and encouragement to rival man in 

 every elegant, in every useful art ; but she is rarely, if 

 ever, trained as a professor, but merely as an amateur. 

 Where nature has denied genius to reach to eminence 

 in art, yet a steady, undivested attention to one pursuit 

 will rarely fail of producing some degree of excellence. 

 How many male artists procure a respectable provision 

 for themselves and families by instructing youth in 

 their art. Why should not female youth be taught 

 exclusively or chiefly by females ? Surely, both in 

 schools and private families, they are the more fitting 

 instructors ? Not as governesses, having a smattering 

 of every branch of knowledge or of art, and a profici- 

 ency in none : but let them, as the other sex do, main- 

 taining an independent home, instruct their pupils at 

 their own houses, or in the several schools in which 

 they may be placed by their friends. By women 

 so prepared and trained men would be soon super- 

 seded, as they certainly ought to be, in the education 

 of females. 



