158 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



We desire to elevate the out-door labor of woman from this 

 crude, savage, ill-paid, ill-regulated work, into an industrial 

 calling, which shall fitly employ her mind as well as her body, 

 and which will give a range of occupation suited to every 

 degree of culture and refinement, from the most accomplished 

 lady to the most robust and needy woman. 



All classes need new light and life in this direction, and the 

 influence will spread in both directions. Work will be elevated 

 by mental culture, and intellectual education will be broadened 

 and invigorated by an alliance with work. 



The first point I ask you to consider with me, is the imper- 

 ative need of out-door life to develop the physical constitution 

 and preserve the health of women. It would seem needless to 

 argue the importance of the health of the mothers of the race, 

 to farmers and horticulturists, and yet strangely enough it 

 has come to be considered an inevitable thing that women should 

 be sickly in body and feeble in constitution. From the unde- 

 niable fact, that on the average, woman is physically less strong 

 than man, the astounding inference has been drawn, that the 

 weaker she is the more of a woman she is. Because she is a 

 little smaller in size than man, reduce her physical proportions 

 to the minimum of size ; because she is a little less strong, make 

 her as weak as possible. This would be strange reasoning to 

 apply on the farm or in the garden. The willow is not so sturdy 

 as the oak. Shall we starve it into a puny sapling ? This is 

 not the method of nature. She is constantly seeking to restore 

 equilibrium. She carefully balances the masculine and fem- 

 inine traits by the double parentage, and by the transmission 

 of strong peculiarities in the opposite sex. She seeks to lessen 

 differences, and in the finest types of humanity there is always 

 something of the characteristics of both sexes. So art lias fol- 

 lowed her in its representations. The Greek Apollo has the 

 beauty and grace of a woman, with masculine strength and fire ; 

 the Diana and the Minerva have masculine freedom and courage, 

 with feminine beauty and majesty. Only in the extreme repre- 

 sentations, as in Hercules and Venus, are the attributes of sex 

 strongly emphasized. In later art, the most revered of men — 

 Jesus of Nazareth — has been always represented with so much 

 of the feminine attributes, that our masculine age is now pro- 

 testing strongly against the painter's ideal. 



