SEX IN MIND AND IN EDUCATION. 203 



sciousness of nature and aim — passions, namely, that of self-preservation, 

 with the waj-s and means of self-defense which it inspires and stimulates, 

 and that of propagation, with the love of olispring and other primitive 

 feelinojs that are connected with it. Could we in imao-ination trace man- 

 kind backward along the path stretching through the ages, on which it 

 has gone forward to its present height and complexity of emotion, and 

 suppose each new emotional element to be given off at the spot where 

 it was acquired, we should view a road along which the fragments of 

 our high, special, and complex feelings were scattered, and should 

 reach a starting-point of the primitive instincts of self-preservation and 

 propagation. Considering, then, the different functions of the sexes 

 in the operation of the latter instinct, and how a different emotional 

 nature has necessarily been grafted on the original differences in the 

 course of ages,^ does it not appear that in order to assimilate the fe- 

 male to the male mind it would be necessary to undo the life-history 

 of mankind from its earliest commencement ? Nay, would it not be 

 necessary to go still farther back to that earliest period of animal life 

 upon earth before there was any distinction of sex ? 



If the foregoing reflections be well grounded, it is plain we ought 

 to recognize sex in education, and to provide that the method and aim 

 of mental culture should have regard to the specialties of woman's 

 physical and mental nature. Each sex must develop after its kind ; 

 and if education in its fundamental meaning be the external cause to 

 which evolution is the internal answer, if it be the drawing out of the 

 internal qualities of the individual into their highest perfection by the 

 influence of the most fitting external conditions, there must be a differ- 

 ence in the method of education of the two sexes answering to differ- 

 ences in their physical and mental natures. Whether it be only the 

 statement of a partial truth, that "for valor he" is formed, and " for 

 beauty she and sweet attractive grace," or not, it cannot be denied 

 that they are formed for different functions, and that the influence of 

 these functions pervades and affects essentially their entire beings. 

 There is sex in mind, and there should be sex in education. 



Let us consider, then, what an adapted education must have regard 

 to. In the first place, a proper regard to the physical nature of women 

 means attention given, in their training, to their peculiar functions and 

 to their foreordained work as mothers and nurses of children. What- 

 ever aspirations of an intellectual kind tliey may have, they cannot be 

 relieved from the performance of those offices so long as it is thought 

 necessary that mankind should continue on earth. Even if these be 

 looked upon as somewhat mean and unworthy offices in comparison 

 with the nobler functions of giving birth to and developing ideas ; if, 

 agreeing with Goethe, we are disposed to hold — "Es waredoch immer 



^ The instinct of propagation is what we are concerned with here, but it should not be 

 overlooked that, in like manner, a difference of character would grow out of the instinct 

 of self-preservation and the means of self-defense prompted by it. 



