THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMAN. 179 



sible for great ladies to earn money. Even a queen throws her books 

 into the market, and sells them all the same as others. A generation 

 or so ago no lady could have made money, save by the two methods of 

 painting and writing — both done within the sacred seclusion of the four 

 w r alls of home. Actresses were what we call in the north " chancey." 

 Some were thoroughly respectable, and came to good ends and high 

 positions ; but the bulk were best left alone by women who wished to 

 keep alive anything like veneration for virtue. Now, however, we 

 have opened all gateways, and made it possible for ladies of condition, 

 repute, and birth to do what they will in the way of money-making 

 and still retain both character and position. A princess opens a milli- 

 ner's shop ; a lady of rank is a cow-keeper and profits by her dairy-farm ; 

 women of title go on the stage ; ladies of gentle birth and breeding are 

 storekeepers and horse-breeders. But as yet these are only the showy 

 — we had almost said theatrical — and quasi-romantic vanguard ; and 

 what we want is a stable condition cf self-support for women whose 

 inherited position is not of that high class which no work can degrade, 

 but who, ladies as they are, stand or fall according to the arbitrary esti- 

 mation of their work. 



In this, we repeat, no one can help women save women. Certain 

 tailors and certain shopkeepers are received in London society as among 

 its favorite and most honored guests. Do we meet with a milliner, a 

 lady shopkeeper ? Do we not all know milliners and dressmakers who 

 are well-educated, pleasant-mannered, honorable ladies ; yet would the 

 countesses and dames for whom they devise their dainty costumes 

 agree to meet them on equal terms at balls and dinners ? Why not ? 

 Surely it can not be on the ground of making their own money. The 

 highest ladies in the land do not disdain to turn an honest penny if 

 they can ; and where, pray, is the essential difference between the 

 clergyman's daughter who sells mantles or laces in a shop for her liv- 

 ing and the young duchess who sells pincushions and button-holes at 

 a bazaar for her vanity, masked as charity? Here, if we will, the 

 principle of individualism would work with advantage. If we could 

 get rid of all caste feeling, and judge of people by themselves and not 

 by their work — if we would allow that a milliner could be a lady, and 

 a shop-girl on a level with her sister the governess, and both on an 

 equality with their brother the clergyman and their aunt the physi- 

 cian's wife — we should have done more for the question of the em- 

 ployment of women than we have done by the establishment of col- 

 leges and the creation of educational standards, the attainments of 

 which are inimical to the best interests of society because hurtful to 

 women themselves. We must do what we can in this life, not always 

 what we would ; and the general interests of society are to be consid- 

 ered before those of a special section, by whose advancement will come 

 about the corresponding degeneracy of the majority. 



In these two propositions, then, we think the whole thing lies — in 



