HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN. 617 



manifold arts, all tending to thwart the Divine laws of their being, 

 coupled with the selfishness and inanity of their lives, they succeed 

 in bringing themselves to a state of physical disability which one of 

 our prolific great-grandmothers would have been horrified to behold ! 



The root of the whole matter lies in the purposeless drift of every- 

 thing which has been wont to enter into a woman's training. She has 

 been made to feel that " woman should be protected from the rude 

 battle of life by the work and labor of man," and these women have 

 boiled down the sentiment into a selfish disregard of every obligation 

 which they owe to the world. They most decidedly approve of all 

 the limitations to "woman's sphere." They marry because they want 

 to be taken care of, and their estimate of the value of life lies in the 

 getting of the greatest amount of creature comfort with the least pos- 

 sible personal outlay ; so " Bacon, for want of a mother, is not born." 

 Xot, however, because "the woman who should have been his mother is 

 a distinguished collegian," but because she will have none of him ; and 

 his unwelcome existence is cut short long before it is time for him to 

 appear upon this mundane sphere. 



The poor woman has the same aversion to having a family that 

 the rich one has, and for much the same reasons. Trouble and ex- 

 pense are to be avoided, and, worse than all, it is unfashionable to 

 have a large family. I well remember hearing in my childhood a 

 healthy young married woman held up to ridicule because she had so 

 many children. Strange to say, her husband was commiserated in the 

 same breath as a much-afflicted individual ! At length, in an evil hour, 

 the poor wife listened to an evil counselor, and the handsome, rosy- 

 cheeked woman was from that time only a sallow, sad-eyed wreck of 

 her former self. But she was no longer a target for the idle jests of 

 her neighbors ; the cradle was empty, and ever after remained so. 



This is the kind of sentiment which openly or covertly prevails 

 with us, and this is the Moloch to which are being sacrificed not only 

 the health of so many of our women, but the lives of unborn millions 

 who should stand crowned the sons and daughters of our glorious land. 



It is in the higher, broader education of women that our hope for 

 the future lies. The alarmists who cry that women will not marry if 

 educated know full well that they are firing blank cartridges into empty 

 space. There will always be plenty of women with brains and plenty 

 also without brains from whom to choose, so that no man need go with- 

 out a wife. If he prefers one who has a knowledge of Greek verbs 

 stowed away somewhere in the neighborhood of an adorable pair of 

 eyes, so much the better for him, for no amount of education will ever 

 prevent a woman from marrying the man of her heart when he appears ; 

 and her education will be the best surety of her marriage resulting in 

 all that which a true marriage should bring. 



I do not mean to say that every girl should have a college educa- 

 tion. What I do mean is, that the colleges are becoming centers for 



