Ill EMANCIPATION BLACK AND WHITE 71 



sensical. And we conceive that ^those who may 

 laugh at the arguments of the extreme philogy- 

 nists, may yet feel bound to work heart and soul 

 towards the attainment of their practical ends. 



As regards education, for example. Granting 

 the alleged defects of women, is it not somewhat 

 absurd to sanction and maintain a system of 

 education which would seem to have been specially 

 contrived to exaggerate all these defects ? 



Naturally not so firmly strung, nor so well 

 balanced as boys, girls are in great measure 

 debarred from the sports and physical exercises 

 which are justly thought absolutely necessary for 

 the full development of the vigour of the more 

 favoured sex. Women are, by nature, more 

 excitable than men prone to be swept by tides 

 of emotion, proceeding from hidden and inward, 

 as well as from obvious and external causes ; and 

 female education does its best to weaken every 

 physical counterpoise to this nervous mobility 

 tends in all ways to stimulate the emotional part 

 of the mind and stunt the rest. We find girls 

 naturally timid, inclined to dependence, born 

 conservatives ; and we teach them that indepen- 

 dence is unladylike ; that blind faith is the right 

 frame of mind ; and that whatever we may be 

 permitted, and indeed encouraged, to do to our 

 brother, our sister is to be left to the tyranny of 

 authority and tradition. With few insignificant 



