316 HIGHER EDUCATION FOR WOMAN. 



promise from the enslavement of professional pursuits : the merer 

 trading drudgery — whether it be of commerce or medicine, of the 

 counting-house or the bar, — which seems now their highest goal. 



I have no thought, and equally little fear, of thrusting woman, by 

 such means, out of her true sphere ; of obtruding her into arenas 

 which by their very requirements are the prerogative of the rougher 

 sex ; or of transforming her into the odious modern ideal of " a strong- 

 minded woman." That is no product of high-er education : widening 

 the intellectual horizon, refining and invigorating the mind, an,d, like 

 the polish of the lapidary, bringing to light all the hidden beauty 

 native to the gem. 



" Let her make herself her own 

 To give or keep, to live, and learn, and be 

 All that not harms distinctive womanhood. 

 For Avoraan is not undeveloped man, 

 But diverse. * * * 



Yet in the long years liker must they grow ; 

 The man be more of woman, she of man ; 

 He gain in sweetness and in moral height, 

 Nor loose the wrestling thews that throw the world . 

 She mental breadth, nor fail in child ward care, 

 Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind ; 

 Till, at th^ last, she set herself to man. 

 Like pei'fect music unto noble words." 



It is not therefore unmeet, nor in any degree Utopian, that we should 

 -conceive of a true woman's college rising in our midst, provided not 

 less liberally than those already supplied for the other sex, with pro- 

 fessors, apparatus, libraries, and all else needful to enable you to turn 

 to wise account that enviable leisure which you possess to an extent 

 wholly beyond the reach of us, who, whether mechanics, traders, doc- 

 tors, lawyers, or professors, constitute alike the working classes of this 

 young country. 



And if so, then I can look forward, with, no ungenerous envy, to the 

 pleasures in store for you : the delight of study for its own sake ; the 

 true enjoyment of grappling with some of those higher problems of 

 science which demand patient labour and long research ; but bring at 

 length so abundant a revyard. I have no fear that such resources will 

 make you less learned in gracious household ways. Such elevated 

 themes are in no degree incompatible with duties daily expected at 

 your hands; nor with the tenderer obligations of care and loving sym- 



