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    404 PACTS AND SCRAPS.

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    Mks. Cojststantia Grierson.* In Essex St...

    brood over sentiments , either the sad heritage of all mortality , or the peculiar offspring of affections of her own .

    " We are not imputing in this remark any shadow of blame to her ; we make the remark because we thinkthat eminent as she

    , was , she still suffered much from the unwise and arbitrary distinction which is made in the education of the two sexes .

    " The difference between the mental qualities of the sexes is owing _,, we apprehendfar more to education than to nature . At all events _^

    there is no such , , natural difference as -warrants the distinction we , make in the mental discipline we provide for them . There are

    certain professional studies with which no one thinks of vexing the mind of anyone , man or woman , but those who intend to practise

    the professions ; but why in a good English library there should be one-half of it , and that the better half of it , which , a young * woman

    is expected not to read : —this we could never understand , and never reflect on with common patience .

    " Why may not a Locke _^ or a Paley , or a Dugald Stewart , trainthe mind of the future mother of a family ? or 'why may not an

    Intelligent young "woman be a companion to her brother or husband in his more serious moods of thought , as well as in his gayer and

    more trifling ? Would the world lose anything of social happiness or moral refinement by this intellectual equality of the two sexes ?

    You vex the mind of a young girl with dictionaries and vocabularies without end . You tax her memory in every conceivable

    . manner , and at an after age you give the literature of sentiment freely to her pillage ; but that which would step between tlie two—

    the culture of the reason—that is entirely forbidden . If she learnsa dozen modern languages she does not read a single book in any

    one of them that would make her think . " Even in her religious library the same distinction is

    _preservedo-Books of sentimental piety , and some of them maudlin _encmgh , are thrust with kindest anxiety and most liberal profusion upon her ;

    any work of theology , any work that examines and discusses , is a _& carefully excluded .

    " We are not contending that there is no difference whatever in . the mental constitution of the two sexes . There may be less

    tendency to ratiocination in woman ; there is certainly more of feeling , a quicker and more sensitive nature . One sees this especially _iii

    children . Mark them in their play hours , in their holiday freedom , When they are left to themselves to find matter of enjoyment , how

    much more pleasure does the girl evidently enjoy from any beautiful or living thing that comes before it than the boy ! We have one

    instance of it almost as we write . There is a group of children -before us on the beach , the little girl is in perfect ecstasies as she

    looks at the sparkling waves that come bounding to her feet _; she shoutsshe leapsshe herself bounds toward themthen springs

    back as , they approach , , half frightened , half pleased , , she knows

    jLot how to express her delight at this great playfellow she has found ..

    404 Pacts And Scraps.

    404 PACTS AND SCRAPS .

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Feb. 1, 1862, page 404, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01021862/page/44/