Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women | Page 5

of science and literature.
At the feet of no learned professor may she sit for wisdom. Every
profession but the teacher's is barred against her, and in that her
services are considered not half at par. She can not get more than
half-pay for her labor. In law she is but a ninny; if she is married she is
less still, an absolute nonentity; her legal existence is merged in that of
her husband--the two become one, and he is that one. Then in the
every-day customs of life she is but a child. She is not independent,
free, energetic. The sun must not shine upon her; she must not breathe
the free air, nor bathe her limbs in the clear stream, nor exercise in a
healthful and profitable way. She must not go away from her home
without a protector; she must not step into the street after nightfall
without a watch; she must trail her dress in the mud if others do; hang
her bonnet behind her head if it is the fashion; wear a bodiced waist
tight as a vice if the milliner says so, and do and submit to a thousand
other things equally absurd and wrong. This is her present position. To
rise above this position and be what she is capable of being, be strong
in mind and purpose, be resolute in the right, be herself untrammeled
by custom or law, so far as any being can be in a good society, it

requires the culture of energy in the Girlhood of this age. What was
once regarded as a sufficient character for a woman, is not enough now.
Women are advancing as well as science, mechanics, and men. Young
women should remember this. Once it was thought education enough if
a woman could read and write a little. Now, she must know a number
of things more. The time is not far distant when she must be educated
as well as man. So it is in relation to character. Very soon woman must
possess energy, self-reliance, force of will and thought, as well as love,
or she will be wanting in the essential elements of a noble womanhood.
The woman and wife will be quite different at the commencement of
the next century from what they were at the commencement of the last.
Do the girls understand this? It must be so. The edict has gone out and
can not be withdrawn. Woman hails it with joy. She wishes to improve
with the advancing age. She would feel sad and look antiquated if the
car of progress left her behind. If a few women of this age could be
mesmerized and kept in the magnetic state five hundred years, and then
unlocked from the somnambulic fetters, how would they compare with
the women of that future age? They would be women still, but in
character as much antiquated as in custom. This is to be looked for in
the very nature of things. We know that woman's education in the
future is to be quite different from what it was in the past. We know
that the improvements in science and mechanics are making rapid
changes in the nature of the labor of life. Women are fast entering into
new fields of labor. Who knows but the sewing, cooking, washing, and
much else that woman now does, will in a great measure be done by
machinery? If so, woman will be left free to employ herself elsewhere.
There must be a change. It will probably be for the better. The change
will require the culture of new powers or forces in the female character.
Woman will rise, not fall. Her character must rise. The young women
ought to know it, and be preparing for it. Is the Girlhood of to-day a fit
preparation for the duties that will devolve upon the women of the next
generation? Parents ought to ask themselves this question. And all
young women should consider it well. The elements of a true female
character should be carefully studied. It would be well if some strong
hand should write out the moral philosophy of Girlhood as a book for
schools and academics as well as families, that every young woman
might have line upon line and precept upon precept, in the formation of

her character. All desire to possess a true character, but all do not know
how to acquire it.
A second duty devolves upon Girlhood. It is to preserve its physical
health and strength. The richest mind is of but little avail to the world if
locked up in a feeble, sickly body. The noblest character would not half
make its impression on the world if it was imprisoned in weakness and
barricaded with disease. A woman can not be