Sex in Education | Page 3

she
mistress of the loom. The quæstio vexata of woman's sphere will be
decided by her organization. This limits her power, and reveals her
divinely-appointed tasks, just as man's organization limits his power,
and reveals his work. In the development of the organization is to be
found the way of strength and power for both sexes. Limitation or
abortion of development leads both to weakness and failure.
Neither is there any such thing as inferiority or superiority in this
matter. Man is not superior to woman, nor woman to man. The relation
of the sexes is one of equality, not of better and worse, or of higher and
lower. By this it is not intended to say that the sexes are the same. They
are different, widely different from each other, and so different that
each can do, in certain directions, what the other cannot; and in other
directions, where both can do the same things, one sex, as a rule, can do

them better than the other; and in still other matters they seem to be so
nearly alike, that they can interchange labor without perceptible
difference. All this is so well known, that it would be useless to refer to
it, were it not that much of the discussion of the irrepressible
woman-question, and many of the efforts for bettering her education
and widening her sphere, seem to ignore any difference of the sexes;
seem to treat her as if she were identical with man, and to be trained in
precisely the same way; as if her organization, and consequently her
function, were masculine, not feminine. There are those who write and
act as if their object were to assimilate woman as much as possible to
man, by dropping all that is distinctively feminine out of her, and
putting into her as large an amount of masculineness as possible. These
persons tacitly admit the error just alluded to, that woman is inferior to
man, and strive to get rid of the inferiority by making her a man. There
may be some subtle physiological basis for such views--some strange
quality of brain; for some who hold and advocate them are of those,
who, having missed the symmetry and organic balance that harmonious
development yields, have drifted into an hermaphroditic condition. One
of this class, who was glad to have escaped the chains of matrimony,
but knew the value and lamented the loss of maternity, wished she had
been born a widow with two children. These misconceptions arise from
mistaking difference of organization and function for difference of
position in the scale of being, which is equivalent to saying that man is
rated higher in the divine order because he has more muscle, and
woman lower because she has more fat. The loftiest ideal of humanity,
rejecting all comparisons of inferiority and superiority between the
sexes, demands that each shall be perfect in its kind, and not be
hindered in its best work. The lily is not inferior to the rose, nor the oak
superior to the clover: yet the glory of the lily is one, and the glory of
the oak is another; and the use of the oak is not the use of the clover.
That is poor horticulture which would train them all alike.
When Col. Higginson asked, not long ago, in one of his charming
essays, that almost persuade the reader, "Ought women to learn the
alphabet?" and added, "Give woman, if you dare, the alphabet, then
summon her to the career," his physiology was not equal to his wit.
Women will learn the alphabet at any rate; and man will be powerless

to prevent them, should he undertake so ungracious a task. The real
question is not, Shall women learn the alphabet? but How shall they
learn it? In this case, how is more important than ought or shall. The
principle and duty are not denied. The method is not so plain.
The fact that women have often equalled and sometimes excelled men
in physical labor, intellectual effort, and lofty heroism, is sufficient
proof that women have muscle, mind, and soul, as well as men; but it is
no proof that they have had, or should have, the same kind of training;
nor is it any proof that they are destined for the same career as men.
The presumption is, that if woman, subjected to a masculine training,
arranged for the development of a masculine organization, can equal
man, she ought to excel him if educated by a feminine training,
arranged to develop a feminine organization. Indeed, I have somewhere
encountered an author who boldly affirms the superiority of women to
all existences on this planet, because of the complexity of their
organization. Without undertaking to indorse such an opinion, it may
be affirmed, that an appropriate