Young Womans Guide, The | Page 5

door,
&c.
In short, she does not like the use of the phrase, young lady, at all. Neither do I. Besides, I
like best the good old fashioned term, YOUNG WOMAN. This exactly represents the
class for whom I write, and that, too, without either explanation or qualification. It will be
mistaken by no one, nor will it be likely to give or cause any offence.
Finally, I call the work "The YOUNG Woman's Guide," because I design it for those
single persons of the female sex to whom the term young is usually applied; viz., those
who are from twelve or fourteen to eighteen or twenty years of age--and to those, in
general, who are single. I hope, nevertheless, that it will contain some thoughts which
may be useful to those individuals who are in married life, as well as to those who are
below the age of twelve years. Many of its suggestions and principles will, indeed, be
applicable--so far as they are just or true--to all mankind.

CHAPTER II.
FEMALE RESPONSIBILITIES.

Comparison of the responsibilities of young men and young women. Saying of Dr. Rush.
Its application to young women. Definition of the term education. Bad and good
education. Opinions of Solomon. Influence of a young woman in a family--in a school.
Anecdotes of female influence. West, Alexander, Cæsar, Franklin. Story of a domestic in
Boston. The good she is doing. Special influence of young women in families--and as
sisters. Female influence in the renovation of the world.
Much has been said, within a few years, of the duties, responsibilities, &c., of young men,
especially the young men of our republic. A great deal that has been said, has, in my view,
been appropriate and well-timed. My own attention has been frequently turned to the
same class of individuals; nor do I regret it. My only regret is, that what I have said, has
not been said to better purpose. Counsels and cautions to young men, standing on
slippery places as they confessedly do, can hardly be too numerous, provided those who
give them, use discretion, and remember their responsibility, not only to the tribunal of
public opinion, but to a tribunal still higher.
The snares, the dangers, the difficulties, the influence, the responsibilities of young
men--at least in the United States--can hardly be overrated. Would that they could be so
trained and directed as fully to understand them, and govern themselves accordingly!
Would that they could be made to exert that moral influence in the salvation of our
race--politically no less than morally, nationally no less than individually--of which they
are so capable.
Yet, after every concession of this kind, I am compelled to believe that the
responsibilities and influence of young women--to say nothing at present of their
dangers--are much more weighty than those of young men. I am decidedly of opinion,
that the future holiness and happiness of the world in which we live, depend much more
on the character of the rising generation of the female sex, than on the character of our
young men.
It was said by Dr. Rush, long ago, that mothers and school-masters plant the seeds of
nearly all the good and evil in our world.
Presuming that by school-masters he meant teachers of both sexes, will any one doubt the
truth of his assertion? Will any one doubt the justness of a remark in the late "Western
Review," that if this world is ever to become a better and a happier world, woman must
be foremost, if not the principal agent in rendering it so?
But as mothers are never mothers till they have been daughters, is it not obvious that the
right education of these last is as great a work as any to which human mind and human
effort have ever been called? If woman moves the world, intellectually, morally, and even,
in effect, politically--as no doubt she does--is it not of primary importance that she be
taught, as well as teach herself, to move it right?
Can it be necessary to advert, in this place, to the well known and acknowledged fact,
that almost every man of extensive influence, for good or for evil, whom the world has
produced, became what he was through maternal influence? Cæsar, and Caligula, and
Talleyrand, and Napoleon, became what they were in consequence of their mothers, no
less than Alfred, and Doddridge, and Howard, and Washington. For let it not be forgotten
that mothers and teachers, according to Dr. Rush--and, in fact, according to common
observation, too--plant the seeds of the world of evil no less than of the world of good.
How exceedingly important, then, that they should be well educated, "from whom," in the
language of another writer, "our virtues are, and from whom our vices may