Take, in proof of this, assertion, the subject of education. This is, beyond all doubt the vital question of the age, embracing within its limits all others. Education is of far more importance than the suffrage, which is eventually subject to it, controlled by it. This is, indeed, a question altogether too grave, too comprehensive, and too complicated in some of its bearings to be more than briefly alluded to here. But let us consider education for a moment as the mere acquirement of intellectual knowledge. This is but one of its phases, and that one not the most important; but such is the popular, though very inadequate, idea of the subject in America. Observe how much has already been done in this sense for the instruction of the woman of our country. In the common district schools, and even in the high schools of the larger towns, the same facilities are generally offered to both sexes; in the public schools brother and sister have, as a rule, the same books and the same teachers. And we may go much further and say that every woman in the country may already--IF SHE IS DETERMINED TO DO SO--obtain very much the same intellectual instruction which her own brother receives. If that education is a highly advanced one she will, no doubt, have some special difficulties to contend against; but those difficulties are not insurmountable. The doors of most colleges and universities are closed, it is true, against women, and we can not doubt that this course is taken for sound reasons, pointed out by good sense and true sagacity. It is impossible not to believe that between the ages of fifteen and five-and-twenty young men and young women will carry on their intellectual training far more thoroughly and successfully apart than thrown into the same classes. At that age of vivid impressions and awakening passions, the two sexes are sufficiently thrown together in family life and in general society for all purposes of mutual influence and improvement. Let them chat, walk, sing, dance together, at that period of their lives; but if you wish to make them good scholars, let them study apart. Let their loves and jealousies be carried on elsewhere than in the college halls. But already female colleges, exclusively adapted to young women, are talked of--nay, here and there one or two such colleges now exist. There is nothing in which American men more delight, nothing more congenial to their usual modes of thought and action, than to advance the intellectual instruction of the whole nation, daughters as well as sons. We may rest assured that they will not fail to grant all needful development in this direction. One female college, of the very highest intellectual standard, would probably be found sufficient for a population of some millions. The number of women desiring a full college education will always, for many different reasons, be much smaller than the number of male students. But there is no good reason why such colleges, when found desirable, should not enter into our future American civilization.
Individual American women may yet, by these means, make high progress in science, and render good service to the country and the race. Every branch of study which may be carried on thoroughly and successfully, without impairing womanly modesty of mind and manner, should be so far opened to the sex as to allow those individuals to whom Providence has given the ability for deep research to carry them to the farthest point needed. But as regards those studies which are intended to open the way to professions essentially bold and masculine in character, we do not see how it is within the bounds of possibility for young women to move onward in that direction without losing some of their most precious womanly prerogatives--without, in short, unsexing themselves.
The really critical point with regard to the present position of women in America is the question of work and wages. Here the pocket of man is touched. And the pocket is the most sensitive point with many men, not only in America, but all the world over. There can be no doubt whatever that women are now driven away from certain occupations, to which they are well adapted, by the selfishness of some men. And in many departments where they are day-laborers for commercial firms they are inadequately paid, and compelled to provide food, lodging, fuel, and light out of scanty wages. Yes, we have here one of the few real grievances of which American women have a just right to complain. But even here--even where the pocket is directly touched, we still believe that women may obtain full justice in the end, by pursuing the right course. Only let the reality of the grievance be clearly proved, and redress will follow, ere long.
Providence has the power of bringing good out of evil; and therefore we believe that the movement now going on will here, at least, show some lasting results for good. The "Song of the Shirt" shall, we trust, ere long become an obsolete lay in our country. Our women, twenty years hence, shall be better paid in some of their old fields of labor; and new openings, appropriate to their abilities, mental and physical, shall also be made for them. And here they are much more likely to succeed without the suffrage than with it. It is not by general law-making that they can better themselves in these particulars. Individual fitness for this or that branch of work is what is required for success. And if, by thorough preparation, women can discharge this or that task, not essentially masculine in its requirements, as well as men, they may rest assured that in the end their wages will be the same as those of their fathers and brothers in the same field of work.
