Means and Ends of Education

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ble, in no small measure, to the injustice done to woman. It was assumed she was inferior, and to make

parison with this, purely political and civil rights are unimportant. And in a free state this fundamental right must not only be acknowledged and defended, but

onsciences, in hearts, there is no sex. What is the best education for woman? That which will best help her to become a perfect human being, wise, loving, and strong. What is her work? Whatever may help her to become he

n; she, for herself. For him what he possesses is a means; for her, something to which she holds and is attached. He asks for power; she, for affection. He derives his idea of duty from reason; she, from faith and love. He prefers science and philosophy; she, literature and art. His religion is a code of morality; hers, faith and hope and love and imagination. For her, things easily become persons; for him, persons are little more than things. She has greater power of self-effacement, forgetting herself wholly in her love. Whether she marry or become a nun, she abandons her name, the symbol of her identity, in proof that she is dedicate to the race and to God. The arguments of infidels have less weight with her than with man, for her sense of religion is more genuine, her faith more inevitable. She passes over objections as a chaste mind passes over what is coarse or im

reality and of God's presence. If she speaks less of patriotism in peaceful times, in the hour of danger the white light flashes from her soul. It is this that makes brave men think of their mothers and wives and sisters when they march to battle. They kn

that we are becoming Christian and civilized than popular government and all our mechanical devices. We, however, still have prejudices as ridiculous and harmful as that which made it unbecoming in a woman to know anything or in a man of birth to engage in business. If we hold that every human being has the right to do whatever is fair or noble or useful, we must also hold that it is wrong to throw hindrance in the way of the complete education of any human being. We at last, however s

None of us love "a woman impudent and mannish grown;" but knowledge and culture and strength of mind and heart and body have no tendency to produce such a caricature. Whether there is questi

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her as little else than a candidate for matrimony. A man may remain single and become the noblest of his kind, and so may a woman. Marriage is first of all for the race; the individual may stand alone and grow to the full measure of human strength and worth. The popular contempt for single women who have reached a certain age, is but a survival of the contempt for all women which is found among savages and barbarians. In the education of woman, as of man, the end is increase of power,-of the might there is in intelligence and love, of the strength there is in gentleness and sweetness and light, of the vigor there is in health, in the rhythmic pulse and in deep breathing, of the sustaining joy there is in pure affection and in devotion to high purposes. Whether there is question of boys or of girls, the safe way is to strive to make them all it is possible for them to become, putting our trust for the rest in hum

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to a loving soul in an all-chaste body the unseen world may lie open to view? That Joan of Arc saw heavenly visions and heard whisperings from higher worlds, w

and office-seekers? Is it not largely a life of cant, pretence, and hypocrisy, of venality, corruption, and selfishness, of lying, abuse, and vulgarity? Do not public men, like public women, sell themselves, though in a different way? Is the professional politician, the professional caucus-manipulator, the professional voter, the type of man we can admire or respect even? The objection so frequently raised, that political life would corrupt w

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t the half of the people to which the interests of the home, of the heart, of the religious and moral education of

the evil be increased? Will not the political woman lose something of the sacred power of the wife and mother? Are not the primal virtues, those which make life good and fair and which are

he woman soul, which draws us on and upward, is

ted to it, the general opinions and feelings will draw that way. Every fear, every hope will forward it; and then they who persist in opposing the mighty curre

preciativeness is greater than man's, and her performance not inferior to his. There is a larger number of serious students among women than among men. In the divinely imposed task of self-education, they are fast becoming the chief workers. They are the great readers of books, especially of poetry. The muse was the first school-mistress, and the love of genuine poetry is still the finest educational influence. The vulgar pa

mpleteness of life; bid both trust in human educableness, which makes possible the hope of attaining all divine things. True

ch has not been brought to perfection by human thought and labor, or which, were this help withdrawn, would not degenerate; and if the highe

with unequal endowments; but strength of limb, ease and swiftness of motion, grace and fluency of speech, modulation of voice, distinctness of articulation, correctness of pronunciation, power of attention, fineness of ear, clearness of vision, control of hand and certainty of touch in drawing, writing, painting, playing upon instrum

to make him all he may become; and hence it is possib

s in every direction, to sleep well even, and neither physicians nor poets have told half the good there is in sleep. The bare thought of it always brings to me the memory of lulling showers, and grazing sheep, and murmuring streams, and bees at work, and the breath of flowers and cooing doves and children lying on the sward, and lazy clouds slumbering in azure skies. It is pleasant as t

ome self-conscious only in becoming conscious of what is not myself; and when the not-myself is the Eternal, is God, my self-consciousness is divine. The marvel and the mystery of our being is that self-consciousness should exist at all, not that it should continue to exist forever. But words cannot strengthen or explain or destroy our belief in God, in the immortality of the

The people need to be taught by those who know and believe, not by those whose skill is chiefly syllogistic and critical. Philosophic speculation is like a vast mountain into which men, generation after generation, have sunk shafts in search of some priceless treasure, and have left in the materials they have thrown out the mark and evidence of failure. But the noblest minds will still be haunted by the infinite mystery which they will seek in vain to explain. Their faith in reason, like that of the vulgar, cannot be shaken, nor can defeat, running through thousands of years, enfeeble their courage or dampen their ardor. Let our increasing insight into Nature's laws fill us with thankfulness and joy. It is good, and makes for good. Let us bow with respect and reverence before the army of patient investigators who bring highly disciplined fa

is an object of thought, and which gives the mind the power to co-ordinate the manifold of sensation into the harmony of truth; He is the principle of goodness and beauty, which makes the universe fair, and thrills the heart of man with hope and love. Amid endless change, He alone is permanent, and He is power and wisdom and love, and they only are good and wise and strong who cleave to His eternal and absolute being. But since here and now the real world of matter as distinguished from the apparent is hidden behind the veil of sense, it is vain to hope that the world of eternal life shall be made plain to the pure reason. Religion, like life, is faith, hope, and love, striving a

lth and honor, so they who know much best understand how knowledge avails not, how it is but a cloud-built citadel, whose foundations rest upon the uncertain air, whose walls and turrets lose in substance what they gain in height. When we imagine we know all things, we awake as from a dream to find that we kn

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g will woman's heel crush the serpent's head and woman's arms bear salvation to the world. She will not worship the rising sun, or become the idolat

ation is not man's physical, but his spiritual being,-that which makes him capable of thought and love, of faith and hope. The universe is anthropomorphized, for whithersoever man looks he sees

hly at home in the world, to feel so deeply that, whatever happens, it is and will be well with him? In an atheistic world the spirit of man is ill at ease. He who has no God makes himself the ce

bol which has but a proximate and relative value. The spirit is alive, and ceaselessly outgrows or transmutes the body with which it is clothed. What we can do with anything,-with money, knowledge, wealth,-depends on what we are. Ruskin p

alysis, is belief in God, and the teacher of

survive. It does not follow, however, that the best survives, though we must think that in the end this is so, since we believe in God. When serious minds grapple with problems so remote from vulgar

e of truth, a thrill of love, is better than the applause of a whole city. In striving steadfastly for thy own perfection and the happiness of others thou walkest and workest with God. Thy progress will help others to labor for their own, and the happiness thou givest will return to thee and become thine; and what is the will of God, if it is not the perfection and happiness of his children? To have merely enough strength to bear life's burden, to do the daily task, to face the cares which return with the sun and follow us into the night, is to be weak, is to lack the strong spirit for which work is light as play, and whose secret is hear

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we conquer becomes our own. We rise on difficulties we surmount. What opposes, arouses, strengthens, and disciplines the will, discloses to the mind its power, and implants faith in the efficacy of patient, persevering labor. They who shrink from the combat are already defeated. To make everything easy is to smooth the way whereby we descend. To surround the young with what they ought themselves to achieve is to enfeeble and corrupt them. Happy is the poor man's son, who whithersoever he turns, sees the obstacle rise to challenge him to become a man; miserable the children of the rich, whose cursed-blessed fortune is an ever-present invitation to idleness and conceit. O mothers, you whose love is the best any of us have known, harden your sons, and urge them on, not in the ra

It is thy aim to rise, to distinguish thyself; this means thou wouldst have higher place, more money, a greater house than thy neighbor's. It is a foolish ambition. Instead of trying to distinguish thyself, strive to become thyself, to make thyself worthy of the approval of God and wise men. "I am not to be pitied, my lord," said Bayard; "I die doing my duty." God has not given His world into thy keeping, but he has given thee to thyself to fashion and complete.

here is another, which comes of the crowd's passion for what is noisy and spectacula

narrow and unworthy thought consented to and entertained, remains like a stain upon character. Whoever speaks or writes against freedom or knowledge or faith in God, or love of man or reverence of woman, but makes himself ridiculous; for men feel and believe that their true world is a world of high thoughts and noble sentiments

n of the infinitesimal that science has done its best work; and it is only by unwearying attention to the thousand little things of life that we may hope to make some approach to moral and intellectual

h our personal good or evil, is to have the vision blurred. Study in the spirit of an investigator, who has no other than a scientific interest in what he sets himself to examine. The wise physician is wholly intent upon making a correct diagnosis, though the patient

ty is but a trader's commodity, to be parted with for price, as their obedience is a slave's service. The chief good consists in acting justly and nobly, rather than in thinking acutely and profoundly. The free play of the mind is delightful, but the law of moral obligation is the deepest thing in us. Honor, place, and wealth, which are won at the price of self-improvement, the wise will not desire. Great opportunities seldom present themselves, but every moment of

k to draw from life whatever joy and delight it may bestow upon a high mind and a pure heart, receiving the blessing gladl

whole life to what he believes he is most capable of doing, succeeds, whatever be the worth of his work. There are many who are busy with many things; but on

s to this every wise and good man devotes himself, whether he be priest or teac