up with exclusive reference to the male mind. It is this misconception of the general idea of education as applicable to females, the result of an incapacity in the public mind for just discrimination, that is likely to occasion any peril to the present extraordinary educational movement in behalf of females. There are a few minds which rightly think on this subject, and perceive the dangers likely to result from this misapprehension of first principles; but the conclusion is, that popular opinion and taste must have their way; and the hope is, that effects, which too often are the only means of securing a right appreciation of causes, will ultimately rectify public opinion and give to this great interest right direction. There is a fundamental difference in the wants of the male and female minds, which must be recognized in the systems of education designed for them respectively. Without going into the question of any original inequality of mind in the sexes, this principle is maintained as governing the whole subject; that every system of female education must make the cultivation of the affections paramount to the cultivation of the intellect. The term feminine, when analyzed, implies just what is involved in this proposition. When with woman, the mere dry intellect predominates over the affections, she ceases to be woman, and becomes, in all her mental structure, a man. urally constituted with a predominance of the sensibilities, and it is such a constitution that gives to her, her delicacy, her refinements, her powers of sympathy, of deep all-pervading benevolence and love. While it is in the region of the intellect that man finds his appropriate sphere of action, it is in that of the affections, that woman finds hers.

She is nat

This peculiar constitution of woman is implied in the nature of her paramount responsibilities. All admit that these look to the domestic sphere; to the positions of wife and mother. Now all perceive, that while the highest powers of mind, of invention, of ratiocination, of imagination, are not taxed in this sphere, yet that all that pertains to warmth, depth and strength of affection are. Man's peculiar duties call for a predominance of the dry intellect. Undue sensibility

would be an obstruction to the discharge of the cool, sturdy responsibilities of his position. Woman, however, who is designed as his help mate, as the balance wheel in the otherwise excessive impulses of his mere intellectual functions, supplies the lack of his nature. The one, by his superior insight, pointing out the way; the other, by her better regulated motive power, guiding the steps of both aright. Let him who may, determine the higher endowment, we shall not stop to discuss it.

But if this predominance of the affections, over the mere intellectual manifestations, be the natural constitution of woman, of course, any system of education designed for her ought to recognize it, and to adapt itself correspondingly. Her own development, in every stage of her being, ought to be such as to maintain these great departments in their natu ral proportions. Her happiness and her success demand it. The cultivation of the affections therefore must be paramount to that of the mere intellect. Whenever the converse of this is acted upon; whenever the development of the intellect is mainly looked to, in the system of education applied to her, the order of nature is reversed; there is no adaptation to her mental structure, and the purposes her creation were designed to subserve are effectually defeated.

The failure to recognize this fundamental difference between the male and female minds, and to adapt a system for the latter accordingly, constitutes the great danger to be apprehended in the educational movement for females of the present times. In consequence of it, the system which has grown up with exclusive reference to the condition and wants of the male mind is sought to be applied, without material modification, to the female mind. It must fail of the many beneficial results anticipated. But more and worse than this; until changed, it must work positive harm. The evils of this system, as applied to females, is strikingly seen by reference to those cases where the principle has been pushed to its fullest extent. The case of Margaret Fuller, afterwards, Margaret Fuller Ossoli, is a striking example. From earliest child

hood, through the ambition of her father, every effort was made to develope her intellect, and under the powerful stimulus constantly afforded her, and the superior advantages she enjoyed, she did become, perhaps, the most intellectual woman this country has produced. But who that knows the masculine character of her tastes and sentiments; her general destitution of those finer sensibilities and aspirations proper to a true woman, would say that she was what woman ought to be. And who would say, that this her character was not the legitimate result of this undue reference to her mere intellect, in the course of education applied to her. There was nothing particularly unfavorable, in the circumstances surrounding her, to the proper development of her womanly nature. The deficiency can be chargeable to no causes of this kind. But the system of education applied to her was radically defective. It was such as suited man, and not woman. It looked mainly to the intellect; while to have been natural, to have been in accordance with the indications of nature, it should have. looked primarily and mainly to the affections. Miss Harriet Martineau is another distinguished example. In her, the pure, dry intellect has been cultivated without chief reference to the intensity of the affections. The result is an intellect, perhaps, more vigorous and highly capable of philosophic thought than any woman ever possessed. But who that is acquainted with her style of thinking; with her tastes and general characteristics would say, that she was a safe model of the character of a true woman. Indeed it will be found that, among all distinguished females, those whose greatness is exclusively the result of high intellectual power, have invariably exhibited a style of character unlike what, in the consciousness of all, is the true female character. Their intellectual employments and tastes are such as remove them from the true sphere of woman; their feminine affections are held in subjection by the severities of their ordinary style of thinking, and their whole character has a masculine strength and Such women are unfitted for the gentle, amiable duties VOL. VII.-17

tone.

appropriate to the position of wife; for the patient watching and assiduous care involved in the responsibilities of the nursery, or for the numerous details constantly springing up in the sphere of domestic life. On the other hand, those women who have been distinguished, but who have yet exhibited, in their general characteristics, the qualities of genuine women, have been those in whom, after all, the affections proper to their nature were paramount to their intellectual powers. They may have possessed high intellectual powers, but in all those exhibitions which have distinguished them, these powers have been simply subservient to the affections. Their products of mind have not been such as come from the pure, dry intellect, but have been the result of the blended action of the affections and intellect, in which, however, the affections were paramount, and exercised a controlling influence. They are not abstract, logical disquisitions; they are not productions which emanate purely from the simply intellectual faculties. They are productions, abounding in sentiment, fancy, taste, feeling, emotion, passion, conscience; in short, whatever is peculiar to woman; and their excellence does not arise from the amount of pure intellect they exhibit, but rather from qualities which owe their origin to the region of the affections. Many such women might be mentioned, as connected with English literature; the ornaments of their sex and contributors to the general advancement of the human race. In all these cases, the high eminence reached was, either the result of great natural endowment, in which the rule of the relative superiority of the affections was observed, or of a judicious system of education, in which the interests of the affections were recognized as paramount to those of the intellect.

But if the instances referred to, of an excessive cultivation of the intellect, are extreme cases of the operations of a general principle, they serve well to indicate the general effect of the principle and its entire unsoundness. They show, that the system of education applicable to the male mind, and which looks chiefly to the development and discipline of the in

tellectual faculties, is unsuited to females. They show, that, in proportion as the intellect is cultivated, without suitable and, indeed, chief reference to the affections, the sensibilities are dried up and the whole character assumes a masculine aspect; making the results, as manifested in the life, a fondness for the outward world and public display; an undue interest in the public affairs of men; a distaste to the privacy and duties of the home circle; a general want of adaptation to the purely domestic duties; a want of fortitude and power, of calm resignation, a hardness and sturdiness of character, indicating the absence of the gentler, more amiable qualities; the essential elements of true female excellence.

In solving the problem, therefore, of the course of education most suitable to females, the true question is, what course is best calculated to develope and give right direction to the affections; and which will secure, at the same time, the highest amount of intellect compatible with this highest and paramount result? Or to simplify it yet more; what course is best calculated to secure a right development of all the affections proper to woman? For this necessarily involves the cultivation of the intellect, as far as such cultivation may conduce to this result, which is its legitimate extent and object. The affections to be brought out under the right sort of discipline and direction, require intellect, and cultivated intellect. But they require a cultivation of the intellect purely as subservient to the right education of the affections.

In determining this question, the first remark is, that the home circle is God's own appointed school for females. With the father, mother, brothers and sisters, and servants, better opportunities are afforded than can be found any where else, for the exercise of woman's best affections. Supposing the family circle to be rightly regulated, and that there exists among all the parties, right mutual respect, confidence and love, there are presented, in this little sphere, constant occasions for the exercise of well nigh all the affections common to the human heart. No other theatre presents as many advantages, because from the relations sustained, no other com