Not a few women (and men too) make good livings by designing costumes for the large dry-goods houses and the fashionable modistes; but the good designer is a creator, and this faculty has always hitherto been confined to a small number both of men and 193 women. The ability to draw by no means proves it; this is only the tool, the design is the thought. Therefore schools of design, though they may furnish natural designers with tools, cannot make designers. If designing, then, is a woman’s object, she must not deceive herself; for if the “faculty divine” is not present she may devote years to study, and never rise above the mere copyist.
It is usually conceded that antiquity and general “use and wont” confer a kind of claim to any office. If so, then women have an inherited right, almost wide as the world, and coeval with history, to practise medicine. Every one recognizes them as the natural physicians of the household, and under all our ordinary ailments it is to some wise woman of our family we go for advice or assistance. As Miss Cobbe says,—
“Who ever dreams of asking his grandfather, or his uncle, his footman, or his butler what he shall do for his cold, or to be so kind as to tie up his cut finger?” Yet women regard such requests as perfectly natural, and are very seldom unable to gratify them.
Medicine as a profession for women has almost won its ground; and as it is a science largely depending on insight into individual peculiarities, it would seem to be specially their office. An illustrious physician says, “There are no diseases, there are diseased people;” and the remark explains why women—who instinctively read mental characters—ought to be admirable physicians.
Indeed female physicians have already gained a position which entitles them to demand their male opponents to “show cause why” they may not share in all the honors and emoluments of the faculty. That the profession, as a means of employment for women, is gaining favor is evident from their large attendance at the free medical colleges for women in this city, nor are there any facts to indicate that their practice is less safe than that of men; and if accidents have taken place, they were doubtless the result of ignorance, and not of sex.
Theodore Parker favored even the legal profession for women, giving it as his opinion that “he must be rather an uncommon lawyer who thinks no feminine head could 195 compete with him.” Most lawyers are rather mechanics at law, than attorneys or scholars at law; and in the mechanical part women could do as well as men, could be as good conveyancers, could follow precedents as carefully and copy forms as nicely. “I think,” he adds, “their presence would mend the manners of the court on the bench, not less than of the bar.”
But though, if properly prepared, there would seem no reason why women could not write out wills, deeds, mortgages, indentures, etc., yet I doubt much whether they have the natural control and peculiar aptitudes necessary for a counsellor at law. But no one will deny a woman’s capability to teach, even though so many have gone into the office that have no right there; for mere ability is not enough. Teachers, like artists, are born teachers, and the power to impart knowledge is a free gift of nature.
Those, then, who accept the office without vocation for it, just for a livelihood, both degrade themselves and it. The duties undertaken with reluctance lack the spirit which gives light and interest; the children suffer 196 intelligently, the teacher morally. But if a woman becomes a teacher, having a call which is unmistakable, she is doubly blessed, and the world may drop the compassionate tone it is fond of displaying toward her, or, if it is willing to do her justice, may pay her more and pity her less.
The question of a woman’s right to preach is one that conscience rather than creeds or opinions must settle. It must be allowed that her natural influence is, and always has been greater than any delegated authority. She is born priestess over every soul she can influence, and the question of her right to preach seems to be only the question of her right to extend her influence. In this light she has always been a preacher; it is her natural office, from which nothing can absolve her. A woman must influence for good or evil every one she comes in contact with; by no direct effort perhaps, but simply because she must, it is her nature and her genius.