The common sense of society accepts the need of education for women. It begs that they may be permitted to earn their bread; but let society once grant the suffrage to woman, and she will take care of her own interests. She will found colleges, distribute opportunities, and protect vocations.
Education must, in time, earn independence for most women. Independence, taxed and made a citizen of, will insist, in the course of years, upon its suffrage; but whoso will help to reverse the process, and grant suffrage, so that woman may herself indicate what education she wishes to receive, and what labor she wishes to perform, will speed the process by scores of years.
It was pleasant to see four hundred young women, of the highest health, the best breeding, of good social standing, and abundant means, blossoming like so many tulips, at Vassar,—we must add, also, of good ability, and more than average education; for only good scholars could pass the rigid examination required of those who enter. It was pleasant to see, that between the ages of seventeen and twenty-two, when society offers its greatest allurements, four hundred wealthy girls could be found, ready to devote themselves in seclusion, and without even the stimulus existing at Oberlin or Antioch, to higher things. And then, if the want of public sympathy makes it a painful work to be always pushing the interests of women, such teachers and officers as one finds at Vassar compensate one for any amount of struggle. Miss Hannah Lyman, who is now the principal; Miss Mitchell, the astronomer; Dr. Avery, the resident physician; and Miss Powell, the professor of gymnastics,—it is only necessary to name to Eastern ears: but, besides these women, Vassar employs twenty others, in whom it would be hard to find a fault, and some of whom, we were glad to see, had taken their degree at Oberlin. Going westward to Antioch, it was pleasant to find other women who had taken their degrees, and were now teaching Greek and Latin. One of the graduates, employed as a teacher of mathematics, had won her own education in the college by teaching one year,—sometimes in distant district-schools,—and studying the next. At Oberlin, the picture was still more inspiring: for Oberlin has, I suppose, more pupils than any college in the land, if we except Michigan University; and one-half of them are girls and women. The practical working of this college is beautiful to see. It has been fortunate in the magnificent faith communicated to it by Dr. Finney. Most of the women who were its early students, and stamped its character, so that no scandal dared invade its borders, are now the wives of its professors, and many of them are still engaged in teaching. Mrs. Dascomb, who is the wife of the professor of chemistry, has been with the college from the beginning: she is as fine a person for her position, as lady-principal, as Miss Lyman; yet how differently have the two been trained! Mrs. Dascomb, by isolation, persecution, contact with the rudest elements in Western life, yet keeping, through all, a noble faith in manhood and womanhood; Miss Lyman, starting from the most distinguished social circle in Northampton, holding a high place among what Dr. Holmes would call the "Brahmins" of Montreal, and finally polished by a European tour, and holding control with a power as imperceptible as it is firm. At Milwaukee, beside Dr. Ross, to whose ten years of successful practice I have alluded, I found another physician, in happy partnership with one of the brothers of the craft, a Dr. Glass. He has lately moved from Minnesota to Wisconsin, where he has been several years in partnership with Miss Fairchild, and testifies that he has never seen her superior as a practical physician. Here, also, a young lady, of one of the best families, has lately opened a hair-dresser's store. Dr. Ross gives her sweet sympathy and cheer; but, as a proof that the world still needs converting, she has had a good deal of that insolence to subdue which pains just as much as if it were worth minding. Any thing like the number of female lecturers which I heard of in Illinois, I had never imagined. The medical women are readily accepted in most places, even without proper vouchers; and it is astonishing, how far common sense contrives to supply the place of education. But the want of vouchers is a serious evil, which must soon be met. In Chicago I heard wonderful stories of the business capacity of certain women. One lady, very well known on Michigan Avenue, brought one hundred thousand dollars' worth of Chicago City bonds to Boston and New York, and safely sold them for her husband. A farmer's wife, from the centre of the State, came up, while I was there, to speculate in corn. She said her husband had lost money several years in succession, and now she was going to try. By her first speculation, she made five thousand dollars; and this she put into competent hands, for re-investment. It gained her twenty thousand dollars. The Chicago merchants thought that she would go on speculating until she lost it all; but I do not. I think our Pleasant-street Hospital has proved that women are more cautious than men, and are willing to bear a good deal of obloquy rather than permit rash ventures to be made.
In the country, everywhere, I heard charming anecdotes of the vigor and self-sacrifice women showed in the early settlement of the States.
It happened one spring, that, when the ice broke up on the Fox River, a terrible storm of wind and sleet and rain came with it. Not a man in the State, however great the emergency, would have thought that he could cross. In this state of things, a woman was taken in childbirth, some two or three miles from the ferry. Just as the ferry-woman was going to bed, in the "outer darkness" of that terrible storm, she heard her name shouted from the opposite bank. She listened, and a grievous story was shouted across. She went to the stable and saddled her mare, and, all alone, forded the stream: the floating ice, heaped into walls, struck the sides of the faithful beast, and tore the woman's skirt to tatters. Now and then a flash of lightning showed her what progress she had made. At last, she struggled to the bank, and gave the needful help. Nobody ever asked how she got back. On the grass about Elgin, a whole ship's load died of cholera, nearly forty years ago. All the neighborhood stood back in dread; but I saw one aged woman, who closed the eyes of nine, and received the foreign blessing, which she felt, although she could not understand. In Quincy, I found two ladies just establishing a high school for girls, whom I have previously mentioned as having pushed through the endowment, for women, of the State University at Lawrence, and having opened a class in modelling in clay, under Professor Volkers. At the Cooper Institute I found more women at work than ever before, and to better advantage. A large class had just been formed to color photographs on glass, porcelain, and paper. Under such circumstances, we need not be disheartened because an ignorant woman, in a man's costume, has found the way to attract some attention in Europe and some contempt from Tom Hughes. Neither need it dismay us that the "Boston Advertiser" thinks the Equal-Rights meetings, in New York, have not been largely attended. There are those who want the suffrage, who do not care to encourage women to offer themselves for Congress before public opinion can accept them, and who are sufficiently disgusted by what looks like a mannish coalition with Democrats, to keep away from public meetings.
Meanwhile, the women of Parma clamor for the right to vote for Victor Emanuel. A freedwoman, Charlotte Scott, proposes a monument, on behalf of her emancipated race, to President Lincoln; and the noble inspiration of Harriet Hosmer carries out the thought.
But the very things we turn from force the necessary issues on the world. Wise action would never have brought the recent debate in Congress; nor prudent measures have secured thirty votes for Mrs. Stanton, and nine senatorial ballots for female suffrage. Once agitated in these quarters, the matter draws nearer to a final test.
"Ride on! the prize is near."
L'ENVOI.
My Song, I do believe that there are few
Who will thy reasoning rightly understand,
To them so hard and dark is thy discourse.
Hence, peradventure, if it come to pass
That thou shouldst find thyself with persons who
Appear unskilled to comprehend thee well,
I pray thee, then, my young and well-beloved,
Be not discomforted; but say to them,
"Take note, at least, how beautiful I am!"
Dante, from the "Banquet."