The College, the Market, and the Court / or, Woman's relation to education, labor and law

by Caroline Wells Healey Dall

The "Edinburgh Review," whether prepared to recommend female preachers and lecturers or not, does propose women as teachers of Oratory; and says distinctly, that, for this purpose, they are to be preferred to men, as their voices are more penetrating, distinct, delicate, and correct than those of men. I think it was a matter of surprise to American audiences, when women first came forward as public speakers, that, in so large a number of cases, the parlor tone would reach to the extremity of a large hall. Women, too, were heard at a disadvantage, because popular curiosity compelled them to speak in the largest buildings. There are a great many women, and there are also a great many men, whose voices are wholly unfit for public exigencies; but, when you consider that women have been wholly untrained so far, how great do their natural advantages appear! Several female teachers of elocution in our midst prove that this is gradually perceived. These remarks should be extended so as to cover all instruction in the pronunciation of languages. There may be men capable of distinguishing the delicate shades of sound, so that a woman's voice can catch them; but such men are rare exceptions to the common incompetency. The French nasals cannot be distinguished accurately by a man's voice: the bass tone is too broad, and the treble wavers in trying to find the middle rest. Pursue the study of Italian for years with the best teacher that Boston can furnish; and, when you first hear a cultivated Italian woman speak, you will find that you have the whole thing to learn over again. So there was never any teacher of the French language equal to Rachel, whose nimble and fiery tongue never dropped an unmeaning accent nor tone; nor of the English like Fanny Kemble, who, despite certain "stage tricks," in vogue since the days of Garrick, shows us what delicate shades of meaning lie hidden in the vowel sounds, and what power a slight variation of a flexible voice confers upon a dull passage. The teaching of oratory and of language, then, should devolve upon woman.

"Why," asks Ernest Legouvé,—"why should not the immense variety of bureaucrative and administrative employments be given up to women?" Under this head would come the business inspection of hospitals, barracks, prisons, factories, and the like; and the decision of many sanitary questions. For all this, woman is far fitter than man. Her eye is quick; her common sense ready: she sees the consequence in the cause, and does not need to argue every disputed point. A shingle missing from the roof is a trifle to a man; but, the moment a woman sees it, her glance takes in the stained walls, the dripping curtains, wet carpets, sympathetic ceilings, damp beds, and very possibly the colds and illness, which this trifle involves. For this reason, she is a far fitter inspector of all small abuses than man.

Consider, then, Legouvé's proposition. The proprietor of the London Adelphi advertised, at the opening of the last season, that his box-openers, check-takers, and so on, would all be women. Throughout the whole range of public amusements, there is a wide field for the employment of girls, which this single step has thrown open.

Women are so steadily pressing in to the medical profession, that I have no need to direct your attention toward it; but I may say, that it is much to be wished that women should devote themselves to the specialities of that science. Until within a very few years, a Boston physician has been expected to understand all the ills that flesh is heir to; an eye-doctor or an ear-doctor or a lung-doctor must necessarily be a quack. Women are entering, in medicine, a very wide field. A few specially gifted may master every branch of practice; but many will undoubtedly fail, from the want of inherited habits of hard study, of transmitted power of investigation. I wish those who are in danger of this would apply strenuously to one branch of practice; and a great success in any one direction would do more for the general cause than a thousand competences earned by an ordinary career.

I do not suppose there is a city in the United States,—and, if not in the United States, then certainly not in the world,—where, if you asked the name of the first physician, you would be answered by that of a woman.[26] I do not complain of this: it is too soon to expect it. Colleges, schools of anatomy, clinical courses, have not yet been thrown open; and success, so far, has been mastered mainly by original endowment. Genius has held the torch, and shown the way; but I want women to remember, that, in this department, all the teachings of nature and experience show that they are bound to excel men. Let them, therefore, take the best way to accomplish it.

At the School of Design in New York, the other day, I pressed upon the observation of the young wood-engravers the possibility of opening for themselves a new career by wood-carving. It is quite common, in old European museums, to see the stones of plums and peaches delicately carved by woman's hand, and set in frames of gold and jewels. Sometimes they are the work of departed saints or cloistered nuns; and a terrible waste of time they seem to our modern eyes. Properzia dei Rossi,—whose early history is so obscure, that no one knows the name of her parents; while the cities of Bologna and Modena still dispute the honor of her birth,—Properzia began her wonderful career by carving on peach-stones. One she decorated with thirty sacred figures, holding the stone so near the eye as to gain a microscopic power. On one still in the possession of the Grassi Family, at Bologna, she chiselled the passion of our Lord; where twelve figures, gracefully disposed, are said to glow with characteristic expression. Properzia died a maiden, according to Vasari and the best manuscript contemporaneous authority; and there seems to be no ground for the vile stories that have clustered round her name, other than the fact, that in her sculpture of Potiphar's wife, finished when she knew that she was dying, she ventured to cut her own likeness. It is not to the carving of cherry-stones, however, that I would direct the attention of young women, but to the Swiss carving of paper-knives, bread-plates, salad-spoons, ornamental figures, jewel-boxes, and so on. On account of the care required in transportation, these articles bring large prices; and I feel quite sure that many an idle girl might win a pleasant fame through such trifles. No one will dispute the assertion, who recalls the pranks of her young classmates at school. Do you remember the exquisite drawings which once decorated the kerchiefs, the linen collars and sleeves, of a certain schoolroom? The sun of the artist set early; but I have often thought that a free maiden career in the higher walks of art might have preserved her to us. The same fancy, displayed in wood-carving, would have challenged the attention of the world; and the cherry-stones also bore witness to her power. The only practical difficulty would spring from the want of highly seasoned wood; and that could be obviated by a little patience. Should any young girl be tempted by my words into this career, I hope she will not give away her carvings to indifferent friends, but carry them into the market at once, and let them bring their price, that she may know her own value, and that of the work.

Properzia also excelled in engraving: so did Elizabetta Sirani in 1660. Her engravings from Guido are still considered master-pieces. We have female engravers on wood and steel, and also female lithographers. I want some woman to apply herself to this work, with such energy and determination as will place her at the head of it. Let her do this, and she could soon establish a workshop, and take men and women into her employ; standing responsible herself for the finish of every piece of work marked with her name. Let some idle woman of wealth offer the capital for such an experiment, and share some of its administrative duties. "Success" is the best argument. It would be possible to organize in Boston, at this moment, a shop of the best kind, where all the designing and engraving should be done by women. Why can it not be tried? Carvers on wood, and engravers then.

I have known several English barbers,—not women of the decorative art, like our sainted Harriet Ryan; but women actually capable of shaving a man! Why, then, does the "Englishwoman's Journal" inform us, that, in Normandy and Western Africa, there actually are female barbers?

I think there is room in Boston for an establishment of this kind; a place from which a woman could come to a sick-room to shave the heated head or cut the beard of the dying; a place where women's and children's wants could be attended to without necessary contact with men; and with the absolutely necessary cleanliness, of which there is not now a single instance in this city.