Ill. Grand Secretary.
The object of this meeting is thus stated: “Work: the grade of Knight Kadosh, the 30th, will be worked in full at this Rendezvous.” And it appears that this work must have something of a military character; for it seems from another circular, which I will not quote in full, that the purpose of the rendezvous can be much better carried out if the members will provide themselves with a costly uniform, including a sword and other equipments. Yet it would also appear that the expenses of this organization, apart from the uniform, are so great as to call forth the following notice:—
“Delinquents.—The Finance Committee recommend the discharge from Membership of the following Sublime Princes, for non-payment of dues, they having failed to make any satisfactory reply to repealed notices of their indebtedness.” [Then follows a list of names and amounts varying from $17 to $23.]
One of the most brilliant of recent French novels, Daudet’s “Les Rois en Exil,” lays its whole plot among the forlorn class of dethroned sovereigns in Paris; but really their sorrows do not touch an American heart so deeply as this black-list. Here are nearly twenty Princes on our own soil who are publicly exposed in a single circular as refusing, after “repeated notices of their indebtedness,” even to reply satisfactorily. What pleasure can there be in the most attractive “rendezvous,” what joy in the most absorbing “work,” when one thinks of all these fallen Sublime Princes wandering, like Milton’s angels, into outer darkness? I almost blush to own that I recognize among the names of these outcasts one or two acquaintances of my own, who certainly passed for honest men before they became princes.
But the most interesting question for women to consider is this: Who conducts this picturesque consistory, with its rites, its titles, and its uniforms? Which sex is it that makes up this society, and twenty other societies so absorbing in their “work” that some worthy persons have a “society” for almost every evening in the week? Is it the sex which is alleged to be frivolous, dressy, and eager for rank and title? Or is it the grave sex, the serious and hard-working sex, the “noble sex,” le sexe noble, as some of the French grammars call it? No doubt there is under all this display and formality, in this “consistory,” as in most similar organizations, a great deal of mutual help and friendliness. But so there is under even the seeming frivolities of women: the majority of fashionable women have good hearts, and do good. If substantial and practical men like to cover even their benevolent organizations with something of show and display, and to “peacock themselves” a little, why should not women be permitted the same privilege? Surely Sublime Princes should stand by their order, and not look with disdain on those who would like to be Sublime Princesses if they only could.
EDUCATION.
“Movet me ingens scientiarum admiratio, seu legis communis æquitas, ut in nostro sexu, rarum non esse feram, id quod omnium votis dignissimum est. Nam cum sapientia tantum generis humani ornamentum sit, ut ad omnes et singulos (quoad quidem per sortem cujusque liceat) extendi jure debeat, non vidi, cur virgini, in qua excolendi sese ornandique sedulitatem admittimus, non conveniat mundus hic omnium longè pulcherrimus.”—Annæ Mariæ À Schurman Epistolæ. (1638.)
“A great reverence for knowledge and the natural sense of justice urge me to encourage in my own sex that which is most worthy the aspirations of all. For, since wisdom is so great an ornament of the human race that it should of right be extended (so far as practicable) to each and every one, I did not see why this fairest of ornaments should not be appropriate for the maiden, to whom we permit all diligence in the decoration and adornment of herself.”
LII.
“EXPERIMENTS.”
Why is it, that, whenever any thing is done for women in the way of education, it is called “an experiment,”—something that is to be long considered, stoutly opposed, grudgingly yielded, and dubiously watched,—while, if the same thing is done for men, its desirableness is assumed as a matter of course, and the thing is done? Thus, when Harvard College was founded, it was not regarded as an experiment, but as an institution. The “General Court,” in 1636, “agreed to give 400l. towards a schoale or colledge,” and the affair was settled. Every subsequent step in the expanding of educational opportunities for young men has gone in the same way. But when there seems a chance of extending, however irregularly, some of the same collegiate advantages to women, I observe that the Boston Daily Advertiser and the Atlantic Monthly, in all good faith, speak of the measure as an “experiment.”