We know what is in general the education of women. Add to it the indulgence and weakness of parents, the species of idolatry they have for their daughters, the premature pleasures lavished upon young girls, the pains taken to praise them, to adorn them from their earliest infancy, and afterward to show them off and make them shine in a sort of matrimonial exhibition. How can we hope to find earnest mothers of families among those whose youth has been spent in balls, fetes, and morning visits? Alas! it is not possible. Reasonable ideas rarely come to them until age or misfortune has withdrawn their surest means of influence.
And the greatest sufferers from this calamity are society and religion; it cannot be otherwise. A little drawing, a little more music, enough grammar and orthography to pass muster, sufficient history and geography to know Gibraltar from the Himalaya and to recognize Cyrus as King of Persia, but not enough to avenge noble memories outraged or to rectify erroneous estimates; of foreign languages a slight smattering, enough to enable one to read English and German novels, but not to appreciate the glorious pages of Shakespeare, Milton, or Klopstock; no literature, nothing of our great authors, unless a few fables of La Fontaine and perhaps a chorus out of Esther learned in childhood; of religious knowledge a sufficiency to allow of being admitted to first communion, not enough to answer the most vulgar objections, the most notorious calumnies, not enough to understand one's position and duties, to impose silence on the detractors of religion, or the adversaries of reason and Christian evidence, to refute the grossest sophistry, to lead back to faith and holy practices a young husband or perhaps an aged father; with such an education what influence can a young woman exercise?
If the poor young creature so insufficiently prepared by education never reads, or reads only romances, where will she find arms to defend her against error and blasphemy? In spite of sincere piety, she must, useless and timid soldier that she is, desert the holy cause of God and truth for fear of compromising it by an ignorant defence. And yet it is a noble cause, and one that belongs especially to her, for it is the cause of the weak and defenceless, and only asks in its service a sincere conviction, a devout heart, and a little knowledge. But the knowledge is wanting. Because she has acquired neither a habit of reflection nor of seeking in good books necessary information, she must be silent, and, while God and his faith are outraged in her presence with impunity, drop her eyes upon her worsted work and sigh.
Yes, sigh—that is right; and sigh not only for the poor men who read such wretched books and intoxicate themselves with vile poisons, but also for the fact that there is no one to open their eyes, to lead these misled hearts back into the right path, or, at least, to excite a doubt in their perverted minds and warped consciences; no mother, sister, daughter, wife, no intelligent, enlightened, educated woman to fulfil woman's essential mission. No one else can do the work. If women are not the first apostles of the home circle, no one else can penetrate it. But they must render themselves thoroughly capable of fulfilling their apostleship. Nowadays, when all the world reasons or rather cavils, when everything is discussed and proved, when even light and life must be demonstrated, it is necessary that women should participate in the general movement. To speak without reserve—in the face of a masculine generation who graft on to the hauteurs which especially belong to them feminine indifference, affectation, idleness, frivolity, and weakness—women must show themselves serious, thoughtful, firm, and courageous. When men copy their defects, it behooves them to borrow a few manly virtues. "It is time," nobly says M. Caro, "that minds possessed of any intellectual claims awoke to full vitality. Let every being endowed with reason learn to protect himself against literary evil-doers and to repulse their attacks upon God, soul, virtue, purity, and faith."
To Be Continued.
In Memoriam.
When souls like thine rise up and leave
This Earth's dark prison-place,
'Tis foolishness to grieve:
Or think thou dost thy life regret,
And would return if God would let
Thy feet their steps retrace.
'Tis he who ends thy banishment,
And by an angel's hand has sent
A merciful reprieve.