family doctor, but like an experienced leech, as she was, with no nonsense about her, took hold of the matter, bound up the hurts, and returned her lord as expeditiously as possible to his jolly head-breaking professional engagements.
When Faust, the modern typical man, clasps in his arms the ancient Helen, she melts away, leaving nothing but her limp mantle in his grasp. Many a man to-day has secured a supposed heroine; but the touch has shown him that he has nothing from his struggle but a beautiful rag hanging on his arm and encumbering his motions. This helplessness arises mainly from the false position taken by woman because of her faith in the proffer of civilized man to take upon himself all the labors of life external to the home existence, and to leave to her the guardianship of the individual interests of the family nest. She has taken him at his word, and has been misled thereby to her own discom
fort and poverty. She finds that she must lay aside her household isolation and go out into the world, or sit at the
hearthstone and starve. It ill becomes us, then, to take the tools from her hands and push her aside as a child, when we are unable to manage the work ourselves.
We may laugh at the first attempts of women to fight the moral battle unaided by men; but we smile also at the toddling infant who will one day outstrip us in the race; the goose-step performances of the young cadet are ridiculous; but the day may come when his genius will control the battle-field; and though female organizations may break and scatter wildly on their first parades, yet victory must eventually perch on their banners.
Nor are there any essential habits to be unlearned. The government of female schools and of Roman Catholic convents, stricter far than may be necessary for mature women, is a thing of
established success resting solely with woman; for, as a general thing, the male authorities of such establishments are the least capable of enforcing discipline.
Take a school of girls, where no fixed period is in prospect for the pupil to quit it; extend its sphere so that it may be a home for any spinsters choosing it; unite with it any and all means and machinery for employment, of which women are capable; make it in fact a university, with its resident fellows, its circles of doctorates; its laws and regulations neither so lax as to create confusion and impair its success, nor so severe as to hamper the material advantages of freedom; and the intellectual sphere of woman will be widened to an extent commensurable to the capital and labor expended.
Such a seminary can act as a cooperative union for feminine labor; for it will have a plenty of talent and energy to detail for the service of finding and uniting the two complemental interests of supply and demand. It can carry on hospitals, giving an almost angelic support to homeless humanity in the hour of sickness and death. It can take charge of many public charities, and distribute the eleemosynary surplus of the public in uniform and equitable ways, without calling upon the time and attention of business men or matrons, whose family duties are now broken in upon for charitable visits. It will have all the emulation of an enthusiastic army, where each member will seek daily to add to the glory of her record. It will be an aristocracy, where every one will take precedence according to her deservings, and where every form of practical ability, judgment, talent, or genius will meet with its due appreciation.
The society of men need be avoided only in so far as it would be hurtful, impede duty or the purposes of the organization; and when admitted, their
