Part 7

It has been truly remarked, that when a married man falls into adversity, he is more apt to retrieve his situation in the world than a single one, "because his spirits are soothed and relieved by domestic endearments, and his self-respect is kept alive by finding that though all abroad is darkness and humiliation, yet there is still a little world of love at home of which he is the monarch." He can truly say, "if I am unacceptable to all the world beside, there is one whom I entirely love, that will receive me with joy and transport, and think herself obliged to double her kindness and caresses of me, from the gloom with which she sees me overcast. I need not dissemble the sorrow of my heart to be agreeable there; that very sorrow quickens her affection." Let every husband then remember this, and never keep from his wife his misfortunes, no matter how heartrending they may be. Woman is always full of resources on these occasions, and will ever submit with cheerfulness to every privation, which her altered circumstances may demand. There is many a husband who has never known the true character and value of his wife, until he has seen her resignation, fortitude, and almost angelic cheerfulness under the dark clouds of misfortune. It is then "she openeth her mouth in wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness." Then may the husband well acknowledge that he has found a truly virtuous woman, and her price to him at least, is far above all rubies. One of the most beautiful tales of Washington Irving, is that which is entitled "The Wife," and owes its great merit to the singular beauty with which he describes the fortitude and encouraging cheerfulness of a young wife whose husband is ruined. Women even who have been reckless and dissipated, and have ruined their husbands by their extravagance, have frequently reformed in adversity, and become the stay and solace of their husbands when stript of all their possessions. It is then we may truly say of the reformed woman in the language of holy writ, "she looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness." Even Bulwer, in his England and the English, makes his fictitious Mrs. Thurston, after ruining her husband by her extravagance, occasioned by vanity and ambition, consent with cheerfulness to assume the coarser and more homely garments of penury, and forget her own proud self in the desire to console and comfort her ruined husband. And Miss Edgeworth too, in that beautiful romance, "The Absentee," after misfortune had visited the Clonbronny family, makes the vain and haughty Lady Clonbronny, who was so desirous to reside in London, and whose very heart and soul yearned after the society of the fashionable circles of that great metropolis, consent to return to her deserted castle in Ireland, on the _reasonable condition_ that she might never be mortified with the sight of the old _yellow damask curtains_ which hung in the windows of the hall. Well then may we truly say of woman what Cicero so beautifully asserted of the genuine friend. She doubles our enjoyments by the pleasures which they afford her, and she halves our sorrows by the comforts, and consolations, and sympathies which _she_ affords us.

"'Tis woman's smiles that lull our cares to rest; Dear woman's charms that give to life its zest: 'Tis woman's hand that smooths affliction's bed, Wipes the cold sweat, and stays the sinking head."

_Intellectual Differences between the Sexes_.

I shall now proceed to the consideration of the differences between the sexes in regard to their intellectual powers; and here we shall find differences of the most marked and important character, which perhaps have more puzzled the philosophers, and given rise to more speculation, sophism and false reasoning, than any others observable between the sexes. At one time a spirit of gallantry and blind devotion, at another time of revenge and jealousy, has mixed itself more or less with the spirit of speculation upon this subject, and of course warped and biassed the conclusions of authors. Hobbes, in his writings, has asserted that if the interests or passions of men, could ever be steadily opposed to the mathematical axiom that the whole is equal to all the parts, its truth would quickly be denied and boldly reasoned against. It stands because neither interest nor feeling is opposed to it. Out feelings are more or less to be guarded against in all our moral speculations, but particularly in discussions relative to the comparative merits of the sexes.

Shortly after the revival of letters, when the institution of chivalry was still in successful operation, there seemed to be a combination among the literati in Europe, to place woman in every respect above man. The celebrated Boccaccio, the most beautiful writer, one of the most devoted lovers, and perhaps the greatest favorite of his time with women, led on the van of this band of gallant authors. In his work "On Illustrious Women," he runs through the whole circle of history and fable. He ransacks the Grecian, Roman and sacred histories, and brings together Cleopatra and Lucretia, Flora and Portia, Semiramis and Sappho, Athalia and Dido, &c.--and lavishes out his sweetest praises on charming woman. We are not to wonder then at his popularity and authority among the women of his age, when we remember his devotion and his eulogy. His harangue against the marriage of christian widows, did not however share the same popularity with those to whom it was addressed, although backed by quotations and ingenious explanations thereof, from the apostle Paul.

Boccaccio was followed by a host of imitators, singing the praises of the sex. Throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the tide of discussion, if I may be allowed the expression, ran almost wholly on the side of the females. Love, polytheism, christianity, and the worship of the saints, were strongly blended by the over-zealous gallantry of the times, into one incongruous heterogeneous compound, calculated to excite the smile of the philosopher, and the frown of the theologian. Ruscelli, for example, one of the most celebrated writers of his day, maintains the decided superiority of woman over man. "But the effect of his reasoning," says a modern writer, "is destroyed by the confused impression which is made on the mind of the reader by the mixture of divinity and platonism; by blending through the whole the name of God and woman; by placing Moses by the side of Petrarch and of Dante; and by giving in the same page, and even in the same period, quotations from Boccaccio and St. Augustine, from Homer and from St. John." "This however," says the same writer, "must necessarily be found in a country where we often meet with the ruins of a temple of Jupiter in the neighborhood of a church, a statue of St. Peter upon a column of Trajan, and a Madonna beside an Apollo."

Throughout the whole of this period it seems to have been ungallant in the highest degree in an author not to place woman decidedly above man in every particular. Even in intellectual power she was considered as superior; and in perusing the voluminous proofs which were so industriously, and sometimes so ingeniously brought forward to prove it, we find ourselves as bewildered as the _femme de chambre_ of Molière, under the learned remarks of the doctor upon the death of the coachman. The poor woman at last exclaims, "Le Medecin peut dire ce qu'il veut, mais le cocher est mort." Whatever may have been written or said in praise of the intellectual powers of woman during the very gallant period of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, it is now a conceded point, that under the actual constitution of society, and with the superior education of our sex, the intellectual endowments and developments of man are generally found superior to those of woman at the age of maturity. In fact, the remark is susceptible of the greatest possible extension. Among all the barbarous nations--among the half civilized, as well as among the refined and polished, we find the intellectual powers of man every where and in every age superior to those of woman.[3]

[Footnote 3: I do not mean to assert here that woman has been found inferior to man in _every_ department or modification of the intellect; for in some kinds of intelligence she always has been, as we shall soon see, man's superior;--but my meaning is, that in the higher department of the intellectual powers, and in the general range of the mind, man is superior to woman.]

It is fable alone which tells us of whole nations of Amazons. There is no well authenticated history of any people where the women have taken the lead, and governed the men by their superior intellectual endowments. Of course, as already remarked, individual exceptions prove nothing. We are here concerned with masses of individuals; and from the foundation of the world to the present time, we find that man has been uniformly the commander in the field; he has formed the material of the armies; he has led them to battle, won the victories and achieved the conquest. He has directed at the council board; his eloquence has been most powerfully felt in the senate and the popular assembly; he has established and pulled down dynasties--built up and overthrown empires, and achieved the mighty and convulsive revolutions of the nations of the earth. All the great, and learned, and lucrative occupations of life are filled by him. 'Tis he who studies the wondrous mechanism of our frame, the nature and character of our diseases and physical infirmities, and applies the healing balm to the suffering individual stretched on the couch of pain and sickness. 'Tis he who made the law--who studies its complicate details, its massive literature and profound reasoning, and traces out the chain of system and order, which like the delicate thread of the labyrinth, runs through the whole range of its subtleties and sinuosities. 'Tis he who has studied most profoundly and elaborately the record of man's fall and redemption. 'Twas he who conducted the children of Israel, under the guidance of heaven, out of Egypt, through the wilderness, into the promised land of Canaan. 'Twas a man who first preached the new gospel of Christ at Jerusalem, before the assembled nation, on the great day of Pentecost. It is man upon whom devolves the sacred functions of preaching and spreading the gospel through the world. It is

"He that negotiates between God and man, As God's ambassador, the grand concerns Of judgment and of mercy."

It is he whose sublime and warning eloquence is heard from the pulpit, arousing and awakening the apathy of the listless, and stimulating the ardor of the pious. 'Tis man who carries forward, by his restless energies, all the complicate business of that great commerce, which binds together by the indissoluble ties of interest, all the nations of the earth. 'Tis he who creates the stocks, charters companies of enterprise, and works by his skill the mighty machinery of capital and trade. And if we look to the rich and varied fields of literature and science, we shall find his footstep every where, and see that his labors have reared the choicest fruit, and produced the most stately and enduring trees. We cannot then for a moment question his past and present intellectual superiority in society.

But whence arises this actual superiority? Is it the result of nature? or is it the result of education in that enlarged sense which I have already explained in my first number? Is the capacity of man naturally greater than that of woman? or are they born with equal natural endowments in this respect? and are the great differences which we observe in the full maturity of age, generated by the different circumstances under which they act, and the different positions which they occupy in society? I have already said that we have no data by which this question can be positively and satisfactorily settled; that long before the child arrives at that age at which we are able to detect the development of the intellectual powers, his education both physical and moral, has already advanced to such an extent as to render all our deductions from mere experiment and observation entirely fallacious. I am inclined however to the belief, that there is _no natural_ difference between the intellectual powers of man and woman, and that the differences observable between them in this respect at mature age, are wholly the result of education, physical and moral. At all events, I think I shall be able to show that the difference in education is fully sufficient to explain these differences, without looking to any other causes.

First then, we find that the education which boys receive from teachers, is much more scientific and complete than that of the girls. The latter are sent to school but a few years, and those during the earlier period of their lives, before the development of the reasoning powers. What they learn at school, therefore, must be acquired by the exercise of memory alone, and not by the employment of the far higher powers of judgment, reason and reflection. These latter powers are not generally developed before the age of seventeen or eighteen, and in some cases still later. It is for this reason we so often find the mature man failing to fulfil the promise of his youth. In the early part of our lives we learn principally by memory, and the boy with the most ready memory therefore, is he who treasures up the knowledge generally acquired in youth with most facility. He, therefore, is apt to pass for the brightest genius. But it may happen that this bright youth may never develope to any extent the reasoning powers; and if so, he will rarely go much beyond the mere smartness and quickness of youth. Memory will ever be his principal and greatest faculty, and with it alone he can never travel out of the common routine of knowledge, or disenthral himself from the dominion of mere precedent and example. On the other hand, we frequently see the dull boy developing at the age of maturity a large share of the reasoning power, and infinitely surpassing, in stretch of mind and depth of research, the individual who far outstripped him in his boyhood. Every man can readily call to mind illustrations of the remarks here made. Newton never exhibited any very great range of faculty till he commenced the study of the mathematics; and Dean Swift, the great wit and philosopher, is said to have been rather a dull boy.

Now then, just at the period when the reasoning faculties are about developing themselves--when a new intellectual apparatus is just coming into play, by which we are capable of achieving at school, in one or two years, more than we have done by all our past labors--the girl is taken from her studies, enters into society, plunges into all the scenes of gaiety and fashion, and is frequently married before that age at which the boy is sent to college. It is impossible then, under the prevalence of such a system as this, to give an education at all scientific to the female. Her mind at school is not sufficiently developed to receive such an education. You frequently find our female teachers professing to teach the higher branches of science, such as chemistry, natural philosophy, moral and mental philosophy, and political economy. I do not pretend to call in question the capacity of such teachers, or their ability to teach what they profess to do; but I do assert that most of our young ladies are not competent at the time they are sent to school to acquire such knowledge. They skip, at so early a period of life, as lightly and fantastically over the buried treasures of science, as they would over the floor of the ball room. I have never known an individual, no matter how apparently bright his intellect--no matter how much Latin and Greek, and Grammar and English he had studied, who was capable, at the age of sixteen, of mastering the abstruse principles of the philosophy of the human mind. Such a science as this absolutely requires a development of the higher powers of the mind, before it can be studied with any degree of success; and that development very rarely takes place before the age of seventeen, no matter how stimulating may have been the previous education of the youth.

But again: not only is the female stopped in her studies at a time of life when she is becoming most capable of acquiring knowledge, but, even whilst at school, her studies are of a lighter character, contributing more to _accomplishment and grace_, but far less to intellectual vigor than those of the boy. Much of her time is consumed in music, painting, needle work, &c. while the boy is laboring over his Greek and Latin. I do not pretend to condemn this difference in education. It arises principally from the opposite position of the two sexes in society, as we shall soon see. But I would like to see a classical education become more fashionable among the ladies than it has heretofore been. I would not insist upon such studies at a later period of life, when the mind might be capable of mastering those of a higher and more useful order; but between the ages of ten and fifteen, there is nothing with which I am acquainted that can be so advantageously studied as the Latin and Greek. "The grammatical education," it has been justly observed by D. Stewart, "which boys receive while learning Latin, by teaching them experimentally the aid which the memory derives from general rules, prepares them for acquiring habits of generalization when they afterwards enter on their philosophical studies." I am happy to find the great authority of Mr. Stewart to be decidedly in favor of giving to females a classical education. In a foot note of Vol. III of Philosophy of the Human Mind, he says: "Latin, I observe with pleasure, is now beginning to enter more into the system of female education, and nothing could have so long delayed so obvious an improvement, but those exceptionable passages with which the Latin classics abound, and from which it is devoutly to be wished that the common school books were carefully purged, in editions fitted for the perusal of youth of both sexes."

Not only, however, are boys confined to studies which invigorate and discipline the mind more thoroughly than those of the girls, but they are much more stimulated and encouraged by parents, guardians, and friends, to persevere in the arduous, and at first excessively disagreeable career of study and literary labor. Whilst the father is perfectly contented with the most superficial knowledge--with the little music, and the few graces and accomplishments which his daughter acquires at a boarding school--he watches narrowly the progress of his son. He stimulates him by every means to assiduity and exertion. He impresses upon his mind the important truth, that his standing, his career in after life, his ultimate success, all may depend upon these his preparatory exertions. It is to be expected, under this unequal system of stimulation, that the efforts of the boys will generally be greater than those of the girls.

Those who have not reflected much upon this subject, can form no adequate conception of the vast influence exerted over the minds of students by that discipline which depends upon a well directed system of opinion and encouragement, entirely extraneous to the school or the academy. Those who have attempted to teach the children of savages in New Zealand and New Holland, in the isles of the Pacific, or on our own continent, have all borne witness to the truth of this remark. For example, a teacher in New Zealand tells us that the first day his scholars met they were exceedingly anxious to learn; it was a new thing: they, and their parents too, expected some sudden, mysterious kind of benefit which was to result from this system, requiring no great lapse of time, or exertion on the part of the children. In a day or two the confinement and tedium of school hours became intolerable; the children became lazy in spite of all the efforts of the teacher. Parents knew not the advantages of an education, and consequently did not enforce the regular attendance of the pupils, nor stimulate them to exertion; and for this reason the school soon became a total failure.

From all these causes combined, we are not to wonder that the education of a boy up to the age of seventeen or eighteen, is of a more invigorating character than that of the girl. At this age the girl is taken home to be _turned out_, as it is termed, and the boy is sent, when the parent's circumstances will admit it, to college. The college education, therefore, of the young men, may be considered as a clear superaddition to that which young ladies receive. It is the college education which is decidedly the most efficacious, when properly conducted, in nurturing and developing the higher powers of the mind. The lecturers in well endowed institutions, are generally men of superior attainments and intellectual powers. The division of mental labor, in consequence of the number of professors, renders each one more perfect in his department. The library and apparatus are great advantages not possessed at common schools. Well delivered lectures too, upon the text of some good author, though they may not impart a greater fund of positive information than might be acquired by reading, yet they deeply interest the attention, and stimulate the exertions of the student; they awaken a spirit of inquiry and research; they teach him to examine and sift all he peruses with a skeptical mind. They break the charm which is created by mere precedent and written authority, and furnish, if I may so express myself, the leading strings by which we are gently led forth to more hardy and manly explorations in the field of science and literature. All these are advantages _exclusively_ enjoyed by our young men, and hence, so far as the school education of the sexes is concerned, there is no question that men have decidedly the advantage over women.

This then must certainly be looked upon as one of the most powerfully operating causes of the intellectual differences between the sexes. But it is only a proximate cause, and the question immediately presents itself, how has it happened that the young men have been so much more universally and deeply educated in all ages and countries?