BOOK V

We have reached the last act of youth's drama; we are approaching

its closing scene.

It is not good that man should be alone. Emile is now a man, and

we must give him his promised helpmeet. That helpmeet is Sophy.

Where is her dwelling-place, where shall she be found? We must

know beforehand what she is, and then we can decide where to look

for her. And when she is found, our task is not ended. "Since our

young gentleman," says Locke, "is about to marry, it is time to leave

him with his mistress." And with these words he ends his book. As

I have not the honour of educating "A young gentleman," I shall

take care not to follow his example.

SOPHY, OR WOMAN

Sophy should be as truly a woman as Emile is a man, i.e., she

must possess all those characters of her sex which are required to

enable her to play her part in the physical and moral order. Let

us inquire to begin with in what respects her sex differs from our

own.

But for her sex, a woman is a man; she has the same organs, the

same needs, the same faculties. The machine is the same in its

construction; its parts, its working, and its appearance are similar.

Regard it as you will the difference is only in degree.

Yet where sex is concerned man and woman are unlike; each is the

complement of the other; the difficulty in comparing them lies in

our inability to decide, in either case, what is a matter of sex,

and what is not. General differences present themselves to the

comparative anatomist and even to the superficial observer; they

seem not to be a matter of sex; yet they are really sex differences,

though the connection eludes our observation. How far such differences

may extend we cannot tell; all we know for certain is that where man

and woman are alike we have to do with the characteristics of the

species; where they are unlike, we have to do with the characteristics

of sex. Considered from these two standpoints, we find so many

instances of likeness and unlikeness that it is perhaps one of the

greatest of marvels how nature has contrived to make two beings so

like and yet so different.

These resemblances and differences must have an influence on the

moral nature; this inference is obvious, and it is confirmed by

experience; it shows the vanity of the disputes as to the superiority

or the equality of the sexes; as if each sex, pursuing the path

marked out for it by nature, were not more perfect in that very

divergence than if it more closely resembled the other. A perfect

man and a perfect woman should no more be alike in mind than in

face, and perfection admits of neither less nor more.

In the union of the sexes each alike contributes to the common

end, but in different ways. From this diversity springs the first

difference which may be observed between man and woman in their

moral relations. The man should be strong and active; the woman

should be weak and passive; the one must have both the power and

the will; it is enough that the other should offer little resistance.

When this principle is admitted, it follows that woman is specially

made for man's delight. If man in his turn ought to be pleasing

in her eyes, the necessity is less urgent, his virtue is in his

strength, he pleases because he is strong. I grant you this is not

the law of love, but it is the law of nature, which is older than

love itself.

If woman is made to please and to be in subjection to man, she

ought to make herself pleasing in his eyes and not provoke him to

anger; her strength is in her charms, by their means she should

compel him to discover and use his strength. The surest way of

arousing this strength is to make it necessary by resistance. Thus

pride comes to the help of desire and each exults in the other's

victory. This is the origin of attack and defence, of the boldness

of one sex and the timidity of the other, and even of the shame

and modesty with which nature has armed the weak for the conquest

of the strong.

Who can possibly suppose that nature has prescribed the same advances

to the one sex as to the other, or that the first to feel desire

should be the first to show it? What strange depravity of judgment!

The consequences of the act being so different for the two sexes,

is it natural that they should enter upon it with equal boldness?

How can any one fail to see that when the share of each is so

unequal, if the one were not controlled by modesty as the other is

controlled by nature, the result would be the destruction of both,

and the human race would perish through the very means ordained

for its continuance?

Women so easily stir a man's senses and fan the ashes of a dying

passion, that if philosophy ever succeeded in introducing this

custom into any unlucky country, especially if it were a warm

country where more women are born than men, the men, tyrannised

over by the women, would at last become their victims, and would

be dragged to their death without the least chance of escape.

Female animals are without this sense of shame, but what of that?

Are their desires as boundless as those of women, which are curbed

by this shame? The desires of the animals are the result of necessity,

and when the need is satisfied, the desire ceases; they no longer

make a feint of repulsing the male, they do it in earnest. Their

seasons of complaisance are short and soon over. Impulse and

restraint are alike the work of nature. But what would take the

place of this negative instinct in women if you rob them of their

modesty?

The Most High has deigned to do honour to mankind; he has endowed

man with boundless passions, together with a law to guide them, so

that man may be alike free and self-controlled; though swayed by

these passions man is endowed with reason by which to control them.

Woman is also endowed with boundless passions; God has given her

modesty to restrain them. Moreover, he has given to both a present

reward for the right use of their powers, in the delight which

springs from that right use of them, i.e., the taste for right

conduct established as the law of our behaviour. To my mind this

is far higher than the instinct of the beasts.

Whether the woman shares the man's passion or not, whether she is

willing or unwilling to satisfy it, she always repulses him and

defends herself, though not always with the same vigour, and therefore

not always with the same success. If the siege is to be successful,

the besieged must permit or direct the attack. How skilfully can

she stimulate the efforts of the aggressor. The freest and most

delightful of activities does not permit of any real violence;

reason and nature are alike against it; nature, in that she has

given the weaker party strength enough to resist if she chooses;

reason, in that actual violence is not only most brutal in itself,

but it defeats its own ends, not only because the man thus declares

war against his companion and thus gives her a right to defend her

person and her liberty even at the cost of the enemy's life, but

also because the woman alone is the judge of her condition, and a

child would have no father if any man might usurp a father's rights.

Thus the different constitution of the two sexes leads us to a third

conclusion, that the stronger party seems to be master, but is as

a matter of fact dependent on the weaker, and that, not by any foolish

custom of gallantry, nor yet by the magnanimity of the protector,

but by an inexorable law of nature. For nature has endowed woman

with a power of stimulating man's passions in excess of man's power

of satisfying those passions, and has thus made him dependent on

her goodwill, and compelled him in his turn to endeavour to please

her, so that she may be willing to yield to his superior strength.

Is it weakness which yields to force, or is it voluntary self-surrender?

This uncertainty constitutes the chief charm of the man's victory,

and the woman is usually cunning enough to leave him in doubt. In

this respect the woman's mind exactly resembles her body; far from

being ashamed of her weakness, she is proud of it; her soft muscles

offer no resistance, she professes that she cannot lift the lightest

weight; she would be ashamed to be strong. And why? Not only to

gain an appearance of refinement; she is too clever for that; she

is providing herself beforehand with excuses, with the right to be

weak if she chooses.

The experience we have gained through our vices has considerably

modified the views held in older times; we rarely hear of violence

for which there is so little occasion that it would hardly be

credited. Yet such stories are common enough among the Jews and

ancient Greeks; for such views belong to the simplicity of nature,

and have only been uprooted by our profligacy. If fewer deeds

of violence are quoted in our days, it is not that men are more

temperate, but because they are less credulous, and a complaint

which would have been believed among a simple people would only

excite laughter among ourselves; therefore silence is the better

course. There is a law in Deuteronomy, under which the outraged

maiden was punished, along with her assailant, if the crime were

committed in a town; but if in the country or in a lonely place,

the latter alone was punished. "For," says the law, "the maiden

cried for help, and there was none to hear." From this merciful

interpretation of the law, girls learnt not to let themselves be

surprised in lonely places.

This change in public opinion has had a perceptible effect on our

morals. It has produced our modern gallantry. Men have found that

their pleasures depend, more than they expected, on the goodwill

of the fair sex, and have secured this goodwill by attentions which

have had their reward.

See how we find ourselves led unconsciously from the physical to

the moral constitution, how from the grosser union of the sexes

spring the sweet laws of love. Woman reigns, not by the will of

man, but by the decrees of nature herself; she had the power long

before she showed it. That same Hercules who proposed to violate

all the fifty daughters of Thespis was compelled to spin at the

feet of Omphale, and Samson, the strong man, was less strong than

Delilah. This power cannot be taken from woman; it is hers by right;

she would have lost it long ago, were it possible.

The consequences of sex are wholly unlike for man and woman. The

male is only a male now and again, the female is always a female,

or at least all her youth; everything reminds her of her sex; the

performance of her functions requires a special constitution. She

needs care during pregnancy and freedom from work when her child

is born; she must have a quiet, easy life while she nurses her

children; their education calls for patience and gentleness, for

a zeal and love which nothing can dismay; she forms a bond between

father and child, she alone can win the father's love for his

children and convince him that they are indeed his own. What loving

care is required to preserve a united family! And there should be

no question of virtue in all this, it must be a labour of love,

without which the human race would be doomed to extinction.

The mutual duties of the two sexes are not, and cannot be, equally

binding on both. Women do wrong to complain of the inequality of

man-made laws; this inequality is not of man's making, or at any

rate it is not the result of mere prejudice, but of reason. She

to whom nature has entrusted the care of the children must hold

herself responsible for them to their father. No doubt every breach

of faith is wrong, and every faithless husband, who robs his wife

of the sole reward of the stern duties of her sex, is cruel and

unjust; but the faithless wife is worse; she destroys the family

and breaks the bonds of nature; when she gives her husband children

who are not his own, she is false both to him and them, her crime

is not infidelity but treason. To my mind, it is the source of

dissension and of crime of every kind. Can any position be more

wretched than that of the unhappy father who, when he clasps his

child to his breast, is haunted by the suspicion that this is the

child of another, the badge of his own dishonour, a thief who is

robbing his own children of their inheritance. Under such circumstances

the family is little more than a group of secret enemies, armed

against each other by a guilty woman, who compels them to pretend

to love one another.

Thus it is not enough that a wife should be faithful; her husband,

along with his friends and neighbours, must believe in her fidelity;

she must be modest, devoted, retiring; she should have the witness

not only of a good conscience, but of a good reputation. In a word,

if a father must love his children, he must be able to respect their

mother. For these reasons it is not enough that the woman should

be chaste, she must preserve her reputation and her good name. From

these principles there arises not only a moral difference between

the sexes, but also a fresh motive for duty and propriety, which

prescribes to women in particular the most scrupulous attention

to their conduct, their manners, their behaviour. Vague assertions

as to the equality of the sexes and the similarity of their duties

are only empty words; they are no answer to my argument.

It is a poor sort of logic to quote isolated exceptions against

laws so firmly established. Women, you say, are not always bearing

children. Granted; yet that is their proper business. Because there

are a hundred or so of large towns in the world where women live

licentiously and have few children, will you maintain that it is

their business to have few children? And what would become of your

towns if the remote country districts, with their simpler and purer

women, did not make up for the barrenness of your fine ladies?

There are plenty of country places where women with only four or

five children are reckoned unfruitful. In conclusion, although here

and there a woman may have few children, what difference does it

make? [Footnote: Without this the race would necessarily diminish;

all things considered, for its preservation each woman ought to have

about four children, for about half the children born die before

they can become parents, and two must survive to replace the father

and mother. See whether the towns will supply them?] Is it any the

less a woman's business to be a mother? And to not the general laws

of nature and morality make provision for this state of things?

Even if there were these long intervals, which you assume, between

the periods of pregnancy, can a woman suddenly change her way of life

without danger? Can she be a nursing mother to-day and a soldier

to-morrow? Will she change her tastes and her feelings as a chameleon

changes his colour? Will she pass at once from the privacy of

household duties and indoor occupations to the buffeting of the

winds, the toils, the labours, the perils of war? Will she be now

timid, [Footnote: Women's timidity is yet another instinct of nature

against the double risk she runs during pregnancy.] now brave, now

fragile, now robust? If the young men of Paris find a soldier's

life too hard for them, how would a woman put up with it, a woman

who has hardly ventured out of doors without a parasol and who has

scarcely put a foot to the ground? Will she make a good soldier at

an age when even men are retiring from this arduous business?

There are countries, I grant you, where women bear and rear

children with little or no difficulty, but in those lands the men

go half-naked in all weathers, they strike down the wild beasts,

they carry a canoe as easily as a knapsack, they pursue the chase

for 700 or 800 leagues, they sleep in the open on the bare ground,

they bear incredible fatigues and go many days without food. When

women become strong, men become still stronger; when men become

soft, women become softer; change both the terms and the ratio

remains unaltered.

I am quite aware that Plato, in the Republic, assigns the same

gymnastics to women and men. Having got rid of the family there is

no place for women in his system of government, so he is forced to

turn them into men. That great genius has worked out his plans in

detail and has provided for every contingency; he has even provided

against a difficulty which in all likelihood no one would ever have

raised; but he has not succeeded in meeting the real difficulty. I

am not speaking of the alleged community of wives which has often

been laid to his charge; this assertion only shows that his detractors

have never read his works. I refer to that political promiscuity

under which the same occupations are assigned to both sexes alike,

a scheme which could only lead to intolerable evils; I refer to that

subversion of all the tenderest of our natural feelings, which he

sacrificed to an artificial sentiment which can only exist by their

aid. Will the bonds of convention hold firm without some foundation

in nature? Can devotion to the state exist apart from the love of

those near and dear to us? Can patriotism thrive except in the soil

of that miniature fatherland, the home? Is it not the good son,

the good husband, the good father, who makes the good citizen?

When once it is proved that men and women are and ought to be

unlike in constitution and in temperament, it follows that their

education must be different. Nature teaches us that they should work

together, but that each has its own share of the work; the end is

the same, but the means are different, as are also the feelings

which direct them. We have attempted to paint a natural man, let

us try to paint a helpmeet for him.

You must follow nature's guidance if you would walk aright. The

native characters of sex should be respected as nature's handiwork.

You are always saying, "Women have such and such faults, from which

we are free." You are misled by your vanity; what would be faults

in you are virtues in them; and things would go worse, if they

were without these so-called faults. Take care that they do not

degenerate into evil, but beware of destroying them.

On the other hand, women are always exclaiming that we educate them

for nothing but vanity and coquetry, that we keep them amused with

trifles that we may be their masters; we are responsible, so they

say, for the faults we attribute to them. How silly! What have men

to do with the education of girls? What is there to hinder their

mothers educating them as they please? There are no colleges for

girls; so much the better for them! Would God there were none for

the boys, their education would be more sensible and more wholesome.

Who is it that compels a girl to waste her time on foolish trifles?

Are they forced, against their will, to spend half their time over

their toilet, following the example set them by you? Who prevents

you teaching them, or having them taught, whatever seems good

in your eyes? Is it our fault that we are charmed by their beauty

and delighted by their airs and graces, if we are attracted and

flattered by the arts they learn from you, if we love to see them

prettily dressed, if we let them display at leisure the weapons

by which we are subjugated? Well then, educate them like men. The

more women are like men, the less influence they will have over

men, and then men will be masters indeed.

All the faculties common to both sexes are not equally shared

between them, but taken as a whole they are fairly divided. Woman

is worth more as a woman and less as a man; when she makes a good

use of her own rights, she has the best of it; when she tries to

usurp our rights, she is our inferior. It is impossible to controvert

this, except by quoting exceptions after the usual fashion of the

partisans of the fair sex.

To cultivate the masculine virtues in women and to neglect their

own is evidently to do them an injury. Women are too clear-sighted

to be thus deceived; when they try to usurp our privileges they do

not abandon their own; with this result: they are unable to make use

of two incompatible things, so they fall below their own level as

women, instead of rising to the level of men. If you are a sensible

mother you will take my advice. Do not try to make your daughter a

good man in defiance of nature. Make her a good woman, and be sure

it will be better both for her and us.

Does this mean that she must be brought up in ignorance and kept

to housework only? Is she to be man's handmaid or his help-meet?

Will he dispense with her greatest charm, her companionship? To keep

her a slave will he prevent her knowing and feeling? Will he make

an automaton of her? No, indeed, that is not the teaching of nature,

who has given women such a pleasant easy wit. On the contrary,

nature means them to think, to will, to love, to cultivate their

minds as well as their persons; she puts these weapons in their

hands to make up for their lack of strength and to enable them to

direct the strength of men. They should learn many things, but only

such things as are suitable.

When I consider the special purpose of woman, when I observe

her inclinations or reckon up her duties, everything combines to

indicate the mode of education she requires. Men and women are made

for each other, but their mutual dependence differs in degree; man

is dependent on woman through his desires; woman is dependent on

man through her desires and also through her needs; he could do

without her better than she can do without him. She cannot fulfil

her purpose in life without his aid, without his goodwill, without

his respect; she is dependent on our feelings, on the price we

put upon her virtue, and the opinion we have of her charms and her

deserts. Nature herself has decreed that woman, both for herself

and her children, should be at the mercy of man's judgment.

Worth alone will not suffice, a woman must be thought worthy; nor

beauty, she must be admired; nor virtue, she must be respected.

A woman's honour does not depend on her conduct alone, but on her

reputation, and no woman who permits herself to be considered vile

is really virtuous. A man has no one but himself to consider, and

so long as he does right he may defy public opinion; but when a

woman does right her task is only half finished, and what people

think of her matters as much as what she really is. Hence her

education must, in this respect, be different from man's education.

"What will people think" is the grave of a man's virtue and the

throne of a woman's.

The children's health depends in the first place on the mother's,

and the early education of man is also in a woman's hands; his

morals, his passions, his tastes, his pleasures, his happiness

itself, depend on her. A woman's education must therefore be planned

in relation to man. To be pleasing in his sight, to win his respect

and love, to train him in childhood, to tend him in manhood, to

counsel and console, to make his life pleasant and happy, these

are the duties of woman for all time, and this is what she should

be taught while she is young. The further we depart from this

principle, the further we shall be from our goal, and all our

precepts will fail to secure her happiness or our own.

Every woman desires to be pleasing in men's eyes, and this is right;

but there is a great difference between wishing to please a man of

worth, a really lovable man, and seeking to please those foppish

manikins who are a disgrace to their own sex and to the sex which

they imitate. Neither nature nor reason can induce a woman to love

an effeminate person, nor will she win love by imitating such a

person.

If a woman discards the quiet modest bearing of her sex, and

adopts the airs of such foolish creatures, she is not following

her vocation, she is forsaking it; she is robbing herself of the

rights to which she lays claim. "If we were different," she says,

"the men would not like us." She is mistaken. Only a fool likes

folly; to wish to attract such men only shows her own foolishness. If

there were no frivolous men, women would soon make them, and women

are more responsible for men's follies than men are for theirs.

The woman who loves true manhood and seeks to find favour in its

sight will adopt means adapted to her ends. Woman is a coquette by

profession, but her coquetry varies with her aims; let these aims

be in accordance with those of nature, and a woman will receive a

fitting education.

Even the tiniest little girls love finery; they are not content to

be pretty, they must be admired; their little airs and graces show

that their heads are full of this idea, and as soon as they can

understand they are controlled by "What will people think of you?"

If you are foolish enough to try this way with little boys, it

will not have the same effect; give them their freedom and their

sports, and they care very little what people think; it is a work

of time to bring them under the control of this law.

However acquired, this early education of little girls is an

excellent thing in itself. As the birth of the body must precede

the birth of the mind, so the training of the body must precede

the cultivation of the mind. This is true of both sexes; but the

aim of physical training for boys and girls is not the same; in the

one case it is the development of strength, in the other of grace;

not that these qualities should be peculiar to either sex, but that

their relative values should be different. Women should be strong

enough to do anything gracefully; men should be skilful enough to

do anything easily.

The exaggeration of feminine delicacy leads to effeminacy in men.

Women should not be strong like men but for them, so that their

sons may be strong. Convents and boarding-schools, with their plain

food and ample opportunities for amusements, races, and games in

the open air and in the garden, are better in this respect than

the home, where the little girl is fed on delicacies, continually

encouraged or reproved, where she is kept sitting in a stuffy room,

always under her mother's eye, afraid to stand or walk or speak

or breathe, without a moment's freedom to play or jump or run or

shout, or to be her natural, lively, little self; there is either

harmful indulgence or misguided severity, and no trace of reason.

In this fashion heart and body are alike destroyed.

In Sparta the girls used to take part in military sports just like

the boys, not that they might go to war, but that they might bear

sons who could endure hardship. That is not what I desire. To provide

the state with soldiers it is not necessary that the mother should

carry a musket and master the Prussian drill. Yet, on the whole, I

think the Greeks were very wise in this matter of physical training.

Young girls frequently appeared in public, not with the boys, but

in groups apart. There was scarcely a festival, a sacrifice, or a

procession without its bands of maidens, the daughters of the chief

citizens. Crowned with flowers, chanting hymns, forming the chorus

of the dance, bearing baskets, vases, offerings, they presented a

charming spectacle to the depraved senses of the Greeks, a spectacle

well fitted to efface the evil effects of their unseemly gymnastics.

Whatever this custom may have done for the Greek men, it was well

fitted to develop in the Greek women a sound constitution by means

of pleasant, moderate, and healthy exercise; while the desire to

please would develop a keen and cultivated taste without risk to

character.

When the Greek women married, they disappeared from public life;

within the four walls of their home they devoted themselves to

the care of their household and family. This is the mode of life

prescribed for women alike by nature and reason. These women gave

birth to the healthiest, strongest, and best proportioned men who

ever lived, and except in certain islands of ill repute, no women

in the whole world, not even the Roman matrons, were ever at once

so wise and so charming, so beautiful and so virtuous, as the women

of ancient Greece.

It is admitted that their flowing garments, which did not cramp

the figure, preserved in men and women alike the fine proportions

which are seen in their statues. These are still the models of

art, although nature is so disfigured that they are no longer to

be found among us. The Gothic trammels, the innumerable bands which

confine our limbs as in a press, were quite unknown. The Greek

women were wholly unacquainted with those frames of whalebone in

which our women distort rather than display their figures. It seems

to me that this abuse, which is carried to an incredible degree of

folly in England, must sooner or later lead to the production of

a degenerate race. Moreover, I maintain that the charm which these

corsets are supposed to produce is in the worst possible taste; it

is not a pleasant thing to see a woman cut in two like a wasp--it

offends both the eye and the imagination. A slender waist has

its limits, like everything else, in proportion and suitability,

and beyond these limits it becomes a defect. This defect would be

a glaring one in the nude; why should it be beautiful under the

costume?

I will not venture upon the reasons which induce women to incase

themselves in these coats of mail. A clumsy figure, a large waist,

are no doubt very ugly at twenty, but at thirty they cease to offend

the eye, and as we are bound to be what nature has made us at any

given age, and as there is no deceiving the eye of man, such defects

are less offensive at any age than the foolish affectations of a

young thing of forty.

Everything which cramps and confines nature is in bad taste; this

is as true of the adornments of the person as of the ornaments of

the mind. Life, health, common-sense, and comfort must come first;

there is no grace in discomfort, languor is not refinement, there

is no charm in ill-health; suffering may excite pity, but pleasure

and delight demand the freshness of health.

Boys and girls have many games in common, and this is as it should

be; do they not play together when they are grown up? They have also

special tastes of their own. Boys want movement and noise, drums,

tops, toy-carts; girls prefer things which appeal to the eye,

and can be used for dressing-up--mirrors, jewellery, finery, and

specially dolls. The doll is the girl's special plaything; this shows

her instinctive bent towards her life's work. The art of pleasing

finds its physical basis in personal adornment, and this physical

side of the art is the only one which the child can cultivate.

Here is a little girl busy all day with her doll; she is always

changing its clothes, dressing and undressing it, trying new

combinations of trimmings well or ill matched; her fingers are

clumsy, her taste is crude, but there is no mistaking her bent; in

this endless occupation time flies unheeded, the hours slip away

unnoticed, even meals are forgotten. She is more eager for adornment

than for food. "But she is dressing her doll, not herself," you

will say. Just so; she sees her doll, she cannot see herself; she

cannot do anything for herself, she has neither the training, nor

the talent, nor the strength; as yet she herself is nothing, she is

engrossed in her doll and all her coquetry is devoted to it. This

will not always be so; in due time she will be her own doll.

We have here a very early and clearly-marked bent; you have only to

follow it and train it. What the little girl most clearly desires

is to dress her doll, to make its bows, its tippets, its sashes,

and its tuckers; she is dependent on other people's kindness in all

this, and it would be much pleasanter to be able to do it herself.

Here is a motive for her earliest lessons, they are not tasks

prescribed, but favours bestowed. Little girls always dislike learning

to read and write, but they are always ready to learn to sew. They

think they are grown up, and in imagination they are using their

knowledge for their own adornment.

The way is open and it is easy to follow it; cutting out, embroidery,

lace-making follow naturally. Tapestry is not popular; furniture is

too remote from the child's interests, it has nothing to do with

the person, it depends on conventional tastes. Tapestry is a woman's

amusement; young girls never care for it.

This voluntary course is easily extended to include drawing, an

art which is closely connected with taste in dress; but I would not

have them taught landscape and still less figure painting. Leaves,

fruit, flowers, draperies, anything that will make an elegant

trimming for the accessories of the toilet, and enable the girl

to design her own embroidery if she cannot find a pattern to her

taste; that will be quite enough. Speaking generally, if it is

desirable to restrict a man's studies to what is useful, this is

even more necessary for women, whose life, though less laborious,

should be even more industrious and more uniformly employed in a

variety of duties, so that one talent should not be encouraged at

the expense of others.

Whatever may be said by the scornful, good sense belongs to both

sexes alike. Girls are usually more docile than boys, and they

should be subjected to more authority, as I shall show later on,

but that is no reason why they should be required to do things

in which they can see neither rhyme nor reason. The mother's art

consists in showing the use of everything they are set to do, and

this is all the easier as the girl's intelligence is more precocious

than the boy's. This principle banishes, both for boys and girls,

not only those pursuits which never lead to any appreciable results,

not even increasing the charms of those who have pursued them, but

also those studies whose utility is beyond the scholar's present age

and can only be appreciated in later years. If I object to little

boys being made to learn to read, still more do I object to it

for little girls until they are able to see the use of reading; we

generally think more of our own ideas than theirs in our attempts

to convince them of the utility of this art. After all, why should

a little girl know how to read and write! Has she a house to manage?

Most of them make a bad use of this fatal knowledge, and girls are

so full of curiosity that few of them will fail to learn without

compulsion. Possibly cyphering should come first; there is nothing

so obviously useful, nothing which needs so much practice or gives

so much opportunity for error as reckoning. If the little girl

does not get the cherries for her lunch without an arithmetical

exercise, she will soon learn to count.

I once knew a little girl who learnt to write before she could read,

and she began to write with her needle. To begin with, she would

write nothing but O's; she was always making O's, large and small,

of all kinds and one within another, but always drawn backwards.

Unluckily one day she caught a glimpse of herself in the glass

while she was at this useful work, and thinking that the cramped

attitude was not pretty, like another Minerva she flung away her

pen and declined to make any more O's. Her brother was no fonder

of writing, but what he disliked was the constraint, not the look

of the thing. She was induced to go on with her writing in this way.

The child was fastidious and vain; she could not bear her sisters

to wear her clothes. Her things had been marked, they declined to

mark them any more, she must learn to mark them herself; there is

no need to continue the story.

Show the sense of the tasks you set your little girls, but keep them

busy. Idleness and insubordination are two very dangerous faults,

and very hard to cure when once established. Girls should be

attentive and industrious, but this is not enough by itself; they

should early be accustomed to restraint. This misfortune, if such

it be, is inherent in their sex, and they will never escape from it,

unless to endure more cruel sufferings. All their life long, they

will have to submit to the strictest and most enduring restraints,

those of propriety. They must be trained to bear the yoke from the

first, so that they may not feel it, to master their own caprices

and to submit themselves to the will of others. If they were always

eager to be at work, they should sometimes be compelled to do

nothing. Their childish faults, unchecked and unheeded, may easily

lead to dissipation, frivolity, and inconstancy. To guard against

this, teach them above all things self-control. Under our senseless

conditions, the life of a good woman is a perpetual struggle against

self; it is only fair that woman should bear her share of the ills

she has brought upon man.

Beware lest your girls become weary of their tasks and infatuated

with their amusements; this often happens under our ordinary methods

of education, where, as Fenelon says, all the tedium is on one side

and all the pleasure on the other. If the rules already laid down

are followed, the first of these dangers will be avoided, unless the

child dislikes those about her. A little girl who is fond of her

mother or her friend will work by her side all day without getting

tired; the chatter alone will make up for any loss of liberty. But

if her companion is distasteful to her, everything done under her

direction will be distasteful too. Children who take no delight

in their mother's company are not likely to turn out well; but to

judge of their real feelings you must watch them and not trust to

their words alone, for they are flatterers and deceitful and soon

learn to conceal their thoughts. Neither should they be told that

they ought to love their mother. Affection is not the result of

duty, and in this respect constraint is out of place. Continual

intercourse, constant care, habit itself, all these will lead

a child to love her mother, if the mother does nothing to deserve

the child's ill-will. The very control she exercises over the

child, if well directed, will increase rather than diminish the

affection, for women being made for dependence, girls feel themselves

made to obey.

Just because they have, or ought to have, little freedom, they are

apt to indulge themselves too fully with regard to such freedom

as they have; they carry everything to extremes, and they devote

themselves to their games with an enthusiasm even greater than that

of boys. This is the second difficulty to which I referred. This

enthusiasm must be kept in check, for it is the source of several

vices commonly found among women, caprice and that extravagant

admiration which leads a woman to regard a thing with rapture to-day

and to be quite indifferent to it to-morrow. This fickleness of

taste is as dangerous as exaggeration; and both spring from the same

cause. Do not deprive them of mirth, laughter, noise, and romping

games, but do not let them tire of one game and go off to another;

do not leave them for a moment without restraint. Train them to

break off their games and return to their other occupations without

a murmur. Habit is all that is needed, as you have nature on your

side.

This habitual restraint produces a docility which woman requires

all her life long, for she will always be in subjection to a man,

or to man's judgment, and she will never be free to set her own

opinion above his. What is most wanted in a woman is gentleness;

formed to obey a creature so imperfect as man, a creature often

vicious and always faulty, she should early learn to submit to

injustice and to suffer the wrongs inflicted on her by her husband

without complaint; she must be gentle for her own sake, not his.

Bitterness and obstinacy only multiply the sufferings of the wife

and the misdeeds of the husband; the man feels that these are

not the weapons to be used against him. Heaven did not make women

attractive and persuasive that they might degenerate into bitterness,

or meek that they should desire the mastery; their soft voice was

not meant for hard words, nor their delicate features for the frowns

of anger. When they lose their temper they forget themselves; often

enough they have just cause of complaint; but when they scold they

always put themselves in the wrong. We should each adopt the tone

which befits our sex; a soft-hearted husband may make an overbearing

wife, but a man, unless he is a perfect monster, will sooner or

later yield to his wife's gentleness, and the victory will be hers.

Daughters must always be obedient, but mothers need not always be

harsh. To make a girl docile you need not make her miserable; to

make her modest you need not terrify her; on the contrary, I should

not be sorry to see her allowed occasionally to exercise a little

ingenuity, not to escape punishment for her disobedience, but

to evade the necessity for obedience. Her dependence need not be

made unpleasant, it is enough that she should realise that she is

dependent. Cunning is a natural gift of woman, and so convinced

am I that all our natural inclinations are right, that I would

cultivate this among others, only guarding against its abuse.

For the truth of this I appeal to every honest observer. I do not

ask you to question women themselves, our cramping institutions may

compel them to sharpen their wits; I would have you examine girls,

little girls, newly-born so to speak; compare them with boys of the

same age, and I am greatly mistaken if you do not find the little

boys heavy, silly, and foolish, in comparison. Let me give one

illustration in all its childish simplicity.

Children are commonly forbidden to ask for anything at table, for

people think they can do nothing better in the way of education

than to burden them with useless precepts; as if a little bit of

this or that were not readily given or refused without leaving a

poor child dying of greediness intensified by hope. Every one knows

how cunningly a little boy brought up in this way asked for salt

when he had been overlooked at table. I do not suppose any one will

blame him for asking directly for salt and indirectly for meat;

the neglect was so cruel that I hardly think he would have been

punished had he broken the rule and said plainly that he was hungry.

But this is what I saw done by a little girl of six; the circumstances

were much more difficult, for not only was she strictly forbidden

to ask for anything directly or indirectly, but disobedience would

have been unpardonable, for she had eaten of every dish; one only

had been overlooked, and on this she had set her heart. This is what

she did to repair the omission without laying herself open to the

charge of disobedience; she pointed to every dish in turn, saying,

"I've had some of this; I've had some of this;" however she omitted

the one dish so markedly that some one noticed it and said, "Have

not you had some of this?" "Oh, no," replied the greedy little girl

with soft voice and downcast eyes. These instances are typical of

the cunning of the little boy and girl.

What is, is good, and no general law can be bad. This special skill

with which the female sex is endowed is a fair equivalent for its

lack of strength; without it woman would be man's slave, not his

helpmeet. By her superiority in this respect she maintains her equality

with man, and rules in obedience. She has everything against her,

our faults and her own weakness and timidity; her beauty and her

wiles are all that she has. Should she not cultivate both? Yet beauty

is not universal; it may be destroyed by all sorts of accidents,

it will disappear with years, and habit will destroy its influence.

A woman's real resource is her wit; not that foolish wit which is

so greatly admired in society, a wit which does nothing to make

life happier; but that wit which is adapted to her condition, the

art of taking advantage of our position and controlling us through

our own strength. Words cannot tell how beneficial this is to

man, what a charm it gives to the society of men and women, how it

checks the petulant child and restrains the brutal husband; without

it the home would be a scene of strife; with it, it is the abode

of happiness. I know that this power is abused by the sly and the

spiteful; but what is there that is not liable to abuse? Do not

destroy the means of happiness because the wicked use them to our

hurt.

The toilet may attract notice, but it is the person that wins our

hearts. Our finery is not us; its very artificiality often offends,

and that which is least noticeable in itself often wins the most

attention. The education of our girls is, in this respect, absolutely

topsy-turvy. Ornaments are promised them as rewards, and they are

taught to delight in elaborate finery. "How lovely she is!" people

say when she is most dressed up. On the contrary, they should be

taught that so much finery is only required to hide their defects,

and that beauty's real triumph is to shine alone. The love of

fashion is contrary to good taste, for faces do not change with the

fashion, and while the person remains unchanged, what suits it at

one time will suit it always.

If I saw a young girl decked out like a little peacock, I should

show myself anxious about her figure so disguised, and anxious what

people would think of her; I should say, "She is over-dressed with

all those ornaments; what a pity! Do you think she could do with

something simpler? Is she pretty enough to do without this or that?"

Possibly she herself would be the first to ask that her finery might

be taken off and that we should see how she looked without it. In

that case her beauty should receive such praise as it deserves. I

should never praise her unless simply dressed. If she only regards

fine clothes as an aid to personal beauty, and as a tacit confession

that she needs their aid, she will not be proud of her finery, she

will be humbled by it; and if she hears some one say, "How pretty

she is," when she is smarter than usual, she will blush for shame.

Moreover, though there are figures that require adornment there

are none that require expensive clothes. Extravagance in dress is

the folly of the class rather than the individual, it is merely

conventional. Genuine coquetry is sometimes carefully thought out,

but never sumptuous, and Juno dressed herself more magnificently

than Venus. "As you cannot make her beautiful you are making her

fine," said Apelles to an unskilful artist who was painting Helen

loaded with jewellery. I have also noticed that the smartest clothes

proclaim the plainest women; no folly could be more misguided. If

a young girl has good taste and a contempt for fashion, give her a

few yards of ribbon, muslin, and gauze, and a handful of flowers,

without any diamonds, fringes, or lace, and she will make herself

a dress a hundredfold more becoming than all the smart clothes of

La Duchapt.

Good is always good, and as you should always look your best, the

women who know what they are about select a good style and keep

to it, and as they are not always changing their style they think

less about dress than those who can never settle to any one style.

A genuine desire to dress becomingly does not require an elaborate

toilet. Young girls rarely give much time to dress; needlework and

lessons are the business of the day; yet, except for the rouge,

they are generally as carefully dressed as older women and often

in better taste. Contrary to the usual opinion, the real cause of

the abuse of the toilet is not vanity but lack of occupation. The

woman who devotes six hours to her toilet is well aware that she

is no better dressed than the woman who took half an hour, but she

has got rid of so many of the tedious hours and it is better to

amuse oneself with one's clothes than to be sick of everything.

Without the toilet how would she spend the time between dinner and

supper. With a crowd of women about her, she can at least cause

them annoyance, which is amusement of a kind; better still she avoids

a tete-a-tete with the husband whom she never sees at any other

time; then there are the tradespeople, the dealers in bric-a-brac,

the fine gentlemen, the minor poets with their songs, their verses,

and their pamphlets; how could you get them together but for the

toilet. Its only real advantage is the chance of a little more

display than is permitted by full dress, and perhaps this is less

than it seems and a woman gains less than she thinks. Do not be

afraid to educate your women as women; teach them a woman's business,

that they be modest, that they may know how to manage their house

and look after their family; the grand toilet will soon disappear,

and they will be more tastefully dressed.

Growing girls perceive at once that all this outside adornment is

not enough unless they have charms of their own. They cannot make

themselves beautiful, they are too young for coquetry, but they

are not too young to acquire graceful gestures, a pleasing voice,

a self-possessed manner, a light step, a graceful bearing, to choose

whatever advantages are within their reach. The voice extends its

range, it grows stronger and more resonant, the arms become plumper,

the bearing more assured, and they perceive that it is easy to

attract attention however dressed. Needlework and industry suffice

no longer, fresh gifts are developing and their usefulness is

already recognised.

I know that stern teachers would have us refuse to teach little

girls to sing or dance, or to acquire any of the pleasing arts.

This strikes me as absurd. Who should learn these arts--our boys?

Are these to be the favourite accomplishments of men or women? Of

neither, say they; profane songs are simply so many crimes, dancing

is an invention of the Evil One; her tasks and her prayers we all

the amusement a young girl should have. What strange amusements

for a child of ten! I fear that these little saints who have been

forced to spend their childhood in prayers to God will pass their

youth in another fashion; when they are married they will try to

make up for lost time. I think we must consider age as well as sex;

a young girl should not live like her grandmother; she should be

lively, merry, and eager; she should sing and dance to her heart's

content, and enjoy all the innocent pleasures of youth; the time

will come, all too soon, when she must settle down and adopt a more

serious tone.

But is this change in itself really necessary? Is it not merely

another result of our own prejudices? By making good women the slaves

of dismal duties, we have deprived marriage of its charm for men.

Can we wonder that the gloomy silence they find at home drives them

elsewhere, or inspires little desire to enter a state which offers

so few attractions? Christianity, by exaggerating every duty, has

made our duties impracticable and useless; by forbidding singing,

dancing, and amusements of every kind, it renders women sulky,

fault-finding, and intolerable at home. There is no religion which

imposes such strict duties upon married life, and none in which

such a sacred engagement is so often profaned. Such pains has been

taken to prevent wives being amiable, that their husbands have

become indifferent to them. This should not be, I grant you, but

it will be, since husbands are but men. I would have an English

maiden cultivate the talents which will delight her husband as

zealously as the Circassian cultivates the accomplishments of an

Eastern harem. Husbands, you say, care little for such accomplishments.

So I should suppose, when they are employed, not for the husband,

but to attract the young rakes who dishonour the home. But imagine

a virtuous and charming wife, adorned with such accomplishments

and devoting them to her husband's amusement; will she not add to

his happiness? When he leaves his office worn out with the day's

work, will she not prevent him seeking recreation elsewhere? Have

we not all beheld happy families gathered together, each contributing

to the general amusement? Are not the confidence and familiarity

thus established, the innocence and the charm of the pleasures thus

enjoyed, more than enough to make up for the more riotous pleasures

of public entertainments?

Pleasant accomplishments have been made too formal an affair of

rules and precepts, so that young people find them very tedious

instead of a mere amusement or a merry game as they ought to be.

Nothing can be more absurd than an elderly singing or dancing

master frowning upon young people, whose one desire is to laugh,

and adopting a more pedantic and magisterial manner in teaching his

frivolous art than if he were teaching the catechism. Take the case

of singing; does this art depend on reading music; cannot the voice

be made true and flexible, can we not learn to sing with taste and

even to play an accompaniment without knowing a note? Does the same

kind of singing suit all voices alike? Is the same method adapted

to every mind? You will never persuade me that the same attitudes,

the same steps, the same movements, the same gestures, the same

dances will suit a lively little brunette and a tall fair maiden

with languishing eyes. So when I find a master giving the same

lessons to all his pupils I say, "He has his own routine, but he

knows nothing of his art!"

Should young girls have masters or mistresses? I cannot say; I wish

they could dispense with both; I wish they could learn of their

own accord what they are already so willing to learn. I wish there

were fewer of these dressed-up old ballet masters promenading our

streets. I fear our young people will get more harm from intercourse

with such people than profit from their instruction, and that their

jargon, their tone, their airs and graces, will instil a precocious

taste for the frivolities which the teacher thinks so important,

and to which the scholars are only too likely to devote themselves.

Where pleasure is the only end in view, any one may serve as

teacher--father, mother, brother, sister, friend, governess, the

girl's mirror, and above all her own taste. Do not offer to teach,

let her ask; do not make a task of what should be a reward, and in

these studies above all remember that the wish to succeed is the

first step. If formal instruction is required I leave it to you

to choose between a master and a mistress. How can I tell whether

a dancing master should take a young pupil by her soft white hand,

make her lift her skirt and raise her eyes, open her arms and advance

her throbbing bosom? but this I know, nothing on earth would induce

me to be that master.

Taste is formed partly by industry and partly by talent, and by

its means the mind is unconsciously opened to the idea of beauty

of every kind, till at length it attains to those moral ideas which

are so closely related to beauty. Perhaps this is one reason why

ideas of propriety and modesty are acquired earlier by girls than

by boys, for to suppose that this early feeling is due to the

teaching of the governesses would show little knowledge of their

style of teaching and of the natural development of the human mind.

The art of speaking stands first among the pleasing arts; it alone

can add fresh charms to those which have been blunted by habit. It

is the mind which not only gives life to the body, but renews, so

to speak, its youth; the flow of feelings and ideas give life and

variety to the countenance, and the conversation to which it gives

rise arouses and sustains attention, and fixes it continuously on

one object. I suppose this is why little girls so soon learn to

prattle prettily, and why men enjoy listening to them even before

the child can understand them; they are watching for the first

gleam of intelligence and sentiment.

Women have ready tongues; they talk earlier, more easily, and more

pleasantly than men. They are also said to talk more; this may

be true, but I am prepared to reckon it to their credit; eyes and

mouth are equally busy and for the same cause. A man says what he

knows, a woman says what will please; the one needs knowledge, the

other taste; utility should be the man's object; the woman speaks

to give pleasure. There should be nothing in common but truth.

You should not check a girl's prattle like a boy's by the harsh

question, "What is the use of that?" but by another question at

least as difficult to answer, "What effect will that have?" At this

early age when they know neither good nor evil, and are incapable

of judging others, they should make this their rule and never say

anything which is unpleasant to those about them; this rule is all

the more difficult to apply because it must always be subordinated

to our first rule, "Never tell a lie."

I can see many other difficulties, but they belong to a later stage.

For the present it is enough for your little girls to speak the

truth without grossness, and as they are naturally averse to what

is gross, education easily teaches them to avoid it. In social

intercourse I observe that a man's politeness is usually more

helpful and a woman's more caressing. This distinction is natural,

not artificial. A man seeks to serve, a woman seeks to please. Hence

a woman's politeness is less insincere than ours, whatever we may

think of her character; for she is only acting upon a fundamental

instinct; but when a man professes to put my interests before his

own, I detect the falsehood, however disguised. Hence it is easy

for women to be polite, and easy to teach little girls politeness.

The first lessons come by nature; art only supplements them and

determines the conventional form which politeness shall take. The

courtesy of woman to woman is another matter; their manner is so

constrained, their attentions so chilly, they find each other so

wearisome, that they take little pains to conceal the fact, and

seem sincere even in their falsehood, since they take so little

pains to conceal it. Still young girls do sometimes become sincerely

attached to one another. At their age good spirits take the place

of a good disposition, and they are so pleased with themselves that

they are pleased with every one else. Moreover, it is certain that

they kiss each other more affectionately and caress each other more

gracefully in the presence of men, for they are proud to be able

to arouse their envy without danger to themselves by the sight of

favours which they know will arouse that envy.

If young boys must not be allowed to ask unsuitable questions, much

more must they be forbidden to little girls; if their curiosity is

satisfied or unskilfully evaded it is a much more serious matter,

for they are so keen to guess the mysteries concealed from them and

so skilful to discover them. But while I would not permit them to

ask questions, I would have them questioned frequently, and pains

should be taken to make them talk; let them be teased to make them

speak freely, to make them answer readily, to loosen mind and

tongue while it can be done without danger. Such conversation always

leading to merriment, yet skilfully controlled and directed, would

form a delightful amusement at this age and might instil into these

youthful hearts the first and perhaps the most helpful lessons in

morals which they will ever receive, by teaching them in the guise

of pleasure and fun what qualities are esteemed by men and what is

the true glory and happiness of a good woman.

If boys are incapable of forming any true idea of religion, much

more is it beyond the grasp of girls; and for this reason I would

speak of it all the sooner to little girls, for if we wait till

they are ready for a serious discussion of these deep subjects we

should be in danger of never speaking of religion at all. A woman's

reason is practical, and therefore she soon arrives at a given

conclusion, but she fails to discover it for herself. The social

relation of the sexes is a wonderful thing. This relation produces

a moral person of which woman is the eye and man the hand, but the

two are so dependent on one another that the man teaches the woman

what to see, while she teaches him what to do. If women could

discover principles and if men had as good heads for detail, they

would be mutually independent, they would live in perpetual strife,

and there would be an end to all society. But in their mutual

harmony each contributes to a common purpose; each follows the

other's lead, each commands and each obeys.

As a woman's conduct is controlled by public opinion, so is her

religion ruled by authority. The daughter should follow her mother's

religion, the wife her husband's. Were that religion false, the

docility which leads mother and daughter to submit to nature's

laws would blot out the sin of error in the sight of God. Unable

to judge for themselves they should accept the judgment of father

and husband as that of the church.

While women unaided cannot deduce the rules of their faith, neither

can they assign limits to that faith by the evidence of reason;

they allow themselves to be driven hither and thither by all sorts

of external influences, they are ever above or below the truth. Extreme

in everything, they are either altogether reckless or altogether

pious; you never find them able to combine virtue and piety. Their

natural exaggeration is not wholly to blame; the ill-regulated

control exercised over them by men is partly responsible. Loose

morals bring religion into contempt; the terrors of remorse make

it a tyrant; this is why women have always too much or too little

religion.

As a woman's religion is controlled by authority it is more

important to show her plainly what to believe than to explain the

reasons for belief; for faith attached to ideas half-understood

is the main source of fanaticism, and faith demanded on behalf of

what is absurd leads to madness or unbelief. Whether our catechisms

tend to produce impiety rather than fanaticism I cannot say, but

I do know that they lead to one or other.

In the first place, when you teach religion to little girls never

make it gloomy or tiresome, never make it a task or a duty, and

therefore never give them anything to learn by heart, not even

their prayers. Be content to say your own prayers regularly in their

presence, but do not compel them to join you. Let their prayers

be short, as Christ himself has taught us. Let them always be said

with becoming reverence and respect; remember that if we ask the

Almighty to give heed to our words, we should at least give heed

to what we mean to say.

It does not much matter that a girl should learn her religion young,

but it does matter that she should learn it thoroughly, and still

more that she should learn to love it. If you make religion a

burden to her, if you always speak of God's anger, if in the name

of religion you impose all sorts of disagreeable duties, duties

which she never sees you perform, what can she suppose but that

to learn one's catechism and to say one's prayers is only the duty

of a little girl, and she will long to be grown-up to escape, like

you, from these duties. Example! Example! Without it you will never

succeed in teaching children anything.

When you explain the Articles of Faith let it be by direct teaching,

not by question and answer. Children should only answer what they

think, not what has been drilled into them. All the answers in the

catechism are the wrong way about; it is the scholar who instructs

the teacher; in the child's mouth they are a downright lie, since

they explain what he does not understand, and affirm what he cannot

believe. Find me, if you can, an intelligent man who could honestly

say his catechism. The first question I find in our catechism is as

follows: "Who created you and brought you into the world?" To which

the girl, who thinks it was her mother, replies without hesitation,

"It was God." All she knows is that she is asked a question which

she only half understands and she gives an answer she does not

understand at all.

I wish some one who really understands the development of children's

minds would write a catechism for them. It might be the most useful

book ever written, and, in my opinion, it would do its author no

little honour. This at least is certain--if it were a good book it

would be very unlike our catechisms.

Such a catechism will not be satisfactory unless the child can

answer the questions of its own accord without having to learn the

answers; indeed the child will often ask the questions itself. An

example is required to make my meaning plain and I feel how ill

equipped I am to furnish such an example. I will try to give some

sort of outline of my meaning.

To get to the first question in our catechism I suppose we must

begin somewhat after the following fashion.

NURSE: Do you remember when your mother was a little girl?

CHILD: No, nurse.

NURSE: Why not, when you have such a good memory?

CHILD: I was not alive.

NURSE: Then you were not always alive!

CHILD: No.

NURSE: Will you live for ever!

CHILD: Yes.

NURSE: Are you young or old?

CHILD: I am young.

NURSE: Is your grandmamma old or young?

CHILD: She is old.

NURSE: Was she ever young?

CHILD: Yes.

NURSE: Why is she not young now?

CHILD: She has grown old.

NURSE: Will you grow old too?

CHILD: I don't know.

NURSE: Where are your last year's frocks?

CHILD: They have been unpicked.

NURSE: Why!

CHILD: Because they were too small for me.

NURSE: Why were they too small?

CHILD: I have grown bigger.

NURSE: Will you grow any more!

CHILD: Oh, yes.

NURSE: And what becomes of big girls?

CHILD: They grow into women.

NURSE: And what becomes of women!

CHILD: They are mothers.

NURSE: And what becomes of mothers?

CHILD: They grow old.

NURSE: Will you grow old?

CHILD: When I am a mother.

NURSE: And what becomes of old people?

CHILD: I don't know.

NURSE: What became of your grandfather?

CHILD: He died. [Footnote: The child will say this because she has

heard it said; but you must make sure she knows what death is, for

the idea is not so simple and within the child's grasp as people

think. In that little poem "Abel" you will find an example of the way

to teach them. This charming work breathes a delightful simplicity

with which one should feed one's own mind so as to talk with

children.]

NURSE: Why did he die?

CHILD: Because he was so old.

NURSE: What becomes of old people!

CHILD: They die.

NURSE: And when you are old----?

CHILD: Oh nurse! I don't want to die!

NURSE: My dear, no one wants to die, and everybody dies.

CHILD: Why, will mamma die too!

NURSE: Yes, like everybody else. Women grow old as well as men,

and old age ends in death.

CHILD: What must I do to grow old very, very slowly?

NURSE: Be good while you are little.

CHILD: I will always be good, nurse.

NURSE: So much the better. But do you suppose you will live for

ever?

CHILD: When I am very, very old----

NURSE: Well?

CHILD: When we are so very old you say we must die?

NURSE: You must die some day.

CHILD: Oh dear! I suppose I must.

NURSE: Who lived before you?

CHILD: My father and mother.

NURSE: And before them?

CHILD: Their father and mother.

NURSE: Who will live after you?

CHILD: My children.

NURSE: Who will live after them?

CHILD: Their children.

In this way, by concrete examples, you will find a beginning and end

for the human race like everything else--that is to say, a father

and mother who never had a father and mother, and children who will

never have children of their own.

It is only after a long course of similar questions that we are

ready for the first question in the catechism; then alone can we

put the question and the child may be able to understand it. But

what a gap there is between the first and the second question which

is concerned with the definitions of the divine nature. When will

this chasm be bridged? "God is a spirit." "And what is a spirit?"

Shall I start the child upon this difficult question of metaphysics

which grown men find so hard to understand? These are no questions

for a little girl to answer; if she asks them, it is as much or more

than we can expect. In that case I should tell her quite simply,

"You ask me what God is; it is not easy to say; we can neither

hear nor see nor handle God; we can only know Him by His works. To

learn what He is, you must wait till you know what He has done."

If our dogmas are all equally true, they are not equally important.

It makes little difference to the glory of God that we should perceive

it everywhere, but it does make a difference to human society, and

to every member of that society, that a man should know and do the

duties which are laid upon him by the law of God, his duty to his

neighbour and to himself. This is what we should always be teaching

one another, and it is this which fathers and mothers are specially

bound to teach their little ones. Whether a virgin became the mother

of her Creator, whether she gave birth to God, or merely to a man

into whom God has entered, whether the Father and the Son are of

the same substance or of like substance only, whether the Spirit

proceeded from one or both of these who are but one, or from both

together, however important these questions may seem, I cannot

see that it is any more necessary for the human race to come to a

decision with regard to them than to know what day to keep Easter,

or whether we should tell our beads, fast, and refuse to eat meat,

speak Latin or French in church, adorn the walls with statues,

hear or say mass, and have no wife of our own. Let each think as

he pleases; I cannot see that it matters to any one but himself;

for my own part it is no concern of mine. But what does concern my

fellow-creatures and myself alike is to know that there is indeed

a judge of human fate, that we are all His children, that He bids

us all be just, He bids us love one another, He bids us be kindly

and merciful, He bids us keep our word with all men, even with our

own enemies and His; we must know that the apparent happiness of

this world is naught; that there is another life to come, in which

this Supreme Being will be the rewarder of the just and the judge

of the unjust. Children need to be taught these doctrines and others

like them and all citizens require to be persuaded of their truth.

Whoever sets his face against these doctrines is indeed guilty; he

is the disturber of the peace, the enemy of society. Whoever goes

beyond these doctrines and seeks to make us the slaves of his private

opinions, reaches the same goal by another way; to establish his

own kind of order he disturbs the peace; in his rash pride he makes

himself the interpreter of the Divine, and in His name demands the

homage and the reverence of mankind; so far as may be, he sets himself

in God's place; he should receive the punishment of sacrilege if

he is not punished for his intolerance.

Give no heed, therefore, to all those mysterious doctrines which

are words without ideas for us, all those strange teachings, the

study of which is too often offered as a substitute for virtue, a

study which more often makes men mad rather than good. Keep your

children ever within the little circle of dogmas which are related

to morality. Convince them that the only useful learning is that which

teaches us to act rightly. Do not make your daughters theologians

and casuists; only teach them such things of heaven as conduce

to human goodness; train them to feel that they are always in the

presence of God, who sees their thoughts and deeds, their virtue

and their pleasures; teach them to do good without ostentation and

because they love it, to suffer evil without a murmur, because God

will reward them; in a word to be all their life long what they

will be glad to have been when they appear in His presence. This

is true religion; this alone is incapable of abuse, impiety, or

fanaticism. Let those who will, teach a religion more sublime,

but this is the only religion I know.

Moreover, it is as well to observe that, until the age when the

reason becomes enlightened, when growing emotion gives a voice to

conscience, what is wrong for young people is what those about have

decided to be wrong. What they are told to do is good; what they

are forbidden to do is bad; that is all they ought to know: this

shows how important it is for girls, even more than for boys,

that the right people should be chosen to be with them and to have

authority over them. At last there comes a time when they begin to

judge things for themselves, and that is the time to change your

method of education.

Perhaps I have said too much already. To what shall we reduce the

education of our women if we give them no law but that of conventional

prejudice? Let us not degrade so far the set which rules over us,

and which does us honour when we have not made it vile. For all

mankind there is a law anterior to that of public opinion. All other

laws should bend before the inflexible control of this law; it is

the judge of public opinion, and only in so far as the esteem of

men is in accordance with this law has it any claim on our obedience.

This law is our individual conscience. I will not repeat what has

been said already; it is enough to point out that if these two

laws clash, the education of women will always be imperfect. Right

feeling without respect for public opinion will not give them that

delicacy of soul which lends to right conduct the charm of social

approval; while respect for public opinion without right feeling

will only make false and wicked women who put appearances in the

place of virtue.

It is, therefore, important to cultivate a faculty which serves

as judge between the two guides, which does not permit conscience

to go astray and corrects the errors of prejudice. That faculty

is reason. But what a crowd of questions arise at this word. Are

women capable of solid reason; should they cultivate it, can they

cultivate it successfully? Is this culture useful in relation to the

functions laid upon them? Is it compatible with becoming simplicity?

The different ways of envisaging and answering these questions lead

to two extremes; some would have us keep women indoors sewing and

spinning with their maids; thus they make them nothing more than

the chief servant of their master. Others, not content to secure

their rights, lead them to usurp ours; for to make woman our superior

in all the qualities proper to her sex, and to make her our equal

in all the rest, what is this but to transfer to the woman the

superiority which nature has given to her husband? The reason which

teaches a man his duties is not very complex; the reason which

teaches a woman hers is even simpler. The obedience and fidelity

which she owes to her husband, the tenderness and care due to her

children, are such natural and self-evident consequences of her

position that she cannot honestly refuse her consent to the inner

voice which is her guide, nor fail to discern her duty in her

natural inclination.

I would not altogether blame those who would restrict a woman to

the labours of her sex and would leave her in profound ignorance

of everything else; but that would require a standard of morality

at once very simple and very healthy, or a life withdrawn from the

world. In great towns, among immoral men, such a woman would be

too easily led astray; her virtue would too often be at the mercy

of circumstances; in this age of philosophy, virtue must be able

to resist temptation; she must know beforehand what she may hear

and what she should think of it.

Moreover, in submission to man's judgment she should deserve his

esteem; above all she should obtain the esteem of her husband;

she should not only make him love her person, she should make him

approve her conduct; she should justify his choice before the world,

and do honour to her husband through the honour given to the wife.

But how can she set about this task if she is ignorant of our

institutions, our customs, our notions of propriety, if she knows

nothing of the source of man's judgment, nor the passions by which

it is swayed! Since she depends both on her own conscience and

on public opinion, she must learn to know and reconcile these two

laws, and to put her own conscience first only when the two are

opposed to each other. She becomes the judge of her own judges,

she decides when she should obey and when she should refuse her

obedience. She weighs their prejudices before she accepts or rejects

them; she learns to trace them to their source, to foresee what

they will be, and to turn them in her own favour; she is careful

never to give cause for blame if duty allows her to avoid it. This

cannot be properly done without cultivating her mind and reason.

I always come back to my first principle and it supplies the

solution of all my difficulties. I study what is, I seek its cause,

and I discover in the end that what is, is good. I go to houses

where the master and mistress do the honours together. They are

equally well educated, equally polite, equally well equipped with

wit and good taste, both of them are inspired with the same desire

to give their guests a good reception and to send every one away

satisfied. The husband omits no pains to be attentive to every

one; he comes and goes and sees to every one and takes all sorts

of trouble; he is attention itself. The wife remains in her place;

a little circle gathers round her and apparently conceals the rest

of the company from her; yet she sees everything that goes on,

no one goes without a word with her; she has omitted nothing which

might interest anybody, she has said nothing unpleasant to any

one, and without any fuss the least is no more overlooked than

the greatest. Dinner is announced, they take their places; the

man knowing the assembled guests will place them according to his

knowledge; the wife, without previous acquaintance, never makes

a mistake; their looks and bearing have already shown her what is

wanted and every one will find himself where he wishes to be. I

do not assert that the servants forget no one. The master of the

house may have omitted no one, but the mistress perceives what you

like and sees that you get it; while she is talking to her neighbour

she has one eye on the other end of the table; she sees who is not

eating because he is not hungry and who is afraid to help himself

because he is clumsy and timid. When the guests leave the table

every one thinks she has had no thought but for him, everybody thinks

she has had no time to eat anything, but she has really eaten more

than anybody.

When the guests are gone, husband and wife tails over the events

of the evening. He relates what was said to him, what was said and

done by those with whom he conversed. If the lady is not always

quite exact in this respect, yet on the other hand she perceived

what was whispered at the other end of the room; she knows what

so-and-so thought, and what was the meaning of this speech or that

gesture; there is scarcely a change of expression for which she

has not an explanation in readiness, and she is almost always right.

The same turn of mind which makes a woman of the world such an

excellent hostess, enables a flirt to excel in the art of amusing

a number of suitors. Coquetry, cleverly carried out, demands an

even finer discernment than courtesy; provided a polite lady is

civil to everybody, she has done fairly well in any case; but the

flirt would soon lose her hold by such clumsy uniformity; if she

tries to be pleasant to all her lovers alike, she will disgust them

all. In ordinary social intercourse the manners adopted towards

everybody are good enough for all; no question is asked as to

private likes or dislikes provided all are alike well received. But

in love, a favour shared with others is an insult. A man of feeling

would rather be singled out for ill-treatment than be caressed with

the crowd, and the worst that can befall him is to be treated like

every one else. So a woman who wants to keep several lovers at

her feet must persuade every one of them that she prefers him, and

she must contrive to do this in the sight of all the rest, each of

whom is equally convinced that he is her favourite.

If you want to see a man in a quandary, place him between two

women with each of whom he has a secret understanding, and see what

a fool he looks. But put a woman in similar circumstances between

two men, and the results will be even more remarkable; you will be

astonished at the skill with which she cheats them both, and makes

them laugh at each other. Now if that woman were to show the same

confidence in both, if she were to be equally familiar with both,

how could they be deceived for a moment? If she treated them alike,

would she not show that they both had the same claims upon her?

Oh, she is far too clever for that; so far from treating them just

alike, she makes a marked difference between them, and she does

it so skilfully that the man she flatters thinks it is affection,

and the man she ill uses think it is spite. So that each of them

believes she is thinking of him, when she is thinking of no one

but herself.

A general desire to please suggests similar measures; people would

be disgusted with a woman's whims if they were not skilfully managed,

and when they are artistically distributed her servants are more

than ever enslaved.

"Usa ogn'arte la donna, onde sia colto

Nella sua rete alcun novello amante;

Ne con tutti, ne sempre un stesso volto

Serba; ma cangia a tempo atto e sembiante."

Tasso, Jerus. Del., c. iv., v. 87.

What is the secret of this art? Is it not the result of a delicate

and continuous observation which shows her what is taking place in

a man's heart, so that she is able to encourage or to check every

hidden impulse? Can this art be acquired? No; it is born with women;

it is common to them all, and men never show it to the same degree.

It is one of the distinctive characters of the sex. Self-possession,

penetration, delicate observation, this is a woman's science; the

skill to make use of it is her chief accomplishment.

This is what is, and we have seen why it is so. It is said that

women are false. They become false. They are really endowed with

skill not duplicity; in the genuine inclinations of their sex they

are not false even when they tell a lie. Why do you consult their

words when it is not their mouths that speak? Consult their eyes,

their colour, their breathing, their timid manner, their slight

resistance, that is the language nature gave them for your answer.

The lips always say "No," and rightly so; but the tone is not

always the same, and that cannot lie. Has not a woman the same needs

as a man, but without the same right to make them known? Her fate

would be too cruel if she had no language in which to express her

legitimate desires except the words which she dare not utter. Must

her modesty condemn her to misery? Does she not require a means

of indicating her inclinations without open expression? What skill

is needed to hide from her lover what she would fain reveal! Is it

not of vital importance that she should learn to touch his heart

without showing that she cares for him? It is a pretty story that

tale of Galatea with her apple and her clumsy flight. What more

is needed? Will she tell the shepherd who pursues her among the

willows that she only flees that he may follow? If she did, it would

be a lie; for she would no longer attract him. The more modest

a woman is, the more art she needs, even with her husband. Yes,

I maintain that coquetry, kept within bounds, becomes modest and

true, and out of it springs a law of right conduct.

One of my opponents has very truly asserted that virtue is one;

you cannot disintegrate it and choose this and reject the other.

If you love virtue, you love it in its entirety, and you close your

heart when you can, and you always close your lips to the feelings

which you ought not to allow. Moral truth is not only what is,

but what is good; what is bad ought not to be, and ought not to be

confessed, especially when that confession produces results which

might have been avoided. If I were tempted to steal, and in confessing

it I tempted another to become my accomplice, the very confession

of my temptation would amount to a yielding to that temptation. Why

do you say that modesty makes women false? Are those who lose their

modesty more sincere than the rest? Not so, they are a thousandfold

more deceitful. This degree of depravity is due to many vices, none

of which is rejected, vices which owe their power to intrigue and

falsehood. [Footnote: I know that women who have openly decided on

a certain course of conduct profess that their lack of concealment

is a virtue in itself, and swear that, with one exception, they are

possessed of all the virtues; but I am sure they never persuaded

any but fools to believe them. When the natural curb is removed

from their sex, what is there left to restrain them? What honour

will they prize when they have rejected the honour of their sex?

Having once given the rein to passion they have no longer any reason

for self-control. "Nec femina, amissa pudicitia, alia abnuerit."

No author ever understood more thoroughly the heart of both sexes

than Tacitus when he wrote those words.]

On the other hand, those who are not utterly shameless, who take no

pride in their faults, who are able to conceal their desires even

from those who inspire them, those who confess their passion most

reluctantly, these are the truest and most sincere, these are they

on whose fidelity you may generally rely.

The only example I know which might be quoted as a recognised exception

to these remarks is Mlle. de L'Enclos; and she was considered a

prodigy. In her scorn for the virtues of women, she practised, so

they say, the virtues of a man. She is praised for her frankness

and uprightness; she was a trustworthy acquaintance and a faithful

friend. To complete the picture of her glory it is said that she

became a man. That may be, but in spite of her high reputation I

should no more desire that man as my friend than as my mistress.

This is not so irrelevant as it seems. I am aware of the tendencies

of our modern philosophy which make a jest of female modesty and

its so-called insincerity; I also perceive that the most certain

result of this philosophy will be to deprive the women of this

century of such shreds of honour as they still possess.

On these grounds I think we may decide in general terms what sort

of education is suited to the female mind, and the objects to which

we should turn its attention in early youth.

As I have already said, the duties of their sex are more easily

recognised than performed. They must learn in the first place

to love those duties by considering the advantages to be derived

from them--that is the only way to make duty easy. Every age and

condition has its own duties. We are quick to see our duty if we

love it. Honour your position as a woman, and in whatever station

of life to which it shall please heaven to call you, you will be

well off. The essential thing is to be what nature has made you;

women are only too ready to be what men would have them.

The search for abstract and speculative truths, for principles and

axioms in science, for all that tends to wide generalisation, is

beyond a woman's grasp; their studies should be thoroughly practical.

It is their business to apply the principles discovered by men, it

is their place to make the observations which lead men to discover

those principles. A woman's thoughts, beyond the range of her immediate

duties, should be directed to the study of men, or the acquirement

of that agreeable learning whose sole end is the formation of taste;

for the works of genius are beyond her reach, and she has neither

the accuracy nor the attention for success in the exact sciences; as

for the physical sciences, to decide the relations between living

creatures and the laws of nature is the task of that sex which

is more active and enterprising, which sees more things, that sex

which is possessed of greater strength and is more accustomed to

the exercise of that strength. Woman, weak as she is and limited

in her range of observation, perceives and judges the forces at

her disposal to supplement her weakness, and those forces are the

passions of man. Her own mechanism is more powerful than ours; she

has many levers which may set the human heart in motion. She must

find a way to make us desire what she cannot achieve unaided and

what she considers necessary or pleasing; therefore she must have

a thorough knowledge of man's mind; not an abstract knowledge of

the mind of man in general, but the mind of those men who are about

her, the mind of those men who have authority over her, either by

law or custom. She must learn to divine their feelings from speech

and action, look and gesture. By her own speech and action, look

and gesture, she must be able to inspire them with the feelings she

desires, without seeming to have any such purpose. The men will

have a better philosophy of the human heart, but she will read

more accurately in the heart of men. Woman should discover, so to

speak, an experimental morality, man should reduce it to a system.

Woman has more wit, man more genius; woman observes, man reasons;

together they provide the clearest light and the profoundest

knowledge which is possible to the unaided human mind; in a word,

the surest knowledge of self and of others of which the human race

is capable. In this way art may constantly tend to the perfection

of the instrument which nature has given us.

The world is woman's book; if she reads it ill, it is either her

own fault or she is blinded by passion. Yet the genuine mother of

a family is no woman of the world, she is almost as much of a recluse

as the nun in her convent. Those who have marriageable daughters

should do what is or ought to be done for those who are entering

the cloisters: they should show them the pleasures they forsake

before they are allowed to renounce them, lest the deceitful picture

of unknown pleasures should creep in to disturb the happiness of

their retreat. In France it is the girls who live in convents and

the wives who flaunt in society. Among the ancients it was quite

otherwise; girls enjoyed, as I have said already, many games and

public festivals; the married women lived in retirement. This was

a more reasonable custom and more conducive to morality. A girl

may be allowed a certain amount of coquetry, and she may be mainly

occupied at amusement. A wife has other responsibilities at home,

and she is no longer on the look-out for a husband; but women

would not appreciate the change, and unluckily it is they who set

the fashion. Mothers, let your daughters be your companions. Give

them good sense and an honest heart, and then conceal from them

nothing that a pure eye may behold. Balls, assemblies, sports, the

theatre itself; everything which viewed amiss delights imprudent

youth may be safely displayed to a healthy mind. The more they

know of these noisy pleasures, the sooner they will cease to desire

them.