INVENTION.
Why woman has invented so few thing. Abundant room for the exercise of
her inventive powers. Hints. Particular need of a reform in cookery.
Appeal to young women on this subject.
Is it not strange, that in a world where have been sought out--time
immemorial--so many inventions, so few should as yet have been
originated by woman?
What have the inventive powers of woman accomplished, even within what
have been usually regarded as her own precincts? Has she invented many
special improvements in the art of house-keeping? Have the labors of
knitting, sewing, making, mending, washing, cooking, &c., been
materially facilitated, or rendered more effective, by her ingenuity?
Has she done much to advance the important art of bread-making towards
perfection?
Why has she not done more? Is genius confined to our sex? Nay, is there
even no common ingenuity out of the range of our own walks? Has not the
young woman, when she begins the world, the same mental faculties, in
number and kind, with the young man? How happens it, then, that the
world is filled with inventions, and so few of them originated by woman?
There is a wide range for improvement in that department of human labor
which has usually been confined to the female sex--especially in the
department of _infant education_. Nor is there any department in which
invention would tell with so much efficiency in the cause of human
happiness, as in that. Let our young women consider this; and let them
resolve on inventing something in their oven particular sphere, which
shall turn to the general account.
When I speak of the appropriate sphere of woman, and of her taxing her
powers of invention there, I would by no means indulge myself in any
narrow or circumscribed views in regard to her field of operation. I
should have no sort of objection to the application of her inventive
powers to the work of facilitating the usual labors of the other
sex--particularly in the departments of agriculture and horticulture.
But I do not perceive any necessity for this. I believe there is work
enough--profitable and philanthropic work, too--to task woman's powers
of invention for many centuries, without her going out of her
appropriate sphere. In the art of cookery especially--which certainly
has a great deal to do with physical education and physical
improvement--there is great room for the exercise of her inventive
powers. This important art is, as yet, entirely in its infancy; and
where any progress has been made, it has been chiefly in a wrong
direction, and under the guidance of wrong principles. Be it yours,
young women, to give this matter a right direction, and to bring it to
bear as efficiently on the happiness of mankind, as it has hitherto on
their slow destruction.