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 # LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.! 
 
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 | UNITSD STATES OF AMERICA. | 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 PROFESSOR O. H. TIFFANY, A. M., 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE OPENING 
 
 PENNSYLVANIA FEMALE COLLEGE, 
 
 HARRISBURG, SEPTEMBER 5, 1853. 
 
 HAMILTON, PRINTER, 75 MARKET ST. HARRISBURG. 
 

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 -4 
 
 ADDRESS. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen : — 
 
 The great objects proposed in the plan of the Pennsyl- 
 vania Female College, have been so ably presented by 
 others, that a brief allusion to them on my part, will 
 suffice. 
 
 Our object is to prepare pupils for the duties of life — 
 not so much to make them learned, as to supply the mate- 
 rial and afford the impetus for self-instruction. The true 
 idea of education is the discipline and developement of the 
 mind, not the mere preparation of the individual for a par- 
 ticular station or special duties. And the design of the 
 officers of this establishment is to train the understanding 
 of their pupils, so that they may be able to survey the 
 field of knowledge for themselves, to comprehend their 
 own capabilities, and keep them in healthy exercise. 
 
 Were this an institution for the education of young men, 
 the propriety of this position would be admitted without 
 argument, but the generality of men, though awaking, 
 are not yet wholly alive to the importance of thus educa- 
 ting females. The idea is still too prevalent, that a super- 
 ficial acquaintance with some branches of knowledge, is 
 all that woman requires, if she add to this the gloss and 
 tinsel of so-called accomplishments. Men who think thus, 
 will speak of a radical difference in the sexes, and of the 
 different spheres and positions they occupy, and because the 
 
4 ADDRESS. 
 
 idea of education I have given is deemed best for the one 
 sex, they pronounce at once its want of adaptation to the 
 other. To meet such objectors, I take the position, that 
 as an intelligent being, woman is not different from man. 
 She has the same faculties, understanding, conscience and 
 will ; admit, if you please, that she has them in less 
 degree ; she still possesses them, and the fact of possession 
 is the ground at once, both of the reason and the duty of 
 exercising them. Why then should her reason be left 
 without nurture or scantily provided with it — her con- 
 science without light — her will without laws ? Will not 
 the admission of these points involve the necessity of de- 
 priving a large majority of the other sex of these advan- 
 tages ? For surely, the mere fact of being a man does 
 not, of necessity, imply the possession of greater powers of 
 conscience, reason and will, than exist in woman. We 
 know, too, that the distinction of sex is only recognized 
 in this world, but education has reference to both worlds ; 
 and we do not believe that God has imposed a permanent 
 and degrading inferiority on the immortal essence of being, 
 merely on account of a temporary physical organization. 
 It is a truth of the deepest import, and involving for 
 woman and for the educators of women, the greatest re- 
 sponsibility — that before and after being maiden, wife or 
 mother, a girl is a human being, and as Richter says : — 
 " Neither motherly nor wifely destination can overbalance 
 or substitute the human, but must become its means and 
 not its end. As the artist while forming his work, does, 
 at the same time form something higher, himself — as above 
 the poet, the painter, the hero, the human being rises lore- 
 eminent — so, in every walk of life, the woman, whether 
 fitting herself for society, or adorning herself to gratify 
 her own eyes or those of others, or discharging the duties 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 of home and household, of wife and mother — still bears 
 with her an endowed human intellect, and is. still fash- 
 ioning for herself an immortal destiny." 
 
 The sphere of action to which her constitution adapts 
 her, necessarily occasions a distinction in the character of 
 her intellectual growth, but to justify the idea of denying 
 her an education, the absence of all developement must 
 be established. The mountaineer differs no less in mental 
 characteristics than in physical from the inhabitant of the 
 plain ; and we should naturally expect those whose duties 
 call them to act in the bold scenes of history, amid the 
 difficulties of the rugged world, to differ from those whose 
 peaceful vocations and domestic cares confine them more 
 to the quiet scenes of loveliness and home. 
 
 But let us inquire into the advantages to be gained by 
 a more liberal policy than has heretofore been pursued, 
 and search for the reasons that justify the establishment of 
 institutions like this. 
 
 I. An enlarged and liberal Education will develope the 
 true sphere of the sex. — Objectors to the liberal education 
 of women, are apt to refer to examples, which, while they 
 prove the natural endowment and great power of the 
 female mind, have, nevertheless, from the periods at which 
 they have appeared, and the circumstances by which they 
 were surrounded, manifested what they term masculine 
 power, and the conclusion is drawn, that education would 
 misex woman and unfit her for her sphere. But the objec- 
 tors forget that these are unusual cases, the result of a 
 forced growth under adverse circumstances, and that the 
 tendency of a generally diffused education by elevating 
 the whole sex, will be to lessen the number of exceptions, 
 already small. But even if the point should be admitted, 
 it surely affords no pretext for the present low state of 
 
(j ADDRESS. 
 
 female education. As Sydney Smith has well said "it 
 there be any good at all in female ignorance, it is surely 
 too much of a good thing that a woman of thirty should 
 be more ignorant than a boy of thirteen." 
 
 I am no advocate for a system which can have even 
 the slightest tendency to withdraw woman from the position 
 Providence has assigned her. I believe it worthy of her 
 highest powers. An educated English woman has well 
 expressed my views upon this point, and the sex of the 
 writer, relieving the subject from any imputation my own 
 language might occasion, is my apology for the length of 
 the quotation. 
 
 "Man," says Mrs. Ellis, "is appointed to hold the reins 
 of government — to make laws — to support systems — to 
 penetrate with patient labor and undeviating perseverance 
 into the mysteries of science, and to work out the great 
 fundamental principles of truth. For such purposes he 
 would be ill-qualified were he diverted from his object by 
 the quickness of his perception of external things, by the 
 ungovernable impulse of his own feelings or by the claims 
 of others upon his regard or sensibility; but woman's 
 sphere being one of feeling rather than of intellect, all 
 her peculiar characteristics are such as essentially qualify 
 her for that station in society she is designed to fill and 
 which she never voluntarily quits without a sacrifice ot 
 good taste, — I might almost say of good principle. Weak 
 Indeed is the reasoning of those who would render her 
 dissatisfied with this allotment, by persuading her that the 
 station which it ought to be her pride to ornament is one 
 too insignificant or degraded for the full exercise of her 
 mental powers. Can that be an unimportant vocation to 
 which peculiarly belong the means of happiness and 
 misery? Can that be a degraded sphere which not only 
 
ADDRESS. 7 
 
 admits of, but requires the full developement of moral 
 feeling? Is it a task too trifling for an intellectual wo- 
 man to watch and guard and stimulate the growth of 
 reason in the infant mind? Is it a sacrifice too small to 
 practice the art of adaptation to all the different characters 
 met with in ordinary life, so as to influence and give a 
 right direction to their tastes and pursuits? Is it a duty 
 too easy, faithfully and constantly to hold up an example 
 of self-government, disinterestedness, and zeal for that 
 which constitutes our highest good — to be nothing or any 
 thing that is not sinful as the necessities of others may 
 require — to wait with patience — to endure with fortitude 
 — to attract by gentleness — to sooth by sympathy judi- 
 ciously applied — to be quick in understanding, prompt in 
 action, and what is perhaps more difficult than all, firm, 
 yet pliable in will, — lastly, through a life of perplexity, 
 trial, and temptation, to maintain the calm dignity of a 
 pure and elevated character, earthly in nothing but its 
 suffering and weakness, refined almost to sublimity in the 
 seraphic ardor of its love, its faith, and its devotion." 
 
 Thus writes a sensible woman from the other side of 
 the Atlantic, and yet, in the growing fancy of our own 
 progressive land, it has become common to prate of Wo- 
 mens' Rights. The very men and women whose grand- 
 mothers were perversely ignorant, and stupidly foolish in 
 their opposition to female education, have become the 
 great advocates of the sex, profess a desire to see them 
 exalted to an equal participation in all the privileges and 
 duties now enjoyed and discharged by men, and with 
 scarcely less absurdity than their ancestors would embroil 
 women in politics, and subject them to the merciless war 
 of contention and dispute. Such persons have no true 
 regard for women's interests, and those misguided females 
 
8 ADDKlfeS. 
 
 who join in their clamor know not what they ask. Start- 
 ing from the fact, that under present circumstances woman 
 is too circumscribed in her opportunities of education, 
 they overleap the true remedy and propose a social disor- 
 ganization as the only resource. They never think that 
 to bring woman from the hallowed precincts of domestic 
 life would be equivalent to tearing down all the venera- 
 tion and high regard which has ever been a protection to 
 her retiring modesty. If it be true, that we all have a 
 higher regard for the other sex than we have for our own; 
 that men seek and prize in woman what they lack them- 
 selves, and women, in turn, admire those qualities in which 
 men excel ; if we seek the society of women and enjoy 
 it the more, because they are not burdened with the ordi- 
 nary cares and duties of our own sex; — if we feel re- 
 freshed by their presence, and invigorated by their purity, 
 and this influence arises from their freedom from the dust 
 with which our own garments are soiled — their seclusion 
 from the turmoil and confusion of the battle-field of life; 
 how can we hope to continue and cultivate this interchange 
 of proper admiration if women fill the stations and pur- 
 sue the vocations of men, and men are made to lose the 
 deferential regard they now willingly pay to woman in 
 the scramble for office, the competition for advancement, 
 and the routine of business engagements? What man would 
 seek a wife among the "politicians" of a bar-room or the 
 wranglers at the polls? Who would take as a companion 
 for life a female jockey ? How soon would the adoption 
 of the platform of Woman's Rights be felt to be the erec- 
 tion of the scaffold for the infliction of Woman' 's Wrongs ! 
 How soon would the usages of society be subverted and 
 the sexes change vocations? Mr. A. must then content 
 himself at home with a dish of scandal and a cup of tea, 
 
ADDRESS. 9 
 
 while his wife attends the ward or district meeting. Mr. 
 B. may hold the delighted children at the open window 
 to watch mamma, as armed cap-a-pie she spurs her charger 
 and brandishes the sword for which she has laid aside the 
 knitting needle. Mrs. C. may deal in stocks, but Mr. C. 
 must darn the stockings ! Gentlemen may then remain 
 at home to receive the calls of their fair friends, and if 
 over-pressed for an answer to an earnest question, flirt 
 their delicate fans with jewelled fingers, and hiding their 
 confusion beneath scented cambric, refer the fair suitor to 
 Mamma. 
 
 These may be regarded as the extreme points towards 
 which the fanaticism of modern reformers is tending. So 
 far as females are engaged in it, and they form but a small 
 minority of the ultra socialists, it exhibits the result of 
 imperfect and misguided training, and manifests the ex- 
 istence of an urgent necessity for enlarged and liberal 
 educational advantages. To oppose these tendencies by 
 argument is useless ; the excitement in which they origi- 
 nate will not admit of calm discussion, and any one who 
 should hazard an objection would immediately be classed 
 with those who fear the loss of prerogatives. How silently 
 and insidiously such sentiments effect a lodgement in a 
 discontented or disappointed mind ; the natural and neces- 
 sary result of ignorance, or carelessness, or pride, is attri- 
 buted to an imperfection in the organization of society, 
 and forthwith the mortified girl becomes a " strong minded 
 American woman" — shortens her skirts and attends pub- 
 lic meetings at the "Tabernacle." 
 
 The only considerable good that can result from "Wo- 
 men's Rights Conventions" would be the recognition of 
 the value of labor as such, and the overthrow of the 
 absurd notion, that the same work done by females is not 
 
TO ADDRESS. 
 
 worth its much as if done by men. The results of labor 
 and not the sex of the laborer form a just element in the 
 determination of value. But this will be lost sio-ht of in 
 the conflict of angry emotions, the bitterness of disap- 
 pointed ambition, and the clamor for extended privilege. 
 The quiet influence of educated women and the just 
 thoughts of true men will silently and speedily accomplish 
 all this more surely than the ranting transcendentalism of 
 the socialists, or the indelicate pretensions of female poli- 
 ticians. 
 
 II. Correct Education will prepare Woman properly to 
 adorn her true position, and to discharge the duties imposed 
 by her constitution. — The influence of Woman in the for- 
 mation of character is not confined to the period in which 
 she may discharge the duties of Mother or Governess, but 
 is felt in the associations of infancy and childhood. 
 
 The relations of children to each other are close and 
 intimate. The sister, who is competent to do so, may 
 wield an important influence in the formation of a brother's 
 habits and character. If she receives such an education 
 as entitles her to his respect, he will often willingly follow 
 her suggestions when the same advice from Parent or 
 Guardian w r oulcl arouse and irritate his proud self-will, 
 because overshadowed with the consciousness of authority. 
 
 But true education will not only enable a sister to soften 
 the manners and improve the morals of her brother, it 
 would afford also a stimulus to his intellect. The natural 
 quickness, which distinguishes the sex, facilitates the 
 acquisition of knowledge, and to keep pace with a sister 
 would require exertion in most boys. 
 
 Similarity of pursuits would draw the children of a 
 family into closer relations and not only add to the strength 
 of influence but prolong the period of its duration, so that 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 11 
 
 the whole life of a man might be moulded, eontroled 
 and modified by the gentle authority of an educated 
 
 sister. 
 
 But the uninteresting character of common conversation 
 shows how defective is the preparation for such duties. 
 Our ordinary schools afford but limited advantages, and 
 the attractions of society do not allow the time to secure 
 even these. The periods of social transition are so rapid 
 that we not only have no boys and girls, but no schools for 
 them. There is but one step from the nursery to the 
 drawing-room, and that is the " Institute for Masters and 
 Misses." 
 
 The girl who to-day wears pin-a-fores, (aprons having 
 long since become obsolete) and cons her task, is to-mor- 
 row the young lady of fashion, devoted to pleasure and 
 doting on sentiment. In the mean time she has " come 
 out." She now takes her place in society and talks flip- 
 pantly to the elderly gentleman, who but yesterday patted 
 her head and gave her sugar plums ; nay, she even fancies 
 that in conversing with her he may have " serious inten- 
 tions," and concludes not to mortify him, by a positive 
 refusal. Such characters are met with in every assembly ; 
 objects for the affected admiration of the ignorant and 
 vain, but moving the pity of those who love them, and 
 the disgust of the indifferent. Sensible young men 
 whom their gaiety may attract for the moment, would 
 shudder at the idea of their sisters becoming such. And 
 it is all a mistake for such persons to suppose, that the at- 
 tentions of gentlemen are a mark of personal admiration 
 or respect ; for these are as often given to the sex as to 
 its representative. 
 
 What pleasure can the conversation of such an one 
 afford ? It can yield no improvement, suggest no thought, 
 
12 ADDRESS. 
 
 quicken no longing lor true greatness, for it is destitute of 
 common sense. 
 
 But this is not the only defect to be remedied There 
 are some whose heads have been so turned by that dan- 
 gerous thing — a little learning — that their whole conver- 
 sation labors under cumulative epithets and technicalities. 
 Such speak ever of " developements of science," "immu- 
 table laws," "stand points of history," "the me and the 
 not me," "doctrines esoteric and exoteric," " longings for 
 faith," "the eternal no," &c, &c. They are devoted to 
 "isms" and "ologies." They jDronounce decisively upon 
 works whose true position and value history is gradually 
 determining, and ascertain and seal the fate of the study 
 of years, by a glance at a title page. They have learned 
 to talk a little French, and a little German, but it would 
 make a Parisian's ears tingle and excite the rage of the 
 country men of Goethe. They can thrum a little on the 
 piano, scream selections from Norma, draw a few hideous 
 outlines, and mix red lines and yellow in worsted, but 
 they have no education. How insipid and yet how com- 
 mon is such society, and what wonder is it that the usages 
 of civilized life distinguish between gatherings of such char- 
 acters, and assemblies of the more matured and culti- 
 vated. 
 
 Men love to hear the simplest language and the gravest 
 truths from women competent to use the one and compre- 
 hend the other. The educated woman needs not to parade 
 the course of instruction pursued at the school she has at- 
 tended, to evince her cultivation ; she need not even indi- 
 rectly allude to mathematics or philosophy to convince 
 you of her attention to them ; but she gives evidence of 
 the completeness of her education, by the correctness, ele- 
 gance and readiness with which she selects or pursues the 
 
ADDRESS. 1 3 
 
 topics of conversation. Old truths acquire a freshness as 
 they fall from her lips, a single suggestion of her bright 
 imagining throws light and beauty over the dullest theme. 
 The grace and elegance which belong naturally to the 
 sex, inhere to sources of thought and forms of expression, 
 and the fable of the girl whose lips dropped pearls and 
 diamonds was only an exaggeration. 
 
 I have known a student to think the toil of hours am- 
 ply repaid, because it enabled him to understand the allu- 
 sions, relish the wit, and comprehend the philosophic sim- 
 plicity of a gifted woman : and I well remember the 
 absorbing interest with which when a lad I listened to 
 the conversation of Miss Martineau, games were laid 
 aside and all the younger portion of the company gather- 
 ed round her as with peculiar grace and fascination she 
 participated in the evening festivities. 
 
 There is nothing so charming as the conversation of a 
 well educated woman. "It is a perpetual feast. Her 
 quick feelings and lively imagination enable her to paint 
 what she has seen and experienced in livelier colors and 
 more glowing language than the reserve of the other sex 
 make it possible for them to employ. There are lights and 
 shades in human things, which would pass altogether un- 
 perceived were they not reflected from the clear pure mir- 
 ror of the female mind. The prose of this monotonous life 
 becomes poetry in her lips, and its dullest scenes are illu- 
 minated by her fancy images and illustrations just as the 
 landscape sparkles in the dew." 
 
 Truth compels the declaration that much of the unhap- 
 piness of married life, arises from circumstances that might 
 be obviated by increasing the number of educated women. 
 The man who is devoted to letters, if he find in his home 
 no other incentive to exertion than the increasing wants 
 
14 ADDRESS. 
 
 of his family, if lie receive from his wife no sympathy in 
 his pursuits, either seeks companionship with men of kin- 
 dred thought, or buries himself in the seclusion of the study. 
 The man of business who can only spare from active labor, 
 the hours of the evening for intellectual culture, if he have 
 to spend them with an uncultivated woman, who finds in 
 books no enjoyment, except as they minister to a diseased 
 imagination or gratify an appetite tor absurd romance or 
 sickly sentiment, naturally seeks excitement in society. 
 The brother who finds his sisters unprepared to enter into 
 his pursuits, having no companionship at home with his 
 restlessness of thought, rejects their society and resorts to 
 the lyceum, or under pretence of so doing, seeks worse 
 society. Now, however beautiful or accomplished such 
 wives or sisters may be, they are in danger of losing the 
 respect of husband or brothers, and with respect, goes 
 love attention — everything. It is only the educated wo- 
 man who can make home what it ought to be, the centre 
 of all affection and all hope, the mainspring of all energy 
 and all enterprise ; she is the genius under whose benign 
 protection, 
 
 " A charm from the skies seems to hallow as there, 
 Which seek, though we may, is not met with elsewhere," 
 
 Accomplishments are esteemed too often as externals to be 
 put on — instead of being regarded as just branches of edu- 
 cation to be drawn out of the mind. And hence the low 
 standard of taste that prevails to so great an extent. If 
 the hand and not the soul draws colours, or embroiders, 
 the result must be meager and common place, and the high 
 and elevating object of culture must be unrealized. It 
 the fingers touch the keys of the musical instrument with- 
 out awaking the harmonies of the soul, it is no wonder 
 that practice is wearisome, and the instrument unopened 
 after marriage. 
 
ADDRESS. 15 
 
 The true idea of education embraces the culture of all 
 the powers of the soul, and, when carried out, makes draw- 
 ing and music ennobling and elevating employments, in- 
 stead of mere instruments of vanity, or means of spend- 
 in j>- time and wasting money. Woman needs culture to 
 possess herself of these ideas and realize their truth. 
 There is a limit to the period when the attractions of mere 
 accomplishment will influence, and the duration of that 
 period is shortened by the character of the education. — 
 The clay will come when personal charms must fade, when 
 beauty will leave the form and grace no longer control 
 the actions, when the attentions these have attracted will 
 decline, when intellectual treasures will be the only re- 
 source. Sad and lonely must the woman be who has no store 
 of knowledge upon which to draw. Dark is the night 
 that sets in about her. But the cultivated mind enjoys a 
 long twilight, and the night comes with stars and beauty. 
 The dignity which is the proper ornament of age, belongs 
 only to the truly educated. Intellectual endowments 
 and cultivation add brilliancy to the beauty of youth, 
 stability to riper years, and smooth the steps of the 
 aged drawing near to the end of lifes pilgrimage ; they 
 kindle the torch of memory and light up the stars of 
 hope. 
 
 Madame Campan when asked by Napoleon " what is 
 necessary that the youth of France be well educated, " 
 replied " Good Mothers ;" and in this brief answer are em- 
 bodied the results of history and experience, whose lessons 
 always accord with sound philosophy. The necessities of 
 life place the care of infancy in the charge of the mother, 
 and the instincts of nature render the duty joyous. How 
 srrong are these instincts. Love manifests itself in no 
 
1G ADDRESS. 
 
 form so pure and so enduring as in the affection of a 
 Mother. It is lavished with the same tenderness upon 
 the deformed and helpless cripple as upon the child of 
 grace and beauty. 
 
 " The only love, which on this teeming earth, 
 Asks no return from Passions wayward birth ; 
 The only love, that, with a touch divine, 
 Displaces from the heart's most secret shriae, 
 The idol self. " 
 
 No misfortune, no degradation can eradicate it. It lives 
 through all things. A mother cannot forget her babe, 
 though she may like to prove, 
 
 " How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is 
 To have a thankless child." 
 
 She still yearns for its love, and would win back its affec- 
 tion. 
 
 But the educated woman only is capable of fully ap- 
 preciating all the demands that flow from this divinely 
 implanted feeling ; she alone can rightly direct the ener- 
 gies of the young intellect, and satisfy the longings of the 
 young heart. 
 
 Few joys can compare with the delight it must afford 
 a mother to impart instruction to her own offspring. 
 When the expanding mind gropes for intelligence as the 
 young vine shoots forth its tendrils, what gladness there 
 must be in the heart of one who is conscious of ability 
 to direct the enquiries of the spirit around which there still 
 linger the recollections of immortality. Next to the joy 
 of Heaven is the thought, that she may guide the young 
 immortal and direct its gaze so truly, that were death to 
 interrupt her labors its flight would still be upward, and 
 its eye still on the sun. And how sad must that Mother 
 
ADDRESS. 17 
 
 be, who, when her child asks bread, must from ignorance 
 or incompetency give it a stone ; or if it ask fish, a ser- 
 pent ; how that stone must weigh upon her memory and 
 that serpent bite into her heart. 
 
 For the proper discharge of these sacred duties, the truly 
 educated mother will seek Divine aid, Her own experi- 
 ence and reflection will teach her, that no subject is so 
 important as religion — none so expanding in its tenden- 
 cies — so ennobling in its influence. Her own life and 
 character if formed upon the purest models will be radiant 
 with piety; her presence will diffuse light as well as know- 
 ledge. Impiety is the offspring of ignorance. Right edu- 
 cation teaches the need of prayer, and as the child kneels 
 by the mother's side and with folded hands repeats "Our 
 Father who art in heaven," a benison from heaven will rest 
 upon them both. The surest pledge of remembrance, the 
 truest bond of love, is cemented in the united prayer of a 
 mother and her child. "Never, never has one forgotten 
 a pure right-educating mother; on the blue mountains of 
 our dim childhood, towards which we ever turn and look 
 back, stand the mothers who marked out to us from thence 
 our life." 
 
 How great, then, is the responsibility which the social 
 position of woman forces upon her. ■ She must prepare the 
 cup for infant lips; but if she carelessly allow poison to 
 mingle with the draught, or in weakness withhold a neces- 
 sary ingredient, she must herself wring out the dregs in 
 bitterness. If she soil the purity of the cherub, or taint 
 with spot of earth its golden plumage, she may rob heaven 
 of its treasure and fill earth with groanings. But if she 
 direct aright the tender growth of childhood, she may in 
 old age be sustained by the ministering of the angel who 
 in infancy nestled in her bosom; or if this be denied her, 
 
hS ADDRESS. 
 
 and she must in sorrow yield up her child to God who> 
 gave it 
 
 " "When that mother meets on high 
 The babe she lost in infancy, 
 Hath she not then for pains and fears, 
 The day of woe — the watchful night; 
 For all her sorrows, all her tears, 
 An overpayment of delight?" 
 
 With a well directed. education a mother may anticipate* 
 even this great joy, for life is but a point in existence, 
 and education begun here is finished only when " tongues - 
 shall cease," and " knowledge be done away." 
 
 III. Such views of Female Education accord with the- 
 teachings and influence of Christianity. — We look in vain--; 
 over the records of antiquity to find traces of the true 
 position of women. Greece with her cultivation did not 
 discover it. Rome, with her practical enlightenment,, 
 never perceived it. The annals of Heathendom contain 
 no page gilded with the acknowledgment of her rights, or 
 lightened with a glimpse of her privileges. In all hea- 
 then lands she is to this day the household drudge, 
 the slave of caprice ; the loom and the wheel are recog- 
 nized as her true position ; to suffer, her true destiny. Min- 
 istering comfort and furnishing happiness, she is never 
 ministered to or her happiness consulted ; torn from her 
 offspring, maternal tenderness never ripens in her bosom.. 
 In none but Christian lands does women mingle freely 
 even with her own sex, nowhere else are her natural in- 
 stincts allowed their true developement. Elsewhere her 
 babe must be cast upon the Ganges, her body burned upon 
 her husband's funeral pyre. Even when intellectual supe- 
 riority displays itself there is no surer barrier from sym- 
 pathy; she is separated from her sex and kindred by 
 more than menastic seclusion. It required a charm more 
 
ADDRESS. 19 
 
 potent than mere intellectual culture to break her bonds, 
 for however romance may gild, or poetry may burnish 
 them, they are but fetters still. 
 
 To break up the deep seated evils of polygamy, to 
 •change the whole structure of society, to give woman 
 ■all that endears, all that ennobles her, required the 
 power that has been found in Christianity, and only 
 in its teachings.. Christ ministered to her, and though 
 rebuked by his disciples, and ridiculed by the world, 
 he received her offerings and granted her requests. She 
 followed him as he went through the world relieving 
 its suffering, healing its sorrows; and learned from his 
 hallowed example and his burning lips, the first lessons 
 of humanity and love. She wept sorrowing "last at 
 his cross," and the breaking dawn of the third morning 
 found her waiting at his tomb. His last expiring voice 
 •committed his aged mother to the care qf his best loved 
 -disciple; and the listening ear of Mary, in the Garden, 
 heard his first words when he rose from the dead. 
 
 Wherever Christianity has spread, there the position of 
 woman has been elevated, her influence been acknow- 
 ledged, and her true position recognized. The false 
 prophet assigned her no place in Paradise ; but Heaven 
 would scarce be home to the christian without a mother's 
 smile. Her influence has extended under the fostering 
 care of Christianity, until it is entwined in every enter- 
 prize of charity and love. Her form is associated with 
 all that ennobles, all that blesses earth. She sanctifies 
 the hearth-stone, ministers to infancy, strengthens the 
 maturity of manhood, and sustains the tottering steps 
 of age ; and the green spot in memory is the hour en- 
 deared by a mother's love and gladdened by a sister's 
 -smile. 
 
20 ADDRESS. 
 
 We demand then, for woman, an education broad in its 
 basis, complete in its details, enduring in its influence ; an 
 education that will qualify her to reform social abuses and 
 fully meet the demands of her position as wife and mother, 
 and which, above all, will prepare her as a human being 
 for the vicisitudes of time and the joys of Eternity. 
 
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