ompanion. But a man, "_the_
creature of God's own image!" And was the material for God's image all
worked up in creating Adam? And if so, whose images are the men of
to-day, who can't possibly lay claim to more of the original stock
than mother Eve, who set up existence with an _entire rib_! And what
has it to do with the question of her intellectual equality, that she
was created _afterward_? If precedence in creation gave any advantage
intellectually, the inferior animals may claim superiority of
intellect over both man and woman. It would be quite as sound logic to
maintain, as some do, that, as last in the series which commenced in
nothing (?) and rose by gradations to image God, woman's superiority
to all that preceded her in the creation, is probable.... Again, if
women have less nerves and muscles, the ox and the ass have a great
deal more--while God and angels and disembodied spirits have none at
all; so that nerves and muscles are of no more significance in this
question of the intellectual equality or inequality of the sexes, than
is the beard that grows on a man's face and not on a woman's. And
arguments drawn from such premises always remind us of the profound
logic of a gentleman we once met in a stage coach, and who is now
holding a high office under Government at Washington. He professed to
set great store by whiskers and mustaches--he had none himself--and
gave as a reason why the beard should be tenderly cherished, that "it
was given to man as a badge of his superiority over woman." We were
young and mischievous then, and so we told him, most complacently,
that the ladies would readily concede the point, and give him the full
benefit of his argument and of his beard, since men shared their
"badge of superiority" with goats, monkeys, and many other inferior
animals. Some fifteen years have passed, but we never think of the
honorable gentleman or see his name attached to official reports,
without a laugh.

Miss Barber assumes woman's entire intellectual equality, in claiming
that she "may mould the mind of the future statesman into _whatsoever_
she will--that "through him she _can_ and _will_ make the laws." And
we only regret that she should speak so lightly of "depositing a
little strip of paper in the ballot-box." To us it is a serious thing,
that the depositing of that strip of paper gives and takes the rights,
whose possession is the means of the highest intellectual and moral
culture and enjoyment.