men
in the East, women of graceful manners--the Eastern women were often
that--but he had met few educated women. Their women were trained to
please, but they were never educated to be a man's intellectual
companion. No Eastern man ever thought of a companion in a wife. But
stopping thoughtfully for a moment, and seizing one of our idioms in his
hesitating English, he said, "Yet I can't see for the life of me why it
would not be better that she should be."

This was the frank, involuntary utterance of a cultivated man, brought
suddenly, for the first time, as he said, to consider the question of
the education of women, an elemental half of humanity, in the unbiassed,
comprehensive view of the subject that can alone lead to a just
decision. He was an Eastern man, outside of the turmoil and interests of
the discussion. No personal or professional craft lurked unrecognized
behind his conclusions to give them a bias. With him it was a question
of social science, general human happiness and welfare. With us,
however, where it has become a practical question touching domestic,
social, and professional interests, its complications multiply, and it
is exceedingly difficult for the most honest and unselfish occupants of
place or privilege, to look at it without touching, in some of its
intricacies, the question, "Does not space for her to bourgeon," imply
restricting me and mine?

The old Chinese wall of prejudice, surrounding the subject of woman's
education, from which there are so many out-comes, is not broken down
yet. We only learn how strong it is when we come to some new point in
the siege or defence. Sermons that have been preached at learned women,
and jokes perpetrated at their expense, are still issued in modernized
editions, and scare and sting as of yore. It is quite curious to note
how the style changes, but the thought remains the same. Our fathers
planned our earliest educational institutions according to the best they
knew. Our mothers economized and hoarded that they might leave bequests
to colleges and theological schools, where their sons could be educated;
while their daughters picked up such crumbs of knowledge as they could
find. Both wrought their best, according to the light of their day, but
the shadow of their fuller eclipse extends to us. Calvin's requirements
in a wife were with them as weighty to determine woman's status in
society as was his "Five Points in Theology," their creed: "That she be
le