the more
thoroughly she is convinced of it, the more conscientiously will she
spend all her thought in seeking and using the only means which are then
likely to help her to fulfill her so stated destiny.

But make her feel that she is a responsible being, accountable only to
God and her own rational judgment for her actions; make her appreciate,
as far as it is possible, the responsibility devolving upon her as an
individual, as a member of society, as a citizen, as a reflection of the
Creator in his self-determining Intelligence; give her such a mental
training that she shall feel that she is capable of taking her life in
her own hand, and the dress will take care of itself. I do not mean that
she will adopt the so-called Bloomer costume, but she will let common
sense, suitability, and a higher sense of beauty, more than at present,
regulate her garments.

In other words, if we would reform even so external a matter as dress,
we must ascend to the abstract principles of ethics and metaphysics
which Dr. Clarke so lightly sets on one side; for all dress is only an
index of education, and all education, to be education at all, must
deduce every one of its principles at second hand from ethics and
metaphysics. Again, Huxley and Agassiz may, as Dr. Clarke assumes (page
12), represent physiology; but will "Kant and Calvin, the Church and the
Pope" all four of whom Dr. Clarke assumes to be of no importance in
settling the question--fairly represent ethics and metaphysics? And yet,
if we were limited to these sources for these sciences of sciences,
perhaps we might as well return to Huxley and Agassiz, and allow
physiology to settle the question of woman's sphere for us, on the
ground that she is merely so many material organs carefully contrived
for only one special purpose, and that, the perpetuation of the race.

Just here, before reviewers shall have an opportunity for
misinterpretation, may I pause to guard them against it and to call
their especial attention to the word "_only_," which has been so freely
used above?

Why is it that the criticisms of so many women who see below the
surface, ring with a womanly indignation? They are ready for rational
argument, and for widely collected and digested statistics. One of these
justly says in her criticism, that Dr. Clarke need not to have written
to Germany to be informed of the care which a mother should exercise
over the health of her daughter. That there are mothers in