lady she must be shut up
in the house; talked to as though she did not know much; read novels; be
dressed up; go to parties; have suitors; take lessons in music; have a
dancing master; visit the theater; go a term or two to the young ladies'
seminary to practice calisthenics; study Botany without seeing a flower,
Astronomy without looking at a star or planet, Geology without stepping
into the dirt or putting her hand upon a rock; write a half-dozen
compositions on friendship, mother, and home; daub a little in
water-paints; receive a diploma, and then set up for matrimony. This is
female Education--without an object, without ambition, without point or
force, without strength, depth, or breadth. It is simply a little
outside polish. It does not teach how to _think_; it does not develop
mind; it does not confer power; it does not form character; it does not
fix the will, direct the life, establish opinion, deepen sentiment, or
do any thing to make a true woman.

Our young women want a more vigorous, practical, and useful Education,
one that shall develop strength, character and resolution; one that
shall give growth to the mind, power to the will, and efficiency to the
life; one that shall enable any woman to be independent, true to
herself, to entertain and maintain her own opinions, to get her own
living, to mark out her own course in life, to count one in any position
she may choose to occupy, to be all that may belong to a free,
independent, accountable, intelligent creature. They want to be educated
so they will know their own powers, understand their own duties, and
comprehend the value of life too well to waste it on trifles. They want
to be able to _know_ the world in which they move, to take an active
part in all life's duties, to converse intelligently upon all ordinary
subjects, and make a useful figure in the circles in which they move.

Woman's powers are eminently practical. She has a strong judgment, a
rich store of practical good sense, an ample fund of tact, skill,
shrewdness, inventiveness, and management. Women are the best managers
in the world so far as they have had experience and a field of action.
Not one whit behind are they in every department of life to which they
have had access.

Now if our girls were reared to the practical duties of life, trained to
some great and good end, taught to live for something, have some grand
and noble purpose in life, and live to that purpose, how much richer in