ing roots. It will brace itself to meet the emergencies of its
life. It will nerve its energies to stand its ground. It will gather
vigor from every storm, resolution from every wind, strength from every
defiant bolt from heaven.

So it is with man. Place him on his feet in a hard place, where the suns
of life strike hotly upon him, and the storms blow fiercely, where he
must stand by his own strength or fall, and he will grow into strength
by the very pressure of adverse circumstances. Every blow of his own
will give it strength; every effort of his mind will give it vigor;
every trial of his character will knit firmer its binding fibers. This
is equally true of woman. Her character is formed and her power
developed in a similar way. A woman can no more be a true woman than a
man can be a true man without Employment and self-reliance. I would have
every boy and girl in the whole country taught to make their own living
at some useful Employment; to mark out for themselves a sphere of action
and then fill that sphere; to be useful in some honorable pursuit. I
would not put the boys to trades and professions to make them great and
good, and fold up the girls' hands and lay them away in the drawer or
shut them up in the parlor. I would not make the boys self-reliant and
vigorous by generous Employment, and the girls weak, puny, and dependent
by idleness or folly. I would not give the boys opportunities to develop
their powers and become noble men, and deprive the girls of all these
glorious privileges. I would not open a thousand avenues to distinction,
wealth, and worth to the boys and comparatively none to the girls. I
would not send the boys out into the field of life bravely to earn their
own living, and grow strong in doing it, and the girls out to beg their
living of the boys, and grow weak and worthless in their dependent
beggary. I like the girls too well to have them thus mistreated. I would
give them just as good a chance as the boys have. They should not be
degraded with half-pay, and only two or three ways to get a living, just
because they were made to be women. They should not be shut out from a
thousand avenues of distinction and usefulness, for they are richly
endowed, just because they are made to be women. They should not be made
to feel that it is degrading to be a woman, to feel, as a man expressed
it to me the other day, that "women are such good-for-nothing
creatures." I love noble, "strong-minded," an