es the culture of energy in the Girlhood
of this age. What was once regarded as a sufficient character for a
woman, is not enough now. Women are advancing as well as science,
mechanics, and men. Young women should remember this. Once it was
thought education enough if a woman could read and write a little. Now,
she must know a number of things more. The time is not far distant when
she must be educated as well as man. So it is in relation to character.
Very soon woman must possess energy, self-reliance, force of will and
thought, as well as love, or she will be wanting in the essential
elements of a noble womanhood. The woman and wife will be quite
different at the commencement of the next century from what they were at
the commencement of the last. Do the girls understand this? It must be
so. The edict has gone out and can not be withdrawn. Woman hails it with
joy. She wishes to improve with the advancing age. She would feel sad
and look antiquated if the car of progress left her behind. If a few
women of this age could be mesmerized and kept in the magnetic state
five hundred years, and then unlocked from the somnambulic fetters, how
would they compare with the women of that future age? They would be
women still, but in character as much antiquated as in custom. This is
to be looked for in the very nature of things. We know that woman's
education in the future is to be quite different from what it was in
the past. We know that the improvements in science and mechanics are
making rapid changes in the nature of the labor of life. Women are fast
entering into new fields of labor. Who knows but the sewing, cooking,
washing, and much else that woman now does, will in a great measure be
done by machinery? If so, woman will be left free to employ herself
elsewhere. There must be a change. It will probably be for the better.
The change will require the culture of new powers or forces in the
female character. Woman will rise, not fall. Her character must rise.
The young women ought to know it, and be preparing for it. Is the
Girlhood of to-day a fit preparation for the duties that will devolve
upon the women of the next generation? Parents ought to ask themselves
this question. And all young women should consider it well. The elements
of a true female character should be carefully studied. It would be well
if some strong hand should write out the moral philosophy of Girlhood as
a book for schools and academics as well as familie