en. In all the
departments of home, intelligence will add to woman's usefulness and
efficiency. It will give her thought and forethought, enable her to
anticipate and provide for the contingencies of life, suggest
improved methods of management, and give her strength in every way. In
disciplined mental power she will find a stronger and safer protection
against deception and imposture than in mere innocent and unsuspecting
ignorance; in moral and religious culture she will secure sources of
influence more powerful and enduring than in physical attractions; and
in due self-reliance and self-dependence she will discover the truest
sources of domestic comfort and happiness.

But while the mind and character of women ought to be cultivated with
a view to their own wellbeing, they ought not the less to be educated
liberally with a view to the happiness of others. Men themselves cannot
be sound in mind or morals if women be the reverse; and if, as we hold
to be the case, the moral condition of a people mainly depends upon the
education of the home, then the education of women is to be regarded as
a matter of national importance. Not only does the moral character but
the mental strength of man find their best safeguard and support in the
moral purity and mental cultivation of woman; but the more completely
the powers of both are developed, the more harmonious and well-ordered
will society be--the more safe and certain its elevation and
advancement.

When about fifty years since, the first Napoleon said that the great
want of France was mothers, he meant, in other words, that the French
people needed the education of homes, provided over by good, virtuous,
intelligent women. Indeed, the first French Revolution presented one of
the most striking illustrations of the social mischiefs resulting from
a neglect of the purifying influence of women. When that great national
outbreak occurred, society was impenetrated with vice and profligacy.
Morals, religion, virtue, were swamped by sensualism. The character of
woman had become depraved. Conjugal fidelity was disregarded; maternity
was held in reproach; family and home were alike corrupted. Domestic
purity no longer bound society together. France was motherless; the
children broke loose; and the Revolution burst forth, "amidst the yells
and the fierce violence of women." [1120]

But the terrible lesson was disregarded, and again and again France
has grievously suffered from the wa