_ they are not.
There should be in every school a master and a mistress. In the first
place, in an infant school, the presence of the man, as of a father in
a family, will insure a far greater degree of respect and attention on
the part of the children. This does not arise from the exercise of any
greater degree of harshness or severity than a mother would be capable
of using; nor is it to be attributed, as some suppose, to the less
frequent presence of the father in the case of many families, but is
rather to be accounted for by an intuitive perception of the greater
firmness and determination of the character of the man. To those who
deny this, I would give as a problem for solution, a case by no means
unfrequent, and which most of my readers will have witnessed,--a
family in which the mother--by no means incurring the charge of
spoiling the child, by sparing the rod--is less heeded, less promptly
obeyed in her commands, than a father who seldom or never makes use of
any such means. The mother scolds, threatens, scourges, and is at last
reluctantly and imperfectly obeyed; the father, either with reference
to his own commands, or seconding those of the mother, _speaks_,
and is instantly regarded. The idea of disputing his authority, or
neglecting or disobeying his laws, never once enters the minds of his
children. Exactly the same is it in an infant school,--the presence of
a man insures attention and gains respect from the children, not only
at first, whilst the novelty of such control might be supposed to
operate, but permanently; as I am sure all who have candidly examined
the schools where two women preside, and those conducted by a man and
a woman, must have seen.

Another objection to the sole government of females (I mean the class
of females who are likely to accept such situations) in these schools,
is, they have not the physical strength, nor, at present, intellectual
powers, sufficient for the task. In saying thus, I trust I shall not
be suspected of wishing to offend my fair countrywomen. That they have
not sufficient physical strength is the intention of nature; that they
are deficient in mental energy is the defect of education. I trust,
therefore, that no offence will be assumed where no blame is attached.
It has been a point much disputed, whether there be really an original
and intrinsic difference in the mental powers of the two sexes, and it
has been of course differently decided by the respective di