w far the present systems of female education
tend to the great end here mentioned--the truth of which, reflection and
experience combine to prove. Great is the boast of the progress of
education; great would be the indignation excited by a doubt as to the
fact of this progress. "A simple question will express this doubt more
forcibly, and place this subject in a stronger light: 'Are women
qualified to educate men?' If they are not, no available progress has
been made. In the very heart of civilized Europe, are women what they
ought to be? and does not their education prove how little we know the
consequences of neglecting it?"[109] Is it possible to believe, that
upon their training depends the happiness of families--the well-being of
nations? The selfishness, political and social; the forgetfulness of
patriotism; the unregulated tempers and low ambition of the one sex,
testify but too clearly how little has been done by the vaunted
education of the other. For education is useless, or at least neutral,
if it do not bear upon duty, as well as upon cultivation, if it do not
expand the soul, while it enlightens the intellect.

How far expansion of soul, or enlightenment of intellect, is to be
expected from the present systems of female education, we have seen in
effects,--let us now go back to causes.

It is unnecessary to start from the prejudice of ignorance; it is now
universally acknowledged that women have a right to education, and that
they must be educated. We smile with condescending pity at the blinded
state of our respected grandmothers, and thank God that we are not as
they, with a thanksgiving as uncalled for as that of the proud Pharisee.
On abstract ground, their education was better than ours; it was a
preparation for their future duties. It does not affect the question,
that their notion of these duties was entirely confined to the physical
comfort of husbands and children. The defect of the scheme, as has been
argued, was not in rationality, but in comprehensiveness,--a
fundamentally right principle being the basis, it is easy to extend the
application of it indefinitely.

Indiscriminate blame, however, is as invidious as it is useless; if the
fault-finder be not also the fault-mender, the exercise of his powers
is, at best, but a negative benefit. Let us, therefore, enter into a
calm examination of the two principal ramifications, into which
education has insensibly divided itself, as far as the young