shments than to a sub-soiling of discipline--but these colleges
reach comparatively few. There remain the great mass who are devoted to
business and pleasure, and only get such intellectual cultivation as
society gives them or they chance to pick up in current publications. The
young women are the leisure class, consequently--so we hear--the
cultivated class. Taking a certain large proportion of our society, the
women in it toil not, neither do they spin; they do little or no domestic
work; they engage in no productive occupation. They are set apart for a
high and ennobling service--the cultivation of the mind and the rescue of
society from materialism. They are the influence that keeps life elevated
and sweet--are they not? For what other purpose are they set apart in
elegant leisure? And nobly do they climb up to the duties of their
position. They associate together in esoteric, intellectual societies.
Every one is a part of many clubs, the object of which is knowledge and
the broadening of the intellectual horizon. Science, languages,
literature, are their daily food. They can speak in tongues; they can
talk about the solar spectrum; they can interpret Chaucer, criticise
Shakespeare, understand Browning. There is no literature, ancient or
modern, that they do not dig up by the roots and turn over, no history
that they do not drag before the club for final judgment. In every little
village there is this intellectual stir and excitement; why, even in New
York, readings interfere with the german;--['Dances', likely referring to
the productions of the Straus family in Vienna. D.W.]--and Boston! Boston
is no longer divided into wards, but into Browning "sections."

All this is mainly the work of women. The men are sometimes admitted, are
even hired to perform and be encouraged and criticised; that is, men who
are already highly cultivated, or who are in sympathy with the noble
feminization of the age. It is a glorious movement. Its professed object
is to give an intellectual lift to society. And no doubt, unless all
reports are exaggerated, it is making our great leisure class of women
highly intellectual beings. But, encouraging as this prospect is, it
gives us pause. Who are these young women to associate with? with whom
are they to hold high converse? For life is a two-fold affair. And
meantime what is being done for the young men who are expected to share
in the high society of the future? Will not the young women by-an