The daughters of
laborers and artisans are put through algebra, geometry, trigonometry,
and the higher mathematics, to the entire neglect of that learning which
belongs distinctively to woman. A girl of ten can not keep pace with her
class, if she gives any time to domestic matters; and accordingly she is
excused from them all during the whole term of her education. The boy of
a family, at an early age, is put to a trade, or the labors of a farm;
the father becomes impatient of his support, and requires of him to take
care for himself. Hence an interrupted education--learning coming by
snatches in the winter months or in the intervals of work.
As the result, the young women in some of our country towns are, in
mental culture, much in advance of the males of the same household;
but with this comes a physical delicacy, the result of an exclusive
use of the brain and a neglect of the muscular system, with great
inefficiency in practical domestic duties. The race of strong, hardy,
cheerful girls, that used to grow up in country places, and made the
bright, neat, New-England kitchens of old times--the girls that could
wash, iron, brew, bake, harness a horse and drive him, no less than
braid straw, embroider, draw, paint, and read innumerable books--this
race of women, pride of olden time, is daily lessening; and in their
stead come the fragile, easily-fatigued, languid girls of a modern
age, drilled in book-learning, ignorant of common things.
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