Initial commitHEADmain

6 files changed, 2277 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d7b82bc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+*.txt text eol=lf
+*.htm text eol=lf
+*.html text eol=lf
+*.md text eol=lf
diff --git a/75350-0.txt b/75350-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3715dad
--- /dev/null
+++ b/75350-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,936 @@
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75350 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+                                  THE
+
+                   EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN.
+
+
+                                   BY
+                          JOSEPHINE E. BUTLER.
+
+
+                               =London:=
+                           MACMILLAN AND CO.
+
+                                 1868.
+
+
+
+
+                               LIVERPOOL:
+                   T. BRAKELL, PRINTER, COOK STREET.
+
+
+
+
+                 THE EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN.
+
+
+The economical position of women is one of those subjects on which there
+exists a “conspiracy of silence.” While most people, perhaps, imagine
+that nearly all women marry and are supported by their husbands, those
+who know better how women live, or die, have rarely anything to say on
+the subject. Such social problems as this are certainly painful; they
+may or may not be insoluble; they must not be ignored.
+
+The phrase “to become a governess” is sometimes used as if it were a
+satisfactory outlet for any unsupported woman above the rank of
+housemaid. When we see advertisements in the newspapers, offering “a
+comfortable home,” with no salary, as a sufficient reward for
+accomplishments of the most varied character, we sometimes wonder at the
+audacity of employers; but when we learn that such an advertisement,
+offering the situation of nursery governess, _unpaid_, was answered by
+_three hundred women_, our surprise has in it something of despair.
+
+The truth is, that the facts of society have changed more rapidly than
+its conventions. Formerly muscles did the business of the world, and the
+weak were protected by the strong; now brains do the business of the
+world, and the weak are protected by law. The industrial disabilities of
+women, unavoidable under the earlier _régime_, have become cruel under
+the later. There is neither the old necessity of shelter, nor the old
+certainty of support.
+
+The census of 1861 gave nearly six millions of adult English women,
+distributed as follows:—
+
+                      Wives             3,488,952
+                      Widows              756,717
+                      Spinsters over 20 1,537,314
+                                        —————————
+                                        5,782,983
+
+The census also gives the numbers of women who work for their own
+subsistence, as follows:—
+
+                Wives                           838,856
+                Widows                          487,575
+                Spinsters (above or under 20) 2,110,318
+                                              —————————
+                                              3,436,749
+
+In the first place, then, it appears that marriage, as a means of
+subsistence (to say nothing of the indecorum of looking forward to it in
+this light) is exceedingly precarious in two ways. The proportion of
+wives to widows and spinsters in 1801 was just about three to two, while
+of these wives themselves nearly one in four was occupied in other than
+domestic duties, either as her husband’s coadjutor, as in farm-houses
+and shops, or, of necessity, as his substitute in cases of his
+desertion, or helplessness, or vice. In the second place, the number of
+widows and spinsters supporting themselves, which in 1851 was two
+millions, had increased in 1861 to more than two millions and a half.
+The rapidity of the increase of this class is painfully significant. Two
+and a half millions of Englishwomen without husbands, and working for
+their own subsistence! This is not an accident, it is a new order of
+things. Of the three and a half millions of women—wives, widows, and
+spinsters—engaged in other than domestic occupations, it is probable
+that scarcely a thousand make, without capital, and by their own
+exertions, one hundred pounds a year. The best paid are housekeepers in
+large establishments, a few finishing governesses, and professed cooks.
+43,964 women are returned as outdoor agricultural labourers—a fact
+worthy of remembrance when it is said that women are too weak to serve
+in haberdashers’ shops. Women, refused admission to such shops on the
+pretext that they are not strong enough to lift bales of goods, have
+been afterwards traced to the occupations of dock porters and
+coal-heavers. In practice the employments of women are not determined by
+their lightness, but by their low pay. One newspaper still scoffs at the
+desire of women to be self-supporting: but starvation is a sufficient
+answer to sneers. As a favourable symptom of the last few years, I may
+add that 1822 women are returned as employed by the Post-office. 213
+women are returned as telegraph-clerks. It is instructive to note the
+way in which the salary of these women telegraph-clerks has fallen. When
+the telegraph companies were first formed, the pay of a female clerk was
+eight shillings a week, to be increased by a shilling yearly, until it
+reached fourteen shillings a week. So great, however, has been the
+competition of women for these situations, that the pay has been reduced
+to five shillings a week, a sum on which a woman can scarcely live
+unassisted. In France the women telegraph-clerks have met with a worse
+fate. The government took the management of the telegraphs, and
+dismissed the women, because they had no votes to bestow on the
+government candidates. The exclusion of women from the suffrage has been
+called a harmless injustice; but there is no injustice which is not
+liable to become an injury.
+
+At present the principal employments open to women are teaching,
+domestic service, and sewing. I come to consider the remuneration of the
+highest profession open to women.
+
+In 1801 there were 80,017 female teachers in England, of whom the
+majority were governesses in private families. It is difficult to
+ascertain the average salary of governesses, because the Governesses’
+Institutions in London and Manchester, which are the chief sources of
+information on the subject, refuse to register the applications of
+governesses who accept salaries of less than £25 a year. The number of
+this lowest class may be guessed from the fact that for a situation as
+nursery governess, with a salary of £20 a year, advertised in a
+newspaper, there were five hundred applicants; as I have already stated,
+three hundred applied for a similar place with no salary at all. To
+return to the higher class. The register of the last six months at the
+Manchester Governesses’ Institution shows an entry of—
+
+        54 governesses who asked for £30  and under,  per annum.
+        20      „       „      „      40      „           „
+        19      „       „      „      50      „           „
+        17      „       „      „      60      „           „
+        10      „       „      „      70      and upwards.
+
+These sums, it must be remembered, are expressions of what governesses
+wish to receive.[1] Taking nursery governesses into the account, and
+remembering that the above statistics refer only to the higher ranks of
+the profession, it is probably not too much to say, that from 0 to £50 a
+year is the salary of nine governesses in ten. Situations offering more
+than £50 are the prizes of the profession, but are generally such as to
+compel a serious outlay on dress and personal expenditure. It is
+difficult to imagine how the majority of governesses manage to scramble
+through life, when we remember that their position involves several
+journeys in the year, that they must sometimes provide for themselves
+during holiday seasons, and that they must always dress as ladies.
+Miserable must be their means of providing for old age or sickness, to
+say nothing of claims of affection or of charity throughout life, or the
+means required for self-culture.[2]
+
+Probably there are few portions of society in which more of silent
+suffering and misery is endured than among female teachers, and in the
+class which supplies them. Charitable people who have opened little
+“Homes” for decayed governesses can tell histories of struggling lives
+and crushed hopes which it saddens one to hear. The reports of Bethlehem
+Hospital and other lunatic asylums prove that not a few poor governesses
+find their way thither. Some are found in Penitentiaries among the
+fallen. Inquiry shows that insufficient food while out of situations,
+added to the mental trials of an unloved and isolated being, have driven
+some of these governesses to opium or to strong drink, until, penniless
+and degraded, they have sought a refuge among penitents where there was
+nothing to pay. “Her funds are exhausted, and she earnestly seeks a
+re-engagement;” words such as these, taken from an advertisement in the
+_Times_, headed—“To the benevolent,” are no unfrequent symptom of a deep
+and wide distress. Some determined women there are who have devoted to
+self-culture as much of their pittance as could be spared from the
+barest needs of life, and of whom it is known that, night after night
+when they went to bed, they have tied a band round their waist to keep
+down the gnawings of hunger. One such I know who has risen by her force
+of character to almost as high a place as it is at present possible for
+a _woman_ to occupy in the educational world, but who is not yet free
+from sufferings entailed by years of mental anxiety and bodily
+privations. An insufficiency of the necessaries of life is not the
+bitterest complaint of many of these sufferers, who by their lives
+protest that man does not live by bread alone. “Worse than bodily
+privations or pains” (I quote the words of one of them) “are these
+_aches and pangs of ignorance_, this unquenched thirst for knowledge,
+these unassisted and disappointed efforts to obtain it, this sight of
+bread enough and to spare, but locked away from _us_, this depressing
+sense of a miserable waste of powers bestowed on us by God, and which we
+know we could have used for the lessening of evil and the increase of
+the happiness of our fellow-creatures.”
+
+The desire for education which is widely felt by English women, and
+which has begun to find its expression in many practical ways, is a
+desire which springs from no conceit of cleverness, from no ambition of
+the prizes of intellectual success, as is sometimes falsely imagined,
+but from the conviction that for many women to get knowledge is the only
+way to get bread, and still more from that instinctive craving for light
+which in many is stronger than the craving for bread. “Amongst the
+wealthier classes,”—I give the words of one who has much knowledge of
+that of which she speaks—“women are better provided for materially,
+though even here they are often left to the mercy of the chances of
+life, indulged and petted whilst fortune smiles, left helpless to face
+the storm of adverse circumstances; but here, more often than elsewhere,
+one meets with those sad, dreary lives, that have always seemed to me
+amongst the worst permitted evils of earth,—
+
+                           ‘A wall so blank
+                           My shadow I thank
+                     For sometimes falling there’—
+
+is true of many a life. Even sharp misfortune is sometimes a blessing in
+a life of this sort; something to do, and leave to do it. I do not say
+that any possible education, any freedom of career, any high training of
+faculty, would spare _all_ this waste; some part of it is of that sad
+mystery of life which we cannot explain, and for the unveiling of which
+we can only wait and pray. But I am quite sure that much of it is
+altogether needless, and comes from the shutting up in artificial
+channels of those good gifts of God which were meant to flow forth
+freely and bless the world. If I could only tell, as I have felt it in
+my own life, and in the lives of other women whom I have loved, how
+wearily one strains the eyes for light, which often comes not at all!
+
+“God knows it all, and if men do not know it, it is because they have
+been, I will not say they are, cruelly and criminally thoughtless. I
+wish some of those men who talk as if they imagined our life a
+delightful one, could but be women for one little year, and could feel
+the dreariness I speak of, feel too the intense longing to be up and
+doing, helping in the world’s work which is God’s work, and know the
+depressing effect of that inaptitude, which is the want, not of capacity
+or of faculty, but of training. The serious work of life needs all the
+help that women as well as men can bring to it, and for helpfulness
+something more than goodwill is needed. Always have my own ignorance and
+helplessness been the hindrances to that for which I would have freely
+given my life; and I know that other women feel in just the same way: I
+have heard and known too much of thoughtful women not to be sure of
+this. Confessions of this kind, the simplest and frankest confessions of
+ignorance, and of why that ignorance is painful, have been made to me
+many a time by women whom the world pleases to think clever, but who are
+too true-hearted to believe the world.
+
+“It is not as luxury that we crave knowledge, but as bread of life for
+ourselves and others. We want it that we may distribute it to others,
+with helpful hands and words of blessing. We want it as the lever by
+which we may help to raise the world. If we thought only of gratifying
+vanity, there are easier and shorter ways to that end. Whilst men are a
+little too apt to depreciate the intelligence of women as a class, they
+are apt to over-rate the intelligence of individual women whom they may
+happen to know and esteem. Many a woman is credited with power merely
+because she has never been brought to the test of performance.”
+
+For the amelioration of the condition of female teachers two things are
+necessary: the first is to raise the intellectual status of qualified
+teachers, and to accord a juster social recognition to their profession;
+the second is, to find other occupations for those who are unfit to
+teach, and only take to teaching because they can do nothing else.
+
+The first of these objects will be materially advanced—
+
+1st—By the establishment of places for a higher education than schools
+can offer, such as the projected College for women. Mr. Bryce, in his
+interesting “Report on Schools in Lancashire,” says, “The teachers
+cannot be greatly blamed for this” (i.e. inefficient teaching), “since
+it is the result of the inadequate provision now made in this country
+for the instruction of women. Conceive what schoolmasters would be, if
+there were in England no Universities, or any foundation schools either
+of the higher or the lower grade, and if the private schools, by which
+alone education would then be supplied, were to lose the reflex
+influence and the stimulating rivalry of these public institutions. This
+is exactly what the state of the teachers of girls is now.”
+
+2ndly—By the accordance of University certificates to women, provided
+always that these University certificates possess intrinsic value,
+declare a due amount of knowledge and of capacity to teach, and are
+given “with scrupulous care to none but deserving persons.”
+
+Governesses would, I hope, not be the only women who would avail
+themselves of these privileges. Everything is good which tends to break
+down the line of social demarcation which still, to a great extent,
+separates governesses from other ladies, as once it separated
+schoolmasters from other gentlemen; and it is greatly to be desired that
+women with a real talent for teaching, whatever their social position,
+should actually teach for a few years, and raise the profession of
+governesses, as the profession of schoolmasters has been raised, by an
+infusion of disinterested zeal and the energy of a voluntary choice.
+
+Any effort in the cause of governesses is important, not only as it
+affects individuals at this moment engaged in the profession, but still
+more in its bearing upon the future of all English girls and women,
+through the prospect which it holds out of an improved education for the
+daughters of the middle classes, who, more and more, will have to
+maintain themselves. And if we think how much honour and dignity ought
+to attach to the office of a teacher (rightly understood) we should,
+from the highest motives, be anxious to raise the character and social
+standing of those who seek that office. For this question of woman’s
+education is far from being one of intellectual progress merely; it is a
+question of deep moral import, and enters far into the heart of society,
+affecting the best interests of men as well as those of women. Mr.
+Francis Newman says, “the increased influence of women” (through
+education chiefly) “will keep in check the liquor traffic, and other
+abominations which men too readily excuse.” The connection of this
+question of woman’s education with some of the most grievous of social
+problems is closer than might be supposed. De Tocqueville asked an
+American gentleman why open immorality, such as England has to shew, was
+so rare in New England: the answer was, “because of the greater respect
+which men have for women, the women who are their equals in society.” It
+will not be for themselves alone that enlightened and educated women
+will demand respect; they will claim it also for poor women, whom it is
+too often deemed a light matter to injure in the worst way, and even for
+the fallen, who through the voice of their happier sisters shall yet
+demand, not only compassion, but the respect due to every human being,
+however clouded with misery and sin.
+
+When, on the other hand, we consider the best means of relieving the
+profession of Governesses by drafting its incompetent members into other
+occupations, the whole question of the employment of women rises before
+us, a painful and even a terrible problem. Three principal obstacles
+stand in the way of such an enlargement of woman’s opportunities. These
+are—
+
+  (1.) Prejudice of employers and of the public.
+
+  (2.) Combinations among workmen to exclude women from their trades.
+
+  (3.) Defective education and training of the women themselves.
+
+I will consider these in order—
+
+(1.) Prejudice is slowly dying out, but indifference remains. Educated
+men who can help, who _would_ help if they knew the need, have not yet
+learnt that need. I do not blame them with any bitterness. There has
+been enough already of bitterness on the one side and of levity on the
+other. But an acknowledgment of past error lies at the base of every
+true reform. Let that be acknowledged here, which every thoughtful
+observer must see, that through all ages of the world’s history the more
+powerful sex have been liable to use their power carelessly, not for
+protection only, but for pain. So comes it that at this day just and
+chivalrous men find themselves, (as Lord Palmerston said of the Emperor
+of Russia), “born to a heritage of wrong and oppression.” They cannot,
+if they would, at once alter the structure of the society around them.
+But even of these just men I complain that they _do not see_. If they
+saw, they would act; and ought they not to see? Our best men too often
+know nothing of the lives of any women except those with whom they are
+immediately connected, and whom they guard in comfort and ease. They do
+not think of those who sit in cold and want outside. Many a
+tender-hearted but not large-hearted man, on hearing some hint of
+hardships among women outside his own circle, thanks God that _his_ dear
+wife or daughter is exempted from them, and so dismisses the subject.
+When once such men are brought to see and to feel, we invariably find
+them _more_ indignant than women themselves, who are well schooled in
+patience. Much of this misery is strange and unknown to men, and was
+certainly never designed by them. The old social order has changed,
+giving place to the new, but women have fallen out of line with the
+onward movement, fettered by their own cowardice and the careless
+selfishness of men. Custom and use press heavily on women, they endure
+long before they dare to think whether the system under which they
+suffer is a right or a wrong one, whether their burdens be removable or
+no,—whether, in short, they have fallen into the hands of God or man.
+Even when they are fully persuaded that their burdens are removable,
+they have no voice to raise. They are unrepresented, and the interests
+of the unrepresented always tend to be overlooked.
+
+(2.) The exclusion of women from trades is in most cases notoriously
+based upon a coarse selfishness. Take the instance of the china painters
+at Worcester. “It appears that both men and women are employed in this
+art, but that the women having excited the jealousy of the men by
+surpassing them in skilful execution, and consequently earning better
+wages, were by them forcibly deprived of the maulsticks on which it is
+necessary to rest the wrist while painting. Thus the women are at once
+rendered incapable of any fine work, and can only be employed in the
+coarser kinds of painting. The masters submit to this tyranny, though to
+their own disadvantage, being probably afraid of a strike or riot if
+they resist, and the women are forced to yield from the fear of personal
+violence from their less skilful but heavier-fisted rivals. This story
+appeared in the _Edinburgh Review_ for 1859, and it is surprising that
+it did not excite more general indignation.” The conduct of the
+Apothecaries’ Company is worse than that of the china painters, inasmuch
+as doctors have not the excuse of indigence to justify their
+exclusiveness. The _Daily News_, in a recent article, concludes an
+account of some of the proceedings of that body with these words:—“We
+recommend these facts to the good people who think that coercion,
+restriction, and the tyranny of combination are peculiar to any one
+class of society. It will be a great day in England when the right of
+every individual to make the most of the ability which God has given
+him, free from interested interference, is recognised, and to that goal
+we are surely advancing; but our progress is slow, and it is very clear
+that it is not only in the lower ranks of the community that the
+obstructive trades’ union spirit is energetically operating.”
+
+The chivalry, or the justice of educated men could scarcely be brought
+to bear upon a subject where chivalry and justice are needed more. In
+this matter, of the bad effects of trades’ unions, much may be hoped for
+from the known character of working men themselves, as a class. They are
+not wanting in justice, in tenderness of heart, and in a shrewd
+perception of right and wrong when they are placed before them: but they
+need enlightenment and instruction,—and they wait for it,—from those who
+are their superiors in education and trained intelligence. Untold good
+might be done, and much future misery averted, if those among our
+leading men who have the ear and the confidence of working men would
+(themselves first instructed) bring before them fairly and patiently,
+such subjects as these. Economics lie at the very root of practical
+morality, and it is to be hoped that men of influence, and genius, and
+experience of life, will address themselves gravely to the task of
+instructing the working classes on this most grave subject.
+
+The common objection brought before the Society for promoting the
+Employment of Women, is that a risk would be thus incurred of decreasing
+the employment of men. Now, in the first place, this is by no means
+certain. No one proposes to interfere with the men at present working at
+any trade; but while the demand for young men at high wages in the
+colonies continues practically unlimited, it may be questioned whether
+the admission to a sedentary employment at home is not a pitfall as
+often as an advantage. Many a young man would be healthier and happier
+at some manly trade in Canada or Australia, than in standing behind an
+English counter or plaiting straw. To take only the trades connected
+with women’s dress and such matters, the census of 1861 gives the
+following numbers of _men_ employed in trades, some of which would seem
+as distinctly appropriate to the one sex, as soldiering and sailoring to
+the other.
+
+                                                    Males.
+             [3]Mercers, Drapers, and Linen Drapers 45,660
+             Hair Dressers and Wig Makers           10,652
+             Haberdashers and Hosiers                4,327
+             Straw Hat and Bonnet Makers             1,687
+             Washermen and Laundry Keepers           1,165
+             Stay and Corset Makers                    884
+             Milliners and Dress Makers                803
+             Artificial Flower Makers                  761
+             Berlin Wool Dealers                        63
+             Artists in Hair—Hair Workers               42
+             Baby Linen Makers                          13
+                                                    ——————
+                                                    66,057
+
+Disabilities of sex are parallel to disabilities of creed, and the
+economical results are likely to be the same. Silk weaving was driven
+_into_ England by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and I believe
+that now several light trades are being driven _out of_ England by the
+industrial proscription of women. “But supposing,” says Miss Boucherett,
+“that the competition for employment were so great that whatever was
+added to the prosperity of one sex must be deducted from that of the
+other, is it just that the whole of the suffering thus caused should be
+laid upon the weaker half of humanity? How great a contrast is there
+between the spirit of Christianity, and the course of conduct too
+frequently pursued in this our country!”
+
+“Be just before you are chivalrous,” many a woman is tempted to exclaim,
+when she finds every door through which she might pass to a subsistence,
+closed in her face with expressions of deference. Signs have not been
+wanting which have justified the saying “that a selfish disregard of the
+interests of women, and indifference to their sufferings, is the great
+national sin of England,—and all national sins, if unrepented, meet with
+their punishment sooner or later.”
+
+(3.) The defective training of the women themselves is the most serious
+of all the hindrances which I have been considering. Here it is that the
+vicious circle returns upon itself. These women cannot teach, because
+they are so ill educated, and again, they are so ill educated that they
+can do nothing _but_ teach.[4] Many a woman rejected from the shop-till
+or housekeeper’s room for ignorance and inefficiency, is compelled to
+offer herself among the lowest class of nursery governesses, or, failing
+all, to embrace the career, the avenues to which stand ever wide open,
+yawning like the gates of hell, when all other doors are closed.
+
+The fault of this defective training lies mainly with the middle-class
+parents who, as the Endowed Schools Commissioners say plainly enough,
+educate their daughters to get husbands, and for nothing else.
+
+Education was what the slave-owners most dreaded for their slaves, for
+they knew it to be the sure road to emancipation. It is to education
+that we must first look for the emancipation of women from the
+industrial restrictions of a bye gone age. In the meantime I may surely
+say that no lover of his country, of justice or of God, can see this
+misery unmoved. “He looked for judgment, but behold oppression, for
+righteousness, but behold a cry.”
+
+I sometimes hear it said “I am weary of this question of the rights, or
+the wrongs, of women.” Undoubtedly there are many who are quickly weary
+of any thought which is perplexing or painful: nevertheless the facts
+remain the same—that women constitute one half of the human race, that
+whatever effects them, for good or evil, affects not one half, but the
+whole of the human race, and that the _primary_ education of all
+generations of men rests in the hands of women.
+
+There are two classes of advocates of the improvement of the education
+and condition of women. The one class urge everything from the domestic
+point of view. They argue in favour of all which is likely to make women
+better mothers, or better companions for men, but they seem incapable of
+judging of a woman as a human being by herself, and superstitiously
+afraid of anything which might strengthen her to stand alone, prepared,
+singlehanded, to serve her God and her country. When it is urged upon
+them that the women who do and must stand alone are counted by millions,
+they are perplexed, but only fell back on expressions of a fear lest a
+masculine race of women should be produced, if we admit any theories
+respecting them apart from conjugal and maternal relationships.
+
+On the other hand, there are advocates who speak with some slight
+contempt of maternity, in whose advocacy there appears to me little
+evidence of depth of thought, or tenderness, or wisdom, and which
+bespeaks a dry, hard, unimaginative conception of human life. They
+appear to have no higher ideal for a woman than that of a _man_ who has
+been “tripos’ed,” and is going to “get on in the world,” either in the
+way of making money or acquiring fame. They speak of women as if it were
+a compliment to them, or in any way true, to say that they are like men.
+Now it appears to me that both these sets of advocates have failed to
+see something which is very true, and that their ears are deaf to some
+of the subtle harmonies which exist in God’s creation—harmonies
+sometimes evolved from discords—and which we are much hindered from
+hearing by the noise of the world, and by our own discordant utterances.
+
+The first class of advocates do not know how strong Nature is, how true
+she is for the most part, and how deeply the maternal character is
+rooted in almost all women, married or unmarried: they are not,
+therefore, likely to see that when a better education is secured to
+women, when permission is granted them not only to win bread for
+themselves, but to use for the good of society, every gift bestowed on
+them by God, we may expect to find, (as certainly we shall find,) that
+they will become the _more_ and not the _less_ womanly. Every good
+quality, every virtue which we regard as distinctively feminine, will,
+under conditions of greater freedom, develop more freely, like plants
+brought out into the light from a cellar in which they languished,
+dwarfed and blanched, without sun or air. The woman is strong in almost
+every woman; and it may be called an infidelity against God and against
+the truth of nature to suppose that the removal of unjust restrictions,
+and room given to breathe freely, and to do her work in life without
+depression and without bitterness, will cause her to cast off her
+nature. It will always be in her nature to foster, to cherish, to take
+the part of the weak, to train, to guide, to have a care for
+individuals, to discern the small seeds of a great future, to warm and
+cherish those seeds into fulness of life. “I serve,” will always be one
+of her favourite mottos, even should the utmost freedom be accorded her
+in the choice of vocation; for she, more readily perhaps than men do,
+recognises the wisdom and majesty of Him who said—“I am among you as he
+that serveth.” In Him,—“in Christ Jesus,” says the apostle, “there is
+neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free; there is neither
+male nor female.” It has been the tendency of Christianity, gradually
+and slowly, to break down all unfriendly barriers between races, and to
+extinguish slavery; and last of all it will—this is our hope—remove
+disabilities imposed by the stronger portion of society upon the weaker.
+
+What do we lose by the abandonment of national exclusiveness? Is labour
+demoralized because slaves are free? Does _service_ cease when servitude
+is at an end? Common sense alone, without the help of historical
+knowledge, might lead us to suppose that women will not do their
+_special_ work in the world worse, but better, when justice shall be
+done them.[5] It is in the name of _Christ_ that the removal of burdens
+and disabilities is preached: much wisdom might be learned regarding
+some of these matters if people would look more closely at this, and
+note that this is the Person in whom all virtues which are considered
+essentially womanly, as well as those which are considered essentially
+manly, found their perfect development. A little meditation on this
+double truth—that in Christ all distinctions are done away, and that in
+Him, nevertheless, were exhibited in perfect beauty the distinctive
+virtues of the feminine character—would suggest some lessons which the
+world has been very slow to learn, would tend to remove groundless fears
+regarding the consequences of the abandonment of many unreasonable and
+unchristian theories which prevail, and to counteract the materialistic
+doctrine which has sunk too deep into the heart of our so-called
+Christian community, a doctrine which amounts to this, that “the weaker
+races, classes, persons must struggle on unaided, and if they are
+trampled down and die out, the fact proves that it is better for the
+world that they should perish, so only a stronger and higher stock will
+remain;”[6] a doctrine of which we see the fruits in our wickednesses in
+Asia, &c., and which takes its stand on a supposed “law of nature” that
+the weak must go down.
+
+The tone in which certain foolish popular writers speak of unmarried and
+childless women betrays both coarseness of feeling and ignorance. They
+speak of these women as having altogether missed their vocation, and as
+necessarily dwarfed in affection and motive, because they have not
+performed certain physical functions. We are all mothers or
+foster-mothers. The few exceptions to this rule,—the cases in which the
+maternal feelings are weak or wanting,—are to be found among mothers of
+families as well as among childless women. I have known many unmarried
+women in whom all the best characteristics of maternity are stronger
+than in some who are actually mothers. It would be wise of the State to
+avail itself of this abundance of generous womanliness, of tender and
+wise motherliness which lives in the hearts of thousands of women who
+are free to bring their capacities to bear where they are most needed.
+The country counts by tens of thousands its orphan and outcast children,
+in workhouses, and in the streets of our great cities. These orphans
+have lately been called “the children of the State:” for the care of
+these children of the State alone, mothers and nurses of the State are
+needed, women who must be free to some extent from domestic ties of
+their own. These workhouse children are not likely to grow up to be
+useful to the country or other than dangerous classes, while they are
+left wholly to the mercy of vulgar, uneducated people.[7]
+
+Leon Fauchat exclaimed, when told of crimes committed in our country
+against children,—“Est-il possible que ces choses soient permises par
+une nation qui a des entrailles!” “Take heed that ye offend not one of
+these little ones,” are words of most solemn import: when women begin to
+deserve and acquire more weight in the community, the warning contained
+in them will be better understood. The interests of children will not
+remain unrepresented any longer than women remain so. I say this with
+certainty, knowing the nature of woman. It will not be left to an
+indignant father, or philanthropist, or to an impassioned poetess, at
+long intervals to translate in the ears of the public the inarticulate
+cry of the children:
+
+            “They are weeping in the playtime of the others,
+                In the country of the free,
+            For the man’s grief abhorrent, draws and presses
+                Down the cheeks of infancy.”
+
+               ·       ·       ·       ·       ·
+
+            “They look up with their pale and sunken faces,
+                And their look is dread to see,
+            For they mind you of their Angels in their places,
+                With eyes meant for Deity:
+        ‘How long,’ they say, ‘how long, O cruel nation,
+          Will you stand, to move the world, on a child’s heart,
+        Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation,
+          And tread onward to your throne amid the mart?
+            Our blood splashes upwards, O our tyrants,
+                And your purple shows your path;
+            _But the child’s sob curseth deeper in the silence
+                Than the strong man in his wrath_.’”
+
+The ears of my reader would not endure to hear what I could tell, what
+my eyes have seen, of outraged innocence, of horrors and miseries
+endured among the children of the poor. I am not unmindful of the
+benevolent enterprise there is in our country, the orphanages, schools
+and homes springing up everywhere. God be thanked for these! but they do
+not yet meet the evil; and we must remember that stone walls do not shut
+out crime, nor regulations confer blessing; these institutions
+themselves fail in their purpose unless the compassionate motive which
+originated them be sustained in a constant and abundant flow. The
+histories of many charities in foreign countries and at home prove that
+institutions devised by loving hearts for protection and blessing, have
+become, for lack of the constancy of the internal impulse, neither more
+nor less than “habitations of cruelty.” What I here complain of is the
+thriftless waste of good feelings, of emotion,—emotion which on the one
+hand is ill trained, and consequently takes a false or unreal direction,
+and on the other is wearing itself out, unclaimed. Tears shed over
+sentimental works of fiction or some imaginative woe might well be
+bestowed on the realities around us. Surely there is room enough among
+_them_ for the promptings of a mighty compassion! Surely there is cause
+enough _here_ for tears! “Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for
+the destruction of the daughter of my people.”
+
+And there is other work on every side waiting to be done by women,—the
+work of healers, preachers, physicians, artists, organizers of labour,
+captains of industry, &c., while on the other hand women are waiting to
+be prepared for service, and ready to bridge over, as they alone can,
+many a gulf between class and class which now presents a grave obstacle
+to social and political progress.
+
+The second kind of advocacy of the rights of women, of which I spoke,
+may be said to be simply a reaction against the first. It is chiefly
+held by a few women of superior intellect who feel keenly the
+disadvantages of their class, their feebleness, through want of
+education, against public opinion, which is taken advantage of by base
+people, their inability, through want of representation, to defend their
+weaker members, and the dwarfing of the faculties of the ablest and best
+among them. These women have associated little with men, or at best,
+know very little of their inner life, and do not therefore see as
+clearly as they see their own loss, the equal loss that it is to men,
+and the injury it involves to their characters, to live dissociated from
+women: they therefore look forth from their isolation with something of
+an excusable envy on the freer and happier lot, which includes, they
+believe, a greater power to do good, and imagine that the only hope for
+themselves is to push into the ranks of men, to demand the same
+education, the same opportunities, in order that they may compete with
+them on their own ground. They have lost the conception of the noblest
+development possible for both men and women; for assuredly that which
+men, for the most part, aim at, is not the noblest, and yet that is what
+such women appear to wish to imitate; they have lost sight of the truth,
+too, that men and women were made equal indeed, but not alike, and were
+meant to supplement one another, and that in so doing,—each supplying
+force which the other lacks,—they are attracted with a far greater
+amount of impulse to a common centre. When St. Chrysostom preached in
+Constantinople, that “men ought to be pure, and women courageous,” he
+was treated as a dangerous innovator, a perverter of the facts of
+nature, a changer of customs. I hope that many such innovators will
+arise, who will shew forth in practice the possibility of the attainment
+of a common standard of excellence for man and woman, not by usurpation
+on either hand, nor by servile imitation, but by the action of each upon
+each, by mutual teaching and help. The above misconception, like many
+other errors, results from men and women living so dissociated as they
+do in our country; hence comes also all that reserve, and incapacity for
+understanding each other which has existed between the sexes for so many
+generations, those false notions about women which are entertained in
+society, and great injury to the work, and happiness, and dignity of man
+and woman alike: for it may be truly said that many of the most serious
+evils in England are but the bitter and various fruit of the
+sacreligious disjoining of that which God had joined together, the
+disunion of men and women, theoretically and practically, in all the
+graver work of life.
+
+The following account of the School of Art, in Newman Street, London, is
+interesting, as affording some illustration of this subject. Mrs.
+Heatherley writes, “This School was begun on the separate principle,
+about twenty-three years ago, by Mr. James Mathews Leigh. I first knew
+the place in 1848, when I studied as an amateur. Mr. Leigh, whilst
+agreeing to the idea of mixed classes as a theory, always declared that
+the men’s conduct and conversation would render it impossible for any
+lady to come amongst them, and they were certainly very rough in manner
+when, after Mr. Leigh’s death, we took the school. We were warned that
+we should be ruined by introducing the mixed system. Very soon both
+parties found the convenience of studying in the Gallery every day,
+instead of having to take their places on alternate days. Finding it
+succeed, at the end of 1861 we admitted ladies to the evening school:
+there are about two hundred students in the course of the year. Great
+individual freedom is allowed, and a most friendly feeling exists
+amongst the students. Every one who knew the place before the admission
+of women agrees that there has been great improvement; quite another
+tone prevails. We have never had to dismiss anyone for conduct that was
+disapproved. From here went the first ladies to the Royal Academy, one
+of whom, a girl of about twenty-one, gained the gold medal, last
+December, for the best historical picture. As a general rule, where
+there are equal facilities, the women are the most successful. The
+Academy ceased to admit them when their numbers reached about twelve,
+and now takes them in only when the time of studentship of others
+expires. They made this change at the end of two years, without giving
+any notice here or at any other school, to the great disappointment of a
+number of girls. This I think is an act of hardship, as there has been
+shown positively that no incompetence exists. Unless there be chances
+offered to women of being able to follow a profession, parents will
+invest in consols, as a general rule, rather than in a superior
+education. The mention of our school may be useful, because there are
+doubts in many minds as to the expediency of free intercourse between
+young people, and facts are better than theories. The more that is done
+to bring young men and women together in a rational manner, the sooner
+we may hope to arrive at a social state less immoral than the present.”
+
+I am persuaded that anyone who will candidly and carefully consider the
+histories of separate communities of men or women, for educational or
+other purposes, must see that the evils attendant on such a system as
+they represent outweigh its conveniences. The arrangement is for a given
+period, but not so the evils which accompany it, for they,—and of this
+men are not ignorant,—too often leave their effects, I may say their
+curse, throughout life. The objection rises at once of the difficulty of
+adopting any other arrangement than the present, which may be called an
+unnatural one. This objection will be more effectually met by facts than
+by reasoning, and in time facts will speak for themselves, while up to
+the present they attest that whenever the experiment of a different
+system has been tried, the difficulties have been found to be very much
+less than it was believed they would be, before the trial was made.
+
+To conclude this part of my subject, although I grant that too much
+stress cannot be laid upon the improvement of the education of women who
+will be actually the mothers of a future generation, yet I wish, on the
+one hand, that persons who only look at it from this point of view would
+take more into account the valuable service our country might command if
+it but understood the truth about the condition and feelings of its
+unmarried women, and that a more generous trust were felt in the
+strength of woman’s nature, and the probable direction of its
+development when granted more expansion, while on the other hand I
+should like to see a truer conception of the highest possibilities for
+women than is implied in the attempt to imitate men, and a deeper
+reverence for the God of nature, whose wisdom is more manifested in
+variety than in uniformity. It cannot be denied that a just cause has
+sometimes been advocated by women in a spirit of bitterness. Energy
+impeded in one direction, will burst forth in another; hence the defiant
+and sometimes grotesque expression which the lives and acts of some few
+women have been of the injustice done to them by society. This will
+cease, and while it lasts, it ought to excite our pity rather than our
+anger. It must be remembered that it is but a symptom of a long endured
+servitude, a protest against a state of things which we hope will give
+place to a better. It is folly to regard it as the natural fruit of that
+of which we have scarcely seen the beginning. Acts of violence on the
+part of a long oppressed nation are not the offspring of dawning
+liberties, but of a doomed tyranny. Again, no important reform can be
+carried without a measure of attendant confusion. Evil agencies are the
+most vigilant for destruction at the beginning of a great and good work,
+and many lives have to be consumed in its inauguration. Any evils which
+may at first attend a social reform ought not to alarm us: they are
+transient; they are but the breakers on the bar which must be crossed
+before we launch into deep waters, but the “noise and dust of the wagon
+which brings the harvest home.”
+
+
+There is a near future and there is a far future; there are plans for
+the near future and plans for the far future. The world is full of plans
+for the near future; not so of plans for the far future. There are
+people who do just what comes first to their hand to do, there are
+others who do all for a near future, others again who do all for a far
+off end. The first and the last have much in common; it is the second
+aim, which when exclusively pursued, misleads. Plans and schemes for the
+near future gain and obtain with most people; not unfrequently they
+wither away like untimely fruit: those who look afar off prevail, yet
+not they, but rather He prevails in them, who taught them to stretch
+their vision to the distant horizon, and enables them to bear with
+composure the disappointment of present hopes.
+
+Some say, “in order to insure success for this or that movement, you
+must have a scheme beforehand, a well-planned system, a fixed principle
+of action, else you will be blown hither and thither.” Without offering
+any opposition to such a theory, there are others to whom there appears
+but one principle of action,—to fix the eyes on the far future, and to
+do to-day the work of to-day; each day to undo the heavy burdens as they
+come to their hand, each day to break some link of the chains which
+bind, and to let some who are now oppressed go free. God guiding these
+efforts to the desired end.[8] They have more faith in that which grows
+from within than in that which is planned from without, and built
+according to the preconceived plan. Such plans or schemes as must be
+adopted by them are made as elastic as possible, so that the builders
+can avail themselves, at each step, of experience gained, and be ready
+to correct or undo any part of the work without sacrificing the whole;
+they are content with the light which falls on the path immediately at
+their feet, and with the fairer light in the distance. Perhaps it is by
+such a principle of action that we can best supply “the needs of the
+times,” and it is the possibility of adopting such a principle in times
+of need that alone can ensure permanence in usefulness for the venerable
+institutions of the country. What such institutions generally do is to
+resist all movement, or if they admit any change, it is only to
+crystallize anew in an altered form. Almost all true help is special;
+and crystallized institutions seldom have help to give for great and
+special necessities. But there are times when an impulse, having its
+origin in the _hearts_ of men, is found to be stronger than custom and
+use; if it cannot work within the established bounds, or by existing
+machinery, it will work without them. Somehow or other difficulties
+vanish before such an impulse, and much is accomplished which before was
+held to be impossible.
+
+I cannot conclude these remarks without expressing the gladness and
+gratitude with which I am filled when I see the earnest spirit in which
+some of the best and most thoughtful men are beginning to consider these
+matters; and I venture especially to acknowledge the kindness of men in
+high educational positions themselves, whose sympathies have lately been
+enlisted on behalf of the women-teachers whose struggles, and sorrows,
+and social disadvantages I have tried to indicate. Mr. Maurice says,
+very truly, “Whenever in trade or in any department of human activity,
+restrictions tending to the advantage of one class and the injury of
+others have been removed, there a divine power has been at work
+counteracting not only the selfish calculations, but often the
+apparently sagacious reasonings of their defenders.” If we were not
+assured that there is indeed a divine power at work in all these things
+which some of us have so deeply at heart, we should lack the only
+stimulus which enables us to work on, to live and to die for that which
+we hold to be right and true; for “except the Lord build the house,
+their labour is but vain that build it.”
+
+                                                    JOSEPHINE E. BUTLER.
+
+
+  _May, 1868._
+
+
+              T. BRAKELL, PRINTER, COOK STREET, LIVERPOOL.
+
+-----
+
+Footnote 1:
+
+  Miss Strongitharm states in respect of the Governesses’ Institution at
+  Manchester—“Remember that those who register here are the favourable
+  specimens of the class, the governesses who accept salaries under
+  £20,—and their name is Legion,—being excluded by the Rules of the
+  Institution, and that the salaries asked by no means represent, in
+  most cases, the salaries obtained—a governess being often too glad to
+  get a home on almost any terms.”
+
+Footnote 2:
+
+  The condition of governesses in schools is, on the whole, better than
+  in private families; they have more companionship and independence,
+  and, except in the very poor schools, are better paid.
+
+Footnote 3:
+
+  Census for England and Wales. Vol. ii. Occupation of the people:
+  summary tables.
+
+Footnote 4:
+
+  “In one of Jerrold’s sketches, Mr. Isaac Check is asked, ‘What can you
+  do?’ Now as Isaac had not dined for three days, he thought himself
+  justified in saying—‘_Anything._’ Hunger thus conferred the cheap
+  diploma of omnipotence: why not of omniscience too? In a bitter moment
+  I have been tempted to say that a governess is too often a poor lady
+  who knows nothing, and teaches everything for nothing.”—_Dr. Hodgson._
+
+Footnote 5:
+
+  “I have preached,” says Theodore Parker, “the equivalency of man and
+  woman—that each in some particulars is inferior to the other, but, on
+  the whole, mankind and womankind, though so diverse, are yet equal in
+  their natural faculties; and have set forth the evils which come to
+  both from her present inferior position.... But I have thought she
+  will generally prefer domestic to public functions, and have found no
+  philosophic or historic argument for thinking she will ever incline
+  much to the rough works of man, or take any considerable part in
+  Republican politics.”
+
+Footnote 6:
+
+  F. Newman.
+
+Footnote 7:
+
+  I have spoken of the incompetency of a vast number of teachers, an
+  incompetency sometimes natural, more often the effect of want of
+  training. But I believe it is widely acknowledged that women generally
+  have a great aptitude for teaching boys as well as girls. Mr. Bryce,
+  in his Report, says, “The bright point in this otherwise gloomy
+  landscape is that women are naturally skilful teachers, and that they
+  are, as far as my observation goes, zealous and conscientious
+  teachers. Whenever I happened to hear the teaching of a lady of good
+  ability who had herself been thoroughly educated, its merits struck me
+  as at least equal, and probably superior, to those which would be
+  found in the teaching of a man of the same general capacity and
+  education. Women seem to have more patience as teachers, more
+  quickness in seeing whether the pupil understands, more skill in
+  adapting their explanations to the peculiarities of the pupils’ minds,
+  and certainly a nicer discernment of his or her character. They are
+  quite as clear in exposition as men are, and, when well trained, quite
+  as capable of making their teaching philosophical. I must confess
+  myself to have been also impressed by the interest which they so often
+  took in their pupils, and their genuine ardour to do their best for
+  them.”
+
+Footnote 8:
+
+  “Is not this the fast that I have chose? to loose the bands of
+  wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go
+  free, and that ye break every yoke; is it not to deal thy bread to the
+  hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy
+  house?”—Isaiah lviii. 6, 7.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+                          TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
+
+
+ ● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
+ ● Used numbers for footnotes, placing them all at the end of the last
+     chapter.
+ ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
+ ● Enclosed blackletter font in =equals=.
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75350 ***
diff --git a/75350-h/75350-h.htm b/75350-h/75350-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ce62404
--- /dev/null
+++ b/75350-h/75350-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,1324 @@
+<!DOCTYPE html>
+<html lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <meta charset="UTF-8">
+    <title>The Education and Employment of Women | Project Gutenberg</title>
+    <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover">
+    <style>
+       body { margin-left: 8%; margin-right: 10%; }
+       h1 { text-align: center; font-weight: bold; font-size: xx-large; }
+       h2 { text-align: center; font-weight: bold; font-size: x-large; }
+       .pageno { right: 1%; font-size: x-small; background-color: inherit; color: silver; 
+               text-indent: 0em; text-align: right; position: absolute; 
+               border: thin solid silver; padding: .1em .2em; font-style: normal; 
+               font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; }
+       p { text-indent: 0; margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; text-align: justify; }
+       sup { vertical-align: top; font-size: 0.6em; }
+       .sc { font-variant: small-caps; }
+       .large { font-size: large; }
+       .xlarge { font-size: x-large; }
+       .small { font-size: small; }
+       .lg-container-b { text-align: center; }
+       .x-ebookmaker .lg-container-b { clear: both; }
+       .lg-container-r { text-align: right; }
+       .x-ebookmaker .lg-container-r { clear: both; }
+       .linegroup { display: inline-block; text-align: justify; }
+       .x-ebookmaker .linegroup { display: block; margin-left: 1.5em; }
+       .linegroup .group { margin: 1em auto; }
+       .linegroup .line { text-indent: -3em; padding-left: 3em; }
+       div.linegroup > :first-child { margin-top: 0; }
+       .linegroup .in2 { padding-left: 4.0em; }
+       .linegroup .in4 { padding-left: 5.0em; }
+       .linegroup .in6 { padding-left: 6.0em; }
+       .linegroup .in8 { padding-left: 7.0em; }
+       .dl_1 dd { text-align: justify; padding-top: .5em; padding-left: .5em;
+               margin-left: 3.7em; text-indent: -1em; }
+       .dl_1 dt { float: left; clear: left; text-align: right; width: 2.5em;
+               padding-top: .5em; padding-right: .5em; }
+       .ul_1 li {padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em; }
+       .x-ebookmaker  .dl_1 dt { float: left; clear: left; text-align: right;
+               width: 2.5em; padding-top: .5em; padding-right: .5em; } 
+       dl.dl_1 { margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em; }
+       ul.ul_1 {padding-left: 0; margin-left: 2.78%; margin-top: .5em;
+               margin-bottom: .5em; list-style-type: disc; }
+       div.footnote > :first-child { margin-top: 1em; }
+       div.footnote p { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: 0.25em; margin-bottom: 0.25em; }
+       div.pbb { page-break-before: always; }
+       hr.pb { border: none; border-bottom: thin solid; margin-bottom: 1em; }
+       .x-ebookmaker hr.pb { display: none; }
+       .chapter { clear: both; page-break-before: always; }
+       .table0 { margin: auto; }
+       .table1 { margin: auto; margin-left: 8%; margin-right: 9%; width: 83%; }
+       .colwidth18 { width:18% ; }
+       .colwidth20 { width:20% ; }
+       .colwidth22 { width:22% ; }
+       .colwidth24 { width:24% ; }
+       .colwidth4 { width:4% ; }
+       .colwidth6 { width:6% ; }
+       .nf-center { text-align: center; }
+       .nf-center-c0 { text-align: justify; margin: 0.5em 0; }
+       .c000 { margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; }
+       .c001 { page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em; }
+       .c002 { margin-top: 1em; text-indent: 1em; margin-bottom: 0.25em; }
+       .c003 { margin-top: 2em; }
+       .c004 { margin-top: 1em; }
+       .c005 { margin-top: 4em; }
+       .c006 { page-break-before:auto; margin-top: 4em; }
+       .c007 { margin-top: 2em; text-indent: 1em; margin-bottom: 0.25em; }
+       .c008 { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: 0.25em; margin-bottom: 0.25em; }
+       .c009 { vertical-align: top; text-align: justify; text-indent: -1em;
+               padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em; }
+       .c010 { vertical-align: top; text-align: right; }
+       .c011 { vertical-align: top; text-align: center; padding-right: 1em; }
+       .c012 { vertical-align: top; text-align: right; padding-right: 1em; }
+       .c013 { vertical-align: top; text-align: center; }
+       .c014 { text-indent: 0; margin-top: 0.25em; margin-bottom: 0.25em; }
+       .c015 { text-decoration: none; }
+       .c016 { margin-top: 1em; font-size: .9em; }
+       .c017 { margin-top: 2em; font-size: .9em; text-indent: 1em; margin-bottom: 0.25em;
+               }
+       .c018 { border: none; border-bottom: thin solid; width: 10%; margin-left: 0;
+               margin-top: 1em; text-align: justify; }
+       div.tnotes { padding-left:1em;padding-right:1em;background-color:#E3E4FA;
+              border:thin solid silver; margin:2em 10% 0 10%; font-family: Georgia, serif;
+               clear: both; }
+       .covernote { visibility: hidden; display: none; }
+       div.tnotes p { text-align: justify; }
+       .x-ebookmaker .covernote { visibility: visible; display: block; }
+       h1 {line-height: 150%; }
+       .footnote {font-size: .9em; }
+       div.footnote p {text-indent: 2em; margin-bottom: .5em; }
+       .chapter  { clear: both; page-break-before: always; }
+       body {font-family: Georgia, serif; text-align: justify; }
+       table {font-size: .9em; padding: 1.5em .5em 1em; page-break-inside: avoid;
+               clear: both; }
+       div.titlepage {text-align: center; page-break-before: always;
+               page-break-after: always; }
+       div.titlepage p {text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; font-weight: bold;
+               line-height: 1.5; margin-top: 3em; }
+       .ph2 { text-indent: 0em; font-weight: bold; font-size: x-large; margin: .75em auto;
+               page-break-before: always; }
+       .blackletter {font-family: 'Old English Text MT', serif; font-weight:bold; }
+       .x-ebookmaker p.dropcap:first-letter { float: left; }
+    </style>
+  </head>
+  <body>   
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75350 ***</div>
+
+<div class='tnotes covernote'>
+
+<p class='c000'><strong>Transcriber’s Note:</strong></p>
+
+<p class='c000'>New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class='titlepage'>
+
+<div>
+  <h1 class='c001'><span class='large'>THE</span></h1>
+</div>
+<p class='c002'>EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN.</p>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c003'>
+    <div><span class='small'>BY</span></div>
+    <div><span class='xlarge'>JOSEPHINE E. BUTLER.</span></div>
+    <div class='c003'><span class='blackletter'>London:</span></div>
+    <div>MACMILLAN AND CO.</div>
+    <div class='c004'>1868.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c005'>
+    <div><span class='small'>LIVERPOOL:</span></div>
+    <div><span class='small'>T. BRAKELL, PRINTER, COOK STREET.</span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_3'>3</span>
+  <h2 class='c006'>THE EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c007'>The economical position of women is one of those subjects on
+which there exists a “conspiracy of silence.” While most
+people, perhaps, imagine that nearly all women marry and
+are supported by their husbands, those who know better how
+women live, or die, have rarely anything to say on the subject.
+Such social problems as this are certainly painful; they may
+or may not be insoluble; they must not be ignored.</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>The phrase “to become a governess” is sometimes used as
+if it were a satisfactory outlet for any unsupported woman
+above the rank of housemaid. When we see advertisements
+in the newspapers, offering “a comfortable home,” with no
+salary, as a sufficient reward for accomplishments of the most
+varied character, we sometimes wonder at the audacity of
+employers; but when we learn that such an advertisement,
+offering the situation of nursery governess, <em>unpaid</em>, was
+answered by <em>three hundred women</em>, our surprise has in it
+something of despair.</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>The truth is, that the facts of society have changed more
+rapidly than its conventions. Formerly muscles did the
+business of the world, and the weak were protected by the
+strong; now brains do the business of the world, and the
+weak are protected by law. The industrial disabilities of
+women, unavoidable under the earlier <em>régime</em>, have become
+cruel under the later. There is neither the old necessity of
+shelter, nor the old certainty of support.</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>The census of 1861 gave nearly six millions of adult
+English women, distributed as follows:—</p>
+
+<table class='table0'>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>Wives</td>
+    <td class='c010'>3,488,952</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>Widows</td>
+    <td class='c010'>756,717</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>Spinsters over 20</td>
+    <td class='c010'>1,537,314</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>&#160;</td>
+    <td class='c010'><hr></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>&#160;</td>
+    <td class='c010'>5,782,983</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_4'>4</span>The census also gives the numbers of women who work for
+their own subsistence, as follows:—</p>
+
+<table class='table0'>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>Wives</td>
+    <td class='c010'>838,856</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>Widows</td>
+    <td class='c010'>487,575</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>Spinsters (above or under 20)</td>
+    <td class='c010'>2,110,318</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>&#160;</td>
+    <td class='c010'><hr></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>&#160;</td>
+    <td class='c010'>3,436,749</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<p class='c008'>In the first place, then, it appears that marriage, as a means
+of subsistence (to say nothing of the indecorum of looking
+forward to it in this light) is exceedingly precarious in two
+ways. The proportion of wives to widows and spinsters in
+1801 was just about three to two, while of these wives themselves
+nearly one in four was occupied in other than domestic
+duties, either as her husband’s coadjutor, as in farm-houses
+and shops, or, of necessity, as his substitute in cases of his
+desertion, or helplessness, or vice. In the second place, the
+number of widows and spinsters supporting themselves, which
+in 1851 was two millions, had increased in 1861 to more than
+two millions and a half. The rapidity of the increase of this
+class is painfully significant. Two and a half millions of
+Englishwomen without husbands, and working for their own
+subsistence! This is not an accident, it is a new order of
+things. Of the three and a half millions of women—wives,
+widows, and spinsters—engaged in other than domestic occupations,
+it is probable that scarcely a thousand make, without
+capital, and by their own exertions, one hundred pounds a
+year. The best paid are housekeepers in large establishments,
+a few finishing governesses, and professed cooks. 43,964
+women are returned as outdoor agricultural labourers—a fact
+worthy of remembrance when it is said that women are too
+weak to serve in haberdashers’ shops. Women, refused admission
+to such shops on the pretext that they are not strong
+enough to lift bales of goods, have been afterwards traced to
+the occupations of dock porters and coal-heavers. In practice
+the employments of women are not determined by their lightness,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_5'>5</span>but by their low pay. One newspaper still scoffs at the
+desire of women to be self-supporting: but starvation is a
+sufficient answer to sneers. As a favourable symptom of the
+last few years, I may add that 1822 women are returned as
+employed by the Post-office. 213 women are returned as
+telegraph-clerks. It is instructive to note the way in which
+the salary of these women telegraph-clerks has fallen. When
+the telegraph companies were first formed, the pay of a female
+clerk was eight shillings a week, to be increased by a shilling
+yearly, until it reached fourteen shillings a week. So great,
+however, has been the competition of women for these situations,
+that the pay has been reduced to five shillings a week,
+a sum on which a woman can scarcely live unassisted. In
+France the women telegraph-clerks have met with a worse fate.
+The government took the management of the telegraphs, and
+dismissed the women, because they had no votes to bestow on
+the government candidates. The exclusion of women from
+the suffrage has been called a harmless injustice; but there is
+no injustice which is not liable to become an injury.</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>At present the principal employments open to women are
+teaching, domestic service, and sewing. I come to consider
+the remuneration of the highest profession open to women.</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>In 1801 there were 80,017 female teachers in England, of
+whom the majority were governesses in private families. It is
+difficult to ascertain the average salary of governesses, because
+the Governesses’ Institutions in London and Manchester, which
+are the chief sources of information on the subject, refuse to
+register the applications of governesses who accept salaries of
+less than £25 a year. The number of this lowest class may
+be guessed from the fact that for a situation as nursery governess,
+with a salary of £20 a year, advertised in a newspaper,
+there were five hundred applicants; as I have already stated,
+three hundred applied for a similar place with no salary at all.
+To return to the higher class. The register of the last six
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_6'>6</span>months at the Manchester Governesses’ Institution shows an
+entry of—</p>
+
+<table class='table1'>
+<colgroup>
+<col class='colwidth4'>
+<col class='colwidth22'>
+<col class='colwidth6'>
+<col class='colwidth18'>
+<col class='colwidth6'>
+<col class='colwidth24'>
+<col class='colwidth20'>
+</colgroup>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>54</td>
+    <td class='c011'>governesses</td>
+    <td class='c011'>who</td>
+    <td class='c011'>asked for</td>
+    <td class='c012'>£30</td>
+    <td class='c011'>and under,</td>
+    <td class='c013'>per annum.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>20</td>
+    <td class='c011'>„</td>
+    <td class='c011'>„</td>
+    <td class='c011'>„</td>
+    <td class='c012'>40</td>
+    <td class='c011'>„</td>
+    <td class='c013'>„</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>19</td>
+    <td class='c011'>„</td>
+    <td class='c011'>„</td>
+    <td class='c011'>„</td>
+    <td class='c012'>50</td>
+    <td class='c011'>„</td>
+    <td class='c013'>„</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>17</td>
+    <td class='c011'>„</td>
+    <td class='c011'>„</td>
+    <td class='c011'>„</td>
+    <td class='c012'>60</td>
+    <td class='c011'>„</td>
+    <td class='c013'>„</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c011'>10</td>
+    <td class='c011'>„</td>
+    <td class='c011'>„</td>
+    <td class='c011'>„</td>
+    <td class='c012'>70</td>
+    <td class='c013' colspan='2'>and upwards.</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<p class='c014'>These sums, it must be remembered, are expressions of what
+governesses wish to receive.<a id='r1'></a><a href='#f1' class='c015'><sup>[1]</sup></a> Taking nursery governesses
+into the account, and remembering that the above statistics
+refer only to the higher ranks of the profession, it is probably
+not too much to say, that from 0 to £50 a year is the salary of
+nine governesses in ten. Situations offering more than £50
+are the prizes of the profession, but are generally such as to
+compel a serious outlay on dress and personal expenditure.
+It is difficult to imagine how the majority of governesses
+manage to scramble through life, when we remember that their
+position involves several journeys in the year, that they must
+sometimes provide for themselves during holiday seasons, and
+that they must always dress as ladies. Miserable must be
+their means of providing for old age or sickness, to say
+nothing of claims of affection or of charity throughout life,
+or the means required for self-culture.<a id='r2'></a><a href='#f2' class='c015'><sup>[2]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c008'>Probably there are few portions of society in which more
+of silent suffering and misery is endured than among female
+teachers, and in the class which supplies them. Charitable
+people who have opened little “Homes” for decayed governesses
+can tell histories of struggling lives and crushed hopes
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_7'>7</span>which it saddens one to hear. The reports of Bethlehem
+Hospital and other lunatic asylums prove that not a few poor
+governesses find their way thither. Some are found in
+Penitentiaries among the fallen. Inquiry shows that insufficient
+food while out of situations, added to the mental trials
+of an unloved and isolated being, have driven some of these
+governesses to opium or to strong drink, until, penniless and
+degraded, they have sought a refuge among penitents where
+there was nothing to pay. “Her funds are exhausted, and
+she earnestly seeks a re-engagement;” words such as these,
+taken from an advertisement in the <cite>Times</cite>, headed—“To the
+benevolent,” are no unfrequent symptom of a deep and wide
+distress. Some determined women there are who have devoted
+to self-culture as much of their pittance as could be spared
+from the barest needs of life, and of whom it is known that,
+night after night when they went to bed, they have tied a band
+round their waist to keep down the gnawings of hunger. One
+such I know who has risen by her force of character to almost
+as high a place as it is at present possible for a <em>woman</em> to
+occupy in the educational world, but who is not yet free from
+sufferings entailed by years of mental anxiety and bodily privations.
+An insufficiency of the necessaries of life is not the
+bitterest complaint of many of these sufferers, who by their
+lives protest that man does not live by bread alone. “Worse
+than bodily privations or pains” (I quote the words of one
+of them) “are these <em>aches and pangs of ignorance</em>, this unquenched
+thirst for knowledge, these unassisted and disappointed
+efforts to obtain it, this sight of bread enough and
+to spare, but locked away from <em>us</em>, this depressing sense of
+a miserable waste of powers bestowed on us by God, and
+which we know we could have used for the lessening of evil
+and the increase of the happiness of our fellow-creatures.”</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>The desire for education which is widely felt by English
+women, and which has begun to find its expression in many
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_8'>8</span>practical ways, is a desire which springs from no conceit of
+cleverness, from no ambition of the prizes of intellectual
+success, as is sometimes falsely imagined, but from the
+conviction that for many women to get knowledge is the only
+way to get bread, and still more from that instinctive craving
+for light which in many is stronger than the craving for bread.
+“Amongst the wealthier classes,”—I give the words of one
+who has much knowledge of that of which she speaks—“women
+are better provided for materially, though even here
+they are often left to the mercy of the chances of life,
+indulged and petted whilst fortune smiles, left helpless to
+face the storm of adverse circumstances; but here, more often
+than elsewhere, one meets with those sad, dreary lives, that
+have always seemed to me amongst the worst permitted evils
+of earth,—</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c016'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line in6'>‘A wall so blank</div>
+      <div class='line in6'>My shadow I thank</div>
+      <div class='line'>For sometimes falling there’—</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c014'>is true of many a life. Even sharp misfortune is sometimes
+a blessing in a life of this sort; something to do, and leave
+to do it. I do not say that any possible education, any
+freedom of career, any high training of faculty, would spare
+<em>all</em> this waste; some part of it is of that sad mystery of life
+which we cannot explain, and for the unveiling of which we
+can only wait and pray. But I am quite sure that much of
+it is altogether needless, and comes from the shutting up in
+artificial channels of those good gifts of God which were
+meant to flow forth freely and bless the world. If I could
+only tell, as I have felt it in my own life, and in the lives of
+other women whom I have loved, how wearily one strains
+the eyes for light, which often comes not at all!</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>“God knows it all, and if men do not know it, it is because
+they have been, I will not say they are, cruelly and criminally
+thoughtless. I wish some of those men who talk as if
+they imagined our life a delightful one, could but be women
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_9'>9</span>for one little year, and could feel the dreariness I speak of,
+feel too the intense longing to be up and doing, helping
+in the world’s work which is God’s work, and know the
+depressing effect of that inaptitude, which is the want, not
+of capacity or of faculty, but of training. The serious work
+of life needs all the help that women as well as men can
+bring to it, and for helpfulness something more than goodwill
+is needed. Always have my own ignorance and helplessness
+been the hindrances to that for which I would have freely
+given my life; and I know that other women feel in just the
+same way: I have heard and known too much of thoughtful
+women not to be sure of this. Confessions of this kind,
+the simplest and frankest confessions of ignorance, and of
+why that ignorance is painful, have been made to me many a
+time by women whom the world pleases to think clever, but
+who are too true-hearted to believe the world.</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>“It is not as luxury that we crave knowledge, but as bread
+of life for ourselves and others. We want it that we may
+distribute it to others, with helpful hands and words of
+blessing. We want it as the lever by which we may help to
+raise the world. If we thought only of gratifying vanity,
+there are easier and shorter ways to that end. Whilst men
+are a little too apt to depreciate the intelligence of women as
+a class, they are apt to over-rate the intelligence of individual
+women whom they may happen to know and esteem.
+Many a woman is credited with power merely because she
+has never been brought to the test of performance.”</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>For the amelioration of the condition of female teachers
+two things are necessary: the first is to raise the intellectual
+status of qualified teachers, and to accord a juster social recognition
+to their profession; the second is, to find other
+occupations for those who are unfit to teach, and only take to
+teaching because they can do nothing else.</p>
+
+<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_10'>10</span>The first of these objects will be materially advanced—</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>1st—By the establishment of places for a higher education
+than schools can offer, such as the projected College for
+women. Mr. Bryce, in his interesting “Report on Schools in
+Lancashire,” says, “The teachers cannot be greatly blamed
+for this” (i.e. inefficient teaching), “since it is the result of
+the inadequate provision now made in this country for the
+instruction of women. Conceive what schoolmasters would
+be, if there were in England no Universities, or any foundation
+schools either of the higher or the lower grade, and if the
+private schools, by which alone education would then be
+supplied, were to lose the reflex influence and the stimulating
+rivalry of these public institutions. This is exactly what
+the state of the teachers of girls is now.”</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>2ndly—By the accordance of University certificates to
+women, provided always that these University certificates
+possess intrinsic value, declare a due amount of knowledge
+and of capacity to teach, and are given “with scrupulous care
+to none but deserving persons.”</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>Governesses would, I hope, not be the only women who
+would avail themselves of these privileges. Everything is
+good which tends to break down the line of social demarcation
+which still, to a great extent, separates governesses from
+other ladies, as once it separated schoolmasters from other
+gentlemen; and it is greatly to be desired that women
+with a real talent for teaching, whatever their social
+position, should actually teach for a few years, and raise the
+profession of governesses, as the profession of schoolmasters
+has been raised, by an infusion of disinterested zeal and the
+energy of a voluntary choice.</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>Any effort in the cause of governesses is important, not
+only as it affects individuals at this moment engaged in the
+profession, but still more in its bearing upon the future of all
+English girls and women, through the prospect which it holds
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_11'>11</span>out of an improved education for the daughters of the middle
+classes, who, more and more, will have to maintain themselves.
+And if we think how much honour and dignity ought to attach
+to the office of a teacher (rightly understood) we should, from
+the highest motives, be anxious to raise the character and
+social standing of those who seek that office. For this question
+of woman’s education is far from being one of intellectual
+progress merely; it is a question of deep moral import, and
+enters far into the heart of society, affecting the best interests
+of men as well as those of women. Mr. Francis Newman
+says, “the increased influence of women” (through education
+chiefly) “will keep in check the liquor traffic, and other
+abominations which men too readily excuse.” The connection
+of this question of woman’s education with some of the
+most grievous of social problems is closer than might be
+supposed. De Tocqueville asked an American gentleman why
+open immorality, such as England has to shew, was so rare in
+New England: the answer was, “because of the greater
+respect which men have for women, the women who are their
+equals in society.” It will not be for themselves alone that
+enlightened and educated women will demand respect; they
+will claim it also for poor women, whom it is too often deemed
+a light matter to injure in the worst way, and even for the
+fallen, who through the voice of their happier sisters shall
+yet demand, not only compassion, but the respect due to every
+human being, however clouded with misery and sin.</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>When, on the other hand, we consider the best means of
+relieving the profession of Governesses by drafting its incompetent
+members into other occupations, the whole question of
+the employment of women rises before us, a painful and even
+a terrible problem. Three principal obstacles stand in the
+way of such an enlargement of woman’s opportunities. These
+are—</p>
+
+  <dl class='dl_1'>
+    <dt>(1.)</dt>
+    <dd>Prejudice of employers and of the public.
+<div><span class='pageno' id='Page_12'>12</span></div>
+    </dd>
+    <dt>(2.)</dt>
+    <dd>Combinations among workmen to exclude women from their trades.
+    </dd>
+    <dt>(3.)</dt>
+    <dd>Defective education and training of the women themselves.
+    </dd>
+    </dl>
+
+<p class='c008'>I will consider these in order—</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>(1.) Prejudice is slowly dying out, but indifference remains.
+Educated men who can help, who <em>would</em> help if they knew the
+need, have not yet learnt that need. I do not blame them
+with any bitterness. There has been enough already of bitterness
+on the one side and of levity on the other. But an
+acknowledgment of past error lies at the base of every true
+reform. Let that be acknowledged here, which every thoughtful
+observer must see, that through all ages of the world’s
+history the more powerful sex have been liable to use their
+power carelessly, not for protection only, but for pain. So
+comes it that at this day just and chivalrous men find themselves,
+(as Lord Palmerston said of the Emperor of Russia),
+“born to a heritage of wrong and oppression.” They cannot,
+if they would, at once alter the structure of the society around
+them. But even of these just men I complain that they <em>do not
+see</em>. If they saw, they would act; and ought they not to see?
+Our best men too often know nothing of the lives of any
+women except those with whom they are immediately connected,
+and whom they guard in comfort and ease. They do
+not think of those who sit in cold and want outside. Many a
+tender-hearted but not large-hearted man, on hearing some
+hint of hardships among women outside his own circle,
+thanks God that <em>his</em> dear wife or daughter is exempted from
+them, and so dismisses the subject. When once such men are
+brought to see and to feel, we invariably find them <em>more</em>
+indignant than women themselves, who are well schooled in
+patience. Much of this misery is strange and unknown to
+men, and was certainly never designed by them. The old
+social order has changed, giving place to the new, but women
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_13'>13</span>have fallen out of line with the onward movement, fettered by
+their own cowardice and the careless selfishness of men.
+Custom and use press heavily on women, they endure long
+before they dare to think whether the system under which they
+suffer is a right or a wrong one, whether their burdens be
+removable or no,—whether, in short, they have fallen into the
+hands of God or man. Even when they are fully persuaded
+that their burdens are removable, they have no voice to
+raise. They are unrepresented, and the interests of the unrepresented
+always tend to be overlooked.</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>(2.) The exclusion of women from trades is in most cases
+notoriously based upon a coarse selfishness. Take the instance
+of the china painters at Worcester. “It appears that both
+men and women are employed in this art, but that the women
+having excited the jealousy of the men by surpassing them
+in skilful execution, and consequently earning better wages,
+were by them forcibly deprived of the maulsticks on which it
+is necessary to rest the wrist while painting. Thus the women
+are at once rendered incapable of any fine work, and can only
+be employed in the coarser kinds of painting. The masters
+submit to this tyranny, though to their own disadvantage, being
+probably afraid of a strike or riot if they resist, and the women
+are forced to yield from the fear of personal violence from
+their less skilful but heavier-fisted rivals. This story appeared
+in the <cite>Edinburgh Review</cite> for 1859, and it is surprising that it
+did not excite more general indignation.” The conduct of the
+Apothecaries’ Company is worse than that of the china painters,
+inasmuch as doctors have not the excuse of indigence to justify
+their exclusiveness. The <cite>Daily News</cite>, in a recent article,
+concludes an account of some of the proceedings of that body
+with these words:—“We recommend these facts to the good
+people who think that coercion, restriction, and the tyranny of
+combination are peculiar to any one class of society. It will be
+a great day in England when the right of every individual to
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_14'>14</span>make the most of the ability which God has given him, free
+from interested interference, is recognised, and to that goal we
+are surely advancing; but our progress is slow, and it is very
+clear that it is not only in the lower ranks of the community
+that the obstructive trades’ union spirit is energetically
+operating.”</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>The chivalry, or the justice of educated men could scarcely
+be brought to bear upon a subject where chivalry and justice
+are needed more. In this matter, of the bad effects of
+trades’ unions, much may be hoped for from the known
+character of working men themselves, as a class. They are
+not wanting in justice, in tenderness of heart, and in a shrewd
+perception of right and wrong when they are placed before
+them: but they need enlightenment and instruction,—and
+they wait for it,—from those who are their superiors in education
+and trained intelligence. Untold good might be done, and
+much future misery averted, if those among our leading men
+who have the ear and the confidence of working men would
+(themselves first instructed) bring before them fairly and
+patiently, such subjects as these. Economics lie at the very
+root of practical morality, and it is to be hoped that men of
+influence, and genius, and experience of life, will address
+themselves gravely to the task of instructing the working
+classes on this most grave subject.</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>The common objection brought before the Society for promoting
+the Employment of Women, is that a risk would be
+thus incurred of decreasing the employment of men. Now,
+in the first place, this is by no means certain. No one proposes
+to interfere with the men at present working at any trade;
+but while the demand for young men at high wages in the
+colonies continues practically unlimited, it may be questioned
+whether the admission to a sedentary employment at home is
+not a pitfall as often as an advantage. Many a young man
+would be healthier and happier at some manly trade in Canada
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_15'>15</span>or Australia, than in standing behind an English counter or
+plaiting straw. To take only the trades connected with
+women’s dress and such matters, the census of 1861 gives the
+following numbers of <em>men</em> employed in trades, some of which
+would seem as distinctly appropriate to the one sex, as
+soldiering and sailoring to the other.</p>
+
+<table class='table0'>
+  <tr>
+    <th class='c009'></th>
+    <th class='c010'>Males.</th>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'><a id='r3'></a><a href='#f3' class='c015'><sup>[3]</sup></a>Mercers, Drapers, and Linen Drapers</td>
+    <td class='c010'>45,660</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>Hair Dressers and Wig Makers</td>
+    <td class='c010'>10,652</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>Haberdashers and Hosiers</td>
+    <td class='c010'>4,327</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>Straw Hat and Bonnet Makers</td>
+    <td class='c010'>1,687</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>Washermen and Laundry Keepers</td>
+    <td class='c010'>1,165</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>Stay and Corset Makers</td>
+    <td class='c010'>884</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>Milliners and Dress Makers</td>
+    <td class='c010'>803</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>Artificial Flower Makers</td>
+    <td class='c010'>761</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>Berlin Wool Dealers</td>
+    <td class='c010'>63</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>Artists in Hair—Hair Workers</td>
+    <td class='c010'>42</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>Baby Linen Makers</td>
+    <td class='c010'>13</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>&#160;</td>
+    <td class='c010'><hr></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class='c009'>&#160;</td>
+    <td class='c010'>66,057</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<p class='c008'>Disabilities of sex are parallel to disabilities of creed, and
+the economical results are likely to be the same. Silk weaving
+was driven <em>into</em> England by the revocation of the Edict of
+Nantes, and I believe that now several light trades are being
+driven <em>out of</em> England by the industrial proscription of
+women. “But supposing,” says Miss Boucherett, “that the
+competition for employment were so great that whatever was
+added to the prosperity of one sex must be deducted from
+that of the other, is it just that the whole of the suffering
+thus caused should be laid upon the weaker half of humanity?
+How great a contrast is there between the spirit of Christianity,
+and the course of conduct too frequently pursued in this our
+country!”</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>“Be just before you are chivalrous,” many a woman is
+tempted to exclaim, when she finds every door through which
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_16'>16</span>she might pass to a subsistence, closed in her face with
+expressions of deference. Signs have not been wanting which
+have justified the saying “that a selfish disregard of the
+interests of women, and indifference to their sufferings, is the
+great national sin of England,—and all national sins, if
+unrepented, meet with their punishment sooner or later.”</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>(3.) The defective training of the women themselves is the
+most serious of all the hindrances which I have been considering.
+Here it is that the vicious circle returns upon itself.
+These women cannot teach, because they are so ill educated,
+and again, they are so ill educated that they can do nothing
+<em>but</em> teach.<a id='r4'></a><a href='#f4' class='c015'><sup>[4]</sup></a> Many a woman rejected from the shop-till or
+housekeeper’s room for ignorance and inefficiency, is compelled
+to offer herself among the lowest class of nursery
+governesses, or, failing all, to embrace the career, the avenues
+to which stand ever wide open, yawning like the gates of hell,
+when all other doors are closed.</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>The fault of this defective training lies mainly with the
+middle-class parents who, as the Endowed Schools Commissioners
+say plainly enough, educate their daughters to get
+husbands, and for nothing else.</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>Education was what the slave-owners most dreaded for their
+slaves, for they knew it to be the sure road to emancipation.
+It is to education that we must first look for the emancipation
+of women from the industrial restrictions of a bye gone age.
+In the meantime I may surely say that no lover of his country,
+of justice or of God, can see this misery unmoved. “He
+looked for judgment, but behold oppression, for righteousness,
+but behold a cry.”</p>
+
+<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_17'>17</span>I sometimes hear it said “I am weary of this question of
+the rights, or the wrongs, of women.” Undoubtedly there
+are many who are quickly weary of any thought which is
+perplexing or painful: nevertheless the facts remain the same—that
+women constitute one half of the human race, that
+whatever effects them, for good or evil, affects not one half, but
+the whole of the human race, and that the <em>primary</em> education
+of all generations of men rests in the hands of women.</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>There are two classes of advocates of the improvement of
+the education and condition of women. The one class urge
+everything from the domestic point of view. They argue in
+favour of all which is likely to make women better mothers,
+or better companions for men, but they seem incapable of
+judging of a woman as a human being by herself, and superstitiously
+afraid of anything which might strengthen her to
+stand alone, prepared, singlehanded, to serve her God and her
+country. When it is urged upon them that the women who
+do and must stand alone are counted by millions, they are
+perplexed, but only fell back on expressions of a fear lest a
+masculine race of women should be produced, if we admit any
+theories respecting them apart from conjugal and maternal
+relationships.</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>On the other hand, there are advocates who speak with some
+slight contempt of maternity, in whose advocacy there appears
+to me little evidence of depth of thought, or tenderness, or
+wisdom, and which bespeaks a dry, hard, unimaginative
+conception of human life. They appear to have no higher
+ideal for a woman than that of a <em>man</em> who has been “tripos’ed,”
+and is going to “get on in the world,” either in the way of
+making money or acquiring fame. They speak of women as
+if it were a compliment to them, or in any way true, to say that
+they are like men. Now it appears to me that both these sets
+of advocates have failed to see something which is very true,
+and that their ears are deaf to some of the subtle harmonies
+which exist in God’s creation—harmonies sometimes evolved
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_18'>18</span>from discords—and which we are much hindered from hearing
+by the noise of the world, and by our own discordant
+utterances.</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>The first class of advocates do not know how strong Nature
+is, how true she is for the most part, and how deeply the
+maternal character is rooted in almost all women, married or
+unmarried: they are not, therefore, likely to see that when a
+better education is secured to women, when permission is
+granted them not only to win bread for themselves, but to use
+for the good of society, every gift bestowed on them by God,
+we may expect to find, (as certainly we shall find,) that they
+will become the <em>more</em> and not the <em>less</em> womanly. Every good
+quality, every virtue which we regard as distinctively feminine,
+will, under conditions of greater freedom, develop more freely,
+like plants brought out into the light from a cellar in which
+they languished, dwarfed and blanched, without sun or air.
+The woman is strong in almost every woman; and it may be
+called an infidelity against God and against the truth of nature
+to suppose that the removal of unjust restrictions, and room
+given to breathe freely, and to do her work in life without
+depression and without bitterness, will cause her to cast off
+her nature. It will always be in her nature to foster, to
+cherish, to take the part of the weak, to train, to guide, to
+have a care for individuals, to discern the small seeds of a
+great future, to warm and cherish those seeds into fulness of
+life. “I serve,” will always be one of her favourite mottos,
+even should the utmost freedom be accorded her in the choice
+of vocation; for she, more readily perhaps than men do,
+recognises the wisdom and majesty of Him who said—“I am
+among you as he that serveth.” In Him,—“in Christ
+Jesus,” says the apostle, “there is neither Jew nor Greek,
+there is neither bond nor free; there is neither male nor
+female.” It has been the tendency of Christianity, gradually
+and slowly, to break down all unfriendly barriers between races,
+and to extinguish slavery; and last of all it will—this is our
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_19'>19</span>hope—remove disabilities imposed by the stronger portion of
+society upon the weaker.</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>What do we lose by the abandonment of national exclusiveness?
+Is labour demoralized because slaves are free? Does
+<em>service</em> cease when servitude is at an end? Common sense
+alone, without the help of historical knowledge, might lead us
+to suppose that women will not do their <em>special</em> work in the
+world worse, but better, when justice shall be done them.<a id='r5'></a><a href='#f5' class='c015'><sup>[5]</sup></a> It
+is in the name of <em>Christ</em> that the removal of burdens and disabilities
+is preached: much wisdom might be learned regarding
+some of these matters if people would look more closely at
+this, and note that this is the Person in whom all virtues
+which are considered essentially womanly, as well as those
+which are considered essentially manly, found their perfect
+development. A little meditation on this double truth—that
+in Christ all distinctions are done away, and that in Him,
+nevertheless, were exhibited in perfect beauty the distinctive
+virtues of the feminine character—would suggest some lessons
+which the world has been very slow to learn, would tend to
+remove groundless fears regarding the consequences of the
+abandonment of many unreasonable and unchristian theories
+which prevail, and to counteract the materialistic doctrine
+which has sunk too deep into the heart of our so-called
+Christian community, a doctrine which amounts to this, that
+“the weaker races, classes, persons must struggle on unaided,
+and if they are trampled down and die out, the fact proves
+that it is better for the world that they should perish, so only
+a stronger and higher stock will remain;”<a id='r6'></a><a href='#f6' class='c015'><sup>[6]</sup></a> a doctrine of
+which we see the fruits in our wickednesses in Asia, &#38;c., and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_20'>20</span>which takes its stand on a supposed “law of nature” that the
+weak must go down.</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>The tone in which certain foolish popular writers speak of
+unmarried and childless women betrays both coarseness of
+feeling and ignorance. They speak of these women as having
+altogether missed their vocation, and as necessarily dwarfed in
+affection and motive, because they have not performed certain
+physical functions. We are all mothers or foster-mothers.
+The few exceptions to this rule,—the cases in which the maternal
+feelings are weak or wanting,—are to be found among
+mothers of families as well as among childless women. I
+have known many unmarried women in whom all the best
+characteristics of maternity are stronger than in some who are
+actually mothers. It would be wise of the State to avail itself
+of this abundance of generous womanliness, of tender and
+wise motherliness which lives in the hearts of thousands of
+women who are free to bring their capacities to bear where
+they are most needed. The country counts by tens of thousands
+its orphan and outcast children, in workhouses, and in
+the streets of our great cities. These orphans have lately
+been called “the children of the State:” for the care of these
+children of the State alone, mothers and nurses of the State
+are needed, women who must be free to some extent from
+domestic ties of their own. These workhouse children are
+not likely to grow up to be useful to the country or other than
+dangerous classes, while they are left wholly to the mercy of
+vulgar, uneducated people.<a id='r7'></a><a href='#f7' class='c015'><sup>[7]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_21'>21</span>Leon Fauchat exclaimed, when told of crimes committed in
+our country against children,—“<span lang="fr">Est-il possible que ces choses
+soient permises par une nation qui a des entrailles!</span>” “Take
+heed that ye offend not one of these little ones,” are words
+of most solemn import: when women begin to deserve and
+acquire more weight in the community, the warning contained
+in them will be better understood. The interests of children
+will not remain unrepresented any longer than women remain
+so. I say this with certainty, knowing the nature of woman.
+It will not be left to an indignant father, or philanthropist, or
+to an impassioned poetess, at long intervals to translate in the
+ears of the public the inarticulate cry of the children:</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c016'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line in4'>“They are weeping in the playtime of the others,</div>
+      <div class='line in8'>In the country of the free,</div>
+      <div class='line in4'>For the man’s grief abhorrent, draws and presses</div>
+      <div class='line in8'>Down the cheeks of infancy.”</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>       ·       ·       ·       ·       ·</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line in4'>“They look up with their pale and sunken faces,</div>
+      <div class='line in8'>And their look is dread to see,</div>
+      <div class='line in4'>For they mind you of their Angels in their places,</div>
+      <div class='line in8'>With eyes meant for Deity:</div>
+      <div class='line'>‘How long,’ they say, ‘how long, O cruel nation,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>Will you stand, to move the world, on a child’s heart,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation,</div>
+      <div class='line in2'>And tread onward to your throne amid the mart?</div>
+      <div class='line in4'>Our blood splashes upwards, O our tyrants,</div>
+      <div class='line in8'>And your purple shows your path;</div>
+      <div class='line in4'><em>But the child’s sob curseth deeper in the silence</em></div>
+      <div class='line in8'><em>Than the strong man in his wrath</em>.’”</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c008'>The ears of my reader would not endure to hear what I
+could tell, what my eyes have seen, of outraged innocence, of
+horrors and miseries endured among the children of the poor.
+I am not unmindful of the benevolent enterprise there is in
+our country, the orphanages, schools and homes springing up
+everywhere. God be thanked for these! but they do not yet
+meet the evil; and we must remember that stone walls do not
+shut out crime, nor regulations confer blessing; these institutions
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_22'>22</span>themselves fail in their purpose unless the compassionate
+motive which originated them be sustained in a constant and
+abundant flow. The histories of many charities in foreign
+countries and at home prove that institutions devised by loving
+hearts for protection and blessing, have become, for lack of the
+constancy of the internal impulse, neither more nor less than
+“habitations of cruelty.” What I here complain of is the
+thriftless waste of good feelings, of emotion,—emotion which
+on the one hand is ill trained, and consequently takes a false
+or unreal direction, and on the other is wearing itself out, unclaimed.
+Tears shed over sentimental works of fiction or
+some imaginative woe might well be bestowed on the realities
+around us. Surely there is room enough among <em>them</em> for the
+promptings of a mighty compassion! Surely there is cause
+enough <em>here</em> for tears! “Mine eye runneth down with rivers
+of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people.”</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>And there is other work on every side waiting to be done by
+women,—the work of healers, preachers, physicians, artists,
+organizers of labour, captains of industry, &#38;c., while on the
+other hand women are waiting to be prepared for service, and
+ready to bridge over, as they alone can, many a gulf between
+class and class which now presents a grave obstacle to social
+and political progress.</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>The second kind of advocacy of the rights of women, of
+which I spoke, may be said to be simply a reaction against the
+first. It is chiefly held by a few women of superior intellect
+who feel keenly the disadvantages of their class, their feebleness,
+through want of education, against public opinion, which
+is taken advantage of by base people, their inability, through
+want of representation, to defend their weaker members, and
+the dwarfing of the faculties of the ablest and best among
+them. These women have associated little with men, or at
+best, know very little of their inner life, and do not therefore
+see as clearly as they see their own loss, the equal loss that it
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_23'>23</span>is to men, and the injury it involves to their characters, to live
+dissociated from women: they therefore look forth from their
+isolation with something of an excusable envy on the freer
+and happier lot, which includes, they believe, a greater power
+to do good, and imagine that the only hope for themselves is
+to push into the ranks of men, to demand the same education,
+the same opportunities, in order that they may compete with
+them on their own ground. They have lost the conception of
+the noblest development possible for both men and women;
+for assuredly that which men, for the most part, aim at, is not
+the noblest, and yet that is what such women appear to wish
+to imitate; they have lost sight of the truth, too, that men
+and women were made equal indeed, but not alike, and were
+meant to supplement one another, and that in so doing,—each
+supplying force which the other lacks,—they are attracted
+with a far greater amount of impulse to a common centre.
+When St. Chrysostom preached in Constantinople, that “men
+ought to be pure, and women courageous,” he was treated as
+a dangerous innovator, a perverter of the facts of nature, a
+changer of customs. I hope that many such innovators will
+arise, who will shew forth in practice the possibility of the
+attainment of a common standard of excellence for man and
+woman, not by usurpation on either hand, nor by servile
+imitation, but by the action of each upon each, by mutual
+teaching and help. The above misconception, like many
+other errors, results from men and women living so dissociated
+as they do in our country; hence comes also all
+that reserve, and incapacity for understanding each other
+which has existed between the sexes for so many generations,
+those false notions about women which are entertained in
+society, and great injury to the work, and happiness, and
+dignity of man and woman alike: for it may be truly said
+that many of the most serious evils in England are but the
+bitter and various fruit of the sacreligious disjoining of that
+which God had joined together, the disunion of men and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_24'>24</span>women, theoretically and practically, in all the graver work
+of life.</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>The following account of the School of Art, in Newman
+Street, London, is interesting, as affording some illustration
+of this subject. Mrs. Heatherley writes, “This School was
+begun on the separate principle, about twenty-three years
+ago, by Mr. James Mathews Leigh. I first knew the place
+in 1848, when I studied as an amateur. Mr. Leigh, whilst
+agreeing to the idea of mixed classes as a theory, always
+declared that the men’s conduct and conversation would
+render it impossible for any lady to come amongst them, and
+they were certainly very rough in manner when, after Mr.
+Leigh’s death, we took the school. We were warned that we
+should be ruined by introducing the mixed system. Very
+soon both parties found the convenience of studying in the
+Gallery every day, instead of having to take their places on
+alternate days. Finding it succeed, at the end of 1861 we
+admitted ladies to the evening school: there are about two
+hundred students in the course of the year. Great individual
+freedom is allowed, and a most friendly feeling exists
+amongst the students. Every one who knew the place
+before the admission of women agrees that there has been
+great improvement; quite another tone prevails. We have
+never had to dismiss anyone for conduct that was disapproved.
+From here went the first ladies to the Royal
+Academy, one of whom, a girl of about twenty-one, gained
+the gold medal, last December, for the best historical picture.
+As a general rule, where there are equal facilities, the women
+are the most successful. The Academy ceased to admit
+them when their numbers reached about twelve, and now
+takes them in only when the time of studentship of others
+expires. They made this change at the end of two years,
+without giving any notice here or at any other school, to the
+great disappointment of a number of girls. This I think is
+an act of hardship, as there has been shown positively that
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_25'>25</span>no incompetence exists. Unless there be chances offered to
+women of being able to follow a profession, parents will
+invest in consols, as a general rule, rather than in a superior
+education. The mention of our school may be useful,
+because there are doubts in many minds as to the expediency
+of free intercourse between young people, and facts are
+better than theories. The more that is done to bring young
+men and women together in a rational manner, the sooner
+we may hope to arrive at a social state less immoral than the
+present.”</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>I am persuaded that anyone who will candidly and carefully
+consider the histories of separate communities of men or
+women, for educational or other purposes, must see that the
+evils attendant on such a system as they represent outweigh
+its conveniences. The arrangement is for a given period, but
+not so the evils which accompany it, for they,—and of this men
+are not ignorant,—too often leave their effects, I may say their
+curse, throughout life. The objection rises at once of the
+difficulty of adopting any other arrangement than the present,
+which may be called an unnatural one. This objection will be
+more effectually met by facts than by reasoning, and in time
+facts will speak for themselves, while up to the present they
+attest that whenever the experiment of a different system has
+been tried, the difficulties have been found to be very much
+less than it was believed they would be, before the trial was
+made.</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>To conclude this part of my subject, although I grant that
+too much stress cannot be laid upon the improvement of the
+education of women who will be actually the mothers of a
+future generation, yet I wish, on the one hand, that persons
+who only look at it from this point of view would take more
+into account the valuable service our country might command
+if it but understood the truth about the condition and feelings
+of its unmarried women, and that a more generous trust were
+felt in the strength of woman’s nature, and the probable
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_26'>26</span>direction of its development when granted more expansion,
+while on the other hand I should like to see a truer conception
+of the highest possibilities for women than is implied in the
+attempt to imitate men, and a deeper reverence for the God of
+nature, whose wisdom is more manifested in variety than in
+uniformity. It cannot be denied that a just cause has sometimes
+been advocated by women in a spirit of bitterness.
+Energy impeded in one direction, will burst forth in another;
+hence the defiant and sometimes grotesque expression which
+the lives and acts of some few women have been of the injustice
+done to them by society. This will cease, and while it
+lasts, it ought to excite our pity rather than our anger. It
+must be remembered that it is but a symptom of a long
+endured servitude, a protest against a state of things which
+we hope will give place to a better. It is folly to regard it as
+the natural fruit of that of which we have scarcely seen the
+beginning. Acts of violence on the part of a long oppressed
+nation are not the offspring of dawning liberties, but of a
+doomed tyranny. Again, no important reform can be carried
+without a measure of attendant confusion. Evil agencies are
+the most vigilant for destruction at the beginning of a great
+and good work, and many lives have to be consumed in its
+inauguration. Any evils which may at first attend a social
+reform ought not to alarm us: they are transient; they are
+but the breakers on the bar which must be crossed before we
+launch into deep waters, but the “noise and dust of the
+wagon which brings the harvest home.”</p>
+
+<p class='c007'>There is a near future and there is a far future; there are
+plans for the near future and plans for the far future. The
+world is full of plans for the near future; not so of plans for
+the far future. There are people who do just what comes
+first to their hand to do, there are others who do all for a near
+future, others again who do all for a far off end. The first
+and the last have much in common; it is the second aim,
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_27'>27</span>which when exclusively pursued, misleads. Plans and schemes
+for the near future gain and obtain with most people; not
+unfrequently they wither away like untimely fruit: those
+who look afar off prevail, yet not they, but rather He prevails
+in them, who taught them to stretch their vision to the distant
+horizon, and enables them to bear with composure the disappointment
+of present hopes.</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>Some say, “in order to insure success for this or that
+movement, you must have a scheme beforehand, a well-planned
+system, a fixed principle of action, else you will be
+blown hither and thither.” Without offering any opposition
+to such a theory, there are others to whom there appears but
+one principle of action,—to fix the eyes on the far future, and
+to do to-day the work of to-day; each day to undo the heavy
+burdens as they come to their hand, each day to break some
+link of the chains which bind, and to let some who are now
+oppressed go free. God guiding these efforts to the desired
+end.<a id='r8'></a><a href='#f8' class='c015'><sup>[8]</sup></a> They have more faith in that which grows from
+within than in that which is planned from without, and built
+according to the preconceived plan. Such plans or schemes
+as must be adopted by them are made as elastic as possible,
+so that the builders can avail themselves, at each step, of
+experience gained, and be ready to correct or undo any part of
+the work without sacrificing the whole; they are content with
+the light which falls on the path immediately at their feet, and
+with the fairer light in the distance. Perhaps it is by such a
+principle of action that we can best supply “the needs of the
+times,” and it is the possibility of adopting such a principle
+in times of need that alone can ensure permanence in usefulness
+for the venerable institutions of the country. What such
+institutions generally do is to resist all movement, or if they
+admit any change, it is only to crystallize anew in an
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_28'>28</span>altered form. Almost all true help is special; and crystallized
+institutions seldom have help to give for great and
+special necessities. But there are times when an impulse,
+having its origin in the <em>hearts</em> of men, is found to be stronger
+than custom and use; if it cannot work within the established
+bounds, or by existing machinery, it will work without them.
+Somehow or other difficulties vanish before such an impulse,
+and much is accomplished which before was held to be
+impossible.</p>
+
+<p class='c008'>I cannot conclude these remarks without expressing the
+gladness and gratitude with which I am filled when I see the
+earnest spirit in which some of the best and most thoughtful
+men are beginning to consider these matters; and I venture
+especially to acknowledge the kindness of men in high educational
+positions themselves, whose sympathies have lately
+been enlisted on behalf of the women-teachers whose struggles,
+and sorrows, and social disadvantages I have tried to indicate.
+Mr. Maurice says, very truly, “Whenever in trade or in
+any department of human activity, restrictions tending to
+the advantage of one class and the injury of others have
+been removed, there a divine power has been at work counteracting
+not only the selfish calculations, but often the
+apparently sagacious reasonings of their defenders.” If we
+were not assured that there is indeed a divine power at work
+in all these things which some of us have so deeply at heart,
+we should lack the only stimulus which enables us to work
+on, to live and to die for that which we hold to be right and
+true; for “except the Lord build the house, their labour is
+but vain that build it.”</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-r'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'><span class='sc'>Josephine E. Butler.</span></div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c017'><em>May, 1868.</em></p>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c003'>
+    <div><span class='small'>T. BRAKELL, PRINTER, COOK STREET, LIVERPOOL.</span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class='c018'>
+<div class='footnote' id='f1'>
+<p class='c008'><a href='#r1'>1</a>. Miss Strongitharm states in respect of the Governesses’ Institution at Manchester—“Remember
+that those who register here are the favourable specimens
+of the class, the governesses who accept salaries under £20,—and their name is
+Legion,—being excluded by the Rules of the Institution, and that the salaries
+asked by no means represent, in most cases, the salaries obtained—a governess
+being often too glad to get a home on almost any terms.”</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f2'>
+<p class='c008'><a href='#r2'>2</a>. The condition of governesses in schools is, on the whole, better than in
+private families; they have more companionship and independence, and, except
+in the very poor schools, are better paid.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f3'>
+<p class='c008'><a href='#r3'>3</a>. Census for England and Wales. Vol. ii. Occupation of the people: summary
+tables.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f4'>
+<p class='c008'><a href='#r4'>4</a>. “In one of Jerrold’s sketches, Mr. Isaac Check is asked, ‘What can you do?’
+Now as Isaac had not dined for three days, he thought himself justified in saying—‘<em>Anything.</em>’
+Hunger thus conferred the cheap diploma of omnipotence: why
+not of omniscience too? In a bitter moment I have been tempted to say that a
+governess is too often a poor lady who knows nothing, and teaches everything for
+nothing.”—<em>Dr. Hodgson.</em></p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f5'>
+<p class='c008'><a href='#r5'>5</a>. “I have preached,” says Theodore Parker, “the equivalency of man and
+woman—that each in some particulars is inferior to the other, but, on the whole,
+mankind and womankind, though so diverse, are yet equal in their natural faculties;
+and have set forth the evils which come to both from her present inferior
+position.... But I have thought she will generally prefer domestic to public
+functions, and have found no philosophic or historic argument for thinking
+she will ever incline much to the rough works of man, or take any considerable
+part in Republican politics.”</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f6'>
+<p class='c008'><a href='#r6'>6</a>. F. Newman.</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f7'>
+<p class='c008'><a href='#r7'>7</a>. I have spoken of the incompetency of a vast number of teachers, an incompetency
+sometimes natural, more often the effect of want of training. But I
+believe it is widely acknowledged that women generally have a great aptitude for
+teaching boys as well as girls. Mr. Bryce, in his Report, says, “The bright point
+in this otherwise gloomy landscape is that women are naturally skilful teachers,
+and that they are, as far as my observation goes, zealous and conscientious
+teachers. Whenever I happened to hear the teaching of a lady of good ability
+who had herself been thoroughly educated, its merits struck me as at least
+equal, and probably superior, to those which would be found in the teaching of
+a man of the same general capacity and education. Women seem to have more
+patience as teachers, more quickness in seeing whether the pupil understands,
+more skill in adapting their explanations to the peculiarities of the pupils’
+minds, and certainly a nicer discernment of his or her character. They are
+quite as clear in exposition as men are, and, when well trained, quite as capable
+of making their teaching philosophical. I must confess myself to have been
+also impressed by the interest which they so often took in their pupils, and
+their genuine ardour to do their best for them.”</p>
+</div>
+<div class='footnote' id='f8'>
+<p class='c008'><a href='#r8'>8</a>. “Is not this the fast that I have chose? to loose the bands of wickedness,
+to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break
+every yoke; is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the
+poor that are cast out to thy house?”—Isaiah lviii. 6, 7.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class='pbb'>
+ <hr class='pb c004'>
+</div>
+<div class='tnotes x-ebookmaker'>
+
+<div class='chapter ph2'>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c005'>
+    <div>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+ <ul class='ul_1 c003'>
+    <li>Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
+
+    </li>
+    <li>Used numbers for footnotes, placing them all at the end of the last chapter.
+    </li>
+  </ul>
+
+</div>
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75350 ***</div>
+  </body>
+  <!-- created with ppgen.py 3.57e (with regex) on 2025-02-11 20:30:43 GMT -->
+</html>
+
diff --git a/75350-h/images/cover.jpg b/75350-h/images/cover.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6ecd67a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/75350-h/images/cover.jpg
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..645b514
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #75350 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75350)