is the same now with us. Throw open the doors of Congress; throw open those court-houses; throw wide open the doors of your colleges, and give to the sisters of the De Staëls and the Martineaus the same opportunity for culture that men have, and let the results prove what their capacity and intellect really are. When woman has enjoyed for as many centuries as we have the aid of books, the discipline of life, and the stimulus of fame, it will be time to begin the discussion of these questions: "What is the intellect of woman?" "Is it equal to that of man?" Till then, all such discussion is mere beating of the air. While it is doubtless true, that great minds make a way for themselves, spite of all obstacles, yet who knows how many Miltons have died, "mute and inglorious"? However splendid the natural endowments, the discipline of life, after all, completes the miracle. The ability of Napoleon—what was it? It grew out of the hope to be Cæsar, or Marlborough; out of Austerlitz and Jena—out of his battle-fields, his throne, and all the great scenes of that eventful life.
Open to woman the same scenes, immerse her in the same great interests and pursuits, and if twenty centuries shall not produce a woman Charlemagne, or a Napoleon, fair reason will then allow us to conclude that there is some distinctive peculiarity in the intellects of the sexes.
Centuries alone can lay a fair basis for the argument. I believe on this point there is a shrinking consciousness of not being ready for the battle, on the part of some of the stronger sex, as they call themselves; a tacit confession of risk to this imagined superiority, if they consent to meet their sisters in the lecture halls, or the laboratory of science.
My proof of it is this, that the mightiest intellects of the race, from Plato down to the present time, some of the rarest minds of Germany, France, and England, have successively yielded their assent to the fact, that woman is not, perhaps, identically, but equally endowed with man in all intellectual capabilities. It is generally the second-rate men who doubt; doubt because, perhaps, they fear a fair field.
Suppose that woman is essentially inferior to man, she still has rights. Grant that Mrs. Norton48 never could be Byron; that Elizabeth Barrett never could have written Paradise Lost; that Mrs. Somerville never could be La Place, nor Sirani have painted the Transfiguration. What then? Does that prove they should be deprived of all civil rights?
John Smith will never be, never can be, Daniel Webster. Shall he therefore be put under guardianship, and forbidden to vote? Suppose woman, though equal, does differ essentially in her intellect from man, is that any ground for disfranchising her? Shall the Fultons say to the Raphaels, because you can not make steam engines, therefore you shall not vote? Shall the Napoleons or the Washingtons say to the Wordsworths or the Herschells, because you can not lead armies, and govern States, therefore you shall have no civil rights?
The following interesting letter from Harriet Martineau was then read, which we give in full, that the reader may see how clearly defined was her position at that early day:
Cromer, England, Aug. 3, 1851.
Paulina Wright Davis:
Dear Madam:—I beg to thank you heartily for your kindness in sending me the Report of the Proceedings of your Woman's Rights Convention. I had gathered what I could from the newspapers concerning it, but I was gratified at being able to read, in a collected form, addresses so full of earnestness and sound truth, as I found most of the speeches to be. I hope you are aware of the interest excited in this country by that Convention, the strongest, proof of which is the appearance of an article on the subject in The Westminster Review (for July), as thorough-going as any of your own addresses, and from the pen (at least as it is understood here) of one of our very first men, Mr. John S. Mill. I am not without hope that this article will materially strengthen your hands, and I am sure it can not but cheer your hearts.
Ever since I became capable of thinking for myself, I have clearly seen, and I have said it till my listeners and readers are probably tired of hearing it, that there can be but one true method in the treatment of each human being, of either sex, of any color, and under any outward circumstances, to ascertain what are the powers of that being, to cultivate them to the utmost, and then to see what action they will find for themselves. This has probably never been done for men, unless in some rare individual cases. It has certainly never been done for women, and, till it is done, all debating about what woman's intellect is, all speculation, or laying down the law, as to what is woman's sphere, is a mere beating of the air. A priori conceptions have long been worthless in physical science, and nothing was really effected till the experimental method was clearly made out and strictly applied in practice, and the same principle holds most certainly through the whole range of moral science.
Whether we regard the physical fact of what women are able to do, or the moral fact of what women ought to do, it is equally necessary to abstain from making any decision prior to experiment. We see plainly enough the waste of time and thought among the men who once talked of Nature abhorring a vacuum, or disputed at great length as to whether angels could go from end to end without passing through the middle; and the day will come when it will appear to be no less absurd to have argued, as men and women are arguing now, about what woman ought to do, before it was ascertained what woman can do.
Let us once see a hundred women educated up to the highest point that education at present reaches; let them be supplied with such knowledge as their faculties are found to crave, and let them be free to use, apply, and increase their knowledge as their faculties shall instigate, and it will presently appear what is the sphere of each of the hundred.
One may be discovering comets, like Miss Herschell; one may be laying open the mathematical structure of the universe, like Mrs. Somerville; another may be analyzing the chemical relations of Nature in the laboratory; another may be penetrating the mysteries of physiology; others may be applying science in the healing of diseases; others maybe investigating the laws of social relations, learning the great natural laws under which society, like everything else, proceeds; others, again, may be actively carrying out the social arrangements which have been formed under these laws; and others may be chiefly occupied in family business, in the duties of the wife and mother, and the ruler of the household.
If, among the hundred women, a great diversity of powers should appear (which I have no doubt would be the case), there will always be plenty of scope and material for the greatest amount and variety of power that can be brought out. If not—if it should appear that women fall below men in all but the domestic functions—then it will be well that the experiment has been tried; and the trial better go on forever, that woman's sphere may forever determine itself to the satisfaction of everybody. It is clear that education, to be what I demand on behalf of women, must be intended to issue in active life.
A man's medical education would be worth little, if it was not a preparation for practice. The astronomer and the chemist would put little force into their studies, if it was certain that they must leave off in four or five years, and do nothing for the rest of their lives; and no man could possibly feel much interest in political and social morals, if he knew that he must, all his life long, pay taxes, but neither speak nor move about public affairs.
Women, like men, must be educated with a view to action, or their studies can not be called education, and no judgment can be formed of the scope of their faculties. The pursuit must be life's business, or it will be mere pastime or irksome task. This was always my point of difference with one who carefully cherished a reverence for woman, the late Dr. Channing.
How much we spoke and wrote of the old controversy, Influence vs. Office. He would have had any woman study anything that her faculties led her to, whether physical science or law, government and political economy; but he would have her stop at the study. From the moment she entered the hospital as physician and not nurse; from the moment she took her place in a court of justice, in the jury box, and not the witness
