BY FREDRIKA BREMER. TRANSLATED BY MARY HOWITT. Authorized American Edition, with the Author's Dedication. NEW YORK: 1856. DEDICATION FOR THE AMERICAN EDITION. TO THE Blessed Memory of A. J. DOWNING, THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED IN LOVE AND GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE "THE women must regenerate us socially," was a favorite saying of yours, my friend, a saying precious to me as coming from a spirit so just, so observing, and discriminating as yours; and as it seemed to me to express a feeling inherent though only half conscious in the people of your country, the great New World, the land of promise and of hope to millions of hearts in Europe. It also corresponded deeply to the faith of my own heart. But if woman shall be able to accomplish the great work which we believe intrusted to her by the great author of life; our laws and customs, institutions and education, must not counteract the normal development of her noblest faculties, of her will and aspirations; they must rather be to her the very soil and sun in which the tree of her life can grow, and develop its branches, and bear its fruits, in full correspondence to its inward essence. You will certainly assent to this, my friend, you whose skilful hand loved to raise plants of every kind so as to propitiate their full growth and God-given beauty or grace. But is it so with regard to human institutions-for the growth of woman's mind, and the full development of her God-given gifts! |