Or what his occupation- All he holds dear, His corps, his home, his nation; Will dare aud do, Or die, the Briton! daring. Oh, the daring! the doing and the daring! Will dare and do, Or die, the Briton! daring. R. COMPTON NOAKE THE EMPLOYMENT OF LADIES. By DR. ALFRED J. H. CRESPI. IT may be thought ill-advised to say so, and may bring down on my devoted head a perfect storm of censure, but without wronging, or wishing to wrong, the female sex, its physical and intellectual inferiority, or rather disadvantages, must be admitted to be great. History tells us that comparatively few women have risen to eminence; observation shows us that as a very broad rule, to which there are innumerable exceptions, women are not as well able to fight with the world as men, while employers of labour assure us that, in spite of its greater cheapness, female labour is less efficient and reliable than that of men. Again and again we have been told that nothing is easier than to educate women up to a certain point, and that their docility and patience surpass those of men of the same class; but the aptitude for continuous improvement is singularly deficient, so that, as an eminent authority has stated, girls in factories know as much of their work in a fortnight as they ever do, while young men continue to improve, and soon distance their fair rivals. The ominous fact that in England and the United States, where women are practically emancipated from helpless subjection to men, it is very difficult to establish their right to earn a livelihood except in a limited number of ways, seems to me the strongest proof of this. Whenever we find any class or party contending that, in social consideration and mental culture, it is equal to some other body a consciousness of inferiority is implied. No clergyman is driven to prove that the clergy, as a body, are as influential and well-informed as Nonconformist ministers; he knows that the position of the former is well assured. But we daily find Dissenting ministers trying to establish, not that the class to which they belong is superior to, but that it is not in any essential respect inferior to the clergy, a sure proof that, with some exceptions, it is. So with the equality of the sexes. It is a damaging confession of inferiority that ladies can only try to establish their fitness to attempt some of the things now restricted to men. No man is called upon to defend his sex, or to do battle for its rights. Who questions the ability of men to do anything women can successfully attempt? Too much has nevertheless been made of the undoubted inferiority of the female sex. Many women are as tall and robust as average men, while some in stature and strength far surpass the majority of men. So, in like manner, not a few ladies are competent, in all the intellectual qualifications for success in life, to hold their own with any competitors, and, here and there, one is found who would distance nearly all rivals. The question is seldom fairly debated. By the one party the acknowledged abilities and sterling worth of a handful of illustrious women are assumed to represent what all women might be under favourable circumstances. By the other party the greater average strength, physical and mental, of men is compared with the smaller average strength of women, to the manifest disadvantage of the latter. The question at issue is not whether some women are competent to fill the highest offices in the state, and to leave their mark on the age in which they live, but whether large numbers are able to acquit themselves creditably and successfully in the routine of trades and professions, not requiring exceptional talents. To this there is only one answer; and no one, who has fairly used his powers of observation, can deny that there are many such women. Now, just because there are many occupations for which women are fit, and in which they succeed as well as men, we can contend that greater scope should be given them. The rights of women, I take it, are not the concession of their superiority to or equality with men, but the permission to enter upon callings for which they are eminently qualified, and in which a competence would await them. In this broad sense their rights have not been conceeded. Nothing is more common, nor more distressing than for ladies of all ages and degrees of education to be debarred by custom from supporting themselves; but who, nevertheless, have nothing to occupy their time and call forth their sympathies. Worse far, however, than the evils of idleness are those of poverty, from which many delicately-nurtured and high-principled women are only rescued by imprudent or unsuitable marriages. Everyone is beginning to feel that women not possessed of an independence, ought not to be compelled, nolens volens, to resort to marriage as their sole refuge from neglect and abject dependence in early life, and contempt and misery when old age approaches. A married life should be cheerfully entered upon, and mercenary motives ought to have nothing to do with it; it certainly should not be the one object in life of the majority of women, and their sole escape from poverty and sorrow. In saying this, I do not intend to reflect in the smallest degree on the married state, or to deny that, as the mistress of the household, the mother of the family, and the consoler and sustainer of her husband, a woman is doing her work bravely and thoroughly, and in her right sphere. But, then, many gentle and excellent women are, from a variety of circumstances unfit for marriage; many have few opportunities of associating with men with whom they could be happy; some prefer single life, while, not a few, from the greater number of women than men, are debarred from marrying. Why should these women be compelled to plunge recklessly into matrimony, or perhaps it would be more correct to say, to make futile attempts to do so, though knowing all the time their unfitness for marriage and shrinking from it. To compel every young man to begin housekeeping before circumstances justify him in taking such a fatal step, would not be more unreasonable than our custom of making an early marriage the primary object of nineteen out of twenty girls. Το say that many women would sooner or later marry, even among those who, at great expenditure of time and money, qualified themselves for and entered upon the actual practice of a profession or trade, is no real objection. Nor is it true that constant derange. ments would occur in offices and professions by the withdrawal of women trained at great expense. Least of all is it possible to show that the money expended in training lady doctors or clerks would be thrown entirely away. Education is never thrown away, however expensive; and every woman who passed a few years at any occupation would thereby be much better qualified for the management of a household. Were it certainly known beforehand that every woman who might choose a business or a profession would ultimately desert it for marriage, it would be no valid objection to the proposed innova tion. In early life girls would gain that experience and self. reliance, that sense of justice, that accuracy, that power of commanding, which, as Canon Kingsley so well observed, women seldom possess, and thus they would subsequently be better qualified for the difficult and delicate work of managing a household. Before marriage, moreover, girls usefully employed would be in a position to assist aged parents or widowed mothers, and would be spared the degradation of husband hunting, the vilest of all occupations, though a pursuit in which marvellous ingenuity and perseverance are, often with unhappy consequences, unfortunately displayed. It is not an objection to entering a professional career that many officers and barristers retire at the end of a dozen years. Why then should a lady who had passed six or eight years as a clerk be the worse wife or mother? No one who maintains the right of every woman, not disqualified by physical or mental infirmity, to select her path in the world and to be able to earn a competence, for one instant supposes that the majority of women would, at any time, compete with men for occupation and position. The number willing to do so might in the aggregate be large; but it would never exceed a small percentage of the sex. Were it, however, hereafter found that a larger proportion than seems probable would decline to marry, is it certain that that would be a cause of regret or apprehension? The population of this country could be maintained at its present high figure were the annual number of marriages diminished by many thousands. With more freedom on the part of women to marry or to remain single, there would be fewer ill-assorted unions and less poverty, and the social position and influence for good of the female sex would materially improve. The right of women to think and choose for themselves being cheerfully and unreservedly conceded, the question presents itself for what employments are they peculiarly qualified. The answer is any not requiring greater physical strength than the majority of women possess; this would comprise an immense number of occupations, professional, commercial, and manual. While, accordingly, I do not deny that the barriers closing the three learned professions, and a whole host of other callings, not by the vulgar reputed so honourable, should be removed, so that admission should be equally open to both sexes, it does not follow that in some cases the disadvantages might not outweigh the advantages. A peculiar and disagreeable shrillness of voice makes lady speakers and preachers less acceptable to their hearers than one could desire. It is just possible that use would reconcile us to even greater evils; but observation confirms me in the belief that the female voice is not adapted for public speaking, and that objection is generally made to it. The trying scenes and great uncertainty of a medical career, the severe labour, and very great exposure inseparable from general practice, particularly in country places, would seem to point out that, speaking generally, ladies could rarely do worse than become doctors. Still, whatever the undoubted objections to flinging open all occupations to the untrammelled competition of the two sexes, whatever the manifest disqualifications of the majority of educated women for the professions of medicine and divinity, the right of entry should invariably be accorded to those among them who gave proof of possessing the requisite theoretical knowledge, without which no one should be admissible. The various branches of the law should, moreover, be thrown open. It might need a powerful imagination to enable us to picture to ourselves lady barristers and attorneys creditably and successfully acquitting themselves in law courts, and passing uncontaminated through the miseries of a lawyer's life; but those women whose inclination and ability induced them to select these walks in life should not be hindered. The enus of deciding between male. and female candidates for popular support should rest with the |