Sept. 30, 1871
Mr. Beecher thinks it high time girls were taught a little practical natural history, and so shamed out of screaming and half fainting at the sight of a worm, toad or snake.
There is a woman in Washington who, having kept a vile house for years, and amassed a fortune of $150,000, after reserving for herself an annual income of $500, devoted the rest of her money to the cause of female moral reform.
Can girls stand a college course of study? Mrs. Stanton thinks they can, and says: "I would like to see you take 1,300 young men and lace them up, and hang ten to twenty pounds’ weight of clothes on their waists, perch them up on three-inch heels, cover their heads with ripples, chignons, rats and mice, and stick ten thousand hair pins into their scalps; if they can stand all this they will stand a little Latin and Greek."
While we would not do away with private schools if we could, we certainly must admit that, for a Republic like ours, public schools, where the children of the masses can be educated together, are an absolute necessity. Under the same roof they bring together boys and girls representing every shade of religion and nationality, and in the hearts of these little ones they drop the seeds of a friendship which continue to grow and to blossom until maturity is reached, and, as a result, they go out into the world strong men and women, entirely free from prejudices common to those educated in sectarian schools. Thus they are made good citizens, and, as such, may always be relied upon as unflinching opponents of the one thing which above all others this country has most reason to fear—a union of Church and State. Anything, therefore, which promises to improve and extend our system of public education is a blessing to the country, and as such we hail the New York School Journal, a weekly paper, published in this city by Messrs. Stout and Coughlin, in the interest of free education. It is the only weekly education journal, we believe, in the United States, and, as its columns indicate, its editors do not believe that in order to be instructive all sprightliness must be buried under a mass of solemn stupidity. We are glad to notice it is meeting with success everywhere, except with the City Hall Ring and some of the members of the Board of Education who are but the Ring’s creatures. . . .
A GIRL AS GOOD AS A BOY.—The following is an extract from a speech of Mrs. E.C. Stanton, delivered at Sand Francisco recently:
"The idea that woman is weak inherently is a grand mistake. She is physically weak because she neglects her baths, because she violates every law of nature and of God, because she dresses in a way that would kill a man. I feel it to be my mission to arouse every woman to bring her daughter up without breaking her up in doing it. Our female idea of dress is all wrong. I have conversed with a good many physicians, who tell me that it is almost impossible to find a perfect female skeleton. It is a rare thing to see a woman perfectly well. But we can, if we choose, revolutionize this. Even the Bible says that maternity is a curse. Most women accept this doctrine as true; it is simply horrible, it is a monstrous lie. The Bible has been translated by men, and for men. Will in the original has been made shall in the translation. God never meant such a doctrine to be promulgated as His will. We must educate our daughters that motherhood is grand, and that God never cursed it, and the curse, if there be any, may be rolled off. My mission, among women is to preach the new gospel. If you suffer, it is not because you are cursed of God, but because you have violated His laws."
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