Page:Report on public instruction in the lower provinces of the Bengal presidency (1850-51).djvu/26

xiv joys and sorrows, their truest friends and most faithful advisers. Your modern ethical writers teach that the nature of women is so depraved that it is only by material restraints that they are kept from seeking out and following evil: our wiser belief is that in all the elements of virtue the female character is far superior to the male; and that whatever there is of evil common to all human nature, is best combatted, not by the vain obstacles of bolts and bars, but by laying the foundation of a virtuous life in the early inculcation of sound morality, and by teaching women to respect themselves by showing that by us also they are held in honour. Were it only for selfish considerations, you ought to educate your women. Now mark me! I do not rely on these. For her own sake, and in her own right, I claim for woman her proper place in the scale of created beings. God has given her an intellect, a heart and feelings like your own, and these were not given in vain. You think your neighbours the Chinese a barbarous people, because they cripple the feet of their women. How is it that you dare to cripple their minds? But also, for your own sakes you should do it, and for the sake of your children. I am not yet so old as to have forgotten the time when I sat on the school benches. I too can recollect some youthful triumphs, and the remembrance is still strong within me how incomplete they seemed until I had her sympathy and approval, to please whom was the strongest inducement I then knew for exertion.

“Human nature is the same throughout the world, and we may confidently rely on what it teaches us. The history of every time shows the important influence that the female sex is capable of exercising, for good or for evil, on the destinies of a nation; and those stand highest in the annals of civilization in which they have been held in the highest honour, and the greatest pains taken to secure that the weight of their power should be found exerting itself on the right side. And of this you cannot be sure if you will not train them to wisdom and virtue, as you would train those who are to be influenced by them.

“The work is now begun, it will not stop; it is like a rock which may have rested long time motionless on the summit of a mountain: but, if once set in motion, though casual obstacles may obstruct its path, may determine its course in this direction or in that, it yet gathers increased force with each succeeding interval of time, and hastens irresistibly onward to its final destination. I may not live to see this desirable goal attained: but, judging from all I have witnessed of the deep feeling which is beginning to prevail on this matter, it is my firm belief that