Page:The Higher Education of Women.djvu/71

 wisdom and strength on the part of any particular class; and that such a demand is made upon average young women is sufficiently clear. What society says to them seems to be something to this effect. Either you have force enough to win a place in the world, in the face of heavy discouragement, or you have not. If you have, the discipline of the struggle is good for you; if you have not, you are not worth troubling about. Is not this a hard thing to say to commonplace girls, not professing to be better or stronger than their neighbours? Why should their task be made, by social and domestic arrangements, peculiarly and needlessly difficult? And why should it be taken for granted that, if they fail, they