Page:The future of Africa.djvu/52

46 of our women, that is, intellectually. The operations of High Schools, now in existence, the High Schools for hoys projected, the other educational preparations going on, for Colleges and Seminaries, the return, ever and anon, of professional young men, Lawyers, Doctors, Ministers, who arc sent to America to be educated, with the mental training afforded men in mercantile pursuits, political contests, legal affairs and Legislative duty; will place men, before long, a century ahead of our women. Such mental inequality will be a dangerous state for the interests of education and for social well-being. The mental inferiority of women will retard the progress of our children and youth. The intellectual force of the country will more and more decline; Learning and Letters will lie without influence; material interests will everywhere predominate; we shall lose the freshness and the force of all our Anglo-Saxon antecedents; and at length, men everywhere, will rise up and weigh their paltry purses in the scale, over against the strongest brains; and all manhood shall cease in the land! No better corrective to this sad tendency can be found than a good, sound, moral, English Education for those, especially, who will be entrusted with the rearing and training of our unborn children. I beg therefore to urge upon public attention, the immediate need of raiding the standard of female education in this country, i beg to insist upon the deep necessity of elevating the mind of woman in the republic, and directing it to noble and commanding themes. I beg to enforce the duty of making woman in this land as superior, intellectual, and dignified, as