Should any doubt that this can be done, all that is necessary, to prove
the truth or falsity of the assertion, is to select any given number of
boys and girls of average intellect, of the same or nearly the same
ages, and afford precisely the same advantages to them all, for a given
length of time, and then subject boys and girls to a like critical
examination. Even with the disadvantages under which they labor in our
ordinary and even higher schools, girls have surmounted the difficulties
of their position, and without favor--indeed, in spite of ridicule,
partiality, and opposition--have come out first in their examinations.
Send such a class of young women as this to a university that will
honestly admit them to all its advantages, and allow them to compete
with the most studious young men admitted to the same university; let
both enjoy precisely similar facilities throughout the entire course;
and see if there will not be as many brilliant scholars who will
graduate with honors among the women as among the men. It is said there
are more talented men, more men eminent in science or in history, than
there are women. Certainly. The advantage has all been on the side of
the man, the disadvantage on the side of the woman; besides which, the
doctrine that it is unwomanly to emerge from the retirement befitting
her sex into public notice has been preached so persistently, that many
women truly great have shrunk from the ribald criticism--to use no
stronger term--with which insolent men assailed them.
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