A thoroughly liberal education, and the practice of conversing with
persons of intelligence, renders material assistance to both men and
women, by enabling them to express their thoughts in the clearest and
most forcible language possible; and the same thing may be remarked of
declamation. In social circles, where men and women of average mental
culture meet together, there is no perceptible difference between the
conversational powers of the sexes. Let the facilities for the education
of men and women once be made equal throughout the civilized world, and
the hackneyed cry of her mental inferiority will be heard of no more,
excepting when mentioned among the other exploded theories of the Dark
Ages and of barbaric times. The cramping of the mental powers of women,
or the attempting to cramp them, lest they might claim equal advantages
with the other half of the race, will be classed--and justly so--with
the cramping of women's feet by the Chinese, lest they might claim and
exercise the liberty of walking the streets at pleasure, as their
husbands do. A woman will be no more expected to give credence to every
thing her husband believes, no matter how absurd the belief may be, at
his dictation, because he is her husband, or to yield implicit obedience
to his commands, no matter how tyrannical, than she will be to follow
him to the funeral pyre.
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