this, which I think was a weakness, since the dignity of her character,
her fame and high social position, needed no conventional crutch to make
her appear more matronly. As a mere fashionable woman of society, her
name would never have descended to our times; as a moralist she is
immortal, so far as any writer can be. As an author, I do not regard her
as a great original genius; but her successful and honorable career
shows how much may be done by industry and perseverance. Her memory is
kept especially fresh from the interest she took in the education of her
sex, and from her wise and sage counsels, based on religion and a wide
experience. No woman ever had better opportunities for the study of her
sex, or more nobly improved them. She was the most enlightened advocate
of a high education for women that her age and even her
century produced.

Now, what is meant by a high education for women? for in our times the
opinions of people in regard to this matter are far from being
harmonious. Indeed, on no subject is there more disagreement; there is
no subject which provokes more bitter and hostile comments; there is no
subject on which both men and women wrangle with more acerbity, even
when they are virtually agreed,--for the instincts of good women are
really in accord with the profoundest experience and reason of men.

In the few remarks to which I am now limited I shall not discuss the
irritating and disputed question of co-education of the sexes, which can
only be settled by experience. On this subject we have not yet
sufficient facts for a broad induction. On the one hand, it would seem
that so long as young men and women mingle freely together in
amusements, at parties and balls, at the theatre and opera, in the
lecture-room, in churches, and most public meetings, it is not probable
that any practical evils can result from educational competition of the