bracelets, bouquets, and _billets-doux._ Of course, every young
_débutante_ fancies the same thing within her own reach, with only a
brief stage-vista between. On the stage there is no deduction for sex,
and, therefore, woman has shown in that sphere an equal genius. But
every female common-school teacher in the United States finds the
enjoyment of her four hundred dollars a year to be secretly embittered
by the knowledge that the young college stripling in the next schoolroom
is paid twice that sum for work no harder or more responsible than her
own, and that, too, after the whole pathway of education has been
obstructed for her, and smoothed for him. These may be gross and
carnal considerations; but Faith asks her daily bread, and fancy must
be fed. We deny woman her fair share of training, of encouragement, of
remuneration, and then talk fine nonsense about her instincts and
intuitions. We say sentimentally with the Oriental proverbialist,
"Every book of knowledge is implanted by nature in the heart of
woman,"--and make the compliment a substitute for the alphabet.

Nothing can be more absurd than to impose entirely distinct standards, in
this respect, on the two sexes, or to expect that woman, any more than man,
will accomplish anything great without due preparation and adequate
stimulus. Mrs. Patten, who navigated her husband's ship from Cape Horn to
California, would have failed in the effort, for all her heroism, if she
had not, unlike most of her sex, been taught to use her Bowditch's
"Navigator." Florence Nightingale, when she heard of the distresses in the
Crimea, did not, as most people imagine, rise up and say, "I am a woman,
ignorant but intuitive, with very little sense and information, but
exceedingly sublime aspirations; my strength lies in my weakness; I can
do all things without knowing anything about them." Not at all: during
ten years she had been in hard training for precisely such services; had
visited all the hospitals in London, Edinburgh, Dublin, Paris, Lyons,