CHRISTIAN GOTTFRIED EHRENBERG, the great | With all its empty pageant, blazoned high

Around the master's name forever shine!

which young

The essay

From The Westminster Review. received, we shall devote a few pages to its THE SUPPRESSED SEX.

discussion. The Times has, of course, 1. Life of Horace Mann. By his Wife. drawn the terrible picture of a university in Boston: Walker, Fuller and Co.

men and young women are 1865.

found freely associating and conversing, 2. The College, the Market, and the Court; and shudderingly hints the dread moral re

or, Woman's Relation to Education, sults to be anticipated from such a state of Labour, and Law. By Caroline H. things. So much was to be expected from Dall. Boston: Lee and Shepard. the severe puritanism of Printing-house

1867. 3. On some Supposed Differences in the Square. But the silence of many of those Minds of Men and Women with Refer

who have supported the general position ence to Educational Necessities. A

taken by Miss Becker on the particular Paper read in Section F of the British point alluded to, indicates that many liberal Association at Norwich, by Miss minds are as yet unacquainted with the LYDIA BECKER. 1868.

present position of the movement for the 4. Macmillan's Magazine. September, 1868. educational equality of women. It is imArt. 1. Women Physicians.

portant that it should be universally known The meeting of the British Association that the co-education of men and women is at Norwich is chiefly memorable on account no longer in the region of speculation to of a Paper read there by a woman in de- which the Times has relegated it, but that fence of the equality of her own to what it has for a generation been tried in the some journalists, unconscious of the satire, United States, where no fewer than twentystill call the “ opposite ” sex.

nine large collegiate institutions are at this itself was mainly valuable for the vigour of day conducted on that principle. Before its protest against an assumption by man referring, however, to the important expeof a superiority which he persistently de- riences of these institutions, it may be well clines to submit to the ordinary tests of to take a brief survey of the origin and truth. Witholding from her the keys of character of the influences that have brought knowledge, he insists that she is mentally about those changes in the position of woinferior; banishing her from age to age man in America, which have already had a from political life, he claims of her an à very potent effect upon public opinion in priori admission of her unfitness for it. this country. The earnest discussion which followed the It is now a truism to say that the exPaper in the Association, and still more the tremest degradation of woman has always comments of the press, showed its timeli- been found among nations whose normal

It is plain that the public mind is state is that of war. The severity of the ripening toward a radical change in the so- struggle for existence which decided the cial and civil position of woman. The sa- habits and ideas of the human race amid lient and impressive fact underlying and the rocks and sands of Asia — where for overlying the whole discussion — one which every grain of corn there were many claimConservatism cannot argue out of it — is ants made fighting the chief end of man, this, that the most educated and intelligent physical strength the only virtue, physical women of the present day are profoundly weakness the only crime. This originated dissatisfied with the present relations of law that social position of woman which is fairly and society to their sex. All experience represented by the saying in Vishnu Sarma warns us that such dissatisfaction cannot -"A man of straw is worth a woman of continue unproductive.

gold.” This cause was enhanced also by The injustice of the laws relating to wo- the fact that, already more numerous than men has been repeatedly shown in this Re- men, women in the remote East grew in view, and as one demand brought forward number out of all proportion with men, by in Miss Becker's paper — the opening of reason of the great westward male migraall educational institutions to women on the tions to the more fruitful soils formed by same terms as to men — is worthy of a their rivers. The emigrant of that day, more careful consideration than it has yet even more than of this, preferred to leave

ness.

So

shines thy name illumined in the skySuch joys, such triumphs, such remem thine!

CHRISTIAN GOTTFRIED EHRENBERG, the great | With all its empty pageant, blazoned high Around the master's name forever shine German naturalist, especially distinguished by his investigations through the microscope, celebrated his fiftieth anniversary as Doctor of Medicine, at Berlin, Prussia, on the 5th of November. The correspondent of the New York Tribune says that congratulatory addresses were presented to him in behalf of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and other learned soci

OLIVER WENDELL HO Boston, Mass., U. S. A., Sept. 10, 1868.

THE money needed for completing ti rial to Leigh Hunt has been collected

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the women behind when starting on his un- | When men had migrated to more fruitsul tried way. And this, together with the de- lands their struggle for existence was not cimation of men by constant wars, enor so hard ; and as Nature became less cruel mously increased the number of women, man became less so. Warlike he was, but who consequently became cheap; a man not so warlike. When the cultivation of could have as many wives as he pleased; the earth began, it was discovered that and there was a competition which should soldiering was not the only important occubecome his favourite by being most his pation; animal courage was no longer the slave.

only kind of courage; and it was found that But it is certain that, with every step of woman might have her uses. man's migration westward, the position of There are some indications (derived from woman was improved. For this there were Tacitus and other writers) that, in the early two causes. The chief was that the emi- planting of Europe, woman

rose under grants, having left their women behind these influences to a higher relative position them, found few in the countries to which than she now occupies. If so, she sank they went to take their places. Women from it through a repetition in Europe of were not cheap in Europe, but rare and some of those conditions by which she had valuable. Many men wished to marry each been degraded in Asia. That is, Europe

The ancient chronicle of the Picts also became crowded; men emigrated and relates that they were originally six broth- left a superfluity of women; warlike ages 'ers who left Thrace with their adherents, came to the West, and the comparative ubbecause the king insisted on marrying their importance and bodily weakness of woman sister. They came to France, bringing the told against her. She was not reduced to lady with them, and built the city of Poic- be a domestic slave, but she was a domestie tiers. But the king of France also pressed drudge. It must, however, be said that the his suit for the sister, which led them to put decline of the influence of woman in Westto sea again. But before they landed on ern Europe was in great part due to her this island she died. When they came to own inadequacy to turn to good account Cornwall, or thereabout, they had reason the position to which circumstances had to appreciate the feelings of the kings to raised her. Ages of degradation had left whom they had refused their sister's hand; her without education, and the re-action for the people they found here, whoever from a servile condition turned her head. they were, absolutely refused to allow these Her ambition was directed toward merely Picts to take any wives among them. They glittering in society. To be the idols of then petitioned the king of Ireland for wives, knights, to be the toys of the Court, was and he consented, on certain conditions. enough for those who had been held in corThe chronicle says

tempt. Instead of being able to secure “ Three hundred women were given

such educational and other permanent adTo them, they were agreeable,

vantages as would have enabled her to But they were most cunning,

maintain for ever the position gained, she Each woman with her brother.

frittered away in frivolity the opportunity There were oaths imposed on them

that must close with the growth of Europe. By the stars and by the Earth,

The door was finally shut, and these foolish That from the nobility of the mother virgins left out. From that time she has Should always be the right of sovereignty."

been, not, as Blackstone says, " the faSo they left Ireland with their wives and vourite of the English law," but its favourite established their kingdom in Scotland. This victim. tradition, whether mythical or not, is sig- But with the early settlement of America nificant. The scarcity of women in these those influences which had led to the imwestern lands had certainly raised their proved position of women in Europe were position, and affected the primitive govern- again set to work. Those who first emimental arrangements of this country. But grated to America took but few women. there was a second cause why, in the west, The Puritan pilgrims took twenty-eight; the estimation of woman should be higher. other English colonists took fewer; the