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love. It is all very well to say that the presence of woman at the ballot-box would purify it, and restrain the manners of the men around it; but I have seen enough of the world to learn that all human influence is reciprocal and reactionary. Man and the ballot-box might gain, but woman would lose, and men and the ballot-box themselves would lose in the long run. The ballot-box is the bass, and it should be man's business to sing it, while woman should give him home melody with which it should harmonize.

In the matter of rights, I suppose that I should not differ materially with any strong-minded woman ; but I have always observed that the most truly lovable, humble, pure-hearted, God-fearing and humanity-loving women of my acquaintance, never say any thing about these rights, and scorn those of their sex who do. I have never known a woman who was at once satisfied in her affections and discontented with her woman's lot and her woman's work. There is a weak place, or a wrong place, or a rotten place, in the character or nature of every woman who stands and howls upon the spot where her Creator placed her, and neglects her own true work and life while claiming the right to do the work and live the life of man. I will admit all the rights that such a woman claims-all that I myself possess if she will let me alone, and keep her distance from me. She may sing bass, but I do not

wish to hear her. She is repulsive to me. She offends

me.

I

I believe in women. I believe they are the sweetest, purest, most unselfish, best part of the human race. have no doubt on this subject, whatever. They do sing the melody in all human life, as well as the melody in music. They carry the leading part, at least in the sense that they are a step in advance of us, all the way in the journey heavenward. I believe that they cannot move very widely out of the sphere which they now occupy, and remain as good as they now are; and I deny that my belief rests upon any sentimentality, or jealousy, or any other weak or unworthy basis. A man who has experienced a mother's devotion, a wife's self-sacrificing love, and a daughter's affection, and is grateful for all, may be weakly sentimental about some things, but not about women. He would help every woman he loves to the exercise of all the rights which hold dignity and happiness for her. He would fight that she might have those rights, if necessary; but he would rather have her lose her voice entirely, than to hear her sound a bass note so long as a demi-semiquaver.

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"Men have different spheres. It is for some to evolve great moral truths, as the Heavens evolve stars, to guide the sailor on the sea and the traveller on the desert; and it is for some, like the sailor and the traveller, simply to be guided."-BEECHER.

A

VENERABLE gentleman who once occupied a prominent position in a leading New England college, was remarking recently upon the difficulty which he experienced in obtaining servants who would attend to their duties. He had just dismissed a girl of sixteen, who was so much "above her business" as to be intolerable. The girl's father, who was an Englishman,

called upon him for an explanation. The employer told his story, every word of which the father received without question, and then remarked, with considerable vehemence: "It is all owing to those cursed public schools." The father retired, and the old professor sat down and thought about it; and the result of his thinking did not differ materially from that of the father. It was not, of course, that there was any thing in the studies pursued which had tended to unfit the girl for her duties. It was very possible indeed for the girl to have been a better servant in consequence of her intelligence. There was nothing in English grammar or the multiplication table to produce insubordination and discontent. There was nothing in the whole case that tended to condemn public schools, as such; but it was the spirit inculcated by the teachers of public schools, which had spoiled this girl for her place, and which has spoiled, and is still spoiling, thousands of others.

Let us look for a moment into the influence of such a motto as the following, written over a school-house door-always before the eyes of the pupils, and always alluded to by school committees and visitors who are invited to "make a few remarks":

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'Nothing is impossible to him who wills.”

This abominable lie is placed before a room full of children and youth, of widely varying capacities, and

They are called upon

great diversity of circumstances. to look at it, and believe in it. Suppose a girl of humble mental abilities and humble circumstances looks at this motto, and says: "I'will' be a lady. I 'will' be independent. I 'will' be subject to no man's or woman's bidding." Under these circumstances, the girl's father, who is poor, removes her from school, and tells her that she must earn her living. Now I ask what kind of a spirit she can carry into her service, except that of surly and impudent discontent? She has been associating in school, perhaps, with girls whom she is to serve in the family she enters. Has she not been made unfit for her place by the influences of the public school? Have not her comfort and her happiness been spoiled by those influences? Is her reluctant service of any value to those who pay her the wages of her labor?

7

It is safe, at least, to make the proposition that public schools are a curse to all the youth whom they unfit for their proper places in the world. It is the favorite theory of teachers that every man can make of himself any thing that he really chooses to make. They resort to this theory to rouse the ambition of their more sluggish pupils, and thus get more study out of them. I have known entire schools instructed to aim at the highest places in society, and the most exalted offices of life. I have known enthusiastic old fools who made

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