fairest of ornaments should not be appropriate for the maiden, to
whom we permit all diligence in the decoration and adornment of
herself."


EXPERIMENTS


Why is it, that, whenever anything is done for women in the way of
education, it is called "an experiment,"--something that is to be long
considered, stoutly opposed, grudgingly yielded, and dubiously watched,--
while, if the same thing is done for men, its desirableness is assumed as a
matter of course, and the thing is done? Thus, when Harvard College was
founded, it was not regarded as an experiment, but as an institution. The
"General Court," in 1636, "agreed to give 400 _l_. towards a schoale or
colledge," and the affair was settled. Every subsequent step in the
expanding of educational opportunities for young men has gone in the same
way. But when there seems a chance of extending, however irregularly, some
of the same collegiate advantages to women, I observe that respectable
newspapers, in all good faith, are apt to speak of the measure as an
"experiment."

It seems to me no more of an "experiment" than when a boy who has usually
eaten up his whole apple becomes a little touched with a sense of justice,
and finally decides to offer his sister the smaller half. If he has ever
regarded that offer as an experiment, the first actual trial will put the
result into the list of certainties; and it will become an axiom in his
mind that girls like apples. Whatever may be said about the position of
women in law and society, it is clear that their educational disadvantages
have been a prolonged disgrace to the other sex, and one for which women