Note 91 — JOURNAL. (continued 6)

I wonder how long it will be before men begin to consider the rational education of the mothers of their children a matter of some little moment. How much longer are we to lead existences burdensome to ourselves and useless to others, under the influence of every species of ill training that can be imagined? How much longer are the physical evils under which our nature labours to be increased by effeminate, slothful, careless, unwholesome habits? How much longer are our minds, naturally weakened by the action of a highly sensitive nervous construction, to be abandoned, or rather devoted, to studies the least likely to strengthen and ennoble them, and render them independent, in some measure, of the infirmities of our bodies? How much longer are our imaginations and feelings to be the only portions of our spiritual nature on which culture is bestowed? Surely it were generous in those who are our earthly disposers to do something to raise us from the state of half-improvement in which we are suffered to linger. If our capacities are inferior to those of men,—which I believe, as much as I believe our bodies to be inferior to theirs in strength, swiftness, and endurance,—let us not be overwhelmed with all the additional shackles that foolish and vain bringing up can add; let us at least be made as strong in body and as wise in mind as we can, instead of being devoted to spiritual, mental, and physical weakness, far beyond that which we inherit from nature.