have frightful reproduction in the elemental discord of our natures; for that which is "in us will be revealed." Man indicates his condition by the institutions he creates; they are the issues of the life he lives at the time, the outward sign of his inward state.
To improve that inward condition, and arrest at their origin these causes of human degeneracy, is the object of this reform. It proposes, as before stated, not only to cure, but to prevent the diseases of the body politic; to place man and woman in such natural and true relations of equal and mutual development, and to so sanctify marriage that from their union under the highest auspices, a regenerate humanity shall not only cease to be violent and vicious, but shall outgrow the dispositions to violence and vice.
We know that this is a work for whole generations, but as we believe it to be radical and effectual, it should be at once begun. We think the first great step is to clear away the rubbish of ages from the pathway of woman, to abolish the onerous restrictions which environ her in every direction, to open to her the temples of religion, the halls of science and of art, and the marts of commerce, affording her the same opportunity for education and occupation now enjoyed by man; no longer, by corrupt public sentiment and partial legislation, to limit her to a few and poorly paid pursuits to obtain subsistence and thus increase her dependence upon the charity of man, nor to deny her admission to any institution of learning, whose richly endowed professorships and vast advantages she by her labor has contributed to create, only to see them monopolized by man. I know that in answer to this it is urged that she has organic limits intellectually which deny to her such attainments. It is sufficient to reply, that under all the disabilities to which she is subject, her sex has produced De Staël and Margaret Fuller.
Letters were read from Mary Mott, of Auburn, De Kalb County, Indiana; Paulina Wright Davis, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, William and Mary Johnson, and a series of resolutions passed.69 Oliver Johnson took an active part in the discussions, and at the close of the Convention, moved a resolution of thanks to the friends who had come from a distance, and contributed so much to the success of the meeting. The Convention then adjourned sine die.
In 1849, Richard H. Dana, of Boston, well known as a man of rare literary culture, delivered a lecture on womanhood throughout the country. He ridiculed the new demand of American women for civil and political rights, and for a larger sphere of action, and eulogized Shakespeare's women, especially Desdemona, Ophelia, and Juliet, and recommended them to his dissatisfied countrywomen as models of innocence, tenderness, and confiding love in man, for their study and imitation.
He gave this lecture in Philadelphia, and Lucretia Mott was in the audience. At the close she asked an introduction, and told him that while she had been much interested in his lecture, and profited by the information it contained, she could not respond to his idea of woman's true character and destiny. "I am very sorry," he replied quickly, at the first word of criticism, and rushed out of the house, leaving Mrs. Mott, who had hoped to modify his views, somewhat transfixed with surprise. In describing the scene to some friends afterward, she remarked that she had never been treated with more rudeness by one supposed to understand the rules of etiquette that should always govern the behavior of a gentleman.
Soon after this, she delivered the following discourse in the Assembly buildings in Philadelphia. After giving the Bible view of woman's position as an equal,
Lucretia Mott said: I have not come here with a view of answering any particular parts of the lecture alluded to, in order to point out the fallacy of its reasoning. The speaker, however, did not profess to offer anything like argument on that occasion, but rather a sentiment. I have no prepared address to deliver to you, being unaccustomed to speak in that way; but I felt a wish to offer some views for your consideration, though in a desultory manner, which may lead to such reflection and discussion as will present the subject in a true light.
Why should not woman seek to be a reformer? If she is to shrink from being such an iconoclast as shall "break the image of man's lower worship," as so long held up to view; if she is to fear to exercise her reason, and her noblest powers, lest she should be thought to "attempt to act the man," and not "acknowledge his supremacy"; if she is to be satisfied with the narrow sphere assigned her by man, nor aspire to a higher, lest she should transcend the bounds of female delicacy; truly it is a mournful prospect for woman. We would admit all the difference, that our great and beneficent Creator has made, in the relation of man and woman, nor would we seek to disturb this relation; but we deny that the present position of woman is her true sphere of usefulness; nor will she attain to this sphere, until the disabilities and disadvantages, religious, civil, and social, which impede her progress, are removed out of her way. These restrictions have enervated her mind and paralyzed her powers. While man assumes that the present is the original state designed for woman, that the existing "differences are not arbitrary nor the result of accident," but grounded in nature; she will not make the necessary effort to obtain her just rights, lest it should subject her to the kind of scorn and contemptuous manner in which she has been spoken of.
So far from her "ambition leading her to attempt to act the man," she needs all the encouragement she can receive, by the removal of obstacles from her path, in order that she may become the "true woman." As it is desirable that man should act a manly and generous part, not "mannish," so let woman be urged to exercise a dignified and womanly bearing, not womanish. Let her cultivate all the graces and proper accomplishments of her sex, but let not these degenerate into a kind of effeminacy, in which she is satisfied to be the mere plaything or toy of society, content with her outward adornings, and the flattery and fulsome adulation too often addressed to her.
Did Elizabeth Fry lose any of her feminine qualities by the public walk into which she was called? Having performed the duties of a mother to a large family, feeling that she owed a labor of love to the poor prisoner, she was empowered by Him who sent her forth, to go to kings and crowned heads of the earth, and ask audience of these, and it was granted her. Did she lose the delicacy of woman by her acts? No. Her retiring modesty was characteristic of her to the latest period of her life. It was my privilege to enjoy her society some years ago, and I found all that belonged to the feminine in woman—to true nobility, in a refined and purified moral nature. Is Dorothea Dix throwing off her womanly nature and appearance in the course she is pursuing? In finding duties abroad, has any "refined man felt that something of beauty has gone forth from her"? To use the contemptuous word applied in the lecture alluded to, is she becoming "mannish"? Is she compromising her womanly dignity in going forth to seek to better the condition of the insane and afflicted? Is not a beautiful mind and a retiring modesty still conspicuous in her?
Indeed, I would ask, if this modesty is not attractive also, when manifested in the other sex? It was strikingly marked in Horace Mann, when presiding over the late National Educational Convention in this city. The retiring modesty of William Ellery Channing was beautiful, as well as of many others who have filled elevated stations in society. These virtues, differing as they may in degree in man and woman, are of the same nature, and call forth our admiration wherever manifested.
The noble courage of Grace Darling is justly honored for risking her own life on the coast of England, during the raging storm, in order to rescue the poor, suffering, shipwrecked mariner.
Woman was not wanting in courage in the early ages. In war and bloodshed this trait was often displayed. Grecian and Roman history have lauded and honored her in this character. English history records her courageous women too, for unhappily we have little but the records of war handed down to us. The courage of Joan of Arc was made the subject of a popular lecture not long ago by one of our intelligent citizens. But more noble, moral daring is marking the female character at the present time, and better worthy of imitation. As these characteristics come to be appreciated in man too, his warlike acts with all the miseries and horrors of the battle-ground will sink into their merited oblivion, or be remembered only to be condemned. The heroism displayed in the tented field must yield to the moral and Christian heroism which is shadowed in the signs of our times.
The lecturer regarded the announcement of woman's achievements, and the offering of appropriate praise through the press, as a gross innovation upon the obscurity of female life—he complained that the exhibition of attainments of