in such thin, light stuffs, that not only the shape of the body but the color of the skin could be distinguished through them. In France, in the fourteenth century, the women appeared half naked in public assemblies, and in the public walks dressed so much like men, that they could scarcely be distinguished from them, except by the voice or complexion.

The first we hear of artificial compression of the waist was in the fifteenth century, in Italy, where the men, according to Petrarch, had their stomachs squeezed by machines of iron.

It was only toward the beginning of the last century that the impression became general that the female waist, as formed by nature and imitated by painters and sculptors in the master-pieces of art, was too large, and systematic compression was then first used to bring it into proper dimensions. Stays were invented, and the female waist, under their influence, was brought into the shape of an hour-glass, or an insect. Anatomy, physiology, and all the correct principles of taste were painfully or ludicrously disregarded; for while we shudder at the idea of lungs pressed up into the throat, and liver jammed down into the abdomen; a stomach compelled to digest and a heart to beat under a heavy pressure; it is impossible for a man of correct taste not to laugh at the caricatures of female beauty which this artifice produces.

It must not be supposed, however, that stays and tight lacing held their sway steadily, from their first invention to the present time. On the contrary, they soon met with a powerful opposition, and were denounced by both physicians and connoiseurs in female beauty; and fashion, ever tending to extremes, soon made waists as much too large as they had been too small, and by the aid of various stuffings, about 1766, every lady appeared to be in an interesting situation. This did not last long, and small waists again came into fashion, and longer or shorter, sometimes with the girdle just under the arms, sometimes close upon the hips, small waists have pretty steadily held their ascendency until the present day, when the ladies really show a disposition not to deform their most beautiful proportions, and we see women again as Nature made them.

The height to which the female dress is worn, has been subject to curious and rapid changes. About the beginning of the last century, it was highly indecent to show two inches of the neck; about the middle of it the dress had descended very low upon the shoulders; a few years after, every lady was muffled up to the chin; and so alternately the ladies have been misers and prodigals of their charms.

The vagaries of fashion, in other respects, though amusing enough, would occupy more room than we are disposed to give to a single, and, as some may think, the least important part of our general subject.

WOMAN.

PART THIRD.

FEMALE EDUCATION.

OVER the whole world, there has been entertained the most extraordinary variety of opinions, in regard to the capacity and character of woman. While at certain periods, and in some nations, women have been honored, and almost adored-in the greater part of the world, and much oftener, they have been held in contempt, treated as the property of men, and strangely vilified. Everywhere men corrupt women, and then blame them for their corruption. In the highest civilization, this is the case to a limited extent and in individual instances; in other stages of human progress, the rule applies generally to the whole

sex.

This has been and is especially the case with Oriental nations. Thousands of years ago, the Pundits, in their sacred books, wrote in this strange manner of the sex which we delight to honor:

"Women have six qualities: the first, an inordinate desire for jewels and fine furniture, handsome clothes, and nice victuals; the second, immoderate lust; the third, violent anger; the fourth, deep resentment, no person knowing the sentiments concealed in their heart; the fifth, another person's good appears evil in their eyes; the sixth, they commit bad actions."

How strange and odious seem to us these coarse invectives, with which not only the Hindoo and Persian, but the Hebrew, Greek, and Roman writers abound! to us who see developed in the same sex, with education and liberty, a temperate prudence, and exquisite taste; a refin

ed chastity; sweetness of temper; a beautiful candor and unswerving faith; the most disinterested and self-sacrificing benevolence; and finally, every grace and every virtue, which makes woman worthy of the name of angel.

Why this wide difference? We are not to suppose that men have always been unjust in their opinions, or entirely wanton in their satires on the sex. No: the character of woman has doubtless been, in a great degree, such as it has been represented-in other words, it has been what education, and other circumstances, to be treated of in the progress of this work, have made it. Female education seems to be at the very basis of society, since women, as mothers, are destined in a great degree to give, to form, and mould the character of both sexes.

Undoubtedly, the most rapid way in which any people could be improved, in physical, intellectual and moral qualities, would be the proper development of all these qualities, in the female sex. It is no less true, that in no way can a people become so soon depraved and debased as by the same influence. The importance of a proper female education is so evident, and so universally acknowledged, that we need only allude to it; besides, what we propose, is to show rather what it has been, and is, than what it should be.

It is not to be supposed that in the primitive ages, when men were chiefly engaged in gaining a rude subsistence by the chase, from the keeping of flocks, or the toils of agriculture, much attention was paid to the education of either sex. Until the invention of letters, all education must have consisted in acquiring the arts necessary to a subsistence, and in storing the memory with legends of the past. When the whole human race spoke but one language, there could be no trouble in learning others.

The children of each generation acquired, naturally, the knowledge possessed by their parents, and added to it, according as necessity stimulated invention. We may naturally suppose that women, from the first, made tents and clothing, prepared food, tended flocks, did the lighter work of agriculture, while men, as in savage tribes, at the present day, were engaged in war, the chase, and the more active and hardy occupations of life.

In any view of the nations of antiquity, we turn first to Egypt. China, Japan, and the East Indies, seem connected with a different kind of civilization but all the light and luxury of the Western World we trace to Egypt. Long before Palestine, or Greece, had emerged from barbarismlong before Carthage or Rome were known, Egypt was in a state of the highest civilization, possessed of literature, science, and arts, of the nature of which, her monuments and ruins present us such astonishing evidences. In whatever light we view the Egyptians, no nation of antiquity is so interesting, since they excelled all others in arts, sciences and government, in which they believed that they had been perfecting themselves for one hundred thousand years.

In a country full of splendid cities-where were built monuments whose construction is a puzzle to modern science; whose armies at one time held the world under tribute; whose temples and colleges were the resort of the philosophers of all other nations, and where women occupied an honorable position, since the wife and sister shared the power and dignity of the throne, we may be sure that female education was not neglected.

Athyrte, the daughter of Sesostris, appears to have been educated in the mysteries of Egyptian science, which included astronomy and divination, and she encouraged her father in his project of universal conquest, by assurances of success from her divinations, her dreams in the temples, a magnetic clairvoyance much practiced in early ages, and from prodigies she had seen in the air-such probably as are seen by those gifted with the second-sight.

In ancient Egypt, the women managed the greatest part of the business transactions out of doors, and particularly attended to the commerce of the nation. They must therefore have been skilled in numbers, so far as they were then known, and the use of writing. Their education was of a practical, masculine character; and while the eastern nations taught females little else than music, dancing, and the mere accomplishments; the Egyptians, to render their women useful, not only gave their education a practical character, but the softer embellishments and accomplishments, common to the sex in other countries, were forbidden them.