’Society is now so complex, that it is no longer possible to educate woman merely as woman; the tasks which come to her hand are so various, and so large a proportion of women are thrown entirely upon their own resources.  I admit that this is not their state of perfect development; but it seems as if heaven, having so long issued its edict in poetry and religion, without securing intelligent obedience, now commanded the world in prose, to take a high and rational view.  The lesson reads to me thus:—­

’Sex, like rank, wealth, beauty, or talent, is but an accident of birth.  As you would not educate a soul to be an aristocrat, so do not to be a woman.  A general regard to her usual sphere is dictated in the economy of nature.  You need never enforce these provisions rigorously.  Achilles had long plied the distaff as a princess, yet, at first sight of a sword, he seized it.  So with woman, one hour of love would teach her more of her proper relations, than all your formulas and conventions.  Express your views, men, of what you seek in woman:  thus best do you give them laws.  Learn, women, what you should demand of men:  thus only can they become themselves.  Turn both from the contemplation of what is merely phenomenal in your existence, to your permanent life as souls.  Man, do not prescribe how the Divine shall display itself in woman.  Woman, do not expect to see all of God in man.  Fellow-pilgrims and helpmeets are ye, Apollo and Diana, twins of one heavenly birth, both beneficent, and both armed.  Man, fear not to yield to woman’s hand both the quiver and the lyre; for if her urn be filled with light, she will use both to the glory of God.  There is but one doctrine for ye both, and that is the doctrine of the SOUL.

Thus, in communion with the serene loveliness of mother-earth, and inspired with memories of Isis and Ceres, of Minerva and Freia, and all the commanding forms beneath which earlier ages symbolized their sense of the Divine Spirit in woman, Margaret cherished visions of the future, and responded with full heart to the poet’s prophecy:—­

  “Then comes the statelier Eden back to men;
  Then reign the world’s great bridals, chaste and calm;
  Then springs the crowning race of human-kind.”

It was but after the usual order of our discordant life,—­where Purgatory lies so nigh to Paradise,—­that she should thence be summoned to pass a Sunday with the prisoners at Sing-Sing.  This was the period when, in fulfilment of the sagacious and humane counsels of Judge Edmonds, a system of kind discipline, combined with education, was in practice at that penitentiary, and when the female department was under the matronly charge of Mrs. E.W.  Farnum, aided by Mrs. Johnson, Miss Bruce, and other ladies, who all united sisterly sympathy with energetic firmness.  Margaret thus describes her impressions:—­