This expression simply means that they had the most solid training which the times afforded.  Most persons would instantly take alarm at the very words; that is, they have so little faith in the distinctions which Nature has established, that they think, if you teach the alphabet, or anything else, indiscriminately to both sexes, you annul all difference between them.  The common reasoning is thus:  “Boys and girls are acknowledged to be very unlike.  Now, boys study Greek and algebra, medicine and bookkeeping.  Therefore girls should not.”  As if one should say:  “Boys and girls are very unlike.  Now, boys eat beef and potatoes.  Therefore, obviously, girls should not.”

The analogy between physical and spiritual food is precisely in point.  The simple truth is, that, amid the vast range of human powers and properties, the fact of sex is but one item.  Vital and momentous in itself, it does not constitute the whole organism, but only a part.  The distinction of male and female is special, aimed at a certain end; and, apart from that end, it is, throughout all the kingdoms of Nature, of minor importance.  With but trifling exceptions, from infusoria up to man, the female animal moves, breathes, looks, listens, runs, flies, swims, pursues its food, eats it, digests it, in precisely the same manner as the male:  all instincts, all characteristics, are the same, except as to the one solitary fact of parentage.  Mr. Ten Broeck’s race-horses, Pryor and Prioress, were foaled alike, fed alike, trained alike, and finally ran side by side, competing for the same prize.  The eagle is not checked in soaring by any consciousness of sex, nor asks the sex of the timid hare, its quarry.  Nature, for high purposes, creates and guards the sexual distinction, but keeps it subordinate to those still more important.

Now all this bears directly upon the alphabet.  What sort of philosophy is that which says, “John is a fool; Jane is a genius:  nevertheless, John, being a man, shall learn, lead, make laws, make money; Jane, being a woman, shall be ignorant, dependent, disfranchised, underpaid”?  Of course, the time is past when one would state this so frankly, though Comte comes quite near it, to say nothing of the Mormons; but this formula really lies at the bottom of the reasoning one hears every day.  The answer is, Soul before sex.  Give an equal chance, and let genius and industry do the rest. La carriere ouverte aux talens!  Every man for himself, every woman for herself, and the alphabet for us all.

Thus far, my whole course of argument has been defensive and explanatory.  I have shown that woman’s inferiority in special achievements, so far as it exists, is a fact of small importance, because it is merely a corollary from her historic position of degradation.  She has not excelled, because she has had no fair chance to excel.  Man, placing his foot upon her shoulder, has taunted her with not rising.  But the ulterior question remains behind.  How came she into this attitude originally?  Explain the explanation, the logician fairly demands.  Granted that woman is weak because she has been systematically degraded:  but why was she degraded?  This is a far deeper question,—­one to be met only by a profounder philosophy and a positive solution.  We are coming on ground almost wholly untrod, and must do the best we can.