as to men. - - Sect. 3. Decision of Character. - Why as necessary to women - 278 Sect. 1. General Observations. - Nature of mental training; should be the object of early education; mere instruction does not train the mind. - Forming mental habits. Effect of certain Observation. Its value in connection with spirit of Sect. 3. Attention. - Some studies more favorable than others - Sect. 4. Association. - Different kinds of association. - In- fluence of habitual associations. - Influence of association on - Sect. 5.- Cultivation of Reason. - Habits of reasoning depend - - Sect. 6.- Language as influencing the habits of reasoning. Defects and difficulties of language. Test of our own accuracy. - Difficulties in the way of woman's studies. Method indis- pensable in study. — Three principal points in study: -I. Com- prehension; difficulties; careless readers. — How to read. — II. To form Opinion on what we read. — Reading critically. — Cau- tion against hasty opinions. - III. Retention - Assistance to be derived from the influence of association on memory. - Works of reference. — Advantage derived from the practice of writing. Natural division of subjects; essentials and non-essentials. - - Desire of knowledge; a natural impulse requires cultivation. - Effects of this. Effect in old age. 319 347 374 CHAPTER XIII. CULTURE OF THE IMAGINATION. - - Importance of imagination. — Not cultivated in education. — - - CHAPTER XIV. RELIGION - - - - - - - - Object of this chapter to consider essential principles of Chris- - - - - 391 417 THOUGHTS ON SELF-CULTURE. CHAPTER I. PART I. GENERAL VIEW OF WOMAN'S POSITION AND INFLUENCE. THROUGHOUT the many changes that woman's social position has undergone in past and present times, its importance has never been wholly overlooked. The condition of woman may vary from slavery and degradation, to refinement and freedom, according to the age or country we consider; but the Asiatic who dreads her emancipation, the savage who enforces her labor, or the enlightened European who seeks in her a companion and friend, all alike, with hope or with fear, tacitly or avowedly, acknowledge the vital consequence of the position she occupies. An able writer of our own day has spent much research in tracing through the various phases of human society the influ ence of different institutions and forms of civilization upon woman's position, as an introduction to considering that position in the present day. To her brilliant sketch we refer our readers as establishing more clearly than any reasoning could prove it, the constant and inevitable reaction upon society of the different modes of estimating woman's condition and influence.* When we have traced this reaction upon the stern patriotism * Woman's Rights and Duties, Vol. I., first four chapters. |