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WOMEN
AND THE ALPHABET

A Series of Essays

BY

THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON

1881








PREFATORY NOTE

The first essay in this volume, "Ought Women to learn the Alphabet?"appeared originally in the "Atlantic Monthly" of February, 1859, and hassince been reprinted in various forms, bearing its share, I trust, in thegreat development of more liberal views in respect to the training andduties of women which has made itself manifest within forty years. Therewas, for instance, a report that it was the perusal of this essay whichled the late Miss Sophia Smith to the founding of the women's collegebearing her name at Northampton, Massachusetts.

The remaining papers in the volume formed originally a part of a bookentitled "Common Sense About Women" which was made up largely of papersfrom the "Woman's Journal." This book was first published in 1881 and wasreprinted in somewhat abridged form some years later in London(Sonnenschein). It must have attained a considerable circulation there, asthe fourth (stereotyped) edition appeared in 1897. From this Londonreprint a German translation was made by Fräulein Eugenie Jacobi,under the title "Die Frauenfrage und der gesunde Menschenverstand"(Schupp: Neuwied and Leipzig, 1895).

T.W.H.

CAMBRIDGE, MASS.




CONTENTS

I. OUGHT WOMEN TO LEARN THE ALPHABET?

II. PHYSIOLOGY

Too Much Natural History

Darwin, Huxley, and Buckle

The Spirit of Small Tyranny

The Noble Sex

The Truth about our Grandmothers

The Physique of American Women

The Limitations of Sex

III. TEMPERAMENT

The Invisible Lady

Sacred Obscurity

Virtues in Common

Individual Differences

Angelic Superiority

Vicarious Honors

The Gospel of Humiliation

Celery and Cherubs

The Need of Cavalry

The Reason Firm, the Temperate Will

Allures to Brighter Worlds, and leads the Way

I

...

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