EMILY SHIRREFF, AUTHORS OF "PASSION AND PRINCIPLE," AND "LETTERS FROM SPAIN "They (women) have nothing to do; is that a reason why they should do nothing SIDNEY SMITH,-"ESSAY ON FEMALE EDUCATION." [SECOND EDITION.] LONDON: HOPE & CO., 16, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1854. Adr. Bil PREFACE. In bringing this little work before the public, the authors feel that some explanation is necessary of the reasons which induced them to choose a subject which, in part at least, has been so often treated before. Works on female education have been multiplied of late years, and many also have been written on the position and duties of women; but none, as far as they know, have attempted to show how the task of self-improvement is to be accomplished. Even "Woman's Rights and Duties," which, for the wide views, the powerful reasoning, and knowledge of the world it displays, stands so unequalled among this class of writings, fails us here. This object did not come within its scope; and it is this practical direction that the authors of the present work desire to supply. A sense of this want has been more than once expressed by young people in their hearing, and was strongly felt by themselves in other days. They remembered the time when they themselves stood as young girls on the threshold of life;-their childhood, with its so-called education, behind them,-the untried future before. They remembered the painful sense of inconsistency between life as it appeared in reality, and the religious theory of life; the consciousness of their own confusion of ideas,—the want of some comprehensive principle by which to regulate thought and action, of some real aim for exertion; and the vain seeking for some guiding thread to lead them out of this perplexing laby |