[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] Sin,—Your correspondent, "A School-Board
Mistress," says she is tempted to imagine "that 'S. L.,' on account of some opinion she has given, "cannot be a woman," and for the same reason I should be more than "tempted to imagine" the same thing of "A School-Board Mistress" herself, but for her signature. For how can a woman talk of the "smallness" of a woman's "nature?" In unselfishness, patience in suffering, devotion, and self-sacri- fice, does "A School-Board Mistress" think men are their
superiors?—and these are scarcely the characteristics of a "small nature." Granting that a woman's "judgments" are sometimes less "just" than those of men, and that she is less able to take a "clear," and "impartial," and comprehensive "grasp of a sub: jest," may not that rather be the result of some "smallness" in her education, than smallness of her "nature?" And the qualities I have specified—and they are only a few of the many that adorn her sex—are happily independent of education. An ability to pass every "examination" under the sun will not give them; and with our grandmothers, who never heard the word "examinations" —except, perhaps, in reference to the household linen—we will hope they were not altogether wanting.—I am, Sir, &c., S.
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