ABSTRACT
Till a comparatively recent period, the cultivated classes of society were subject, indirectly only, to the influences exercised by industry on the character of man. They reaped the fruits of industry in revenues and lordships, themselves however remaining an aristocracy but alike despising industrial occupation, and strangers to its reaction on the character. Corresponding to the tone of care so planted in the character, is a group of pleasurable and hopeful feelings also connecting themselves with industry. The loneliness and the purposeless tone of life, characteristic of the lot that falls to women in the middle ranks, and the want of a healthful and natural exercise of the mental faculties, are neither the only nor the worst evils of the entire exclusion of the sex in these ranks from non-domestic industry. From the same source has arisen an estrangement of the mind and character of the sexes, so deep in its nature, as to call for the most anxious consideration.
