Course of Popular Lectures as Delivered by Frances Wright: With Three Addresses on Various Public Occasions, and a Reply to the Charges Against the French Reformers of 1789. Second Edition |
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Course of Popular Lectures as Delivered by Frances Wright ... with Three ... Frances Wright No preview available - 2016 |
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actions American ancient Greece believe born free bosom cause churches citizens clergy conceive consequences creeds discourses distinguish duties earth enlightened equal error evil examine exer existing eyes facts faculties faith false farther fear feelings fellow creatures Fourth of July FRANCES WRIGHT French revolution friends halls of science happiness hath heads anatomy heart human improvement human mind humankind ignorance imagination importance individual institutions instruction intellectual interests investigation ipse dixit labor land LECTURE ledge Let us enquire liberty look matter means mental moral nature never New-York noble energies object observation opinions ourselves patriotism peace perceive persecution popular practice prejudice present principle race reason reform religion religious republican rience sectarian seek sensations senses simple socinian sophisms Sparta spirit superstition supply Tammany Hall teachers things unseen tion truth understand vice virtue wise words
Popular passages
Page 2 - In conformity to the act of Congress of the United States. entitled, " an act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the time therein mentioned." And also to an act, entitled, " an act, supplementary to an act, entitled, an act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned...
Page 167 - ... to the promotion of these best palladiums of a nation's happiness, a double tax might be at once expedient and politic. First, a moderate tax per head for every child, to be laid upon its parents conjointly, or divided between them, due attention being always paid to the varying strength of the two sexes, and to the undue depreciation which now rests on female labor.
Page 39 - ... fruit of knowledge. The wily serpent now hath better learned his lesson ; and, to secure his reign in the garden, beguileth her not to eat. Promises, entreaties, threats, tales of wonder, and, alas ! tales of horror, are all poured in her tender ears. Above, her agitated fancy hears the voice of a god in thunders; below, she sees the yawning pit ; and, before, behind, around, a thousand phantoms, conjured from the prolific brain of insatiate priestcraft, confound, alarm, and overwhelm her reason...
Page 44 - ... human improvement must advance but feebly. It is in vain that we would circumscribe the power of one half of our race, and that half by far the most important and influential. If they exert it not for good, they will for evil ; if they advance not knowledge, they will perpetuate ignorance.
Page 169 - In these nurseries of a free nation, no inequality must be - allowed to enter. Fed at a common board ; clothed in a common garb, uniting neatness with simplicity and convenience ; raised in the exercise of common duties, in the acquirement of the same knowledge and practice of the same industry, varied only according to individual taste and capabilities...
Page 46 - I will ask if two professions do not now rule the land and its inhabitants? I will ask, whether your legislatures are not governed by lawyers and your households by priests? And I will farther ask, whether the deficient instruction of the mass of your population does not give to lawyers their political ascendency; and whether the ignorance of women be not the cause that your domestic hearths are invaded by priests?
Page 71 - I have wedded the cause of human improvement ; staked on it my reputation, my fortune, and my life ; and as, for it, I threw behind me in earliest youth the follies of my age, the luxuries of ease and European aristocracy, so do I, and so will I, persevere, even as I began ; and devote what remains to me of talent, strength, fortune, and existence, to the same sacred cause — the promotion of just knowledge, the establishing of just practice, the increase of human happiness.
Page 166 - Philadelphia, realizing, according to the most favourable estimate of your city and county committee, sixteen dollars per annum, for food and clothing? ' what leisure or what spirit may their children find for visiting a school, although the same should be open to them from sunrise to sunset '! Or what leisure have usually the children of your most thriving mechanics, after their strength is sufficiently developed to spin, sew, weave, or wield a tool? It seems to me, my friends, that to build school...
Page 38 - But until equality prevail in condition, opportunity, and instruction, it is every where to the least favored in these advantages, that I most especially and anxiously incline. Nor is the ignorance of our sex matter of surprise, when efforts, as violent as unrelaxed, are every where made for its continuance. It is not as of yore. Eve puts not forth her hand to gather the fair fruit of knowledge. The wily serpent now hath better learned his lesson; and, to secure his reign in the garden, beguileth...
Page 158 - ... the boasted wealth of the state, he leaves a family, to whom the strength of his manhood had barely furnished bread, to lean upon the weakness of a soul-stricken mother, and hurry her to the grave of her father. Such is the information gleaned from the report of the committee lately appointed by the town meeting of the city and county of Philadelphia, and as verbatim reiterated in every populous city throughout the land. And what are the remedies suggested by our corporation, our newspaper editors,...