  In “The Higher Education of Women” we see Cooper’s commitment to the idea that women (and girls) have a voice that must be heard, they have an influence and contribution that must be made to the race and to all of humanity. The attainment of higher education by women has produced well-equipped and thoughtful women “whom the world has long awaited for in pain and anguish till there should be added…the complement of that masculine influence which has dominated it for fourteen centuries” (VAJC, 73). Cooper expounds on her theories about the unique mission and influence of women, namely “to put in the tender and sympathetic cord in nature’s grand symphony, and counteract, or better, harmonize the diapason of mere strength and might” (VAJC, 75). Cooper acknowledges that with the (negative) influence of men, some women may strike a “false note” or parrot “cold  conceits”—however, Cooper insists that “her  heart is aglow with sympathy and loving kindness, and she cannot be true to her real self without giving out these elements into the forces of the world” (VAJC, 75).