The Sun.
London, England, 1864-10-31 00:00:00

Mr. Leatham, M.P.. on Female Education.

On Thursday night Mr E. A. Leathern, M.P.,
presided at the annual soiree of the Huddersfield
Female Educational Institute, which was held in
the Gymnasium Hall, Huddersfield. There was a
large attendance.
The SECRETARY (Mr David Johnston) read an
extract from the report submitted to the business
meeting in May last. The number of annual sub-
scribers is 104, who subscribe the sum of £92 16s 6d.
There are 78 pupils paying 3d per week, contribut-
ing £3l is Bd, and 49 pupils paying ld each, con-
tributing £7 14s 11d. The average weekly attend=
ante at the classes is 245. The ages of the pupils
are as follow : —5l under 15 years of age, 55 above
15 and under 20 years, and 21 above 20 years.
Amongst the pupils there are eight married women.
Mr. LEATHAM, who was received with loud ap-
plause, said he thought it was pretty generaly
admitted that those who took part in proceedings
of this description, if they happened to have an) -
thing in their heads of which they wished to make
a present to the public, were perfectly at liberty to
look upon these occasions as the most fitting oppor-
tunities for so doing. Indeed, so general had the
practice become that public speakers seemed to vie
with one another in the courage with which they
trespassed upon every conceivable topic which
might happen to be uppermost in their own or in
the public mind, provided only that these topics
had nothing whatever to do with the object of
the meeting. Nor was this curious phenomenon
confined to educational meetings. Ho had noticed
in the reports of agricultural dinners that instead of
soaring into high flights of eloquence in praise of
the glories of fat stock and on the best manure for
turnips, the speakers launched away into criticisms
upon the foreign policy of the country, into tirades
against the Yankees; and now and then they had
denunciations of some unfortunate clergyman who
happened to have formed the opinion that a tippet
had become an article of clerical attire, or some pre-
late aho had quarrelled with Moses and could not
be induced to believe in Noah's ark. (Laughter and
applause.) Precisely in the same way the celebra-
tions of the votaries of social science appeared to be
made the occasion for transferring to the public the
annual sweepings of noble brains. Indeed, Sterne
never uttered a greater truth than when he said that
when a man had one resolved upon a subject, then
for a text, Mesopotamia, Cappadocia, Asia, Pontes,
Phrygia, or Pamphylia, was as good a text as any
in the Bible. (Laughter and applause.) He was
afraid he should be considered as a rash invader if
he attempted to keep pretty close to the question
and to say a few words apropos of the cccasion.
This much he would say, that if they would kindly
look over the offence this time, he would promise in
future to be as illogical, as discursive, and as irre
levant as the most fastidious person now presen'
could desire. (Laughter.) If they would permit him
then, he would make a few observations with refe•

renco to female education. And in the first place

he thought it was a matter of great congratulation
that they possessed in Huddersfield a recognised
and successful female Mechanics' Institute. (Ap,
plause.) He was quite sure that the establishment
and successful working of such an institute must
tread with very considerable emphasis upon the corns
of prejudice. There were some people whose moral
and intellectual feet were so tender that they
screamed out if anybody came within a yard of them
with these institutes. There must have been a whole
chorus of screamers when that institute was set up .
not that the screamera were not very sensible people
but then they were told that if the very sensible pee.
ple of another day had had their own way, we should
still have been champing acorns, and, doubtless
when our forefathers renounced their time-honoured
acorn diet, and turned out of their ancestral huts in
favour of the pigs, the very sensible people of that
tine regarded that gigantic innovation with very
grave disapproval. Now, what was it that the very
sensible people of Huddersfield had to ray against
this institute and in favour of female ignorance ?
They said that such an institute was out of place;
that it was an anomaly and an impertinence; that
the young people who attended !t had much bet-
ter stay away ; that they wore much better with-
out the instruction they got there; that it
only turned their heads; that it only in-
capacitated them for their work ; and that it only took
away their attention from those domestic affairs on which
they ought to be engaged. That was a very old argument ;
it was as old as the hills. It was as old, at all events, as
Sidney Smith, who had this very neat way of putting it—
not by any means that ho was expressing his own opinion
—that if a woman were once permitted to taste of the
fruits of the tree of knowledge, the rest of the family would
soon be anxious to be fed with the same ethereal and
unsatisfactory diet. That was the assertion with modi-
fications, that had been applied to the education of almost
every class of women in the country, and the consequence
had been that there had arisen a great controversy on
female education, and that as it was the nature of ex-
tremes to bred extreroes, a set of philosophers had cropped
up to maintain that boys and girls ought to be educated
precisely alike, After expressing his entire dissent from
this doctrine, Mr Leatham combated the statement made
by many objectors that the possession of a good education
would induce the females of the lower ranks to assume airs
unsuited to their rank in life. He contended that when
the system of female education had become general among
the operative classes no young woman would take airs to
herself because she could read a paragraph fluently in the
newspaper, or do accounts, or write a neat hand, any more
than she would take eh s to herself now because, like a
royal prince, she had all her fingers on one hand, or that
Providence had been pleased to grant her a nice, comely,
cheerful, healthy countenance. (Applause) Another absurd
objection was, that a well informed woman made a bad wife
to a working man sad a bad mother to his children; that
the time of such persons would be taken up by pursuits
which are foreign to domestic matters ; that they would
neglect John's potatoes for a poem, and John's babies
for a romance. Who ever heard of a woman neglecting
her own child for a romance? and what remains was ever
written which, in her opinion, would compare with the
poetry which sparkles in the eyes of her own little boy P
The opponents to female education seemed altogether to
forget the share which the wife had in making the man.
(Bear, hear.) Ht eid not hesitate to say, although it might
be deraatory to his own sex, that nine out of every ten
men who married poung were very much what their wives
had made them. (Hear, hoar, and applanse.) The influence
which a woman, patient, orderly, virtuous, religious, and
intelligent might have over her husband for good was in-
calculable. (Hear, hear.) Some men were made of hard,
unyielding, unpromsing materials ; but a good woman
would go chipping away like a patient sculptor ; it
might take years and years, it might take half a lifetime,
but in the end she would work the nude block into shape,
and thero was many a noble and manly fellow now living
who could tell that but for woman and God's blessing upon
her work there would not have been much manliness or
nobility left in him. (Applause.) He had said nothing o
the influence of the mother upon the future of her off-
spring, because no one would deny that their earliest line
pressions were those that were the most durable, and it was
to the mother that they must mainly look for this. Ho
maintained that it was a high and noble calling that of the
working-women of England. (Applause.) They had en•
trusted to them much of the happiness of the present
generation of working men, They would mould much of
the character of the next, and upon the character of the
working population the character of the whole nation must
more and more depend ; the part which the people would
take and the place which the country would fill in history.
This was a consideration which had been too much lost
sight of in the past. It had been assumed that the happi-
ness and prosperity of the nation was vested in the hands
of a few, but all experience from day to day was teaching
that it was not in the Court or in the palaces of the great,
but in the cottage, that we must seek for the birthright of
prosperity. Beneath those lowly rafters lies the cradle of
dominion, and from that humble threshold pi...cads the
majesty of States. (Cheers.) If there was a particle of
truth in this doctrine, they should recognise at once the
necessity of those efforts and the importance of these
institutions. (Applause.) There never was an epoch
when these considerations were forced upon them with
greater power. This was no jog-trot age, when the river
of history rolled smoothly on—it was broken at every
turn into a thousand cataracts; they lived amidst people
of gigantic passions and in the presence of stupendous
events. Hitherto our path amongst nations had been one
of prosperity and security ; but standing as we did in the
midst of so many and so great catastrophes, where was the
man who would have the courage to say that it might not
become overcast, perplexed, and strewn with peril ? But
whatever might be the future which awaited;this country,
they, at all events, may take courage, certain that their
efforts, under the blessing of Providence, must conduce to
the welfare of their fellow• countrymen ; that they would
assuage the calamities of war itself, and would crown with
a still brighter lusture the victories of peace. (Cheers.)
A vote of thanks to Mr Leatham for presiding terminated
the proceedings,

FATAL RAILWAY ACCIDENT.—On Saturday,
about 5 p.m., the train from Dublin to Galway ran off the
line near Blllinasloe, when a carriage was overturned and
two men were killed—Mr Glenville, a builder, and T.
Henry, a a servant of the company.