The Sun.
London, England, 1870-04-12 00:00:00

LONDON, TUESDAY, APRIL 12, 1870.

THE new impulse given to education has at last
reached girls of the middle and upper classes. No-
where was there such great need of that impulse.
The ignorance of the working class was
notorious, and an educational reform was sure to
deal with that portion of the community in the first
place. But girls were supposed to be educated ;
were considered to be in no want of any change
in their mental training. If costliness of
schools and multifariousness of subjects were
any test of educational thoroughness there
could be no doubt that "young ladies" had
already reached the perfection of school teaching.
While a father could get his sons well educated—
educated so as to be qualified for the duties and
work of actual life—at a. moderate expense, his
daughters cost him double or triple the amount for
an education that was absolutely useless to them. It
did not fit them for tuition or for-literature, in case
they should have to earn their own livelihood in
either of the professions left open to women. It did
not fit them for married life, if they should become
wives and mothers. There was indeed one object which
their teachers had in view: that of catching husbands.
To win an eligible " party " was the be all and end
all of life. There was no thought of retaining his
affection after he was won—no thought of qualify-
ing his wife to be a helpmeet. The choosing of the
son's profession was the first step in his career, and
unless he was able to prove himself qualified for it,
it was considered that nothing had been really ac-
complished. But the marriage of the daughter
was the first and the last step. In fact
the sole thought was not to render her
fit for marriage, but to ensure her marrying.
It may be doubted if, even with this object in view,
the education commonly given to girls hitherto is the
best that can be devised. Atter all, men do not want
to marry only a pianoforte player, or a servile copyist
of conventional sketches, or a waltzer. Some young
men are foolish, and make foolish marriages, but the
young man of average common sense does not rate
these " accomplishments " very high. Mothers are
beginning to find this out, and these items of the
usual feminine curriculum are therefore falling in
the educational market. Besides this there is the
undoubtel fact, never so much forced upon the
unwilling conviction of match-making mothers as it
is now, that marriage is not the invariable lot of
girls ; that unless we adopt the usages of Mor-
monism and Mahomotanism, there must be a con-
siderable number of women who will not be
married, for the simple reason that there
are not enough men to provide them
with husbands. In fact the chances are
that in every family where there are four or More
daughters, one at least will remain unmarried. The
question becomes inevitable, are the " accomplish-
ments" the things most calculated to make these
women happy ? Say even that they have no need
to earn their bread, we still ask, is a life spent at the
piano, the drawing board, and the crochet-needle
quite the highest or the happiest kind of existence ?
Would not happiness be more likely, Would there not
be less fear of being besot by that terrible foe, ennui, if
a woman found herself capable of following any one
subject, whether in science or in literature, and
devoting her life to the pursuit ?
Perhaps it will be said that as marriage is the
highest state of women, that is a goal towards which
we should aim, and that we ought to educate girls
with that goal in view, rather than for the excep-
tional and abnormal condition of single
.life. This objection implies that there is
something antagonistic between thoroughness of
education and married life. That supposition we
altogether reject. There is nothing unwomanly, any
more than there is anything unmanly in know-
ledge. That the most learned women may also be
the most womanly, Vittoria Colonna and Lady Jane
Giey are proofs. The question is not between
learning and ignorance, but between learning and
smattering. Girls are taught already, in fact they
are taught far too many things; but they
are not taught sufficiently of any one thing.
"My young people," said. a schoolmistress to
Mr. Fitch, one of the Assistant Commissioners
udder the Endowed Schools Commission, " take
great interest iu science. We have a lecturer who
comes weekly during the season, and gives us
courses on astronomy, heraldry, botany, and archi-
tecture." Mr. Bright once said that all knowledge
is useful except a knowledge of heraldry ; but even
that was included in the curriculum of this
schoolmistress. Of course, these subjects were
in addition to the more ordinary matters,
history, geography, arithmetic, drawing, singing,
calisthenics, French, Italian, and the use of the
globes. In fact girls are taught far more subjects
than boys aro, and yet the first are beyond all
question less really educated than the second.
This subject has been admirably treated by Miss
Smedley in the current number of the andenzporary
Review. She urges that there cannot be anything es-
sentially feminine or particularly beneficial to the
health in learning three or four languages imperfectly,
instead of one thoroughly; she denies that bad
arithmetic is more modest and becoming than good;
or that the remarkable young ladies of whom we
have lately read, who never showed any animation
except about the dates of the kings of England, would
have lost all their power of charming if their interest
in history had been a little deepened and extended.
The report of the Royal Commissoners already
referred to gives abundant evidence that
mothers are afraid of their daughters
becoming blue-stockings,
and vet the number
of subjects which are taught, professedly, at
a finishing school are so numerous that if the
pupils
had a mastery of a quarter of them, they would be
prodigies of learning. There is an enormous waste
of time, power, and money here. It is as if a man
were to fritter his energies in becoming imperfectly
acquainted with three or four professions and left off
unable to practise one. It cannot be too clearly
understood that what educational reformers want is
not to widen the range of female education, but to
deepen it. They know well enough that no
woman can really master one half of the
subjects. 74011 the i 1,11.97 040024. 0 learn. They