The Sun.
London, England, 1859-11-26 00:00:00

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The urgency of the need of industrial bicuplion S
for women is shown by the attempts that we see
made to provide for two separate deficiencies by
one movense-es srs-'--- ---- sss" i see that the
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middle class, a-nd to fit women for new employ.
ments, is regarded and undertaken. as one and the
same thing. A society which purposes to help
women to profitable employment proposes also to
receive them iuto a school where they will learn
how to serve in shops, and will be trained to book-
keeping and the duties required of clerks, cashiers,
and tickef-officers at railway stations. There can
be no objection to this under the circumstances. On
the contrary, it is a sensible as well as benevolent
scheme, as far as it goes; but it can go only every
short way. The educational need is the essential
point in the case ; and till it is met there can be no
gen Line establishment of women in a position of
independent industry. When duly qualified,
women, like men, are sure to be employed. To
push them into employments before they are quali-
fied would, if -it were possible, entail something
worse than failure; and to exclude them from
occupation, when once properly qualified,'would be
equally impossible ; and therefore the way to pro-
vide for the "uneasy class" of women who are
hungering in idleness is to give them an education
which shall enable them to do something useful.
It so happens that this class is precisely the ono
which has the least justice in the way of training.
The daughters of the aristocracy have at least the
means of exercising their intellects, and their hands
and eyes ; they have a more or less liberal educa-
tion, and associate with cultivated people. The
daughters of artisans and labourers are brought up
to earn 'their bread, and enjoy the personal distinc-
tion of becoming independent labourers, whose
services have a special character and a certain
value. It has been well said that it is a great and
memorable day in a poor boy's life when he first
goes to work ; and it is a great and memorable day
for the poor girl when she first goes to " a
tgace," and thereby :takes up is position in the
world. The middle-class girl meantime, learns
(only to forget) various desultory things at a
school where no aim is set before her, or
generally speaking, is entertained by her teachers.
She studies, in a manner, and then goes home to
spend five years, or fifteen, or fifty, in occupations
which are either desultory or monotonous, and of no
avail in exercising her faculties or in obtaining in-
dependence. If she marries, her education has not
done much towards preparing her for domestic life.
If she is a good housewife, parent, and neighbour, it
is rather in spite than in consequence of her educa-
tion. If she does not marry, her life is without aim,
without ease, without hope, though she is actually
wanted in the field of labour, and might, to the
advantage of everybody concerned, gratify an
honourable ambition of usefulness and independence.
The evil of this state of things is so keenly felt
that we witness on every hand some attempt to re-
medy it. There is no system, no uniformity, no
theory involved in the efforts made ; and this is very
well, because it precludes the danger of opposition,
such as any cut-and-dried scheme would certainly
encounter at the outset. The hard struggle that the
Ladies' Colleges had to go through before they fully
succeeded shows what the opposition would have
been to any suggestion of schools of anew quality,
on the ground that they would soon be 'wanted. As
it is, there is little for prejudice to fasten on in what
is actually done, because the school is in immediate
reply to some special demand.
What do we see actually done or set about in the
way of practical education for the daughters of
middle-class working fathers ?
It is observable that almost every one you ask
knows of two, or three, or more attempts to teach
girls something useful during school years. The
number of utilitarian girls' schools must thus be
considerable. The next census returns ought to be
more precise than the last in regard to the pur-
suits of women, which would throw light on their
education. Last time the three distinct classes of
female authors, artists, and teachers were thrown
into one. We must have them separate next time,
and an account of the number at least of girls'
schools. Meantime, ask the first sensible family man
you mest, and lie will tell you of somebody or other
who is interested in some school for teaching girls
something more substantially useful than the ordi-
nary French, history, and music of girls' schools.
Perhaps it is that a sensible woman has opened
school for tradesmen's daughters, where the book-
teaching, the grammar, history and composition, is
of a very substantial kind ; and where a great point
is made of the writing and arithmetic and plain
needlework—book-keeping perhaps being added,
and a knowledge of German or French directed
chiefly to commercial uses. Girls well trained. in
this way may become clerks, secretaries, and foreign
correspondents in commercial houses, if they should
not marry, or during the years between school and
marriage, so commonly spent in merely stunting the
intellect and the character in all directions. Perhaps
we see a benevolent lady putting a respectable
housekeeper and a trained schoolmistress into a
house, and opening it to the daughters of shopkeepers,
for a useful training on low terms—a good school
education for a part of the day, and household train-
ing for the rest, a dinner cooked by themselves in-
tervening. The cutting out and making of clothes,
the arts of cleanliness, cooking, and the purchase of
provisions and laying out a table are taught, as well
as the most important and substantial exercises of
the school-room. Perhaps such a school may be a
public one, the product of the good sense of a town
instead of private benevolence. In that case the
plan has often severe difficulties to struggle with,
from the prejudices of those who may subscribe to
it, or assume a right to interfere, and who cannot
conceive of anything else than an ordinary school
for poor children. They are perpetually endeavour-
ing to lower the standard of instruction because the
industrial training is associated in their minds with
" the labouring classes." They have not visited the
Borough-road School, or other training schools,
where they might see how a very high order of in-
tellectual training may coincide with a very utili-
tarian use of the hands. In other quarters we see
household arts more and more connected with the
routine of National and British Schools, and classes
of women formed at the Working Men's College;
and evening schools for women anegirls, where they
may obtain instruction in special departments. In
various ways, and under all sorts of circumstances,
efforts are made to break up the vacuity of the youth
of middle-class women. The special instruction just
referred to is the other great requisite for the re-
trieval of the condition of destitute women. At pre-
sent, if a woman is generally well educated, she may
yet be unfit for profitable occupations for want
of special training or instruction. The deficiency
will presently be supplied with regard to the arts
of book-keeping, shopwaiting, and commercial
business generally. There must be plenty of
" writing masters,' clerks, and retired shopwomen
who would gladly give instruction in their respec-
tive arts ; and women may learn commerciel busi-
ness as they now learn dressmaking, by serving
their time in an establishment where the know-
ledge is given in return for services. The difficulty
is in regard to the higher employments. How is a
woman to gain an education in art in this country ?
Hundreds, it is true, maintain themselves by wood-
engraving; and the practice of photography, in
its various applications, will support hundreds
more. But, beyond admission to our Schools of
Design, women have no means of obtaining that
training and disCipline in drawing for the want of
which they are reproached. They have a claim to
admission to the Royal Academy ; and the unrea-
sonableness of refusing it to them must soon come
to an end. At present all facilities for medical
study are refused to Englishwomen, though freely
provided in other countries. We tolerate the
quackeries and nonsense of women about diseases
and remedies—ignorance and folly which cost
many lives and an infinite amount of health—
rather than admit any woman to a knowledge
of medical science, such as would in time ren-
der the whole sex more rational as mothers and
nurses.

The case is, on the whole, very clear—that
women, like men, find something to do, and the
means of doing it, when they are qualified to do it.
There is at present plenty of work to be done, and
there are only too many women who would fain
put their hands to it. The qualifying training is
the deficient element. A sound utilitarian school
course first, and means of special instruction for
various vocations afterwards, would prevent, in
the next generation, the compulsory idleness, the
fruitless toil, the burdensomeness, the poverty,
hopelessness, induced disease, and premature death
of thousands of our countrywomen. Their inte-
rests are now fairly recognised. We have given
the view of the sensible and experienced among
those who compassionate them as to how they
may be best assisted. For many of them it is
too late ; but there is always another generation
coming up, and they may be rendered a blessing
instead of a burden to the community.—Daily
News.

APOTIIECARIES'-HALL.—The following are the
names of gentlemen who passed their examination in the
science and practice of medicine, and received certificates to
practise, on Thursday, Nov. 24 :—Jos. Neesom, Bradford,
Yorkshire •, Thos. Bowling, Birmingham ; Elisha Ilarrie
Leniker, Balderton, Newark-on-Trent ; Samuel Hoppus
Adams, London ; Jas. Beavan, Gravesend ; David Lloyd,
Carmarthen, South Wales ; Edmund Bower, Weymouth ;
Chas. Frederick Empson, Selby, Yorkshire ; and William
John Nelson, Acomb, Yorkshire. The following gentle-
men also on the same day passed their first examination :
Richard Metcalfe, Hawes, Bedale, Yorkshire ; Wm. Marling
Sissoas, Hull; Delamark Freeman, lienningtcm •4 rand Thos.
Cotton, Spalding,