Muscatine journal. [volume] (Bloomington, Iowa) 1849-185?, 1853-09-16
For the Journal.
Education.

1
| Education.
Mr.. EDITOR: The term " education ap-
pears to have, with different individuals,
quite different Specification. With some,
it is reading, writing, and smattering OF
arithmetic; and with others, the entire ru-
diments Of our language and if one sex
adds Greek, Latin, &c., and tho other
French, music and drawing, they have q
splendid education. l take those attain
ments mentioned above to bo merely as
sistants to an education, while an education
is the mental equipment necessary for a
fair start in practical life-the preparation n
which fits individuals to respectfully fill their
appropriate spheres in life, and to extract
from its realities the exhaustless sweets Of
mental pleasure and intellectual delights.
Consequently, the man who can neither read
nor write may have an education, his judg-
ment better informed and his deductions
much more legitimate than the man who
can read Homer and Cicero as fuently rs
his {" first reader" 4ts..e az
Inotice an effort is making in this city to
establish n Female Seminary. For most
things, some reason may be assigned. Now
why divide the sexes in their education Is
1t for the purpose of educating them differ
emily? If so, what is the reason for it?--
Why educate those differently whose happi.
ness and welfare depend upon the similar
ity of their tastes, their sympathies, their
whims, and their pursuits |? Why separate
those whom nature has made alike in their
affections, their wants, their desires, their
aspirations, and their mental development ?
those who must travel the journey of life
together-share the same joys-the same
sorrows-rejoice in the same success and
endure the same miseries; those who are
as necessary to each others happiness, as
rain and sunshine is to vegetation I; those
whose intercourse has direct tendency to
hold each other in check and soften down
the asperity of each others nature = to
round off the rough corners--to polish our
intercourse, elevate our aspirations, and
give nerve and energy to our ambitionl--
The holy and angelic influence of the soft
er sex has been Of much use to me. My
best-kept resolutions of reform have been
made while smarting under the kind and
affectionate rebuke of some bluc-eyed imp
of the petticoat. From my earliest recol-
lection to the present time, their smiles of
appreciation and their kindly words of en-
couragement, haye been as sunshine to my
path, and restrained much that was evil
From my observation, such is their inau-
ence upon all. My lessons wero better
learned, my application was much moro in
tense, when in competition with some curly.
headed, mischievous girl, than with one of
my own sex, let him be ever SO sprightly.-
Are they not capable Of prosecuting and
mastering the same studies? Experience
says, yes!
We profess, in this country, to have left
Heathanism, Paganism and Mahometism
far in tho rear, and yet we adhere with te-
nacity to some of their favorite ideas
Where, but from those venerable isms did we
get the notion that woman should not re-
ceive tile same kind of mental culture with
man ? and that the sexes shoult be sepa-
rated in the schools-that there should be
male and female seminaries that one should
studylmusic, while the other lstudies math-
ematics that one should learn French, and
the other logic; or that one should learn
drawing and the other surveying.
Is not political economy as interesting to
woman as to man? Does mot On oppressive
law, or NAL administered government bear
as hardly on woman as man? :? In short, has
not nature and necessity so interviewer their
interests, their joys and sorrows, their hap
piness and misery, as to make them insep-
arable2 Ifso, then away with your female
seminaries, and let US have seminary
where the boys and girls are taught the
same branches in the same class, and recits
to the same teacher. and romp on the same
ground. Nature has thrown the sexes to-
gether in life and in death-in the family
circle their lack is irreparable. In short,
find the place where woman is not needed,
where man ought to be. Until then, let US
follow nature and have no female semina-
ries. Ws..