Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1866-08-28
THE GAZETTE.
TUESDAY EVENING, AUGUST IS.
lCOMNuNICATED.
FsmaIe Education and Female Schools.


Fsma1e Education and Female Schools.
70 the Editor of the Azerand,Ta Gazette:
Please re-publish the following excellent ar
Gicle, from the Charlottesville Chronicle l
think it is practical and may be useful. 1t will
be read with interest by all who have daughters
% educate, at this time A PARENT.
1.-THE tendency, or rather the firmly estab-
!ished practice, in these days, is to teach Our
young ladies, in addition to Arithmetic, Geo.
graphy, Grammar, &C., Latin. French, Italian,
German, Spanish, Music, Mathematics, Natu-
2al Philosophy, Moral Philosophy, Rhetoric,
Chemistry, Logic, Physiology, Zoology, AS
ing, Mineralogy, Meteorology-and some times
Medicine. Ali this excepting the LAST has o
De accomplished at eighteen, ard must result
ina superficial mastery of so many subjects.
The fault is not, perhaps so much the teach
err as that of the public, who would not be
prepossessed with school where any OF these
things were omitted. 1t is, however, at once
obvious that a girl who has hurried over such
a multitude of topics cannot be called educated.
A application to the most abstruse and use
less studies, and hankering after the recon-
dite researches once held proper for the philos-
opher and the antiquary, have usurped the
place of a due and methodlcal course OF cult
walton; and where, under the old state OF
matters, few essential things were taught and
understood thoroughly, the spirit eff improve
ment now abroad attempts to combine the lore
Of an encyclopedia with the brilliant graces of a
line lady.
The tendency Of the present style Of female
education is to overload rather than to inform,
to bewilder in place OF enlightening. Nature
and reason enforce upon us the propriety, nay
necessity, of breeding up our daughters, not as
Daciers or Aspasias, but so as to qualify them
for their appointed lot of wives, mothers, and
mistresses of families
To recall women to the path whence she has
so sadly and so strangely wandered, andimpress
Aer with her accountability as the grand moral
agent of society, the natural guardian of ethics
and manners. seems to require some relNrma-
zion in the mode of elementary training In
he first place, the complete polity of the menage
ought to be mastered, together with the solid
branches Of an English education Early rs
ing, neatness, industry, order, and economy
8le not necessarily incompatible with or dis
yinctive of genius, and the graces and accom-
oiishments; on the contrary, these last, when
qDtly inculcaed and blended with simplicity of
mind and activity of habits, (the proudest
trophy Of taste and talents,) shine, indeed,
H;ie apples OF gOlu III pictures VI sINe[,
stealing and shedding lustre.
For our boys and girls now the chiict study at
2enool ought, perhaps, to be the English Ian
,Tuage. 1t is the last thing thought of. The
dictionary and the grammar should therefore,
% course, be thoroughly mastercd-the former
Nth reference to the definitions of words as
@'ell as their photography. Composition -
chiefly in the diary and epiStolary forms ought
% be pract.ced. Style should be 4 subject OF
snstruction-the right use of words Of Arth-
:netic Dr. johnson has said 800 woman can
nov too much Geography and history, if
thoroughly learned, would occupy several
yaars 4 little Geometry, to counteract the
tendency to exaggeration. Then (if the girl is
disposed to learn French and Natural Phi!oso-
Oily. Where there is 4 real taste for it
dusc. Not one other hing-would, perhaps,
re safe rule"