The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1869-06-17
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A Model Female Seminary.
THE EDUCATION Of WOMEN AS, IT SHOULD
BE coNDUoTED-A. BATCH OF SEM
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. f4fS

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The Richmond Enquirer is faceticious on
the subject Of educating girls. 1t says:
In the model female seminary which our
fancy has conceived, when young lady ar
rives at the age of fifteen and goes to the
seminary, the first thing put in her hand |
should be broom. We would first teach
her to swecp-not the pavements, (this they
succeed in doing without Instruction., but
the floor. After some progress in this, the
pupil is prepared to devote some months to
busting, and polishing brass arranging fur
niture andputting adisordered room to rights.
We will suppose the young lady now to be
sixteen. She should at once receive instruc-
tionin the use Of the needle-not. that one
which points to thu pole and directs the mar
liner in sailing round the world'-but that
grand implement of civilization which, is used
in sewingson buttons and making shirts.
OF all the mere accomplishments which
young lady can acquire in youth, there is
none more pleasing and beautiful than this,
and it is perfectly wonderful how slow the
female world has been discovering it. Instead
Of the French professor in such school as
we are thinking of, we should engage the
services of some accomplished artist like Mr..
Zetelle or Mr.. Gerot, to teach the young la,
dies the SPLENDID art Of cooking. At seven
teen young woman should learn all that
can be learned about making bread;t and
the highest premium of the school-say a
beautiful coral necklace OF a lace pocket hand-
bread maker. Beaten biscuits are disappear
ing under the new system of. ssfreedom," and
we are having instead an unhealthy compound
of sodaor saleratus and -four. Now, let our
girls learn to beat biscuit, and we can set the
colored breakfast-cooks at defiance. Then
teach the young pupil how to cook a beefsteak
oh. beefsteaks are so terribly treated in
our Virginia kitchens!-t how to boil
eggs, to make coffee, to whip syllabub and
to make pastry. The happiness of many
sweet and lovely girl is prematurely upset
by the exposure of her ignorance on these
subjects directly after marriage. Nothing
serves so well to make perfect and perennial
the love and affection of a young husband as
a tender and we'll consided beefsteak prepared
by the hands Of the woman he adores. And
as to any protracted domestic sunshine with
hard boiled eggs and tough, ,beefsteaks,
heavy bread and muddy coffee-it would
quench the enthusiasm Of Romeo and blast
the Establishments of Juliet. To these ac-
complishments our Virginia girls should add
little knowledge Of arithmetic. They are
expected to negotiate with the market men
for the butter, the chickens, the eggs the
raspberries, the vinegar which are consumed
in the family !; and they must learn how to
get things cheap and to make mental calcu-
lations with rapidity and accuracy. It will
be chiefly necessary to direct their attention
to addition (and detraction),
division and multiplication they soon learn
They have in our present schools the air
pump and the orrery, and the use Of the
globes and crucibles, and blowpipics and
acids; for these we would substitute the
clothes wringer and the Italian beehive and
sewing machine. Pie making should cover
the ground now held by the piano, and gas
tronomy should gil up the time now devoted
to the guitar." A good Hooking woman with a
good pie amounts to a great deal more than a
good looking woman with good tune. We
think the great defect in ancient sculpture
is the straining after the ideal and abstract.
If the Venus de Medici in the Ufizi gallery
at Florence only had an omelette in her hands,
it would have been the grandest female COL
ception ever originated. .sa &,