Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1871-03-07
Female Schools.

The Enquirer of Feb. 9th contained face
tious editorial of considerable length on the
subject of female education, from which We
extract the following:
"What is the object of Education?. It is to
make useful men and women-people that can
do something. Now we expect our girls to be-
come wives, and we want them to adorn that
position in society,"
The two great wants of man are Food and
| Clothes. That's what all the hustle in the
world is about. All Of those merchants whose
signs we see on Main street are toiling, cipher
ing, struggling day in aud day out for bread,
meat, and cotton and wooden fabrics to keep
them warm. If men had no stomachs, and
lived in warm climate, there would be no
rows of houses, and traficking and trading
There would be no effort to get rich. People
wouldn't want anything. 1t all comes down
to bread and shirts And Bread and Shirts
are the Motive Power of this world. 1t sets
all the looms in motion; turns all the busy
| wheels; propels all the trains of commerce.
We have now reached point at which we
can answer the question, What is the object of
education? Indeed the intelligent reader has
already anticipated US. The object of Educa-
tion IS Bread and Shirts And that is prop
osition worth the whole of Says Political E.
economy or Euclid. That is the great want of
humanity. And that as the truest symptom of
Education aolsich leads most directly to the ac-
QUESTION of Bread and Shirts This is our
second proposition-and simple as it may seem,
| 1t Is Great Truth-it is one of those cardinal,
prlori, necessary truths which Kent and Sir
William Hamilton place back of experience
Now when we send our daughters to school,
they are taught French, Embroidery, The Lam
guage OF Flowers, Water Colors Guitar. Piano,
aud innumerable little hand books of Electric
ity, Pneumatics, Algebra, Elements of Criti-
cism, Hydrostatics, Light, Calorio, Shades,
Shadows, and Perspective, Uranography,
Physiology, Paleontology, &C., &c.-hundreds
of sciences.
When they leave school they range about
four years In the Neutrality-suspicious.
away, Love, Come away, Love-Ta-la la-la-
a-a-a,' and spend the balance of their time
fixing their hair and reading novels. This
sounds like satire but it is as dry fact as the
report of commissioner in chancery. Of
course they don't know to do anything. Let
US Imagine the complete revolution which
would be effected in human affairs if all these
girls at the age of % knew all about Cooking
and Sewing. Imagine the volume of labor
that would be added to the industry of man
kiEd. Imagine the light, and joy, and happi-
ness that would enter every household.
We have not space to dwell on our points
long-we have to hurry on.
In inaugurating our Common School System
in this State, we wish to see the Sewing Ma
chine and the Cooking Stove substituted for
the Use of the Globes, and the Orrery We
want our girls taught early-so that it will be
IN the grdan-to make good bread.-We think
it would be safe to Danish music altogether
and all the so-caled sciences from our COM
mon schools at least. AS course of study we
should recommend something like the follow
ing: Use of the Needle on Plain Work, such
as hemming, stitching, basting. and the like
Making Shirts on the Sewing Machine; sew
ing on Pants, and Vest, and Coat; Keeping
curriculum should be Bread, Coffee, Steak,
Biscuit, Soup, Macaroni, Cake, Pastry-and
Culinary Economy. We would have a young
girl thoroughly grounded in these studies. We
would teach her anything about Sweeping and
busting; they take to that as ducks do to
water This, good catechism, little geog-
raphy, arithmetic, and grammar, and how to
write legibly, is about all we would teach
young woman.