New-York tribune., 1871-10-06
SCHOOLS FOR HOMEN.

Some British mother has taken alarm at the
studies required of the young girls who are
competitors at the Cambridge Examinations.
She complains that the textbooks introduce
subjects which "no pure, modest girl could
"discuss with her father and brother; open
"the way to religious doubt by acquainting
cher with the systems of Comte, Laplace, and
Darwin, and deriding the faith in the doc
"trine Of an overruling Providence as super
"sttious and absurd" Whatever we may
think of the British mothers reasons for
alarm we may be very certain that the Ameri-
can mothers mind may repose at ease. With
half-a- dozen exceptions, the curriculum of the
boarding-schools and colleges for women in
this country will leave the pupil in blissful
ignorance of the philosophic hypoth-
eses of Comte, Darwin, or of any
body else. Whatever the public squabble
now going on may do to bring girls into in
innate acquaintance with their age and its re-
quirements, even to the foulest particulars, the
ordinary course of study isolates them as far
from it as though they were destined to live in
TimbuctOo. Now, while all the schools through
out the country are opening 1t would be worth
while for every parent to examine the studies
of his daughter with cool judgment and COM
mon sense, and see how far they are calculated
to fit her for her duties as wife and mother,
or, if necessity require her to earn her own
living, what means they offer her for such an
end. In nine cases out of ten he will find her
studying Euclid by rote, without the faintest
idea of consecutive argument in the theorems
Botany by diagrams, and not by plants Che m
istry without laboratory, and Astronomy by
daylight, without perceving the advantage of
an occasional glimpse of the heavens. A
like want of thoroughness and practicablity
is found in every branch of woman's study,
and has been found ever since the sudden
revolution Of opinion about fifty years ago as
to the education necessary for her. French
Emusic and chenille-work" were discovered
not to be liberal education; every art and
science was opened to her, and wisely opened;
the failure has been that, as a rule, she never
is taught to study science as q scholar or art
as an artist The four years of girls edu-
cation are usually given, one-half to music.
whether she have any promise Of true COM
prehension Of it or not; the other half to a
cramming of textbooks containing the rud-
ments of more knowledges than she could
master in lifetime.
1t is high time that parents, mothers es-
pecially, took this matter in hand. In the
twelve years in which the child should be al
together under the mothers eye, and, if posi-.
BILE, instruction, she surely can acquire suf.
fcient knowledge OF her character and capa-
bihties to decide what studies will elevate the
one and develop the other. The precious
days of the wakening strength and emotions
of womanhood need not then be frittered
away in learning, parrot-like, not ideas, but a
multitude Of. words which have little or no
meaning, and are soon forgotten. Such care
and inspection would require, it is true, from
a mother assiduous patience and much time
But she has no other work which ia 40 urgent
or high duty ~ hen she has faithfully Tiled