The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1873-07-02

Education for Women-Normsl College
Commencement Last Night-Closo OF
the school and College season.
In his ''History of Civilization" Mr. Buckle
remarks that the spirit of the time is its knowl-
edge and the direction that knowledge takes.
| If this is 80 then the education we give our
| girls and women becomes matter of primary
importance. We do not think that any one of
| intelligence will deny that great improve
ment is sweeping over the United States-we
say nothing for the present of the rest of the
world-in this respect. We have made meal
culable progress since the day when all that it
was thought necessary for a woman to do was
to superiptend the household, 20 carve grace
fully, and to yield meek, submissive silence in
| presence of her lord and his male guests. The
reader of tom Jones' ARE there any readers
of "Tom Jones' nowadays ?-may possibly
remember that the virtue which the discreet
and chaste Allworthy principally praised in
the charming Sophia was the command which
she had over her tongue, in contradistinction
to the bellies of the present day, whose
tongues, in too many instances, have the
portion of that eminently interesting though
somewhat licentious romance, when good Mr..
Allworthy. is declaring the sum total of Miss
Westerns perfections he lays particular stress
upon the fact that she was never fast and free
with her opinion, that she invariably waited
for masculine tongues to take the lead, and
that when she did suffer her voice to be heard
hn- xxv.~l eu,o1,
Difference to the male understanding and with
such gentle yet sincere depreciation of self as
invested her with charm superior to that Of
most Of the young ladies of the age. Well,
Sophia was o very delightful young woman, no
doubt, but she belongs to type of young
women who would possess but few attractions
to the erigcant and feverish youngsters Of the
present age. The characteristic of the Guilt
waited American young lady more emphatically
is that she can talk She may not dwell upon
the price of hides, as one of the young ladies
does in Mr. Sardou's elaborated farce of
"Uncle SAM" but she could probably find
something trenchant to say on almost any
subject involving money or business, COM
merce or manufactures. But the fact to which
we particularly wished to draw attention is
that the unlettered and unreasoning young
woman has passed away and that logical,
self-possessed, and, to great extent,
self-assertive young woman has taken
her place. Hence we have one of the
most curious and interesting phenomena
of the nineteenth century, one Of the most
remarkable and piquant outgrowths of the
worlds six thousand years Formerly it was
thought that woman's place was only beside
the cradle and the hearth. She was made to
pare apples, to peal potatoes, to knead bread
and to sew on buttons As some cynic friendly
to woman remarks, man was o noun and wo-
man the adjective belonging to him. If she
knew sufficient arithmetic not to overstep the
pecuniary bounds imposed upon her by her
husband if she could write sufficiently well
to keep legible record Of her expenditures
if her acquaintance with grammar was clear
enough to enable her to conjugate the verb
obey in the indicative mood, first person, fil-
ture tense, this was all that the average man
required of her. This was the model wife, who
should make home Paradise-this the pat
tern mother whose children should rise
up and call her blessed Between kitchen
and laundry, her husbands shirts and her
childrens tyrannies it was allowed that plenty
of scope was to be found for her nature. To
man was the world and action to woman the
glorious monotony of home and children,
bread-baking and bed-making, and the pros
pective triumph of a complimentary obituary
being printed on her tombstone.
The female colleges are doing much to put an
end to this state Of things. and the result will
be q race OF women midway between the hur-
red and bafled actuals" Of the past and the
hybrid localities with which the brains of the
female suffragists teem 1t is getting to be
believed possible that love for husband and
acquaintance with the rules of Latin compost
ton; that woman may be a good hand at
pies and yet have o botanists knowledge of the
mushrooms she is putting into them; and
that she is not the less capable of bringing
healthy children into the world for having at
tended course of lectures on anatomy and
physiology. Before such an advance as this
even the prejudices against learned women
will gradually stink away. One of the most
pleasant aud affecting passages in George
Eliot s lately finished novel of 'sMiddlemarch'
is that in which the writer describes the I'M
pretentious Mrs. Garth remembering her
schoolmistress accomplishments in the
midst of her numerous family, and
correcting a mis-conjugated subjunctive mood
with her sleeves rolled above her elbows and
her eyes watching the oven. Good Mrs.
Garth was on one of the lower rounds of that
dgnifed educational ladder which the
coming housewife is about to climb. We
want more mothers who know all about the
subjunctive mood and who can move with
calm dignity through the fretful complications