Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1873-08-15
Education Of Girls.

Colonel Higginson writes to the
Herald Of Health in this strain:
walking down street with a Greek
book under my arm the other day,
l joined lady who asked to see the
book. She examined it with inter-
est, read some lines aloud, and sigh
ed rs she gave it back. Il liked
Greek better than anything 1 ever
studied,' she said-and l knew her
father, clergyman, had been rath-
er an eminent scholar-'but my
friends Of both sexes thought it un-
womanly, so l gave it up 1t
brought back to me the old COM
plant of Queen Christina to Nine.
Dacier: Such q pretty girl as you
are! Are you not ashamed to be so
learned?'
'"The higher education of woman
is, in this respect, like one of Spen-
ser's palaces in the 'Faerie Qucene'
that is guarded by ghostly sentinels
all individually powcrless as you
approach, but collectively formida-
able to the Imagination. There is
a series of fallacies, each of which
has been exposed a great many
times, but still they rear their heads
unconscious Of annihilation. Ev-
cry energetic woman, every: man
who has has had daughter to edu-
cate, has encountered and overcome
them; still it is impossible to ap-
proach the subject without at least
recognizing their cxistance as you
pass. They resemble those Portu-
guese soldiers who used to be in.
structed to attack the enemy with
ferocious countenances' and, like
those traditional soldiers, they sell
dom stand fire.
zone Of these fallacics, for in
stance, is that which contounds the
law of sex with the law of digestion.
Men and women being of different
sexes, says some Psychologist, must
obviously require different intellect
ual diet. Why so, if they do not
need different physical diet? If we
go home and dine with tho physiol-
ogist, we find him politely assisting
his wife to soup and his daughter to
roast mutton, ignoring the fact Of
sex. His own dinner table refutes
the theory; his knife is sharper than
his logic, and his joints of mutton
disjoint his argument. Sex is cer-
tainly as marked in the body as it is
anywhere, yet nature shows an es-
sential identity in the digestive sys-
TEN of man and woman.
eff this is true Of the body, il
would seem to be true Of the mind
To say boys study Greek and math.
elnatics, therefore girls, being diff:
erent, should not, is as if you said
boys eat beef and potatoes, therefore
girls, being different, must fine
something else to eat. resist the
argument of the Psychologist, there
fore, till l see him prohibiting his
own womankind from the dinner
they have superintended, and re
stricting them to the judicious dr..
toast and the enlivening tea-cup.
Another Of these ghosts Of objec
tions is the assumption OF the hope
less intellectual inferiority in tn
case of women. l call it an assump
ton because there is no class of fact
directly sustaining it; and the clas
OF facts which have most do with i
the records, that is, of our public
schools-look just the other way
The school superintendent of m.
own city said to me: 'Those wht
theorize on public schools, withou
personal knowledge, imagine us t.
be constantly taxing the powers o
the girls to keep them up to th'
standard Of the boys. 1t is the 9th
er way; my whole struggle is to
keep the boys up to the grade whicl
the girls maintain without difficulty.
l myself remember, in a city wher'
we had twenty prize medals for th'
high school, that two-thirds of thu
pupils were girls, and all our effort.
were to keep the girls from getting
thrcc-fourths OF the prizes. Girls
are SO quick-witted they have so few
distractions compared to boys, ant
their school constitutes so much lar
ger an interest in their lives, tina
they unquestionably hold their owl
and it may be little more thar
their own, in our high schools ant
acadamies. 1t is pretty safe in
ferancc that they will not drop IA
behind in university studies, and
am disposed to adopt as genera
formula that certificate given by :
school committee Of New Hamp
shire town to teacher: This is t
certify that Fanny Noyes stands OF
medium with other girls of he
age and sex, and for what l know
is rs good rs folks in general"