Litchfield enquirer., 1873-12-18
Female EducatIon.

to the enlargement Of woman's sphere, : by higher and more thorough education, into tangible form deserving of examina. ton. We gather the various objections together into the following brief state.
 ment:
 l l. That women are themselves ayerse to any such thorough course of study as men pursue at college. "They want to \ graduate after they have got a little smattering of French. music, etc. l 2. That those who desire.a thorough education have abundant opportunity to obtain it.
 5. That the result of fitting. women for business and professions would be the Encouragement of matrimony and the in- troduction of "about such social sys- tenn as the French have today"
 1. That, 'sof all girls and women of marriageable age who are engage d in any occupation in this State, we do not be- lieve there are to-day 50 who would not abandon their business to form an ordina- ", suitable marriage. They cannot do two things at orce."
 5. That woman's chief ambition should be to "help the fallen, put down extrav- agonce in dress and living, foolishness in fashion. stop gossip and abuse of their neighbors and one another, stop scolding, and try and make life what the Creator designed it.
 We do not believe that the customary neglect of thorough study among girls is owing to any natural difference between the two sexes. When educated together girls seem to be rather the more thorough and industrious, as far as we can learn. It is the fault of parents and teachers that girls are more superfcially educated than boys. They are taught accomplish ments to enable them to attract husbands, rather than solid learning to enable them to get living by it.
 The opportunities of women for obtain ing thorough collegiate education are greatly improving. At the West some of the finest colleges are open to them. In the East the great colleges are closed to them. Only two small colleges in New England, and they very lately, allow CO., education of young men and women. Harvard, Yale, Amherst, Columbia, Princeton, and Union-the great old col leges of the country-still maintain the old monastic system. Cornell, the great new college, is more liberal.
 l. The fear that woman's independence will foster immortality grows out of mis- understanding of the causes of what the Sentinel terms the French social system, That system combines the two evils that the co-education of the sexes and the en- largement of woman's sphere are special ly calculated to remove. The French se clude their girls from society while young, make matches of convenience for them, and then, and not till then, allow them free social intercourse Moreover the French woman. instead of being thoroughly taught with view to earning her own living. is brought up in the op- posite school which makes it the chief aim of her existence to be pleasing and attractive. She marries man she does not love. and goes into society whAra ahA soon attracts men who do love her. She has no earnest pursuit in life and no thorough knowledge or culture to give her taste for intellectual pursuits. That she turns out badly under such circum- stances is the fault of the very system that the ''woman's rights growlers" are trying to supplant.
 The Sentinels fourth objection is the only one of serious weight which the opponents of woman's higher education have been able to advance. Undoubtedly marriage will hinder her practice of a profession, or her transac- ton of business, to much greater de- gree than it flinders man. Is this an in- surmountable difficulty? and, if SO, ought single women to abandon all effort for higher education and an independent ex- istence from the expectation that they will eventually marry? We judge that neither of these questions should have an affirmative answer. A much larger pro- portion of people in the higher grades of society remain single through life, or till late in life, than in the lower. The req son is obvious. In the former social grade, large proportion, if not majori- ty, of the young men are unable to earn enough money to support family, and remain single of necessity. A cores bonding number of the young women of their grade of society must therefore re- main single, too. The present system compels that large class of single women to lead if not unoccupied at least unproductive lives. They either earn no money and do no serious work; or, if they do earn money and do serious work, they do it at terrible disadvantage, and are both over-worked and under-paid. Even, therefore, if the movement for woman's thorough education does not help the married woman, it will at least open the single weman's way to useful and lucra- tive-employment.
 But we believe the change from su- perfcial to solid education will make the married woman of the higher class fit to be- come what she cannot now be-a .'help- meet" to her husband. Now, the most a married woman in that social class can do ina ''genteel' way to assist her husband is to save him perhaps an hundred dol lars year by sewing. Let her do her best and the wife of the struggling young professional man feels that she is bur den on him. She cannot but understand that marriage has doubled or trebled his necessary expenditure. But suppose that