The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1873-09-04
The Frippery of Female EducatiOn-
What IL the Remedy.

Let us return to this educational question
again. 1t is peculiarly BETTING to consider in
what respect the new educational year will
benefit the girls and young women who throng
our female boarding schools and colleges. The
discussion of the comparative advantages and
disadvantages under which our male collegians
labor may be dropped for the present Such
evils as are associated with wrong courses and
methods of study on the part of male students
often meet in after life with corrective not
vouchsafed to girls and young women who
have been unwisely disciplined. At any rate,
the evil is not so glaring as the one to which
we refer to-day-namely, the frippery of female
education, the frills and furbelows which with
such fatuous industry are crowded upon the
gaudy gown of feminine culture, forgetful Of
the fact that the very gaudiness is offensive to
good taste and common sense, without the
jostling embroidery and the puckered fancy
work.
in these respects. 1t would be possible to
name more than one female college or board
ing school in which the useful and substan-
tial in education bear the palm and the orna-
mental holds its proper place as an exquisite
accessory. We should not have to hesitate
long in order to recall two or three instances
of female seminaries whose principals not
only have sound ideas of what sterling and
solid female education demands but likewise
know how to work the physical machinery by
which such ideas are put into complete and
harmonious action. The difficulty is that
these ideas are not appreciated and enter
tanned in all their height, length and breadth
by sufficient number OF principals, and that
even those principals who do coordinate
with such theories do not. know how to de-
duce from facts practical synthesis for ac-
ton. Home and woman ought to be correla-
tive terms. The elements which compose
them intertwine their initials and build up
spiritual monogram. The best part of
any home education comes from a good
MOTHERHOOD in that wide sense which in
cludes moral strength not less than mental
culture--and the most valuable education
girl can acquire is that which makes it i'm
possible that she should not become such
mother, provided she becomes one at all.
Now this is precisely the kind of education
that most of our female schools fail to give.
In this respect the majority of our boarding
schools are deplorable negatives. The stu
dents who leave them pronounced finished"
are like new houses, with the parlors frescoed
and furnished, but without any roofs put on.
We admire the elegance of the trimmings and
the gloss Of the upholstery. Possibly it might
be safe to eat an ice-cream there or hold a
Conversations but the more cautious among
us would be wishing for roof tree, and he
would be a maniac who should make his
home in such quarters without providing them
shelter and stocking them with comforts.
Now every girl ought to carry the comforts
Of home" at the end of her fingers as well as
in her heart This potentially is not to be
acquired in round of studies whose only
effect is to adorn. When Victor Hugo de-
clares that the beautiful is as useful as the
useful he is merely stating half truth in that
sententious, epigrammatic style which is with
him an idiosyncrasy. Too many teachers Of
female schools, however, seem to proceed upon
this principle Their tuition is sort of men,
tai Horticulture, in the course of which the
virgin soil is sowed with plants bearing bios
SONS fair to sight, but of no discoverable use
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