Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1878-08-31
is TO EDUCATION FOR GIRLS.
From the Nation, An,nst %. J

female education are clamoring FOR. They
seek, in other words, for their girls what 50
many fathers are seeking for their boys, an
education which shall be real preparation
Tor the life which they shall probably lead, not
Tor The lie which spectators on wOmanS ca
racity would like to see them lead. There is
IN the community large body of thoughtful
though silent fathers and mothers who are
getting rather tired Of having their children
logical hypothesis, veIy mIch as Weston and
y Leary are used by Psychologists for the veri-
hcatlon OF views about muscle, fat. ard diges-
i've power. y very large proportion Of the
most energetic educational reiormers want
women S schools and colleges to be organized
and Conducted with the view of testing the
question whether woman cannot equal man in
ally OF The pursuits of which he has hitherto had
a monopoly. This may be a useful and even
praiseworthy eXperimt Mt, but there are many
parents. we repeat, who do not wish to furnish
the mater ials for 1t, and who, in sending their
girls to school, seek the same results as when
they send their boys TO school and College
,iiat is, as respectable an equipment for the
KIND OF work which will most probably fall TO
thelr lot In lie as their mental and moral con.
Ss,tution will allow to be bestowed on them
me WelghtleSt charge that is now brought
against the mems universities in this country
and indeed in every country. is that they take
some very precious years for what is not
d'recl preparation fol- active live. The chances
.hade IN all college curriculums, too, within
the past twenty years look more and more 10
the supply OF special training for special tastes
and particular professions as the world now
Is, ana DO not aim al the production of anideal
man who will do something very different
from what men are now doing or have ever
done.
If we look at the education Of women, either
a III Is or as many OF those who are most oc
cupled with the condition of women in society
thlnk 1t ought to be, We find the traces of pre-
paratlon IL it for probable duties exceedingly
FAINT. We have, unuckily, no marriage S.a-
tlsticS in our census returns, but we NAV fairly
take those of England as guide in discusSiag
Inc probab'e occupation of the bulk of Amer
Lean women: In them we find that 50 per cent.
OF women reaching the manageable age
marty: SO that il education ought to be a pre-
pirajiOn for the duties OF life, female schools
ana colleges Ought to be arranged and con-
Quoted mainly with reference to the needs of
the 50 out of every 100 who will be wives aud
mothers and not OF the remaining % who may
possibly lecture, write books, teach, or prac-
ice law OF medicine. or live in solitary lei
sure. Now there is no denying that wo-
man, even if married, is not only none the
worse, but may be great deal the better of
or artistic as her natural powers will permit;
but every rational system of education has to
estimate not the absolute but relative i'm
training to the scale thus formed. For
instance, the mOSG important thing in
life for married woman is good health.
opPortunities-lose large part of their value,
and in extreme cases life itself becomes bur
den. There is probably no fact of modern So
ciety SO plain and palpable as this. One would
ard teacher In the country would make the
accumulation OF physical strength in early
youth the first and greatest Consideration,
and that in all school currculums nothing
would be for one moment allowed to interfere
with it. As matters stand, however, teachers
ana parents seem to accept what Miss Cobbe
calls the little health OF women" as part of
the order of nature, and as if the question
whether a woman should pass through life
s1ckly or strong was as unmanageable as the
question whether her nose Should be Straight
small tair
tude towards it is strictly fatalistic. If she is
strong, well and good; if She is delicate"
Well and good too. Such is her nature. Buff
female education were preparation for life,
as mons professional schools are, there would
be fe male schools for health simply, in which
other things would be taught only Sd far as
they m1niStered to health, and not one lot,
further; for what does it profit woman fshe
have the tonge OF angels and cannot leave her
bed or the sofa?
As regards the instruction given at most
girls schools, it may be said to consist of
languages, music, little drawing and paint
ing, and smattering of science. The modern
gotten before the girl has been two years at
home; not ten per cent. of the married women
sing or play note after their first child is
vigorous English style, and as to the Sciences
especially astronomy, ancient and modern
geography, the use Of the globes') the less
said about 1t the better. Women are not CALI
and they naturally, and often properly, do not
in active life trouble their heads about them.
Men do Just the same thing under like circum-
even useless things which they will forget is
taste for knowledge and the power of acguisi-
ton; but nobody. male or female. ever got
this by any process except the process of
mastering something. 1t is never obtained by
learning little OF thing and never feeling
sure OF what one knows. No mastery of a
subject Is possible to body who is expected
TO potter over so many subjects as are now
exacted of girls at school, We think it no ex-
aggeration to say that a girl would get a far
that term, by spending 3 or years in thorough
ly acquiring one language, or in making her
sell an authority on one subject-if il were
through reading and digesting everything
written about it, than by fo flowing the average
school course, and that she would, with con
comltant attention to health, leave school with
nary demands OF life, than even one girl in
hundred now gets from her present school
training: Thousands of men have first drawn
from the confidence inspired by having com
pietely mastered some one thing, and know
ing that they cannot be fOOred on it. In So
dull and silent men, who cut sorry figure at
dinner table, and who, IL women, would go
nome mortified and annoyed by a sense of
their ewn insignifcance, but whose self respect
and cemplacency are entirely sustained by the
consciousness that ii the conversation had
only run on one particular thing, everybody
Motup Lave udu W make way 1Or Gnein. Ana
then to person who knows one thing thor
oughly, not oaly does the task Of learning
some other thing lose all its terrors, but he
contracts wholesome dislike Of half
edge and vague beliefs and fOggy assertions,
which keeps him in perpetual mental health,
what most women need next after health
and power OF acquisition, and the confidence
which SPRINGS from having acquired some
thing, is a tOlerable amOrnt of administrative
capacity. Housekeeping is administration on
small scale. 1t includes the faculty of get
ting the most for ones money, and managing
servants and children. II it were likely to be
a mans vocation to the extent to which it is
likely to be wOman'S, he would undoubtedly
be prepared for 1t by some SOrG of apprentice
ship. He would have to learn in some subOrdi-
nate capacity the proper mode of buying and
preparing food. and OF procuring and taking
wants: He would be trained to receive com
pany by some experience of the art of enter
tanning. both In Its ma-erial and its aesthetic
aspect. No one would ever guess, however,
from an inspection OF an average school
course, that a girl was to be the head of that
most complex result of civilization, a modern
household, with its thousand duties, responsi-
bilities, and relations. No one would ever
suppose that the veryeRd and aim OF a nation g
existence, the main use OF its armies and
navies. and commerce, and police, and manu-
features, and inventions, was the multiplied
ton Of we'll ordered parlors with agreea BILE
strictly true. All our toiling, and fighting,
and travelling, and producing ends In this.
When man has set up happy home he feels
that the best work of his life Is done
1t Is not only good administration, however