The comet. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1877-1882, 1879-12-13
WHAT ABOUT THE EDUCATION OF
OUR GIRLS

~H~-~""-~'
Mississippi has her Oxford Univer
sity, to which an annual appropria'
ton ofabout $780, 900 is wisely made, and
the institution is giving splendid re-
turn for the money. 1t promises to be
to Mississippi almost as great an
educational boon as the original Oxford
has been to England. The last Legis-
lature chartered the Agricultural and
Mechanical College, and the corner
stone of this promising institution has
been laid at Starkville, and public in
terest awakened in its behalf. 1t will
come before the next Legislature with
its solid claims for recognition, and we
have altogether too high respect for
the intelligence and patriotism of that
body to think that it will come in vain.
Every consideration will prompt a
generous fostering of this new and
needed College, and we heartily be-
speak for it the most liberal endow-
ment.
But both these institutions are in
tended solely for boys. And now the
question comes home to every father
and mother, What about the Educa
ton of our girls? Shall we go for
ward and provide only for the class
ical and scientific training of our boys,
and leave the daughters to take the
chances in private schools, or force
parents to send them out of the State?
Is such a discrimination wise, or just,
or chivalric? We think not. If we
want to raise up intelligent men we
must bring the daughters up on the
scame scale. 1t would be a return to
the tendencies of the dark ages topur-
sue any policy which shut out our girls
from the requirement of all knowledge
offered to the opposite sex. 1t is the
glory Of America, and especially the
glory of the South to recognize the alb
solute equality of the sexes in all
mental tournaments. The woman
who writes book or prints a
paper, or teaches a school, or makes a
star on the stage, is given the same
chance that man has. In our schools
the girl studies the same books that
the boy does, and is given the same
to excel. Ifshe have gent
us and quickness they are not smoth-
cred. But here the equality ceases.
In the rough and tumble battle of life,
society has cruelty erected many bar
riers over which woman cannot go
without doing violence to an eXacting
public sentiment, and shocking the in
nate modesty which so well adorns
her. There is no equality after matu-
rity, and shall we destroy it in the
season of preparation? The woman
has difficulties enough to encounter in
solving the problem of life, without
having them increased by an inferior
But in whatever sphere she may be
placed, whether called on to work her
OWN way in the world, or to make an
eden out of the home of some happy |
man, she needs to be educated to the
same intellectual standard with man.
How else can she be, what she was
intended for, an intellectual
The State of Mississippi has done
much and ought to do great deal
more for the education of it's young
men. But thus far it has neglected to
make any provision or to offer any
for the advanced ed
Ication of its daughters. We believe
his is purely an oversight. Certainly
t does not come from any failure to
the equal importance of the
provision. 1t is, perhaps, attributable
% the absence of enterprise in female
educators themselves in not having
scheme upon which the
State would be justified in extending
lid. This excuse, however, if it was
,ver good one, no longer obtains.
Last spring we published a letter in
The COMET from a member of the
Alumnae of Whitworth College, with
III editorial endorsement of it, re-
an appropriation of
efficient amount to make that Col
eye a Normal School for young ladies.
petition was started, but abandoned
OF the time, because Whitworth Col
eye was the property of the Method
st Church, and its Alumne and
riends were not willing to ask the
legislature to endow sectarian school.
hey have now concluded to send
elegates to the Annual Methodist
Conference which meets in Meridian
n the 18th inst, and present the case
} that body and ask them to deed
he property to the State of Missis-
ppi with view of its adoption by
ne State as a Normal School for the {
enefit Of the women of the land. @
The matter will probably be pre-
ented to our next Legislature in this
hape, and we cannot see how men, [
ers can refuse to recognize the neces-
Ity of the enterprise and encourage it
properly and satisfactorily formu- :
ted. c
ELECTION OF UNITED STATES r
SENATOR,