Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1880-07-22
The Education Of Girls.


The Education Of Girls.
IT is maintained alike by parents and
doctors, by school-teachers and school
managers, says an able writer in the
London SATURDAY Reciew, that the
standard of girls education, whether in
secondary or elementary schools, has
been placed unduly high, and the facts
brought forward in support of this pe-
sition seem to be beyond dispute. There
are several reasons why the danger
should be greater for girls than it is for
boys. In the first place, the brain
power in girls is developed earlier and
is stimulated by greater degree of
nervous energy. A very eminent physi-
clan has said that women are now aim
ing at doing every thing that men do,
and that to each thing that they aim at
they bring twice the amount of eager
spite of all that the advocates of the
equality of the sexes can say, women
are not the equals of men as regards
to do the same amount of work, and
throw double mental strain into the
effort, the result will inevitably be seen
III ouC loIiA VI duObuOl VI pAy SlCdl vi
mental disease. What is true of women
as compared with men, is still more
true of girls as compared with boys. A
more precocious growth of brain power
naturally leads, unless very great care is
taken, to an equally precocious Access
sion of brain exhaustion. In the second
place, the education of girls is GOV
erned by less rational principles than
that of boys. Generations of school
masters have pretty well discovered
what boys can advantageously do, and
what they can not. Good girls schools
are things of yesterday. Every thing
about them is still in the experimental
stage. Enthusiastic "Reminiscences are
keenly alive to the amount of leeway
there is to make up, and they have not
yet learned that an increase of speed
which runs the ship upon rock is only
proof of bad seamanship.
Mrs. Garrett Anderson tells story
which, if we had not her authority for
it, would be hardly credible. GA little girl
of ILL., she says, attending one of the
best day schools, was obviously finding
it very difficult to overtake her work.
Considering what one part only of her
work was, it would be odd if she had
not found it hard to overtake. The
German lesson she had to prepare out
of school hours included the translation
of a part of English into German, and
of page of German into English, to-
gether with the learning by heart of
nine irregular verbs and two pages of
phrases. Of course all this work was IN
addition to the child's ordinary work in
English and French, and probably the
usual accomplishments of music and
drawing were not neglected. This was
in no sense an exceptional case, at all
events in this particular school, for when
the child's mother demonstrated with
the schoolmistress, all she said was,
''Ah, Fraulein is apt to give too long
lessons As Mrs. Garrett Anderson
justly says, with careless mother, the
child would have gone on attempting to
do this monstrous task; and where
children's education is concerned, there
are as many careless mothers now as
ever there were. The only difference
there is, that, whereas formerly they
did not care how much a child knew,
they now do not care now much a child
does. Unfortunately there is little rea-
son to hope that even medical warnings
will have much effect. The doctor is sent
for when the child is i'll and dismissed
when the child gets well, and, as soon
as his back is turned, all that he has
told the mother is too often forgotten.
The child must 60 to school because it
is inconvenient to keep her at home, and
while at school she must learn what
other children are learning. Otherwise
the mother would have to take special
trouble in the matter. She would have
to ascertain how much work the child
was doing, and with how much ease she
seemed to do it. Then she would have
to make special arrangements with the
schoolmistress, who, especially if the
child were clever, would naturally wish
to press her on, and all this would prob
ably have to be done in the teeth of the
child's own desire to keep abreast of
her companions. A process of this
kind involves a good deal more thought
and labor than many mothers care to
give to their children's health. 1t is
SO much easier to say that what is done
by all children can not be very injurious
to one, and in this comfortable convic-
ton to allow things to take their course.