Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1882-10-18
A Serious Defect.

Inc prevailing system OF education 1Or
both sexes is defective, in that it fails to pre-
pare them, and often produces distaste and
evasion for, the common callings Of life.
Their idea of college education is that it
is to relieve them from the necessity of get
ting their living by manual occupations, and
that it is little better than a disgrace for
college graduate to return to the labor of
the farm or the kitchen. The result is that
thousands of graduates are annually crowd.
ing into the over-crowded professions. The
farm is left to the management of unskilled
workmen who do not know how to develop
half its recources. The kitchen is left to
the care of Bridget, who, if she knows
how to prepare a wholesome meal, is too ex-
pensive luxury to be afforded. Ordinarily
she is fresh Scandinavian, who knows
nothing about cooking, and never can learn,
because nine out of ten of her employers
are as ignorant as herself and cannot teach
her. They have been too busy in acquiring
accomplishments" and preparing for a
charger sphere" to learn anything about the
culinary art. They have distaste for
"kitchen drudgery," and teach their own
girls to despise it, and to look for exemption
from it in wealthy marriage or in profess
sional career.
This vicious training, begun in the home,
is carried on by the college. Girls are be-
ing prepared, daily, by "superior educa-
ton for the profession of law, medicine
literature, for the ministry, for clerkships
for anything and everything under the sun
except to be capable wives, mothers and
housekeepers. A professor in the college
named, writes Within a few weeks a
class of fifty-four graduated at the Ohio
Wesleyan University thirty-five young men,
not one of whom looked forward to farming
as a life.work nineteen young women, not
one of whom, if the truth must be told, has
received such an education as to best fit her
to become farmers Wife" In the nature
of the case, not one-tenth of the college grad
yates who enter the profession can rise
above mediocrity, and a majority of them
can hardly make living. The writer
| quoted above says " A somewhat extensive
acquaintance with the 1000 graduates of
| this university convinces me that there are
not few of them who are starving from re-
spectability, while sitting in Office awaiting
| clients who do not come and patients who
never fall sick" The same is true of Har-
yard, Yale and other universities which
number their graduates by tens of thous-
sands.
1t is time young people were taught at
home and in school that not every boy who
gains college diploma can be success as
doctor, lawyer, minister, editor, teacher,
statesman or politician that liberal edu-
cation is becoming too general for all who
have it to find room in their professions,
and that it is better and more honorable 10
be an educated, successful farmer, mechanic,
or tradesman, than to be a lifelong beggar
for constituency in one of the learned
| ,rofauoiopo II 10 TINA hat ri rio loo th rot
not every girl can be George Eliot, or an
Anna Dick nson, but that in all probability
the majority of them are elected to cook the
dinners, care for the clothing, and nurse the
children of Woodworking farmers, grocers,
mechanics, and harder working and more
impecunious professional men, and that il
becomes them to acquire that sort Of educa
ton that will fit them for this high vocation
They should be taught that there is nc
sphere and no career possible to any woman
higher than that of a faithful, contented
wife, mother, and housekeeper, and that to
qualify them for these duties they need all
the culture of the intellect, of the heart and
of the hand they can obtain. Any wife and
mother who does not know how to wash
cook and "mind the house," and how &c
teach these things to her daughters and
servants, has abdicated the divinely ordained
functions of womanhood, and is certain to
have cheerless and unhappy home. Any
woman who makes her home duties second
airy in interest and importance to philan
thropic work, or any other work under the
sun, brews mischief, domestic broils and
misery, for herself and family. Any system
Of education that leads women to think that
they can find sphere of duty higher than
the home is defective and pernicious in the
extreme
1t is time that all our colleges had depart
ments to fit young men for agriculture and
for other common business callipgs. Every
woman's college should be required, as the
condition of receiving its charter, to teach
all pupils how to be good housekeepers
Here in Evanston Miss Parloa has had 6
perfectly splendid" run of business in
teaching our ladies how to cook. How many
Evanston stomachs, now hopelessly ruined
by dyspepsia, might have been saved how
much good flour has been made into soul
and heavy bread how much good beef has
been spoiled by overlooking; .how much
good linen has been destroyed how much
profanity might have been prevented how
many Evanston saints might he been saint
lier as well as healthier, if, thirty years ago
the woman's college of the Northwestern
University had established a department o.
instruction in cooking and general house
work.-Rev. c. II. Zimmerman in The Int
| rim