The Indianapolis journal., 1883-06-16

1
ment The traditions of the middle ages still
cling to France. The Roman Catholic
Church has possession of her house. The con
vent imprisons behind its walls the woman
| hood of the nation. 1t is said that a French
woman only enjoys life at its ends. From
! infancy to eight years she is the angel
of the household. Then the light
OF her life COOS out until her
marriage day. From the ages of eight to
eighteen French girls of the better classes
are put into black aprons and shut up be-
hind high masonry to prepare for life. What
preparation it isl Occasional visits from
friends or a surreptitiously read novel give
| them an idea of the outer world and imagin-
alton fills up the gaps, These girls in the
schools become dreamers.
! They dream of life and its duties and
privileges and their dreams are morbid and
unreal as those from fever. French grl
knows that she is going to live some time,
but how and why is as great matter OF spec
ulation as the gold-paved streets of Jeru-
salem. She builds up system. When her
system is completed she feels 1t her duty to
promulgate its doctrines. The nuns are
everywhere. The dormitories are under
strict supervision of the sisters, talking
groups on the play grounds are always sep
arated; but what prosecutions do not add
heat to the fervor of an enthusiast There
are secret councils among these ack-aproned
girls in which the ideal Adolphs and Au-
gusts are compared; in which the profound
est mysteries of life and its duties are dis
| posed of within the realm of the imagina-
ton alone. 1t is in this morbid atmos-
phere that the French girls preparation
for life begins. She must study
needlework These are the essentials
in the French girls aducation, A bit
of history and literature, a modicum Of
mathematlcs-geography outside the map of
Paris and France is ann ecessary; natural
philosophy, physiology, geology, Latin and
is no line of study for the discipline of the
mind. There is everything for superficial
social accomplishment.
Co-education is looked upon with horror
by parent and mingling of curiosity and
| establishment by the school girls The an
boys all my life created immense excitement
behind the high walls of my Freuch board
ing-school. At first think / was looked
upon with something of the same feeling as
that aroused by Dr. Mary Walker in her
masculine attire in the streets of New York.
1 was the theme of the hour, and
was Stunned as social outcast for
a whole day. Curiosity finally
got the best of my schoolmates
They crowded about me and piled me with
| II C0anceQ 10 say i LlOuE0J
education with boys was the best and most
sensible way, there was the greatest merri-
ment. My favorite teacher, a woman of
twenty-five years, asked me with a book
over her face and crimson to the temples, if
did not find it very difficult to study under
such circumstances, adding, with nervous
laugh, that she just knew she could not
study for she would be looking at the boys
all the time.
1t is with such morbed and unhealthy
views of human life and its relations that
the French girl is still educated. The con-
vent system which thwarted the lofty nature
of George Sand and turned it into false chan
neis stands to-day the recognized education
al system for the girls in France. 1t is a
system which, like the dry pod in spring
time, still clings to the fresh young republic,
stunting its growth, shutting out the sun
shine of her republican freedom. Since the
closing cut of the jesuitical schools for
boys, French scholars have been projecting
a new system of education for girls Success
to the enterprise!
We look with pain at a republic whose
women are little more advanced
than those of the monarchies of Spain and
Russia. What nation has been under
| the influence ofswomen for veal or woe, and
mostly for woe, as the French nation? Be-
| hind almost every monarch's throne woman
has dictated. In commune and State crises
| it is the women of France who have stood
firm and dared all. There is a native force of
character in the French woman which is
wanting in the French man. History tells
MS so. The huckster-woman of Paris il a
bstreet tangle shows it,
| If France is to remain republican and to
become, as such, great, it must be with the
| help of her women, and these women must
read life and its duties in larger and more
| open book than that of the Roman Catholic
| convent
WOMAN IN ENGLAND.
Across the narrow channel from France we
find the liberal phase of this educational
question. Old England, conservative in her
general policy, has been forced into COM
promise with prejudice and the century.
Prejudice said that woman should know
how to make tea. The century declared
boldly that woman had made tea so often
that it could no longer keep her busy, and
she must have something to think about.
Prejudice said woman should gossip with her
neighbors; the century maintained stoutly
| that gossip could no longer keep woman occu-
pied and she must have new material to
talk about. The strife grew hot. l never
knew the century TO lose in question of
progress. Prejudice may imprison a Calico,
but before the century gives up her theory
the world moves. England was forced to
give way before the demands of woman for
higher education. You may be sure her ed
ucational reforms are slowly and condition
ally made, but her efforts are progressive
While English grandmothers fifty years ago
were content to sit at home all day doing
prodiges of needle-work and laying up stores
of preserved fruits, their descendants are
knocking at the doors of the universities
Oxford and Cambridge were the first to hear
the call. Edinburgh and Aberdeen soon
followed. But the gowned doctors of these
honored universities only peeped out at a
half-open door, with wry faces and promised
the eager -oung applicants lunch on the
doorstep. The University of London has
thrown open all examinations and degrees
equally to woman, but does not furnish her
with means of education. All preparation
for these examinations must be made in the