The Indianapolis journal., 1883-06-16
THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN
a Lecture Delivered at Asbury Uni
veFsity by Prof Alma Holman.
The Woman in France, in Germany and in
America-A Comparative Examina-
tiOn of the Status.
pell,.red Sunday Afternoon, May 81.


education. I will not occupy your time in
discussing the ability of woman to be edu-
Gated. A half century ago the question OF
her ability received respectful attention and
labored arguments for and against. You
often wonder that for centuries men saw the
pulse beat in their veins and yet lived in
ignorance of the circulation of the blood.
You are astonished that the new continent
of America lay a wilderness so near to
Europe during whole epochs of the
worlds civilization. 1t is not 80
strange, then, after all, that woman's
mental influence should have coursed
through the veins OF society and yet remained
unnoticed; that her resources lay undiscov-
cred in the very bosom of society; it is not
so strange, after all, that the learned doctors
should have spent much thought in deter
mining whether she could think. The man.
uscripts in the royal library of Madrid for
and against the theory that a new continent
lay across the sea are not so curious now to
the antiquarian as will be in the future
archives the learned papers of our quarterlies
endeavoring to prove that woman can think!
you have such quarterlies now in your
possession, preserve them. Some day they
will be above par. Woman will, doubtless,
look upon these defenders of her wit as the
Columbuses and Walter Raleighs of her his
tory. When an idea crystalizes itself into
fact, men do not argue its ability to exist,
Men do not argue any more that the Atlantic
cable can transmit a message. The ability of
woman to become educated is even such
fact. Believing this I only occupy your
time in tracing rapidly the history of woman's
development and in comparing, briefly, the
education of American women with that of
the women of Europe.
The first record we have of woman's eff ort
to be educated is the time when Adam
blamed her before the Creator for partaking
of the tree of knowledge. We are assured
that throughout the Jewish dispensation
woman was not allowed her individuality.
Among the Greek women it was crime to
be learned. True there were Aspasia, Lais
and Glycera, women whose names are linked
with those Of the greatest and wisest men of
antiquity. But these women were the out
casts of society; infant csptives taken in war,
these victims of civil combinations had one
privilege-they were not under the intellec-
tusl prescription which was reserved for the
yirtuons and chaste. These slaves became
the agents of a refined civilization and the
Instruments of its rapid moral corruption.
Plutarch, that John Stewart Mill of the an
woman. His interference only goes
to show that women in his
time were ciphefs. Through all
the darkness Of the middle ages woman was
a degraded being. Then at last came King
Arthur and the Round Table. To make up
for forty centuries of neglect, those knights
piled Ossa on Pelion. They heaped batteries
and courtesies on womankind until the lat
ter thought themselves demi-goddesses.
Statesmanship took back seat. Frivolity
and Fashion became prime minister. Ger
Vantes undertook to undermine this reign of
foolish women by satire. To take her down
from her pedestal he resorted to the DEM
onstration known as reductio ad absurdum.
The demonstrationiwas eminently successful,
and the chivalry of knighthood was soon
followed by Saxon grossness. Woman sank
back to subordinate role.
Then came that glorious epoch in the his
tory of civilization known as the renaissance
You know how the hot tides OF intellectual
ing of Constantinople. 1t is then that the
marbles of Greece stepped forth from their
hiding places, then that the nectar
richer for its long battling up-of Homer
Virgil and Sophoces thrilled the brain of
aou.o sl'ePlnf banned E0rld " the Mon new gSt
Vittoria. Colonna, Margaret of Valois
and Lady Jane Grey are exponents
of what woman might have becomeE had the
new learning offered itself for her general ed
ucation. But il did not. The way was rug
ged, almost impraoticable. She had the clas-
sics about her. She watched the light of the
new learning as the landsman scans the
watchtower by the sea whose light is not for
him. The renaissance left woman in the
background. As fer the eighteenth century,
Miss Austin, in her Pride and Prejudices,
gives sketch of an accomplished woman:
sIt is amazing to me" said Bingley chow
many ladies can have the patience to be so
? very accomplished as they are. They all
paint tables cover screens and knit purses" :"
In the atmosphere of these sorts of accom-
-plishments there was law against such as
did attempt to cultivate the gifts God had
given them. They we're called blue stock
ings," and to be blue" was to be social
savage.
This brief retrospect of women serves to
epitomize her history. She was treated with
scorn as an inferior or elevated suddenly, as
in chivalrous times, before she
had ballast enough to sustain
herself. She was suspicioned as a wit,
or patronized as an irresponsible according
to the whims and csprices of the century in
which she lived. She has been treated as an
irresponsible child for so many ages. You
have seen the father with his daughter.
How, in his superior wisdom, he pets her and
punist1es her kisses and scolds her as child.
You have seen him suddenly pause before
her one day, when it dswned upon him, by
the perfection of her form, the elasticity Of
her step, the ring of her voice. the clearness
s Sas crown ' to be wopan Al M That S dsu ouit ba
looks at the child-weman with respect
almost with reverence. He asks her opinions
and waits eagerly to hear the words of matur-
ity which set so gracefully on the child of
hut likan ba nj