The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-03-29
I've PAGES.
EDUCATION OF WOMEN,


social movement that underlies our civiliza-
ton.
Within fifty years great social changes have
been effected through the invention of labor
saving machinery. AS result, the realm of
productive industry and division of labor,
aided by these labor-saving machines, has en-
croached upon the domain of specific labor
formerly confined within the limits Of the
family, and has conquered one branch after
eral branch of industry. Wife now means
more than weaver; the power loom, the spin
ming jenny, the sewing and knitting machines
do the work in shops once done in homes.
Washing, baking and tailoring the prepare
ton and preservation of food stuffs now go on
outside the family, and women have, as
class, more leisure than in any previous age.
The invention of machinery, and conse-
quent division Of labor, have aggre-
gated the population in towns and cities
where cooperation may best act for mutual
benefit. These are great social changes, and
they have modified profoundly our educational
systems. They have opened up new fields for
woman They compel her to educate herself
in science, art and history, rather than in
music. painting, dancing and polite literature
alone. Man has passed from the condition of
the slave of matter, force and circumstance,
and become master by thrusting the machine
between his hand and the raw material The
simple machines become more complex; they
become automatic. 1t would seem that they
the laboring classes. But they cheaper wares,
they create maket; versatility and agility are
required; more hands are needed instead of
fewer, and the female finds place in the YER
satile ard multifarious industries machinery
has created, and so vast fields Of labor outside
of the nome are opened up to her.
AS Carlyle said Of the pistol, it makes all
men equally tall. So machinery, with steam
power back Of it, has made mere physical,
masculine strength less in need and demand,
and woman's sphere in the arts and industries
common with that of man. In the mere saw
industry and civil society, such as existed at
ALL was woman's. Man defended and woman
wrought. She stood for the nurture of the
family, such as it was, and he stood for the
state, such as it was-merely the police
duties. Out of these savage tribes has grown
the nations; population has become stable rather
than nomadic. Man is released from police
duty, except in occasional wars. He becomes
the provider and the civilian, and woman re-
tires into the home which the man builds
The education of girls, up to within the
period of machinery-which is period nearly
as well defined in civilization as the substitu-
ton Of civil for tribal government-has
been with reference to the family necessities
only. She must sew, weave, spin and knit,
wash and iron, cook and bake. In the higher
castles of society she must amuse and please
hence music, dancing and embroidery-the
continental finishing schools" of our grand
mothers. But in the ascent from direct man
ual labor which engaged the world fifty years
ago, to that of directive labor through steam
power and machinery woman has come up
with man. The total result has been to prac-
tically lift all modern peoples, and
notably those of the United States
into easy circumstances. Good cloth
ing and shelter were never so easily
obtained by fifty millions Of people as in our
country to-day. Glass windows of more than
eight lights paid window-tax in the time of
Elizabeth, ard were personal property. People
went to bed at dark; no coal oil and few books
They ate from common dish; partitioned
houses and houses with chimneys were un-
common.
All this is changed. Human nature, to be
sure, remains the same, and sex is still an in
exorable and primal fact in human history
and experience But the education that girls
and young women need is certainly different
from that preceding the era of machinery
She is still to be wife, sister and mother
as man is still to be husband brother and
father; but neither one nor the other is to be
so bound in the future, as in the past, to the
supply Of the primary needs-food, shelterand
clothing Fcr along the new line, and in this new
world to which the later generations are born
the activities will be those of thought and of
idea, as well as of muscle and of mechanical
exertion. In this realm of directive activity,
made possible through machinery and divis-
ion Of labor, the special fitness or unfitness of
sex becomes vanishing element, for direct
i've power is of the nature Of thought and idea;