The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-04-04
EDUCATING THE MOTHERS.

A correspondent of the News takes to heart
a remark made by the Journal of last Sunday
in an article on the high-school, and grieves
over it. The remark, which was called out
by the fact that high-schools are attended by
girls almost exclusively, was this: "Social
scientists gravely question the wisdom and
propriety of training the girls of a community
to an intellectual superiority to their broth
ers, regarding such course as tending to the
advantage Of neither SEX" The News's CORE
spondent construes this as an attack upon the
education of women, and excitedly brings up
the stock arguments in favor of the intellect
ual emancipation of the once down trodden
sex, but now soaring sisterhood. HAS it not
been acknowledged says this writer, sthat
daughters, as the future mothers and
modelers of mankind, should be really the
most cultured of the sexesg Is it not con-
coded fact that the most eminent men have
had mothers strong intellectuallyw
So far as the Journal is concerned, it would
place no impeachment in the way of woman's
education save where justice to other classes,
as in the case of the high-schools, may call
for the curtailing of the privileges now granted
to one. Women and men should be educated,
and, other things being equal, the higher the
education the better. Literary training or,
more properly, examining, to the neglect Of
some other useful and desirable requirements,
is the fashion just now; but as the majority
of people are not likely to get enough of it to
hurt them, it is not worth while to try to stem
tide that will recede Of itself.
What we wish to consider here is not the
degree OF character of education to be given
to youth, but the little value of the two prop
ositions advanced as arguments in favor of
cultivating the minds of girls to the highest
point. Who is acknowledges that our daugh-
tiers, as mothers of thenext generation, should
Using the expressions "intellectual strength
and Couture" in the sense of book knowledge,
as they are plainly meant by the querist, is it,
indeed, a conceded fact that the most distin-
guished men have had mothers strong intel
lectually? 1t is common saying, to be sure,
but is it true9 The sons of few great or
prominent men, taken at random, from the
pages of history will show. Education as it
is now understood is a modern thing, so far as
women are concerned. Previous to this
century the woman who had superior acquire
ments in this line was exceptional even in
circles of society favored with leisure and op-
portunity. The daughters Of Europes royal
families and of the wealthy were given the
greatest advantages of any in the way Of
learning, but what one of them is noted as the
mother of great man? The royal women
who have stood pre-eminent in history were
either childless or failed to transmit their men
tai qualities to posterity.
To come down to a later day. take Queen
Victoria, who is acknowledged to be the peer
in education and intelligence of the states
men who have surrounded her. Her children
can hardly be held up as examples of inner
tied maternal culture. Returning to this
country, there is Washington. His mother
is admitted to have been woman Of moral