St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1886-07-11
GIRLS, EDUCATION.

can"
GIRLS, EDUCATION.
Respects i'm which Higher Educa-
ton rs Sometimes Lacking.
The Queen.
Proper training is the great crux of fe-
male education; for, unless this most material
matter be attended TO, there can be no doubt
that the acquisition of learning will only
superinduce concet, atfectation. blue
stockingism, and utter useessness in home
duties. Hence it is that in these DAYS OF
higher education" as the phrase goes, sc
many girls are found exhibiting the un.
pleasant features of tiippancy of manner
and self-sufficiency. Their training has
been neglected by their teachers. who
have never taught them what the rea
object of education is. On the other
hand. we find, too, girls of extensive
and accurate information, well instructed
IN accomplishments, with modest deport-
ment, and who can readily turn their hands
to household work if necessary, and such
we preceive to have been properly trained.
Such girls, however, form a minority, we
are sorry to say, and we conclude. there
fore, that the good trainers are also a min
sees around us. the higher education" of
girls, as generally understood nowadays,
has for its aim the mere ability to show off
in society and to exhibit superiority over
other people. No doubt the ambition to
excel is laudable and very proper senti-
ment but it is too plainly perceptible that
nine girls out of ten who can sing or play
| we'll will do so not so much for the
| amusement of company as for the dis
| play of their supposed ability. We
believe that in most schools the daily rou-
tine of duties is carried on in machine
fashion. The pupils fall to their books,
| their music exercises, etc., at certain hours,
and SO go on day after day without any
words from their teachers as to what is the
| great end of all their eXertions for the ac-
QUESTION of knowledge. Thus heart be-
comes sacrificed to intellect, and true edu-
| cation is COMPOUNDED with the attainment
| of mere book learning and snowy accom-
plishments. We are not advocating the two
pence-a-Week-fOr-m style of train
ing girls, but we do think that little more
should be done for their tone of mind than
is done in so many schools. Without such
tone higher education" will simply be
worse than nothing, at best splendid igno-
rance" fitting its possessor to
DC neither uSeful VIE nor
really agreeable member of society. It
is to this attempt to educate" the intel
lect without training the mind-or. rather,
perhaps, the neglect to unite the two
courseS-that we must attribute some por-
ton of that cutlery raised at intervals about
the lack of girls in the upper and middle
classes likely to make good wives. We
are told that they can do anything but
q hOnCnhnl6 oh
unhappily, too patent facts, forsooth,
laid to the door of higher educationr'
We, however, do not hesitate to assign a
different cauSe-that already indicated; and
we venture respectfully also to think that
those who have the instruction and bring
ing up of our girls intrusted to them will
do well to frequently besJow some portion
of their attention on the minds as well as
the intellects of those girls.
One Woman Journalist.
Mary Clemmer, says writer in the New
York Sun, began to write for money be-
fore she was 90 and she continued to toll
in the groove until her happy second mar
riage, which occurred but a short time be-
fore her death at a gave her at last an OPP
portunity of writing, not WhatA she must
but what she would. Not that while
repining over the rigid requirements of the
journalistic trade or cherished any feeling
but the thankfulness Of every honest work.
man who finds work enough to do. This
is proved by the unfiagging and exact full
| fillment of every journalistic duty which
she assumed. Not only was her CORE
spondence for very extended period
| an unintermitted feature of the New York
| Independent, but she spent three years in
the Office of the Brooklyn Union under Il
contract to supply column daily, and she
never by so much as one day violated or
| evaded the stipulation OF the contract.
During the last of those three years she re-
ceived from the Union salary of s., 600
probably the largest ever paid in this
country to a woman for years journalistic
work. No woman better understood what
| journalism means, or was better fitted to
depict its aspirations and shortcomings.
and one of her graceful, thoughtful poems
which will be gratefully remembered was
called 1.-The Journalist" She ennobled
the vocation in which her life was mainly
spent, and her brave. strenuous, and use
| full career deserves to be fttingly and
| tenderly commemOrated.