The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-10-07
LONDON SCHOOL GIRLS.
THEY ARE TREATED LESS GENER-
OUSLY THAN BOYS

Some In Cookery.
LONDON, Sept. 25.-"For ten years have
maintained that girls were most unfairly
dealt with in the London board schools"
Mr.. Adams, the responsible master Of
the Hampstead Heath School, Marylebone,
made this statement to me in all seriousness
a few days ago.
The education of girls is discussed ad
nauseam in England as in America. The
picture of the Princess of Wales in college
cap and gown sells better-perhaps because
it is prettier-than any other of her Royal
Highness' innumerable photographs. The
university triumphs of last years Miss
Ramsey, or this years Miss Some
body else, are heralded all over the
kingdom. Eogland is fairly cordial to her
Girton, girls her NEWMAN girls, and her
girls of Lady Margaret's Hall, and
English educators sometimes remind Amer
| leans that Oxford and Cambridge confer
degrees on women while Harvard and Yale
| do not. The higher education has made
rapid strides. In the face of its advances
| it is perhaps a bold assertion if | say that
the lower and more important lags curiously
behind
| George Augustus Sala advertised no long
time ago for secretary; "governess pre-
| ferredn Governesses, he said, at least can
! spell
And cannot Englishwomen in general
| spell? II they are graduates of the board
| schools of London they ought to know how
| TO spell, but they need not and very posi-
bly, would not know anything of geography.
Almost certainly they would have had no
teaching in history, even that of their own
country. They would have learned little
| of composition or letter writing Their
horizon would have been enlarged very
| little beyond the three Rs, and within the
boundaries of the third r their wanderings
| might have been limited.
| The board schools of London form an
immense institution. They are educating
| over 400, 900 children. So far as BOYS are
concerned, the training to be had in them
| compares very fairly with that given by
| good common schools in this country. In a
very small minority of them, however does
| a girl, who is not pupil teacher, receive
| any education that would enable her to pass
| the examination in elementary subjects re-
| quired of postofiice clerks, paper sorters or
| other women employed in the civil service.
| l feel some diffidence as to criticism be-
cause of the extreme courtesy with which
| opportunities for seeing the workings of the
| school system have been afforded me- Mr..
| g. Kicks, of the staff of school inspectors,
has placed his time at my disposal and taken
me wherever desired to go. This lady"
!
| ductlon, "believes that we are defrauding
our girls Will you show her exactly what
you are teaching themm
| Under such pilotage it is at least probable
| that no injustice was done the girls schools,
and that | may accept the statements made
| to me as representing a not unfavorable
| side of the truth
The first board school which l visited was
| the William street school, Chelsea which has
a large girls department, boys department.
infants school and pupil teachers school.
| This may be the proper place to say that
| London has 1884 board schools, in 37S of
which boys and girls are taught separately.
| The speciality of the William street school
| is drawing, and spent half an hour ad-
miring working of a character SO practical
| that it had procured for this boy situa-
ton with an architects draughtsman, for
that boy and a half dozen other boys
scholarships in Institutions of industrial de-
sign
''And where are the girls drawings" it by
| and by occurred to me ask.
| "GirlS do not take drawing was the
reply.
The laboratory in William street is one of
the best fitted in the London schools. 1t is
arranged for object lessons and familiar
| talks on the elements of natural science,
with special lessons in physiology and sim
pie experiments in chemistry and physics.
|
cabinets for me said quite as if it were a
matter of course:
| I'VE have no girls classes in this room.
The sixth standard, bright boys of II or
| Whereabouts, were ciscoursing on the rivers
of Scotland as pushed open their door.
Perhaps you would like to question them
on Australia or India, said the teacher, in
dicating perfect willingness to turn the
| whole half hundred over to me.
THANK you, | will go and hear the girls
recite on the United States" l answered,
beating precipitste retreat in the direc-
ton in which had come.
II don't think there are any girls classes
in geography III the building.
After some further repetitions of this
experience | became very anxious to be
taken into the rooms occupied by the girls
school. The school buildings of London, il
may be said in passing, are, as to the older
of them, i'll adapted to'their purpose; as to
the newer, better in many respects than the
average New York school, with fewer stairs
for small feet to climb, excellent assembling
halls and good light and ventilation. The
rooms of the girls standards or classes,
from the first to the seventh, and which
was finally ushered into, were pleasant and
airy, but desti ute of the ample provision OF
maps and globes of the boys room and fur.
nished ms cad with rules for stocking knit
ting hung in prominent places on the walls
'Will you tell me what studies these girls
have9" was the question which trembled on
my lips;
Reading, writing, arithmetic. English
and sewing | received tho same answer
in the lower classes and the higher.
How about history
1.-TWO reading books are used each year.
One of them contains stories from English
history, but no lessons are set in that
branch"
''Why do not the girls drawn
"They sew during the drawing hour"
why don't they learn geography"
"They haven't time from their sewing. ~
Do you take them as far in arithmetic as
the boys classes go"
Very seldom. Probably never. The
girls haven't time"
After hearing some twenty TEACHERS put
forward sewing as a sufficient reason for
curtailing the course of study in half dozen
other directions, happened on a class, dur
ing the sewing hour and asksd to see exam
pies of the work done.
had touched a sore spot with Mr.. Kicks.
the inspector, who was still my guide. Let
the advocates of industrial education fall
foul of me prefer TO let Mr. Kicks express
his opinion Of sewing as taught in the Lon
don schools in place of putting forward my
own.
Its all as mechanical as putting the
girls in the treadmili." he began. "What
do these girls, most of them from poor fam
lilies want to know about sewinQW How IN