The Arizona sentinel., 1889-01-19
FEMALE TRAINING.
A Facetious Review of This Im-
 portant Topic.
If Training Schools for Beatrices Why Not for BenedicIs-Wbat Has Been Done to Promote This
 Worthy Cause.

It would seem to be an error to as- sume too hastily that certain place unmentionable to ears polite has a monopoly in the way of a pavement comprised of good intentions Some of the best intentions that mankind is capable of might be found lying perdu in wills to which the courts of law have unhandsomely declined to grant probate. Turner, the famous artist, devised by testament the bulk of his vast wealth to found an asylum for decayed oil painters; but an informal ity in the mode of bequest brought his good intentions toward his indigent brethren to naught; and, although some of his pictures and drawings be- came the property of the nation, the major part of his riches was divided among remote kindred, about whom he knew little and cared less. The sequently melted an eminent legal luminary to remark amidst great ap- plause at a public dinner that the late MT. Turner could draw a great many things, but that he did not know how to draw a will. The intentions of many other testators have again been render ed nugatory, less by any inform ality in the manner in which their wills were drawn than by the essentially fantastic and impracticable nature of the bequests themselves-beq to which, in the interest of public policy or of social propriety, it was found in expedient to give legal sanction. To this last category must be now added the provisions of the will made by the late Rev. William Wight, of the Arabs Tent, ChiselhurSt, formerly Vicar of Harbury, which was finally adjudicat- ed upon by Mir. Justice Chitty. The deceased cleric had given instructions for the endowment of a female college of certainly novel and not unattractive kind, since its object was to train ladies for the inn portant duties of wives, house-mis- dresses and mothers. Women, the rev. erend gentleman proceeded didactically to observe, should be something more useful and more noble than a doll, butterfly or a plaything for her hus- band. To carry out his generous aspiration the eccentric MT. Wight pro- pounded a scheme, two of the features in which were that the young ladies who were to be trained to become ex- emplary wives, hOuse-mistresses and mothers should rise very early, and resort to the salutary, but not always convenient, use of the cold bath. He further provided for quarterly conver- saziones at this hymeneal college, and directed that two-thirds of the invita- tions should be sent to single gentle men. He also directed that his re- mains should be buried in his garden, next to the grave of dog named Lab rador," for which animal he seems to have entertained peculiar affection. The court, however, held these be- quests to be illegal, and Mir. Justice Chitty made an order for the distribution of the property among the next of kin. Of the thorough inn practicability of the plans laid down by the well-meaning but eccentric testator there can be no reasonable doubt Long ago the poet told us of ladies who at their demise left their wealth to endow a ''college or a cat" and it would have been quite feasible for Rev. Mir. Wight to be- queaUh the whole of his property, had he so chosen, to the Royal Holloway College or to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. As it is, the will which has been upset will remain only as a monument of futile generosity and Ilisdirected anx- iety to do good.
 From the poetical point of view there is little to be said against the proposal to establish training school for wives. house-mistresses and mothers. The abstract idea embodied in the antique legend of Hymen is a very beautiful one; and the god of marriage certain ly deserves better treatment than he receives in the present day, when, graphically al lQaSl, he is best known