The intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1887-1891, 1890-12-20
THE GIRL
She Receives No Education because She
win Probably Get Married.

-
She Receives No Education because She
will Probably Get Married.
A writer in the North China Herald,
in on essay on 1.-THE National History
of the Chinese Girl" has some interest
ing remarks on the lack of education of
Chinese women. When the child grows
up to be what we should call a young
schoolgirl her friends begin to be very
uneasy about her. This has not the
smallest connection with her intellec-
tual nature, which, 50 far as any culture
which it receives Is concerned, might as
we'll be non-existent. Unless her father
happens to be a schoolmaster and at
ONE with nothing to do, he ne YER
thinks of teaching his daughter to read;
1t would be preposterous. 1t Is like
wedding the field for some other man or
putting a gold chain around the neck Of
some one else's puppy, which may at
any moment be whistled off, and then
what becomes of the chain? One of the
underlying assumptions of Chinese So
ciety is that it is the body OF the girl for
which the parents are responsible, and
not the mind. To almost any Chinese it
would probably appear a se~lf-evident
proposition that to spend time, strength
and much more, money in educating the
daughter-in-law of some one else is a
sheer waste. But" you say to him,
she is your daughter" Not after she
is married." he replies, "she is theirs;
let them educate her themselves IL they
want her educated. Why should l teach
her how to read, write and reckon when
it will never do me any good?" With
which utilitarian inquiry the education
OF most Chinese girls has been banished
from human thought for the space Of
some millenniums.
The anxiety which all her friends
begin to feel about a Chinese girl as
soon as she attains any considerable
size is exhibited in the inquiries which
are made about her whenever she hap
pens to be spoken of. These inquiries
do not concern her character or her
domestic accomplishments, much less
her intellectual capacity, of which she
has, theoretically, none to speak Of; but
they may all bo summed up in the
single phrase SIS she said?' meaning
by the term said" betrothed. If tho
reply should be in the negative the in
telligence Is received in much the same
way as we should receive the informa-
ton that a European child had by some
strange neglect been allowed to grow
to the age Of sixteen without having
been taught any thing whatever out
of books The instructive feeling of q
Chinese in regard to a girl is that she
should be betrothed as soon as possible.
This is one of the many points in re-
gard to which it is almost impossible
for the Chinese and the Anglo-Saxon
to come to terms AS o as a Chinese
girl is once betrothed she is placed In
different relations to the universe gen.
orally. She is no longer allowed such
freedom as hitherto, although that may
have been little enough. She can not
go anywhere because it would be lin
convenient" She might be seen by
some member of the family into which
h Is to marry han which it is hardly
possible to think of any thing more hor-
rible. "Why?" the irrepressible Occi-
dental inquiries, and is quenched by
the information that ait would not be
proper" Why it would not be proper
no n al ever toll, except hat it
never was proper, and therefore it is
not so now,a and therefore never will be.
The imminent risk that the girl might
at some ~unguarded moment be actually
seen by the family OF the future mother
in-law is a reason why SO few engage
ments for girls are mad in the town in
which the girl liyes-an arrangement
which would seem to he FOR the con-
veEience OF all parties in a great variety
of ways.