The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1890-02-07
THE SWEET GIRL GRADUATE.
4 View Of the Case at Variance wi
Modern Ideas OF Education

View Of the Case at Variance with
Modern Ideas OF Education.
What does your sweet girl graduate
know when she leaves the stage bear
ting her diploma and loads of howersf
asks a gray haired growler in The
Pittsburg Commercial Gazette.
Is she fitted for any special calling
in life9
In majority Of instances she has
received no practical instruction what
ever. She is scarcely able to put her
clothes on, much less to make or re-
pair them. She may be able to parse
a sentence, but too often she cannot
write good English, nor does she
speak it
She can chatter in French SO as to
be understood by her teacher, but to a
born Frenchman it would be about as
intelligent as Choctaw. She probably
knows an omelet from a steak, but
has only the faintest idea of the pro-
cesses by which they are made.
To her the world consists of books
and good looking young men, and in
the more or less distant future stands
knightly looking man in the shadow
of a vine clad cottage. surrounded by
all the evidences of wealth and COM
fort.
Two years after the s. e. g. has re-
tired from the schoolroom French is q
dead language to her, geometry a puz-
What has she gainedi
If she really studied hard she has
probably won a place in the ranks Of
tho nervous host of women, deep
seated dyspepsia and an irritable tenn
per.
If she didn't study hard she is prob
ably an expert coquette or chatter
box. The four or Eve years that she
spent in school were the years in
which she was growing out Of girl
hood into womanhood, and the years
in which she should have been under
the personal care of her mother.
Common sense teaches us that girls
should not be sent to college or SEM
mary until after they are 16 years old.
From IL to 16 they should be subject
to physical culture, and only incident
ally to mental culture.
This view of the case is at variance
with the modern idea on this subject,
but our head school men are slowly
coming to it. Medical scientists and
experts in physical culture condemn
the modern idea in unmeasured terms.
They know that girls should ROT be
put to hard study before they are 16,
and they can give the best of reasons
for it.
Even if no other reason could be
given than that they are better able to
comprehend their studies, it would be
sufficient. What is the use of rushing
a girl through q course of studies that
is incomprehensible to herr It is an
unnecessary waste of vital energy, for
which she must suffer for the balance
of her natural life.
The healthiest happiest and most
useful women in the land today are
not graduates of seminary or high
school.
The best teachers and best scholars
among our women are those who en-
tered upon their collegiate course after
they had passed the verdant period
known as sweet 16. Then they knew
what they were doing, and why they
were doing it.
There is no doubt but the present
cySCem VI eOuCdLlHS young WOHen -
the cause of their imperfect physical
development, i'll health and general
unftn to become the wives of bust
ness men and mothers of race Of
stalwart men and handsome women.
This is gospel truth.
The average young man stands the
college ordeal better than his sister,
because he INDUCES in more physical
exel else and leads "a less unnatural life.
If he is endowed with reasonable
amount Of common sense he has a
profession in view and studies to fit
himself for it, and in that direction at
least he is permanently benefited.
His sister, however, has no profes-
sion in view, and can see no purpose
whatever in her education. And it is
fact that there is little in her whole
seminary course that will be of the
least practical use to her when she
becomes mistress of home and has
the cares Of family thrown upon her.