St. Paul daily globe., 1892-03-13

searching and lot OF clever arguing
pro and con. And it did.
But | am not able to see why the
question should be asked at all; why
there should be any distinction in the
mind between traits that 90 to make
good wife and mother and traits that go
to make good business woman. be-
cause both so certainly go to the making
OF complete character. One is hardly
justified III saying that no woman can
be Il good wife anu mother who is not
good business woman, or that woman
is not good business woman who can
not be good wife and mother But
what is true is tnat a woman will be
better in either of these capacities for
being good in the other. Because the
underlying demand in both is alike. 1t is
brains. Any one readily sees that it takes
brains to make successful business
woman, but the necessity for brains in
the other calling is just as great. Good
coffee is undoubtedly great promoter
and conserver of the domestic affec-
tious. and good coffee is matter of
chemistry and brains. No knowledge
comes amiss in the household, business
knowledge least of all. e.
The underlying idea that has until
within the past few years shaped the
education of women has been mainly
that of utility-of such knowledge as
would suffice TO make woman pleasing
to others and tolerably efficient in the
home. The higher education has set
another end-that of knowledge for its
own sake, because knowledge is good.
without reference to the special
end to which that knowledge
should be directed. 1t has given
women an understanding of chemistry,
for instance. just because that is in
cluded in liberal education. And be-
cause the properties of food and the re-
suits OF heat applied to food belong to
chemistry, these young women have
learned about these. And because Of
this knowledge they are today not only
making the best housekeepers in the
country, but. by original investigation.
are aiding greatly in developing the
new science of food-chemistry.
Their college course included COM
parative study Of animal life, and they
studied it, not because they were
women, with special destiny before
them, but because they were rational
beings to whom the world of knowledge
belonged as a rightful inheritance. And
today they are the intelligent guardians
of the bodily welfare of little men and
women, and of big ones. too, in hum
uTcuS OIL HOMES everywhere.
They studied Latin and Greek, too.
for no earthly reason, except that they
had the good taste to want it, and a
right to indulge that taste. And the
tenacity of purpose that put them
through the Greek verbs. and the quick
insight that showed them how to clear
up the long passages in Tacitus are
working today in their characters in
helpful way, even though they have
forgotten that Greek verbs have mid
die voice and that Tacitus wrote about
the German wars.
For nothing is truer than the old
copybook motto. knowledge is pow
er." that you and | wrote with cramped
and rebelious fingers so long
ago. knowledge. in any direction
is power in all directions. Herein
has lain the flaw in the education of
woman, that it has not made proper rec
ognition Of this truth. The new edu-
cative idea, which insists upon woman's
rights to the widest culture. not for the
sake of what she can do with it, but be-
cause of what it will do for her. is max
ing better women. and SO better business
women and better wives and mothers.
The greater includes the less. A good
many years ago, a wise New England
father gave his little daughter wider
education than he gave his sons. "She
will need it," he said: life demands so
much more of women than it does of
men," Her education was marvel in
these times, and by-word among
women.
1t was in books alone-in Latin and
Greek, in science. in mathematics, in
literature. Before she was twenty she
married. She had comprehensive ig-
~ h0. N,.Iv 1,.n Il
a stitch, knew nothing of business or OF
the world. But she had plenty of sense
and thoroughly disciplined brain. Life
threw her upon her own resources and
she is today the most thoroughly
equipped housekeeper; most success
full wife and mother; and the clearest-
headed business woman whom it is my
good fortune to know. With the train
ing that her general knowledge had
given her, she was able to acquire all
the special knowledge that she needed,
as fast as she needed it.
| have not told this Incl dent as prov
ing that woman is just as well off, il
she marrieS. without the special train
ing that the bousekeeper requires. be-
cause that is not true. Any woman who
undertakes these duties without special
preparation for them is to be pitied, but
III uOCo plOf0 tHdt, given d lIdlllcU u1lllu,
the lack is not a vital one.
The question is not one of training
women to be wives and mothers, but of
giving them their rights as rational
human beings to all the knowledge they
can absorb. The end of a girls educa-
tion is exactly that of boY's-mental
power and discipline. The less nonsense
that is put into her head about the wife
and mother destiny the better A boys
education is for himself, not for pros
pectlve wife and family. So should a
girls education be for herself, because
it Is better to be wise than ignorant, t,apd
strong than weak.
Then, whichever comes, marriage or
business. or both, the special prepar-
alton will be all the more easily ac-
quired and usefully applied because she
has under her feet the ground of solid
requirement, and above and about her
the wide atmosphere of the whole in
telligent world