San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1892-04-16
American Girls.

From the London STANDARD.
In more than one State of the Union
the attent ton of the public has of late
been frequently called 10 the fact
that the education of American
women at the present time is in
many essential respects far superior
TO that of American men. Several of
our transatlantic contemporaries eX-
press the conviction that throughout
their native land the ambition of
boys tends toward the practice OF
commerce, while that of girls prompts
them to the eager and perservering
pursuit OF learning. In this striking
contrast between the intellectual
predictions of either sex the writer's
in question profess to recognize an
important element of great problem
of the future, the solution Of which
none may venture to forecast. When
these highly cultured young women
become wives and mothers, in the
natural course of things, will they be
able to raise their husbands and sons
from the slough of mere money
grubbing to their own lofty standard
of erudition and scientific enlighten-
ment, or will the comparatively igno-
rant made votaries of business COM
pei the learned ladies to descend
from the heights of Parnassus and
drag them down to their own dead
level of dollar worship? tn the opin-
ion of some American writer's the
girls of the present generation, when
they attain matronly dignity, will
not allow their sons TO grow up, as
did their husbands ana brothers, in
dull uHappreciativenes of the value
OF schooling. Others, again, hold
that the prevailing faminine passion
for "higher culture" is put q transIto.
ry rage, which will subslde when the
fair enthusiasts ut present possessed
by it shall be brought face to face
with the stern realities of married
life In country passing through q
high-pressure phase of commercial
and industrial development, and
shall be forced to recognize the para
mount necessity of applying their in
tellectual and physical energies alike
to the adequate performance of their
family duties. 1t would appear that
in the agricultural States of the
South and West American boys, as
soon as they have mastered the three
RS, want to stop learning and turn
to money making, while the girls
insist upon continuing to attend the
higher grade schools, their parents,
in many cases, making great sacrifi-
ces in order to enable them to attain
the educational standards to which
they aspire. According to the Butfa-
10 Courier, this "phenomenop" Is
prevalent throughout the Union.
Moreover, the literary societies, which
flourish in America to an eX ent IN
dreamt OF in these islands, number
many more women than men among
their members. In q famous univer-
sity town, for instance, none of these
associations can boast of such strength
and success as have been achieved
by club of lettered ladies. whose
meetings regularly fill the church in
which they are held" AS a matter
of fact, the educational superiority
of the average American girl or young
married woman to her male relatives
has for some time past impressed it.
self upon many foreign as well as
native observers, and has been freely
adverted to in the current literature
of both hemispheres. In countries
where hitherto the converse ratio of
proficiency in classical and scientific
culture has obtained it is, OF course,
rather difficult to realize, or even to
correctly appraise, the social con-
dltions of people whose women are
far better educated than their men.
We English, however, having the
accomplished products of Girton and
Newman always with US, can form
some faint conception of the triumphs
over man won "all along the line"
by the highly trained feminine intel
lect Of America.