The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1897-04-11
WOMAN s EDUCATION
Miss Rebecca Cameron Wrltes
of it Philosophic lily.
MENTALLY, MEMS INFERIOR
MEN PLEASE WOMEN BY TALk-
ING NONSENSE.
WOMEN FOR OME AND CHILD
College Training Often Spells Them
For Their Proper Mission, Should
Develop Themselves so as TO
Meet Mems Approval.
WOMEN FOR ONE AND CHILD

In the enthusiasm that seems to have
swept like a tidal wave across the pres
ent generation in favor of higher edu-
cation for women, certain facts ana GER
tain dangers seem To have been lost
sight of completely.
1t is one of the memorable laws of
life that every advantage obtained, every
change of condition achieved has its
counterbalancing evil.
There is a distinct risk of loss III every
possibility of gain, and the wise ones
always count the cost before taking the
risk of it. In this present question of
higher education. while l am old-fash-
toned and conservative enough to be-
lieve that in the long run the circle VIII
balance back into the primeval groove;
and the original design of the Creator
be carried out as it has been in the
main since Eve first Graded sleeping
babe in the arms that reached after the
knowledge of good and evil, and found
evil enough to supply all coming de-
scendants with trouble and to spare; still,
why should the law of God be set aside,
and the lives of a generation or two be
put out of joint just for the unreason-
dDle CluIllOE I'll IL lew pdi ~
sans who are caught by sound, and never
stop to look for sense?
In this matter of equal education of
the sexes, while much can be said theo-
retically about its advantage; and in
the case of a prehaps respectable minor
ity it leaves some practical value; yet in
the main it is an absurdity on it's face.
With all the respect for women that
a child Of one Of the best and most noble
Of the sex can have. distinctly disavow
belief in the equality of the mental
fibre and capacity of the sexes.
Women were not designed by the
Almighty to be the intellectual equals
Of men.
The great inventors, the great writer's,
poets, painters. thinkers, discoveries,
speakers. statesmen and rulers of the
world have been men, and not women.
1t is idle to say the men had the ad
vantage of position, and ability to de-
velope their talents that was denied to
women. 1t was simply the out-work-
ing of the impulse within; and had it
existed in like degree III women it would
also have forced its way to recognition.
Take the best literary work Of women
and compare it with the best brain work
of men, and note the difference, both in
quantity and quality. To this day the
highest praise awarded to n woman's
literary work is: "She writes like a
man." and of how many is it said? There
fore, the mental calibre being different
women do not need the same mental
training that men require.
Their work in the world is different,
their duties of Il wholly diverse order.
When a man is in love with a woman,
no matter what his own intellect may be,
his desire is to talk nonsense, pure and
simple, to her
He is not going to discuss finance, or
politics. State craft. free trade, or any
other abstract topic with her; he is go
ing to tell her in sort of baby lingo,
how sweet and pretty she is; what dear
little hands she has, and how altogether
adorable she is. And since all men. high
and low, rich and poor, educated and
ignorant, wise and foolish fellows pre-
cisely the same fashion it is a reasonable
deduction that it is their natural instinct,
and therefore God-given; since the voice
of Nature is the voice of God. In my
old-fashioned creed, woman was meant
to be the compliment, the final finish
Of man. She is to him what the acan-
thus leaves are to the Corinthian column,
the exquisite grace, and browning glory
of the structure.
But if you send men and women to the
same schools and colleges and train them
alike. mentally and physically, while you
don't make men out of the women, ten
chances to one you have spoiled them
for being women.
If their physical health can success
fully stand the mental strain, and they
take kindly to the senior STUDIES the
risk is that they will disdaln the simple
work of guiding the house and bearing
Children A married woman who takes
the oversight of her domestic affairs
that she ought to take has not many
hours left for comic sections or constru-
ing Greek.
And the woman, who for a whole year,
ia subjected to the pain and nervous
suffering and physical prostration of ma
turity is wholly untitled for severe men-
tai labor. Therefore, the prospect OF
marriage is not going to be alluring to
these highly educated women.
It is a fact, so these impracticable Eel
lows. the medical statlsticians say, that
in certain portions Of our blessed country,
where the women have given themselves
up to the cultivation Of their minds,
they have developed so distinct disin-
clination to the cares Of maturity that
the proportion of foreign to native births
is more than four to one! There seems
to be an antagonism between the highly
trained intellect and the physical duties
that God imposed upon women in the
command given unto our first parents be-
fore Eve gained her costly education, for
| which all the rest Of US have been paying
| ever since By the law of God women
| must be child-bearers, and child-rearers,
and whatever course tends to antagonize
them with the duties of their sphere Is
wrong ipso facto.
| Think over the women you know and
see who are the loveliest and most be-
| loved. I'll warrant, from my own ex-
perience that they are not those who are
most highly cultured. What the world
| of men demands Of women is that they
shall be essentially feminine and charm
| ing; full of pretty ways, sweet, soft at
itractiveness, and little coquetrles ana