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EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN.
TWO LECTURES,
BY W. B. HODGSON, LL.D.

ARTES
1837
SCIENTIA
VERITAS
LIBRARY
OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
E-PLURIBUS UNUM
SI-QUAERIS PENINSULAM AMOENAM
CIRCUMSPICE
LC
1567
.H69
1869
20481
مرے
THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS;
AND
THE EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN
OF THE UPPER CLASSES
EDUCATIONALLY CONSIDERED
Two Lectures,
allantyne
BY W BHODGSON, LL.D.

Second Edition.
"Je ne sais pas un Père de l'Eglise ni un moraliste, qui jusqu'à présent ait prétendu
que la parabole des talents ne regardait pas les femmes aussi bien que les hommes."-
L'Evêque d'Orleans (Dupanloup).
6me edition, iv., p. 18.
"Femmes Savantes et Femmes Studieuses," 1868,

[ Wahrheit
LONDON: TRÜBNER & CO., 60, PATERNOSTER ROW.
MANCHESTER: A. IRELAND & CO.
1869.
"Savez vous pourquoi il faut bien élever les femmes ? parce que c'est le meilleur moyen
de bien élever les hommes."-Ernest Legouvé, "Hist. Morale des Femmes," Paris, 1864.
"Si nos femmes ne partagent ni nos esperances ni nos craintes, elles nous feront
partager leurs faiblesses et leurs caprices."-Ed. Laboulaye. "Paris en Amerique,"
p. 96, 11th ed., 1864, c. x.
"As if man could be helped effectively by a shadow, or worthily by a slave."-7.
Ruskin. "Sesame and Lilies," 1865, p. 124. [See the whole of the second lecture of
Queen's Gardens."]
<<
<<
Quis autem dixerit naturam maligne cum muliebribus ingeniis egisse, et virtutes
illarum in arctum retraxisse? Par illis, mihi crede, vigor, par ad honesta (libeat)
facultas est: laborem doloremque ex æquo, si consuevere, patiuntur." et seq.-Seneca :
Consolatio ad Marciam,” 16.
<<
'J'ai souvent pensé que les femmes ont plus de courage que nous, dans les grands
chagrins de la vie; an licu de se laisser abattre, elles soutiennent encore nos forces et
nous rélèvent le coeur."—Erckmann-Chatrian. Hist. d'un Homme du Peuple,” 1865,
c. xii, p. 114.
"It is surely high time that a man who dares to write insolently concerning the
female intellect should not only be regarded as rude, but should incur the imputation of
deficiency in his own powers. If we have not reached that point, we cannot be far from
it; for it is only the meaner male intellects that are capable of jealousy or of ungenerous
appreciation."Westminster Review, Oct., 1865, No. 56, p. 380. "Capacities of
Women."
"Women have nothing to do; is that a reason why they should do nothing but what
is trifling? They are exposed to greater dangers; is that a reason why their faculties
are to be purposely and industriously weakened? They are to form the characters of
future men; is that a cause why their own characters are to be broken and frittered down
as they now are ?"-Rev. Sydney Smith. "Essay on Female Education," in "Edinburgh
Review," Jan., 1810.
Can we not teach girls from babyhood that to labour is a higher thing than merely
to enjoy; that mere enjoyment itself is never so sweet as when it has been earned? Can
we not put into their minds, whatever be their station, principles of truth, simplicity of
taste, helpfulness, hatred of waste: and these being firmly rooted, trust to their blossom-
ing up in whatever destiny the young maiden may be called to?"-"A Woman's
Thoughts about Women," 1858, p. 242, c. ix.
"Without at all underrating that benignest influence-to have lost or never to have
known which is one of the sorest earthly privations-the softening, winning, humanising
influence of a mother, we think that it is an incomplete and narrow view of the scope
of education to limit it to training woman for a destiny that may never be hers. Rather
should that system recommend itself which purports to educate for the wider object of
providing the perfect woman, nobly planned, who shall be equal to the occasion, whether
it be to bring up children, to be companion to a husband, whose home it is denied her to
bless with offspring, or, perchance, to illustrate in single blessedness the sunny after-
noon of unmarried life."-Quarterly Review, April, 1866, p. 499, "Female Education."
[It is] "the duty of all of us to give our warmest and heartiest support to those wisest
of the friends of women who, instead of screaming about the abstract equality of the
sexcs,the worst, possible policy on the part of those who are compelled to admit
woman's practical and present inferiority in the majority of intellectual qualifications, to
whatever cause they may ascribe it,-are doing their very best to give women the best
chance (to say the least) they can ever have of proving their intellectual equality with
men, and, as even we believe, of proving their superiority to men in some departments,
and their equality in others, if even, on the whole, they are compelled to admit a general
difference of type, and some inferiority in energy and creative force."-Spectator, 19th
Sep., 1868, p. 1096, "Women's Needs and Women's Rights."
ME IT
DASSBIO-AH
ΤΟ
WILLIAM ELLIS,
ELLIS, Esq.,
WHO HAS DONE FAR MORE THAN CAN HERE BE TOLD
AT ONCE TO IMPROVE AND TO DIFFUSE EDUCATION :-
WHO HAS LONG AND EFFECTIVELY VINDICATED
IN ALL TEACHING OF BOTH SEXES, AND OF EVERY RANK,
ITS TRUE PLACE FOR ECONOMICS
AS A BRANCH OF MORAL SCIENCE,
NEEDFUL AND FIT TO GUIDE CONDUCT,
TO TRAIN CHARACTER AND TO SHAPE CONDITION,
AS WELL AS TO DEVELOP INTELLIGENCE :-
WHO, BY PRACTICE, NOT LESS THAN BY PRECEPT,
BY DEALING WITH CAUSES RATHER THAN WITH EFFECTS,
BY HELPING THE YOUNG, THAT THE ADULT MAY NOT NEED HELP,
HAS BLENDED THE WARMEST PHILANTHROPY
WITH THE COOLEST REASON:—
WHOSE WISE SIMPLICITY OF LIVING,
AND UNGRUDGING, UNBOASTING, UNWASTING LIBERALITY
ATTEST THE SINCERITY AND THE STRENGTH
ALIKE OF HIS BENEVOLENCE AND HIS
CONVICTIONS:·
TO WHOM VERY MANY (THE AUTHOR BEING one)
OWE MUCH FOR GREAT PERSONAL KINDNESS,
BUT, ABOVE ALL,
FOR A HIGHER, WIDER, CLEARER,
MORE DEFINITE, PRACTICAL, CONSISTENT, AND INSPIRITING
VIEW OF EDUCATION,
AS IT OUGHT TO BE, AND WILL BE,
THIS VOLUME IS (WITHOUT PERMISSION)
RESPECTFULLY AND GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED
BY HIS ATTACHED FRIEND,
THE AUTHOR.
PREFACE.
'HESE two lectures, which were published,—the first in
THE
1864, the second in 1866,—have long been out of print ;
and, as inquiry is still very frequently made for both, they
are now republished together, with considerable additions in
the form of notes. Of both lectures, though only the first
treats formally of Education, the spirit and purpose are
eminently educational. In my view all else is, not unim-
portant, indeed, but secondary. Whatever other changes may
come or may be desirable, improved education is most
desirable, and must come. With that all other desirable
changes will be expedited, and of increased utility when
effected. Without that other changes will be difficult, if
they do not even cease to be desirable. A recent writer in
Macmillan's Magazine for March, 1869, very fairly expresses
my conviction in this matter:-"The fact is, that two alterna-
tives lie open to the would-be reformers of women. Shall
they agitate for social and political changes, in order to get
careers for their protégées which may stimulate them to improve
their minds? or shall they set their hands to the task of pro-
viding for them a better education, so as to fit them to do
vi
Preface.
their duty, with thoughtful intelligence, in whatever state
they may be placed? Shall they run our daughters through.
the gauntlet of public life, in the conviction that that great
trial will eventually convince them of the necessity of self
culture? or shall they begin at the other end, providing the
means of culture for them, in the firm faith that that is not
only the way to keep their minds innocent and quiet, but also
to procure for them whatever is desirable of enlarged spheres
of work and usefulness, by showing how well they can dis-
charge the duties which society has already assigned them?
The first of these is the line of Miss Lydia Becker;* the
second, of Miss Emily Davies. And without wishing to
disparage unduly the efforts of any earnest woman for what
she believes to be the improvement of her sex, a thoughtful
man must feel that the second is of the two the wiser course;
the one which is most practical, most sensible, least dange-
rous, and most likely to secure the sympathy of the mass of
Englishmen and Englishwomen." (p. 454)
In thus practically (so far as I am concerned) postponing
political or other reforms to educational reform, I am not
conscious of injustice to women, or guilty of meting to them
with one measure and to men with another. To men also I
* In simple justice to Miss Becker, it ought to be said that, in her zeal
for the extension of the franchise to women, she is by no means neglectful
of their claims to a higher education. See her very interesting and
important paper on "The Study of Science by Women,” in the Contem-
porary Review for March, 1869, pp. 386-404.-W. B. H.
Preface.
vii
have ever been less eager for the extension of the franchise,
than for the diffusion of the teaching and training which
should qualify and dispose them to use wisely that and every
other power. Far be it from me to blame others who in this
respect think, or act as if they thought, differently from me.
It is well, perhaps, that a complex question such as the condi-
tion of women should be attacked simultaneously on various
sides. Yet it is probable that at some one point is the key of
the whole position. To me, in this case, that one point
seems to be Education.
In the Appendix R, p. 76, will be found a summary exposi-
tion and defence of the principles which, in the first lecture.
especially, I have endeavoured to maintain, and they need not
here be further recapitulated. But the recent publication of
Mr. Mill's most earnest, eloquent, and powerful book impels
me to repeat that to my mind they commend themselves all
the more strongly because they do not depend for support
on any assertion of the absolute equality, or perfect similarity,
of the sexes in mental constitution. I trust, therefore, that
my views, though certainly favoured by such doctrine, will
not be confounded with it, or, on account of it, be refused
acceptance. They may, and I trust will, find welcome from
many by whom it is rejected, as well as from all by whom
it is received.*
* See in the Spectator of 12th June, 1869, an article written with its
usual ability on "Mr. J. S. Mill on Sex." See also Appleton's Journal,
viii
Preface.
Mr. Mill's argument, however, if I may presume to sum it
up is not this: "Women are in all mental respects equal to
men, and similar to men,-therefore they ought to receive a
similar education, and be admitted to similar work;"-but this:
"No one is able or entitled to decide a priori what is either
the extent or the peculiar nature of the mental capacities and
powers of women,*-therefore, like men, they ought to receive
the best attainable education, and to be free to do all work
that they, or any of them, can, by trying, prove or make
themselves fit for." To the argument thus stated I confess
that I do not well see what reply is possible.
We are accustomed to boast that the institution of caste
has no place among us, and to thank heaven that, in this
respect, we are not as others are, even those Orientals. It
is a truism that men, of every class, differ widely from each
other in both degree and kind of mental capacity and dis-
position; but we do not, or, at least, few of us now do, on
that account, attempt by arbitrary anticipation, to prescribe
limits beyond which either individuals or classes of men
shall not be either educated or employed. In the case of
men we all admit the force of Mr. Mill's words, applied by
New York, No. 12, 19th June, 1869, pp. 372, 376; Dr. T. Laycock's "Mind
and Brain," 2nd edition, 1869; and articles by Dr. L. in Appleton's
Journal, Nos. 10 and II. Manhood and Womanhood."
* "As I have already said more than once, I consider it presumption
in anyone to pretend to decide what women are or are not, can or cannot
be, by natural constitution."-J. S. Mill. "The Subjection of Women,"
1869, c. iii., p. 104.
Preface.
ix
him to women: "The anxiety of mankind to interfere in
behalf of nature, for fear lest nature should not succeed in
effecting its purpose, is an altogether unnecessary solicitude."
-p. 48. Why ought not the same "even-handed justice,"
the same faith in freedom, and in the stability of all truly
natural order, which guide us as to the differences, however
great, among men, guide us also as to the differences, be
they what they may, between men and women? In both
cases alike, be it ever remembered, it is the interest, not
merely of those immediately concerned, but of the whole
community that is at stake.
It may not unreasonably be thought that in my notes I
have abused the license of quotation. But, remembering how
many, transgressing the rule which enjoins us to look more
to what is said than to the number and standing of those who
say it,† shrink from solitude in opinion, and are never at ease
but in a crowd, I have been anxious to show that what is
ignorantly despised or distrusted as a fantastic innovation
advocated by only a few persons more zealous than judicious,
has in its favour the authority of many eminent in various
countries and very various times. I have further wished to
mark the rapid progress of opinion as well as of events in
late years, and even since the first of these lectures was
delivered. These citations might, in fact, have been easily
and largely multiplied. Finally, I have invoked without
"Non quaeras quis hoc dixerit: sed quid dicatur attende."-Thomas
à Kempis. "Imit. Christ," 1. I, c. 5.
X
Preface.
hesitation, nay with peculiar pleasure, the testimony of
thoughtful and cultivated women. Far from regarding them
as but questionable witnesses in a cause that concerns their
sex so deeply, I think it all-important to know what such
women think, and feel, and wish. It seems to me no small
presumption in men to undertake to decide for women, with-
out consulting even the wisest among them, what is right
or wrong, fit or unfit, seemly or unseemly, in their case.
That this should so seldom and so little be regarded as
presumption, is perhaps not the least striking evidence of
the need for an improved estimate of the relative position of
the two sexes. *
Among recent indications of progress, none, perhaps, is
more gratifying and hopeful than the tenour of the Report
of the Schools Inquiry Commission, and the concurrence
of opinion among the Commissioners, well supported by
the Assistant Commissioners, in favour of a more equitable
division between the sexes of the funds and other benefits
of the endowed schools throughout the country. This report
has already borne good fruit in the Endowed Schools Bill,
and, though the amendment insisting on a strictly defined
*In what temper of mind would a man peruse the written thoughts of
women on such subjects as these? How shall we employ our men? What
is the object of male education? Remarks on the deficiencies of male
training, by a needlewoman. Hints to a young father, by a graduate of
Queen's College, Harley Street. Duties of the men at the present crisis,
by a thoughtful girl. Now, how should we like to be written about like
that?"-Pall Mall Gazette, Sept., 14, 1866, p. 9.
Preface.
xi
equality, so effectively proposed by Mr. Winterbotham in the
House of Commons, was formally withdrawn, there can be
no doubt that its spirit will animate all those who have in
charge the working of the Bill, and that, as speedily and
thoroughly as possible, we shall see the removal of an
injustice as inveterate and widely spread as it is indefensible
and pernicious.
The Cambridge Examinations for Girls, which, in 1864,
were in the stage of mere experiment, have now become a
regular institution; and they have been followed by the
examinations adopted by the London University as well as by
the University of Edinburgh; and by more or less systematic
courses of lectures to women in very many places, e.g., Man-
chester, Leeds, Bradford, York, Sheffield, Glasgow, Edinburgh,
and London. Nothing is so new as an old thing forgotten.
What I did in Manchester twenty-one years ago, with no
small success (and others, doubtless, in other places, before
me), is now revived as a novelty, in more propitious times.
The last and most decided step in advance is the establish-
ment at Hitchin of a college for women, of which a prospectus
is attached to this volume.* Its progress must be watched
with interest, whether anxiety predominate or hope. Its
affiliation to Cambridge will give to it a certain préstige,
*The Working Women's College, 29, Queen Square, has now nearly
completed the fifth year of its useful existence, under the fostering care of
Mrs. F. R. Malleson, the Honorary Secretary, to whom its foundation
was mainly due.
xii
Preface.
auspicious of prosperity and permanence. Its close adher-
ence to the Cambridge curriculum was probably inevitable,
and will by most persons be regarded as no slight merit.
But, for myself, I confess I wish that greater prominence
had been given to some subjects which at Cambridge, and
indeed almost everywhere else, are strangely and sadly
neglected, and even ignored. It would, perhaps, be un-
reasonable to expect that in this matter an infant institution
should take the lead of Cambridge, especially so long as
the improved education of girls means to many nothing more
than the assimilation of it to that of boys, though that also
needs improvement scarcely less, and, in some respects,
even more. The time, however, may come, and ere long,
when at Cambridge itself, which, to its high honour be it
said, is in the van of university reform, especially in this
great question of the teaching of women, the true ideal of
education shall be seen to consist almost as little in a vague
somewhat, called mental, that is intellectual, culture, as in
the fitting for any special sort of bread-winning craft,—but
really in the preparing and disposing of youth by appropriate
knowledge, and still more, through such knowledge, by the
development of thought, and the formation of character, for
the worthy discharge of all the various obligations of common
life: those obligations being deduced from, and based upon,
the constitution of the human being, corporeal and mental,
individual and social,-so that each shall really know, and
be disposed to act upon his knowledge, that only in the
general well-being can individual well-being be made perfect,
Preface.
xiii
and that the highest well-being, individual and general, is
rooted in health of body and of mind, in justice and truth,
in well-directed industry and thrift, in peace, and purity, and
kindliness, for all of which the aptest and briefest expression
is WISDOM,—that practical synonym for DUTY.
LONDON: 41, GROVE END ROAD, N.W.
JUNE, 1869.
"If ever a subject required to be approached with caution, and treated with deli-
beration; if ever a discussion should appeal to the largest knowledge and the widest
experience; if ever circumspection was demanded in the use of the coarse expedients of
overt reform, and the deepest faith in the slow-working, indirect agencies of social
amelioration-certainly these conditions require to be fulfilled now, with all fidelity, in
treating the question of the capacities, duties, rights, and social destiny of woman.
•
The policy according to which things are ruled is infinitely deliberate; and the
policy by which they are to be amended must, at all events, have sufficient deliberation
about it to bring out the conditions upon which all real and permanent improvement
depends."-Appleton's Journal of Literature, Science, and Art, New York, No. 12,
19th June, 1869, p. 377.
ERRATUM.
Page 13, last line, for "Miss Jex Blake," read
66
Rajah
Rammohun Roy. Second Conference on the Practice of
Burning Widows Alive. 1820,"
LECTURE
ON
THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS,
CONSIDERED IN CONNECTION WITH THE
University Local Examinations.
DELIVERED IN LONDON, ON THE 11TH JUNE, 1864.
"I cannot suppose it to be justifiable to shut any gate of knowledge against those
who desire to enter in, whatever may be their sex, race, or colour; of course, in every
individual case, personal considerations of time, opportunity, and talent will practically
limit the field of education, but I do not believe that any other limit than these should
exist."-"A Visit to some American Schools and Colleges," by Sophia Jex Blake,
c. viii., p. 242, 1867.
T
"Women govern us; let us render them perfect: the more they are enlightened, so
much the more shall we be. On the cultivation of the mind of women depends the
wisdom of men.
It is by women that nature writes on the hearts of men.”—Sheridan.
Granting the alleged defects of women, is it not somewhat absurd to sanction and
maintain a system of education which would seem to have been specially so contrived
as to exaggerate all these defects?"-T. H. Huxley, in "The Reader," 20th May, 1865,
p. 561.
"Men like women to reflect them, no doubt; but the woman who can only reflect a
man, and is nothing in herself, will never be of much service to him. The woman who
cannot stand alone is not likely to make either a good wife or a good mother.”—Geo.
MacDonald. Guild Court," vol. 1, p. 283, c. xix., 1868.
"The education of women is good, as that of men is good if it conduces to make
them cheerful, efficient labourers in the field of usefulness allotted to them by heaven: if
it trains them to self-control, self-denial, and to a constant predominance of the reason,
and of kindly and pious affections."-Mrs. Austen. Nat. Education,” 1839, p. 145.
Note.
"Every one knows that a large amount of the difficulties experienced in the manage-
ment of the poor, the criminal, in sanitary reform, in household administration, arises
from the gross ignorance of women of the ordinary principles of political and social
economy, and the laws of hygiène."-Pall Mall Gazette, 14th Sept., 1866, p. 10.
"There is surely no agency from which more may be hoped than the influence of
cultivated women-women who have received from their education a sounder knowledge
than education now gives them, powers of mind more thoroughly trained, a higher con-
ception of the duties which the welfare of society requires them to discharge."-James
Bryce. "Report to Schools Inquiry Commissioners," 1868, vol. ix. p. 839.
"Julius Cæsar Capaccius seripsit Elogia illustrium mulierum ac virorum, in 4to.
Neapoli, 1608. Ne mulierum quidem laudes celari debent, quas et olim habuimus, et
nunc habemus doctissimas. Non invidiosum viris esset, has sibi adjungi Veneres.
Habuimus Philosophas, Poetrias.”—D. G. Morhof: "Polyhistor. Lubecæ," 1747, Tome 1.,
Lib. 1., c. 19, p. 227.
"If it be that the weakness of the feminine temperament is a tendency to littleness,
emptiness, display, and the prejudices of fashion and conventionality, let us no longer
take those as the proper basis of an educational development, and work accordingly, but
rather so constitute our system of culture that it may be what indeed education and cul-
ture must be, to be worthy of the name, a fortifying of the mind and spirit to resist that
tendency, to extinguish it, and rise superior to it."-John Stores Smith.
"Social
Aspects.
"Everywhere the fact that the pupil is to become a woman, and not a man, operates
upon her course of study negatively, not positively. It deprives her of the kind of teach-
ing which boys have, but it gives her little or nothing in exchange. It certainly does not
give to her any exceptional teaching adapted to her career as a woman."-J. G. Fitch.
Report to Schools Inquiry Commissioners," vol. ix., 1868, p. 290.
"The true measure of a woman's right to knowledge is her capacity for receiving it,
and not any theories of ours as to what she is fit for, or what use she is likely to make of
it."-Id., ibid, p. 301.
"It is no longer thought that liberal culture is likely to spoil a woman for the labours
of housewifery, that the girl who has thoroughly learnt arithmetic is more likely to despise
her husband than the uninstructed damsel who cannot check the blunders of a house-
book, or that a taste for the sterner pursuits of the study necessarily unfits a lady to excel
in the amusements of the drawing-room. Moreover, there is a growing conviction in the
minds of nearly all men that, whatever may be their intellectual distinctions, men and
women are so far alike that the training which would be bad for the former cannot be
good for the latter, and that the best system of instruction for the weakness of the weaker
of the two is the same which is best adapted to the strength of the stronger.”—Athenæum,
20th July, 1867, p. 76.
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
TH
HIS lecture was suggested by a discussion which was
held, a few weeks ago, in the rooms of the Association
for the Promotion of Social Science. At that meeting opinions.
were expressed by one or two persons present, to which it was
impossible for me at the time adequately to reply, but which
yet seemed to me so urgently to demand reply, that I have
not rested till I found, or made, an occasion for maintaining
what in this great matter I believe to be the truth.
When, indeed, it is asserted, as at that meeting a gentleman
did assert, that "the mind of woman differs toto cœlo from that
of man"—what reply is possible, or, at least, fitting, except
that his mind differs toto cælo from mine, and there make end?
But the question itself, of which one side has been stated with
so strange an exaggeration, merits our most serious attention;
and, if I am not betrayed into the discussion of it here and
now, it is because I trust to show that, however interesting in
itself, it is really quite beside our present purpose. In order to
make good the claim for a wide extension of female education,
it is not at all necessary to maintain the absolute identity of
the male and the female mental constitutions. Neither is it
necessary to maintain that in the highest departments of
original or creative power the mind of woman is, or ever can
be, equal to that of man-at least, of certain men.
It may be
B
2
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
safely and freely granted that as yet there have been no female
Shaksperes, or Dantes, or Michael Angelos, or Miltons, or
Beethovens, or Bacons, and that such may never arise.* The
true and sole question for our present consideration is not
wherein lie the essential innate differences, if any, between the
male and the female mind; nor whether in the highest region
of creative thought and independent power the female mind is
equal to the male; but simply this, whether any of the differ-
ences commonly affirmed or admitted to exist between them,
ought in any way to prevent similarity and equality in the
mental training of both, or can at all disprove woman's power,
and consequent right, to learn whatever man learns, as a part,
that is, or instrument, of his general education and mental
discipline. The question, in short, is one, not of origination,
but of reception; of learning, not of creating. If the fact
that no woman has ever reached the mental stature of a
Homer, or an Aristotle, is a reason why women should be cut
* "The observations of Professor Wagner, who enjoyed several opportuni-
ties of examining the brains of men endowed with great power of intellect,
seem to point to the conclusion that the more richly convoluted brains co-
exist with great intelligence. Again, it would appear that the average
female brain has not such complex convolutions as the average male
brain.
Unfortunately, there do not appear to be any facts at
present before us to enable one to state what degree of complexity the female
brain may assume in its most highly-developed condition, as up to the
present time no description or drawing of the brain of a highly-intellectual
woman has been recorded."-Prof. Wm. Turner, M.D., Edinburgh.
"The Convolutions of the Human Cerebrum Topographically Considered,"
1866, p. 25.
"Just as parents are awakening to the importance of physical education
for the slight frames and delicate limbs of their girls, whom no perseverance
in calisthenic operations can ever endow with the muscles of an athlete, so
are they becoming more anxious to increase by wholesome processes of
culture the intellectual talents with which nature has endowed those same
children, whom no course of study would qualify to win the first places of a
tripos or class list."—Athenæum, 20 July, 1867, p. 76.
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
3
off from the soundest and most invigorating mental culture,————
how must it fare, how ought it to fare, with the great mass
of men who approach not at all more nearly to that high
standard? It is, in truth, the power not to rival, but to under-
stand, and sympathetically to appreciate, that makes all men
akin to those great thinkers;* and so it is not identity or uni-
formity, but unity amid diversity, that places woman side by
side with man.
Having thus disentangled our subject from a merely specu-
lative question which does not really concern us here, I would
still further clear our way, by setting aside another question,
not, indeed, speculative, but practical-that, I mean, which
regards the alleged political rights of women, or their alleged
right to share with man the professional vocations which are
now his, and, by long prescription, his only. It is not neces-
sary, or desirable, that we should inquire whether women
ought, or ought not, to be Members of Parliament, or even to
have votes in the election of Members; or whether women
ought, or ought not, to be physicians, or lawyers, or parsons,
or dentists, or printers. I shall not be supposed to under-
value the importance of such questions, if I refuse to treat
them here; and for the simple reason that they are irre-
levant to our true inquiry, the nature and limits of which I
have already prescribed. On these questions we may differ
widely, and yet be quite agreed in thinking that it is for the
* "Tout homme en effet est capable à quelque degré de sentir le beau, et
dès que ce sentiment entre dans l'âme, il l'anime, la chauffe, la transforme.
Il y a dejà là un commencement d'inspiration et de création
esthétique. Joignez-y le don supérieur de fixer l'emotion fugitive sous une
forme précise et durable, et vouz avez un de ces génies souverains-Shaks-
pere ou Michel Ange, natures d'élite sans doute, mais qui ne sont pas
pétris d'un autre limon que le reste des hommes, et ne diffèrent que par le
dégré de puissance créatrice des natures moins heureuses qui ne peuvent que
les admirer.”—“L'Esthétique Francaise," Emile Saisset, 1864, p. 115.
4
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
interest, not only of woman, but of man not less, that women
should have free and equal access to all the means of intellectual
culture which help to fit the human being, man or woman,
for the duties, not of a handicraft or a headcraft, but of social
life; which develop the intelligence, strengthen, while they
enlighten, the conscience, and build up the character.* Of
course, if woman's choice of professional occupation is to be
widened, it is right and needful that she should have the
special training thereto adapted: but even if that remain un-
changed, her claim remains intact for that mental culture which
fits, not for professional, but for human duties: which forms,
not the artisan or the artist, but the individual; which confers
general ability and guidance, not special knack or bent. To
rest woman's claim to the most liberal culture on her right,
real or supposed, to share with man the so-called professions-
implies a complete misunderstanding of the ground on which
man's claim is really based. It is not because man is to be a
barrister, or a surgeon, or a merchant, but because he is to be
a man, with faculties and aspirations, moral and intellectual,
and with social duties requiring enlightenment and guidance
for their due discharge, that the boy demands, and ought to
receive, a liberal culture. So precisely is it with woman. Any
demand for admission into the ranks of this or that profession,
* How strange to find Seneca deprecating, in his day, the very prejudice
which obstructs progress in ours :
"Illo te duco, quo omnibus qui fortunam fugiunt, confugiendum est, ad
liberalia studia: illa sanabunt vulnus tuum, illa omnem tristitiam tuam
evellent. His etsi nunquam assuesses, nunc utendum erat: sed quantum
tibi patris mihi antiquus rigor permisit omnes bonas artes non quidem
comprehendisti, attigisti tamen. Utinam quidem virorum optimus, pater
meus, minus majorum consuetudini deditus, voluisset te sapientum præ-
ceptis erudiri potius quam imbui: non parandum tibi nunc contra fortunam
esset auxilium, sed proferendum."-Seneca: "Consolatio ad Helviam,"
xvi. 9, 10.
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
5
however just in itself the demand may be, is far subordinate
to, and quite distinct from, the great question on which we are
now engaged. It is on the inward community of human
nature, not on the outward similarity of employment, that the
right to an equal culture is really founded.
So much for the questions, speculative or practical, with
which it is most important that we should not suffer ourselves
to be here perplexed.
Our task may be still further simplified by disposing, at the
outset, of a very common, though very transparent, fallacy.
Have we not all of us, again and again, heard it argued that a
woman's domestic duties (and by the way all women have not
domestic duties of much weight) preclude any great advance-
ment on her part in knowledge or in learning? The answer is
easy and conclusive. If man, on his side, had no correspond-
ing duties, and were able to devote his life in undisturbed
leisure to the pursuit of learning or of science, this argument
might have force. But is it not true of the vast majority of
men that they are engrossed by the professional callings on
which their daily bread depends? And even among men of
ample independent means, how many are there who have not
some call, national or municipal, public or private, on a very
large portion of their time? So that the real antithesis lies,
not between domestic duties on the woman's side, and literary
or scientific culture on the man's, but between the domestic
occupation of the one, and the professional occupation of the
other; the latter being, in general, far more absorbing, dis-
tracting, and oppressive, than the former, at least within the
rank of life which our inquiry touches. Between those two
widely differing spheres of duty lies the whole region of literary
and scientific culture-a region common to both sexes, equally
fruitful, equally needful, equally attractive to both.
It is not, I think, an exaggeration to say that women of a
certain rank have actually more, not less, time than men for
6
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
the higher culture;* and I do not fear a contradiction from any
woman who has acquired the precious art of turning to good
mental account short and casual intervals of time.†
But, however the case may stand after the serious duties of
life have been entered on, it cannot be denied that few women
do enter upon these until some years after the ending of the
usual school course, a precious season being thus secured for
carrying onward the studies of which the elements ought to
have been taught, and for which the love ought to have been
inspired, at school.‡
Not less true is it that women are almost universally exempt
from the long special, technical, and professional training,
which, in the case of men, encroaches so seriously on even
the school life.
We have thus, I trust, already set aside three current and
seemingly formidable objections :—
1. That we must assert the absolute equality in all mental
respects of woman with man.
2. That we necessarily advocate the opening up to
women of the professions and functions, political or
other, hitherto reserved for men.
* "Woman has, in this respect, an advantage over most men who are
engaged in business or in active professions, which leave them very little
time for any pursuits of their own; neither the care of children, nor any
household occupations, are more alien from studious pursuits (while they
require much less time and earnest attention) than the drudgery of a public
office or a counting-house, or the drilling of a regiment."—"Thoughts on
Self-Culture: Addressed to Women," by Maria G. Grey, and her sister,
Emily Shirreff, 3rd Edition, 1854, p. 43.
+ See Appendix A.
$ "When a young man leaves school, he is said to be prepared for
college. When a girl leaves school, her education is said to be finished;
and in that phrase one of the evil influences which pervade the education
of girls may be seen."-Mrs. Hugo Reid. "A Plea for Woman," &c.,
1843, c. x., p. 188.
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
7
3. That woman's domestic duties disqualify her for the
literary and scientific culture which is affirmed by
some to be the exclusive privilege of man.
Of these three propositions, the first I disclaim; the second
I leave, as I found it, an open question; the third I absolutely
deny.*
In proceeding to inquire into the fitness and right of woman
to unrestricted mental culture (as distinguished from mere
professional training, in which men differ from each other as
well as from women), there are obviously two courses that we
may pursue, not alternatively, but each in complement of the
other. We may examine the fitness of women for the studies,
and the fitness of the studies for women. In other words,
difficult as it may seem, and disadvantageous as to some extent
it is, to separate these two things, we may take the ambiguous
phrase, "subjects of instruction" in its two senses, as meaning
both the persons to be taught, and the things to be learned.
We may thus inquire, 1st. What is there in woman's nature to
unfit her for the highest general education? 2nd. What is
there in this or that subject to render it unfit for woman to
study; not, be it always remembered, as a piece of profes-
sional equipment, but as a part of mental furniture, as a means
of mental discipline.? These two inquiries will best lead us to
a general conclusion, in which we may combine in harmony,
and with mutual confirmation, the separate yet concurrent
results of each.
Now, on the threshold of this first inquiry, let me say that
we must not quite overlook, though we cannot examine, the
social influences, hereditary and conventional, which have
long tended to make and to keep woman such as she is; and
which lead us involuntarily to assume that such as she is she
must ever be. As we behold woman now, in this or in any
* See Appendix B.
8
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
other country, she is such as she has become after centuries of
a certain treatment, positive and negative,* which has assuredly
been modified from time to time, and with an increasing
tendency, it will not be denied, to acknowledge her right to a
higher and freer position than that she once held, and in
which a certain progress, as we may safely call it, is clearly
perceptible. It follows that, in regarding her at the present
stage of her career, we are no more entitled than we should
have been at any former stage, to assume that here we have
reached the ultimatum, and to say, "Thus far has she gone,
no farther shall she go; this, and no other, is the position,
educational or social, for which, by the nature of things, she
is fitted and ordained." Rather is it more rational to infer
that the direction of past progress is the desirable and
appointed direction of the future progress also; and to regard
the present, not as the terminus, but as a station on the great
line of human destiny, which stretches away before us into the
unknown to come. If this inference has any soundness, we
may justly cast on the opponents of the further extension of
woman's education the burden of proof; we may, not unreason-
ably, call upon them to show cause against the extension which
we demand, instead of our showing cause for it, and reserve
for ourselves as defendants the right of reply. Now, in this
great suit, we are not to be silenced, because we are not to be
* "It is exceedingly remarkable to consider the average defects supposed
to belong to the male and female nature respectively, and to trace out how,
in almost every case, each result corresponds to systematic differences of
education, which in some instances create, and in others enormously ex-
aggerate, existing tendencies. Thus, boys are subjected to a rigid course
of the exact sciences, such as mathematics and logic; while girls are expected
to devote a very large proportion of their time to various forms of æsthetic
culture; the perhaps inherent deficiencies of each nature are exaggerated,
and then the world complains that women are without reasoning powers,
and men without taste."-Miss Jex Blake.
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
9
convinced, by mere bold assertion that the mind of woman
differs toto cælo from that of man, however high the authority
from which it comes. We may even suspect that those two
fine old Latin words are only a convenient veil for an absurdity
which ought to be as dead as the language used in the expres-
sion of it. We must descend from generals to particulars, and
insist on knowing what are the respects in which the mind of
woman so far differs from the mind of man, as to render
unsuitable for the former the mental nutriment believed to be
adapted to the latter. Mere differences avail nothing; they
must be differences involving this as their consequence.
We are, indeed, often told that woman is more impulsive,
more sensitive, more impressionable, more observant, more
intuitive, more imaginative, more sympathetic than man;-
but less logical, less reflective, less independent, less careful of
consequences, less energetic, less persevering, less self-poised
than man, and much to the like effect.* The existence of such
differences I am not at all concerned to deny; I merely deny
their relevancy. We find some men more impulsive and less
reflective than other men ; some men less cautious or more
imaginative than other men; but I am not aware that this fact
has ever been viewed as a reason why either should be
excluded from the general culture granted to the other. Nay
more, do we not, all of us, know women less impulsive and
more thoughtful than some men; more disposed and better
able to anticipate results, and at the beginning to consider the
likely end? On the other hand, are there not men more
tremulously sensitive, swifter in hatred or in love, less prone
to reasoning, and more to imagining, than most women are?
In all such cases, what becomes of the principle, if we may
dignify with that name a vague notion which eludes strict
definition? Differences between men and men, as great, and
* See Appendix C.
IO
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
probably as frequent, as those between men and women, we,
practically, quite ignore. Why ought we, then, to insist on
applying to the whole female sex, and to it only, an exclusive
test, which is equally applicable to many men, and which to
many women is not applicable at all?
May we not more wisely agree with a great thinker and
orator-whose mortal remains were only two days ago com-
mitted to the grave-when he says :—
66
Like
There cannot be a doubt, I think, that the progress which
has obliterated the distinction arising from superior physical
force as between man and man, is advancing also towards the
obliteration of the results of that distinction as between man
and woman. The work which man has to do in the world is
substantially the same with that which is before woman.
him she has a being to develop; physically, with more of grace
and loveliness, though with less of strength; intellectually, with
more of taste and fineness of perception and discrimination,
though with less of logical power and continuous application;
morally, with more of meekness and kindness, of patience and
endurance, though with less of determinateness, energy, and
activity; but still the great object, alike in both cases, is the
development of the qualities of that being with which God has
endowed us, and their harmonious arrangement and cultivation,
so that it may more perfectly answer the ends for which
existence, and its accompanying faculties, were bestowed upon
us."-W. J. Fox, National Educa., Lect. 4, p. 59.
But, admitting the differences alleged, to what conclusion
do they point? In the discussion to which I began by alluding,
I was much struck with a remark made by a gentleman who
took the side to which I am opposed. He said that the
natural impulse of a girl is to do what she is told to do;
of a boy to do what he is told not to do! Accepting this
assertion, in both its parts, on this gentleman's authority, we
may well wonder at its being made a reason against teaching
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
I I
to girls what we teach to boys. The more teachable is
to be the less taught. Docility is thus an argument against
instruction! Such an argument, had it come from a woman's
lips, would have been hailed by some as a clear proof of the
inferiority of the female intellect !
Now, the principle thus inadvertently admitted is capable of
wider application. Is there any one, at all experienced in
teaching youth of both sexes, who is not aware that other
alleged differences between them, whatever the degree, do also
render the task of teaching girls at once more pleasing and
more successful than that of teaching boys? The quicker per-
ception, readier sympathy, greater impressionableness, greater
proneness to mental, as distinguished from physical, exercise,
which are said, more or less truly, to distinguish girls from
boys, do one and all favour their progress in any study that
commands their interest. Such, at least, is my own experience
after long acquaintance with youth of both sexes, of various
ages, and very various ranks.* I have found it so in history, in
geography, in grammar, in literary composition, in languages
ancient and modern, in logic, in physiology, and in economics.
I have a similar assurance from others who have taught to girls
mathematics and its allied sciences.† So with the alleged
greater imaginativeness of woman. Imagination is not, as it
is vulgarly considered, something akin to falsehood. It is the
power which enables us to realise the past and the future in
time, the absent and the distant in place; and, far from being
an obstacle in the way of true teaching it is one of its best
auxiliaries.
* "I have thought that young women who learn at all, learn con amore;
but that boys do it under compulsion or from mercenary motives; and that
this is a main point of difference. But I wait to learn."-Prof. F. W.
Newman. Letter to W. B. H., 30 August, 1864.
† See Appendix D.
12
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
But we are told that women lack the power of true reasoning.
They are, it is alleged, like one who said "I am quite open to
conviction; but show me the man that will convince me. "%
The Saturday Review, a few weeks ago, observed:-
"It is said to be a characteristic of the ladies that they never
give up a point. They succeed by dint of perseverance; their
terebrating powers are, in the long run, irresistible. And the
secret of female success is, that women have a capacity of
resisting argument which is seldom possessed by men. They
simply pass by an argument. They may see a demonstration
quite clearly, only they demur, not to its conclusiveness, but to
the necessity that it should conclude anything. They want a
certain thing done. Prove that it is foolish, mischievous,
wrong. They simply begin where they began before and all
your talk, persuasiveness, proof, is as though it were not. They
have made up their minds, and after this all counteracting talk
is vain."-14th May, p. 582.
This difference in power of reasoning, whether in construct-
ing or in following a train of argument, in so far as it may exist,
is, I believe, much less fairly attributable to any constitutional
deficiency than to the inveterate and general neglect of such
mental exercise in the teaching of girls. We must not expect
to reap where we have not sown. We must not condemn girls
to an abnegation of what reasoning power they may possess
as we see in those institutions which make falsely styled
"accomplishments" their staplet-and then maintain that in
Archbishop Whately thus defined woman : "A creature who does not
reason, and who pokes the fire from the top."-" Holiday Papers," by
Rev. H. Jones, 1864, p. 272.
† See Appendix E.
‡ It is amazing to me, said Bingley, how many ladies can have patience
to be so very accomplished as they all are. All young ladies accomplished !
My dear Charles, what do you mean? Yes, all of them, I think. They
all paint tables, cover screens, and net purses. I scarcely know any who
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
13
women the faculty is naturally wanting, just as, according to a
recent French writer, a certain preacher argued that divorce
was unnatural, because not a single case had occurred since it
was suppressed by law!* It will be time enough to deny
woman's natural power of reasoning, when she has had fair
play and equal training in this respect.+ Meantime thinkers
cannot do all this, and I am sure I never heard a young lady spoken of for
the first time without being informed that she was very accomplished!
Your list of the common extent of accomplishments, said Darcy, has too
much truth. The word is applied to many a woman who deserves it no
otherwise than by netting a purse or covering a screen.
But I am very far
from agreeing with you in your estimation of ladies in general. I cannot
boast of knowing more than half a dozen in the whole range of my acquaint-
ance that are really accomplished. Then, observed Elizabeth, you must
comprehend a great deal in your idea of an accomplished woman! Yes, I
do comprehend a great deal in it. Oh! certainly, cried his faithful assistant,
no one can be really esteemed accomplished who does not greatly surpass
what is usually met with. A woman must have a thorough knowledge of
music, singing, drawing, dancing, and all the modern languages, to deserve
the word; and, besides all this, she must possess a certain something in
her air and manner of walking, and the tone of her voice, her address and
expressions, or the word will be but half deserved. All this she must
possess, said Darcy, and to all this she must add something more substan-
tial in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading. I am no longer
surprised at your knowing only six accomplished women, I rather wonder
at your knowing any !—Miss Austin, "Pride and Prejudice," c. viii.
* "Madlle. de la Quintinie," by George Sand, p. 317. 1863.
"Women are in general inferior to men in bodily strength and energy,
consequently, the male parts of the community, taking advantage of their
corporeal weakness, have denied to them those excellent merits that they
are entitled to by nature, and afterwards they are apt to say that women
are naturally incapable of acquiring those merits. But if we give the sub-
ject consideration, we may easily ascertain whether or not your accusation
against them is consistent with justice. As to their inferiority in point of
understanding, where did you ever afford them a fair opportunity of exhi-
biting their natural capacity? How, then, can you accuse them of want of
understanding? If, after instruction in knowledge and wisdom, a person
cannot comprehend or retain what has been taught him, we may consider
him as deficient; but as you keep women generally void of education and
acquirements, you cannot, therefore, in justice, pronounce on their
inferiority."-Miss Jex Blake.
14
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
like Madame de Staël or Miss Martineau ought not to be
forgotten; and even Lady Mary Shepherd, whose "Essay on
Cause and Effect" has been so highly praised by eminent
metaphysicians, ought not to be regarded as a lusus naturæ, an
exception destined by its solitariness to confirm the rule of
female incapacity for abstruse thought.*
Mr. Buckle, in his remarkable lecture at the Royal Institu-
tion,+ does not hesitate to claim for women a natural
superiority in one of the two great divisions of reasoning. He
says:-
"Induction assigns the first place to particular facts; deduc-
tion to general propositions or ideas. Now, there are several
reasons why women prefer the deductive and, if I may so say,
ideal method. They are more emotional, more enthusiastic,
and more imaginative than men ; they therefore live more in
an ideal world; while men, with their colder, harder, and
austerer organisations, are more practical, and more under the
dominion of facts, to which they consequently ascribe a higher
importance. Another circumstance which makes women more
deductive, is that they possess more of what is called intuition.
They cannot see so far as men can, but what they do see they
see quicker."
"That women are more deductive than
men, because they think quicker than men, is a proposition
which some persons will not relish, and yet it may be proved
in a variety of ways. Indeed, nothing could prevent its being
the
* It is instructive to find that Napoleon I., bearing in mind
weakness of women's faculties, the mobility of their ideas, their destiny in
society, their duty to resign themselves to submission and to practise
charity," declares that "Women should be brought up to believe and not to
reason." Why not men also? They would so be the fitter tools of
tyrants.-Correspondence of Napoleon I., Vol. 15, Paris, 1854, quoted in
Times, 3rd Aug., 1864.
† On The Influence of Women on the Progress of Knowledge; pub-
lished in Fraser's Magazine, April, 1858.
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
15
universally admitted, except the fact that the remarkable
rapidity with which women think is obscured by that miserable,
that contemptible, that preposterous system, called their
education, in which valuable things are carefully kept from
them, and trifling things as carefully taught to them, until their
fine and nimble minds are too often irretrievably injured."-
(p. 399.)
But, waiving the discussion of this point, I am much dis-
posed to think with a writer already quoted that-
"Perhaps the training which seems most congenial with each.
nature is that which should be most diligently employed upon
the other; for the one, that mental discipline which may seem
to have most affinity with the sterner constitution, in order to
preserve it from weakness; and for the sterner nature, more of
that cultivation which is generally appropriated to the gentle,
in order to endow it with more kindliness, and preserve it from
hardness and coarseness."-Fox: ut sup., p. 60.*
Here is a principle of vast importance in the training of
either sex, in regard to general education, as distinguished from
professional instruction. In purely professional instruction, we
seek to strengthen and turn to the best account the faculties
which, from their natural predominance, seem to promise the
greatest success in their appropriate career. But in the higher
work of general education, which aims at developing the
symmetry and manysidedness which characterise the highest
forms of humanity, we seek, or ought to seek, if not to enfeeble
the strong, at least to confirm the weak, to fill up blanks, and
to compensate by greater care for the natural deficiencies
* C
"Perhaps the self-possessed firmness which, under all its feminine grace,
lies at the core of her (Nausicaa's) character, has a subtle relation to her
being reared so largely in male society among five brothers; just as, con-
versely, the weakness of Dolon has been connected with the fact a’vràp ò
µôvvos env μeta` névte kaσiyvýtnow.”-Henry Hayman, B.D., "The Odyssey
of Homer," 1866.
16
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
which are not seldom found even in those liberally gifted in
one direction. Just as in the body we do not desire strong
arms at the expense of weak legs, but a wholesome pervading
vigour, and an equable development of strength, so in the
mind we desire the harmonious growth of all its powers, each
giving aid to the rest, and from them all, in turn, deriving aid.
If, then, woman's power of thought is naturally weaker than
that of men (I say if), that is a reason, not for accepting as
final and inevitable the state of mind sketched by the Saturday
Review, not for neglecting, but for more wisely and earnestly
cultivating that inferior power.* If in man, on the other hand,
we find a duller sympathy, a less vivid fancy, let us try to abate,
not to aggravate or even tolerate, this serious defect.
The fear is groundless lest, by thus trying to correct opposite
deficiencies, we should remove nature's landmarks, and
obliterate natural distinctions. As well might it be maintained
that the use of calisthenic exercises in women's training
* "Que s'ensuit-il de la faiblesse naturelle des femmes ? Plus elles
sont faibles, plus il est important de les fortifier. N'ont elles pas des devoirs
à remplir, mais des devoirs qui sont les fondements de toute la vie
humaine ?"-Fenelon. "De l'Education des Filles," c. I.
"The duty of man is to see that not a grain is piled upon that load
beyond what nature imposes; that injustice is not added to inequality.".
T. H. Huxley. "Reader," 20 May, 1865, p. 562.
"Notwithstanding the vitality of prejudice and error, it may be confi-
dently predicted that times are at hand when women will be no longer
content with such inadequate training as our girls ordinarily receive at
fashionable boarding schools, and when no intelligent man will dare to
argue that, because his daughter must under any circumstances be weak
by reason of her sex, he should do his utmost to render her still weaker
through defect of education."-Athenæum, 20 July, 1867, p. 76.
•
"If woman be naturally more feeble of intellect than man, surely she
has, on that very account, the greater need of all the advantages which
education can bestow.
If woman's mind is so feeble, why is she
left to struggle with all those difficulties which are so sedulously removed
from the path of man?"—Mrs. Hugo Reid. "A Plea for Woman," &c.,
1843, c. x., pp. 176, 196.
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
17
endangers men's undeniable superiority in bodily strength ;*
and that we must not fortify women's constitution, lest we
should disturb the balance between the sexes in this respect.†
The utmost probably that can be done, and that is not always
easy, is to abate the evil which must ever attend either deficiency
or excess, on whichever side it may be found. It has been
well said by Coleridge, that in all truly great men a feminine
element may be detected; and, on the other hand, all who do
not blindly hold what may be called the "oak and ivy" theory
of sexual relations must welcome every wise effort to temper
the alleged feminine weakness and impulsiveness with manly
prudence and self-control.
Nay, further, within the eternal limits fixed by nature, all
culture favours individual differences. Just as we find a greater
diversity of opinion and character among a hundred educated.
or civilised men or women than among a hundred boors or
savages, so a more widely diffused culture, even while it
removes mutual incongruities and incompatibilities—on both
* See Appendix F.
+ Well does Miss Cobbe say: "To suppose that the training of the mental
faculties, by the study of the classics and mathematics, will tend to efface
in the smallest measure the fundamental differences between the sexes, is
to show very small faith in the reality of that difference."— Times, 4 Oct.,
1864.
“If there is, in fact, no fundamental education answering to the needs
of common humanity, and therefore equally necessary for both men and
women, it follows that the difference of sex is more radical and more
essential than is the common humanity that underlies it, that a man is more
a man, and woman more a woman, than each is a human being.'
being.”—Miss
S. Jex Blake, "A Visit to some American Schools and Colleges," 1867,
P. 233, c. viii.
The moral we draw is that" (even in women), "when affections are
superadded to intellect, the intellect knows well what to do with them;
but when intellect is superadded to heart, the heart does not understand
how to handle the edged tool, and makes a sad mess with it."-Home and
Foreign Review, April, 1864, p. 494, No. 8, Thackeray."
C
18
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
sides injurious,—will give freer scope and wider range to the
elements of diversity which the infinite profuseness of nature
has scattered everywhere abroad. Essential unity is not
inconsistent with boundless variety in accidentals; and the
extension and diffusion of knowledge of the means and
aliment of thought-will tend to evolve ever new combinations
in individual character and cast of mind. The same mental
aliment is not, in truth, to differing minds the same. One of
the factors being different, the sum is different. The tales of
faëry and of chivalry which stirred the young ambition of
Milton, and fanned his genius into flame, would on natures
feebler, and less noble, have wrought an effect far other. Two
plants do not more surely extract from the same soil and
atmosphere each its appropriate nutriment, turning it into its
own and not into its neighbour's likeness, than do different
minds convert into their differing constitutions the mental food
supplied to all alike.*
This haunting fear lest, by a common education, women
should be fashioned into a repulsive similitude to men, does
not, however, really rest on any philosophic basis, but, as it
seems to me, on a few facts hastily generalised, and badly
interpreted. There rise up before the affrighted fancy visions
of what are derisively called "strong-minded women," dispu-
tatious, browbeating, troubled with "a determination of words.
to the mouth," loud and harsh in voice, arrogant in temper,
dogmatic, selfwilled, unconventional, undomestic, impatient of
the matrimonial yoke as a badge of slavery, and with, perhaps,
a leaning to waistcoats, and collars turned down, cigars, and
hair parted at the side,-such, in short, as a recent Italian
dramatist, Castelvecchio, has so amusingly delineated in his
"Donna Romantica."+ I know not whether the experience
of my hearers is like mine; but assuredly of the very few
* See Appendix G.
+ See Appendix H.
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
19
แ
women whom it has been my lot to meet with any resemblance
to this offensive type, not one has been distinguished by
superior breadth or depth of culture. Very much the reverse;
they have been remarkable for nothing more than for the want
of a truly liberal education, of which it is the high office to
impart a large sympathy, a tolerant appreciation of various
opinions, respect for others, and a modest distrust of self. It
is not assuredly among the Mrs. Jamesons, the Mrs. Somervilles,
the Mrs. Brownings, the Miss Swanwicks, that such portents.
are to be found. Dogmatism and presumption ever attend
ignorance, not knowledge, shallowness, not depth.* It is not a
"It is false cleverness, not real cleverness, that Molière-like all sensible
men-objects to in women."-C. C. Clarke. "Molière's Characters,"
p. 226, c. iv., 1865.
N'est il pas évident que Molière, dans ses Femmes Savantes, n'a pas
attaqué l'instruction, l'étude, mais le pédantisme, comme, dans son Tartuffe,
il avait attaqué, non la vraie dévotion, mais l'hypocrisie? N'est ce pas
Molière lui-même qui a écrit ce beau vers: 'Et je veux qu' une femme ait
des clartés de tout.". Femmes Savantes et Femmes Studieuses," par
l'Evêque d'Orleans, 1868, p. 8, ii.
Molière has also said :-
"Mais comment voulez vous, après tout, qu' une bête
Puisse jamais savoir ce que c'est d'être honnête?"
"L'Ecole des Femmes," A. i., Sc. I.
"As a means of succeeding in the fulfilment of her duties," (in the
family) "the very highest cultivation of her mind, far from doing her any
harm, would be of the greatest service to her. It is half knowing things,
and extravagant vanity, which spoil equally men and women-never true
and profound science."-Madam Mojon, quoted by Miss B. R. Parkes,
Vignettes," 1866.
"It is not learning that is disliked in women, but the ignorance and
vanity which generally accompany it. A woman's learning is like the fine
clothes of an upstart, who is anxious to exhibit to all the world the riches
so unexpectedly acquired. The learning of a man, on the contrary, is like
hereditary rank, which, having grown up with him, and being in a manner
interwoven with his nature, he is almost unconscious of possessing.
The reason of this difference is the scarcity of the commodity amongst
women, which makes every one who possesses a little, fancy herself a
prodigy. As the sum total increases, we may reasonably hope that each
20
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
mere pun to say that a woman is never blue when she is deep
red (read)! Undoubtedly, the one lady whom I have known as
the most forward, opinionative, and with the best intentions,
the most mischievously demonstrative, among my tolerably
large circle of acquaintance, was just the one least qualified by
sound knowledge on any subject, by healthy mental discipline
of any kind, by study of the conditions of individual or social
well-being, to guide either others or herself. We are the slaves
of words. What a bugbear is this phrase "strong-minded," at
least to the weak-minded of either sex! How much argument
does it supersede! How much reason does it silence! But,
just as we distinguish head-strong and strong-headed, free-think-
ing and free thought, feminine and effeminate, masculine and
manly, so let us not confound “strong-mindedness" with strength
of mind. One is as impudent, and harsh, and empty, as the
other is true, and modest, and kindly. It is not, says Hood, a
sign of good feeding that we speak with victuals in our mouth;
will become able to bear her share with a better grace."-Miss Elizabeth
Smith. "Fragments in Prose and Verse, by Miss E. S., with Memoir
by H. M. Bowdler," 1811, p. 151.
"There is no greater mistake than to assume that to be womanly and to
be frivolous, are simply exchangeable ideas. A girl will be none the less
feminine because she has some serious interests in life, none the less
graceful because her tastes have a wider range than mere schoolroom
accomplishments, none the less attractive because she sympathizes, and to
some extent shares, in pursuits of a graver kind. To make her a pleasant
partner at a ball, or a pleasant companion at a dinner-table, it is not
necessary that either of these duties should have occupied all her thoughts
since the moment the invitation was accepted. Men are not considered
unsuited for society, or unable to bear their part in conversation, because
their education has had a wider aim than merely to prepare them for the
drawing-room. Small talkers have no monopoly of small talk. And, in
like manner, the hours a young lady spends over history or science, will
give purpose and interest to her mornings without, in the least degree,
unfitting her for the ornamental functions of the evening."-Saturday
Review, 6th August, 1864 :` p. 177.
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
2J
neither is it a good sign of mental strength and health that the
intellectual bones seem ever about to cut the skin!
To a more ample and solid education in the case of indi-
viduals, and to the diffusion of it among the community, we
must look for the removal of the evils falsely charged on
education, or, if truly, on an education unworthy of the name.
'If shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
'Tis drinking largely sobers us again."
A lady, herself, I grieve to say, a teacher, once remarked to
me that the two great evils of the day among women of the
servant class were dress and education. A friend present aptly
inquired if she advised as a remedy the shutting up of schools
and the going without clothes. Is not the remedy rather to be
sought in the improvement of education itself, so that it shall
teach at once the right use of knowledge and the just appre-
ciation of dress? When we have ceased to confound true
education with the meagre and hollow and arid and windy and
tawdry thing that still personates it in too many schools-high
not less than low-we shall better understand how it not
merely is compatible with feminine delicacy and the domestic
virtues, but strongly tends to promote them, were it only by
enforcing the mutual dependence, the true dignity and utility
of all social relations, animating with the highest spirit the
humblest duties, and enlarging the narrowest individual sphere
by the consciousness of the great whole in which it forms
a component part.
*
* "Let us have 'sweet girl graduates' by all means. They will be none
the less sweet for a little wisdom, and the 'golden hair' will not curl less
gracefully outside the head by reason of there being brains within.".
T. H. Huxley, in "The Reader," 20 May, 1865, p. 562.
"Il serait injuste de ne pas tenir compte, dans ces années où le prejugé
avait repris tout son empire, du beau travail de Madame Necker de
Saussure et du livre de Madame de Rémusat, où je trouve cette pensée
d'une simplicité si fière et si hardie 'Les femmes ont droit au devoir.'".
Daniel Stern. "Hist. de la Revoln. de 1848," vol. 2, p. 188.
22
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
Nor do the facts of life fail to confirm this belief. In the
Englishwoman's Journal for this month is a most interesting
memoir of the late Miss Caroline Frances Cornwallis, whose
series of "Small Books on Great Subjects" made her great
ability and acquirement widely known long before the secret of
her authorship was revealed. In one of her letters, she says:-
"Why should people say that women are unfitted for
domestic duties by what is generally termed learning? If I
had not known how to spell my own name, I could not have
done more than make up loaves, and pies, and puddings, and
fry eggs and fish, &c., &c., yet these have been my employ-
ments; and then in the evening, I should not have been able
to do what I have done-write letters for lawyers, and draw
cases for counsel: ergo, nobody is the sufferer by the lady's
learning but the lady herself, who may chance to have both
man and woman business on her hands at once. I am almost
in despair about our girl-cook, who is so very good-natured
and so very lazy, that I can make no impression on her: but
while I am about to do what she neglects, nobody finds out
that this damsel is incapable."-E. W. J., p. 238.
And again,
"Let no one ever say that women are the better for not
being learned. I have seen enough of what are the desperate
evils of tittle-tattle; people must talk of something, and think
of something; and if nothing better occupies the mind, it will
be the affairs of our neighbours. I would wish all the advo-
cates of ignorance to visit Tuscany, and take a view of it in
all its excellence, where the ladies knit their own stockings,
and spin their own gowns, and hear them sit with their knitting
or their spinning, and tear to pieces the character of their
neighbours, in mere wantonness, for want of other employment.
Three or four ignorant women sitting at their work are enough
to set a whole community together by the ears.
I again say,
blessed England! We may be bad, but not so bad; education
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
23
and refinement may have their evils, but they are so much less
than those produced by ignorance and grossièreté, that I call
that nation blessed which has none but the former to contend
with. It is an error, I am sure it is, to think that in any class
you can educate too much. The soul is born for knowledge,
and the more you give it, the more it rises towards its destined
perfection--the more capable it becomes of heavenly science
as well as earthly, the more capable of curbing unruly
passions."-E. W. J., p. 241.
Over a tomb at Avignon, may be read the following remark-
able inscription:-
"To the beloved memory of Harriet Mill, the dearly loved
and deeply regretted wife of John Stuart Mill. Her great and
loving heart, her noble soul, her clear, powerful, original and
comprehensive intellect, made her the guide and support, the
instructor in wisdom, the example in goodness, as she was the
chief earthly delight, of those who had the happiness to belong
to her. As earnest for all public good as she was generous
and devoted to all who surrounded her, her influence has been
felt in many of the greatest improvements of the age, and will
be in those still to come. Were there even a few hearts and
intellects like hers, this world would already become the hoped
for heaven. She died, to the irreparable loss of those who
survived her, at Avignon, Nov. 3rd, 1858."*
* Mr. Carlyle has placed the following inscription on the tombstone of his
wife: "Here, likewise, now rests Jane Welsh Carlyle, spouse of Thomas
Carlyle, Chelsea, London. She was born at Haddington, 14th July, 1801.
In her bright existence she had more sorrows than are common,
but also a soft invincibility, a clearness of discernment, and a noble loyalty
of heart, which are rare. For forty years she was the true and loving
helpmate of her husband, and by act and word unweariedly forwarded
him as none else could in all of worthy that he did or attempted. She
died at London, 21st April, 1866, suddenly snatched away from him, and
the light of his life, as if gone out." What a sad, noble tenderness there
is in this epitaph!
24
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
I need hardly point the contrast between this mournful, yet
noble tribute from one of the calmest, clearest, if not deepest
thinkers of the age, and the flippant disparagement of woman
indulged in by some men, who seem so complacently to
assume their own superiority.*
In that most charming and eloquent book, "Day Dreams of
a Schoolmaster," the author, Mr. D'Arcy W. Thompson, thus
speaks :-
"Do, reader, disabuse your reasonable mind of unreasonable
crotchets. Women have just as keen intelligence as men ; less
powers, maybe, of abstract reasoning; but far finer perceptive
and linguistic faculties. They need not be trained to ex-
haustive scholarship; but refinement of mental culture suits.
them, perhaps, even more than it does our own sex. I imagine
*“When one hears people declaim about the folly of women, it is worth
while to remember that there are men too whose folly is unfathomable, and
who, as Johnson said, "would make a man go hang himself in sheer
despair."
The foolishest of virgins knows as much about
politics as they do, as much about literature, as much about art, that is,
neither of them knows anything whatever.
So if a woman
were not brought up to be a fool, what fellowship could she have with
them?
We cannot so much wonder after all that mothers,
with daughters whom they are anxious to settle, should shudder at the
perils in which knowledge, or brightness of mind, or vigour of any sort
would surely involve the fair candidates for the crown of marriage."-
Saturday Review, August 24, 1867, p. 246, “ Gilded Youth."
"It is not merely by their great adaptiveness that women are better
linguists than men; it is by their more delicate organisation, their more
subdued identity, and their less obstreperous temperaments, which are,
consequently, less egotistical, less redolent of the one individual self.”—
Blackwood's Magazine, July, 1864.
"Professor Fairchild speaks from personal experience, and assures us
that ladies ask no indulgence and receive none. If an experience of twelve
years in a school of five hundred of both sexes affords ground for judgment,
the difficulty may be regarded as wholly ideal."-Miss S. J. Blake,
"A Visit to some American Schools and Colleges," 1867, p. 41, c. ii.
"Oberlin."
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
25
that the Lady Jane, who read her Phædo when the horn was
calling, had as pretty a mouse-face as you ever saw in a dream;
and I am sure that gentle girl was a better scholar than any
lad of seventeen is now in any school of England or Scotland.
And once upon a time, reader-a long, long while ago—I
knew a schoolmaster; and that schoolmaster had a wife. And
she was young, and fair, and learned; like that princess-pupil
of Old Ascham's; fair and learned as Sydney's sister, Pem-
broke's mother. And her voice was ever soft, gentle, and low,
reader: an excellent thing in woman. And her fingers were
quick at needlework, and nimble in all a housewife's cunning.
And she could draw sweet music from the ivory board; and
sweeter, stranger music from the dull life of her schoolmaster
husband. And she was slow of heart to understand mischief,
but her feet ran swift to do good. And she was simple with
the simplicity of girlhood, and wise with the wisdom that
cometh only of the Lord-cometh only to the children of the
kingdom. And her sweet, young life was as a morning hymn,
sung by child-voices to rich organ music. Time shall throw
his dart at Death, ere death has slain such another. For she
died, reader: a long, long while ago. And I stood once by
her grave; her green grave, not far from dear Dunedin. Died,
reader: for all she was so fair and young, and learned, and
simple, and good. And I am told it made a great difference
to that schoolmaster." (p. 122.)
"Harsh," says Shakspere," are the words of Mercury after
the songs of Apollo ;" and after the sweet music of this
touching passage, in which the writer tells his own sad story, I
have little heart to return to the dull strain of argument.
Let me remind you, however, of my former words, that we
must not only confer a truly liberal training on women (as on
men) of exceptional talent; we must also diffuse it widely
through the community. Education, if worthy to be so called,
is good for the strong, and good also for the weak. It
26
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
develops strength into harmony, and brings weakness into
sympathy and fellowship with strength. It makes each a
blessing to the other, and each a greater blessing to itself. A
question might, indeed, be raised whether the strong more
need training as a safeguard against distortion and excess; or
the weak as a bulwark against helpless self-abandonment to
casual impulses and impressions from without. But, assuredly,
we have not yet sufficiently recognised the importance, for the
sake of the more learned and intelligent themselves, of a
surrounding medium of wise appreciation. Every quite
solitary, or exceedingly rare, endowment or acquirement tends
to sterile self-conceit on the one hand, and jealous misappre-
hension on the other. In the present anomalous state of
woman's education, an exceptionally gifted or accomplished
woman, even if she is careful to hide her superiority, is in
great danger of alienation from her own sex, with no compen-
sating recognition from the other. She is apt to repay sneers.
and misrepresentation with scorn and reserve. Miss Cornwallis
says of a gentleman who disapproved her concealment of her
learning :-
"If he would for an instant change place, and fancy himself
a young lady living in a corner of the world where even any
common attainments are looked at with astonishment, would
it not savour something of ostentation to trumpet forth Latin,
Greek, and Hebrew in the ears of those who scarcely know
that such languages exist? When they are as commonly
learned as French and Italian, tell him I will never shrink
from acknowledgment that I am acquainted with them. Tell
him, too, that there are many of his own sex illiberal enough
to view a woman's progress in such studies with jealousy,
and from the ill-natured remarks of such, I wish to be
*See Appendix I.
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
27
exempted. A learned lady, as it is called, is so generally
scouted, that it is the last character I wish to assume.”-
E. W. J., p. 236.
A nature less genial would have been soured or seared by
the treatment which she had the wisdom to disregard, though
she could not fail to feel it.
It is, then, in brief, from a deeper, richer, wider, more
rational culture of the highest minds among women, and from
a general extension of such culture, so far as possible, to all
minds, that we may hopefully expect the future removal, on
one hand, of present female ignorance and weakness, and on
the other, of whatever may be exceptionally and offensively
prominent in those women whose naturally greater powers may
now, perhaps, rather sever them from their own sex, than raise
them above it.
I have said that there are two concurrent lines of our
inquiry; one regarding the nature of the being to be taught;
the other regarding the nature of the things or subjects to be
learned. The former we have sufficiently considered; on the
latter, though it must not wholly be passed over, I am forced
to be very brief.
We are happily fast outgrowing the time, which I can well
remember, when to each sex was marked out a definite class
of subjects, separated by a line not to be crossed by either.
On one side, Latin, Greek, mathematics; on the other, French
and Italian, or German, music, drawing, with needlework, plain.
and ornamental ;* on neither side much that is most valuable
* “The present distribution is, indeed, somewhat whimsical. Inasmuch
as young men go into offices where they have to conduct foreign correspon-
dence, and, as they travel about all over the world, they are taught the
dead languages. As woman's place is the domestic hearth, and as middle-
class women rarely see a foreigner, they are taught modern languages with
a special view to facility in speaking. As men are supposed to work with
their heads all day, and have nothing in the world to do when they are
28
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
in the training of mind, the formation of character, the guid-
ance of conduct. If girls learned any arithmetic, it was an
arithmetic of their own, undegraded by any possible applica-
tion to the low necessities of sublunary life. Geometry was
quite tabooed. That a girl should learn Latin, and much
more Greek, was thought as odd as that a boy should learn
either music or drawing.* An elderly Scotch gentleman, not
very long ago, on seeing a young man seated at the piano,
sarcastically inquired-"Can the cratur shoo?" (Can the
creature sew?) But in our day we observe an approach on
both sides to a similarity of system, far short as yet of what is
desirable, and sure, I think, to come, but still an approach.
In boys' schools, music, drawing, and the modern languages
are taking a place more or less befitting their importance; in
girls' schools Latin is not unknown; neither is geometry;
arithmetic is fast withdrawing its concessions to the supposed
numerical peculiarities of woman; while in schools for both,
with greater attention to history and geography, the physical
sciences, whether of observation or experiment, are making
way.
Much remains to be done in both and for both; much
ought to be taught in both that is now untaught in either.
The ever recurring difficulty as to time will again and again
indisposed for reading but to smoke or to go to sleep, they are taught
neither music nor drawing. As women have always the resource of needle-
work, they learn music and drawing besides. As women are not expected
to take part in political affairs, they are taught history. As men do, boys
learn mathematics instead. In physical science, astronomy and botany are
considered the ladies' department. Chemistry and mechanics, being the
branches most directly applicable to domestic uses, are reserved for boys."
"The Higher Education of Women," by Emily Davies, 1866, c. vi.,
p. 132-33. (See also Appendix J.)
* “Generally (in Germany before Rousseau) Latin and rod were nail and
hammer. For this reason Latin could be taught only to boys.”—C. S.
Parker, M.A., "Essays on a Liberal Education," 1867, p. 60, note.
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
29
revive the question of the comparative importance of the
subjects taught, and successive changes in time-tables will be
effected until a wise adjustment be attained.
Meantime, it is, I think, for those who resist the gradual
extension of girls' school-teaching, to point out any subjects
unsuitable for the study of girls as well as of boys, and vice
versa; apart of course from the purely professional training of
the one, and the purely domestic training of the other. A
glance at the list of subjects usually taught in even the best
schools may well raise a smile at the thought that the study of
any or all of them can do aught whatever to break down the
essential mental differences between the sexes, be they what
they may.*
But there is good reason why certain subjects, now too much
neglected by both boys and girls, are even more needful in the
school-teaching of the latter than of the former. In the actual
business of the world, boys find, as they grow older, a rough
but not quite inefficient test and corrective of previous educa-
tional shortcomings or mistakes; but a girl's ignorance or
confusion of mind has no such test, no such corrective ; her
errors and prejudices go on unchecked, perhaps increasing, to
her own and others' cost. In the middle and upper ranks,
women less than men come into contact with the affairs of
life, political, commercial, economic. They want this inci-
dental, indirect, but most important training. The more need
is there in their case, for such a training at school as shall give
* "I do not by any means intend to say that I desire to see the education
of all women made identical with that at present given to men. It must
first be proved that that education is, in truth, the best and most desirable
for the human being, before we can make it universal. But I do say, that
whatever is ultimately decided by the wisdom of ages to be the best possible
form of culture for one human nature, must be so for another, for one
common humanity lies deeper in all, and is more essential in each,
than any differences."-Miss. S. Fex Blake.
30
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
them an insight into the real working of the social world, the
conditions of economic and general well-being, and awaken in
them an intelligent sympathy with the spirit of their age and
country, an intelligent interest in the great movements which
are characteristic of both.*
*
The gentleman to whom we are
indebted for the discovery that the mind of woman differs
toto cœlo from that of man, was further of opinion that
economics are not suitable for girls to study, not, indeed,
because he thinks them suitable to boys, but because they are,
he says, equally unsuitable to both; the science having, he
adds, broken down, and fallen back on common-sense. It is
a saying of Archbishop Whately on this very subject, that no
sailor holds that navigation, no engineer holds that mechanics
ought to be reduced to common-sense; no one really acquainted
with the principles of any art or science is in any danger of
confounding them with common-sense. But, instead of argu-
* "The man is at least brought in contact with the interests of his kind in
the business of bread winning; but the wife of his bosom and the partner
of his dull joys is not reminded, even in this way, that she is a member
of a complex and active society, and that there is a momentous and
constant conflict of opinions and interests and ideas going on around her.
There is something grand in the sublime stupor, the death-like apathy, of
women of this stamp about everything that goes on outside their own
doors. The most exciting and important political discussion rages about
them, while they are lapped in the calmest unconsciousness. The most
interesting discovery in science may take place without even their having
heard so much as whether there be any science or not. To literature and
thought they maintain an attitude of positively stupendous indifference, as
well the cause as the effect of an even more stupendous ignorance.
To be utterly devoid of interest in great transactions or ideas is
to keep a house swept and garnished for the reception of as many unclean
spirits as choose to come in."-Saturday Review, 3rd March, 1866,
pp. 256-7. (O si sic omnia).
* Introd. Lectures on Polit. Econ., 1. 3, p. 56. Third ed., 1847.
"Whenever a man boasts much about common-sense, you may be pretty
sure that he has very little sense, either common or uncommon."-Buckle,
Fraser's Mag., April, 1858, p. 397.
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
31
ing, let me appeal to my own experience in this matter, and
quote a letter which I have received from the directress of a
young ladies' school, to whose pupils I had lately the great
pleasure of giving on this subject a course of twenty-five, not
lectures, but interrogative lessons on the Socratic model. I
cite only what refers to the subject rather than to the teacher.
"Your lessons on economics have, I am sure, been interesting
and useful to my girls. You yourself have remarked the fixed
attention with which they were listened to, and I can testify to
great interest expressed in them out of school hours, not
directly only, but also indirectly, in the discussion of questions
which the subject suggested. In these discussions the more
intelligent and thoughtful girls naturally took the lead, but the
less advanced often joined in them. They read with greater
pleasure now than formerly the social history of their country,
and are glad of information respecting the condition of all
classes at home and abroad. This widening of their sympathies
and sphere of thought is in itself a gain, women generally suffer-
ing both intellectually and morally from an opposite narrowness.
I pass over the great educational benefit which they have
derived from the method of instruction adopted-for the same
method applied to another subject would have had the same
educational results; but I must in passing just say, that this
subject seems to me peculiar in the readiness with which it
lends itself to such a mode of treatment: the facts to be
classified and accounted for are familiar; the principles,
announced can be compared with every one's common expe-
rience, observation, and information, and the mind is thus able
to enter at once on the consideration of matter already
accumulated and ready to hand. In this respect, the subject
has for certain educational purposes a manifest advantage over
those in which the labour of acquiring facts is added to that of
marshalling them. The direct practical effect of this course of
lessons will, I think, be best shown in a few extracts from
32
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
papers written by the girls themselves. I proposed that those
who thought themselves the better for what they had heard,
should say as simply and accurately as they could, in what way
or ways they had been benefitted. They all, or with one
exception, immediately assented, and every one who wrote
found something to say worth reading. I will arrange these
extracts in an order indicating the relative numbers of those
who expressed, in various words, the sentiments contained in
them. That which I find in the largest number of papers stands
first; that which I find in the fewest stands last. By this
means you will see which of the lessons sought to be impressed
were best remembered. Ist. I think I should not now be
inclined to look down on those who are obliged to earn their
own living'-(a lesson which this young lady and many
of her companions had great need to learn). 2nd. 'I see now
that waste can never be right, however rich we may be, because
it does harm to others; and before I heard the lessons, I
always thought that if we wasted what was our own, we were
the only losers.' 'I used to think that waste did not signify
much unless it became extravagance. I now see that both are
very wrong.' 'Nor shall I,' says another, 'when I have
destroyed anything of my own that can easily be replaced,
comfort myself with the idea that in so replacing it, I am
benefitting trade.' 3rd. 'I now understand why there is a
necessity for individual economy, why I myself should practise
economy as well as any one else.' 4th. 'I see how much
depends upon the character and conduct of individuals, and
how much that character and conduct affect those with whom
the individual is brought directly or indirectly in contact.'
5th. 'I see now how necessary good education is to all classes.
I used to think that if any one was not well educated, it did
6th. 'I have learnt
not much affect any one but himself.'
that man's spiritual welfare and temporal welfare are very
closely related, and that in forwarding the one we forward the
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
33
(
other.' 6a. I have learned the duty of using the knowledge
we possess for the benefit of our fellow creatures, and not
merely for our own amusement and pleasure.' 7th. 'We should
also meet our engagements and pay our debts punctually. It
is not quite honest if we do not, and then it is thoughtless to
keep shopkeepers and others waiting for their money. They
might suffer greatly in consequence of it.' 8th. I have learned
to see that neither wasteful expenditure nor inconsiderate alms-
giving is likely to do anything but harm.' A few more general
remarks are these: 'I seem to have learned to look at things
in a broader and less selfish way-to have more enlarged
views in general.' 'I can understand better many of the social
and political questions of the day, and enjoy hearing intelligent
conversation respecting them.' 'I think that there was less
gossip in the school, as we had in the lessons an interesting
subject for conversation and thought.' 'They have made me
wish to know more about things which, before hearing the
lessons, I took for granted.' Many of the girls speak of being
able to fix their attention better on any subject than they
could before following this course; of having learned to think
more clearly and methodically;' to 'look more deeply into
things, and not be satisfied with first appearances." "
Can any one reasonably doubt the peculiar fitness for girls.
of instruction which can produce results like these, or affirm
that it unfits them for their domestic duties?* Other considera-
tions I must omit.
* "A woman who can talk with sense and grace, taking a broad view of, at
all events able to follow a broad discussion of, the way in which a poor-law
must affect the poor as a class, can hardly be a less agreeable companion
than a woman who can only count the blankets she has given, and potter
about the pints of soup her housekeeper may send out to a few village
paupers in the course of the week. Or, if we turn to religious questions, a
woman who can enter into the different views taken by different nations in
different ages, of the immortality of the soul, is quite certain to be vastly
D
34
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
The knowledge of the bodily structure, in application to the
conditions of health, forms another subject in all respects
worthy of the attention and fitted for the comprehension of
girls, at least equally with boys; while, in its bearing on the
duties of mother or of nurse, it is to them of special value. On
this subject also I can speak with the confidence which personal
experience may fairly give.*
Leaving now individual subjects, let us fix our thoughts
once more on the vast utility, the urgent need, of liberal mental
culture for all women, whatever their destiny in life. All
women do not assume the conjugal and maternal relations ;†
more agreeable to any ordinary educated man than one who barely knows
the catechism of her own creed, whose tiny and stereotyped religion is a
diminished and superficial photograph of the particular preacher under whom
she sits, and who glares with cow-like eyes upon any sentiment which does
not exactly square with the accustomed routine of the intellectual cul de sac
in which her religious life is spent.-Spectator, 1st July, 1865, p. 725.
* “The Trustees regard the Department of Physical Training, if not as
first, intrinsically considered, yet as fundamental to all the rest. Good
health is, in the first place, essential to success in study; and, subsequently,
whatever attainments may have been made at school or college, if health
has been sacrificed to secure them, will be valueless as the means of a
useful or happy life. These considerations they believe to be peculiarly
pertinent in the education of women. It is settled, therefore, as a maxim
in the administration of the college, that the health of its students is not to
be sacrificed to any other object whatever; and that, to the utmost possible
extent, those whom it educates shall become physically well-developed,
vigorous, and graceful women, with enlightened views and wholesome
habits in regard to taking proper care of their own health and the health
of others under their charge."-" Prospectus of Vassar Female College,"
Poughkeepsie, N. Y., 1865-66; New York, J. A. Grey & Green, 1866, p. 35.
"I do not believe that women are to be educated to be wives and
mothers' in any sense in which it is not equally imperative to educate boys
to be husbands and fathers. I believe that each human being, developed
to his or her best and utmost, will most perfectly fulfil the duties that God
may appoint in each case, and, if teachers and parents have ever before
their eyes the aim of making good, true, and sensible women, I do not
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
35
many who do, do so only after the lapse of many years, during
which a mental occupation is less a blessing than a necessity.
"I believe," says Mr. George McDonald, "that many women
go into a consumption just from discontent, the righteous
discontent of a soul which is meant to sit at the Father's table,
and so cannot content itself with the husks that the swine eat."*
It is the simple fact that many women, capable of better
things, pine from an unsatisfied craving, conscious or uncon·
scious, after some serious interest, some sphere of useful work.
Young ladies are often harshly judged, being supposed to be
absorbed in what they really find it difficult to endure as a
tribute to the conventional requirements of their social station,
or, it may be, to the indifferentism, narrow-minded or low-
minded, of their own parents.† Compassion may be rightly felt
fear but they will also train the best wives and mothers."—"A Visit to
some American Schools and Colleges," by Sophia Jex Blake, c. viii., p.
240.
"Les hommes sont élevés pour une infinite de carrières diverses, plus ou
moins aventureuses, où ils poursuivront la gloire et la fortune. Les femmes
sont élevées en vue d'une destinée commune à toutes; plaire à leur mari,
diriger leur maison, soigner leurs enfants. "Le jeune homme doit se
préparer par des luttes continuelles à soutenir tous les combats, à affronter
tous les regards. La jeune fille doit lire tous les jours son devoir dans les
yeux de sa mère ou de son institutrice, afin d'apprendre à ne chercher plus
tard son bonheur que dans les regards de son époux. Voilà des verités
toutes simples." &c. This is the doctrine of M. Theod. H. Barrau, who
in 1856-7, gained the first prize of 3,500 francs for the best essay on the
subject "Le Rôle de la Famille dans l'Education," adjudged by the
"Academie des Sciences Morales et Politiques."—pp. 161-163. Comment
is happily needless. But still more strange is it that the essay, by no less a
man than M. Prevost Paradol, which gained the second prize, in all its
123 pages makes only the slightest and most casual reference to the special
influence of mothers in education, and has not a single line on the im-
portance or proper quality of education for girls!
* "Adela Cathcart."
+ See a very remarkable letter from "A Girl of the Period," in Mac-
millan's Magazine, February, 1869.
36
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
for the over-tasked seamstress whose ceaseless toil scarce earns
the barest living; but much may be claimed also for her more
prosperous sister, whether, in the absence of any worthy
pursuit, she find, or fail to find, rest for her soul in a round of
concerts, operas, picture-exhibitions, balls, flower-shows, and
dinner parties.*
And to those who, early or late, do become wives and
mothers, is the highest culture superfluous or unbecoming? It
is sometimes said that men are in danger of sinking the human
in the professional, the man in the lawyer, the merchant or the
engineer, and of so losing much of the elevating and expanding
influence of previous liberal culture; but woman does not
lose, she perfects her womanhood in the position of the wife,
the mother, the ruler of the household. In her the richest
culture readily and sweetly amalgamates with the domestic
*
•
•
"Garibaldi was thoroughly convinced that the surest means of raising
the character of the people was to confer on the women (the mothers of
He main-
the nation) the benefits of an enlightened education.
tained that the ladies who occupy themselves with such matters (as schools)
are gainers, for that much of the illness among women in the higher ranks
of life arises from the want of fixed habits of employment, and that nothing
is so likely to enlarge and strengthen the mind as the thought that is con-
"Gari-
stantly required to benefit others with success."-Col. Chambers.
baldi and Italian Unity," 1864, p. 164, c. vii.
How trenchant is the irony of the following passage :
"Les femmes même, ces gracieuses creatures dont la nonchalance est le
plus grand charme, sont transformées et defigurées par le régime odieux
qu'on nous impose. Les toilettes, les promenades au bois, les equipages,
l'opera, le turf, les jockeys, les petits scandales de la cour et de la ville, ces
mille riens qui font l'amusement d'une vie élégante, ne sont plus l'objet de
leurs amiables causeries; elles parlent religion, charité, écoles, politique,
ce sont des hommes. Si on les laisse faire, la plus belle moitié du genre
humain en sera bientôt la plus ennuyeuse et la plus triste. On ne voit pas
pourquoi on n'en ferait pas des électeurs; nous y viendrons. En attendant,
le luxe s'eteint, le goût s'altère, les arts deviennent serieux, c'est une
décadence universelle.”—“Le Prince Caniche," par Ed. Laboulaye; Paris,
5me Edn., 1868, p. 295, c. 23.
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
37
affections, ennobling, refining, deepening and directing them
all for good. How much of the suffering in wedded life is
caused, how much at least of its happiness is impaired, by the
want of common mental interests, of intellectual sympathy !*
The efforts now making, vague and irregular as they are,
though numerous, to improve the education of boys, render it
most desirable that that of girls should advance equally, or
more than equally, if, as is alleged, it now lags behind.
Increased disparity and consequent mental estrangement
between the sexes are evils not lightly to be viewed.†
* See Appendix K.
+ "The pride and arrogance which boys acquire from early ideas of
inherent superiority are greatly increased by the premature distinction that
is made between their pursuits and vocations, and those of girls. The
trifling accomplishments to which the girls are devoted, they despise as
irrational; while consciousness of the superior dignity of that species of
knowledge into which they are early initiated, augments their supercilious
disdain, and increases the distance that is placed between them. In men
of little minds this early-acquired contempt for the female character takes
deep and lasting root."—"The Elementary Principles of Education," by
Eliz. Hamilton, 3rd Edition, 1803, vol. 1, p. 257.
Seriously as a question of mere general improvement, we have no
doubt that to educate a given number of children, half of each sex, will
produce a far greater result in the next generation than to educate the same
number all boys."-Spectator, 18th Nov., 1865, p. 1273.
On 1st Nov., 1865, in my evidence before the Schools Inquiry Commis-
sioners, I said "If I were made to choose between the two sexes, I should
say it is more important that girls should be taught even than boys, for
this reason, that women are the early trainers of the young, and by the
maternal influence the future character is shaped, so that if we had the
future mothers of the nation well trained, there would be an impulse given
to the education of boys such as from no other quarter can be derived."
W. B. H.
But the comparative neglect of women's education is not confined to
Britain, to Europe, to Christendom: like causes everywhere produce like
effects.
"As is the case all the world over, the weakest go to the wall, and the
boys get the education denied to the girls. Whilst the daughters of good
38
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
The mother, not less than the wife, if possible even more,
needs to be sustained and guided by wise and noble thoughts.*
She must be the child's mother spiritually not less than
physically. Whether by subtle influences before birth, or by
influences scarcely less subtle after birth, or partly by both, and
chiefly, as Mr. Buckle thinks, by the latter, she gives to it those
dispositions and tendencies which later she, too, helps largely
to form into character. Is she likely, either way, to transmit
to it the capacities she has in herself neglected, the tastes she
has not fostered, the will she has frittered away and enfeebled
by compromise with such convictions as she may have? It is
1
Moorish and Arab families are considered sufficiently educated if they can
make preserves, and dye their eyes and fingers with henna, the sons go to
an excellent college, where they receive the advantages of enlightened and
liberal instruction."—Miss M. B. Edwards. "A Winter with the Swal-
lows," 1867, p. 235, c. xiv.
"Madame Luce began teaching her pupils (Moorish girls) to read and
write, and was succeeding admirably when the veto of the Government
was put upon such innovations. It seems that the Moors do not like their
wives and daughters to be more learned than themselves."-Id. ibid, p.
17, c. i.
* "Gretry dans son excellent essai sur la musique a dit sur l'amour
maternel: Le coeur d'une mère est le chef-d'œuvre de la nature. Ce mot
est aussi vrai qu' ingenieux. En voici un autre très touchant. Une
femme venait de perdre son fils; un prêtre, invoquant la religion pour la
résigner à son malheur, lui rappela le sacrifice d'Abraham: Ah! mon père,
s'ecria-t-elle, jamais Dieu ne l'eût exigé d'une mère."-Notes au Poeme,
"Le Merite des Femmes," par Legouvé, p. 77. [But mere feeling will not
suffice.]
"How many husbands, even of the educated sort, would like their wives
to be great readers? Wives ought to devote their time, it is said, not to
books, but to their children. That is to say, those who have to exercise
the deepest and most lasting influence upon the growing generation are
themselves to take the least possible pains to make that influence the fruit
of knowledge and enlightenment. But the heart, it is argued, teaches more
wisely than books. And the same sort of apology is made for everybody
who chooses to surrender himself to habits of mental slovenliness, provided
his visible conduct does not outrage the ordinary canons."-Saturday
Review, 9th June, 1866, p. 680, "Favourite Authors.”
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
39
a truism, not yet felt to be a truth—that is, its verbal utterance
plays upon the lips, without its spirit working in the heart—
that woman is the child's first and chief educator, the plastic
moulder of its mental nature, and the genial inspirer of its
moral life. The early educator needs to be herself not merely
anxious to do her best, but so guided and enlightened as to be
able to do it, with a clear eye to the great end, bearing cheer-
fully with each little detail for the sake of the grand whole to
which it contributes. As Mr. Buckle eloquently says:
"The habits of thought peculiar to one sex act upon and
improve the habits of thought peculiar to the other sex. Uncon-
sciously, and from a very early period, there is established an
intimate and endearing connexion between the deductive mind
of the mother and the inductive mind of the son. The
understanding of the boy, softened and yet elevated by the
imagination of his mother, is saved from that degeneracy to
which the mere understanding always inclines; and the different
properties and functions of the mind are more harmoniously
developed than would otherwise be practicable. Thus it
is that, by the mere play of the affections, the finished
man is ripened and completed. Thus it is that the most
touching and most sacred form of human love, the purest,
the highest, and the holiest compact of which our human
nature is capable, becomes an engine for the advancement of
knowledge and the discovery of truth. In after life other
relations often arise by which the same process is continued.
And notwithstanding a few exceptions, we do undoubtedly find
that the most truly eminent men have had not only their
affections, but also their intellect, greatly influenced by
women."
"Therefore it is that those who are most
anxious that the boundaries of knowledge should be enlarged,
ought to be most eager that the influence of women should be
increased, in order that every resource of the human mind may
be at once and quickly brought into play."-Frasers Mag.,
April, 1858, p. 405.
40
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
From these glowing words one turns sadly to the reality we
Miss Cornwallis, for example, thus writes of one of
often find.
her friends—
“Mrs. R. H. is a very untaught creature, but has a fund of
good sense and feeling at bottom that make her a great
favourite with me. If she had had more advantages she was
capable of much; as it is, I dare say she will grow into a
thoroughly anxious mamma, and weary people with histories of
her baby, as I have known many a one do, who had by nature
talent to have ministered to the mental as well as bodily wants
of her offspring. I never view such characters without regret,
because I can never divest my mind of some thoughts as to the
high destinies of that helpless thing that is wailing in its nurse's
arms. It is the mother who must give the first impulse to that
mind which may hereafter lead hundreds to happiness or
misery; and that mother, after choosing with fond anxiety the
flannel in which the limbs are to be wrapped, leaves the far
more important half of the future man to the care of hirelings,
or to no care at all. I firmly believe that the human mind is
capable of much more than we commonly see effected.
The cui bono? is a bar to every improvement, for who can tell
in first taking up a study to what use it may hereafter be put?
The trite saying that 'knowledge is power,' might, however, be
a sufficient reason, since that power may always be employed
in doing good.-E. W. J., p. 242.
After all, with or without wifehood or motherhood, woman
has, like man, an individual nature deserving and requiring,
for its own sake, as well as for that of society, the fullest
possible training of its several powers. If, like the Turks, we
denied to women the possession of souls;* if, with Milton, we
could say of man and woman-" He for God only, she for God
* See Appendix L.
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
41
in him;" if we believed, as Mrs. Schimmelpenninck humour-
ously puts it, that "man is a noun substantive, and woman an
adjective to agree with him," I could partly understand why
limits should be placed on the teaching of women, though,
were the doctrine true, they would scarcely be required. But,
throwing freely open to women, as we now do, the subject
commonly ranked as the highest and widest of all, we are
strangely inconsistent if we cavil at her right to share in any
of that knowledge which is ceasing more and more to be the
distinctive heritage of any race or rank of men. Finally, let
us remember that this is not a question of right or of power
only; but of need and of duty also. What woman has the
power and the need to learn, that she has the right to learn;
but what it is her right and her need to learn it is the duty of
all of us that she should be taught.*
Having said so much on the general and preliminary ques-
tion, I need say very little on the more limited and prac-
tical portion of my programme. You need not share my
high ideal, my Utopian notion, if you will, of woman's educa-
tion, in order to believe that it needs improvement.
It needs
to be made at once wider and more accurate and solid. As a
ready means of effecting this twofold end, it has been thought
desirable that the pupils in girls' schools should be permitted
and invited to take part in the periodical local examinations,
instituted some years ago by the Universities of Oxford and
Cambridge for the pupils in boys' schools. The case is
admirably stated in the circular issued some time ago by the
Committee :-
* "Les droits des femmes à la culture intellectuelle, ce ne sont pas
seulement des droits, ce sont en même temps des devoirs. Voilà ce qui
les rend inalienables. Si ce n'étaient que des droits, les femmes pourraient
les sacrifier; mais ce sont des devoirs. Le sacrifice n'est pas possible,
ou ce serait la ruine. 'Femmes Savantes et Femmes Studieuses," par
l'Evêque d'Orleans, 1868, iv., p. 17.
42
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
"The Committee formed in furtherance of this object desire
to supply the want which they have reason to believe is widely
felt, of some publicly recognised examination for girls. It has
been found that the more painstaking teachers feel at a loss
for some definite aim and standard to guide them in their
work, while at the same time they would be glad to be able to
offer some evidence to the public that their exertions have not
been unsuccessful.
"The Committee are of opinion that the University Local
Examinations are especially adapted to meet this deficiency,
as testing thoroughness in the elementary branches of educa-
tion, which in girls' schools are often neglected, and as giving
so wide a range in the optional subjects as to make it quite
possible for a well-instructed girl to obtain a certificate, without
in any way overstepping the usual boundaries of female educa-
tion. A collateral advantage which might be expected to
result from these examinations would be that of calling
attention to the state of upper and middle-class female educa-
tion, a subject as yet less known and less considered than its
great importance would seem to demand.
"The Committee are fully alive to the danger of over-
working young persons of either sex. It appears, however,
that in almost all girls' schools a yearly or half-yearly examina-
tion takes place, and it is believed that an improvement in the
character of the examination would not materially increase the
stimulus, though it would greatly add to the value of the results.
It is obvious that an external test, applied without distinction
to all who choose to avail themselves of it, is a more certain
means of ascertaining the comparative efficiency of various
educational establishments, than private examinations of indi-
vidual schools can be, however carefully conducted. It should
also be remembered that in the present state of female educa-
tion, certificates for which girls only compete with each other,
carry very little weight. No one knows how much scholarship
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
43
they represent, or how far the standard may have been lowered
to meet the incompetency of the candidates.
"While urging these considerations, the Committee are not
unmindful of the paramount importance of guarding against
anything like undue publicity. Recent experience has satisfied
them that the admission of girls to the Local Examinations
can be so provided for as to avoid any risks of this sort. No
scheme of public or mixed instruction is proposed. The
attendance at the examination would take place only once in
the year-probably for most of the individual candidates only
once in their lives-and the sanction of their parents would
always be indispensable. The practical possibility of working
the scheme is no longer a matter of conjecture. By the kind
permission of the Cambridge Syndicate, a private examination
of an experimental character was held in London in connection
with the Cambridge Local Examinations for 1863. The Com-
mittee were allowed to make use of the papers prepared by
the University Examiners, who consented to look over and
report upon the answers. The examination of the girls was
held simultaneously with that of the boys, and the University
Regulations were strictly observed. Eighty-three girls, chiefly
the daughters of professional men, underwent examination.
The names were sent in at a fortnight's notice, six weeks only
being allowed for preparation. That so large a number of
candidates should have been presented, on so short a notice,
is in itself a sufficient indication that the advantages of such
an examination are understood and appreciated. In every
point of view, the experiment was completely successful, and
a strong desire was expressed by both teachers and students
that it might be the first step towards the establishment of a
regular and permanent system."
A more detailed Report has since been issued, in which
shortcomings are not extenuated, or successes magnified. While
it is more satisfactory than could well have been expected, the
44
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
fact that is so much less so than could be wished is, as Mr.
Maurice has well said, the best proof that such an examination
was required.* An address signed by more than eight hundred
teachers, is about to be presented to the authorities of the
University, praying for the definitive institution of such ex-
aminations.
It is not at all surprising or discouraging that arithmetic wast
found to be a weak point. But let those who insist on this
deficiency consult the recent Report of the Public School
Commissioners, and see what is the general state of arith-
metical knowledge in those schools. Let them note this
further melancholy fact that, "of two thousand three hundred
and thirty-four young gentlemen rejected by the Civil Service
Commissioners since 1856, all but one hundred and eighty-
three failed in orthography, handwriting, or arithmetic." On
this the Times remarks :—
"It is nothing less than disgraceful for gentlemen's sons, at
the age of eighteen or twenty, to be ignorant of that in which
thousands of charity school children are proficient."-April
28, 1864.t
It needs only that arithmetic should be recognised as an
indispensable part of a girl's schooling, to ensure its being
universally and efficiently taught. The time so occupied may,
perhaps, be well spared from more showy, but less useful
acquirements.
*See Appendix M.
"Sir John Shaw Lefevre, in 1861, speaking of the Civil Service
examinations for appointments, said: 'I may mention the miserable
failures in orthography, the miserable writing, the ignorance of both the
elementary theory and practice of arithmetic. It is comparatively rare to
find a candidate who can add correctly a moderately long column of
figures, and many do not understand common notation so as to write down
in figures a number described in words."—Memorial to Lord Palmerston
from Council of National Association for Promotion of Social Science,
Times, June 20, 1864.
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
45
What I have now said of boys' ignorance of arithmetic might
In fact, whatever may
.*
be extended to many other subjects.
be the amount of shortcoming in average schools for girls, I,
for one, do not believe that any inquiry would reveal a more
lamentable failure than the Commissioners have disclosed in
the great public schools ;* and on the other hand, I know
more than one institution for girls, the course and spirit of
teaching in which are such as I should find it very difficult to
parallel among institutions for boys of similar rank. To speak
frankly, and it is for myself solely that I speak here, represent-
ing no committee, or other persons, I believe that girls'
schools might very easily be made to surpass boys' schools
in all the essentials of a general education.† Of the reasons
why it is at once easier, more agreeable, and more satisfactory,
as a rule, to teach girls than boys, I have already spoken. But
schools for girls are free from the heavy incubus of an
antiquated routine, whereby boys are forced to spend the
greater part of ten or twelve of their best years in the vain
pretence of learning Latin and Greek; of neither of which
two languages, after all this expenditure of time, do nineteen-
* See Appendix N.
"It is remarkable that Dr. Parr, classical scholar and teacher as he was,
should write thus of women's education so long ago as 1786. He says: I
am not assuming the language of affected singularity or paradoxical theory,
when I say that in the present condition of society, females" (ie., women)
"from accident rather than system, have upon the whole, the advantage
over us in point of education. We read critically the ancient writers—we
diligently investigate natural causes-(?) we wind through the mazes of
logic and endeavour to fathom the depths of metaphysics, yet I have reason
to fear that the instructions given to young men have not always so direct
and full a tendency as might be wished to qualify them for active life, or
to promote those ends to which all the exercise we assign to the under-
standing in the sciences, and all the polish we can give it from literature
should be ultimately subservient."-" Discourse on Education," &c., part
II, p. 61.
46
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
twentieths of them, at the end of their school life, know
anything beyond a smattering, inaccurate as well as superficial;
while for their sake have been neglected, more or less entirely,
many other subjects easier for boys to learn, more important
for them to know, more useful even as educational agencies in
the process of learning. I am no enemy to Latin and Greek;
I should much wish to see one, if not both, taught in the
highest classes of girls' schools;* and I think it would be easy
in the course of two years, with two, or at most three lessons
per week, to submit to examination a class of average girls,
vastly superior in attainments to the great mass of lads who
now present themselves at the universities for matriculation,
after the usual long curriculum of a public school.+ The report
of the Commissioners reveals an amount and a generality of
ignorance even of "classics" which would be incredible did not
one remember that the study of them is begun at a period of
life when they can create no feelings but weariness and disgust ;
feelings which are ever increased by the amount of time con-
sumed by obsolete and stupifying methods of instruction; and
by the want of variety in the subjects taught. The problem
indeed would almost seem to have been solved how to render
tedious, irksome, and inefficient, studies which ought to be
equally pleasant and beneficial, if deferred to the age at which
the youthful intellect, trained in other studies more congenial to
childhood, might grapple with them vigorously, healthfully, suc-
cessfully. The saving of time thus happily effected in girls'
schools, is not balanced by the attention to needlework, and the
*"As for my poor child Romola, it is as I always said; the cramming with
Latin and Greek has left her as much a woman as if she had done nothing
all day but prick her fingers with the needle."-Romola, 1863, vol. 2, p. 306.
+ See Appendix O.
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
47
greater attention to music. The latter might, in most cases,
probably, with advantage be curtailed; the former I would not
wish to be less attended to than now, provided always the useful
prevail over the merely ornamental. Skill with the needle is,
I consider, a really valuable acquisition, though it may fairly
be doubted whether some of the time occupied by it in after
life might not be more profitably spent. The sewing-machine
is perhaps destined to relieve the amateur as well as the
professional needle-worker; and, it may be, to supersede even
those synagogues of goody gossip-Societies called "Dorcas."
You will now perceive that I advocate improvement in girls'
schools-1st. much less because they may be now inferior
generally to boys' schools, a fact of which I am by no means.
convinced-than because they are much inferior to what they
themselves ought to be, and easily might become ;* and 2nd,
because I anticipate from such improvement, a change for the
better in boys' schools, much more rapid and extensive than
is likely to be effected by other means. The subjection of
both to the same standard of examination would, I am quite
convinced, ere very long, turn the scale to the side opposite to
that on which it is now imagined to incline, and enforce,
through shame, if from no higher motive, changes for which
we now cry out in vain. In any case, it cannot be doubted
that every improvement in girls' schools must strongly, if
*"Rien n'est plus négligé que l'éducation des filles. On suppose qu'on
doit donner à ce sexe peu d'instruction. L'éducation des garçons passe
pour une des principales affaires par rapport au bien public; et quoiqu'on
n'y fasse guère moins de fautes que dans celle des filles, du moins on est
persuadé, qu'il faut beaucoup de lumières pour y réussir. Pour les filles,
dit-on, il ne faut pas qu'elles soient savantes, la curiositié les rend vaines et
precieuses; il suffit qu'elles sachent gouverner un jour leurs ménages, et
obéir à leurs maris sans raisonner.”—Fenelon, "De l'Education des
Filles," c. I.
48
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
indirectly, stimulate progress in boys' schools.
Progress,
ceasing to be one-sided, will thus become more extensively
and wholly beneficial, fostering harmony and sympathy, not
mutual misunderstanding and estrangement.*
"Thus will education," in the words of Fox, "advance the
time through all appropriate legal and social changes, when
mutually adapted qualities shall act and react for the highest
production of mutual good. There seems to lurk a latent
promise in the mournful conclusion of the work of our great
poet. After that first and fatal disobedience which constitutes
the burden of his epic song, when recrimination had exhausted
itself, when terror and repentance had subsided, the exiles
* "If women could only take a high tone in morals and conduct, men
would become better in consequence; if women demand high thoughts and
noble deeds, men will fulfil them. No man, no cause, ever obtained great-
ness unless there was a woman to keep up a man's faith in himself, and his
own principles when they have become dim and unreal in the struggle of
material interests, and he is weary and faint in his mind-ready to doubt
himself and all the world around."-Athenæum, 20th July, 1867, p. 74.
“In particular, the absurd difference between the male and female codes
of honour must be done away with. The lie which would disgrace the
man must not be treated as venial in the woman. The unchastity which is
the woman's irretrievable dishonour, must not be without shame for the
partner of her sin. The cowardice which would bring ignominy to the man,
must not be taught to the woman as the proper ornament of her sex.
Antisthenes insisted on the identity of nature between male and female
virtue. (See Diog. Laert. Ant.) The virtue of courage is given its high
place because without it we can have no security for any other virtue. How
does this hold less of a woman than a man?"-Miss Cobbe. "Essay on
Intuitive Morals," 1855, p. 172.
"Aristotle said with respect to the licentiousness of the Spartan women
occasioned by their familiarity with the nude contests of men, that no
people could be truly great of which the one-half was corrupt "—West-
minster Review, April, 1865.
"To brothers, sisters are antiseptics."-Julius Hare. Quoted by
Chas. Knight: "Passages of a Working Life," vol. 3, p. 268, 1865.
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
49
from Paradise, partners in sin and suffering, stood outside the
portals now barred against them, and
'The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide,
They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way'-
in that symbolic grasp retaining an emblem of the love which
should presage redemption, and eventually lead humanity
onwards to a paradise far richer and more enduring than that
which, as we read, was in the beginning planted for its posses-
sion."-Nat. Educa., 1. 4, p. 60.*
E
* See Appendix P.
APPENDIX.
•
A., p. 6.
"Une autre grande science-c'est ce que je nommerai la science des
moments perdus.
Quand on sait mettre à profit les moindres par-
celles du temps, on arrive à faire des prodiges. Le chancelier D'Aguesseau
disait: "Voici les volumes que j'ai composés pendant les cinq minutes dont
tous les jours, depuis vingt ans, Madame d'Aguesseau est en retard pour
le dîner."- "Femmes Savantes et Femmes Studieuses," par l'Evêque
d'Orleans, 1868, pp. 76, 77.
[I am greatly tempted to extract many other passages from this most
eloquent treatise, but I observe that Messrs. Virtue announce a translation
of it, by R. M. Phillimore, under the title, "Studious Women," price 4s.]
B., p. 7.
"The whole discussion of comparative claims, and powers, and rights,
may well be dismissed as philosophically unsound, and practically vain and
unwise. The different qualities of the two sexes do not stand in antagonism,
but the one nature is the complement of the other; improvement in the
one is not a conquest over the other, but rather reflects good upon it, and
blends with the higher qualities it has tended to foster. So far as it is true
that 'Nature is a stepmother to women,' it is of her that we must complain,
or to her that we submit; but whatever improvement her unalterable laws
do not prohibit we shall attain, not by angry clamour or proud contention,
but by proving our own capacity; by rendering ourselves fit for higher
social and domestic influence; by entering into the true spirit of that moral
and intellectual vocation through whose power the very forms of thought,
and feeling, and action in another generation wait in great measure to be
moulded by the hands of women."-"Intellectual Education," by Emily
Shirreff, 1858, c. viii., p. 424.
"The human creature, whether man or woman, a peasant or a prince, is
born with the germ of certain faculties, capable in some degree of moral
feeling, of responsibility, of forethought, of reason, of judgment, and it is
the business of education to train those faculties for use. We know no
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
5 I
other way of doing this than by exercising them in the guidance of conduct
and the acquisition of knowledge, thus facilitating their action by the power
of habit. It is a wholly separate-I might almost say an irrelevant-
question, how far the knowledge acquired in the course of educational
study will be available hereafter.”—Ibid, c. i., p. 7–8.
[I much regret that not till very recently have I become acquainted with
this most admirable book by Miss Shirreff, and with its not less worthy
precursor, "Thoughts on Self-Culture, addressed to Women," by Maria
G. Grey, and her sister, Emily Shirreff (3rd edition, London, 1844). I
know few, if any, books that can be more profitably consulted on the
subject of general education for either sex. There is in both works a happy
blending of earnestness and sound sense; of zeal tempered but not chilled
by experience, and of knowledge informed by high principles and genuine
benevolence. Had they been less valuable they would probably have been
more widely known.]
C., p. 9.
The following are samples of the sort of contrast referred to in the
text:
"Nature is woman's teacher, and she learns more sense than man, the
pedant, gleans from books."-Kavera, the “Mrich Chakati” (150 years
before Christ), quoted by Capt. M. Taylor, Afternoon Lectures, Dublin,
1864, p. 145, "The Native Literature of India."
"To women, whose best books are human hearts,
Wise Heaven a genius less profound imparts;
His awful-hers is lovely; his should tell
How thunderbolts, and hers how roses fell.
Her rapid mind decides while his debates;
She feels a truth that he but calculates.
He provident, averts approaching ill;
She catches present good with ready skill.
That active perseverance his which gains,
And hers that passive patience which sustains."
Eliz. Barrett Browning.
"Man is strong, woman is beautiful; man is daring and confident,
woman is diffident and unassuming. Man is great in action, woman in
suffering. Man shines abroad, woman at home. Man talks to convince,
woman to persuade and please. Man has a rugged heart, woman a soft and
tender one. Man prevents misery, woman relieves it.
Man has judgment, woman sensibility.
justice, woman of mercy."-" Smart Sayings, &c.," 1866, p. 122. (Name
of author not given.)
woman taste.
Man has science,
Man is a being of
52
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
"Will man den ganzen Menschen studiren, so darf man nur auf das
weibliche Geschlecht seine Augen richten: denn wo die kraft schwächer
ist, da ist das Werkzeug um so künstlicher. Daher hat die Natur in das
weibliche Geschlecht eine natürliche Anlage zur kunst gelegt. Der
Mann ist geschaffen, über die Natur zu gebieten, das Weib aber, den
Mann zu regieren. Zum Ersten gehört viel Kraft, zum Andern viel
Geschicklichkeit."—Immanuel Kant.
D., p. II.
"Those who maintain it (the inherent mental deficiency of women)
would probably instance mathematics as a study more especially adapted to
the male mind, and yet it is one in respect to which, perhaps more than
to any other, I have, in America, heard the proficiency of female students
commended."
"I may mention, incidentally, that one of the most talented actuaries in
the United States is a woman, and that only two members of the profession
there receive higher salaries than she does.”—“A Visit to some American
Schools and Colleges," by Sophia Fex Blake, p. 238.
"Mr. R. B. Litchfield, one of the examiners, said he wished to express
his conviction that the study of mathematics was an excellent instrument of
logical training for women, and, to show it was not unsuited to the cast of
the female mind, he begged to assure those whom he had the pleasure of
addressing, that he had never seen better papers than those of the success-
ful candidates for certificates of competency in that branch of education.
He added that though some of the evils attending examinations would
always remain, he was of opinion that many of those now existing would
disappear if the examinations were not competitive."—" Report of Third
Session of Working Women's College," London.-Times, Oct. 22, 1866.
"The result of this year's examination will not be known till February;
but, judging from last year's report, the advocates of the intellectual
equality of the sexes are well supported by the girls answering; for not
only do they acquit themselves in their favourite studies as well as the boys
do, but they shine equally in such studies as Mathematics. The examiner
in Euclid for last year informed us that it was quite a treat to read the
girls' Euclid papers, they were so neat and precise; and he also stated a
very notable fact, that, whereas boys as a rule never seem to distinguish
between the essential steps of a proof and the mere formal ones, but as
often omit the one as the other, the girls without an exception never omit
a vital step in their proof, but always exhibit a thorough appreciation of
Euclid's method. To estimate rightly the value of this testimony, the
reader must bear in mind that this gentleman examined all the Euclid
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
53
papers, both of boys and girls, throughout England, and could therefore
accurately compare the relative value of the answering."-The Athenæum,
No. 2,097, page 19, January 4, 1868.
An eminent scholar and teacher, of foreign birth, but long resident and
well-known in England (Dr. Kinkel), writes to me as follows :—
"Although by natural disposition a teacher, and by former choice, in
my own country, a teacher of boys and young men, I have, since my exile
in England, totally abandoned tuition in boys' schools, for I found the boys
so dull, so unwilling to learn, so blunted by memory-work, so disinclined
to the logical exertion of 'making sense,' and in fact so totally indifferent
to anything beyond what an ancient rhetor would have called 'nuga,' that
I turned entirely to the teaching of girls, where no systematic destruction
of the mental and moral faculties had been committed." This opinion he
proceeds to justify by appeal to facts within his own experience.
Another gentleman, who has had some practice in teaching arithmetic
and geometry to girls, and whose high standing as a thinker gives weight
to his words, thus writes:
"I do not think there is any difference in the capacity of girls and boys,
but a good deal in the previous amount of training. Girls come to me
without any sort of trained power of application and concentrativeness;
and even then I find them no worse than many specimens I have had in
former days of lads in a similar position. I think girls get on rather more
slowly, on the average, at present, on account of greater deficiency in early
teaching, but when they come from a really good school, there is nothing
to choose at all, except that marked mathematical genius, or decided
incapacity for mathematics, is perhaps much rarer with girls; but of this,
one has had as yet too little experience to judge fairly."
In a more recent letter he says :-"You are quite at liberty to quote my
impressions on the subject of girls' mathematical capacity. I am sure their
average capacity is as good as that of boys, and my own impression is that
the numbers at both ends of the scale-marked incapacity and marked
genius for the study-will be found to be smaller. It would require a
much larger experience than mine, however, to say this with great con-
fidence. I need not say the training is much less adequate, and that
consequently, girls (however clever) are much more backward at present
than lads of the same age.”—See Contemporary Review, March, 1869,
pp. 386-404.
E., p. 12.
"Women are seldom taught to think. A prodigious majority never
acquire the power of reasoning themselves, or of comprehending the force
of arguments advanced by others. Hence their prejudices are quite invin-
cible, their narrowness and bigotry almost inconceivable, and, amidst a
5+
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
crowd of elegant acquirements, their thoughts are frivolous and their senti-
ments grovelling. Exceedingly few have any patriotism, any sympathy with
public virtue. Private feelings, private interests engross them. They are
even more insensible than you charge our public men with being, of the
greatness of the times in which we live."-Lucy Aikin's Letters, No. 18,
to Rev. Dr. Channing, 1832, Memoir, &c., p. 258, 1864.
"Women are by no means wanting in ready talent: their perception is
very quick; and they are dexterous in applying the knowledge they possess.
Thus they sometimes seem to make a rapid progress, and even to outstrip
minds of greater vigour. But, on this account, intellectual discipline is in
their case the more essential; that it may teach them how really to improve
their faculty of acquirement, and that it may check an exuberance which
is generally disappointing because it is precocious. It is to superficial
attainments that we may trace most of the mistakes which persons fall into
with respect to literature."—Mrs. Jn. Sandford. "Woman in her Social
and Domestic Character," 4th edi., 1834, p. 27, c. iii. The most timid
may be reassured by the following passage from p. 15 of this work: "In
everything that women attempt they should show their consciousness of
dependence" (i e., on men).
"He did not dread the importing of anything like a masculine character
into the female mind, by the labour necessary to obtain sound and well
constituted knowledge; on the contrary, there was no fear whatever of
interfering with the feminine characteristics. It was a great advantage to
husbands, brothers, and sons, that women, to the peculiar qualities which
distinguish female character, should add the advantages of a sound and
well conducted understanding. And he confessed that he should be
extremely glad to find that the ladies did not neglect the study of Latin.
He believed it to be a great help and assistance in promoting accuracy of
thought and expression, and that anything which induced in the female
mind sound thought and accurate expression would be very advantageous
to their intellectual character."-
""The Earl of Harrowby: Speech at
Birmingham."-Times, Jan. 18, 1867.
"As far as I have had opportunity of judging, it appears to me that the
usual style of letter writing among women is faultless, except in three
particulars." “And what are they?” "A general deficiency of subject,
a total inattention to stops, and a very frequent ignorance of grammar.”.
Miss Austen. “Northanger Abbey,” vol. 1, c. iii., p. 14. 1848.
I,
"It is peculiarly desirable for women to exercise themselves in works of
reasoning; without this discipline, prejudice, and sentiment, and fancy take
such possession of them, that logic is turned quite out of doors, and then
the men go and say the sex have no heads, which makes one mad."-Lucy
Aikin to her Niece, 1819, Memoir, &c., 1864, p. 123.
"The clergy seize the female soul by both its strong and its weak sides,
its spirituality, its thirst after perfection, its docility, its hopes, its fears, its
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
55
melancholy, its lively and often ill regulated imagination, and its general
averseness to, or incapacity for close reasoning. And this last defect little is
done by modern systems of culture to correct. I see numbers of men,
and a still greater proportion of women, full of acquirement and ac-
complishment, but mere children in reason—absolutely destitute of the
first elements of philosophy, and willing to give up their souls to the
guidance of the first who will take the charge."—Lucy Aikin's Letter, 38,
to Dr. Channing, 1838, Memoir, &c., p. 370, 1864.
"By accustoming the mind to strict reasoning, and minute observation as
to matters of fact, the judgment is strengthened and rendered more acute and
distinct in its application to common affairs. Unhealthy sensibilities are
destroyed, and the imagination is refined and exalted. It has been too
much the custom to endeavour to attach ridicule to the literary and scientific
acquisitions of women. Let them make it disgraceful for men to be
ignorant, and ignorance will perish; and that part of their empire founded
upon mental improvement will be strengthened and exalted by time, will
be untouched by age, will be immortal in its youth."-Sir Humphrey Davy,
Lectures, 1810 and 1811.
•
•
•
"Lorsqu'une instruction solide aurait mis les femmes en état de soigner
l'education des enfants au delà des premières années, elles développeraient
l'intelligence mieux qu'on le fait actuellement puisque avec le sentiment
elles ranimeraient la vie morale. Et tandis que l'enseignement des faits ne
forme que des spécialitiés diverses, qu'on élève des avocats, des calcula-
teurs, des artistes, elles s'attacheraient à cultiver dans tous l'être interieur,
la créature divine." "Education Progressive," par Mad. Necker de
Saussure, 1847, tome ii., p. 246.
""
"What I would demand of a mother is only-A THINKING LOVE.
Pestalozzi. Letters to J. P. Greaves, Esq., 1827. Letter ii., p. 5.,
London, 1850.
"This is the simple question-Whether a woman, who is ignorant and
uninformed, will be more pleasing in her manners, be better qualified to
instruct her children, and manage the affairs of a family, than one who is
sensible and intelligent."-7. Burton. Lectures on Female Education,
&c., Rochester, 1793, vol. I., L. viii., p. 109.
F., p. 17.
Man's superiority even in bodily strength does not seem to be beyond
question, though I have spoken of it as undeniable."
"A traveller, recently returned from Africa, spoke at the first annual
meeting of the Female Medical Society this summer a short speech, of
which the following is the substance. (We do not venture to say more
than that his remarkable testimony deserves a careful hearing, and dictates
56
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
further inquiry.) He said :-'I am a medical man. I have spent several
years in Africa, and have seen human nature among tribes whose habits are
utterly unlike those of Europe. I had been accustomed to believe that the
muscular system of women is necessarily feebler than that of men, and
perhaps I might have dogmatised to that effect, but to my astonishment
I found the African women to be as strong as our men. Not only did I
see the proof of it in their work, and in the weights which they lifted, but
on examining their arms I found them large and hard beyond all my previous
experience. On the contrary, I saw the men of those tribes to be weak ;
their muscles small and flabby. Both facts are accounted for by the habits
of the people. The men there are lazy in the extreme: all the hard work
is done by the women.' If we remember, he added, 'even the fighting
and the running,' with some allusions to the celebrated Amazon guards of
African potentates. He continued: This experience has further led me
to consider whether the mental inferiority which we ascribe to our women
may not be due wholly to the habits of our nation, which do not allow to
women the same mental exercise as to men.""-The Westminster Review,
October, 1865, p. 355.
"Here on the Lago Maggiore, where I live, suppose a load of chopped
wood weighing half a hundredweight, and a few chickens have to be
brought from the village half-way up the mountain to the market on the
shore, the work of the family is distributed thus-the wife takes up the
heavy load of wood, and the husband the poultry. It is curious to hear
the peasants when they try to lift a weight and find it too heavy, drop it,
saying, 'It is a woman's work.' In mountainous countries this is the
general custom."-" Recollections of Massimo d' Azeglio," by Count
Maffei.
"The royal mail steamer "Tanner" was coaled here (Kingston) the other
day, and 260 tons were put on board, 47 people were employed as day
labourers, of whom 13 were women, and in three-quarters of a day they
earned Is. 6d. each, no difference being made in the payment of either sex.
At task work 99 persons were employed, and of these 84 were women.
The coal is carried on the head, in baskets, from the heap upon the wharf
to the steamer, and in this instance the price paid, which varies according
to the distance traversed, was 3d. per dozen baskets. The largest number
of baskets carried during the three-quarters of a day was 166, the next
highest was 161, and in both instances the carriers were women. The
average earnings of each person were about Is. 9d. After night the pay is
doubled.”—Times, Feb. 9, 1866. "Special Correspondent in Jamaica,"
Jan. 15.
"Les femmes Sphakiotes ne le cèdent en rien aux hommes pour la
vigueur et l'énergie. J'ai vu un jour une femme ayant un enfant dans les
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
57
bras et un sac de farine sur la tête, gravir, malgré ce double fardeau, la
pente escarpeé qui conduit à Selia."-"Histoire de l'Insurrection Crétoise,"
par Jules Ballot. Paris, 1868, p. 251.
Few, if any, Abyssinian women can sew; and, even if they could, it
would be deemed highly unbecoming in them to ply the needle in public.
Sewing and laundry work are left to the males; spinning, and carrying
"Rassam's
wood and water, are tasks apportioned to the weaker sex."-
British Mission to Abyssinia."
G., p. 18.
Of the noble-hearted General Oglethorpe his biographer remarks, “it
would appear that he had imbibed some of his sentiments from the
old romances.' Mrs. Hannah More, in a letter to Mr. Pepys, 17th July,
1784, says, "if I do not soon reform, I shall become a convert to the
entreaties of my gay and gallant friend General Oglethorpe, who has long
been trying to proselyte me to the old romance, gravely lamenting that the
only fault I have is refusing to read the old romances, assuring me that it is
the only way to acquire noble sentiments.' "Memoir of General James
Oglethorpe," by Robert Wright, 1867, c. iv., p. 56.
"It is a marvel whence the white pond-lily derives its loveliness and per-
fume, sprouting as it does from the black mud over which the river sleeps,
and from which the yellow lily likewise draws its unclean life and noisome
odour. So it is with many people in this world: the same soil and cir-
cumstances may produce the good and beautiful, and the wicked and ugly.
Some have the faculty of assimilating to themselves only what is evil, and
so they become as noisome as the yellow water-lily. Some assimilate none
but good influences, and their emblem is the fragrant and spotless pond-
lily, whose very breath is a blessing to all the regions round about.”—Nath.
Hawthorne. "Note-Books," 1869, p. 157.
mean stones.
"In the handful of shingle which you gather from the sea-beach, which
the indiscriminate sea, with equality of fraternal foam, has only educated
to be, every one, round, you will see little difference between the noble and
But the jeweller's trenchant education of them will tell you
another story. Even the meanest will be better for it, but the noblest so
much better that you can class the two together no more. The fair veins
and colours are all clear now, and so stern is Nature's intent regarding
this, that not only will the polish show which is best, but the best will take
most polish. You shall not merely see they have more virtue than the
others, but see that more of virtue more clearly.”—Ruskin.
"Time and
Tide," Letter xxv. Hyssop," pp. 170, 171.
58
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
H., p. 18.
"La Contessa" thus addresses her husband :-
“Barbara legge, ingiusta. Come se fosse nata
La donna sol per rendere la terra popolata !
La donna, questa forma di luce e d'armonia,
Confonderla coi bruti! Oh scorno! oh villania!
Se quel che sia la femmina, Signor, voi non sapete,
Di Georgio Sand la “Lelia” prendetevi e leggete.
L'autore di quell' opera, nel riprodur sè stesso,
Ha modellato il nobil destin del nostro sesso.
Giorgio Sand è una femmina, ma femmina virile,
Che émancipo sè stessa da ogni pensier servile.
Maschili panni indossa, è celebre poeta,
Spacca colla pistola per mezzo una moneta,
Fuma, cavalca, tira di spada egregiamente,
Beve siccome un turco, e giuoca arditamente.
E questo secol colto, che cura anche le bestie
Perchè non abbian troppe sevizie nè molestie,
La donna si dimentica, la lascia in un cantone
La farem noi, per bacco, questa emancipazione.
CONTE.
Giorgio Sand non conosco, ma, da quanto ho sentito,
Costui dovrebbe essere un ente ermafrodito.
CONTESSA.
Dite piuttosto un ente dal ciel privilegiato,
Di forza, di talento, di spirito dotato !
CONTE.
Ma se in tal guisa il sesso d'emancipar s'adopra,
Il mondo in breve tempo ci manderà sossopra.
CONTESSA (con grand' enfasi).
Per ben quaranta secoli regnato avete voi :
E tempo finalmente che regniamo anche noi?"
Atto II. Sc. 4. Milano, 1862.
+
I., p. 26.
"Johnson thus describes the age of Addison and Steele. Men not
professing learning were not ashamed of ignorance; and in the female
world any acquaintance with books was distinguished only to be censured."
Chas. Knight, "Passages of a Working Life," 3rd epoch, 1865, c. ix., p. 177.
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
59
"A woman must have uncommon sweetness of disposition and manners
to be forgiven for possessing superior talents and acquirements.”—Miss
Elizabeth Smith. Fragments in Prose and Verse by Miss E. S., with
66
Memoir by H. M Bowdler," 1811, p. 151.
"It is, I believe, not fifty years since Dr. Gregory left as a legacy to his
daughters the injunction to conceal their wit, and even their good sense,
because it would disgust the sex they were born to please."—Lucy Aikin,
1819, Memoirs, &c., 1864, p. 148.
"When people wish to attack they should always be ignorant. To
come with a well informed mind, is to come with an inability to administer
to the vanity of others, which a sensible person would always wish to
avoid. A woman, especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing
anything, should conceal it as well as she can.
Though to the
larger and more trifling part of the (male) sex imbecility in women is a
great enhancement of their personal charms, there is a portion of them too
reasonable, and too well informed themselves, to desire anything more in
woman than ignorance.”—Miss Austin, "Northanger Abbey," vol. I,
c. xiv., p. 89.
แ
Highly cultivated women, who are not at all blue in any offensive
sense, find that their culture has this inconvenience. It throws them out
of sympathy with the ideas most current in feminine society, and often
deprives them of easy companionship in their own sex, especially when they
live much in the country, where the choice of friends is limited."— Satur-
day Review, 13 July, 1867, p. 53. [What is the remedy? To depress the
exceptional elevation, or to raise the general level?-W. B. H.]
"An Englishman likes to be master in his own house, but he dearly loves
to be schoolmaster. A Platonic woman as well informed as her husband
would deprive him of this daily source of domestic enjoyment; his lecture
would be reduced to discussion, and to discussion in which he might be
defeated.”—Saturday Review, 28 Dec., 1867, p. 807.
The Spectator of 4th January, 1868, commenting on this article in the
Saturday Review (on Platonic Women, à propos of Ladies Colleges)
remarks with justice: "It is surely even a little silly to mix up traditional
jocosities of this well-worn and guaranteed kind with the impediments in
the way of a decent education for girls.”
"N'oblige-t-on pas la femme qui a des gouts sérieux à les cacher ou à
les faire excuser par tous les moyens qu'elle pourrait employer, s'il s'agissait
d'une faute ?”—"Femmes Savantes et Femmes Studieuses," par l'Evèque
d'Orleans, 1868, p. 19, iv.
60
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
J., p. 28.
Even Dr. Roussel, whose work-Système Physique et Morale de la
Femme-is justly praised by Laharpe, and is both liberal and wise, says:
'Les études d'agrément sont les seules qui leur conviennent.""-p. 118,
note, Nouvelle edition, 1813.
"With few and insignificant exceptions, girls have been educated either
to be drudges, or toys, beneath man, or a sort of angel above him, the
highest ideal aimed at oscillating between Clärchen and Beatrice."
T. H. Huxley. "Reader," May 20, 1865, p. 561.
The learned Dr. Parr, in his famous "Discourse on Education," 1786,
says, "As to the acquisitions of mere reading and writing, they are
eminently serviceable to boys; but in regard to females," (girls?) "I do
not conceive them to be of equal use, unless they be accompanied by
other attainments of a more domestic nature."—p. 60.
[This passage shows surely a vast progress in modern thought on this
subject. The most doughty champion of male educational privileges
would scarcely venture in our day to claim reading and writing among
these.-W. B. H.]
•
"C'est à Condorcet et non pas à Jean Jacques, comme on le croit
généralement, qu' appartient l'initiative des reformes proposeés dans l'edu-
cation et la condition des femmes. .. Jean Jacques qui avait parlé aux
femmes avee une eloquence et une tendresse d'âme incomparables s'etait
cependant montré à leur égard moins liberal et moins serieux que ne l'avait
été Fénelon. Dans son plan d'education qui n'est applicable ni à la
femme du peuple, dout il ne s'occupe pas, il sorti du peuple, ni même à
la femme des classes moyennes, mais qui l'est seulement aux filles riches,
il établit en principe que les femmes doivent être exercées à la contrainte ;*
que la dependance est leur état naturel. Il veut qu'on développe en elles,
non la raison qui leur rendrait plus pénible cette soumission aveugle aux
volontés d'autrui, mais les talents d'agrément, à la condition toutefois que ce
soit d'une manière frivole et subalterne. Il leur permet le dessin, par
exemple, afin qu'elles puissent composer dans l'occasion un dessin de
broderie. On retrouve dans tous ses écrits quelque chose du sentiment
exprimé dans ses vers sur la femme:
-Daniel Stern.
Objet séduisant et funeste
Que j'adore et que je deteste.”
"Hist. de la Revolution de 1848," vol. 2, p. 185.
* Voir Emile Liv V.
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
61
"Dans la plupart des livres qui traitent du mérite, des destinées et de
la vertu des femmes, loin de considérer la femme comme un être crée à
l'image de Dieu, intelligent, libre, responsable de ses actions devant son
Créateur, on en fait une propriété de l'homme, faite uniquement pour lui,
et dont il est la fin. Dans tous ces livres, la femme n'est qu' un être
éblouissant qu'on adore, mais qu'on ne respecte pas, et au fond un être
inférieur, dont l'existence n'a pas d'autre but que l'agrément de l'homme
ou son utilité la plus frivole, dépendant avant tout de l'homme, qui est seul
son maître, son legislateur et son juge, absolument comme si elle n'avait
ni âme, ni conscience, ni liberté morale, comme si Dieu n'était rien pour
elle et n'avait pas donné à son âme des besoins, des facultés, des aspirations,
en un mot, des droits en même temps que des devoirs."—"Femmes
Savantes et Femmes Studieuses," par Mgr. l'Evêque d'Orleans, c. iv.,
p. 19.
K., p. 37.
"Unhappily, we have still a number of uncultivated young men who do
not feel at ease in the society of intelligent women; and mothers of a
certain order look upon their girls as a kind of live-stock, to be grown so
as to suit the taste of the market, whatever it may be. Notwithstanding
these circumstances, the demand for stupidity, whether male or female, is
less than it was; and both sexes are beginning to perceive that where
ignorance rubs against ignorance, dulness is the result. Domestic life
without ideas is worse than a bottle with no wine in it. When the actual
business of the day is transacted, ignorant people have nothing to inter-
change, and they suffer the disadvantage of solitary confinement in a crowd
of the same sort. Quarrelling, in such circumstances, is nature's effort to
break a monotony which their constitution cannot endure. The happy
home is the intelligent one, where each member communicates something
to the common stock of thought and knowledge, and where the family
does not consist of an ill-assorted aggregation of babies, great and small,
dependent for their amusement upon some rattle of frivolity, or the chance
of a stranger tickling them with a fashionable straw.
Of such happy
homes there are thousands in this country, and we say of their possessors,
May their tribe increase!' To them, the capture of an insect, the open-
ing of a flower, the skimming of a pond, or the movements of a star,
furnishes occupation and delight. Nor are human interests forgotten,
because all nature speaks with a million voices, proclaiming truths which
the ignorant do not hear. As a rule, the most cultivated families are the
most efficient workers in every useful direction. They may not choose to
go out of doors for purposes of no worth; but, by making all with whom
they come into contact wiser, they augment the forces which are employed
in removing evil, and add to the powers which labour effectively for good."
-The Intellectual Observer, July, 1862, p. 474. "The Domestication of
Science."
62
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
"Je ne reproche pas seulement aux pères de famille d'élever leurs filles
dans le culte de l'oisiveté; je leur reproche encore de les laisser dans une
ignorance funeste. Pourquoi la femme n'apprendrait elle pas les mêmes
choses que l'homme? Pourquoi reste-t-elle étrangère à toute science?
Nous élevons des marionettes; et plus tard nos fils épouseront des poupeés,
très-fortes sur la mode et sur l'art de grossir less dépenses, mais peu
propres à faire des hommes. Les belles mères de famille qu'on prepare
ainsi, et quelles compagnes pour des hommes, nourris des grandes décou-
vertes du dix-neuvieme siècle! Dans ce grand courant qui emporte tout,
la femme ne peut demeurer seule, oisive et étrangère. Elle doit avoir sa
large part dans l'activité generale, et pour cela il lui faut savoir tout ce
qu'elle ignore, oublier bien des choses qu'on lui a apprises à contresens."
"Mes Lundis," par Charles Sauvestre. Paris, 1864, xix., pp. 141, 145,
166.
"In assigning to woman what seems to be a somewhat limited province
in literature, I am far from seeking to impose a like limitation on her
studies.”—Right Hon. Jos. Napier. Opening Address, Afternoon Lec-
tures, &c., Dublin. 2nd series, 1864, p. 13.
"Je ne puis tout dire ici, et faire tout un traité d'education; je dirai
seulement, en résumé, que le principle essentiel à entendre est celui-ci :
il faut élever une jeune fille d'une manière complète. Qu'est-ce à dire?
C'est développer son intelligence, son cœur, sa conscience, son caractère,
en même temps que ses facultés pratiques, sans negliger sa santé, ses forces
physiques, ni même, dans la mesure convenable, ses agréments extérieurs ;
c'est, en un mot, la rendre capable de s'associer, non-seulement, à la vie,
mais à la pensée de l'homme, et de réaliser dans le mariage l'union
intellectuelle qui est le complément de l'union morale et de la communauté
d'intêrêts.". "Femmes Savantes et Femmes Studieuses," par Mgr. Evêque
d'Orleans, 1868, c. ix., p. 55.
"Let Flavia be their model, who, though she could support any char-
acter, assumes none; is never misled by fancy or vanity, but guided singly
by reason. Whatever she says or does, is the manifest result of a happy
nature, and a good understanding; though she knows whatever women
ought, and it may be more than they require to know. She conceals the su-
periority she has with as much care as others take to display the superiority
they have not; she conforms herself to the turn of the company she is in,
but in a way of rather avoiding to be distanced, than desiring to take the
lead. Are they merry, she is cheerful; are they grave, she is serious; are
they absurd, she is silent. Though she thinks and speaks as a man would
do, she effeminates, if I may use the expression, whatever she says, and
She is well
adds all the graces of her own sex to the strength of ours.
bred without the troublesome ceremonies and frivolous forms of those who
only affect to be so. As her good breeding proceeds jointly from good
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
63
Women's beauty, like
directed by a judgment
Her beauty seems but
nature and good sense, the former inclines her to oblige, and the latter
shows her the easiest and best way of doing it.
men's wit, is generally fatal to the owners, unless
that seldom accompanies a great degree of either.
a proper and decent lodging for such a mind. She knows the true value
of it; and far from thinking that it authorises impertinence and coquetry, it
redoubles her care to avoid those errors that are its usual attendants. Thus
she not only unites in herself all the advantages of body and mind, but
even reconciles contradictions in others; for she is loved and esteemed,
though envied by all."-Lord Chesterfield. Quoted by Lord Kames in his
"Loose Hints upon Education," p. 158-9. 1781.
L., p. 40.
The Turks differ from the Arabs in this respect :
"It is a great mistake," says General Daumas, "to believe that Islamism
keeps women in a state of subjection from which only miracles of the
Christian religion can extricate her. The Mahometan woman, on the
contrary, has preserved among the men her name urges into the combat
such prestige as was possessed by the Queens of Beauty in the tournaments
of the middle ages."-Miss M. B. Edwards. "A Winter with the
Swallows," 1867, p. 210.
"Mahomet does not dwell upon women's enjoyments in Paradise, but
he does not exclude them from it, as is often supposed; and in his so
called Hadites, or Conversations, there are counsels to the beautiful
Ayesha as to the best means of ensuring eternal happiness. In the Koran
the beatification of good women is mentioned more than once, and in the
Fourth Book he distinctly holds out the hope of Paradise to the weaker
sex," et seq.-Ibid, p. 231, c. xiv.
"Hommes ou femmes, ceux qui pratiquent les bonnes mœurs, entreront
dans le paradis."-Le Koran, c. iv, v. 123. Traduction de Kasimirski,
Paris, 1840. Quoted by Victor Guichard: "La Liberté de Penser Fin
du Pouvoir Spirituel," 1869, p. 75, c. iv.
"The verse of the Koran continually quoted, 'The woman is made for
the man, but the man is made for the woman'-ergo, the obligations to
chastity are equal."-Lady Duff Gordon's Letters from Egypt. She adds,
"Remember I only speak of Arabs; I believe the Turkish ideas are
different."
In Christendom itself opinion has not always been unanimous on this
subject:
64
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
"C'est en vain que nous eussions cherché parmi les noms propres celui
de femme, de cette compagne de l'homme qui, au concile de Mâcon, ne
dut qu'à une voix de majorité d'être classée au rang des animaux
raisonnables."-Louis Navret. "De l'Origine des Noms," Annuaire, 1867,
p. 167.
M., p. 44.
A very intelligent lady having expressed to me a fear that many of “the
highest natured girls" must fail "under examination," I thus replied :-
"I may fully share your 'inward fear that many of the highest natured
girls must fail before such an ordeal,' and yet hold, as I do, that such an
ordeal is likely to be a great service to the vast majority of girls, who are
not the highest natured, and scarcely less, perhaps, to the few who are the
highest natured. It seems to me an advantage to all to have the soundness
and accuracy of their attainments impartially and efficiently tested, even
though there are higher things than attainments; even though the highest
natured might not stand highest in the examination lists. It is no argument
against examinations that some people attach more importance to them
than they deserve. It is a salutary lesson to anyone to find that his or her
knowledge is vague, inaccurate, and fragmentary, however bitter the
experience may, at the moment, be. It is, further, true that all of even
equal knowledge are not equally ready in giving it out; but readiness in
expression is a thing to be aimed at as well as accuracy in acquisition. The
examination is not oral or public; and is not in severity at all beyond what
ought to be known by average girls of the appointed age. I see no reason
why girls in ordinary health should shrink from it. There is a prospective
advantage, too, in having a mark at which to aim. A wise teacher must
trim the balance between indolence and over anxiety on the part of pupils."
N., p. 45.
Of this Report, the Times of the 28th March, 1864, thus speaks :—
-"In
one word we may say that they find it to be a failure-a failure even if tested
by those better specimens, not exceeding one-third of the whole, who go up
to the Universities. Though a very large number of these have literally
nothing to show for the results of their school-hours from childhood to
manhood, but a knowledge of Latin and Greek, with a little English and
arithmetic, we have here the strongest testimony that their knowledge of
the former is most inaccurate, and their knowledge of the latter contemptible.
A great deal is taught under these two heads, but very little is learned
under either. A small proportion become brilliant composers and finished
scholars, if they do not manage to pick up a good deal of information for
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
65
themselves; but the great multitude cannot construe an easy author at
sight, or write Latin prose without glaring mistakes, or answer simple
questions in grammar, or get through a problem in the first two books of
Euclid, or apply the higher rules of arithmetic. A great many, amount-
ing to about a third at Christchurch, and a fifth at Exeter College, fail to
pass the common Matriculation Examination. Not less than a fourth
are plucked for their little-go, a most elementary examination in the
very subjects which we have just mentioned; and of the rest many are
only enabled to pass by the desperate exertions of College tutors and
'coaches.' We need not follow this class of public schoolmen through the
remainder of their University career, since the duty of teaching has then
devolved upon others, but for their shortcomings at entrance, the schools
are mainly responsible. Most of them, says an Oxford tutor of great expe-
rience and judgment, are persons who were allowed as boys to carry their
idleness with them from form to form, to work below their powers, and
merely to move with the crowd; they are men of whom something might
have been made, but now it is too late; they are grossly ignorant, and have
contracted slovenly habits of mind.'"
*
To a similar effect speaks Earl Granville, Chancellor of the University of
London:-"The system [of public schools] has produced men most re-
markable for their great public utility and eminence; but, on the other
hand, it appears that after spending a great many years in these educational
institutions, the large mass come out with a great knowledge of cricket, and
a very good knowledge of rowing, with only that sort of Latin and Greek
which is perfectly useless in after life, and entirely destitute of mathemati-
cal, scientific elementary truth, a knowledge of history and their own
country, which it must be admitted are desirable, if possible to attain."
Times, 12th May, 1842.
When, however, his lordship says that "the system has produced men
most remarkable," &c., I am tempted to suggest that it has merely failed
to prevent their being produced. Even this result may well excite wonder,
if not gratitude. Yet, after all, such statesmen as Lord Malmesbury are
inclined much less to correct the monstrous abuses thus exposed, than to
complain of the exposure as lowering us in the eyes of foreign nations!
They think it disgraceful, not that such evils should exist, but that their
existence should be made known.
The Times of 5th August, 1865, remarks: "A youth may easily leave
any of our public schools without a presentable knowledge of arithmetic
or Euclid, of the French or German language, of the British Constitution,
or any branch of modern history, whether of this or the last century”—
*The Rev. James Riddell, Fellow and Tutor of Balliol College.
F
66
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
and then adds: "As long as England remains England, the instruction
given at our public schools will be a social necessity." But what of the
vastly greater and higher instruction not given? Is "omni-nescience" to
be the schoolboy's characteristic "as long as England remains England?"
"British lads, on an average, are far too ill-taught still, in spite of all
recent improvements, for me to wish that British girls should be taught in
"Good Words,
"Thrift."
the same way."-Rev. Chas. Kingsley.
May 1, 1869, p. 343. [This truly admirable lecture cannot have a wider
circulation than it deserves.]
La., p. 40.
""
"It may be remarked that, in every Sanskrit play, the women and
inferior characters speak a kind of provincial Sanskrit, or patois, called
Prakrit, bearing the same relation to Sanskrit that Italian bears to Latin,
or that the spoken Latin of the age of Cicero bore to the highly polished
Latin in which he delivered his orations. Even the heroine of the drama
is made to speak in the vulgar dialect. The hero, on the other hand, and
all the higher male characters, speak in Sanskrit ; and, as if to invest them
with still greater dignity, half of what they say is in verse."—Introduction
by Prof. M. Williams to his "Translation of Sakoontalá, or the Lost Ring,"
from the Sanskrit of Kalidásá (who lived in the century preceding the
Christian era). Hertford. 1855. Introd. p. 12. [This passage throws
an interesting light on the state of opinion in ancient India.]
O., p. 46.
"Are there genders in educational systems, as in Latin or French nouns?
Is there anything in Latin grammar peculiarly male? How did they talk
at dinner-time in ancient Rome? Did the men speak only masculine nouns ;
the ladies, feminine ones; and the servants, common ones? We have no
warrant for such a conclusion. I believe the Latin language to have been,
and still to be, incapable of such partitioning. It is not of the masculine
gender; nor of the feminine; nor of the neuter or neither; but, like other
languages, of the either gender. And, if properly taught, it would be found
a far easier language than German; considerably easier than French; and
a little easier in its old form than in its slightly altered form of modern
Italian, which is very easy indeed.
"Heaven forbid that our girls should be taught Latin with the grammars
now in use, and those annotated books, that may help an incompetent
master over an occasional stile, but can only enervate a pupil's brain, and
transfer coin from the pocket of an exasperated parent to the pocket of an
undeserving publisher.
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
67
"I assert that a good Latin grammar might be limited to twenty-four
pages, and sold, with a large profit, for sixpence ! and that this bookling,
with an extra outlay of half-a-crown, might, with a competent master, carry
scholars over two years of work. And I also assert that girls might, with
great advantage, pass through two or even three years of Latin teaching, if
that language were taught on an easy, simple, and natural method.
66
Although a schoolmaster of boys, reader, I have still a touch of gal-
lantry. Smile at my proposal. I would undertake to teach Latin to a
class of girls twelve years of age, without the use of pedantic and expensive
books, or of pedantic and meaningless grammar rules. My pronunciation
would be Italian, as nearly Tuscan as I could make it. I would never for-
get that I was training children, not to be schoolmistresses, but gentle ladies
in a drawing-room, and gentler mothers in a nursery. And in two
years,
perhaps, and in three years, most certainly, I would have girls in my class,
who would speak an old language, not unlike the language of modern
Tuscany, in a way that would shame their brothers and cousins, who had
been five years at any grammar school in the kingdom, and trained on the
old system of elementary unintelligibility. And I would teach them Latin
in such a way, that very soon they would read a parable in either Italian or
Spanish without stumbling over either word or construction. And I would
engage to say that my pupils would like their work, and would not
dislike their master."-"Day Dreams of a Schoolmaster," by D'Arcy W.
Thompson, 1864, p. 118. "Place aux Dames "
'If composition were wholly cut out of the curriculum, and boys were
allowed to begin their classics at a later age than they do now, and after a
proper training, which they do not now receive, in English and French or
German, they might acquire in two years, or, in cases of exceptional stu-
pidity, in three, as much knowledge of Greek and Latin as they ever do
now after ten or twelve years' study. 'Ladies' Colleges' may be adduced
in our support. Young ladies who leave school at sixteen or seventeen
after an education proverbially defective in method and thoroughness, but
who have practised something of English composition, and have picked up
some sort of knowledge of modern languages, do, if they are properly
taught, learn Latin fairly in about the time we have stated as the maximum
necessary for boys of ordinary capacity; and this though they pursue it by
no means as a principal study, but only as sharing their attention with a
variety of other subjects. Is it too much to suppose that boys could do the
same, giving, as they would, more hours to Latin, and putting Greek in
the place of some one or more of the other subjects, which necessarily
occupy a lady's time and attention? Those who could not had better
resign mental cultivation to the other sex, and sacrifice to the graces instead,
with music and drawing and ornamental needlework.". Westminster
Review, July, 1864, p. 15.
68
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
P., p. 49.
A literary friend, having heard my lecture, expressed his wonder and
regret that, in the sixty-fourth year of the nineteenth century, it should be
necessary for me to try to prove what was to us both as clear as day. I have
been strongly reminded of this remark by the appearance in the Saturday
Review, for 23rd July, of an article entitled "Feminine Wranglers,"
which, stretching beyond endurance the license of the anonymous, tran-
scends in its superciliousness towards women all tolerable measure of
"manly" " insolence. To reprint it here in full might, indeed, serve the
cause it strives to injure; but its whole tone is so offensive that this
advantage would be too dearly bought. The writer's spirit may be
profitably, if briefly shown. He fears that the examiners may be unduly
biassed in favour of a "pretty candidate," and suggests the selection of
learned men, advanced in years, as examiners, their wives being admitted
to a commanding position in the gallery." "It would," he says, "be next
to impossible to persuade the world that a pretty first-class woman came by
her honours fairly." This difficulty might perhaps "be met by appointing
learned ladies, if any such can be found, to be examiners." But "this
measure would only invert the evil. The pretty candidate would be as
badly off with her own sex as her ugly competitor with the other." Very
amusing certainly; but even if omniscience were not an attribute of the
Saturday Review, the writer ought to have known-I had almost said must
have known that the examiners see, not the candidates themselves, but
their written papers. This little fact, however, would have spoiled the
joke, and it is a good motto "All for a Jest, or the Truth well lost."
Then, What," he asks, "is it to end in?" Are wives to be chosen by
competitive examination ? "When an eldest son wants a wife, let him
communicate with the Civil Service Commissioners; as soon as their
verdict is delivered, the happy bridegroom will lead to the hymeneal altar
the young lady who has proved her fitness for his hand and heart by her
knowledge of geography and Latin prose "How droll! "Ridete quidquid
est cachinnorum." Rustic buffoons used to grin openly through a horse
collar. Their more polished rivals grin in periodicals behind a mask which
hides their faces, but which shows their teeth. The old bugbear of incompa-
tibility of knowledge with conjugal and maternal duties is furbished up anew.
"The classical or mathematical heroine of actual life is, we are told,
never happy unless she is flirting with a professor, or putting on her best
bonnet to go and hear a lecture." Again, "there is a strong and ineradi-
cable male instinct that a learned, or even an over-accomplished young
woman is one of the most intolerable monsters in creation." How finely
the word "over" begs the question here! Is all accomplishment in women
beyond a man's own calibre over-accomplishment? Where is the limit?
What is the test? By bringing "a more ambitious system of education
into fashion," the only result achieved would be "to make marriage more
(C
""
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
69
difficult than it is now to the unhappy victims. An accomplished young
lady” (not “over-accomplished” this time), “is a terror to young men as
things are; if erudition be added to the accomplishments, the terror will
become a simple panic." What this assumed terror really means, it is not
difficult to see.
How dreadful to have a wife who should detect her
husband's ignorance and shallowness, doubt his infallibility, perhaps laugh
at his wisdom—not his jokes! If, indeed, the enlarged teaching of women
were to train them to prefer in men or in themselves literary skill recklessly
employed to unlettered integrity and earnestness of purpose, and success of
a bon mot to the welfare of half mankind,-to confound ribaldry with wit,
verbal dexterity with sound reasoning, and flippant indifferentism with
philosophic calmness,—then truly would it be a curse, not a blessing.
Better far that a talent should be wrapped in a napkin, or buried in the
earth, than wastefully, mischievously spent! Better too, that women
should remain unmarried than marry without well-placed esteem and
respect, as well as love! For some men, indeed, the general improvement
of women's education might render marriage impossible. But I do not
think the world would lose much by the extinction of their race.
Q.
It is interesting to compare the results of the examinations that have
been held in successive years since 1864, up to this time :—
I. JUNIORS.


Year.
Passed
in
Passed
not in
Honours. Honours.
Total
Passed.
Failed
in the
Prelim-
inary.
Number
Total
Failed.
Exam-
ined.
1865
8
33
41
2
9
50
1866
II
72
83
29
32
115
1867
20
78
98
38
42
140
1868
38
136
174
46
60
234
II. SENIORS.
1865
8
40
48
2
28
76
1866
7
36
43
ΙΟ
39
82
1867
21
32
53
31
37
90
1868
14
56
70
59
82
152
70
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
The following Tables show the comparative results of the examinations
of boys and girls :-
JUNIOR BOYS.
Year.
Passed
in
Passed
not in
Honours.
Total
Passed.
Honours.
Total Number
Failed. Examined.
1864
23.2
60.7
83.9
16.1
646
1865
20.5
57.I
77.6
22.3
949
1866
25.3
50.8
76. I
23.8
1090
1867
23.9
46. I
70.0
29.9
1167
1868
23.2
47.8
71.0
29.0
1119
JUNIOR GIRLS.

1865
16.0
66.0
82.0
18.0
50
1866
9.6
62.6
72.2
27.8
115
1867
14.3
55.7
70.0
30.0
140
1868
16.2
58.1
74.3
25.7
234
SENIOR BOys.

1864
44.6
25.7
70.3
29.7
175
1865
35.2
26.9
62. I
37.9
227
1866
38.0
40.8
78.8
21.0
208
1867
34.8
26.2
61.1
38.8
267
1868
31.3
36.0
67.3
32.7
211
SENIOR GIRLS.
1865
10.5
52.6
63. I
36.0
76
1:866
8.5 42.9
52.4
47.8
82
1867
23.3 35.5
58.8
41. I
90
1868
9.2 36.8
46.0
54.0
152
I append further a few extracts from the reports of the Syndicate for the
successive years, bearing on the success or failure of the girls as compared
with the boys :—
1866, for 1865. "It is satisfactory in particular to remark that the Arith-
metic, so disastrous in 1863-4, especially to the seniors, of whom more than
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
7 I
ninety per cent were rejected in this subject alone, has this year been very
successful. Indeed, of the whole number of candidates, no more than
three failed in it.
•
In
"The total number rejected was twenty-eight seniors and eight juniors:
for 1863, out of ninety-one candidates fifty-seven failed.
Preliminary Subjects and English the failures were remarkably few, and
the Arithmetic was very well done, only two juniors and one senior failed
to pass. The Examiners all speak well of the work sent up.
In English
History, the Examiners 'thought the style of the girls' replies better than
that of the boys. It was more straightforward and to the point, and there
were far fewer attempts at fine writing.' In Political Economy: of
the seven girls who took it up none failed, and none were distinguished,
but the average number of their marks was about five per cent higher
than that of the boys. In Shakspere, the girls were very successful;
one obtained the highest number of marks attained by anyone in the
subject.
Three junior girls attempted Latin-of these none
failed; of nine seniors, two failed. The Examiners say
The Examiners say that the papers
were extremely creditable. They appear to have been struck with the
accuracy and good taste of the translations. No girl attempted Greek.
In French, the Examiners observe little difference between boys
and girls. With regard to the juniors, the Examiner writes: 'In the
matter of Grammar the girls are better than the boys. The former have a
French grammar, while the latter trust to their knowledge of Latin, which,
it is almost needless to say, is often extremely defective.' Five juniors, of
whom one, nineteen seniors, of whom two failed, tried German. Three
juniors and eleven seniors succeeded in attaining marks of distinction.
Three juniors and three seniors attempted Mathematics, with very small
success.
"As this is the first attempt at extending the scheme to girls, it is right to
say something of the reports of the Local Examiners at the different centres.
One writes: 'I conducted the girls' examination in London. Everything
went on quite as regularly and quietly as at any examination at which I
have been present. The girls seemed to take a great interest in it, and
worked at their papers in a very business-like way, and for the whole time
allotted to them I was quite struck with the easy way in which they bore
the stress of the examination. I could not detect any flagging of interest
in it, or any sign of weariness, or any ill effect upon them whatever.' All
the Local Examiners speak or write in similar terms."
1867, for 1866. "The Arithmetic was not so successful as last year.
Twenty-one juniors and nineteen seniors failed. The papers in English
History appear to have been either decidedly good or decidedly bad. Indeed
this remark is generally true with respect to the work sent up by the girls.
One senior got five-sevenths of the marks. Of the English Composition the
72
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
Examiner writes: "As might be expected, there was a marked difference
between the essays of the boys and those of the girls. The best boys
wrote with vigour and precision; the best girls with ease and vivacity.
The boys were, for the most part, content to retail information derived
from books, or to describe the processes of some branch of manufacture;
the girls were eager to express their own views, and were most successful
when they endeavoured to trace their own intellectual phases, or to depict
the trifling incidents of every-day life.' In Shakspere the girls were again
successful. Some of them wrote, the Examiner says, in a very interesting
way on the character of the play, and on the whole they were more success-
ful than the boys in noticing the finer and sweeter things of the poetry.
'I had,' he adds, 'very considerable pleasure in reading many of the girls'
papers on Shakspere.' The girls are advised to take more pains in prepar-
ing for the preliminary part of the examination. Nine were rejected in
that part of those who would otherwise have obtained marks of distinction
in one or other of the optional subjects. In Religious Knowledge, a
hundred and eighty-seven girls were examined. Of the juniors, 22 failed,
of the seniors, 24. The work was generally well done. The Examiner,
who complains of the papers on the Hora Paulina sent up by the London
boys, says that those of the girls were good. In the Catechism he also
finds them 'decidedly superior to the boys.' The Examiner in Whately's
Evidences says: Both the answers and writing of the girls were superior
to those of the boys, and a proportionately greater number passed.' Three
seniors attempted Greek, all of whom passed. Five out of seven seniors,
six out of eight juniors, passed in Latin. One of the Examiners says: 'The
students in both Latin and Greek show a very fair appreciation of the
author, and power of translation into idiomatical English. They fail in
grammar and in translation from an unprepared author.' Of the eighty-
eight juniors who went in for French, four failed; and of the seventy-four
seniors, two failed; while twenty-three seniors and eighteen juniors obtained
marks of distinction. The Examiner of the seniors writes: The girls
excel, especially in French Composition: in the translation from French
into English they are less accurate.' Of the juniors we read: 'The girls
translate with far greater spirit than the boys; and are equally superior in
handwriting and spelling.' Twelve seniors and ten juniors took up Ger-
Six of each division obtained marks of distinction. None failed.
Two seniors and one junior obtained nineteen-twentieths of the marks. The
Examiner was much gratified with the work sent up. Seven juniors, of
whom four failed, and eight seniors, of whom six failed, tried Pure Mathe-
matics. One senior took in Applied Mathematics with distinguished suc-
She got full marks for all the questions she attempted.
The
examination of the girls at the several local centres passed off in the
same satisfactory manner as last year. All the Examiners speak with
praise of the quiet industry with which the girls applied themselves to their
man.
cess.
•
•
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
73
work. The good quality of their work may be estimated from the fact
that 21.2 per cent of them obtained marks of distinction."
1868, for 1867. "In Geography, the Examiner complains that 'the girls
are frequently addicted to writing away from the point.' Of the junior girls
eight, of the seniors four, took up Latin. Greek was attempted by one
junior and two senior girls. The Examiners say they have not found any
noteworthy difference between the performances of the girls and those of
the boys. In French, the girls, as last year, did much better than the
boys. They appear,' one Examiner remarks, 'to take a rational interest
in the subject-matter, which, to the large majority of the boys, is evidently
a matter of absolute indifference.' In German, the girls were better than
the boys throughout: a greater proportion distinguished; a less proportion
rejected. Thirteen junior and seven senior girls attempted Mathematics.
As might be expected, they were feeble in it, and especially in Arithmetic;
but one senior girl distinguished herself in both pure and applied Mathe-
matics.
The Examiner in Shakspere reports: 'Done excellently
by those who had really studied it, especially by the girls, who surpassed
the boys in analysis of character and choice of language; at the same time
the subject was often taken up merely as a likely means of passing in this
section with the least amount of study and thought.'
Of the
English Composition, the Examiner writes: "With the work of the seniors,
boys and girls, I was much pleased. The junior girls also, with several
The same
exceptions, did their work in a careful and satisfactory manner.
praise cannot be awarded to the junior boys. Their spelling, grammar,
and intelligence, were, on the whole, below what might have been expected,
and I cannot omit to mention that I observed in many of their papers a
certain want of good taste, and a flippancy of style.''
1869, for December, 1868. "It will be observed that the percentage of
failures among the junior boys is somewhat, and among the senior boys and
junior girls considerably beneath that of last year. The great number of
rejections in 1867 appears to have somewhat reduced the number of boys.
The girls do not seem to have been discouraged by it.
It appears
that about sixteen per cent of the junior boys, and ten per cent of the
junior girls were under fourteen years of age. Of the seniors, three boys
and two girls had not completed fifteen years.
The Arithmetic
•
of the junior boys was good, several of them got full marks; that of the
senior boys was weak by comparison, and none got more than four-fifths
of the marks.
“The failures among the girls, especially the seniors, were very numerous.
The contrast between the performances of boys and girls in this subject
will always (?) be marked, but the difference which at present exists seems
unnecessarily great. More efficient teaching is urgently required.
"The English Grammar was, on the whole, done well by the juniors.
74
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
The average work of the girls was, however, superior to that of the boys,
sixty per cent of the former, and fifty per cent of the latter obtaining half-
marks or more. Sixteen boys and one girl got more than three-fourths of
full marks. Of the seniors, the boys did well in this subject; the girls
very poorly. On Dictation, the Examiner says:
The girls
show fewer failures than the boys.' The paper on the outlines of
English History was well done by the boys.
The girls were less
successful. The Examiner of the juniors and the prepared portion says:
'The girls did more evenly well than the boys.'
•
•
'Of the seniors it is said: "The Shakspere was generally well done; a
great deal of industry being shown in getting up the subject, and especially
the grammar, and a fair amount of intelligence manifested, particularly by
the girls, in a critical appreciation of the drama.' 'Neither boys nor girls
were successful in Geography. The equality of demerits, especially among
the seniors, is very remarkable.' Of the Essays of the juniors the Exa-
miner says:
The girls, speaking generally, had the advantage. In style
especially, there was no comparison between them and the boys. The per-
formances of the latter were in many cases awkwardly expressed, and in
some ungrammatical, while the girls were invariably grammatical and
generally fluent.'
"In Religious Knowledge, the Examiner says: "The above remarks on
the insufficiency of information shown by the boys, may be applied even
more severely in the case of the girls. They are, however, decidedly less
guilty of inaccuracies of thought and expression. Indeed, it was curious
to observe how, in many cases, a girl, in answer to a question about which
she evidently knew nothing, could nevertheless cover a sheet of paper with
very fairly expressed English, conveying no information whatever, either
right or wrong.'
Of the juniors, 668 boys and twenty girls were
examined in Latin; 128 boys and one girl in Greek.
Of the girls,
the Examiners, as in former years, say that their translations were well
done, and that their composition showed promise; but that, as a rule, the
grammar, accidence, and syntax, were not nearly so good as the rest of
the work.
"The Syndicate regret to find the report of the Examiners on the work
done by the boys in French even more unfavourable than that of last year.
Of the juniors who attempted it, one-third, of the seniors nearly one-fifth,
failed to pass; while, on the whole, less than one in thirty obtained marks
of distinction. One Examiner writes of the junior boys: "The work of the
boys, as a whole, is decidedly bad. Scores, I might say hundreds, of them
go in for French who ought not to be allowed to attempt the subject.
Having never read the author set, they trust to what they may know of
English and Latin to enable them to guess their way through the French
passages: hence a large number of papers are sent up which are nearly, if
not entirely, worthless. I have to make a special complaint about the
Mol
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
75
work of the boys on account of its slovenliness. There is an almost total
absence of regard for taste and style in translation; and very many of the
boys write their versions in most ungrammatical English.' Of the senior
boys we are informed: 'There was in many even of the better French
scholars a ludicrous ignorance of grammar or indifference as to spelling.
In their composition parlez, parlé, parlais, parlaient, etc., seemed to be
looked upon as convertible terms to be used with impartiality.' No place
is praised by the Examiners. On the other hand, the girls did well in
French. Of these only one-ninth failed to pass, while one in ten of the
juniors, and slightly more than one in eighteen of the seniors, gained marks
of distinction. One Examiner writes: 'In general, the girls appear to me
to have at least as much aptitude for the study of language as the boys,
and to have taken far more pains with the prepared subjects. They also
express themselves more idiomatically, write and spell better, and are far
less frequently guilty of putting down manifest absurdities.'
"The Examiner in German says: "I cannot report the junior candidates
as very good. The girls were much better than the boys. In both there
was great variableness-some few decidedly good, some very bad, and
quite unfit to go in at all. The seniors were more even, and attained a
better average.
The girls were here, also, better than the boys.' In
Mathematics, ‘the girls sent up more papers this year than last, but the
only thing that can be said in praise of the majority of them is, that they
were very neatly written.' The Examiner in Algebra writes: "I have
much pleasure in praising the general character of the junior students'
work. Only twenty-five girls sent up answers, and, as might be expected
in this subject, they did not on an average come up to the boys' standard,
nor did the best girls approach the best boys in excellence.'
These extracts have been made impartially, and without regard to their
bearing for or against either boys or girls. If they are, on the whole, little
satisfactory as regards either, it is the more important that the truth should
be known. It is no paradox, that in the very badness of our schools does
the hope of education rest. Were our schools for either sex much better,
on the whole, than they now are, the poverty of their results might well
drive the most sanguine to despair. But the fault is not solely, not even
mainly perhaps, with teachers. They are what their own education has
made them, and they supply, as best they can, what the public seems to
demand. When the general ideal of education is at once raised and
widened, rendered at once nobler and more practical, we shall have better
teachers indeed, and better methods, but also a wiser choice and appor-
tionment of subjects, better labour and in a better direction. Failure may
be caused not merely by defective means, but also, and not less, by
erroneous choice of ends.
76
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
R.
The following is my reply to a letter with which a friend favoured me
soon after the delivery of this lecture. It may be useful from its condensed
statement of some of the chief points at issue :—
"As you inform me that you have read my lecture, I cannot doubt the
fact. I own that I should not have discovered it from the tenour of your
strictures. You re-import into the controversy much that I had carefully
excluded as irrelevant; you charge me with much which, relevant or
irrelevant, I had carefully guarded myself against being supposed to
maintain.
"Thus, Ist. Far from asserting that women should invade the profes-
sions now reserved for men, I founded one argument for the more liberal
culture of women's minds on the fact that, as they are generally exempt
from the burden of preparation for professional duty, they have generally
more time than most men for liberal culture. I further asserted that, as the
true reason for the real education of men is not their being designed to
be lawyers, or physicians, but their possessing intellectual and moral
faculties which require training and enlightenment for the discharge of the
common duties of life, while the cultivation of these faculties is also an end
in itself,—so it is, and so it ought to be, with women.
"2nd. I have affirmed nothing as to the identity or even equality
of male and female minds. That whole question I have waived in
terms most precise and clear; and that not because I have no opinions
regarding it, but because I consider the discussion of it needless for the
end in view. I have avoided the cloudy region of generalities, the
mists of psychological speculation, and I have tried to deal in a practical
spirit with the admitted facts of the case. I now ask, once for all, what
subjects are there (apart from professional training, and regarded merely
as means of general culture) that are fit for men or boys, but unfit for
women or girls? Are certain subjects male and others female? If so,
which are the male subjects, which the female? I wait for a reply; I fancy
I shall have to wait long. Is French female, and Latin male? and is
geometry or arithmetic male or female, or common? So with history and
physics, and economics, and every other subject studied by men or boys.
“If the distinction is not in subjects, is it in the proper mode of teaching
them? Is there sex in the teaching of Geography, or of Grammar, or of
Natural Science?
"If the distinction is neither in the subjects nor in the mode of teaching
them, is it in the extent to which they should be taught to boys and girls
respectively? If so, where, in any subject, and how, is the line of demar-
cation to be drawn? May boys learn the Syntax, girls only the Accidence
of a language? May boys learn Compound Proportion in Arithmetic,
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
77
while girls learn only the simple Rule of Three? In any subject scientific,
literary, historical, or ethical, where is the ne plus ultra to be fixed?
Unless you can lay down something tangible, or at least intelligible, in
answer to these questions, you do but beat the air with idle words, or spoil
paper with wasted ink. My position is clear and definite enough. I
affirm, Ist., That every subject fit for one sex to learn is fit for the other;
That
2nd., That the best modes of teaching are alike for both; and 3rd.,
the only limit to progress for either sex ought to be the capacity and
opportunity of the individual student. With Miss Cobbe, I affirm that
the dread lest the common imparting of knowledge should break down the
innate and fundamental differences between the mind of man and the mind
of woman, be they what they may, proves a great want of confidence in
the reality and power of such differences."
My friend's letter may be aptly followed by extracts from three others
addressed to me by three teachers-all eminent in their several departments.
The first is an accomplished teacher of French language and literature.
"Je suis heureux de vous donner, tel quel, le résultat de mes observa-
tions personelles sur le sujet qui vous occupe. J'ai invariablement trouvé
une grande difference entre les classes de jeunes filles et les classes de garçons,
et cette difference est tout à l'avantage de celles-là. Generalement les
jeunes filles arrivent à la classe mieux prepareés que les garçons: elles
savent mieux leurs leçons; leurs exercises sont faits avec plus de soins, et
elles donnent beaucoup plus d'attention aux explications du mâitre. Comme
dernier trait, j'ajouterai que leurs cahiers mêmes, par leur netteté, accusent
une plus grande application. Que l'on explique, si l'on veut, cette différ-
ence par une plus grande dose d'amour propre chez les filles que chez les
garçons, soit. Seulement je reponds que, dans ce cas, l'amour propre
est une vertu que le professeur est toujours fort heureux de rencontrer chez
ses élèves.
En somme, pour vous dire ma penseé tout entière, je crois
fermement que l'intelligence de la femme ne cède en rien à celle de l'homme,
et que, s'il est possible de constater une difference entre les deux sexes,
intellectuellement parlant, cette difference n'est que le resultat de l'éduca-
tion."
The second has had large experience in teaching both ancient and
modern languages, and also mathematics. He says: "Reflecting on the
totality of my experience and observations, I am certain that in morale,
on which the use made of the understanding and learning powers mainly
depends, the girl excels the boy throughout the entire school course. The
sense of duty, and its more delicate twin, the sense of propriety, have a
clear voice and quiet authority in girls at an age when in boys they have
only a feeble and inarticulate existence. Even a man's sense of propriety
never equals a woman's ; and a boy's sense of duty, though by no means so
weak as his sense of propriety, is yet not controlling, seldom, indeed,
78
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
acquires a steady growth till its roots in the quondam boy-a boy no
longer-taste the stimulating manure of consequences. Hence, the con-
scientious preparation of tasks set, attention and orderly behaviour in the
class, may be expected from girls as a rule, from boys as an exception.
I am not prepared to say that there is inequality between boys and girls
in respect of understanding power, except in purely literary and artistic
subjects where the girl's superior sense of propriety, rising into taste, gives
them an appreciation of the beautiful, which boys seldom attain to in
school at all; but I am again certain that the power, which I do not con-
found with the good will, of concentrating the attention, so as to give a
fair chance to the understanding and learning powers, is far more common
among girls than among boys, at least in the early stages of a school
course; for, as years pass, the number of boys capable of the effort increases
more rapidly than the number of the girls, so that at the end of the school
course, say at the age of eighteen, there is probably, in this respect,
equality.
66
My opinion is that, in the long run of life, even if all careers were open
to women, and women could pursue them as freely and in as great num-
bers as men, the latter would be foremost, i.e., that some men would
distance all women, whilst, of course, the great majority of men would be
distanced by some women. This opinion is founded on the obvious.
exclusion by natural circumstances of most women from professional
careers, and on the presumption that God has given to each sex peculiar
qualifications for its peculiar work. This opinion I state lest I should be
misunderstood.
66
Agreeably to the views above enunciated regarding boys and girls
during the school course, I believe not only that no subject taught to boys
is beyond the capacity of girls, but that, were boys and girls to pass
through exactly the same course of instruction, more girls would annually
take the highest honours, at eighteen years of age, than boys."
The third is the greatest linguist, and the best teacher of languages—
European and Oriental-that I have ever known. He says: "On the
subject of your lecture I am entirely with you. The manner of teaching
boys is objectionable, in general; the system after which information seems
to be doled out to girls, must be still worse. To express plainly what I
mean, I must say, it appears to me that not only are girls not encouraged
to generate ideas and to give utterance to them, but they are forbidden to
attempt so unladylike an act. They are just to remember what the teacher
has pronounced, neither more nor less.
My experience teaches
me decidedly that whatever boys are able to understand girls are equally
able to master, and the powers of reasoning, so far as I can watch their
activity, seem to exist in pretty equal portions. I have met with dull girls
among my pupils; but, on the other hand, with a goodly number that
needed to shun no comparison with the brightest boys that I have ever
taught."
EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
79
To these extracts I will add only the testimony of the Rev. Dr. Howson,
now Dean of Chester, at a meeting held some time ago in Liverpool :-
"He was particularly glad to be charged to make mention of the arithmetic,
for he was well aware that it was a part of the education of girls which, in
times past, had been far too much neglected. There was a popular notion
that girls had less natural ability than boys, but he believed that to be a
perfect fallacy; in fact, he was inclined to think that the exact contrary
was the case. The truth was that arithmetic had been badly taught, and
the pupils had been blamed for not having capacity to learn." [See also
Appendix D., pp. 52 and 53.]
The only even partial attempt that I have ever seen to answer the second
of the three foregoing questions (p. 76) was made by Canon Trevor, at
the Sheffield meeting of the Social Science Association. The reverend
canon admitted that girls ought to learn classics, but then it ought to be
from expurgated editions! What! Are the morals of boys comparatively
unimportant? Or are these so pure as to defy contamination? A strange
dilemma for a teacher of Divinity. But the line of thought here suggested
may be profitably extended in various directions. Thus, if corporal
punishment is universally admitted to be unnecessary and unsuitable for
girls, the question may be asked, Is it necessary or suitable for boys? If
displays in public are held to be unbecoming and injurious to girls,—are
they beneficial to boys? If the health of girls may be endangered by
eager competition for school or college honours, -is there no similar
danger in the case of boys or young men? If the pressure of extraneous
stimulus is likely to divert the minds of girls from the pure love of know-
ledge and of mental activity for their own sakes, to foster "the love of
excelling" instead of "the love of excellence,"-and to substitute feverish
spasms of effort for steady, natural, wholesome growth,-is a like conse-
quence not to be feared for boys? If bodily exercise may easily be carried
too far by girls, may it not be excessive even for boys, taxing too severely
their immature strength, and sowing the seeds of future debility and disease;
not to speak of the muscular Paganism now rampant among our manly
youth, and the athletic animalism which leaves little of either taste or
energy for intellectual pursuits? Thus, in diverse ways, present attempts
to reform the Education of Girls may indirectly result not in the likening of
it to the existing model of that of boys,—but in the improvement of the
latter not less than of the former, and in the gradual approach of both
towards a common ideal as yet dimly seen even by those whose faith is
strongest that it will surely be realised.
LECTURE
ON THE
PRESSURE FOR EMPLOYMENT
AMONG WOMEN OF THE UPPER CLASSES,
EDUCATIONALLY CONSIDERED.
DELIVERED AT MANCHESTER, ON THE 9TH OCTOBER, 1866.
"We deny the right of any portion of the species to decide for another portion, or
any individual for another individual, what is and what is not their 'proper sphere.' The
proper sphere for all human beings is the largest and highest which they are able to
attain to. What this is, cannot be ascertained without complete liberty of choice."-
Mrs. J. S. Mill. "Dissertations and Discussions," by J. S. Mill, 1859, vol. 2, p. 422.
G
"Where incompatibility is real, it will take care of itself; but there is gross injustice
in making the incompatibility a pretence for the exclusion of those in whose case it does
not exist.""The Social and Political Dependence of Women," 1867, p. 50.
"Whenever female education is seriously improved, their relations to society must be
somewhat modified. It is probable enough that they will show capabilities which are
now manifested only in exceptional cases, and that they will be able to enter certain
paths which are at present closed to them. No one will pretend to deny that, under the
present constitution of society, a good deal of power runs to waste which we may in time
learn to employ more effectively. Perhaps it may appear, though the question is as yet
undecided, that women may be the equals of men in some departments of life in which
their inferiority has been hitherto assumed. Every legitimate attempt to cultivate their
talents to better purpose, or to find new employment for those which they plainly possess,
is deserving of all encouragement, and some of these attempts may probably prove
successful."-Saturday Review, 16th June, 1866, p. 715, "Woman's Rights."
"If once there are a class of really able and thoughtful and well-taught women, who
know the difference between magniloquence and eloquence, who are heartily ashamed of
high sounding assertions without evidence, and of the pretence of philosophy without
thought, the class of women who now push to the front in America, and are beginning to
do so even in England, will lose a great deal of their influence and find their true relative
place and we shall have instead what we shall all wish, women speaking for their sex
who understand their own language, who do not speak without thinking, and who do not
think without hearing what others have said and written on the same subject. Women
whose opinions are entitled to as much respect as those of Miss Cobbe, Miss Davies,
Miss Taylor, or the late Mrs. Jameson, or those of one whose mind is at once more
powerful and what is so rarely the case with women, more disciplined, than all but the
very highest intellects (masculine or feminine) of modern times-George Eliot."-Spec-
tator, 19th September, 1868, p. 1096.
"Ever since the year 1806 your board has evinced its just appreciation of the necessity
for giving education to girls, and your conviction that the claim to that precious boon is
fully as valid for them as for boys. More than half a century has passed away since
your predecessors established schools for girls-all honour to their memory for that step
in advance! But the project was a novelty in their day, and in all probability condemned
by the multitude as an innovation, a term which carried fear to many an honest though
narrow mind. The original scheme is therefore but meagre, and so it must remain until
the two sexes receive equal treatment. And should our partialitics always turn against
the weaker vessel? Why, whenever there is a school appropriate to the requirements of
the brother, be he of what class you please, high or low, should there not be another
school equally adapted to those of his sister? Such a school might properly vary from
his as regards the subjects for instruction, and the manner in which it is conducted; but
I shall always maintain that it should afford an equivalent. How the equivalent is to be
adjusted is a question much too large to be now discussed, even if I were competent to
handle it. Variety there must always be, but variety and inferiority have no necessary
connection. 'The boy's the father of the man' is the maxim of the poet Wordsworth-a
maxim pregnant with a great truth worthy of development by much higher ability than I
can boast. What you neglect for the boy, you surely neglect for the man. But if the
boy is the father of the man, is not the girl the mother of the woman? I will say no
more. No demonstration is so hard to achieve as that of a self-evident truth, and no
labour is so utterly thrown away. In considering the advance made by your predecessors
towards supplying the want of education for girls, it must in candour be admitted that
the pressure of the necessity was far less in their time than it has now become. The
proportion of women-of all but the highest ranks-who must depend on their own exer-
tions for maintenance, was never so large as at present, partly from the greater excess in
the numbers of those who remain at home over that of men, partly from other causes.
That the aim of her education should be to fit every woman for employment conformable
with her social position-placing her as nearly as may be on an equality with her
brother-cannot be disputed; but how far this may be possible experience must prove.
-Speech by M. D. Hill, Recorder of Birmingham, on the reform of King Edward's
school. Reprinted from the " Birmingham Daily Post," Oct. 14, 1865.
EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN.
E
VEN did time permit, I neither intend nor wish to discuss
the general question of the remunerative employment
of women.
I care not at present to inquire whether it be
desirable or undesirable that women should earn their own
livelihood. Much may be, and has been, said on both sides.
Miss Davies, in her excellent book on "The Higher Education
of Women," says very tersely, "If women are not supporting
themselves, they are being supported by somebody else, con-
suming either present earnings or accumulated savings. To
keep them from earning money does not prevent their spending
it." On the other hand, very many women may be much more
usefully employed than in earning their own living, and we
cannot here draw definitively the distinction between productive
and unproductive labourers. It amply suffices for us now,
without raising any theoretic question, to accept the fact, that
the earning of daily bread is with many women a necessity
that must be met.* Among the lower classes, the chief field
for their employment has hitherto been found in domestic service,
or in needlework; among the upper, in teaching. It is of the
upper classes alone that I would speak on this occasion; and I
"The tale is plain enough. So far from our countrywomen being all
maintained, as a matter of course, by us, the bread-winners, three millions
out of six adult Englishwomen work for subsistence, and two out of three
in independence. With this new condition of affairs, new duties and new
views must be accepted."-Edinburgh Review.
84
EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN.
wish further to restrict myself to one aspect of the subject
which has of late forced itself on my attention. In considering
some of the causes of this pressure for employment, we may,
perhaps, find reason for regarding with less wonder, though not
with less regret, the great number of women, more or less ill
qualified, who crowd into this calling, and we may draw from
our survey lessons of no mean importance. I have recently had
occasion to examine the Annual Reports of the "Governesses'
Benevolent Institution," * which was founded in 1843, by that
true philanthropist, the late Rev. David Laing. It does not
come within the scope of this paper to describe the various
departments of this noble Institution,-its provisions for tem-
porary aid to governesses in distress, for annuities to aged
governesses, for registration without expense, for mutual assur-
ance, its provident fund, its savings' bank,-its asylum for
aged governesses, the Queen's College which grew out of it,-
its schemes of examination, and of issuing certificates of qualifi-
cation. In the several annual reports, from 1843 to 1865
inclusive, the nature and progress of each of these parts of a
beneficent enterprise are fully explained. I am now concerned
solely with the light thrown by these reports on the causes of
the misfortunes and the sufferings which the institution endea-
vours to relieve. From time to time, brief statements are given
of the history of the cases claiming aid. From the report for
the year 1843 (p. 5), I will cite a few of these:-
"Entirely impoverished by endeavouring to uphold her
father's efforts in business.'-Cases 8, 68, 92.
66 6
Supported her mother for nearly twenty years.'-Cases 52,
75, 97, 98.
"Had saved a little money, but lent it to a brother who had
failed.'-Case 73.
* Office, 32, Sackville-street; Home and Registration Office, 66, Harley-
street; Aged Asylum, Kentish Town, London.
EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN.
85
'Supported both her aged parents, and three orphans of a
widowed sister.'-Case 65.
Her father died, leaving his family unprovided for, and
they have been entirely supported by her exertions.'-Case 25.
"Has helped to bring up seven younger brothers and
sisters.'-Case 58.
'Helped to support her mother and educate her sisters.'-
Case 56.
"Educated two young sisters and a niece.'-Case 51.
"Her only remaining parent still dependent on her.'-
Case 40.
""Supported both parents with the assistance of a sister.'-
Case 38.
"Had the entire support of both parents for nearly twenty
years.'-Case 30.
66 6
'Supported her mother for fourteen years.'-Cases 21, 29.
“Devoted all her earnings to the education of her five
nieces, who all became governesses.'-Case 93.
"'Saved nothing during twenty-eight years of exertion,
having supported her mother, three younger sisters, and a
brother, and educated the four.”—Case 41.
From the year 1843 to 1862, I find no similar record; but
in the report of the latter year, as well as in those of 1863,
1864, and 1865, there are given from twelve to twenty closely
printed pages, containing brief accounts of very many cases of
annuitants, and also of inmates of the Asylum. From that
of 1865, as the most recent, I take a few typical cases.
(Pp. 16 et seq.)
“E. G., aged 51. Became a governess at 17, in consequence
of the embarrassment of her father's affairs. In conjunction
with a sister she supported her mother during fourteen years,
and educated three younger sisters (who are now governesses),
and a brother."
"E. E., aged 54 A governess in consequence of her
86
EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN.
father's embarrassments. Sixteen years in three situations.
Obliged to abandon a school by losses and severe illness.
Assisted to support her widowed mother, and to support and
educate her brother. Eyesight nearly gone."
“A. G., aged 57. Father held confidential offices in the
Royal and other societies. Left destitute by his death.
Governess for many years; two elder sisters equally destitute."
"H. L. M., aged 58. Was a governess before her marriage,
and resumed daily teaching, on being left a widow, for the
support of herself and children.”
"L. H., aged 60. Both parents dying during her infancy,
she was brought up by her uncle, whose unexpected death left
her entirely unprovided for, and compelled her to become a
governess. Has supported an old and faithful nurse, besides
contributing towards the education of four nieces, and the
relief of her sister's family in general."
"A. T., aged 58.
years as governess.
parents."
Father a solicitor. Engaged for many
Gave the greater part of her salary to her
“H. G., aged 56. Twenty-nine years a governess; but the
necessities of her mother and sisters completely absorbed her
scanty savings."
"L. Y., aged 56. Adverse circumstances made it advisable
that her husband should go to Barbadoes, and he died on his
passage home, leaving her unprovided for. As long as she
was able to follow her profession she assisted an aged
mother."
↓
"E. G., aged 66. Became a governess at the death of her
father, which left her mother with seven children, six of them
under fourteen. Her present distress arises from having edu-
cated six brothers and sisters (all now dead), and maintained
her mother for fourteen years."
"M. C., aged 55. Her father having entrusted his affairs to
a relative, his property was dissipated, and he died broken-
EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN.
87
hearted, leaving six orphans. The same relative appropriated,
as their guardian, the money which should have come to the
children."
“M. M., aged 56. Her father having failed from extensive
speculation, she became a governess at a very early age, and
has been engaged in tuition thirty-four years. Having been
left a widow with three sons to educate, the extreme exertions
necessary to supply the expenses of her family have twice
occasioned a temporary loss of sight."
"S. P., aged 53. Mother left unprovided for with seven
children, two only of whom were able to support themselves.
Devoted all her means and energies to her family, never re-
taining any of her earnings."
"E. G., aged 54. Became a governess on the failure of a
brother, to assist whom the property left by her father, a lieu-
tenant, R.N., had been embarked in business. After his failure
she aided him again with all her savings, and lost the whole,
and assisted also in the education of his family."
"E. S., aged 65. Left home to assist her father, the family
being large. Lost money through fraud, and also by the insolv-
ency of a relative.”
"E. L., aged 76. Became a governess to assist her husband,
a surgeon in the army, who became involved and afterwards
deserted her. Her subsequent earnings were absorbed in the
education of a niece."
"C. M., aged 65. Became a governess owing to the failure
of her father, a wine merchant. Her earnings were mostly
given to him and an afflicted sister, who has been dead less
than two years."
“E. M., aged 66. Father a merchant. Assisted to support
her mother, and aided a sister, deserted by her husband, in
the education of her daughters. Lost a legacy from an uncle
through the unprincipled conduct of the executor. Unable to
save from ill health, daily becoming worse."
88
EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN.
“A. S., aged 57. Became a governess on the death of her
father, and has worked for thirty years. Lent all her savings to
a brother-in-law, who died a bankrupt, and she lost all. Assisted
his widow till her death last year."
“A. M., aged 68. Her father was independent, but both
parents died whilst their children were young; when they came
of age they found that the property had been spent. Is nearly
blind. Gave all she could spare to a brother.” *
Such are a few samples of 142 cases recorded in this report.
I have suppressed a host of harrowing details, as at once too
painful to contemplate, and beside my purpose. Now, as these
cases are selected from the mass, any general conclusions to-
wards which they point may seem to rest on a too narrow base:
but, having examined with some care the whole list, I do not
hesitate to say that, in nearly all the cases, the distress is more
or less directly, more or less clearly, traceable to misconduct,
mismanagement, improvidence, or incapacity on the part of
MEN. Sometimes it is the father, sometimes the brother, some-
times the husband, sometimes the trustee, executor, or friend,
who has involved in pecuniary difficulty, and its consequent
miseries, those whom he ought to have protected by his supe-
rior intelligence, experience, and strength. We have not far to
* "The report for 1857 states that on a recent occasion there were 120
candidates for three annuities of £20 each. One hundred and twenty
ladies, many reared in affluence, and all accustomed to the comforts and
luxuries of at least our middle ranks-all seeking an annuity of £20. Of
these, ninety-nine were unmarried; and out of this number fourteen had
incomes of, or above, £20; eleven derived from public institutions or
private benevolence, and three from their own savings; twenty-three had
incomes varying from Twenty Shillings to £17; and eighty-three had
absolutely NOTHING. It will be recollected that all these ladies are above
fifty years of age; and of the utterly destitute, forty-nine were above
sixty.' "Essays on Women's Work," by Bessie R. Parkes, 3rd edition,
1866, p. 97.
EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN.
89
seek for the various sources and forms of this terrible aggrega-
tion of evils, and a few words on each of the most prominent
will be well bestowed.
1. First comes unduly early, reckless, or at least impro-
vident marriage. On this point we much need a new moral
code. We are too much accustomed, too much encouraged, to
regard every marriage over which a priest has uttered a verbal
form as meriting the title of "holy matrimony." We are in so
many ways led to look on marriage as a mere substitute for
other things worse, that we almost overlook its most solemn
obligations and the conditions, without the observance of which
it cannot be a blessing to any whom now or hereafter it con-
cerns. Marriage, without thoughtful and timely provision for
its natural results, is in many ways an evil which needs to be
plainly exposed and vigorously denounced. I shall not, I trust,
be supposed to think lightly of infanticide when I say, as I do
deliberately say, that even that is only worse than the reckless
bringing of children into the world, for whose future no ade-
quate or prudent provision has been made, or is thought to be
required. To speak thus is not to preach Malthusianism, or
to advocate celibacy. It is merely to urge the duty and the
wisdom (for that which is wrong cannot be wise, that which is
foolish cannot be right) of incurring no obligation towards
those yet unborn, any more than to those now living, without
a reasonable expectation of being, and a resolute purpose to
be, able to meet its claims.* Those who hold out marriage as
in itself the one great cure for the miseries of homeless de-
"The fact itself, of causing the existence of a human being, is one of
the most responsible actions in the range of human life. To undertake
this responsibility-to bestow a life which may be either a curse or a
blessing-unless the being on whom it is to be bestowed will have at least
the ordinary chances of a desirable existence, is a crime against that
being."-7. S. Mill. Liberty," c. v., p. 194, 1859. [The reason,
90
EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN.
pendence, lonely and precarious living on the part of women,
are short-sighted and dim-sighted in their benevolence. We
must take into account the next generation, as well as the
present. We must look beyond to-day, and embrace many
to-morrows in our survey, ere we can wisely determine the
character and tendency of any social measure, and especially
of this.
2. Next comes the great and too-prevalent evil of wasteful,
thoughtless, unregulated, or ill-regulated living. The duty of
economy is often preached to the poor, who have the greatest
difficulty, if they have the greatest need, to obey its require-
ments. Is it sufficiently borne in mind, that while waste on
the part of any, however rich, is an offence against society,
whose wealth is thereby so far impaired, it is incumbent on ALL
to keep their outlay well within their income, and to give the
probable, even the possible, needs of the future a large place.
in their thoughts and arrangements for the wants or wishes.
of the present? * Some may be apt to say that error in this
however, assigned by Mr. Mill in the sentence that follows the passage
here cited, seems to me to fall sadly short of the truth, were it free from
all other objections.]
""
“I told him that the bringing of a human being into this world, with a
moral certainty of his being miserable, I regarded as a far greater crime, in
the abstract, than sending a human being out of it.' "Horace Mann:
Life by his Widow," 2nd edition, Boston, 1865, p. 284. [See an admirable
passage on this subject in Chapter IV. of Mr. Matthew Arnold's recently
published "Anarchy and Authority."]
* "One evil leads to others. Families in every rank seem to feel it
necessary to live as much as possible like those in the rank above them.
Therefore they must spend, if not more than their incomes, at all events,
the very utmost they can afford. The parents' fear of leaving their girls
unprovided for, therefore, makes it necessary that they should be married,
if possible; and that the money spent in giving them showy accomplish-
ments should, in some way, become a profitable investment."—"Defects
in the Moral Training of Girls," by A Mother. "The Church and the
World," 3rd series, 1868, p. 87.
EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN.
91
matter is oftener chargeable against women than against men.*
But in how many cases is it true that the husband leaves his
wife in ignorance alike of his means and of his liabilities, if he
do not go so far as to think any control in this respect harsh
or mean? With great pleasure I cite the Saturday Review on
this point: "It is the commonest of assumptions, that the
secret of family economy lies in the exercise of a close control
by the husband over the wife; whereas, in a majority of cases,
the desired result would be far more certainly attained if the
positions could be reversed, and the wife entrusted with the
control of the husband.
It may be said,
that
instances are constantly to be met with in which a wife first
brings her husband into difficulties by the manner in which
*In the Times of January, 1867, is reported the case of a coal agent,
whose salary was 35s. per week, and who was accused of embezzling his
employer's money, the fraud being disguised by false entries and erasures
in his accounts. In his pocket was found a receipt for £8. 8s., the cost of
a velvet jacket for his wife, or nearly the amount of five weeks' salary!
Such a case suggests serious thoughts. Where insolvency occurs, without
liability to criminal law, how often have debts been contracted with no
more necessity! It is pitiable that anyone should derive any enjoyment
from such expenditure in such circumstances. Does early training even
aim at preventing the development of such dispositions? Where is the
attempt made? Who marks the existence of this sad blank in what is
called education? Can the humble spendthrift read and write tolerably?
Oh! he is educated! Has the highborn spendthrift been taught to stumble
through Virgil and Xenophon? He too is educated. "What has educa-
tion to do with expenditure." What, indeed!
"I knew a student once from whose tongue dropped the sublimest of
sentiments; who was never weary of discoursing on beauty and truth and
lofty motives; who seemed to be longing for some gulf to jump into, like
the Roman Curtius-some 'fine opening for a young man' into which to
plunge and devote himself for the benefit of mankind.
Yet he was
running all the while into debt, squandering the money on idle luxuries
which his father was sparing out of a narrow income to give him a college
education; dreaming of martyrdom, and unable to sacrifice a single
pleasure.”—J. A. Froude. "Inaugural Address to the University of St.
Andrews," 1869, p. 33.
1
92
EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN.
she wastes his income, and then brings unhappiness upon
herself by the manner in which she resents his remonstrances.
Where this is the case, the explanation usually is, not that the
wife has been extravagant, but that the husband has been
uncommunicative. Sometimes, indeed, he may be unreason-
able as well; but this additional element is not really wanted
to bring about the particular complication. He has probably
allowed his wife to remain quite ignorant of the precise amount
of his income, and of the extent and nature of the demands
upon it. After a little experience, and a good many blunders,
she has come to know pretty much what her butcher's or
grocer's bill actually is; but she cannot be expected to know
what it ought to be, since that must be determined by the
money which she has to spend; that, again, by what her
husband receives, and what he proposes to save,―elements in
the problem which have been carefully kept from her know-
ledge. Her husband has been led, by the force of circum
stances, to regard his wife in the light, not so much of a joint
manager of the common fund, as of an alien interest to be
checked and kept under control. Affection, and a man's
native dislike to do a disagreeable thing, probably keep him
inactive for some time. He begins by putting off the evil day.
He lets the first piece of extravagance pass by without notice,
and then at length, when he finds the offence repeated a little
too often, he probably loses his temper, and takes of the last
piece a good deal more notice than it deserves. His wife in
the meantime may have been sinning altogether in ignorance.
She has hardly made up her mind as to what she intends to
spend upon herself, and when she sees her husband acquiesce
in what she does, she naturally assumes that she is keeping
within safe limits. By-and-by she finds out her mistake; but
as matters are carefully arranged so as to prevent her gaining
any real experience by her discovery, she sets down the oppo-
sition which she suddenly encounters to the score of her
EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN.
93
husband's ill-temper, and merely resolves for the future to
choose her time better for getting what she wants out of him.
Thus all the benefit which the husband might derive from the
feminine tendency to economise is lost to him, and in place of
a watchful partner, he gets an irresponsible and wasteful
subordinate. And the result is, that he either suffers in
character and comfort by his intermittent efforts to control his
wife, or else suffers in pocket, by giving up the attempt in
despair. If, instead of keeping to himself the reasons which
make economy necessary, he had condescended to share them
with his wife, if he had made her acquainted with the exact
facts as to his income, and arranged with her the proportion
of it which they can afford to spend on this or that object,—
he would have secured a willing, nay, an eager, steward of his
property in that very person who, on the other system, is the
worst enemy to its preservation; and the chances are that,
instead of having to exercise an inefficient scrutiny over his
wife's personal expenditure, he would rather have had to take
care that it was large enough. We assume, of course, that the
young lady thus entrusted with the purse-strings will be pos-
sessed of ordinary good sense, otherwise she might imitate the
bride who apportioned an income of £400 a year, by allowing
£100 for rent, £100 for her own clothes, and £100 for her
husband's; and then adding triumphantly, and you know we
can't eat £100.""-Saturday Review, 20th Sept., 1865, p. 417.
ос
'
3. But over and above the want of economy in living, comes
the neglect of those means of providing for the exigencies of
the future, which are among the glories of our modern civilisa-
tion, and the best signs of modern progress. I allude to life-
insurance, as the chief of those various contrivances by which
risks are shared, and disasters, which would be ruin to the
individual, are lightened by being distributed over the
community. As yet, it is to be feared that the adoption of
such precautions is the exception, the neglect of them the
94
EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN.
rule. How common is the case of a man, say with a large
income from the practice of a profession, who spends, or
allows his household to spend, as freely as he earns, even if he
avoids debt, and whose sudden death plunges his family into
poverty, rendered all the more bitter from its contrast to the
luxury which had become habitual. On this, as on other
subjects, we need to have diffused throughout society a deeper
and a livelier conviction.* Public opinion is the true check on
all such violations of moral duty where human law comes not.
As we are told by an authority for which much reverence is
professed, that "if any provide not for his own, and specially
for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is
worse than an infidel," surely it would not be a desecration of
the great national teaching-day to inculcate occasionally the
observance of this duty in the way which has been found to
be the most efficient. Of the four millions of sermons said
to be annually preached, are as many as four devoted to the
enforcement of this obligation? Yet few things could do
more to promote true co-operation among men, that real
brotherhood which consists in bearing each other's burdens.†
* "Partout les femmes les meilleures et les plus intelligentes font une
guerre aveugle à l'assurance. Elles ne veulent pas qu'on pense à leur
avenir; leur sensibilité se révolte contre la prévoyance des bons maris et
des bons pères. J'en ai entendu une, aussi bonne que jolie, qui s'ecriait
avec une indignation presque comique: Mais tu es donc un égöiste,
puisque tu veux mourir avant moi.'”—Edmond About. "L'Assurance,"
1865, ix., p. 157.
"C'est une chose consolante et morale que les hommes s'unissent et
s'entraident pour combattre les fleaux dont ils sont incessamment menacés,
et qu'au moyen de faibles sacrifices dans les jours de prosperité, ils se
menagent de puissantes ressources dans l'infortune: c'est l'accomplissement
d'un des premiers devoirs de la charité chrétienne. On doit savoir gré à
la science qui tend à regulariser ce devoir d'après les principes de la justice,
et qui étudie les moyens de lui faire produire les résultats les plus utiles
avec le moins de sacrifices possible."-Quetelet.
-Quetelet. Lettre vii., sur "La
Théorie des Probabilités," p. 46. Bruxelles, 1846.
EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN.
95
4. But added to the great evils of improvident living are
the evils of improvident, that is dishonest, trading. I think
I see signs of a spreading notion in many quarters, that
"business," that "speculation," as it is called, is only a form of
gambling; that it is a game of chance, in which success or
ruin depends on the turn of the dice. The great bankruptcies
of which we so often hear, reverses, as they are euphemistically
styled, in which assets of hundreds of pounds have to be set
against the liabilities of tens of thousands, familiarise the
public mind with this estimate of commerce. A transaction
in which the possible gain is to be borne by one's self, and of
which the not improbable loss is inevitably to be thrown upon
others, is not denounced or felt to be a dishonesty quite as
much if it succeed as if it fail,—a dishonesty in its first stage,
and not merely in its final explosion. It is spoken of as a
misfortune, a miscalculation, and popular sympathy is much
less likely to go with the creditors who suffer, than with the
debtor who has caused the suffering. It is so easy and pleasant,
besides, to throw the blame on the Bank Charter Act, on
anything rather than on individual haste to be rich, in utter
disregard of the obligation of fidelity to engagements, and of
prudence, which is the grand outwork of integrity. This
spirit descends from great to small transactions; it spreads to
the right and to the left, and the public conscience is hardened
and corrupted, an evil still greater than even the wide-spread
financial ruin which is at once a cause and a result.*
5. One would, perhaps, expect that those who fail by economy
of living, by provident arrangements, and by cautious trading, to
* “The habit of condemning irregularities in millions, while punishing
them in hundreds, has become intolerable, and is producing frightful public
mischief.”—Spectator, 27th October, 1866, p. 1188.
At a recent meeting in Bristol, Mr. M. Castle, Deputy Chairman of the
Bristol and Exeter Railway, said: "If anyone told him that a railway
could be made out of nothing in a strictly correct and proper manner, he
96
EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN.
insure the well-being of those dependent upon them, would at
least neglect nothing to render them independent, that is, self-
dependent, and that care would be taken to qualify and train
them for earning their own livelihood in case of need. But
no moral evils, like misfortunes, "come, not single spies, but
in battalions;" vices, like virtues, are gregarious. The coolest
indifference to the means of escape from shipwreck commonly
coincides with the greatest recklessness in steering. Reverse
of fortune is the chief source and evidence of qualification for
the teacher's office.* In one of Jerrold's sketches, Mr. Isaac
Cheek is asked, "What can you do?" Now, as Isaac had not
would not believe it." 'We entirely agree with him, and consequently
we do not believe that the railways in question were made in a strictly
correct and proper manner."-Ibid., p. 1182.
"This is much as though a grocer were to say, To use false weights and
to give short measure may not be strictly correct or proper; but if such
weights and measures are not used, fortunes cannot be made."--Saturday
Review, 27th October, 1866, p. 504. [We have all heard of the em-
barrassed landowner who "muddled away his income paying his debts ;”
but this is scarcely less absurd than the pleas often urged on behalf of
insolvents, e. g., "insufficiency of income, and pressure by creditors.”
Insufficient income. —a convenient synonym for excessive expenditure!
Inability to pay caused by demand for payment !]
* Some time ago, an advertisement appeared in the Daily Telegraph:
“A Young Lady, recently bereaved, requires music pupils!" Here is
another: "Bank Failures.—In consequence of the above, a Married Lady,
highly connected, residing in the Isle of Wight, assisted by a talented
Hanoverian, offers for Girls of delicate health all the comforts and kindness
of their own homes, combined with eminent masters for their education,
and pure sea air. The house has a charming southerly aspect, rooms very
lofty, situated in 12 acres of ground, is replete with every comfort, in-
cluding a small dairy farm. Inclusive terms, 150 guineas under ten years
of age, 180 above.
Indian children or orphans from earliest childhood
would have a happy home."
"A Clergyman," addressing the editor of the Times, points out to
governesses that the home market for their talents is overstocked, and that
they must seek the foreign or colonial markets, or betake themselves to
some other calling for a livelihood. He recently inserted an advertisement
EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN.
97
66
dined for three days, he thought himself justified in saying—
Anything." Hunger thus conferred the cheap diploma of
omnipotence: why not of omniscience also? In a bitter
moment, I have been tempted to say that a governess is too
often "a poor lady who knows nothing, and teaches everything
for nothing." Is it wonderful that those who are driven by
stress of famine to a vocation for which (spite of etymology)
they have no real calling, should feel its duties to be irksome ;
that what is done without zeal or fitness should be badly done;
that what is badly done should be badly paid; and that, by a
fatal reaction, a strong discouragement is thrown in the way
of those who would otherwise prepare themselves for a profes-
sion which ought to be surpassed by none in dignity, as it is
second to none in usefulness?* Could we fancy the medical
profession largely, if not mainly, filled by persons who found
in "the hard necessity of daily bread,” a sudden substitute for
long and varied and systematic training, we should expect at
once an increased rate of mortality among patients, and a
decreased rate of emolument and of honour among physicians.
This rapid sketch of some of the most obvious causes of
the pressure for employment among women of the upper class,
and the consequent insufficiency and unremunerativeness of
such employment is, by natural contrast, suggestive of some
means of cure. Of two only I will briefly speak.
1. Even with, and (a fortiori) still more without, greater
in the papers for a governess to instruct young children, stipulating that
applicants should be Englishwomen between the age of twenty and thirty.
No less than 250 applications for the situation were forwarded to him.”.
Pall Mall Gazette, 16th Sept., 1867.
*
"The country is often said to be overstocked with governesses. This
is literally true, but it is, in reality, only overstocked with bad governesses.
There is employment for an even larger number of teachers than we have
already, if they were only competent."-Quarterly Review, April, 1869,
P. 475.
H
98
EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN.
economy of living, greater prudence in the management of
business, greater attention to the means of securing the future
of others dependent upon us, as well as of our own-it is
needful that idleness should cease to be regarded as the
happiest destiny of women; that girls, like boys, should be so
taught and trained, should have their intelligence so sharpened.
and developed by instruction in real knowledge, and by con-
tact with the facts of nature and of life, so enlightened as to
the mutual relations of the different members of society, that
they shall be alike fitted and disposed in every case to play a
useful part, and not to shrink from toil and hardship, should
the necessity arise.* "Can do," it is said, "is easily carried
about;" and the very acquisition of a power is in itself great
gain. In regard to the examinations for girls which have been
lately established by the University of Cambridge, I have
found many persons, and especially many women, who approve
of them so far as concerns those who are designed to act as
teachers, but no farther. This distinction I utterly repudiate
for two reasons: 1st, because it is impossible to tell beforehand
who shall, and especially who shall not, be required to teach ;†
* While this paper is being printed a friend writes to me: "Poor
is dying. In the comfortable enjoyment of a steady income, and then a
pension, he taught his daughters to feel it derogatory to do anything, and
now he is leaving them, three clever young women, with nothing to live
on, and nothing to turn their hands to."-"The people who most need
assistance arc often least capable of undertaking useful occupation, owing
to the defective nature of their early training."-Seventh Report of the
Society for Promoting the Employment of Women. 1866.
"When witness was left by her husband, she had no means of support-
ing her children. She was the daughter of a publican, and, having been
brought up respectably, she had no trade or calling to fall back upon. She
at first sold lucifers about the streets," &c.-Newspaper Report of case of
Death of a Child from Starvation, January, 1867. [What unconscious
significance there is in the phrase "brought up respectably," taken with
what follows!]
† See Appendix S.
EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN.
99
2ndly, and chiefly, because the only true test of knowledge of
any subject is the ability to teach it.*
It is thus that gaps in
the continuity of knowledge are detected; that haziness and
confusion of mind are removed; and that clearness, and
thoroughness, and readiness, are best attained. If this dis-
tinction were abolished, the teacher's office would soon be
more generously appreciated, because better understood; the
teacher's efforts would be no longer chilled and thwarted by
parental indifference or ignorance, and a great step would be
taken towards that state of social feeling when the business of
instruction shall stand at least as high as that of destruction ;
and when, in Carlyle's words, "individuals and communities
shall discover, not without surprise, that fashioning the souls
of a generation by knowledge, can rank on a level with blow-
ing their bodies to pieces with gunpowder." Such a serious,
and solid, and practical training would in itself go far to banish
the aimless frivolity, the idleness, the vain display, the mental
vacuity and ennui, the wastefulness of time and money, the
dreamy sentimentalism which afflict so many young women of
the upper class, and to create, instead, an intelligent interest in
the world's progress, an ennobling desire to be helpful there-
The first result of such a change would, doubtless, be
to shut the door of employment against those whose only
passport is not fitness but the want of bread; its second, and
not slow, result would be, that the pressure for employment
would be less intense, while those who needed it would be
furnished with ampler and higher qualifications, would be fitted.
for nobler service, and would earn a richer recompense.† It is
unto.
* "What a person knows, that he can teach," says Dr. Pusey (Colle-
giate and Professorial Teaching and Discipline, 1854, p. 193). It would,
perhaps, be less ambiguous to say, "What a person can teach, that he
knows."
† See Appendix T.
Uor M
ΙΟΟ
EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN.
a miserable system of either economy or alms-giving, which
makes the rising generation pay for the shortcoming, the
negligence, the incapacity of the present or the past.*
Our President,t in his admirable address, has aptly applied
to education what Wordsworth says of a cloud, "which moveth
altogether, if it move at all;" and so will the improvement of
women's education act powerfully on that of men.
And here
I may be allowed to express my own gratification that the
President has given his high sanction to a view which I have
held for many years,—that a much larger place than hitherto
may be and ought to be assigned to women in the general
work of education. By their greater sympathy with the young,
their greater tenderness and purity, their greater flexibility of
mind and power of entering into the mental state of others,
they are peculiarly fitted to be teachers not of their own sex
solely, but of the other also. It is by the power of gentleness
that discipline is best maintained, and intelligence never ex-
pands so rapidly and healthily as when it is warmed into life
by genial moral influence.‡
While I have thus dwelt chiefly on teaching, I can but hint
at the wisdom of opening up other careers, as many and as
various as possible, to those who may have a calling for them.§
* "While there is a prize to run for in all the different race-courses of
human life, why should it be necessary to make up a purse, at the expense
of the rising generation, for the beaten horses in them all?"—Professor
Pillans. Principles of Elementary Teaching," 2nd edition, 1829, p. 58.
†The Rt. Hon. H. A. Bruce, then President of the Educational
Section of the Social Science Association at Manchester.
(6
+ See Appendix U.
? It suffices, without discussion, to commend to the candid and most
serious consideration of my readers Mr. W. R. Greg's thoughtful paper
entitled "Why are Women Redundant?" and especially pages 30 and 31.
Measures which he deprecates when proposed as cures for existing evils, he
EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN.
ΙΟΙ
If for men,
66
I leave it to others dogmatically to declare what callings are
fit, and what are unfit for women.
une carrière
ouverte aux talens," is indeed a right principle, it can not be
wholly inapplicable to women also. Time may yet work great.
changes in our traditional and conventional notions on this
point. The question indeed must, I believe, be wrought out
rather than thought out, solved by actual progress, however
slow, rather than by verbal argument, however ingenious.
2. But far beyond and above this, I contemplate, and would
advocate, for the youth of all classes, the rich as well as the
poor, female as well as male, such a system of education as
shall aim directly at the abolition of those economic evils,
which retard our social progress, deform and disgrace our
civilisation, making good men often despair of any remedy,
or even serious abatement. It is in the school mainly that
this work is to be done; I am utopian enough to believe that
in the school this work can be done. Thirty years' varied
experience of old systems and of new, gives me confidence in
the issue of such an extension of the scope of our school-
teaching, high and low, as shall amount in spirit and in
purpose to a radical reformation. In our schools for the poor,
attention is now so exclusively fixed on the mere elements of
knowledge; in those for the sons of the rich, on Latin and
Greek verbal "scholarship," and on mathematics, in those for
the daughters of the rich, on the so-called “accomplishments"
which minister to display; that it may well seem an idle dream
to anticipate the universal introduction into schools of such
teaching as shall place the pupil en rapport with the world
into which he or she is about to enter, as shall explain the
admits to be useful as lenitives when not more is expected from them.
Which is their proper title, what is their precise value, I need not now
attempt to determine. If they are good so far as they go, I may postpone
the question "How far do they go?"
I02
EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN.
-X-
mechanism, or rather the dynamics of society, and the relations
between the individual and it; as shall inculcate and inspire
industry, integrity, frugality, self-dependence, self-control, a
definite plan of life, the preference of the claims of the
future to present enjoyment, a steady self-advancement for the
sake of others as well as for one's own. My hearers, male
and female alike, looking back on such early training, however
diverse, as they have had, may well think that I "imagine a
vain thing." Nevertheless, I know what I am saying. Eco-
nomics I hold to be a part, but no small or unimportant part,
of morality; they are indeed at the very root of practical
morals, for morals decay alike amidst squalid poverty and
thriftless waste. Into all social relations does money somehow
enter, in getting or spending, in lending or borrowing, in sav-
ing or scattering, as well as in buying and selling. Money
means independence, leisure, culture, peace of mind, freedom
from corroding and debasing care, the power and the right to
be generous, to direct and to pay labour, individual and social
progress--and the disregard of it so loudly professed by
some, is either hypocrisy or stupidity, or both. Few things,
indeed, are more important than money, the means by which
it is acquired, the ways in which it is employed. Wealth may
be abused, and so may health; but that cannot be used which
is not possessed.
What training, then, is anywhere given in this most vital
theme? A national schoolmaster once told me, that wages he
regarded as a branch of arithmetic! At Eton, the late head
master, who expressed the very needless fear of his influencing
* "Ceux qui, pleins d'idées exagérées et vagues sur la morale, voient en
pitié qu'on cherche à multiplier les richesses, sont des rêveurs qui s'égarent
dans de vaines et funestes théories.
Plus les lumières se répan-
dront, mieux on jugera que le plus puissant auxiliare de la morale est
l'économie politique.”—Joseph Droz. Econ. Polit.," 3me edition, 1854,
c. i., L. 1, pp. 2, 3. See Appendix V.
EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN.
103
the boys too much, when asked if he does anything to repress
extravagance among them, replied, that he forbids the use of
easy chairs, an answer worthy, for its naif irrelevancy, to
rank with that of Jerrold's sailor, who, when asked about
William's moral character, replies, "Moral character! why, he
plays the fiddle like an angel." In schools of every sort,
except in such as the Birkbeck schools in London, the Secular
School in Glasgow, the Free School and the Mechanics' Insti·
tution in Manchester, the new City schools in London, and a
few others, the subject is wholly ignored. Yet their experience
proves that no other is more interesting, or more useful, or
more easily taught without loss, nay, with gain, to other
subjects. The need of such teaching appears on every hand
to all whose eyes are not blinded that they cannot see. In
one of the very reports I have quoted (1863, p. 18), we read
of a governess, aged 54, who was economical in her habits,
but gave away all her salary in charity. Her sight is now fail-
ing, and she is asthmatic, and though she still endeavours to
gain a livelihood by teaching music, she is so frequently con-
fined to her room, that she cannot reckon on any income
whatever." I cite this case with the greater pain, because I
fear it may, to some, appear one to be imitated rather than to
be deplored.
One concluding remark must suffice. We can now, better
than before, I trust, appreciate the sneering spirit in which too
many men deal with this great and urgent question of the
employment of women. Men treat women as if they were
beings of an inferior order ;* they do their best to stunt their
* "Women ought to be only ciphers,' said St. John, 'ciphers that
men alone give value to, worthless by themselves, but when properly
headed, of inestimable value.'"-Mrs. Lynn Linton. "Sowing the
Wind," 1867, vol. 2, p. 114, C. V. —————— "This would have been said by
many persons some generations ago, when satires on women were in
104
EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN.
intelligence, and quench, by ridicule, their love of real know-
ledge; they keep them aloof from contact with the facts of
social life; they charge themselves with their future, and
assume the responsibility of providing for them as wives; yet,
by mismanagement of their own affairs, they bring distress
upon them and upon their children; and then,-when the wife,
the widow, the sister, or the daughter, seeks, perforce, employ-
ment in any sphere but that which is already overcrowded with
the unhappy, and, too often, incompetent victims of paternal,
marital, and fraternal misconduct or incapacity, the cry is
raised of "strong-minded women," as if male supremacy, and
male monopoly, were in danger! It is not, indeed, by strong-
minded men that this cry is raised or echoed, but these are
the minority. No better test can be found of a man's own
character, and even mental calibre, than his estimate of woman.
If anywhere a match be found, in which the wife supplies the
phosphorus, and the husband the stick, we may be almost sure
that the husband fails to recognise the true relation, asserts an
unreal superiority, and claims undue submission. I have,
indeed, little patience with the freaks of unfeminine eccen-
tricity, which bring down the ridicule of the undiscerning upon
a sacred cause; but I have still less with the contemptuous
sarcasm and ungenerous misrepresentation indulged in by
many from whom better things might have been expected.*
""
vogue, and men thought it a clever thing to insult women for being
what men made them."-7. S. Mill, "The Subjection of Women,'
1869, p. 76.
*The London Examiner (Sept. 1868), forgetful, as I think, of what
was due to its own long and meritorious career of service to every good
cause, gave admission to the following sentence :-"In common with their
brethren at Manchester and Dublin, they (the Revising Barristers) have all
declined to recognise suckling as a qualification for the suffrage, and have
politely counselled strong-minded spinsters to keep at home." To deny
that womanhood is a disqualification, is surely not the same thing as to
assert that maternity is a qualification, for the suffrage. The final innuendo
EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN.
105
Thus, even the Saturday Review, which on this class of sub-
jects, seems to be inspired alternately by a good and by an
evil demon, lately says of Utah and the Mormons :-"The
rule is, that the husband should support the wife. The chief,
however, is bound by no rules, and Brigham Young has
publicly announced, that he will take no more wives unless
they can support themselves. In this point, it will be perceived,
there is a perfect identity of opinion between the illustrious
sovereign of Utah and the male and female doctrinaires of
Great Britain, who insist that women should be taught to make
their own livings. It gives one a fine idea of the vitality and
catholicity of truth, to see people so widely divided in many
respects as Brigham Young and our own strong-minded women,
meeting upon this common ground of self-supporting wives.
What an immense triumph it would be, if Brigham Young
could be persuaded to read a paper at the next Social Science
Congress, enforcing his very admirable views. The arch-
Mormon is doing his best to secure, in his own State, the
millennial condition of things, for which a host of English-
woman's Journals, and Woman's Rights Associations, are.
sighing and reviling in vain in this worn-out land. May we
suppose that the Woman's Rights people would almost endorse
polygamy itself on the most extensive scale, if only every
is simply a coarse impertinence. Such writers would do well to remember
the words of Madame de Stael: "La méchanceté vient non pas de ce
qu'on a trop d'esprit, mais de ce qu'on n'en a pas assez.
"Some of our public writers ought to be ashamed of themselves for
introducing that phrase, 'strong-minded women,' as if it were an oppro-
brium to be strong-minded. They have had certain people in their eyes
who, I think, are weak-minded, and who would be weak-minded as men.
But, taking strong-minded in its true sense, no man worth his salt—no man
worth being called a man-will hold any other opinion than that the
woman is more thoroughly a woman the stronger-minded she is the abler
and more cultivated in every respect."-Speech by Professor Masson, at
Edinburgh, Nov., 1866.
тоб
EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN.
English gentleman would vow to marry no wife who could not
set up type, or transmit messages by telegraph, or weave, or
dye, or, in some other way, bring so much grist to the mill as
would pay for her food, clothes, and house-room? It would
be rather startling if the idea which is eventually to regenerate
English civilisation should be first put into practice, and its
countless benefits first realised, in the despised Utah. We
should be very curious to know whether the self-supporting
system works well, and whether, in spite of so apparently dis-
couraging an announcement, the demand for Brigham Young
is as great as ever."-Saturday Review, 27th January, 1866,
p. 104.
Now, let us compare the two things which the reviewer so
ingeniously confounds. On one side, we have a licentious.
impostor, who advocates and practises polygamy under the
sanction of a spurious revelation from heaven; and who, in
order to make his profligacy as cheap as possible, requires his
so-called wives to support themselves: on the other, we have
a crowd of unoffending women, reduced to poverty by causes
most frequently beyond their own control, struggling, with the
aid of those who are willing to befriend them, to find or make
for themselves a way to honest living. These two things the
reviewer has the heart and the hardihood to treat as one in
principle, and to cover with undiscriminating ridicule. The
real analogy (if any exists) is between Brigham Young and
those men who, having undertaken to provide for women who
are connected with them, whether as wives or daughters, fail
in the undertaking, and then, by throwing them upon their
own resources, force them to maintain themselves. Finely
has Richter said, "Blessed is he for whom his own mother has
rendered all women venerable." No such blessing has seem-
ingly fallen to this writer's lot, and I venture to think that the
fault is not with his mother but with himself. For such
EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN.
107
writing there is no justification, no excuse.
It may be com-
patible with much politeness and show of deference to indi-
vidual women; but there is a politeness of condescension
which is but the veiled insolence of an assumed superiority;
and no courtesy can atone for injustice. If we "rob woman
of the ground on which she ought to stand," it signifies little
with what grimaces of gallantry "we offer her a chair.”
*
creates.
* "The moral education of mankind has hitherto emanated chiefly from
the law of force, and is adapted almost solely to the relations which force
The morality of the first ages rested on the obligation
to submit to power; that of the ages next following, on the right of
the weak to the forbearance and protection of the strong. How
much longer is one form of society and life to content itself with the
morality made for another. We have had the morality of submission, and
the morality of chivalry and generosity; the time is now come for the
morality of justice. Whenever, in former ages, any approach has been
made to society in equality, justice has asserted its claims as the foundation
of virtue.
We are entering into an order of things in which
justice will be again the primary virtue; grounded as before on equal, but
now also on sympathetic association; having its roots no longer in the
instinct of equals for self-protection, but in a cultivated sympathy between
them; and no one being now left out, but an equal measure being extended to
all. It is no novelty that mankind do not distinctly foresee their own changes,
and that their sentiments are adapted to past, and not to coming ages.
To see the futurity of the species has always been the privilege of the
intellectual élite, or of those who have learnt from them; to have the
feelings of that futurity has been the distinction, and usually the martyrdom,
of a still rarer élite. Institutions, books, education, society, all go on
training human beings for the old, long after the new has come; much
more when it is only coming."—7. S. Mill, "The Subjection of Women,'
1869, pp. 79-81.
APPENDIX.
S., p. 98.
“There is only one means of securing the competency of female teachers,
and that is, by providing for all Englishwomen of the middle class the
opportunity of higher liberal education. Culture must begin from above
and work downwards, operating first on those who have to diffuse it, and
making knowledge more general and cheap than it has been among women.
We must begin by teaching not only all the actual but all the possible
teachers, that is, women at large.
Nothing but a general im-
provement in the mode of educating girls of the middle classes can remove
this fatal defect (in the training of teachers). And if this general improve-
ment takes place, many of the other desiderata, such as increased apprecia-
tion of the value of sound education for women, increase of salaries of
teachers, greater discrimination between good and bad teachers, the closing
of the profession to persons utterly incompetent, and the elevation of really
competent teachers to a higher social position, will soon follow.”—D. R.
Fearon. "Report to Schools Inquiry Commissioners," 1868, vol. 7,
PP. 394, 397.
The position seems to be this: The standard recognised by the school
will regulate the qualifications and even the aspirations of the teacher. In
order to raise the latter we must raise the former. We come, then, to the
improvement of education generally among girls. This necessity is now
more and more admitted. Thus says the Quarterly Review for April,
1869: "We entirely agree with many witnesses before the Schools Inquiry
Commissioners and some of the Assistant Commissioners, that the introduc-
tion of Latin and Mathematics into girls' schools as the main* subjects of
teaching, and with a view to strengthen the mental powers for future exer.
cise, would have a most powerful effect in elevating the tone of female
education; Physical Science should also be more and more introduced."-
P. 470.
* QUERY.-For "the main" read "main"?—W. B. H.
EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN.
109
Hitherto, as it has been humorously said: "Boys learn, or rather they
are supposed to learn, Greek, Latin, and Mathematics; but girls are told
that these subjects are of immense difficulty and priceless value, though
utterly beyond their capacity. The girls naturally believe those whom
they have been taught to respect, and having no means of testing man's
pretensions, fall into the further error of believing that men generally have
a profound knowledge of them. The tasks, they are informed, which
should occupy girls, should be neither so hard nor so important."—"The
Social and Political Dependence of Women," 1867, p. 64.
This inequality can never be redressed until a higher, and therefore
juster, estimate of woman's capacity shall prevail. A sarcastic friend has
said: "The whole duty of man has been a matter of inquiry, but the
whole duty of woman has commonly been summed up in babies, buttons,
and puddings." It is not wonderful, accordingly, that any unusual en-
largement of mind should be deprecated as unfitting women for what is
supposed to be their only sphere.
"I do not think girls less capable than boys," said one lady (quoted by
Mr. H. A. Giffard in his Report to the Schools Inquiry Commissioners,
1858, vol. 7, p. 212), "but if you trained them in masculine studies you
would make them masculine. The proper sphere of woman is to be
dependent and domestic. The present education of girls is evidently
framed with this view. Men are afraid of clever women. I have met
many of my old pupils after they have left school. As a rule, the clever
ones remained unmarried; those who get married are the vapid and the
frivolous."
To the same effect writes Gellert, in a letter to a lady: "Vous m'enga-
gez, madame, à faire un écrit pour exhorter les mères à prendre plus de
soin de l'éducation de leurs filles. Au fond, votre demande est juste;
mais ma voix trouverait-elle de l'écho? Et d'ailleurs, les pauvres filles en
retireraient-elles quelque avantage? Supposez que les méres suivent mes
conseils et donnent à leurs filles une éducation plus soignée; qu'elles leur
apprennent ou leur fassent apprendre à penser et à parler, non moins qu'à
coudre et à faire la cuisine, qu'en résultera-t-il? Sur une centaine de filles,
dix à peine trouveront des maris, et, sur ces dix, deux au plus seront
heureuses. Non, madame, tant que les hommes seront aussi nuls, ce
serait un très grand malheur si toutes les filles étaient sensées.
Car alors,
ou bien les hommes n'en voudraient pas à cause de la supériorité des
femmes sur eux, ou bien les filles, si mes avis étaient adoptés, refuseraient
des hommes qui leur seraient si inférieurs. Non, madame, l'amour ne
saurait subsister sans une sorte d'équilibre intellectuel. Que la plupart des
filles grandissent donc sans avoir d'esprit, afin de mieux ressembler à leurs
futurs époux ! C'est déjà beaucoup si l'on prend soin dans chaque pays
d'élever convenablement un certain nombre de filles, et de leur inspirer le
ITO
EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN.
goût de ce qui est bon et beau, de les rendre aimables et sensibles, afin
que les hommes intelligents trouvent des femmes qui puissent faire leur
bonheur."-Figaro, 29th January, 1868. [The translator is M. Guillaume
Depping.]
The moral is obvious. For a higher standard of intelligence among
women, greater intelligence among men is needful. Were men more
intelligent, far from dreading, they would demand and ensure the highest
intellectual culture of women. The aim and standard of schools for girls
would, accordingly, be raised; and, as a consequence, teachers would be
better qualified. The chain of sequence is perfect in every link.
T., p. 99.
"If certificated mistresses and governesses could be procured as easily
as they can for the national schools, no one would employ anyone else.
The present evil of female teachers setting up a school, or offering them-
selves for governesses, without any special training or qualification, would
disappear. The daughter used to comforts and independence, suddenly
bereaved, the widow left to struggle as she may with life, the wife of the
ruined tradesman-this class of incompetent persons would by degrees
cease to be teachers. Teaching would be recognised as a liberal and
dignified profession, for which every aspirant must be regularly and
thoroughly prepared; charlatans would be at once deterred or detected;
and the whole level of English girlhood and womanhood would in no long
time be greatly elevated. It will some day be thought astonishing that we
could go on so long without establishing a system of this sort."-Quarterly
Review, April, 1869, p. 459.
"It certainly would be well if there could be some change from the
invariable 'going out as a governess,' which is the resource of reduced or
working ladies. Governesses are said to be divided into thorough ladies,
who can teach nothing professionally; and those who have been trained to
teach, and who are not refined."-"Defects in the Moral Training of
Girls," by A Mother. "The Church and the World," 3rd series, 1868,
p. 101.
"For the amelioration of the condition of female teachers, two things
are necessary: the first is to raise the intellectual status of qualified
teachers, and to accord a juster social recognition to their profession; the
second is, to find other occupations for those who are unfit to teach, and
only take to teaching because they can do nothing else."-Mrs. Josephine
E. Butler. "The Education and Employment of Women," 1868, Liver-
pool, p. 9.
EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN.
JI I
"If all women who wished to become governesses could find a college
in which to qualify themselves for the noble office; and if all who were
thus qualified could provide themselves with a certificate of qualification--
the unprovided and incompetent would be unable to find employment, and
would cease to lower the character and drag down the remuneration of the
entire class into which they now intrude themselves unwarrantably. You
would at first have fewer following that calling; but those who did follow
it would hold their right position, and their numbers would be recruited
as the need for them was felt."—W. R. Greg. 'Why are Women
Redundant?" 1869, p. 36.
"Among the principals of the schools, the majority have undertaken
the business of teaching as an after-thought, and have not deliberately
adopted the profession from choice.
The number of governesses
who have been educated with a view to the work, and who have contem-
plated the adoption of it as a profession, is very small; not more, as far
as I can judge, than six or seven per cent."-F. G. Fitch. "Report to
Schools Inquiry Commissioners," 1868, p. 284, vol. 9.
U., p. 100.
"He (Horace Mann) had never been pleased with any desire on
woman's part to shine in public, but it was his opinion that the divinely
appointed mission of woman is to teach, and it was his wish to introduce
her into every department of instruction as soon as it could be done with
good effect. He had watched teaching long enough to know that woman's
teaching, other things being equal, is more patient, persistent, and
thorough than man's; and that to equal intellectual advantages that of
moral culture, which should never be divorced from these, is more surely
added thereby; and that this grows out of the domestic traits, which are
not marred by this use, but only thus directed to the noblest ends. Nor
does it interfere in any degree with the peculiarly appointed sphere of
woman. She is better fitted for the duties of wife and mother for having
first used her faculties in imparting knowledge in circumstances that are
free from distracting cares. He had no desire to shut out men from the
enjoyment of the same privilege; but he hoped, by the union of the two,
in the vocation of teaching, to annihilate, as it were, certainly to banish, all
brutalities in young men and all frivolities in young women, and this without
checking the hilarity or interfering with the simplicity of youth.—“ Life
of Horace Mann," by his Widow, 2nd Edition, Boston, 1865, P. 424.
[For information as to the employment of women as teachers in the United
States, see Miss Jex Blake's recently published volume, so often quoted
above, and the Rev. James Fraser's valuable report to the Schools Inquiry
Commissioners, 1867, pp. 67-69.]
II 2
EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN.
“Of two persons, a man and a woman, who have an equally accurate
acquaintance with a given subject, it may fairly be assumed that the woman
is likely to be the better teacher. All the natural gifts which go so far
to make a good teacher, she possesses in a high degree. In sympathy
with learners, in the imaginative faculty which helps her to see what is
going on in their minds, in the tact which seizes upon the happiest way to
remove a difficulty or to present a truth, in insight into character, in
patience, and in kindness, she is likely to excel him. A larger proportion
of women than of men may be said to have been born teachers, and to be
specially gifted by nature with the art of communicating what they know.”—
7. G. Fitch. 'Report to Schools Inquiry Commissioners," 1868, vol. 9,
P. 286.
"Women seem to have more patience as teachers, more quickness in
seeing whether the pupil understands, more skill in adapting the explana-
tions to the peculiarities of the pupil's mind, and certainly a nicer discern-
ment of his or her character. They are quite as clear in exposition as
men are, and, when well trained, quite as capable of making their teach-
ing philosophical, I must confess myself to have been also impressed by
the interest which they often took in their pupils, and their genuine
ardour to do the best for them."-Jas. Bryce. "Report to Schools Inquiry
Commissioners," 1868, vol. 9, p. 822.
V., p. 102.
"There are in England now a vast number, and an increasing number,
of young women who, from various circumstances, which we all know,
must in after life be either the mistresses of their own fortunes, or the
earners of their own bread. And to do that wisely and well they must be
more or less women of business; and to be women of business they must
know something of the meaning of the words capital, profit, price, value,
labour, wages, and of the relation between these two last. In a word, they
must know a little political economy. Nay, I sometimes" [why not always?]
"think that the mistress of every household might find, not only thrift of
money, but thrift of brain, freedom from mistakes, anxieties, worries of
many kinds, all of which eat out the health as well as the heart, by a little
sound knowledge of the principles of political economy. When we consider
that every mistress of a household is continually buying, if not selling;
that she is continually hiring and employing labour in the form of servants;
and very often into the bargain keeping her husband's accounts, I cannot
but think that her hard-worked brain might be clearer, and her hard-tried
desire to do her duty by every subject in her little kingdom, might be
EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN.
113
more easily satisfied, had she read something of what Mr. J. S. Mill has
written, especially on the duties of employer and employed. A capitalist,
a commercialist, an employer of labour, and an accountant-every mistress
of a household is all these, whether she likes it or not; and it would be
surely well for her, in so very complicated a state of society as this, not to
trust merely to that mother-wit, that intuitive sagacity, and innate power of
ruling her fellow creatures, which carries women so nobly through their
work in simpler and less civilised societies."-Rev. C. Kingsley. "Thrift."
"Good Words," 1st May, 1869, p. 346.
[Most true;
It is, no
"Economics lie at the very root of practical morality, and it is to be
hoped that men of influence, and genius, and experience of life, will
address themselves gravely to the task of instructing the working classes
"The Educa-
on this most grave subject."-Mrs. Josephine E. Butier.
tion and Employment of Women," 1868, Liverpool, p. 14.
but why restrict this teaching to "the working classes"?
doubt, true, as a recent writer has well said, that "Men of small means
can never realise capital, if their wives are not a party to the transaction :"
but it is not less true, according to the same writer, that, "Even to
know how to guide money after it is made, requires, perhaps, as much
And in the depart-
knowledge as to know how to make it."
ment of spending, even more than in that of earning (if we take all ranks
of society together), is the power of women great for evil or for good.
From this opinion I do not fear that Mrs. Butler will dissent.]
"The education given to women-an education of the sentiments
rather than of the understanding-and the habit inculcated by their
whole life, of looking to immediate effects on persons, and not to remote
effects on classes of persons-make them both unable to see, and un-
willing to admit, the ultimate evil tendency of any form of charity or
philanthropy which commends itself to their sympathetic feelings. The
great and continually increasing mass of unenlightened and short-sighted
benevolence, which, taking the care of people's lives out of their own
hands, and relieving them from the disagreeable consequences of their
own acts, saps the very foundations of the self-respect, self-help, and self-
control which are the essential conditions both of individual prosperity
and of social virtue-this waste of resources and of benevolent feelings in
dcing harm instead of good, is immensely swelled by women's contributions,
and stimulated by their influence.
For charity, many of them
are by nature admirably fitted; but to practise it usefully, or even without
doing mischief, requires the education, the manifold preparation, the
knowledge and the thinking powers, of a skilful administrator."-7. S.
Mill, "The Subjection of Women," 1869, c. iv, pp. 163, 184.
114
EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN.
W.
I know not that I can better conclude this volume than by the follow-
ing quotation from the Lancet: "Develop, we would say, to the utmost
the mind of women by a good and appropriate education, open up to
them every legitimate source of occupation, and admit those who desire it
to examinations by our universities; but, after all, if human life is to go
on, and society is to be framed as it is and must be framed, then woman
has duties to perform as a maiden, wife, and mother, as a teacher of youth,
the companion, sympathiser, and adviser of men and women, that can be
done by none other, and which we hope she will consider it her privilege
and her happiness to discharge."-September, 1868.
A. Ireland & Co., Printers, Pall Mall, Manchester.
COLLEGE FOR WOMEN,
AT
HITCHIN, HERTFORDSHIRE.
Committee Room-9, CONDUIT STREET, LONDON. W.
General Committee
Executive do.
Cambridge do.
Local Secretaries
Prospectus
Entrance Examination
Course of Study
Certificates
Nominations
Contributions
•
CONTENTS.
NOVEMBER, 1869.
PAGE
2
2
3
3
4
6
8
8
12
14
General Committee.
The Lord BISHOP of ST. DAVID'S.
The Lord BISHOP of PETERBorough.
Lady MARIAN ALFORD.
Lady CHARLOTTE ELLIOT.
Lady HOBART.
Lord LYTTELTON.
The DEAN of CHICHESTER.
Lady CHURCHILL.
Lady COLVILE.
Lady CROMPTON.
The DEAN of ELY.
Lady EASTLAKE.
Lady RICH.
H. W. ACLAND, Esq. M.D.
Rev. Dr. ANGUS.
JAMES BRYCE, Esq.
Hon. Mrs. W. CowPER.
Rev. J. LLEWELYN DAVIES.
J. E. GORST, Esq.
Miss DORA GREENWELL.
W. GULL, Esq., M.D.
Rt. Hon. RUSSELL GURNEY, M.P.
Miss KINDERSLEY.
Rev. Professor MAURICE.
Rev. CANON MELVILLE.
JAMES PAGET, Esq., F.R.S.
Hon. Mrs. PONSONBY.
Rev. A. RALEIGH, D.D.
Rev. J. H. RIGG, D.D.
E. H. SIEVEKING, Esq., M.D.
Miss ANNA SWANWICK.
Miss EMILY TAYLOR.
G. O. TREVELYAN, Esq., M.P.
Miss TWINING.
Rev. W. T. BULLOCK.
Rev. PREBENDARY BURGESS.
Executive Committee.
Lady AUGUSTA STANLEY.
Lady GOLDSMID.
The DEAN of CANTERBURY.
Mrs. BODICHON.
Mrs. RUSSELL GURNEY.
G. W. HASTINGS, Esq.
JAMES HEYWOOD, Esq.
Mrs. MANNING.
Miss F. METCALFE.
H. J. ROBY, Esq.
Professor SEELEY.
SEDLEY TAYLOR, Esq.
Treasurer, H. R. TOMKINSON, Esq., 24, Lower Seymour Street,
London. W.
Hon. Sec., Miss DAVIES, 17, Cunningham Place, London. N.W.
تن
Cambridge Committee.
Professor ADAMS.
Rev. W. G. CLARK.
Professor HUMPHRY, M.D.
Professor LIVEING.
Rev. T. G. BONNEY.
Rev. Professor LIGHTFOOT, D.D.
Rev. R. BURN.
Rev. T. MARKBY.
Rev. J. PORTER.
H. SIDGWICK, Esq.
Rev. J. VENN.
Hon. Sec., S. Taylor, Esq.
Local Secretaries.
Rev. W. L. CLAY, Rainhill Vicarage, Prescott.
Mrs. H. COWELL, 5, Alipore Lane, Calcutta.
Miss EDWARDS, Brighton Lodge, Clifton, Bristol.
Mrs. EDWARD F. GRENFELL, Rugby.
Rev. F. J. A. HORT, St. Ippolyt's, Hitchin.
Rev. W. J. KENNEDY, 19, Ardwick Green, Manchester.
Mrs. C. E. MATHEWS, Oak Gate, Edgbaston, Birmingham.
Miss RICHARDSON, South Ashfield, Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
H. H. SALES, Esq., 5, Victoria Chambers, Leeds.
Divinity
...
English
...
French
German
Classics
Mathematics
Moral Science
Chemistry
...
:
...
:
Lecturers.
Rev. F. J. A. HORT, M.A.
Late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.
Professor SEELEY, M.A.
Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge.
GUSTAVE MASSON, B.A., Univ. Gallic.
Assistant Master and Librarian of Harrow School.
Dr. F. ALTHAUS.
German Examiner in the University of London.
E. C. CLARK, M.A.
Late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.
JAMES STUART, M.A.
Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.
Rev. JOHN VENN, M.A.
Fellow of Caius College, Cambridge.
G. D. LIVEING, M.A.
Professor of Chemistry in the University of Cambridge.
4
PROSPECTUS.
The College for women is designed to hold, in
relation to girls' schools and home teaching, a posi-
tion analogous to that occupied by the Universities
towards the public schools for boys. It is proposed
to raise the sum required for building, and other
preliminary expenses, by public subscription and by
the sale of a limited number of presentations. The
buildings having been provided, the Students' fees
will be fixed on such a scale as to secure that the
institution shall be self-supporting. The property
will be vested in Trustees, under a deed, of which
the following are the principal provisions :-
That the property be held in trust for the
purpose of erecting and maintaining a College
for the higher education of women.
That the Council shall use such efforts, as
from time to time they may think most expedient
and effectual, to obtain for the students of the
the College admission to the Examinations for
Degrees of the University of Cambridge, and,
generally, to place the College in connexion
with that University.
That religious instruction and services, in
accordance with the principles of the Church of
England as by law established, be given and
held in the said College or in connexion there-
5
with, but that attendance on such instruction or
services be not required from any student, who
being of full age, or, if such student be not of
full age, whose parents or guardians, may object
thereto in writing.
That no persons be admitted as students of
the College who shall not have passed such an
Examination as to their knowledge and ability,
as the Council shall from time to time require.
It has been ascertained that a suitable site can be
obtained, and it is intended to commence building as
soon as the necessary funds shall have been con-
tributed. In the meantime, a temporary arrangement
has been made, for the reception of a limited number
of students, of whom five are now in residence.
The whole course occupies three years, about half
of each year being spent in the College. There are
three terms in each year. The charge to students
for board, lodging, and instruction is £35. per term,
paid in advance. Ladies who may be unable to take
the whole course will be received for shorter periods.
Admission will be according to priority of applica-
tion.
The College was opened under the direction of
Mrs. Manning, on October 16th. The subjects of
instruction for the first year are Divinity, English,
Classics, and Mathematics.
6
I.
ENTRANCE EXAMINATION.
The Examination is conducted by printed papers.
Every Candidate is required to satisfy the Examiners in
PART I. PRELIMINARY.
1. The principles and practice of Arithmetic.
2. English Grammar, with questions on the con-
struction of sentences and meanings of words.
3. Physical and Political Geography.
4. English History. Some period (of about fifty
years) since the accession of the Tudors, the
period to be chosen by the Candidate.
N.B. A general knowledge of the leading facts of
English History will be required.
5. English Composition.
*6. Scripture History.
PART II. OPTIONAL SUBJECTS.
Every Candidate is also required to satisfy the Ex-
aminers in two of the following subjects, of which one
must be a language No Candidate will be examined in
more than three.
1. Latin. Easy passages for translation from Latin
into English, and easy English sentences for
translation into Latin, with questions on
Grammar.
2. Greek. An easy passage of Attic Greek for
translation into English, and easy English
sentences for translation into Greek with
questions on Grammar.
* In case of objection, this subject will not be required.
7
3. French.
4. German.
5. Mathematics.
Algebra. Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication,
and Division of Algebraical Quantities, Arith-
metical and Geometrical Progression, Simple
Equations.
Geometry. The First Four Books of Euclid; or
the Principal Properties of Triangles, and of
Squares, and other Parallelograms treated geo-
metrically; the Principal Properties of the
Circle, and of its inscribed and circumscribed
figures, treated geometrically.
6. Experimental Physics.
7. Chemistry.
8. Botany.
9. Music.
Notation.
Thorough bass up to the inversions
of the dominant seventh.
The execution of certain previously specified
compositions by classical writers and a piece of
easy music at sight.
10. Drawing, from the Flat, and from Models.
Perspective.
Candidates who have passed the Cambridge or Edinburgh
Local Examination for Senior Students, are not required to
pass this Examination. The Durham Certificate for Senior
Students will be accepted if the Candidate have passed in three
Sections, including A and B, or Section A and two languages in
Section B.
8
Divinity.
II.
COURSE OF STUDY.
SUBJECTS OF INSTRUCTION.
Modern Languages (English, French, and German.)
Classics.
Mathematics, Pure and Mixed.
Moral Science, including History.
Natural Science.
Vocal Music.
The above subjects will be taught in the regular College
Course, without extra charge. From among them, Students
will select a course of study, according to individual
ability and attainments. No Student will be allowed to
take more than a limited number.
EXTRA SUBJECTS.
Instrumental Music.
Harmony.
Italian.
Drawing.
III.
CERTIFICATES.
Application will be made to the University of Cambridge
to hold Examinations of the Students of the College, and
to certify proficiency according to the standard of the
ordinary Degree. (For particulars see below, A.)
A College Certificate will also be granted on similar
conditions to those for the University Certificate, with
some modifications. (For particulars see below, B.)
Certificates will also be granted for proficiency in single
subjects.
9
A.
EXAMINATIONS FOR THE UNIVERSITY CERTIFICATE.
The Examinations for the Cambridge Ordinary Degree
are three. I. The Previous Examination. II. The General
Examination. III. The Special Examinations.
I. Of the subjects for the Previous Examination, some
are fixed and some vary from year to year. The fixed
subjects are:-
1. Paley's Evidences of Christianity.
2. The Accidence of the Latin and Greek Grammar.
3. Euclid. Books I., II., III. and Book VI., Proposi-
tions 1-6.
4. Arithmetic.
The variable Subjects are:-
5. One of the four Gospels in the original Greek.
6. One of the Greek Classics.
7. One of the Latin Classics.
Notice of the particular Gospel and Classical Subjects
for each year is given more than a year and a half before
the Examination. In the fixed subjects the Examination
is conducted entirely by printed papers; in the variable
subjects partly by papers and partly vivá voce.
II. For the General Examination the subjects are :—
1. The Acts of the Apostles in the original Greek.
2. One of the Greek Classics.
3. One of the Latin Classics.
4. Elementary Algebra, comprising Quadratic Equa-
tions and Problems producing such Equations,
Ratio, Proportion, Arithmetical and Geometrical
Progression.
5. Elementary Mechanics and Elementary Hydro-
statics.
6. A voluntary paper containing a passage of English
Prose to be rendered into Latin, and also a sub-
ject or subjects for English Prose Composition.
This Examination is conducted entirely by printed
10
papers, and questions in Grammar, History and Geography
are appended to the papers on the Greek Testament and
the Classical subjects. The Classical subjects for each
year are made known a year before the Examination.
III. The Special Examinations are five in number; (1)
Theology; (2) Moral Science; (3) Law; (4) Natural Sci-
ence; (5) Mechanism and Applied Science, and the Student
must pass one of them before he is admitted to the
Ordinary Degree. From among them, two, Moral Science
and Natural Science have been selected, and Students in
the College will have the option of being prepared in one
or the other.
For the Special Moral Science Examination the subject
is divided into three branches, in only one of which the
Student can be examined.
(i.) Moral Philosophy.
SUBJECTS.
Stewart's Outlines of Moral Philosophy.
Butler's Three Sermons on Human Nature.
Whewell's Lectures on the History of Moral Philo-
sophy. 1-15.
Cicero de Officiis. Books 1 and 2.
(ii.) History.
SUBJECTS.
Outlines of English History, from the Norman Con-
quest to the Accession of George IV.
Hallam's Constitutional History.
A period of European History, of which notice is given
in the Michaelmas Term preceding the Examination.
(iii.) Political Economy.
SUBJECTS.
Smith's Wealth of Nations. Mac Culloch's edition.
Fawcett's Manual of Political Economy.
Bastiat's Harmonies of Political Economy.
For the Special Examination in Natural Science the
11
subject is divided into four branches, in only one of which
the Student can be examined.
(i.) Chemistry and the Laws of Heat.
(ii.) Geology.
(iii.) Botany (including Vegetable Physiology.)
(iv.) Zoology (including Animal Physiology.)
The Special Examinations are conducted by printed
papers only.
B.
EXAMINATIONS FOR THE COLLEGE CERTIFICATE.
The Examinations for the College Certificate will be
similar to those for the University Certificate, except that
any of the following deviations will be allowed.
French and English or German and English may be sub-
stituted for Latin or for Greek.
English, French and German may be substituted for both
Latin and Greek.
In English, French, and German, the Student will be
required to write a Composition in the particular language.
The Examinations in French and German will further
contain questions on
(1) the Language;
(2) some period of Continental History, .selected
beforehand;
(3) some one or more Literary Works, selected
beforehand.
The Examination in English will further contain ques-
tions on
(1) the Language;
(2) the Political Institutions of England;
(3) some one or more Literary Works selected
beforehand.
In case of objection, the Theological part of the Exami-
nation will not be required.
12
Rights of Presentation may be purchased on the following
terms:
1. Every person of full age, who shall contribute any sum of not less
than 50 guineas, shall thereby acquire the right to nominate, subject to
the conditions hereinafter set forth, a student or students to residence in
the College for a period not exceeding three years for each student, in
whichever of the following modes such Contributor may select.
a. For every 50 guineas contributed to nominate one student, for
whom the ordinary annual payment shall be 15 per cent. less than
that payable for the time being for students who are not nominated :
one Nominee only of a Contributor nominating in this mode to be in
the College at any time.
b. For every 100 guineas contributed to have always during the
life of the Contributor one Nominee in the College, for whom the
annual payment shall be 10 per cent. less than that payable for the
time being for students who are not nominated.
c. For every 300 guineas contributed to nominate one student, for
whom no ordinary annual charge shall be payable; one Nominee
only of a Contributor nominating in this mode to be in the College
at any time.
d. For every 500 guincas contributed to nominate two students,
for whom no ordinary annual charge shall be payable; one Nominee
only to be in the College at any time.
2. Any body of persons associated together for a bonâ fide educational
purpose, may by contribution acquire a right or rights of nomination in
the same manner as an individual Contributor; such right or rights to be
registered in the name of, and to be exercised on behalf of such associated
body, by some one person designated and duly authorised by such body
to represent it and act on its behalf for the time being; provided always
that no right of nomination of students at a reduction of 10 per cent. in
respect of a contribution of 100 guineas by any such associated body,
shall remain in force after the expiration of 15 years from the date of
admission to the College of the first student nominated in respect of such
contribution.
3. Every Contributor shall, at the time of announcing a contribution,
select and declare the mode in which a right or rights of nomination, if
any, will be exercised in respect of such contribution; and such right or
rights shall be exercised only in the mode so selected and declared.
13
4. No right of nomination shall be transferable.
5. Every Nominee of a Contributor shall, before admission to the
College, be required to pass such entrance examinations as may for the
time being be prescribed for candidates for admission; shall be subject to
all conditions of admission to and residence at the College, and to the
payment of all charges (except as is herein before provided with regard
to the ordinary annual charge) whether for extra studies or for any other
purpose, in the same manner as students who are not nominated.
6. No Nominee being a candidate for admission shall have any prior
claim to admission in preference to candidates who are not nominated;
the claims to admission of all candidates being considered solely with
reference to priority of application, and to qualification of admission,
according to the conditions in force for the time being.
7. If a Nominee has been admitted to and has resided at the College,
the right of nomination exercised on behalf of such Nominee shall be
deemed to have been fully and finally exercised, and no further right of
nomination shall, in respect of such right, be claimable on the ground of
such Nominee having from any cause ceased to be a student of the College
before completing the usual academical course, or on any other ground.
8. The right is reserved (up to the 1st day of October, 1870,) to cancel
the rights, should it be deemed necessary or expedient to do so, of all or
any of the proposed purchasers by returning the amount contributed
without interest, and without any deduction on account of expenses.
14
THE FOLLOWING CONTRIBUTIONS ARE PROMISED:-
Mrs. Bodichon
Frederic Seebohm, Esq.
Anonymous
The Dean of Canterbury
...
...
...
Leonard H. Courtney, Esq.
Miss Davies
...
:
£1000 0 0
105
0 0
...
100 0 0
100
:
0 0
100 0 0
100 0 0
Miss Garrett
...
...
:
...
100 0 0
100 0 0
...
100 0 0
:
:
:
:
:
100 0 0
100 0 0
100 0 0
...
100 0 0
100 0 0
:
Lady Goldsmid
James Heywood, Esq.
Miss Kershaw
Mrs. Manning
...
:
:
J. Wigham Richardson, Esq.
Lady Augusta Stanley
Sedley Taylor, Esq.
H. R. Tomkinson, Esq.
J. H. Tuke, Esq.
Viscountess Amberley
Mrs. Kingsford
The Author of "Romola"
Miss Anna Swanwick
Misses Metcalfe
Miss J. Boucherett ...
...
:
:
...
100 0 0
100 0 0
50 0 0
50 0 0
50 0 0
50 0 0
26 5 0
25 0 0
:
Mrs. William Grey
Mrs. Russell Gurney
Shadworth H. Hodgson, Esq.
Russell Scott, Esq.
Miss Shirreff
Messrs. Macmillan & Co.
Mrs. Titus Salt, jun.
Hon. Mrs. W. Cowper
Edward Enfield, Esq.
Miss Heaton
Mrs. Kershaw
Rev. Professor Lightfoot
Mrs. Burbury
Miss Jane Davies
25 0 0
...
...
25 0 0
25 0 0
...
...
25 0 0
...
25 0 0
...
:
21 0 0
21 0 0
...
20 0 0
...
20
...
...
...
:
...
...
...
Lady Charlotte Elliot
James Paget, Esq.
...
Sir Henry Rich, Bart
Misses Kennedy
Lady Stanley of Alderley
...
...
:
...
...
Highfield School, (per Miss Metcalfe)
Rev. G. Moody
...
:
...
...
...
...
0 0
20 0 0
20 0 0
20 0 0
15 0 0
10 10 0
10 10 0
10 10 0
10 10 0
10 0 0
10 0 0
6 3 6
600
15
...
E. F. Grenfell, Esq.
Robert King, Esq.
Rev. A. J. D'Orsey
John F. Clark, Esq.
Per Miss Davies
Miss Edwards
...
Rev Canon Gover ..
...
Mrs. James Kershaw
R. B. Litchfield, Esq.
Miss Manning
Rev. R. H. Quick
Sir Henry Thompson
Mrs. Townsend
Sums under £5.
For Nominations-
Miss Kershaw
A Friend
...
:
...
...
...
..
...
...
...
...
:
:
...
::
:
:.
...
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
...
£5 5 0
550
5 5 0
500
500
500
500
5 0 0
5 0 0
5 06
500
5 0 0
500
17 7 6
525 0 0
1)5 0 0
Two Scholarships, covering the whole of the fees for
the College Course (i.e. each of the value of 300 guineas),
were presented to the students who passed the best En-
trance Examination in July, by the following ladies:-
I.
Hon. Mrs. W. Cowper (ann. for three years)
Mrs. Russell Gurney
Per
ditto
Mrs. Scaramanga
do.
do.
do.
II.
Countess de Grey (ann. for three years)
£26 5 0
26 5 0
26 5 0
26 5 0
...
£35 0 0
...
Lady Marian Alford
Miss Dunbar Masson
do.
do.
35 0 0
35 0 0
Contributions (payable either in one sum or in annual
instalments) may be paid to the Treasurers, H. R. TOMKIN-
SON, Esq., 24, Lower Seymour Street, London, W., and
F. SEEBOHM, Esq., Hitchin; or to the "College Committee”
Account, at the London and County Bank, 21, Lombard
Street, E.C., and its Branches. It is particularly requested
that persons paying sums into the Bank will at the same
time advise the Treasurer thereof.
Contributions are also received by the Local Secretaries.
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
:
3 9015 00590 4480

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