Spinathoumous Shed
THE
IBERAL
DUCATION
WOMEN
ORTON
LC
1567
.078
A 545921
*
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LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
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1837
VERITAS
SCIENTIA
OF THE
E-PLURIBUS UNUM
SI-QUAERIS PENINSULAM AMOENAM
CIRCUMSPICE
VOYNOYNOVAVOVVINAVINOVY
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08549420P

LC
1567
078
1

2.
THE
LIBERAL EDUCATION
680
OF

WOMEN:
THE DEMAND AND THE METHOD.
CURRENT THOUGHTS IN AMERICA AND ENGLAND.
EDITED BY
JAMES ORTON, A.M.
PROFESSOR IN VASSAR COLLEGE, AUTHOR OF "THE ANDES AND AMAZON,”
ETC., ETC.
"Give us knowledge, power and life. We will repay the gift a hundred-
fold. Set free the women who sigh in the dark prison-houses, the captives of
ignorance and folly. Cruel tyrants are these; slay them! With yourselves,
people of England, it rests to put an end to that reign of frivolity of which
you say you are so weary.'
-ELIZABETH C. WOLSTENHOLME.
A. S. BARNES & COMPANY,
NEW YORK AND CHICAGO,
1873.
Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1873, by
A. S. BARNES & CO.,
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.
:
DESSPID-OU
INTRODUCTORY.
TH
HIS volume is a reprint of certain representative
articles which have lately appeared in America and
England, touching the liberal or collegiate education of
woman. Its object is to bring together some leading
thoughts upon the method of meeting this demand of
the age. Woman's need of a higher culture and her ca-
pacity to receive and use it, are subordinate topics, since
they have well nigh passed beyond debate. As a writer
in the Westminster Review sharply puts it: "It is surely
high time, that a man who dares to write insolently con-
cerning the female intellect should not only be regarded
as rude, but should incur the imputation of deficiency
in his own powers.
99
But precisely how we shall educate the coming wom-
an, is still an open question. Much that has been writ-
ten has been purely theoretic. Facts, however, are mul-
tiplying. Four different experiments are now in pro-
cess University Examinations, the Lecture System,
Mixed Colleges, and Colleges for Women. For a great
University to condescend to examine female candidates
and grant certificates, is a step forward; but it does not
furnish the means of education. It holds out its high
honors before the tantalized sex, saying: "These you can
have-if you can get them." The lecture-schemes, so
popular in England, are make-shifts. However much
iv
INTRODUCTORY.
apparent good they do in inducing girls to study, "writes
an eminent lady of Edinburgh," I feel that they must
aggravate the faults of superficiality, want of method
and want of the power of concentration.” At Cambridge
on the Charles, and Cambridge on the Cam, there is no
small stir, though little advance; women are graciously
permitted to "sit on the end of the bench" and listen to
the profoundest lectures. The "demand" for a thorough,
systematic education and for means to obtain it equal if
not similar to those enjoyed by young men, is met by
this "supply"!
Of the English plans, the most important are those
of the Edinburgh Association and of Hitchin College.
The fundamental idea of the former is future union with
the University of Edinburgh, and aims only at a liberal
education. The latter is a kind of succursal to Cambridge
and combines the normal and professional schools.
6
Oberlin well represents the trial of the mixed' theory,
-but only one phase of it. It proves that the two sexes
may be educated at one institution so far as propriety
and management are concerned. But as a separate ladies'
course is provided, it does not establish the possibility
or wisdom of co-education. When the Michigan and
Cornell Universities shall have opened wide their gates
and given to women exactly the same privileges and so-
cial standing accorded to young men-making no distinc-
tion in the class-room and merit the only passport to
honor, we shall have light on the problem: can the sex-
es be educated together on a common curriculum? Of
course the mixed system is economical; but a higher
question remains: can a liberal education in science, lit-
erature and philosophy (we make no reference to profes-
sional training,) be as well secured to woman in “sex-
less" as in separate colleges?
INTRODUCTORY.
Meanwhile Vassar is trying the experiment of a la-
dies' college-offering to young women that high and
thorough culture which has heretofore been the exclusive
privilege of young men. For eight years it has met
with continued success, and the prophesied difficulties
have not yet appeared.
From a large mass of material the Editor has en-
deavored to make an impartial selection.* For the pur-
pose of the work is not to exalt one theory over another,
but to bring the subject fairly before the public, and to
awaken a profounder sense of the value of woman's life
and education. The growing literature of this subject
is proof that it has become a recognized question of the
day. The demand for the highest mental development
a college course can furnish is one of the irrepressible
things of the century. Great is the contrast between the
old and new generations. "Our grandmothers were
content to sit at home all day, doing prodigies of needle-
work or laying up stores of preserved fruit." Their de-
scendants are knocking at the doors of Universities.
There is a like departure in public sentiment. The ec-
centric Sir John Leslie, who in his lectures to ladies at
the Edinburgh University many years ago, showed his
estimate of his audience by throwing fine jets of cologne
over them to illustrate Hydrodynamics, would not be
tolerated to-day. And the Trustees of hoary institutions
are gravely considering the expediency of admitting
women. It will not do to stand in the way of this
movement. "Through this House or over it, "said Lord
Brougham in the House of Lords," this Reform Bill must
pass." So says one half of humanity to the other. The
signs of the times are that when the barriers are re-
((
* It is proper to state that when abstracts are given, the titles
of the articles have been changed.
vi
INTRODUCTORY.
1
moved, woman will take an intellectual position, distinct
it may be, but in no wise inferior to that of man. Some
will pronounce this impossible. So it was said of Sher-
man's March to the Sea.
"He that will this faith deny,
Down among the fossils he shall lie;
Down, down, down, down,
Down among the fossils he shall lie!"
{
.
CONTENTS.
HISTORICAL SKETCH.
From the British Quarterly Review.
I.
II.
THE DEMAND OF THE AGE FOR THE LIBERAL EDUCA-
TION OF WOMAN, AND HOW IT SHOULD BE MET.
By President RAYMOND.
III.
WOMAN'S CLAIM TO A HIGHER EDUCATION.
By MILLICENT GARRETT FAWCETT.
IV.
THE TESTIMONY OF MARY SOMERVILLE.
V.
ON THE STUDY OF SCIENCE BY WOMEN.
By LYDIA ERNESTINE BECKER.
THE QUESTION OF HEALTH.
VI.
MENTAL PECULIARITIES OF WOMEN.
By Rev. J. M. CAPES.
VII.
•
From the College Courant.
·
PAGE
9
27
58
65
67
81
85
viii
CONTENTS.
THE SUPPRESSED SEX.
From the Westminster Review.
THE UNIVERSITY SYSTEM.
THE DIFFICULTIES.
From Fraser's Magazine.
HOME EDUCATION. .
VIII.
From the Edinburgh Review.
JOINT EDUCATION.
IX.
From the London Quarterly Review.
XII.
LOB-SIDED.
X.
A TRUE COLLEGE FOR WOMEN.
From the London Quarterly Review.
XIII.
XI.
ON THE WAY TO COLLEGE.
By Rev. THOMAS MARKBY.
XIV.
THE SEXES IN COLLEGE.
From the Nation.
By Rev. JOHN TODD, D.D.
XV.
By THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON.
XVI.
XVII.
SHALL GIRLS HAVE COLLEGES?
From the Williams Review.
·
PAGE
88
• 90
102
. 112
137
. 160
178
. 183
187
. 195
CONTENTS.
ix
1
COLLEGES FOR BOTH..
XVIII.
From the Golden Age.
SHALL WE ADMIT WOMEN? .
XIX.
From the Amherst Student.
THE OTHER SIDE: A REPLY.
XX.
From the Amherst Student.
XXI.
THE ARGUMENT FOR CO-EDUCATION.
By Professor BASCOM.
XXII.
EFFECTS OF CO-EDUCATION ON YOUNG WOMEN.
By President WHITE.
XXIII.
MIXED COLLEGES, FROM VARIOUS STANDPOINTS.
CO-EDUCATION IN HARVARD.
XXIV.
By JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE,
XXV.
EXPERIENCE AT OBERLIN COLLEGE.
By President FAIRCHILD.
XXVI.
EXPERIENCE AT WHEATON COLLEGE.
By Professor LUMRY.
XXVII.
EXPERIENCE AT KNOX COLLEGE.
By President BLANCHARD.
•
PAGE
200
203
206
. 209
217
224
231
238
257
. 261
:
X
CONTENTS.
XXVIII.
EXPERIENCE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN.
By Professor TYLER.
XXIX.
EXPERIENCE AT ANTIOCH COLLEGE.
XXX.
VASSAR COLLEGE.
HITCHIN COLLÈGE.
EDINBURGH LADIES' EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION.
XXXI.
XXXIII.
LECTURES FOR WOMEN IN CAMBRIDGE, ENG.
XXXII.
THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON.
1
INDEX.
XXXIV.
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON.
XXXV.
XXXVI.
ALEXANDRA COLLEGE, DUBLIN.
•
APPENDIX: Colonel HIGGINSON, Professor AGASSIZ, Pres-
ident ELIOT, and WENDELL PHILLIPS, on
the higher education of women.
PAGE
266
269
272
286
292
300
303
305
306
309
325
I.
HISTORICAL SKETCH.*
WEL
ELL nigh eighty years have passed away since the
quiet homes of England were startled by the ap-
pearance of a book which aroused, throughout the length
and breadth of the land, a horror almost equal to that
awakened by the wildest dreams of Jacobinism, or the
ribaldry of Tom Paine. A strange work must this have
been, that in the thickest strife of the French Revolution,
when every age-honored principle was being scornfully
questioned, and all that men for so long had valued, hon-
ored, and worshipped, was rudely handled, should excite
such deep indignation. And then, too the work advo-
cated 'rights,' and far and wide had echoed, and was
still echoing, the claim of 'rights for all.' The down-
trodden roturier had obtained his, the negro slave was
exhorted to claim his, and Anacharsis Cloots himself had
lifted up his woolly head in the grand confederation of
freemen.' Whence, then, this dismay? Alas! the
rights claimed were 'the rights of women,' and the claim-
ant was a woman-one Mary Wolstoncraft.
C
In looking at the two unpretending volumes which
startled our great-grandfathers almost as with the shock
of an earthquake, our first feeling is that of surprise; for
* From the British Quarterly Review. July, 1870.
1*
10
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
there is so much said that is agreed to on all hands in
the present day, and there are so many passages of splen-
did eloquence, that it is but justice to glance at the state
of female education in the days when the Rights of
Women' appeared, to account, though but in part, for
the strange hostility with which it was received.
C
Now, some eighty or ninety years ago, although
women were permitted to use the pen,' as a blameless
alternative with gossiping and satin-stitch, still the per-
mission was most reluctantly conceded. So little Fanny
Burney edified the fashionable world with the infinitesi-
mal small talk of her Evelina and her Cecilia; and 'Rosa
Matilda' provided 'sweetly pretty' romances, in which
forlorn damsels wandered up and down the Alps in
white satin, while one or two old ladies indited prosing
letters to young ladies, exhorting them to be staid in
their deportment and a credit to their godmothers.
Thus far, all was well; if female authorship did no good,
it at least did no harm, and the French Revolution saw
England sound to the backbone,' as the old Tories
proudly said, for man still held his undisputed 'right to
govern wrong,' and woman, condescendingly viewed
as-
'Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse,'
was still his humble servant.
It is easy to imagine, therefore, the blank astonish-
ment, the actual horror, that was felt when the 'Rights
of Women' were found to be no ladylike essays on tea-
table matters-no timid remonstrance with the gentle-
men on their lack of politeness at evening parties, or
their scorn of unprotected females-but a fierce and
passionate onslaught on that age-hallowed doctrine, the
inferiority of women!
HISTORICAL SKETCH.
11
And what a powerful work is this 'Rights of Women'
what an outpouring of deep and overmastering feel-
ing—the wail of an earnest spirit wearied with long con-
templation of wrongs it had no power to redress-the
'exceeding great and bitter cry' out of the depths of a
gifted woman's heart, for a share in that intellectual
heritage so lavishly proffered to her more fortunate
brethren, but for which she, through long years, had im-
plored in vain! Poor Mary Wolstoncraft! she and her
work had indeed 'fallen on evil tongues and evil days;'
for the gross abuse, the savage invective, which pursued
them both, was astounding. Speech, sermon, essay, car-
icature, stupid prose and doggerel rhyme, all did their
part, and did it so thoroughly, that the very title passed
into a proverb of scorn, and old ladies lifted up their
eyes and thanked heaven that they had never read 'that
shocking thing.'
What, however, would be the verdict of the reader
in the present day? That the work has great and seri-
ous faults, cannot be denied. There is much that is ex-
travagant, much that a more refined womanly tact would
have left unsaid; far worse, there is that want of rever-
ence for the Scriptures, which too many writers of that
excited time display. From the immoral tendency, how-
ever, with which it has been so generally charged, we
emphatically assert it is wholly free. There is not one
immoral teaching from the first page to the last. In re-
gard to her specific claims for women, too, Mary Wol-
stoncraft certainly does not go further than many Amer-
ican writers of the present day; while in her sugges-
tions as to infant training-the singing-lesson, the pic-
ture-teaching, the alternation of play with learning, the
pleasant change from the school-room to the play-ground
-all these are advocated by the champion of the rights.
(
12
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
of women,' twenty or thirty years before infant schools
were thought of. But it is to its high literary character
that we would chiefly point attention; to that clear,
forcible style-not a word misplaced, not a word too
much; to the precision with which she enunciates her
views, and marshals her arguments; above all, to the
deep and burning eloquence with which she asserts the
claims of womanhood, or pours forth a torrent of with-
ering invective upon those who refuse to allow women
the privileges of ignorance, while they deny her the gift
of reason,' who, worse than Egyptian taskmasters, ex-
pect virtue where nature 'has not given understanding.'
We have, perhaps, lingered too long over this champion
of women's rights and the fierce persecution she en-
dured. But foremost in the contest we must ever place
Mary Wolstoncraft, the devoted advocate of claims
which, but for her, would have been still thrust con-
temptuously aside-claims for which she braved such
cruel scorn, and, alas! sunk beneath it, like Arnold von
Winkelreid, eagerly burying the spear-points in her
bosom, while she cried, 'Make way for liberty.'
6
Poor Mary Wolstoncraft! she died ere the torrent
of fierce abuse had spent itself; and no second asserter
of the rights of women,' stern and eloquent as herself,
arose. Not more completely could the seed of the fu-
ture harvest be trodden down beneath the crowded
highway, than were her earnest pleadings buried beneath
that load of obloquy which all conspired to heap on her
memory. So the young ladies went on with their satin-
stitch, and their mammas with their worsted work,
while orthodox Mrs. Trimmers provided 'suitable in-
struction' for young ladies, under archiepiscopal sanc-
tion, proving that a knowledge of cooking, needlework,
HISTORICAL SKETCH.
13
and the church catechism, was the whole duty of
woman.'
Thus the old century closed, and the nineteenth
drew on.
But that which is really good can never be
wholly lost; so, although the 'Rights of Women' was
buried deep enough beneath its load of obloquy, some
timid hint appeared from time to time, proving that its
fine appeals had not been wholly in vain. At length a
work, professedly devoted to the cause of female educa-
tion, made its appearance; a widely different work, by
a widely different writer-' Celebs in Search of a Wife,'
written by Hannah More. Who in the present day has
read this once popular work, which some sixty years ago
was the theme of every drawing-room, the subject of
earnest discussion in almost every debating society?
From the title, the reader would be led to expect a novel,
and, in so far as the narrative style is adopted, a novel
it certainly is. But, then, alas for the young ladies who,
seduced by its very attractive designation, anticipated a
charming love story, perhaps two or three! The whole
narrative consists of the visits of the hero to sundry dull
people, with whom he talks over sundry subjects, and
among whom at length he finds his prize, the peerless
Lucilla. In these conversations the question of female
education is largely discussed, and the lingering distaste
of our fathers for any instruction for girls, beyond the
most elementary, is suggestively shown in the repeated
protestations of Mr. Stanley, the model teacher, that, in
his experiments in education, he had never sought to
make his daughters 'learned ladies,' but guided solely
by the peculiarities of their mental characteristics, he
selected poetry-Latin poetry, too-as a gentle stimu-
lant for the staid Lucilla, while her livelier sister, Phœbe,
was sobered down by a course of mathematics. 'Im-
14
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
provements in female education! strange improve-
ments!' was the outcry of the many who gave
laws to the fashionable and religious world. But Han-
nah More, unlike her far more gifted predecessor, pos-
sessed in an eminent degree, both tact and prudence.
So she proffered her novel suggestions in meekest guise,
wholly renouncing all desire of rivalship with the lords.
of the creation, but timidly urging that at the great feast
of knowledge woman might surely be allowed blame-
lessly to pick up a few crumbs. In advocating, too,
however timidly, a pursuit so 'masculine' as Latin, Han-
nah More prudently left a large margin for occupations
allowed on all hands to be truly feminine,' for Lucilla
and her half-dozen sisters tend the greenhouse and tie
up nosegays, like so many young Eves, and stitch flan-
nel petticoats enough to supply half the old women of
the county. Thus wisely administered, claims far more.
eloquently asserted scarcely twenty years before, but
scouted with fiercest scorn, now actually gained a par-
tial hearing, sometimes even a modified assent; and
more than one dignified clergyman took his Eton gram-
mar from the shelf to initiate his daughters into the
hitherto forbidden mysteries of 'hic, haec, hoc.'*
6
*
'
Ere the gentle excitement of that once celebrated
work had passed away, another voice was uplifted on
behalf of women—a noble and stirring appeal of a gift-
ed man to his own sex, claiming an equal education as
woman's birthright. This was in the Edinburgh Re-
view' (No. xxx., p. 299), then in the full strength and
pride of its early career, and the writer was Sydney
Smith. It is pleasant to see how heartily he flings down
the gauntlet and advances to the charge; how, elbowing
the fashionable and religious world alike out of his way,
he addresses the world of men and women, coolly asking
HISTORICAL SKETCH.
15
whether it had hitherto found any advantage in keeping
half the world in ignorance, and whether, if women
were better educated, men might not become better ed-
ucated too?
In looking over this capital article, the reader will,
we think, be struck with the perfect equality in mental
endowment which it claims for women; almost scouting
the contrary opinion, which, even in the present day, is
held by so many. "As long as boys and girls run
about in the dirt and trundle hoops together, they are
both precisely alike. If you catch up one-half of these
creatures and train them to a particular set of actions
and opinions, and the other half to a perfectly opposite
set, of course their understandings will differ as one or
the other sort of occupation has called this or that tal-
ent into action; there is surely, therefore, no occasion
to go into any deeper or more abstruse reasoning in or-
der to explain so very simple a phenomenon. But
is there not danger that a higher education for women
will cause her to neglect household duties and maternal
cares? "Just as though the care and solicitude which
a mother feels for her children depended on her ignorance
of Greek and mathematics, and that she would desert
her infant for a quadratic equation," is the indignant re-
ply; "as though we could break in pieces the solemn
institutions of nature by the little laws of a boarding-
school." But will not women be ostentatious and pe-
dantic? "Not if learning is general; for no country
gentleman is now proud of being able to write, while
who ever heard a lady boast of her knowledge of
French ?" But, then, the charm of simple pleasures.
66 "Yes, for women to educate flowers and make friend-
ships with birds. Why should we doom a girl to this,
whatever be her taste or her capacity? If she is full of
1
. 16
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
66
C
strong sense and elevated curiosity, can there be any
reason why she should be diluted and enfeebled down to
a mere culler of simples and fancier of birds? Why are
books of history and reasoning to be torn out of her
hands, and why is she to be sent like a butterfly to hov-
er over the idle flowers of the field?" And then as to
those commonplace phrases, so continually and so au-
thoritatively put forward? "The true theatre for a
woman is the sick chamber; nothing is so honorable
to a woman as not to be spoken of at all." Well, these
two phrases, the delight of Noodledom,' are really non-
sense. "Compassion and every other virtue are the
great objects we all ought to have in view; but no man
and no woman can fill up the twenty-four hours by acts.
of virtue. We know women are to be compassionate;
but they cannot be compassionate from eight o'clock in
the morning till twelve at night, and what are they to
do in the interval?" Then, lastly, as to the notoriety
which is incurred by literary pursuits. Well, there is
no need for every woman to write; but very pleasantly
does Sydney Smith point out how greatly knowledge
may contribute to the domestic happiness of the educat-
ed woman. Still, if after all women were ever talked
of as writers, 66
we really think those ladies who are
talked of as Miss Edgeworth, Mrs. Barbauld, and Mrs.
Hamilton are talked of, may bear their misfortunes with
a great degree of Christian patience."
We have been more lavish of our quotations from
this admirable assertion of "woman's rights," not only
from the lofty standing of the writer, but as exemplify-
ing the high ground taken by the first man who stood
forth to maintain them. Just sixty years have passed
away since Sydney Smith so spiritedly urged the neces-
sity of a really available education for women, and a
""
HISTORICAL SKETCH.
17
!
higher sphere. It is scarcely to the credit of the pres-
ent day that two generations should have gone by, and
in 1869 John Stuart Mill be compelled to make the
same demands as those so eloquently maintained by
Sydney Smith in 1809.
Although this stirring appeal did not effect all the
good that its eloquent writer intended, perhaps expect-
ed, indirectly it certainly effected widely beneficial re-
sults, especially among the higher and more educated
classes. The newly-founded literary and scientific insti-
tutions ere long opened their doors to lady visitors; and
the great societies, just then in the full flush of the early
popularity of their public meetings, began to welcome
to them ladies as well as gentlemen; and when these
commenced their system of affiliated societies, female
branches sprang up side by side with the male branches;
and the public, with surprise and ridicule that soon died
away, first became familiar with the title and forms of
"female committees." Along with these innovations,
the great question of education for the masses, so keenly
contested through so many years, combined, too, with
the bitter strife of the advocates of the opposing systems
of Bell and Lancaster, tended, though more indirectly,
to keep the question of female education before public
attention. Again and again were the old threadbare
pleas of woman's incapacity for learning brought for-
ward, as the friends of education urged the participa-
tion of girls in the very moderate privilege of merely
being taught to read; to write was for a long time ig-
nored, even the most advanced advocate for female edu-
cation scarcely daring to hint it. But at length the
victory was won, won to its fullest extent; and girls of
the lower class enjoy in the present day what parents of
the higher classes may still seek in vain, a precisely sim-
www.
18
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
ilar education for girls as for boys. Would that this
victory had been followed up by the establishment of
grammar schools for girls of the middle and higher
classes! * * % *
From the seventh century to the fifteenth, [English]
women received precisely the same education as men.
The educational facilities then afforded could not, from
the unsettled state of society, be very widely extended;
but still, though books were rare, writing materials
most expensive, and teachers few, women were never
sternly warned off from sharing in the feast of knowl-
edge, but were always most willingly proffered an equal
participation. This continued until the sixteenth cen-
tury, and then, the convent schools were swept away,
and of all the noble revenues of the great female con-
ventual establishment, not the merest pittance was flung
to provide for the education of girls. Thus the six-
teenth century passed away.
In regard to this sixteenth century, however, we
must point to an error that has strangely prevailed:
this is, that girls very generally received a classical
education. Dazzled by the traditions of Sir Thomas
More's learned daughters, and the pictures of Lady Jane
Grey, with Plato on her knee, and Elizabeth beguiling
her captivity at Hatfield with Isocrates, we have come
to believe that every girl, who was educated at all, was
a Greek and Latin scholar. Now, in the utter absence
of schools, this could be the case only with the daugh-
ters of noble families, who could take their lessons from
their brother's tutor. Nor does even this seem to have
been so very general, for at the court of the most learned
sovereign of her day, when we have enumerated the names
of the Countess of Pembroke, Lady Bacon, Lady Cecil,
and two or three others, we shall find we have exhaust-
HISTORICAL SKETCH.
19
ed the list of ladies who could compete with Elizabeth
in her attachment to classical studies.
か
​Still, women were then far superior in education, as
in morals, to their descendants in the days of the Stu-
arts, when the only educated women actually belonged
to a class that have been always pointed at for gross ig-
norance-the Puritans. It would surprise most of our
readers to be told that the oldest pamphlet written by a
woman is the work of a Puritan, Katherine Chidley.
But it was among the Puritans that female schools were
first established, and from Ben Jonson's and his fellow-
dramatists' ridicule of "the gifted sisters' " love of He-
brew and Greek, and their eager interest in every politi-
cal question, we learn that at least they had an educa-
tion that enabled them to encourage and advise their
brethren in the great contest. The superiority of the
Puritan women is, however, repeatedly recognized in
the "Mercurius Aulicus," and the other newspapers,
which fought so mendaciously for the king's cause, when
they give us, as intelligence from London, resolutions
passed by "ladies' committees," with speeches made by
the wives of parliament men, and anticipating the fore-
bodings of the Saturday Review, remark dolefully that
ere long the mace may be carried before some gifted
sister, instead of before Mr. Speaker Lenthall, and the
outrageous rebellion against his sacred majesty be suc-
ceeded by one, scarcely less atrocious, against male su-
premacy.
It was well that a few educated women were still
left, when the Restoration deluged the country with its
immorality and godlessness. For then, in the private
schools which sprang up, many of them conducted by
the wives of the "silenced ministers," a plain but sound
education was provided for girls of the middle classes,
20
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
who otherwise would have been left wholly untaught.
The higher among these schools were boarding-schools,
and it is worthy of notice that, unlike the feeling of the
present day, the preference of our grandmothers was
wholly for the long-established school; and thus, some
sixty or seventy years ago, many a huge red brick house
-chiefly in the vicinity of Hackney and Stepney-
might be seen whose mistress could proudly boast that
it had been a school for eighty or a hundred years.
Nor was the boast unmeaning-the prestige of this com-
parative antiquity was viewed as a pledge that the
teachers were well qualified for their duties; for the
daughters or nieces-they had always been pupils
brought up in the establishment-invariably succeeded
to the charge. Thus, whatever the degree of instruc
tion, it was given by those who had received a certain
amount of training, and who felt, too, that the responsi-
bilities of a time-honored establishment were committed
to their charge. We have not gained much in the pres-
ent day by the popular prejudice in favor of the "last
new school."
Limited as the range of instruction in these schools
unquestionably must have been, in one respect they con-
trast most favorably with the modern-there was no
pretence. Governesses were not ashamed to proffer a
"good plain education," and in reference to instruction
in French and other things, no one ever thought, or
dared to profess, that it could be thoroughly taught in
an impossibly short time. Most of the glaring faults of
modern girls' schools have arisen from the mischievous
and-as regards the pupils-cruel plan, of recognizing
the scholastic profession as one to be entered upon mere-
ly as a profitable means of subsistence. It is this that.
has crowded the woman's labor market with its hun-
HISTORICAL SKETCH.
21
dreds of starving private governesses, and our suburbs
with these ostentatious, though often bankrupt "estab-
lishments," where everything is to be taught by mis-
tresses who know nothing.
* * *
It does not seem to be sufficiently recognized in the
present day that women of the middle and higher classes
are actually in a worse position than they were in former
times in respect to education. In the days of our grand-
fathers, men and women of the lower classes were on an
equal level—both equally uneducated. In the present
day, the equality in regard to them still subsists, for the
National and British Schools have supplied elementary
education alike to boys and girls. Reading, writing
and arithmetic are, as we may say, the heritage of both,
but often while the boy, unless placed in a situation
which compels the continued use of the pen, almost for-
gets its use; in advanced life the girl seldom gives up
her writing or reading. Engaged during long hours in
laborious out-door work, or in the factory or workshop,
the man frequently well nigh loses his school learning,
and as the reader acquainted with the working classes
well knows, it is the wife who reads to him the news-
paper, and writes the letter to his friends. Thus, the
advantage is often actually on the female side.
How different the case among the middle classes.
Whatever money can be spared is devoted to the boy's
education, and the girls may fare as they can. There
are excellent, cheap schools for boys, and frequently the
father can procure admission to one of the endowed
grammar schools, where his son will receive gratuitously
a first-rate education, and from whence the pupil returns
a finished scholar. What is his sister's chance? A few
desultory lessons from the private governess in the in-
tervals of her numerous duties of nursing and needle-
22
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
work; perhaps a year or two at some 'seminary,' where
'fancy work' is sedulously cultivated, but all sound
teaching ignored, and for a 'finish,' it may be, a few
music lessons, or a twelve-month of odds and ends of
some half-dozen accomplishments at an expensive school.
What tastes can brother and sister thus educated have
in common? How naturally will the soundly-trained
young scholar ridicule his sister's ignorance, the blun-
ders of her historical remarks, the non sequiturs of her
reasoning! But even when school-days are past, 'Aids
to Development' are still pressingly offered to the youth,
and class, and lecture, reading-room, and debating soci-
ety invite him to keep up that knowledge which he has.
already so successfully attained. Even if the claims of
business afford him but scanty leisure, he exercises a
range of thought in conducting it, and is brought into
contact with various minds; while his sister idles
through an unmeaning round of visits, devours a sensa-
tional novel, or languidly plies her crochet-needle, wear-
ing away a colorless, monotonous life, scarcely illumin-
ed by one bright or noble thought. It is for such as
these girls growing into womanhood-that we would
with even more earnestness plead for higher schools. * *
From the days when the 'Tatler' set the whole fash-
ionable world laughing at his picture of the ladies' col-
lege, under the presidency of Madonella, where mathe-
matical instruments were to supersede scissors and
needles, Latin and Greek, French and Italian, the mere
name of a college for women seems to have ever awa-
kened a chorus of ridicule. We have little doubt that
fear of this led the schoolmistresses in our great-grand-
mothers' days, so persistingly to ignore in their adver-
tisements all reference to their educational capacity.
These, as we have before remarked, were often credita-
HISTORICAL SKETCH.
23
ble; but it was to the fine needlework, the miracles of
point lace, the sampler, so gay with its many colored
silks, the 'women's work' of that day, the only orthodox
means of asserting superior talent, that the governess
called especial attention—she dared not do more.
And yet, there was many a gifted mind then, which
like poor Mary Wolstoncraft, chafed against the gross
injustice of society, that refused it instruction, and then
taunted it with ignorance. Incidentally, we meet with
many of these yearnings for a wider and freer exis-
tence,' which the mind, unjustly repressed so keenly
feels, in the letters and casual observations of women
during the last century; and it is very suggestive to
mark how frequently the wish is expressed for some in
stitution that shall train and give full scope to the intel-
lects of women. Has the reader ever remarked how, in
the concluding chapter of 'Rasselas,' when the prince
and his sister recount their fruitless search after happi-
ness in society, the princess-and she is a noble creature
-suggests, as her final scheme, to found a college of
learned women, in which she would preside, that, by
conversing with the old, and educating the young, she
might divide her time between the acquisition and com-
munication of wisdom, and raise up for the next age
models of prudence and piety.' Thus, in the age of the
Georg s, when female instruction was, perhaps, at its
lowest ebb, could that grand old man bring the idea of a
woman's college before the public mind, even while half
his lady acquaintances were unable to write an intelligi-
ble hand, and profoundly ignorant whether the Caesars
belonged to Greece or to Rome. We still owe a debt
to Samuel Johnson, whose bitter Toryism and high
churchism have been allowed, with their thin veil, to
overshadow those fine qualities of mind and heart which
24
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
have made him one of the noblest products of the eigh-
teenth century.
And at last the 'Woman's College' is completed, and
ere many weeks will be opened; and looking over the
list of men, high in science and in literature, who have
cheered on its founders, we can well afford to pass over
the spiteful ridicule of the Saturday Review, and the
more guarded sarcasms of The Times. From some
quarters, however, but in no hostile spirit, words of
warning have been addressed, chiefly in reference to the
amount of work which may be required at the college,
and which it is feared may affect the students' health.
They are kindly words; and as such sincere well-wishers
to the cause of 'woman's culture' as Professor Maurice
and Canon Kingsley are among those who have spoken
them, let us try if, from a tolerably extensive knowledge
of the exertion which women are able to undergo, we
may not prove that the average strength demanded need
not greatly, if at all, exceed that required for more or
dinary work.
In active strength, women are certainly inferior to
men; but then physical strength is never considered as
the concomitant of great intellectual power. No one
thinks of seeking among the strongest boys in a school
for the best scholars, nor among the most powerful men
for first-rate intellectual force. That strength is requir-
ed for great mental exertion, we willingly concede; but,
then we think it will be found to consist rather in power
of the more passive kind, power of endurance, of length-
ened attention, of continuous exertion; and such kind
of power women remarkably display. How inadequate
would mere active strength be, to the long watchings,
the wearisome on waiting, the dull lengthened-out task,
that in sickness, or in sadder exigencies, often fall to the
HISTORICAL SKETCH.
25
lot of women. Then, again, the sedentary character of
so many of women's pursuits. The girl, kept in-doors
during many hours each day, would suffer a far less vio-
lent change, sitting at her desk, than the active young
man, who, from the sports of the field and river, is sum-
moned to the lesson and the class-room. In the in-
stances we have of self-taught women, too, we did not
remember any very striking instance of early decline or
death. Further, be it remembered, that if intellectual
exertion is trying to women's health, it must be far more
trying when pursued without help, in most instances,
too, with other pursuits, claiming equal, and most prob-
ably superior attention. Surely, therefore, in the great
majority of instances, we may with girls, as with boys,
follow the leadings of their natural dispositions.
(
As for the regulation of study, its conditions, and
the hours to be devoted to it, all these should be sub-
jects of wise rule and arrangements; for ourselves, we
are not afraid of hard work,' nor, if the study be taken
up with delight, and with a will,' of almost any amount
of it. It is the pursuit followed without interest that
weighs down the most elastic mind. It is the weari-
some music lessor, toiled over by the scholar with nei-
ther taste nor ear; the drudgery of committing to memory
long lists of names, which to the learner are only names;
the prosing geographical lesson, where the most inter-
esting scenes call up no pictures for the imagination to
dwell upon; the historical lecture, where, instead of liv-
ing and breathing men and women, the student is
cheated with the mere dry bones of some historical
epitome. These constitute 'hard work,' that useless,
thankless, hard work, that frets and injures the fine
texture of the brain,' and which, as high medical author-
C
2
26
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
•
ity has told us is the case with all wearisome, toilsome,
lengthened mental labor.
No, not merely to learn what it is thought suitable
to know, not because others do so, should the young
student strive; not even to stand high in the competitive
examination, but because the task is loved for its own
sake. Labor ipse voluptas,' cried the great scholars of
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as they toiled
their twelve hours a day in the dim, dusty library, and
called it Paradise. It is with a feeling akin to this that
all real study should be taken up. Let that be the feel-
ing of those young women who seek to avail themselves
of the thorough teaching now for the first time proffered
them. In that feeling let them pursue their studies, and
the generous founders of the 'College for Women' will
abundantly find that their care has not been in vain.
II.
THE DEMAND OF THE AGE FOR A LIBERAL EDU-
CATION FOR WOMEN, AND HOW IT SHOULD
BE MET.*
BY DR. RAYMOND, PRESIDENT OF VASSAR COLLEGE.
IN
N this discussion, I use the term liberal in a distinc-
tive sense-as opposed, on the one hand, to special
or professional; and, on the other, to popular or ele-
mentary. Special education is training for one's busi-
ness in life. It is the province of the schools of divinity,
law, medicine, farming, engineering, etc. Antecedent
to this comes general education, of which there are two
grades, elementary and liberal. The first is popular and
compendious, imparting the mere results of scientific in-
vestigation to those who have either no opportunity or
no taste for more. It is the appropriate work of schools,
in the ordinary sense of that term, from the primary up
to the high school and academy. Its aim is to make all
classes of the community intelligent, and to prepare the
citizens respectively for their special training, and their
several duties as members of the social whole. The
other (liberal) is scientific in its instructions and com-
paratively severe, going to principles, accompanied with
demonstrations, and training the learner in the methods
* Read before the Baptist Educational Convention in Brook-
lyn, 1870.
28
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
by which results are obtained. It seeks a further and
still higher end in the more complete and symmetrical
development, discipline and refinement of the man him-
self, with reference to which it is often called the highest
culture. As its aims are definite, so are its conditions
fixed-prominent among which are (1.) a prescribed
course of study, framed by experience and scientific ed-
ucators, and made obligatory on the learner; and (2.) a
preliminary course of discipline, by mathematical and
grammatical drill, to prepare the student for thorough
work in science, literature and philosophy. This is the
kind of education for which colleges and universities
have been established and are sustained, and by the op-
eration of which an educated class (in the special sense)
is created. Without such a class and the culture that
produces it, not only literature, philosophy, and all in-
tellectual professions must languish, but popular educa-
tion truly could not be maintained, and the further
advancement of science would soon become an impossi-
bility.
Of the high estimate placed by the foremost nations
of the earth on this kind of education, the colleges and
universities of Christendom stand as impressive monu-
ments. Millions of money are laid in their foundations,
and other millions have gone to their equipment. The
most enlightened governments have fostered them with
the most sedulous care; in their chairs of instruction
and boards of management some of the best intellects of
every age have found their chosen employment; the
church has cherished, and prayed for, and leaned upon
them; and the quick instincts of popular intelligence in
all civilized communities have recognized their indis-
pensable necessity to the true and permanent welfare of
the whole people. To the depth and earnestness of the
THE DEMAND OF THE AGE.
29
conviction, such an assemblage as this bears striking tes-
timony.
Now, in all this generous provision for liberal educa-
tion, properly so called, it is a noticeable fact, that wo-
man has not been regarded as having any direct inter-
est. Established by Christianity on the plane of spiritual
equality with man; recognized both in creation and re-
demption, as his needed and not inferior complement in
the quality of the human type; cherished by man him
self, not merely as the partner of his labors and his love,
but as his companion, counsellor and friend, she has yet
never been considered a fit subject for the highest cul
ture; and its schools have been and are shut against
her to this day. On the European continent the ques-
tion has hardly been broached. In England, Cambridge
and Oxford have, with a sort of bovine sagacity, gone
just far enough to convict themselves of inconsistency,
by admitting young women to the entrance-examina-
tions, where the girls have, for several years past, prov-
ed themselves quite equally prepared, if not better than
the boys, for that further intellectual advancement
which is still denied them. In New England, when, a
few years since, two ladies of acknowledged respectabil-
ity and cultivation knocked at the gates of the venera-
ble mother of American colleges, modestly asking ad-
mittance to its privileges, they received the polite, but
firra, and no doubt wise and necessary, response:
"We
have no such custom;" and no uncertain echo of the
same sentiment comes from all the older and most au-
thoritative colleges and universities of the land. Here
and there, in our free and forward West-at Oberlin, at
Antioch, and elsewhere-the barriers have been taken
down, and the experiment essayed of a mixed education
—an education for both sexes on a common curriculum
-
30
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
-or, rather, for both sexes on a masculine curriculum.
Again, at Mt. Holyoke, Elmira, Rutgers, Ingham, etc.,
efforts have been made with no lack of faith and zeal, or
of elevated purpose, but with utterly inadequate endow-
ments, and with no cordial encouragement from either
church or State, to organize and develop a scheme of
education which should be distinctively feminine, as
well as truly and thoroughly liberal. But, with what-
ever just claims to praise for nobleness of aim and intel-
ligence of direction, these exceptions have been compar-
atively so few, and the fruits so inconsiderable, as only
to make more palpable the broad fact, that, for the lib-
eral education of women, Christian States and churches
have thus far felt under no obligation to provide.
Ought they to feel such an obligation?
I regard this as the question of the day, in regard to
woman's education. The general subject is attracting
considerable attention, both at home and abroad. A
vague impression prevails that the age is calling for a
step in advance, but in what particular direction is not
so clearly apprehended. There are those, no doubt,
whose general interest in the elevation and enlargement
of woman's influence would express itself in pecuniary
and other contributions to the cause of her education,
if they saw clearly at what point they could make such
contributions effective. The fact is, probably, that no
extraordinary provision is required at any other point
than the one of which we speak. In all the schools of
elementary education, both public and private, girls are
admitted on an equal footing with boys, and may com-
pete with them for the highest honors in all the acade
mies and high-schools of the States; and, in the female
seminaries and academies, courses are projected with
special reference to the wants of the sex, which, for the
THE DEMAND OF THE AGE.
31
purposes of a popular education, leave little to be de-
sired, and whose chief fault is, that they too easily pass
for liberal courses, and are popularly represented as
such, while disregarding the essential conditions of the
higher culture.
As this is an assertion which will probably be ques-
tioned, I wish to make myself distinctly understood.
No one is more disposed than myself to think and speak
respectfully of the better class of ladies' seminaries and
female academies. They are doing good work of its
kind, and of incalculable service to the country. What
they have accomplished, too, has been accomplished with
little of public or private aid, and they deserve praise, sym-
pathy, and encouragement. They cannot be spared, and
they ought to be strengthened. But they do not supply the
desideratum of which we speak. Their courses are not lib
eral courses, and in the nature of the case, could not be.
The fruit in great part, of mere individual enterprise, with
either none or very inadequate endowments, and depend-
ent on popular patronage for support, they have not been
in a condition to prescribe courses of study especially to
equire the long term, and the thorough disciplinary
preparation which to the higher culture are a conditio
sine qua non. This is not the place for a minute analy-
sis of the seminary courses; but no college educator
can examine them without missing that amount of pre-
liminary mathematical and grammatical drill, without
which he knows that the college work of junior and se-
nior years (all of which is nominally attempted) cannot.
be done, and without perceiving, in some cases, such a
predominance of the (so called) feminine accomplish-
ments, as must be fatal to the stern exigencies of the
higher culture. Absolutely dependent as these unen-
dowed schools must be, on the public favor for support,
1
32
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
}
it is impossible that they should express, in their ideal
of education, anything above the average of the public
intelligence; and that has never been found sufficient,
when unassisted by endowments, to sustain a course of
liberal education, even for men.
The question then recurs: Ought provision to be
made for the liberal education of women? It is a grave
question, and it resolves itself into many. Has she
strength of brain to receive it? Has she sufficient
moral earnestness and persistent energy of will to carry
her through the difficulties of a liberal curriculum?
Will thorough scientific and literary training do for her
what it does for a man? Will it give clearness, breadth,
force, precision, and fertility to her mind? Will it add
to the dignity, weight, refinement, and elevation of her
character? Is there not danger of impairing the deli-
cacy and grace, so essential to our ideals of womanhood,
and of disqualifying her physical system for the high
and sacred offices which God has assigned her in the do-
mestic and social economy? Is there any public de-
mand for such an education? Are there young women
in the land, who, full of all womanly instincts of mod-
esty and grace, are still fired with aspirations for a true
and generous culture, and willing to pay its price; and
who can be spared so long from their place in the home
circle, and their share of the home duties? And, finally,
have God and the coming age any work for women to
do-in the family or in society, in the church or in the
school, in science and letters, or in any of the intellectual
professions and arts-which calls for such a training?
These are questions on which no wise man will dogma-
tize. They are asked on every side, and must be seri-
ously considered. Time alone can fully determine them.
But there must be light enough for present duty; and, I
THE DEMAND OF THE AGE.
33
think, it needs only a little steady reflection to bring all
moderate and thoughtful men to a substantial oneness
of opinion.
men.
But, first, let me premise that the provision of means
for liberally educating women does not imply that all
women are to be liberally educated. It is not so with
The whole idea and scope of this kind of educa-
tion suppose its restriction to a comparative few. A
concurrence of inward and outward conditions shows,
in each individual case, on whom the privilege and the re-
sponsibility fall. There must be capacity, and desire,
and the requisite bodily health; and to these must be
added those favoring dispositions of Providence, which,
to the eye of a rational faith, are indications of the di-
vine approval, and the guarantee of a divine blessing.
Circumstances are infinitely diversified—no more so, and
no less, with girls than with boys-and every case must
be judged by itself. There are but few families from
which all the boys go, or could go, to college; but there
are very many which some way manage to send one or
more; and the aggregate is sufficient to supply a grand
necessity for civilization and for mankind. Is there any
greater difficulty in the case of girls?
I premise secondly, that a liberal education for wo
man is not, in all its details, precisely the same thing
with a liberal education for man. There are ineradi-
cable differences between the sexes-constitutional-differ-
ences, and differences of functions-which must be taken
into account in determining the conditions of a proper
culture for each. What specific modifications of the
curriculum this would require, is a question of detail to
be wrought out by practical educators in the field of
actual experience. So much, however, is certain. There
should be no such changes as would violate the essential
2*
34
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
principles of the higher culture. The intellectual and
moral nature of woman is, generically, the same with
that of man; and if she is to be allowed the benefits of
a liberal training, she will have to get them on substan-
tially the same conditions with others. There must be
the same generous scope in the general plan, the same
judicious selection and balance of particular studies, the
saine authoritative control and direction of the tyro's
course; there must be, in its early stages, the same pre-
paratory discipline and intoning of the faculties, their
habituation to patient and vigorous work, their equip-
ment by a thorough grammatical and mathematical drill,
with the instruments and habits of thought, which they
will need in the later years when they come into actual
contact with the sciences, the literatures, and the phil-
osophies; there must be no swift skimming over the
surface of many branches of knowledge at once, but a
habit of concentration upon a few, and of diligent search
for the root-principles of all; the class-room work must
be something more than recitation; it must become dis-
cussion, and the learner must rise to the dignity of
an inquirer, an investigator, a thinker; and, finally, for
all this, there must be time--time for deliberation, for
digestion, for assimilation, and for the actual growth of
the mind into the dimensions and the strength of intel-
lectual manhood. All this there must be in common
with a liberal education for the other sex. This secured,
the feminine element need not, and should not, be neg-
lected. Some would say there should be more of lan-
guage and literature than of science. The intellect of
women has certainly some special aptitudes for classical
culture; and it may be that, in an age when the wonder-
ful growth of physical science, and the absorbing de-
mand of material interests are more and more engrossing
1
THE DEMAND OF THE AGE.
35
the thoughts and energies of educated men, it is to de-
volve on cultivated women in some way to supply the
loss, and to aid in preserving and transmitting to the
civilization of the future an element of refining culture.
which it can so ill spare. But the sciences, too-phys-
iology, chemistry, physics, the various branches of
natural history-have all of them a womanly side, and
may be taught throughout, with reference to practical
applications, in woman's acknowledged domain. Pro-
visions for æsthetic culture should have a recognized
and prominent, though not a dominating, place in the
scheme; and music and drawing should be taught, not
merely as pretty accomplishments, but as intellectual
arts-ennobling and purifying the taste, instead of de-
basing and enfeebling it, as is too often the effect of
these fashionable acquirements. And, finally, the living
tongues of modern Europe-particularly the French and
German-with their literatures so rich in science and
philosophy, as well as in master-pieces of poetic
genius, open a wide field, peculiarly appropriate for the
occupancy of women, and worthy of a far more exact
and scientific cultivation than they have yet received
in the colleges for men. At the same time, the domestic
arrangement of the woman's college should be such as
to throw around its students the sheltering seclusion, the
matronly supervision, the home tranquillities and com-
fort, so suited-so almost necessary-to the sex; and
the provisions for health, for social culture, for moral
and religious training, should all have a special adaptation
to womanly circumstances and womanly wants. These
are not merely the suggestions of theory. I have seen.
them tested, very imperfectly it is true, and on a limited
scale, but with such results, as place it beyond ques-
tion in my own mind, that it is entirely feasible, under
36
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
the lead of experience, and a little common sense, to
frame a scheme of education which shall have all pecu-
liar qualities of womanliness, while lacking none of the
breadth, intellectual elevation, and scientific thorough-
ness, which alone can entitle education to be called lib-
eral.
Still, the main question recurs. Granting the theo-
retical feasibility of a womanly liberal education, is it a
practical desideratum? Has she capacity to receive it?
And when she has obtained it, are there any uses to
which she can put it, that will repay the expenditure of
money, time, and labor, which it must cost?
1. And first, with regard to the question of capacity.
On this point there is a wide-spread scepticism, both
among men and women themselves-the natural fruit
of former experience, or, perhaps, rather inexperience—
which expresses itself somewhat thus: "God has made
woman of such delicate and fragile material, that she
cannot endure the strain of real study. There is such
a preponderance of sensibility over strength in her or-
ganization, that you cannot throw upon her the respon-
sibility of investigation and discussion, of demonstra-
tion in science, of philosophical analysis in language.
and literature, without necessarily overtaxing and break-
ing her down. This is true, not only of her body, but
of her mind as well, which is merely receptive, constitu-
tionally frail, forever and by divine decree light and
superficial, as befits a mere creature of beauty and de-
light. You cannot make a scholar of her. You reach
the God-appointed limits of her capacity, and, striving
to pass them, you do not educate, but destroy her. You
have planted your oak in a Sevres vase, and you lose
both the tree of your vain hope and the precious vessel
which was your real possession.”
f
THE DEMAND OF THE AGE.
37
I need not spend time here in combating a prejudice
which so entirely mistakes, not merely the nature of
woman, but the nature of true study. The value of
health cannot, of course, be overestimated; and the
immense importance of the physical functions assigned
to woman in the social organization of humanity forbids
any trifling with the subject in this connection. Nor
can it be denied that there has been a sad waste of
health in connection with education and intellectual
pursuits-not more, however, among women than among
men, nor for any different reasons. The truth is, as we
are all beginning slowly to learn, study, rightly prose-
cuted-prosecuted with system, order, deliberation, on
a plan judiciously arranged to favor natural develop-
ment, and to stimulate a well-balanced activity of all
the mental powers, attended, too, with due observance
of the laws of bodily sanity--is one of the healthiest
of employments. It is no more excusable (if as much so)
for a scholar to be pale and sickly, or to die prematurely,
than for any other man or woman.
I will not dwell on the inconsistency of condemning
a liberal education for women on this ground, while
practically justifying the modes in which the majority
of our young women actually spend their time between
the ages of sixteen and twenty, too often enfeebling
and debasing to body, mind, and soul alike. Nor need
I insist upon the vices of that alternative system of
education which is too generally the only one open to
those who have higher aims. Does it tax the brain less
severely to sweep round the circle of the sciences in
three or four years than to compass it with equable and
regulated speed in seven or eight? Is it more healthful
to have six or eight studies in hand at once-according
to a very prevalent custom with ambitious girls, eager
38
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
I
for knowledge, and not taught to discriminate between
the name of study and the reality-studies, too, for
none of which the mind has been properly prepared--
than to be strictly limited to two or three, after being
previously trained for an intelligent analysis and appre-
hension of them! On which plan, think you, will the
expenditure of nervous energy be more rapid-that in
which the work is carefully systematized by competent.
advisers, with a view to economy of labor and mutual
support in its various parts, and laid out for the student,
or that in which the responsibility of choosing her own
studies is, in large measure, thrown upon the unin-
structed tyro herself, or committed to unprofessional
advisers whose confidence and pertinacity are usually in
direct proportion to their unfitness to judge? If it is
true that in many such cases the acquisition of a very
small amount of superficial and evanescent knowledge
has been purchased by deplorable sacrifices of health.
and a disqualification for the practical exigencies of
womanly life-to what extent is the mischief due to the
feverish excitement, the unwise haste and over-exertion,
the mental confusion and perplexity inherent in so
vicious a method, and to a bitter sense, at last, of the
utter inadequacy of the result? The prolongation of
the course, the more advantageous distribution of the
work which that prolongation makes possible, the or-
derly and deliberate prosecution of it, the aspiring as-
surance given to the fair learner that the wisdom of the
ages is at last to be made available in the conduct of
her education too, and, above all, the unspeakable de-
light of acquisitions truly and surely made, and of a
conscious constant growth and invigoration of her
spiritual being-these, instead of augmenting the evil,
as is foolishly feared, are its true and only cure.
THE DEMAND OF THE AGE.
39
In many respects the student-life is more natural to
women than to men, and so far it is more likely to be
successful. Its pursuits are indoor and sedentary; they
require delicacy of perception, a habit of minute accu-
racy, patience of details, quick and clear insight, and the
love of æsthetic finish-all eminently womanly traits—
as often as they do breadth and virile vigor. Surely a
woman may be as scholarly in her tastes as a man her
;
readings in literature or her researches in science may
be as extensive; her modes of investigation or criticism
may be as philosophical, her observations as accurate,
and her record of them as exact and reliable; though,
in all these repects, her work will be sure to take on
qualities that will mark it as feminine-qualities, be it
observed, that are by no means on that account deficien-
cies-excellences it may be, in which the woman will
surpass the man as much as in others she is surpassed
by him. In short, woman can not do man's work in
learning or in science as well as man could do it; but
woman's work she can do better-more easily, more hap-
pily, and with better results.
After all, woman's capacity, bodily and mental, for
the higher culture, is a question of fact, to be decided
only by a fair trial. Facts enough exist to warrant the
trial—to afford a reasonable presumption of success.
Hardly a field of scientific inquiry can be named, of
historical research, of speculative philosophy, of lin-
guistic acquisition and criticism, or of literary produc-
tion, which has not been illustrated by the successes of
at least one female cultivator-enough to demonstrate,
with all the rigor of a true induction, that, whatever
incapacity there may be, is not inherent in the sex, and
abundantly warranting an experiment which shall fairly
40
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
test how far the accidents to which it is due are separa-
ble by a change of outward conditions.
This objection sometimes presents itself in a differ-
ent form; the fear of impairing feminine grace, delicacy,
and refinement, by the processes of a liberal education.
"From a generation of strong-minded women," prays the
objector, “good Lord deliver us. And let all the peo-
ple say, Amen. But, do we really believe that the only
alternative is a generation of weak-minded women?
""
To hear some people talk, one might imagine that
there was something in earnest and continued study to
roughen the manners and make the nature coarse. The
notion contradicts the accepted truisms of experience.
""
Ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes
Emollit mores, nec sinit esse feros."
Is the ideal of personal character to be lowered or
made less complete by the multiplication of ideas, by
the unfolding and informing of the faculties with truth,
by a more extensive knowledge of the beautiful works
of genius, or the more exquisite displays of the Divine
Thought in nature and history? Does not science,
rightly studied, teach humility and modesty? Do not
literature and history, by enlarging our knowledge of
man, widen the range of our sympathies, and refine by
exercising our social affections? Or, is there any shadow
of reason for anticipating an inversion of these tenden-
cies in the case of women, who are confessedly predis-
posed in corresponding directions and peculiarly sensi-
tive to such impressions?
"Strong-mindedness," in the bad sense of that term,
so far from being a fruit of womanly liberal culture, is a
direct outgrowth of the state of things which denies it.
It is a coming to the front of a class of superficially.
THE DEMAND OF THE AGE.
41
trained, essentially vulgar women-women, in whom
self-assertion and combativeness are in constitutional
excess, and knowledge and self-discipline proportionally
deficient *—to claim for the sex privileges, the want of
which far superior women may feel to the full as keenly,
though they suffer in dignified and uncomplaining
silence. Take down the bars of a rude and mistaken
conventionalism; remove all occasions of just complaint;
throw open the fountains of learning on equal terms to
all comers, moved thereto by the same divine thirst; and
you have done much to cure the evil. The vixen and
the virago will disappear, their occupation being gone,
while the true women come forward to occupy a field to
which you have first made them welcome, and to occupy
it, be assured, in such ways as will vindicate the gen-
uineness of their aspirations and the wisdom of your
tardy approval.
The world has yet to see the glory of a perfect wo-
manhood, fed on a generous diet of thoroughly digested
knowledge, developed by a various, wise, and symmet-
rical regimen, uniting womanly strength with beauty,
and womanly beauty with strength, and applying its
enlarged and disciplined powers with that conscientious
* I must not be understood as applying this description to all
who have been thrown into prominence in the agitation of "the
woman question." Some among these I know to be noble women,
worthy of all respect; and my personal acquaintance with those
whose names are most before the public is too limited to warrant
any attempt at general characterization. To their own Master
they stand or fall. What I have said has no personal reference;
it points to a class whose existence will not be questioned, and
whose unwomanly self-assertions have given currency and a new
significance in the language to the epithet referred to, while they
have done much to bring the cause of woman's true elevation
into disrepute.
42
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
earnestness and devotion so characteristic of woman's
nature—to what? Not to any eccentric, sensational
displays in public or in private life of questionable utility
and more than questionable taste; not to a rude engage
ment with men in the conflicts of the streets, the hust-
ings, the platform; not to any unseemly assumption of
offices or manners which belong appropriately to the
other sex, and from which none will shrink with truer
disdain than the truly educated woman-but to just
those sweet and sacred, those dignified and beneficent
offices which God has assigned her in the great economy
of life. True strength of mind, I presume, none of us
would object to in our own wives and daughters, if only
it be womanly in the modes and temper of its manifesta-
tion. Nor would it diminish aught of the pride and
satisfaction with which we are wont to contemplate the
fairer part of creation, might we see some portion of
that delicate taste, that subtle and charming invention,
that power of brilliant or graceful performance, which
are now so lavishly expended in fabricating petty per-
sonal decorations or in shedding a fitful lustre over the
inanities of a butterfly life, turned to pursuits in science
or letters-pursuits which would dignify while adorning,
invigorate as well as refine, and diffuse upon the loving
and beloved ones around them a purer and nobler de-
light. Our homes and social circles are not (thank God)
without individual instances of the kind, despite all dis-
advantages. God grant to the nation a generation of
such women, and to us the wisdom requisite to rear it!
So much for the capacity of women to receive a
liberal education, and to be benefited by it. Let us
proceed to the only remaining inquiry in this branch of
the subject: What are the outer demands for such an
education? Here again we are forced to meet the topic
THE DEMAND OF THE AGE.
43
most frequently in the form of an objection: "Give a
woman a liberal education, and what can she do with
it? The fields for its employment are closed against
her, and her precious acquirements, the purchase of su
much time and money and toil, must, after all, rust in
her, unused.”
There is one of these acquisitions which cannot rest
unused—and that is the enlargement and ennoblement,
of herself the chief end indeed of liberal culture,
whether for man or woman; its reaction upon the facul-
ties which it has formed by informing, and enriched by
taxing, and upon the entire spiritual nature, to exalt, to
quicken, and refine. This is an abiding and a vital pos-
session. It can never be taken away, nor can it ever
cease to act and be fruitful. By as much as she has felt
the true effect of her studies, she must forever after be—
not more like a man, but more of a woman, and more
what a woman ought to be, wherever she moves or what
ever she may be called to do. In the family circle, in
the church, and in all the relations of society, she will
fill a larger space and be felt as a greater power. She
will have a wider information, will think more correctly,
decide more wisely, converse more understandingly, and
in every way make larger contributions to the intelli-
gence and the improvement of the community to which
she belongs. She will be a fit companion for a wiser and
nobler man, than she otherwise would have been. If he
be a professional man, she will feel an enlightened sym-
pathy in his intellectual pursuits, and may often find it in
her power to render him valuable counsel and effective
aid; and if she becomes a mother, she will draw on larger
resources for the instruction and training of her children.
Are these things of small account? And would it not
be a national blessing-is it not a vast desideratum—a
B
44
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
class of such cultivated women sprinkled about among
our circle of young communities, if it were only to
serve as models and reminders of what a woman may be
in these fundamental relations of life?
But let us advance a step further, and bravely face
the question, which seems bent on facing us: Has not
woman opening before her a still wider scope of respon-
sibility? Is she not called to prepare herself for some
other functions-nobler, we know, there cannot be-
than the ordinary domestic and social relations ?
(6
If one holds, with a certain popular lecturer of our
day, that the chief end of woman is to be married —that
every individual woman was created to be the adjunct
and complement of some individual man, missing whom
she misses her destiny, and must of necessity fail of a
consummate life"-if her supreme obligation be to
think first, midst, and last, of wifehood and maternity--
to hope for it, to plan for it, to educate herself for it, and
then to wait for it with her lamp trimmed and her
vessel filled, waiting-in a sense very different from the
Scripture sense-waiting and watching until the bride-
groom come: to one, I say, who regards this as the
whole meaning of woman in the world, the argument
for her higher culture, though not entirely destroyed,
must certainly lose much of its weight. But the doc-
trine is no longer respectable. It is equally unphilosoph-
ical, unscriptural, and vulgar. "Marriage is honorable.
in all”—in man and woman both-but it is absolutely
necessary for neither. It is one of many human rela-
tions, beneficent and sacred when rightly formed, into
which an individual of either sex may or may not be
called to enter; and with whatever comparative impor-
tance we may and must invest it-God forbid that I
should breathe a syllable that could lessen in any mind
THE DEMAND OF THE AGE.
45
are more
the sense of its exalted sanctity-though we place it first
among earthly and temporal relations, it is still but
earthly, temporal, contingent, and therefore unessential
to the completeness of human personality, or to the ful-
filment of the supreme end of an immortal existence.
Thousands without it have risen as near to perfection as
it is permitted mortals to attain, and left behind them
unsurpassed records of noble living. That, under cer-
tain circumstances, it is good not to marry, and that this
is as true for a woman as for a man, is as orthodox as
St. Paul. (See 1 Cor., 7: 25-40.) Statistics in our own
time and country place it beyond a peradventure, that
multitudes of women must either remain unmarried or
violate the law of monogamy; for there
women than men in existence-at least this is true of
large and populous portions of the earth's surface.*
Does this indicate a providential blunder, think you,
or a providential purpose? Thousands of the girls now
under training in our schools and seminaries are destined
to live and die unmarried. God pity such, if the great
business of woman is to wait for "the coming man!
The suggestion is an insult alike to woman and to God.
The apostle found better employment for the unmarried
women, even in his day. "The unmarried woman
careth for the things of the Lord." The heavenly Father
has work for his daughters as well as for his sons; and,
though He may and often does, deny them families of
their own, he gives to each a place in the universal
family, and withholds from none the privilege of useful
""
* And if it be replied that this inequality is balanced by a
preponderance of men over women in other districts, that provi-
dential distribution of the sexes is just as stubborn a fact, and
presents an equally insurmountable practical obstacle to universal
matrimony,
46
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
and honorable toil. It is then a right of woman's-one
of her true, unquestionable rights-to inquire in what
capacity she can best honor God and serve her genera-
tion. We do well to instruct our daughters so.
Let us
teach them to banish the idea as obsolete and unworthy,
that, by virtue of their sex, they are born to be play-
things and pets, the ornamental fringe of society, and
mere appendages to men; let us exhort them, as we do
our sons, to find their work, and do it, and by the same
token we shall bind ourselves to furnish them every
needed means of preparation for independent activity.
The signs of the times which presage an enlargement
of the sphere of woman's activity, are numerous and
clear. On every side, fields are opening for the employ-
ment of woman's hands, and of woman's intellect as
well. Of the three so called learned professions, to
which it is a popular notion that the college curriculum
sustains an exclusive relation-a notion never more than
partially true, and becoming less true daily-one at least,
the medical, will no doubt ere long admit properly
educated women to share its responsibilities, recognizing
certain specific departments. perhaps as peculiarly their
own. The question no longer is, whether there are to be
women-physicians, but only, what sort of training shall
they bring to the task?
The idea of woman's teaching-at least, anything
above a "dame's school" for babies, was not always so
familiar to the public mind as it is to-day.
When Mrs. Willard, the venerable pioneer of im-
proved education for woman-who has passed from us
almost since this Convention commenced its session, as
full of honors as of days-while appealing for aid to the
Legislature of this State in 1820, urged her plea on the
ground that woman was constitutionally "apt to teach,"
THE DEMAND OF THE AGE.
47
Anfinsen
and might, with suitable training for herself, become
qualified to replace men to some extent in the system of
popular instruction, there were few to whom her views
did not appear chimerical. Even Clinton, who took a
warm interest in her enterprise, did not venture to recom-
mend it by any such anticipation; and when the sugges-
tion was thrown out by some one on the floor of the
Legislature, coarse men laughed at the idea of entrusting
to women the training of the sons of the State, as some-
thing excessively comical. Just a half century has
passed since then, and what is its record? To what
extent have not women already "replaced men," and
confessedly with no loss, throughout the elementary
schools of the State?
But is it not high time to inquire, now that, to so
great an extent, women have become the instructors of
the people, not merely in primary and grammar schools,
but in academies and seminaries also-is it not time to
inquire into the character of the preliminary training,
the amount and style of the culture which our female
teachers bring to the work? Is it not worth while, too,
to ask whether it is not possible to utilize still further
for the benefit of the State, and in still higher walks of
the profession, a talent which has so richly repaid the
investments made heretofore in its cultivation? I do
not hesitate to avow the belief that the education of the
nation is to-day emasculate and weak, compared with
what it might easily be made by simply raising the
qualifications of its female instructors; and this from
no want of real or native capacity in them, but solely
from their want of opportunities for obtaining breadth,
fullness, and thoroughness of culture. "Teachers' Insti-
tutes" do next to nothing to supply this lack.
"Nor-
mal Schools" cannot fully remedy the evil, unless you
48
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
CATION
expand your Normal Schools into colleges. Nothing
will reach it but adding to the valuable agencies already
at work for the training of teachers the means of liberal
culture for the highest grade. That, I firmly believe,
would reach it; and by elevating the character of the
women-instructors alone, might raise the standard of
the national intelligence a hundred per cent. in a gene-
ration.
But woman's mission as teacher is not confined to
the school. The press has always been open to her, and
the recent growth of female authorship, both as to
quantity and quality, is one of the wonders of the cen-
tury. What is needed but advantages for more adequate.
preparation, to augment a hundred fold the value of her
contributions, through this channel, to the intelligence
and virtue, the wealth and the happiness of mankind?
There is still another field of intellectual exertion-
perhaps the most rapidly widening and amazingly pro-
ductive of all occupied by the cultivated intellect of
the age-which seems to me also waiting for female
laborers. I refer to the field of scientific investigation,
in which, also, women have a specific, suitable, and
important part to perform. I have already avowed the
opinion that the average woman cannot be fitted by any
amount of training to do a man's work, or to do what
she does, in all respects, as well as a man; but, on the
other hand, there is work in every department of science
which women can learn to do, and some which they can
do better than men-with greater facility, despatch,
precision, and thoroughness. In the economies of
science, just as in those of the household and the church,
there is a division according to sex; and then will the
great interests involved in each be best conserved
and best promoted, when the industries of both sexes
THE DEMAND OF THE AGE.
49
are most perfectly united, and the law of their nat-
ural relationship most strictly obeyed. The analogy
holds too, I suspect in this particular, that in neither
is the womanly office, as a general rule, independent
of the man's; and that, whenever the two sexes
work together, the former is naturally subsidiary and
auxiliary to the latter. Everywhere and always, Eve is
Adam's willing, deft, and beautiful "help-meet." There
is, of course, no impossibility in a woman's originating
and carrying to successful results a comprehensive and
intricate series of scientific experiments, or combining,
by bold and original generalization, a mass of recorded
observations; she may, in special circumstances, initiate
and organize advance movements in scientific discovery,
and defend, in the fields of controversy, the points she
has taken. As a rule, however, women are not consti-
tutionally well fitted for such work; and, at the best,
the honors of leadership do not sit gracefully upon them.
But as associates and aids, they are admirable; and
they will always excel in those parts of the common
labor which especially require delicate manipulation,
precision of method, patience of details or delays, minute
analysis, conscientious exactitude of statement, or æs-
thetical elegance of arrangement and exhibition. In
many of the processes of the laboratory, in the arrange-
ment and care of great collections, in the keeping of
minute and voluminous records, in difficult and delicate
computations, and in like work of which there is so
much to be done in Chemistry, Astronomy, and the
whole range of Natural History, and on the manner of
doing which so much is often depending, one thoroughly
trained woman is often worth any number of young
men, who, with rare and womanly exceptions, cannot do
such work well if they try, and would not want to if
3
50
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
they could. If I were a great master in science-an
Agassiz, e. g.-conducting continental schemes of in-
quiry, and building up a world-embracing Museum of
Natural History, it would be among my first demands:
“Give me a staff of properly educated women to do the
womanly work.”
I have said nothing of the bar, the bench, or the pul-
pit, and nothing of the arena of public political discus-
sion and conflict, into which admittance for women is
so clamorously demanded by some, because I am more
than doubtful whether, as these are at present organ-
ized, woman has any vocation to either, and because I
believe, for a long time to come, highly and truly edu-
cated women may find more congenial and less ques-
tionable fields for the employment of their powers.
Had we not abundant evidence that God knows best
how to carry forward his own beneficent designs for
our race, it might seem an immense pity that these
particular aspects of the "woman question" should be
thrust so pertinaciously to the front, alarming conserva-
tive men, and provoking the impatient to cling more
firmly to the opposite prejudices. But this is no strange
thing. Extremists always precede and herald a true
reform. They rouse the public attention, and stir a
thousand soberer minds to reflection and action. We
need neither share their fever nor lose the benefits of
their agitation. We may follow in the wake of the
storm, and gather whatever of fruit it may have shaken
from the tree of truth.
Thus much seems clear. The new age will have
God
more work for women than the old has had.
is preparing to lay upon her new and large responsibil-
ities, and would have her properly prepared to bear
them. The whole world is astir with a sense of the
EMAND
THE DEMAND OF THE AGE.
51
coming change. From the Zenana chambers of Asia
to the Sorosis clubs and Women's Conventions of free
America, in the halls of representative legislation on
both sides of the Atlantic, through all the currents of
living literature, and in the columns of every newspaper,
the evidences abound. Women feel it; the foolish
women babble and flutter; the wise ponder these things
in their hearts, and I think their dominant desire is, that
the sex may be made ready for whatever God is prepar-
ing for them. This, then, is the present significance of
the whole-it is a providential demand for a broader,
truer, and completer female education.
What particular forms the new activity of woman
may take, it is perhaps idle to speculate, and certainly
not at all necessary now to determine. Increase and
improve her culture-give her a better knowledge of
herself and of the divine order in nature and providence
-give her the mastery of her own faculties, and fill
her with ideas of the true, the beautiful, and the good-
and questions of detail will settle themselves. No one
need fear that she will be made any the less woman by
the process-though woman, we will hope (just as we
hope for man), may be made a nobler thing and more
potent for the universal good. She will not need to
handle the ballot, or mount the hustings, or mingle in
the debates of Congress, in order to make her influence
felt in moulding and purifying politics and ennobling
the national character and life. She will not need to
take orders in the church or prefix a "Rev." to her
name, in order to make her testimony heard for Christ,
at home and in foreign lands. Without invading any
law of social propriety or doing violence to one of the
sacred instincts of her nature, she will find a thousand
womanly ways to serve, not her family alone, but her
52
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
Saviour and her generation. The fulness of an enlight-
ened intellect and a sanctified heart will find or make
a thousand fitting channels through which to reach and
benefit the objects of her sympathy-through which to
swell the tides of blessed influence which bear the
knowledge and the joy of salvation to the ends of the
earth.
Let him that hath ears to hear, hear the voice of God
summoning woman to "come up higher," and calling
upon us to prepare steps for her ascent.
In conclusion, let me say a word on the remaining
topic of our theme: How is this great demand of the
age to be met? What is to be done to make liberal
education for women a practical and operative reality?
And here there would seem abundant causes for de-
spondency. Every thing is to be done, and no one ap-
pears to feel fully the importance of doing it. But
there is no room for despondency in the work of God.
If this is not his work, let it come to nought.
If it be,
he will provide and have his instruments ready as fast
as he needs to use them. Reassured by this thought,
we lift our eyes again, and, on a second view, are sur-
prised to find how near to completeness the preparation
is already advanced. The fact is, much of the machin-
ery of liberal education for woman is already in exist-
ence waiting for employment, and little is needed but
the correction of some errors in the mode of using it,
some additions and modifications, and then the inspira-
tion of an enlightened public sentiment, to make it im-
mediately effective.
In the first place, the foundation is laid in a broad
system of elementary education, in public and private
schools, to which the sexes are already admitted on
terms of absolute and perfect equality.
THE DEMAND OF THE AGE.
53
Next, the academy, in its proper character, as the
school of collegiate preparation, has always stood open
for girls as well as boys, and has proffered them on equal
terms the same opportunities for that preliminary drill
in language and mathematics which is the only gradus ad
Parnassum. Of these opportunities girls have seldom
availed themselves. No wonder that they have declined
the weary ascent which for them led nowhere, or only
to a stern "NO ADMITTANCE HERE FOR GIRLS" on the
closed portal of the Temple of Knowledge. No wonder
that, by the side of the pre-collegiate course of the acad-
emy, has grown up the (so called) "Ladies' Course,
where “diluted science" and "philosophy made easy'
are served up alike to those who have no capacity or
desire for more, and to that precious few who would sell
all they possess for the privilege of a true education, and
long for it only that they may the better serve men and
glorify God.
""
""
In the female seminaries and academies the ladies'
course stands alone, and, by the assiduous nursing of
private enterprise and interest, under the favor and
patronage of the public, it has attained a completeness
of development and a weight of influence which compels
respect, while it suggests some serious inquiries as to
whether the character of that influence is in all respects
fortunate.
Here is the first point at which a rectified public sen-
timent may render important service to the cause of high-
er female education-by holding the ladies' courses (I
use the name for want of a better) in all our academies,
female and mixed, to their true character and their pro-
per function. That function is popular or elementary
education-full and generous it may be, and should be,
though there is always danger of erring on the side of
54
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
over-fulness and a "vaulting ambition," which will be
sure to meet its predestined fate. The demand is
already making for a recognition of these as courses of
liberal education; legislators are besieged for authority
to confer on those who have completed them "appropri-
ate academic degrees," and men of wisdom and authority
look with favor on these applications, under the impres-
sion that courses which they would spurn with contempt
from a college for boys are probably good enough for
girls. In the name of woman and of sound education
both, I protest against the abuse. Let the mischief go
no further. Let the plain truth be told, and let all re-
joice to be held to it. Let the "ladies' course" and the
corresponding popular course for young men in our acad
emies be both sustained, and, as has been suggested in
these meetings, let them be made broad and generous, as
becomes a community which wants a varied intelligence.
among men of all classes and in all the walks of business
life. But let the directors of these courses never forget
that in them they are dealing with comparatively undis-
ciplined minds, and not, by assuming to do more than is
possible, fail of the acomplishment of their legitimate
work. Let the idea of conferring academic degrees at
the close of these compendious courses be sternly frown-
ed upon, at least by all college men. Academic degrees
have quite as much as they can do to hold their own in
public respect, without over-filling the land with carica-
tures of them. It is nothing but a name, to be sure ;
but we have heard from high authority on this floor that
names are things: misapplied names confuse the public
thought, and are a perpetual embarrassment to the pro-
gress of truth. Academic degrees are the outward sign
of an inward grace, meaningless and worse than worth-
less where the thing signified is wanting. They are a
THE DEMAND OF THE AGE.
55
public recognition, under the stamp of competent author-
ity, of a liberal culture; and shall the senators and
judges of the republic of letters join in debasing the cur-
rency of the realm? When a woman is liberally educa-
ted, give her a degree-not as a favor, but as a right.
If women must be denied the thing, they will prefer, if
they are sensible (and the best of them are), to go with-
out the name.
Side by side with these popular courses for both
sexes, let the academies reinforce their provisions for
collegiate preparation in behalf of the girls ; and let the
female seminaries be persuaded, if possible, to make and
advertise such provisions for all who desire to fit them-
selves for college. Then let the truth be told, frankly
and fairly and always, alike to students and their
friends. Let conscientious and honorable teachers set
plainly before each the alternative: "If you want merely
a popular course, brief in duration, compendious in form,
necessarily superficial as tried by any high intellectual
standard, though invaluable for many purposes and
sufficient for all the ordinary exigencies of life, here is
the broad and comparatively easy path, it may be all
you ought to attempt. If so, accept thankfully and im-
prove faithfully its advantages, and you will have no
need to blush for the result. But do you aspire to
become an educated woman in a higher and complete
sense? Would you be of the guild' of the intellectual
and scholarly? Can you content yourself with nothing
short of a round and finished culture? There is no
alternative; you must take the other, longer, and steeper
way, and you must gird yourself for the difficulties.
inseparable from the ascent. Prepare yourself for col-
lege, and take a college course."
6
Finally, what shall be done with the girls who get
56
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
prepared for college? "Send them to Vassar," I sup-
pose you expect me to say. And the answer might do
very well "for the present necessity." But it is a
broad question, this, of the most suitable provision for
the collegiate education of women, and would need a
separate paper for its full discussion.
It would seem a very simple solution of the difficulty,
that the existing colleges should throw open their doors
to the admission of young women properly prepared,
letting them pursue their education in the same classes
with the young men, without additional expense for
buildings, apparatus, or instructors. So far as our older
colleges are concerned, however, I suppose this is out of
the question. Apart from theoretical objections, and
some pretty stubborn prejudices (if you please so to re-
gard them), the innovation would involve such sweeping
changes in the domestic arrangements, and what may be
called the police of those institutions, as no prudent
counsellor would advise them lightly to risk. They
were built for young men alone, and all their material
provisions and the habits of centuries have shaped
themselves accordingly; and it would be easier to estab-
lish new institutions than to revolutionize them in con-
In the
formity to the demands of this new element.
new organizations of the younger States, this difficulty
would not be encountered; and it seems very desirable
that the experiment of the mixed education, in colleges
as in academies, should there be thoroughly tried. I
see no theoretical reason why, under suitable conditions,
it should not be entirely successful, and yield some edu-
cational results, growing out of the mutual influence of
the sexes, of especial interest and value. But let it be
In the
clearly understood what suitable conditions are.
experiments which have thus far been made at the West,
THE DEMAND OF THE AGE.
57
about the only thing done has been to admit young
women to the ordinary college course--a course design-
ed exclusively for the other sex-without adequate pro-
vision for adapting it at the requisite points to the
special wants of women, and for supplying the ample
means of æsthetic and social culture, so indispensable
to an ideal education for the sex. This is not what
woman wants, and she will not take it. The conse-
quence is what we might expect; the number of young
ladies in the college classes has gradually diminished,
until now Oberlin too has its "ladies' course," neither
worse nor better, probably, than the ladies' courscs of
the better class of seminaries. This is "keeping the
word of promise to the ear and breaking it to the hope."
The college that professes to do the work of a college.
for women, whether separately or in connection with the
other sex, stands engaged to establish and maintain [1.]
a course of truly liberal education, and [2.] a plan
adapted to the circumstances and peculiar needs of
women; and it should be held by public sentiment to
both parts of the obligation. This will be found to in-
volve the necessity of chairs of instruction not called
for in the ordinary colleges for men only, together with
a peculiar personal, social, and domestic regimen,
adapted to the care and comfort of young women away
from their parents' home. And this brings us to the
one universal desideratum for attaining any earthly
good-money-endowments-special endowments for the
liberal education of women. I do not see but that Provi-
dence has everything else in readiness, or so nearly so
that every dollar which a Christian heart may be moved
to contribute to this particular object may at once be
made effective.
3*
III.
WOMAN'S CLAIM TO A HICHER EDU-
CATION.*
BY MILLICENT GARRETT FAWCETT.
THE
*****
- Fr
HE belief in the innate inferiority of women's
minds, though it is impossible for want of suffi-
cient data to prove its absurdity, we do not for one
instant hold. All reasoning from analogy points to the
fallacy of such a belief. There is no marked difference
in the minds and characters of male and female children.
When they are all in the nursery together the stereo-
typed characteristics, in the boys of caution and sound
judgment, in the girls of impetuosity and excitability,
are not observable. On the contrary, I have frequently
noticed more difference in character and disposition
between two boys of the same family, than exists
between either of them and one of their sisters; and
when in the members of a family there is a marked and
invariable difference between the two sexes, it is some-
times amusing to find the little girls manly, and the
little boys what is usually called girlish. All this, how-
ever, changes as soon as the divergence of a girl's from
a boy's education begins to exert its influence. Let any
man, however gifted and whatever intellectual distinc-
tion he may have attained, consider what the state of
his mind would have been, had he been subjected to the
treatment which ninety-nine out of a hundred of the
* From Macmillan's Magazine, 1868.
ܢ
WOMAN'S CLAIM TO A HIGHER EDUCATION.
59
women of his acquaintance have undergone. He prob-
ably, from the time he was ten years old, or younger,
had the advantage of possessing a real stimulus to men-
tal exertion; he has spent years probably at some great
school where there were many rewards in the shape of
exhibitions and scholarships given to those boys who
distinguished themselves by special profi.ien y, and
where he has perhaps been taught by such men as
Arnold, Temple, or Kennedy. At eighteen or nineteen,
he probably went to one of the universities, where not
only great and a most unparalleled distinction is the
reward of the most highly gifted, but where intellects
of not extraordinary powers are capable, by persever-
ance, of carrying off valuable pecuniary prizes. But a
far higher advantage than any pecuniary prize can afford
is possessed by the university student; at Oxford and
Cambridge, and at the Scotch universities, the highest
branches of knowledge may be studied under the guid-
ance of men whose scientific fame is European, and all
the enthusiasm with which genius in the teacher can
inspire the pupil is thus awakened. But these pecuniary
and educational advantages are not the only benefits
which a young man derives from a university training.
Many men, who have not sufficient intellectual power to
obtain the former or appreciate the 1 tter, nevertheless
would not be ustified in thinking that the yeas they
have spent at Oxford or Cambridge have been thrown
ནས
M
away. The social and moral advantages conferred by
free intercourse among young men of all shades of
character, talent, and position cannot be easily exag-
gerated. Friendships, which last through life, are thus
frequently formed; and many lessons are thus learned
which are never forgotten, and which no other teaching
could have imparted. Nor, in enumerating the benefits
All
-ނ
60
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN,
to be derived from a university life, must the inspiring
and ennobling associations be forgotten which are
always connected with an ancient seat of learning.
We have now mentioned some of the principal
educational and social advantages which form part of
the mental training of a large proportion of the young
men of the middle and upper classes. What a contrast
does the education of girls in the same social position
present! They can by no possibility obtain any pecuni-
ary stimulus to mental exertion, neither do they share
with boys the immense advantage of being the pupils of
the foremost minds of the age. At about eighteen,
when a boy is just beginning his university career,-a
girl is supposed to have "completed her education."
She is too often practically debarred from further
intellectual progress by entering into a society where
pleasure, in the shape of balls, fetes, etc., engrosses all
her time; or, hers being a country life, and it being her
supposed duty to be what is called domesticated, she
devotes her life to fancy needlework, or to doing badly
the work of a curate, nurse, or a cook. If she does
attempt to carry on her education by means of reading,
many almost insuperable difficulties beset her. For ex-
ample, she probably finds it nearly impossible to secure
her time against those who consider any sort of idleness
better for a woman than mental culture; she also has
to endure the reproach which a woman incurs when she
exhibits a wish to quit the ignorance to which society
has consigned her. It may be denied that a woman
does incur reproach by desiring to improve herself; but
there is implied contempt in the term "blue-stocking,
though this originally meant simply an intellectual or
learned woman; and the epithet "strong-minded,"
5 ""
mt de
WOMAN'S CLAIM TO A HIGHER EDUCATION.
61
The
though anything in itself but uncomplimentary, is con-
sidered highly condemnatory when applied to a woman.
-~ x2
The principal reform, therefore, which it is desirable
to carry out in women's education is their admittance to
all the sources of mental and moral development from
which they have hitherto been excluded. Let all, both
men and women, have equal chances of maturing such
intellect as God has given them. Let those institutions
which were originally intended to provide an education
for girls as well as boys be restored to what their
founders intended. Christ's Hospital is a glaring instance
of the very secondary importance which is attached to
the instruction of girls. It was originally an educational
establishment for the purpose of maintaining and
teaching a certain number of boys and girls. It is now
a great and flourishing boys' school. It gives to about
1,200 boys, free of all expense, a regular public school
education—it has produced some of our most distin-
guished scholars and men of letters. Scarcely any one
knows that there is an endowed girls' school connected
with this establishment; it has been for some years
moved out of London, and maintains about forty girls,
and trains thêm as domestic servants. Gross as are the
facts of this case, it does not stand alone in its culpable.
neglect of women's education. Many charitable institu-
tions, for the purpose of providing an asylum for a cer-
tain specified number of old men and women, were
endowed with land which was not at the time considered
more than sufficient to provide for their support. Owing
to the immense increase in the value of land, the
property of these charities has been found much more
than adequate to fulfil the intentions of their founders.
The surplus property has frequently been appropriated
to found, not schools for boys and girls, but schools for
KAS LA
\
62
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
boys only. It is indisputably unjust, the property
having been left for the benefit of both sexcs, that one
sex only should reap the advantage of its increased
value.
J
$2.45.
We should therefore wish to see equal educational
advantages given to both sexes; to open all the profes-
sions to women; and, if they prove worthy of them, to
allow them to share with men all those distinetions,
intellectual, literary, and political, which are such valu-
able incentives to mental and moral progress. The
University of Cambridge was the first learned body
that took an important step in the reform of women's
education, by admitting girls to its local examinations.
The importance of this as a first step can hardly be ex-
aggerated; it has been attended by none of those evil
consequences which its original opponents so greatly
feared ; on the contrary, it has worked with such suc-
cess that those who at first were most opposed to it are
now some of its most ardent upholders. We trust,
however, that Cambridge will not be content to rest
here, but that, in the future, some scheme will be car-
ried into operation, by means of which women could,
with perfect propriety, become graduates of the Univer-
sity. *
***
In these days religious disabilities are fast becoming
obsolete; we trust that university reformers will not
rest satisfied with their downfall, but will continue the
attack with even increased vigor against sexual disabili-
ties, which inflict even greater injuries upon society by
entirely excluding from the university those to whom
her training would be so highly beneficial.
To describe the consequences of this increased dif-
fusion of sound mental training in a few words, we
conceive that it would add as much as any other pro-
WOMAN'S CLAIM TO A HIGHER EDUCATION.
63
Kanchangia pNE
posed reform to the general happiness and welfare of
mankind. In the first place, every woman who had had
the advantage of sound mental training, could make
the best possible use of her special faculties or talent,
simply because education would have discovered what
those faculties or talents were, and with this assistance
she would have a much greater chance than at present
of finding and occupying her proper sphere. For wo-
man's-the same as man's-sphere is precisely that
situation in which she is doing the highest and best
work of which she is capable. This is a high standard,
and one which, with every advantage society can afford,
is too frequently found unattainable; nevertheless, it is
one to which all educational schemes should aspire, and
their approach to, or neglect of it, should be deemed the
only valid test of worth.
••
-
gan modu bezogen
We also confidently believe that with the possession
of mental culture and development women would gain
much of that public spirit and sense of the importance
of public duties, the lack of which now so frequently
pains us. It could no longer then be said with impunity
in a public place--and it was said last year in the
House of Commons-that a woman, if she had a vote,
would sell it to the man who could offer her the highest
bribe; and we should then no longer hear, what was
far worse, this accusation smilingly acknowledged to be
just, at least of themselves individually, by women on
whom the important social duty had devolved of train-
ing the tender minds of children, and implanting in
them the first and frequently indelible impressions of
their duty to God and man.
<< >
Of those who say that education will unfit women
fulfil the duties of wives and mothers, we ask if
ignorance-call it simplicity if you will-and an utter
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64
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
incapability of comprehending the chief interests of her
husband's life are qualities which so eminently conduce
to domestic happiness. Or, is a want of education the
thing of all others which it is desirable to foster in
those who have the charge of children. A mother, to
be a good mother, ought to have it in her power not.
only to attend to the physical wants of her children, but
to train and direct their minds during their childhood,
and, when they have reached man or womanhood, either
to have a community of interests with them, or if that
be from difference of disposition impossible, to be capa-
ble of affording them that sympathy which an un-
cultivated mind can never feel for one from which it
differs. We do not say that a good education invaria-
bly produces these good results, but the want of it, we
believe, is in almost all cases the cause of that want of
communion and sympathy which is too common between
a mother and her children.

Want
To
IV.
THE TESTIMONY OF MARY SOMER-
VILLE.*
T
State and
IE low estimate.in which our intellect has hitherto
been held has been a grief and mortification to me
from my earliest years. While the improvement of man's
education has occupied so much attention in the present
age, it is wonderful that one-half of the human race should
have been comparatively so much neglected. Great
duties have been demanded from us, and our minds
have not been prepared by solid instruction to fulfil
them. Much prejudice still exists against high intellec-
tual education for our sex, from the mistaken idea that
it would render a woman unfit for the duties of a wife
and mother. A woman that would neglect her family
for her studies, would equally neglect them for frivo-
lous-pursuits and dissipation,

ཙཏྠྟ་ོ
--
Hitherto usefulness and duty to men have been
thought the only objects worth caring for with regard
to women; it would, at least, be generous to take the
individual happiness of the sex into consideration in the
scheme of education. Thousands of women never mar-
ry, and even those that do, have many solitary hours.
Tear only say from experience, that the higher branches
of mathematical science as well as natural history have
From a letter to Mrs. J. E. Butler, 1869.

66
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
been inestimable blessings to me throughout the whole
course of my life, and more especially in extreme old
age, when other resources fail. As a source of happi-
ness as well as of intellectual strength, mathematical
science and classical learning ought to be essential
branches of study in the higher and middle classes of
women.
Do not suppose that I undervalue accomplishments;
on the contrary, I am a zealous advocate for refine-
ment.* But surely the graces of life are not incompati-
ble with solid endowments. Even if every opportunity
of improvement is given, education will necessarily be
subservient to the natural disposition of the child.
There is no need to fear that all will be too learned,
though all will be improved; but the important point is
that a girl should be perfectly taught any branch of sci-
ence or literature for which she shows an inclination,
that she may be really learned.
* Mrs. Somerville is quoted as an instance alike of the highest
intellectual eminence and the most faultless ménage.-Mrs. Jel-
licoe, the lady Superintendent of Alexandra College, Dublin.
says:
It has been often asked,-Will not your bracing mental dis-
cipline unfit women for that sphere which must always be
theirs? their training should be of the heart, not of the head,
what provision do you make in the Alexandra College for this?
The answer to the first objection is, experience has proved that
all true cultivation favors natural differences. 'Bees, by the in-
stinct of their nature, love their hives, and birds their nests;'
women love their homes, and a woman's instinctive tendency to
thoughtfulness in ministering to the wants and the comforts of
others will not be warped, but will be purified and strengthened
by the exercise of her reasoning faculties, and by familiarity
with thoughts that enrich while they invigorate the mind.”
V.
ON THE STUDY OF SCIENCE BY
WOMEN.*
BY LYDIA ERNESTINE BECKER.
IN
N speaking of the study of science by women, I dé.
sire, at the outset, to guard against the supposition
that I consider such study to present any exceptional
peculiarity to distinguish it from the study of science by
men. Male and female students, in any branch of sci-
ence, must go through the same training, and have
their qualifications and capacities tested by precisely
the same rules; neither is there anything in these stud
ies which is naturally more attractive or advantageous
to persons of one sex than of the other.
Nevertheless, the fact is indisputable that at the
present time the students of science among men greatly
outnumber those among women. Some persons attri-
bute this circumstance to an inherent specific distinction
in the minds of the two sexes of man. They assume the
existence of a natural distaste or incapacity for scientific
pursuits among women, and they consider it neither pos-
sible nor desirable to encourage them in the successful
prosecution of such studies.
Others perceive in existing social and conventional
*From the Contemporary Review, March, 1869.
08
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
arrangements, which exclude women from those oppor-
tunities of cultivating their intellectual faculties which
are freely enjoyed by men, a perfectly sufficient expla-
nation of the difference in the numbers and the profi-
ciency of persons of cach sex engaged in scientific pur-
suits.
The last is, I think, the true solution of the question,
"Why are there fewer scientific women than scientific
men?" The assumed difference in the minds of the two
sexes is purely hypothetical; the practical difference in
the training and advantages given to each is a fact as
indisputable as the one which it explains.
I do not deny the existence of distinct types or
orders of mind among mankind-all I deny is the coin-
cidence of any one of these types with the physical dis-
tinction of sex.
If we take an assemblage of persons of both sexes,
and test the differences of thought, opinion, or capacity
existing among them, by putting before them any prop-
osition on which opposite views can be held, I believe it
would be impossible to find one which would range all
the men on one side, and all the women on the other.
If it were true that there is a specific difference, how-
ever slight, between the minds of men and women, it
would be possible to find such a proposition, if we took
one which corresponded to this distinction. When a
naturalist seeks to group a number of individuals into a
distinct class, he fixes on some character or set of char-
acters common to them all, and distinguishing them
from other individuals. When he finds such a group
distinctly defined, he calls it a species. But when he
finds two individuals differing very widely from each
other, yet so connected by intermediate forms that he
can pass from one extreme to the other without a vio-
ON THE STUDY OF SCIENCE BY WOMEN.
69.
lent break anywhere in the series, he considers them to
be of one and the same kind. If we apply this principle
as an illustration of the variety of the human intellects,
taking the conventional masculine type of mind as one
end of the scale, and the conventional feminine type ast
the other, we shall find them connected by numerous in-
termediate varieties, distributed indiscriminately among
male and female persons; that what is called a mascu-
line mind is frequently found united to a feminine body,
and sometimes the reverse, and that there is no neces-
sary nor even presumptive connection between the sex
of a human being and the type of intellect and charac-
ter he possesses.
The equality of men and women, as regards intellect,
resembles the equality of men among themselves, or
women among themselves. No two are alike, no two
are equal, but all start fair, and all have an equal right
to advance as far as they can. Like a crowd of men
and women on a level floor, all stand on the same plane,
but some overtop the others. If we measure them by
physical stature, there will be a considerable disparity
between the sexes, and it will take an unusually tall
woman to reach the height of the men.
If we measure
them by mental stature we shall find a different result.
A woman who, is somewhat taller than the masses of
her sisters will be found to overtop the majority of the
men.
The existence of a difference in the intellectual pow-
ers of the sexes is a question fertile in endless disputa-
tions, which can only be satisfactorily set at rest by the
test of observation and experiment. Wherever this test
has been impartially applied, by studies and examina-
tions conducted without reference to the sex of the stu-
dent, the honors have been fairly divided between men
70
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
and women, and no line of demarcation has made itself
apparent between the character of the subjects chosen,
or the degree of proficiency attained. The extremely
limited area in which this test has been applied renders
it, as yet, hardly safe to draw a general conclusion from
the results, though these have hitherto pointed all one
way; but the existence of equality or disparity between
the intellectual endowments of the sexes can only be es-
tablished by the result of studies pursued under a com-
mon method, under the stimulus of similar incentives,
and tested by the application of a common standard. * *
The necessity for some common ground on which all
interested in intellectual pursuits may meet, has been so
strongly felt, that there exist all over the country insti-
tutions and societies devoted either to literature and
philosophy in general, or to the cultivation of special de-
partments of knowledge. But most of these institutions,
especially such as are devoted to the higher branches of
scientific investigation, have one strange and injurious
deficiency. They do not throw open such opportunities
as they afford for acquiring knowledge freely to all who
desire it; they draw an arbitrary line among scientific
students, and say to one half of the human race,
"You
shall not enter into the advantages we have to offer; you
shall not enjoy the facilities we possess of cultivating
the tastes and faculties with which you may be endowed;
and should any of you, in spite of this drawback, reach
such a measure of attainments as would entitle one of us
to the honor of membership or fellowship in any learned
society, we will not, by conferring such distinctions on
any of you, recognize your right to occupy your minds
with such studies at all." It is no light mortification to
a woman, who is desirous of prosecuting a study, to find
that those best qualified to help her on her way are sedu-
ON THE STUDY OF SCIENCE BY WOMEN.
71
lous in affording her all the discouragement in their
power, and that the doors of the high places of science
are rigorously closed against her.
In order to have definite information on this head, I
applied to the secretaries of one or two of the scientific
societies of the metropolis, with the following result.
Mr. White, Assistant-Secretary of the Royal Society,
writes:-
"In answer to your inquiry as to what is the position of women
with regard to the Royal Society, I beg leave to say that the Soci-
ety is not open to women; that ladies are not admitted to the
meetings, and have never been elected Fellows.
“Mrs. Somerville, many years ago, was elected honorary mem-
ber of the Astronomical Society, but I am not aware that she has
ever written F.R.A.S. after her name."
Mr. Henry Walter Bates, Secretary to the Royal
Geographical Society, kindly furnished me with the fol-
lowing statement :—
"1. Women are not entitled to become members or Fellows of
the Royal Geographical Society. But they are allowed to attend
the meetings as visitors introduced by Fellows, and, if they are
teachers of geography, they can obtain a Council card of admission
for the season.
"3. There is no instance on record of the Society bestowing
medals or other rewards on women. Lady Franklin received a
medal on behalf of her deceased husband: Women have distin-
guished themselves as explorers, both singly-Madame Pfeiffer—
and with their husbands-Lady Baker, Madame Helfer, Madame
Semper-but I do not think it has been proposed in our Council to
bestow a reward for geographical merit on a woman.
3. Women are admitted as visitors to the Ethnological Soci-
ety; but I am not aware that this is allowed or practised in any
other scientific society."
"Ladies are Fellows of the Royal Horticultural Society; but
this is not for scientific purposes, but to obtain admission to the
gardens. Ladies are not generally invited even to the soirées of
72
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
A
learned societies such as the Royal, the Linnæan, etc. Ours is an
exception, a small number being invited as friends of the Presi-
dent. They are, however, invited freely to the soirées of the
microscopical clubs and societies, and seem to avail themselves
very largely of the privilege, and to look through microscopes
quite as eagerly as the men. They are also invited freely to the
soirées of the Society of Arts. I think if a lady were to offer a
really good paper on a scientific subject to any of these societies,
it would be accepted and published like a man's paper in their
transactions. I have seen papers by ladies (I think) in the trans-
actions of the Linnæan Society."
Mr. Bates speaks of a lady offering a really good
paper on a scientific subject. But so long as ladies are
shut out from the association of those who are engaged
in such pursuits, it is hardly to be expected that they
would have either the stimulus or the opportunity of
producing much that was valuable; and he seems not
quite certain that if they did, their papers would be ac-
cepted and published.
To the list of ladies enumerated by Mr. Bates as hav-
ing distinguished themselves in geographical explora-
tion, I may add the name of Mademoiselle Alexandrine
Tinné, who, a few years ago, fitted out a steamer at her
own expense to explore the Bahr el Ghazal, one of the
tributaries of the White Nile, and accompanied the ex-
pedition, along with her mother and aunt. I remember
that, at one of the meetings of the British Association,
some one asked Sir Roderick Murchison whether the
Royal Geographical Society would mark its seuse of her
munificence and courage in geographical enterprise by
electing her a Fellow of the Society. The learned presi-
dent received the proposition with something very like
disdain, making an observation to the effect that they
never had conferred such a distinction upon a lady.
The gentleman who asked the question read a letter from
ON THE STUDY OF SCIENCE BY WOMEN.
73
}
Mademoiselle Tinné, giving intelligence of the progress
of the expedition, which, at that time, was tolerably
prosperous, but subsequently became entangled among
the dreary swamps of the equatorial Nile region, and
fever and disaster arrested its progress. But the enter-
prising lady is still bent on making further explorations,
and when last heard of, in December, 1868, she was on
the point of setting off from Tripoli to Lake Tschad and
the kingdom of Borran. The expeditions of these ladies.
in Central Africa have been often referred to in the pro-
ceedings of the Royal Geographical Society.
We cannot claim the honor of numbering any of
these distinguished ladies among our countrywomen.
Madame Helfer and Madame Semper are probably for-
eigners, and the ladies Tinné and Lady Baker certainly
$0. I call them distinguished because, though they
have not attained the honors or distinctions bestowed
on other explorers, they have done the deeds which mer-
ited such reward.
I have been informed that on one occasion the
authorities of the Royal Astronomical Society had a dis-
cussion as to whether they should award their gold
medal to Miss Caroline Herschel for her discovery of
five comets. It was understood that it would undoubt-
edly have been given had the discoverer been a man.
But they came to a determination akin to that of the
Royal Geographical Society-not to recognize or reward
services to science when rendered by a woman, and the
medal was withheld.
When the Meteorological Society was formed it was
decided to admit women, and four ladies were elected
on the original foundation; among them the Countess
of Lovelace-Byron's daughter "Ada." In a little while
one of these ladies, the wife of an eminent meteorologist,
¡
4
74
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
wrote to say that she had been told it would be injurious
to the Society to have women as members; she, there-
fore, thought it her duty to resign, and she hoped the
other ladies would follow her example. One of them
did so; but another, who could not be made to compre-
hend the necessity for maintaining the scientific disabil-
ities of women, refused to withdraw, and no one even
suggested the propriety of resignation to Lady Lovelace.
But the two ladies who remained members are since
dead, and no others have been elected; for it appears
that the Royal Charter which was subsequently obtained
would not have been granted to any Society which ad-
mitted women to participate in its advantages.
The story of the connection of women with the scien-
tific societies of the metropolis being chiefly of a nega-
tive character, is thus soon told. That a different com-
plexion would be given to the tale, were the advantages
and the honors they possess open freely to all lovers of
intellectual pursuits without invidious distinction, may
be reasonably inferred from the results obtained where
this principle has been acted on.
In illustration of this proposition, I will read a report
which has been furnished me by a lady in Dublin, of the
working of an institution which has been doing a good
work for some years, and is now named the "Royal Col-
lege of Science for Ireland." The lady to whom I am
indebted for the information is herself a student, and
has carried off some of the highest prizes.
"C
Shortly after the Great Exhibition of 1851, a museum was
established in Dublin by the Department of Science and Art, and
called the Irish Industrial Museum. Sir Robert Kane, President
of the Queen's College, Cork, was appointed Director. In 1854 a
staff of professors was added, chosen from among the most distin-
guished professors of the University of Dublin, of the Royal Col-
-
ON THE STUDY OF SCIENCE BY WOMEN.
75
lege of Surgeons, and members of the Royal Society, and of the
Royal Irish Academy, who gave courses of lectures on the follow-
ing subjects:-Geology, botany, zoology, physical science, and
theoretical chemistry. These lectures were partly free, the last
twenty, or thirty requiring the small fee of 3s. 6d. They were
attended by large numbers of men and women of different classes
of society. In the session of 1855-6, examinations at the end of
each course were instituted, and prizes of £3, £2, or £1 in books,
or in money, were given to the best three; certificates were given
to those who, though not attaining to a prize, showed a fair
degree of proficiency. The Department also granted its bronze
medal to the winner of the first prize in each class.
"i
At the very first examination several gentlemen, and three
ladies, presented themselves; one of the latter won the first prize
in botany and zoology (which were united the first year), and the
other two took good places in the same subjects and in geology.
This step met with no opposition from any one connected with
the place, but with every encouragement from the enlightened
Director.
"The success of the female students disturbed, of course, very
much the preconceived notions of some people, who had always
taken for granted that the female intellect was inferior to the
male;
and not being able to combat the stubborn facts that ap-
peared from time to time in the newspapers when the results of
the examinations were published, they tried to account for them.
One manner of doing so was by stating that the female students
had more leisure for study than the male students. This was not
true as a general rule; three, at least, of the most successful
female students I knew to be engaged during the greater part of
the day in supporting themselves by teaching, while their even-
ings were of necessity often occupied by those domestic duties
from which men are free."
men.
"Another way of accounting for their success was that those
women were above the average, and that among the students
were to be found first-class women, and only second or third class
The women may have been above the average; the men,
large numbers of them, certainly were. A few simple facts will
show this. In 1859 a lady won the first prize in physical science;
among her competitors was a gentleman who, about the same
time, passed the Woolwich examinations most creditably. In
-
76
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
1862 a lady won the first prize in chemistry, and was 320 marks
(the total being 1,000) ahead of the nearest male competitor, who
had passed several examinations in Trinity College, Dublin, where
he was a student, but had been attracted to the college by the
fame of its chemical courses. In 1863 another lady took the first
prize in chemistry, and the gentleman who took second prize was
the best student that year in the chemical classes in the Royal
College of Surgeons. In '65, '66, and '67 first prizes were taken
by ladies, while among the male competitors were those who had
won scholarships and exhibitions at the South Kensington May
examination; and at that examination in June, when a lady won
the first prize in pure mathematics, ALL her competitors were
exhibitioners."
The experience gained in this institution ought to
afford encouragement to those who are seeking to raise
the standard of education for women by opening to them
the advantages of existing educational institutions.
It proves, by practical experiment, that men and women.
can associate with as much mutual advantage in the
class-room and examination-room as in the home and
the drawing-room, and that there is no necessity to iso-
late them from the sympathy and encouragement each
gives the other in their common pursuit. It points to
the possibility of rendering all public institutions for
education, national in the broadest sense of the word.
The means provided for cultivating the mind of the
nation should be freely accessible to all who have minds
to cultivate; and the honors and rewards attaching to
intellectual attainments, such as scholarships, fellowships,
university degrees, and membership in learned societies,
ought to be within the reach of either man or woman
who has the taste to desire and the ability to earn
them. Educational provisions ought to be directly cor-
relative to educational necessities, for needs and rights
in this respect are convertible terms. These needs and
ON THE STUDY OF SCIENCE BY WOMEN.
77
rights have been admirably defined by Mr. J. G. Fitch in
the very important Report presented by him to the
Schools Inquiry Commission. If the doctrine which he
enunciates with regard to women be extended so as to
include both sexes, it will embody the principle which
should guide every effort made for the promotion of
national education, whether of an elementary, secondary,
university, or scientific standard. "The true measure
of a (man or) woman's right to knowledge is (his or) her
capacity for receiving it and not any theories of ours as
to what (he or) she is fit for, or what use (he or) she is
likely to make of it.”
* * *
>.
Some of the educational institutions so far recognize
the existence of the other sex as to make a feeble effort
to supplement their main provisions by the establishment
of supernumerary "women's classes." I have not heard
whether these well-meant but ill-advised efforts to com-
bat the evil have done much good. The little I have
heard leads me to the belief that the result has been what
one might from the first have anticipated, and that the
interest displayed in these classes has been languid.
There are not a sufficient number of women as yet roused
to the interest of such subjects to afford material for the
promotion and continuance of such isolated classes, and
the fact of their exclusion from the companionship of the
other sex acts as a damper on their spirits. They would
not care much for social pleasures if they were only ad-
mitted to women's balls, women's dinner parties, women's
croquet parties, and women's concerts; and if they are
only allowed to participate in intellectual pleasures on
these exclusive terms, they will certainly not derive
from them either the advantages or the healthful stimu-
lus which these are capable of affording.
It seems to me a matter for sincere regret that any
78
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
effort made to promote the intellectual activity of women
should be based on this system of separation and exclu-
sion. Whatever difficulties may be thought to stand in
the way of studies conducted in concert, none can exist,
even in imagination, when the proposal is simply that
of simultaneous and identical examinations; the placing
of all the papers together for judgment, and making out
the class list in order of merit, with absolute impartiality
and indifference as to whether the papers were the pro-
duction of male or female students. The success of the
local examinations in connection with the University of
Cambridge, where no difference of any kind is made in
the examination of girls and boys, should point out the
principle to be acted on in further efforts in the same
direction. The only matter for regret in respect of these
examinations is the treatment of the successful students,
in the invidious distinction implied in the exclusion of
girls from the class lists. The boys who pass honorably
have their names published; the girls who pass honor-
ably have their names suppressed. It is just as natural
for a girl as for a boy to be pleased to see her name in a
list of those who have done well. The University en-
courages the boys by marking the proficiency they have
attained as something to be proud of; it discourages the
girls by implying that the acquirements they have
gained are something to conceal, or be ashamed of.
A still further departure from the principle of equal-
ity has been made by the University of London. They
have instituted a special examination for women, to
which no male student is admitted, and the recognition
attached to success is a mere certificate of having passed,
without the honors of a University degree.
Perhaps I ought to consider the step that has been
taken by the London University not so much a depart-
ON THE STUDY OF SCIENCE BY WOMEN.
79
ure from the principle of intellectual equality as an ad-
vance towards it. It is the pleasanter, and possibly the
truer way. Certainly, before this concession was made,
women were not allowed by the authorities to have any
rights at all in the matter. Now that their eyes have
become partly open to the needs of women in this re-
spect, we may hope that the process will not stop till
complete justice has been done.
From all that I can gather respecting the proposed
examination, it is in no way inferior in what examinees
call "stiffness" to that provided for the other sex. A
woman who passes in any subject will do quite as much
as a man who passes the men's examination correspond-
ing in grade. But though she will have worked as hard
and done as much as the men, she will not have equal
honor. The men will say to her: "You are not on our
level; you have only passed the women's examination ;
and she will not be admitted as a graduate whatever the
amount of intellectual power or attainments she displays.
The whole arrangement proceeds on the principle that it
is very womanly to work, but "unfeminine" to receive
pay or reward for work. Women may be admitted to
the course of study, but not to the honors or advantages
to which that course of study leads men.
""
It will not be very wonderful if an experiment based
on what seems a radically false principle should prove a
failure, and if high-spirited and accomplished women who
are conscious of no moral nor intellectual inferiority to
the other sex, should refuse to enter an examination
which does not place them on a level with others. It is
only to be hoped that the possible failure of an experi-
ment of this nature will not be used as an argument
against better devised future attempts to extend the edu-
cational privileges of women.
80
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
The efforts made by the London University to help
women up the ladder of learning remind me of the his-
tory told by Mr. Frank Buckland of his endeavors to facil-
itate the ascent of salmon up rivers, the natural course
of which had been obstructed by weirs and dams placed
there by man. After exhausting his ingenuity in pro-
viding a way for the salmon up these artificial barriers,
by means of a contrivance "nicely adapted to their spe-
cial tastes and capacities," he found, to his dismay, that
his pains had been entirely thrown away, for "the un-
grateful beasts wouldn't go in!" But Mr. Frank Buck-
land is a man of resources, and failure is no word in his
vocabulary. He informed us that the only plan then
available was to catch a salmon, and ask it what it
wanted. Of course the creature very soon told him, and
the moment arrangements were made in accordance with
its real needs, off it went, like an arrow, up the stream,
on its way to the mountains. Now, if those who are sin-
cerely, but perhaps somewhat blindly, trying to open the
way to a higher life for women, will be as wise as Mr.
Frank Buckland in seeking to adapt their means to the
real feelings and wishes of those whom they are striving
to benefit, instead of to what they imagine women ought
to feel and desire, they will be as successful as he was in
setting the struggling creatures free, and in peopling the
stream of life with fish worth catching, instead of leav-
ing nothing for the angler but the minnows and stickle-
backs "of the period."
VI.
MENTAL PECULIARITIES OF
WOMEN.
BY REV. J. M. CAPES.
IN
N urging the profound importance of giving to
women an education almost exactly the same as is
given, or ought to be given, to men, I do not overlook
the circumstance that women start with certain defi-
ciencies which are inherent, with few exceptions, in
their nature. Their two great defects are a want of im-
agination, and a disinclination to extend their observa-
tions over a large range of facts before forming general
conclusions. Their receptive faculties are great, their
critical qualities are admirable, and their powers of scien-
tific and mathematical reasoning, up to a certain point,
quite equal to those of men. It is only when the imagi-
native and widely observing faculties are called into
play that they lose in the race and are compelled to con-
tent themselves with the second place.

It is common, indeed, to credit women with a larger
amount of the gift of imagination than is attributed to
men. But this is the consequence of a confusion between
the imagination and the emotions. Women, it is said,
jump to conclusions because they are so imaginative.
*From The School Board Chronicle.
**
82
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
}
In reality imagination has nothing whatever to do with
the matter. It is rather their want than their supera-
bundance of imagination which prevents them from re-
alizing the full force of the absurdities upon which they
fling themselves. As I have said, their receptiveness,
both intellectually and morally, is great. They are
quick at understanding and quick at feeling, and this
sensitiveness is thus mistaken for imaginativeness. And
what absolutely proves this peculiarity in women's mindst
is the undeniable truth that it is precisely in the cultiva-
tion of the imagination that they have enjoyed the same
advantages as men, and yet that nothing has come of it,
except in the region of novel-writing. Women have
always been studying works of art, and music, and poe-
try, with all the devotion of their natures, but no great
female artist, composer, or poet. has ever existed. They
care comparatively little for architecture and sculpture,
through their preference of color to form; but they love
seeing pictures, they love drawing and painting, they
love to listen to musical performances, they play and
sing admirably, and they are ardent readers of poetry;
but the creative power is feeble within them. They are
compelled to turn to men for the excitement of their
emotions.

As novelists, indeed, women have at times attained a
high rank; and when no very high range of the imagi-
native gifts is called for, their creations are without a
fault, and possess all that indescribable charm which at-
taches to a perfect work of art of whatever kind. But
this very success is a consequence of the limited sphere
in which their observation delights to disport itself. It
is in their pictures of domestic life that women appear as
possessing the genius and the finished skill of the culti-
vated artist. And it is in this almost exclusive fond-
MENTAL PECULIARITIES OF WOMEN.
83
ness for the details of individual life, as distinguished
from public affairs and occurrences on a large scale, that
the minds of women are distinguished from those of men
by a character which I believe to be ineradicable. It
may, to some extent, be modified or corrected by a bet-
ter education; but that women, as a sex, should ever
come to take the same wide and large views of life as
men do, I think it as impossible as that men, as a sex,
should ever interest themselves as much as women in
the details of personal history and private affairs. * * *
Here, therefore, is the answer to the question as to
the kind of teaching which is most necessary for girls.
I assume it as undeniable that all education should be
such as to strengthen the feebler elements in the natural
character to the utmost practicable extent.
What girls
want, accordingly, is above all things a corrective to
their tendencies, to hasty generalizing, to the settlement
of large subjects by reference to personal likings and
dislikings, and to inaccuracy and looseness of thought.
They are quite capable of those mathematical and scien-
tific studies which tend pre-eminently to confer this
closer mode of thinking. They want to be brought into
perpetual contact with the ideas of law and of abstract
truth, and with large and liberal views on all questions.
of history and politics. They want to be taught the
great duty of suspending the judgment on subjects, how-
ever interesting, on which they know little or nothing.
They want to learn languages, not merely as the neces-
sary machine for talking, but as vehicles of thought, and
in connection with those many and delicate gradations.
of idea and feeling of which the superficial teaching of
the day tells them nothing. They want to be taught
music and art in their several stages of growth, and in
their relations to the laws of sound, color, and optics.
84
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
2
Above all, in the domain of art, they want training in
the laws of form, and to learn not to shuffle off all
thought of outline and composition in the vague mys-
tifications of color, just as in matters of historical,
social, or political life they are apt to shuffle off all
accuracy of idea in the vague mystifications of personal
emotion. These, of course, are but slight and general
hints; but they will serve to illustrate what I mean
when I say that, according to my conception of women's
education, what they need above all things is to be
taught to think, speak, and write clearly, to reason
accurately and profoundly, and to cultivate a habit
of wide and sympathetic observation. Train them in
this way, and the mere acquisition of information will
come rapidly on. Cure them of slovenly habits of
thought, and they will soon rival men in the quantity
of learning that they will imbibe and assimilate.*

* There is perhaps less mental activity and certainly less grasp
of difficult subjects in young women of 21 or 22 than in young
men who are just leaving college. This is owing in part, doubt-
less, to the stimulating effect of residence at the University with
all its literary associations, and the intellectual tone of a portion
of the society-only a portion it must be remembered; for the
ordinary boating, cricketing, pleasure-loving undergraduate,
though he possesses some excellent qualities, does not trouble
himself with thinking over-much. To equalize the sexes in this
respect a little more, it seems reasonable to provide for young
women educational advantages corresponding to-though not
necessarily the same as-those enjoyed by young men.-Rev.
George Butler.
/
VII.
THE QUESTION OF HEALTH.*
Poss
Р
OSSIBLY Nature and Providence are at fault in ex-
pecting of woman a distinct and significant function
in the economy of human life-a function which means
more to the vigor and happiness of the race than any
placed within the reach of man. But here is the fact
of motherhood, and until sons bear children we trust
that a little physiological knowledge will enter into the
grounds of even individual reports on co-education.
For our part we are convinced that too much has been
done already in forcing girls through courses of hard
study, and that any further steps in that direction will
necessitate hospitals and asylums alongside of Colleges
for women. The training provided for girls in our
common schools even, largely incapacitates them for
the duties and the joys of their natural future, and that
without raising either their character or their intelli-
gence materially above what these would have been
with a simpler training; if indeed moral and mental.
health are not decidedly lowered by the physical depress-
ion induced by hard study. And in our great schools
of learning, the admission of women, to any great extent,
must simply mean a virtual abdication of their best
functions by a considerable class of women; and that
without reason, either in any service to be render、d by
From the College Courant, Sept. 1872.
86
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
it, or in any happiness to be found in it, but through a
mistake full of unreason and fruitful of sorrow.
It already appears to an alarming extent, that this is
the tendency, although by far the greater portion of
these sad fruits of error will be reaped chiefly after some
years by the next generation. We have always found
that inquiries, directed particularly to this point, re-
vealed a terrible skeleton in the Colleges which receive
women, or which attempt to give girls the severe train-
ing to which boys are subjected. Dr. Clarke does not
seem to have made inquiries in this direction, nor to
have taken note of the decisive facts which meet the
critical observer wherever he turns. And if he should
now make these inquiries, he would probably content
himself with answers which entirely leave out of sight
the mischief to motherhood, and to women's usefulness
and happiness, which is done without any immediate
overthrow of health-the mischief of a brain over-taxed
and weakened, instead of stored with the happy vigor
which is needed to make motherhood effective and
blessed.
It is an astonishing circumstance that neither the
profound suggestions of the Christian religion, nor the
imperative intimations of modern science, should have
led Dr. Clarke to reflect that the mother and child are
to be first considered in this matter of women's training,
and that on no account can the case of daughters be
made the same as that of sons. He must be incompe-
tent moreover for social and psychological observation
who does not detect, in much of the demand of women
for the chance allotted to men, a sad twist of womanly
thought away from the best instincts of womanhood,
and sometimes a perversity, and almost an insanity, of
demoralized sensibilities, the cure of which is not in
THE QUESTION OF HEALTH.
87
masculine opportunity, but in wise return to womanly
tasks, however simple.
Exceptional women, arrived at years of full discre-
tion, and fully conscious what life is, and what their
own irrepressible aspirations are, may wisely make their
womanhood undertake some of the offices of manhood,
and from such women the race may undoubtedly expect
a peculiar and a significant service, the fruit of a special
sacrifice; but to ask young women, and young girls,
who are not yet conscious what life is, and are not wise
with regard to their way through the world, to forget
their distinct office in life, and to undertake as sons are
expected to undertake, is one of those mistakes which
bring woe greater than any fruit of crime, because they
blast expectation in its source, and lay upon innocent.
and noble endeavor the curse of comprehensive defeat.
Rather would we send our women, who can counsel and
can execute, to devise ways of undoing much that has
been already done in what is called "the education of
women," and of proving a real education of women, as
distinct in its aims and methods as woman's part in life
is distinct.
*
* Woman's physical qualifications as mother are of paramount
importance; and whatever seriously conflicts with the efficacy of
this function is full of evil and should not be voluntarily put in
force. If we adopt a system of education which expands the in-
tellect at the expense of reproductive vitality, there is a serious
wrong in that education. The supply of vital energy from its
natural source, the assimilation of food, has, as we have already
said, its limits, and, if an undue proportion is carried to the brain,
the physical will suffer. This is true of man as well as of
woman, but still more true of her than of him, because the mater-
nal draft upon her energies is more imperious than any draft
which nature makes upon his. An education for woman which
is to be derived mainly through sedentary and bookish habits, to
the detriment of vital expansion, cannot be too emphatically rep-
robated.-J. STAHL PATTERSON.
VIII.
THE SUPPRESSED SEX.*
THE
HE undeniable facts reported from Cambridge have
compelled opponents to shift their ground. Forced
to admit that women can pursue with equal success, the
same studies with men, they now say-"Yes, but they
are not proper studies for woman; they do not fit her
for her true sphere, and consequently they unsex her."
Now it must be admitted that it would be a strange
anomaly in Nature if this were true. Women daily sit
at the same table with men, and partake of the same
food. Nature has not provided one kind of beef and
mutton for women, and another kind for men; and yet
the same meat and bread are converted by one sex into
woman, by the other into man. The two are not un-
sexed by breathing the same air, or by the same sun-
shine; there is not a female and a male air or sunshine;
and yet one frame converts these to long tresses, the
other to long beards. It would be strange indeed if by
the same mental diet, the same intellectual sun and
atmosphere, women should be made too masculine, or
men effeminate.
But woman's credentials must be verified, to use
Margaret Fuller's phrase, by good work. We believe,
therefore, that the first thing of all to claim for her is
the right of education,-the right, that is, to be put in
From the Westminster Review, Oct. 1868.
THE SUPPRESSED SEX.
89
possession of the implements for her work. And ex-
perience has shown that this will not be fairly done
until women are admitted to the same studies, in the
same universities, with men. In every female college in
the world, studies are expurgated, qualified, selected,
accommodated, to suit some preconceived nonsensical
theory about woman's mind or woman's sphere. Thus
she is shackled to begin with, and then held up to illus-
trate her inability to keep step with man. If a thing
be true, a woman has, in her ability to learn it, the right
to learn it; and in depriving her of a particular study,
man may be withholding the particular ray of heat or
light under which her special ability would unfold. It is
a deep wrong that ages which held that women had no
souls, or made them slaves, or fashionable toys,—or
consecrated them to nunneries,-should still be repre-
sented in our laws, institutions, and colleges; and it
is adding insult to the injury, when the machinery into
which we place her turns out "the girl of the period,"
to hold her up to the scorn of the world as the best
thing that woman has become in the noon of the nine-
teenth century. It comes to this: having by force taken
possession of the means of education, men turn to cast
shame on women that they are left outside! The fact
is, the Egyptians believe that woman has no soul; the
English believe she has no reason;-the wretched Ail-
mehs on the Nile are produced by one theory, and
female frivolity in some and ruin in other classes are the
fatal leaf and blossom of the other.
IX.
THE UNIVERSITY SYSTEM.*
TH
HERE is abundance of room for criticism of the
various plans that have been proposed. Nothing
would be easier than to ridicule schemes, some of which
will probably turn out to be altogether inappropriate,
while others presuppose a state of things which will
not be realized for some generations to come.
The lec-
tures which have been given in the North of England
and imitated in London, the examinations held by the
Universities of Cambridge and London, and the pro-
posed college to be established at Hitchin, doubtless
involve many crudities and imperfections. Ladies have
suddenly come to the conclusion that they ought to
know a great deal more than they do, and the modes by
which they have sought to supply their newly discov-
ered wants certainly bear the marks of inexperience.
There is, for example, a certain naïveté at first sight
about the lecturing plan. When a distinguished grad
uate from the Universities gives a course of lectures on
some abstruse topic for which his hearers have not the
slightest preparation-geometry, for example, or Greek
history, or Political Economy-we cannot fancy that he
will produce any permanent effect. If a girl has grown
up to be a woman without knowing anything about
science, she will not learn much about it by hearing a
* From Fraser's Magaine, May, 1869.
THE UNIVERSITY SYSTEM.
91
lecturer, however able, discourse about a particular
branch of the subject for a few hours, even if he shows
some pretty experiments and asks questions of his pupils
afterwards. The knowledge imparted must be of a very
superficial, and probably of a very fugitive, kind. It
would be unfair, however, to insist upon this, except so
far as to point out that the real use of such lectures is to
excite a general interest in some important subject, and
generally to awake the female mind to the fact that
there is a great deal of intellectual activity in the
world, in the results of which women may have a pro-
found interest. It may be a revelation to some ladies to
know what are some of the questions that are being dis-
cussed by the ablest men of the day and what answers
are being given. It would lift them, for a time at least,
above the narrow round of mere social gossip or ecclesi-
astical discussion. The prophet who points to the prom-
ised land does a good work, though he may not be able
to lead his disciples into possession; and we must admit
that women are at present left to seek their intellectual
food in a very barren desert. We do not mean in say-
ing this to accept too unreservedly the contrast which
is sometimes drawn between the advantages of men and
women. Some, indeed, of the most energetic agitators
apparently share with schoolmasters and University
dons the curious belief that our educational system for
men may be accepted as an irreproachable model. The
Cambridge 'poll' course was selected in one case as
affording a judicious pattern to which the higher educa-
tion of women might approximate, though that course
has been moulded to fit the needs of some of the dullest
and most generally incapable young gentlemen in this
or any other country. It is, of course, inevitable that
in the first instance our lady reformers should follow
92
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
such guides as they can get, and look forward to the
days when ladies will be admitted to the Cambridge
triposes as to the advent of an educational millennium.
We sympathize very imperfectly with this aspiration ;
for, as it seems to us, a large number of young Oxford
and Cambridge men are turned loose upon the world in
about as helpless a condition as any featherless bipeds
whatever. The majority have learnt nothing that they
will not forget in a year or two, with the exception of
reading and writing and a few axioms about athletic
sports, and are qualified for little more than to be men
of fortune or clergymen. The minority have learnt.
something which is generally recommended expressly
on the ground that it is of no direct use in any walk of
life. Yet at the Universities, whatever their imperfec-
tions may be, a young man of ability learns at least
what is meant by continuous and systematic study. He
becomes capable of appreciating thoroughness and
accuracy, though it may be that he has been confined to
rather a narrow range of studies; and, moreover, he has
probably been introduced in some form or other to some
of the chief intellectual influences of the day. He knows
something of the ground occupied by Mr. Mill, or Mr.
Darwin, of the line of argument taken up by defenders
and opponents of their doctrines, and the kind of evidence
which may be adduced on either side. Now, it needs
no demonstration to show how much women suffer in an
intellectual sense from their general ignorance on such
matters. The case is too plain to require any illustra-
tion. Even where female education goes beyond mere
accomplishments, it is of its very essence that it should
be superficial and play upon the mere outside of sub-
jects. A woman may know a few language, but she
has no encouragement to be a real scholar. She may
THE UNIVERSITY SYSTEM.
93
know enough scientific gossip to attend lectures at the
Royal Institution, but she can hardly devote her time to
serious study of any single science. She must of course
be able to talk about the prominent men of the day, but
she has not the means of judging of the real merits of
their contributions to modern thought, or of distinguish-
ing them with certainty from the quacks and impostors
who jostle them. * * *
The distance which divides the masculine from the
feminine intellect may be measured by that which
ordinarily intervenes in any study between professionals.
and amateurs. Even when women of more than usual
cultivation are tolerably familiar with the results of
modern thought, they generally know little of the pro-
cesses which have led to them, and form a very inade-
quate conception of what is meant by thorough and
systematic study. To diminish in any degree that dis-
tance is an object worthy of every encouragement, and
we should heartily welcome any enthusiasts who are
ready to labor in so good a cause. Lectures or examina-
tions at colleges may all be good in their way. But it
does not follow that, because women should be raised
more nearly to the level of men, we should therefore
adopt precisely that system under which, or in some
cases, in spite of which, Englishmen manage to obtain a
certain pitch of intellectual cultivation. Rather, as we
have already hinted, some of the chief dangers of the
proposed schemes appear to consist in too servile an
imitation of the accepted models of English schools.
and universities.
Thus it would be absurd to forget that our young
men make what they do out of our University system,
because they have a stimulus which, in the case of
women, is, and is long likely to be, absent. A clever
.94
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
youth works with immense energy at a comparatively
uninviting subject, because he looks upon it as a first
step towards professional success. He becomes a
first-rate mathematician, not because he cares a farthing
for mathematics, but because he hopes to win a fellow-
ship and a certain quantity of glory which will give him
some start in the race of life. He will be one degree
nearer to the bishopric or chancellorship of his dreams.
Take away the motive, and it does not follow that the
system, deprived of its impulsive power, will produce
the same effects. Now, even the most daring school
admits that women will continue to take a subordinate
part in active life. Even in the millennium, when they
may vote and be called to the bar and sit in Parliament,
they will still be heavily handicapped in the struggle.
Some of them must condescend to be mothers, and even
more or less to attend to their households and children,
if the world is to get on at all. In short, to put it in
the mildest way, the majority of women will have to
pursue their studies chiefly for the love of knowledge,
and not, unless they intend to be teachers, with the view
of direct bread-winning. The difference is enough by
itself to suggest that there should be some permanent
distinction between the two schemes of education.
Some bold reformers, indeed, have been found already
to propose, by way of a decisive end to the question,
that women should be admitted at Oxford and Cam-
bridge. As this is not likely to lead to a direct practical
conclusion, it is only worth notice as illustrating the
singular indifference to certain facts which besets a
particular class of theorists. They are so indignant at
the fetters which society has placed upon women, that
they forget the substantial meaning which lies at the
bottom of all such arrangements. Women are treated
!
Th
THE UNIVERSITY SYSTEM.
95
unjustly in many ways, but, after all, the present system
does secure one end, which is absolutely essential to
the health and almost to the existence of society, namely,
the general purity of family life. In some future period
our habits of thought may be so modified that restric-
tions now thought necessary may be safely cast aside;
but it would be madness to cast them aside without
most carefully feeling the way beforehand. It would
be a very poor recompense to women if they were
allowed to take degrees and win fellowships at the price
of incurring some of those evils which result from care-
lessly bringing young men and young women together
in a crowd. Some reformers are proud of showing their
thoroughness by going to the logical extreme of every
proposition, and talk about men and women as if the
distinction was founded on a purely arbitrary classifica-
tion. There are, and probably will be, in spite of all
the philosophers in the world, certain passions which
cannot be safely ignored, and some rules which it will
be the height of imprudence to neglect. To discuss
human beings as if they were sexless animals is at least
as silly as to talk of them as if they were divided into
superior and inferior beings, and gives many occasions
to the enemy to blaspheme. Innovations which, if
unsuccessful, not only give scandal, but are injurious to
the highest interests of mankind, should be undertaken
only with extreme circumspection.
This, however, is at present a purely speculative
question. There is another danger which is more likely
to be illustrated in practice. It is characteristic of cer-
tain tendencies, that the first step towards improving
female education was to admit girls to middle-class ex-
aminations. Against the examinations themselves, espe-
cially in the very sensible way in which they have
96
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
hitherto been conducted, we have nothing to say. It
was obvious that the plan gave to the girls a very useful
method of testing their knowledge, and the certificates.
attainable were likely to be of still higher service to
governesses and teachers. But it certainly strikes one
at first sight as a way of putting the cart before the
horse, as though it were assumed that to ask questions
were the same thing as to teach people to answer them.
It seems to be part of that exaggerated belief in the
merit of constant examining which threatens to exceed
all reasonable bounds. One great result of recent Univer-
sity reforms has been to increase steadily the severity of
competition; more prizes have been offered; the course
of study has been lengthened, and the system has been
brought to bear upon boys at an earlier age. A success-
ful lad under the present system has gone through a
series of sharp competitions from the age of twelve or
thirteen till he takes his degree or wins his fellowship.
The system, which was an improvement as compared
with the lethargy of former times, is rapidly becoming
excessive. It tends directly to vulgarize the pursuit of
knowledge. The ideal of a studious undergraduate is to
have a number of propositions in his head bearing upon
some given subject, all of which he can produce at a
moment's notice: he rejects everything that does not
have some direct value in examination, however interest-
ing in itself, and studies everything that may get him a
few marks, though he may never wish to look at it
again. All kinds of knowledge that cannot be conveni-
ently reduced into matter for examination are necessarily
discouraged. Docility and readiness is unduly valued at
the expense of originality. The University course,
which is narrow enough, even if the widest view of the
subjects were taken, is made narrower still. The sys-
THE UNIVERSITY SYSTEM.
97
tem, moreover, tends directly to intensify the evil, which
is so difficult to avoid, that of training a few clever lads
to obtain great facility, while the stupid or idle are
altogether neglected. One student becomes an accom-
plished mathematician, or at least is able to work a great
many examples in a limited time, while three learn to
do nothing but excel in cricket or rowing; and even in
these sports it may be said a similar tendency is pro-
duced by the exaggerated value set upon physical as
well as mental competitions. In short, the ideal student
is one who can put on an amazing quantity of learning
in a short time, as a prize sheep lays on fat. Whether
the constitution of either is the better for it may be
doubted: meanwhile any liberal view of University stu-
dies has to struggle against the whole spirit of the sys-
tem.
This system has the one merit that it induces a cer-
tain number of men to put a very high polish of a certain
kind upon their attainments; a merit which has naturally
a great attraction for women who regret the superficial
character of their accomplishments. Yet it would be a
great misfortune if they should fall into a similar error.
The temptation, in their case, is even more dangerous
than in that of their brothers. Most young men have an
exaggerated estem for University honors, and fancy
that the world is to be conquered by the same qualities
which gain a first-class. Still a youth of genuine origi-
nality is often dimly aware that the University course
does not comprehend the whole field of human knowl-
edge. Now, it is probable that feminine docility would
lead to a still more unreserved acceptance of the Univer-
sity ideal. They would be visited by fewer of those.
compunctious visitings which sometimes come to a youth
of promise, and would seriously hold to the creed that
5
98
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
whatever is taught by the official dignitaries must neces-
sarily be of importance. Thus, a young man remembers
that, after his education is finished, he has to employ
himself upon a totally different field of activity, and is
only too willing to discharge the whole cargo of instruc-
tion with which he has been painfully burdened. A
young woman, having much inferior prospects of em-
ployment, would be apt to remain to the end of her life.
in that unpleasant stage of priggishness which is for the
most part transitory with a young man.
Some few men,
of special talents, may wisely devote their lives to fol-
lowing out the kind of knowledge which is acquired with
a view to academical distinction; but if it were not that
most men have the compensation of active life to balance
the one-sided nature of their training, the very narrow
theory of education still in vogue would be more perni-
cious than is actually the case. Undergraduates learn
very little that is useful at the Universities, but, at any
rate, they have a sufficient inducement to widen their
education afterwards. In addition to this, the intellect-
ual strain produced by intense competition has its evil
effects even in the case of men; it could still less be
called healthy training for women without many qualifi-
cations. A female senior wrangler would be superior to
the frivolous fine ladies who exhibit themselves at a
guinea a head; but she would be far from an
alted ideal of womanhood. A capacity for dealing
effectually with intricate questions of mathematical
analysis implies, after all, a very scanty intellectual fur-
niture, and would do little towards widening the intel-
lectual sympathies, or helping a woman to take a wor-
thier view of the world in which she is placed. The
sneers directed against professors in petticoats are, we
admit, very unworthy if they intend that the female in-
CX-
-
THE UNIVERSITY SYSTEM.
99
tellect should be doomed to perpetual bondage; but
there is this grain of truth in them, that, after all, the
professor does not represent the highest variety of manly
intellect, and would be a still less desirable model for
the universal imitation of womankind. Hitherto, it is
true, there is so much more need of providing some
training than of providing training of the best possible
kind, that the evils at which we are hinting have not
begun to make themselves felt. Only in the extreme de-
sire for improving women's minds by the simple process
of multiplying examinations, there seems to be the be-
ginning of a tendency in the wrong direction. In our
anxiety to give to women the advantages enjoyed by
men, we may possibly offer them the evil along with the
good of our system, and moreover, an evil which in their
case would be specially pernicious. It would be a great
misfortune if women should be encouraged to devote
themselves to a narrow study of some special subject,
when that which they require above all is to have their
mind expanded and elevated. The competitive system
gives a very powerful tonic, but it directs the energies
which it arouses into a confined channel. The essential
condition which secures the satisfactory working of a
system of examinations is that it should follow and not
direct a course of education. As a test that the work
done is sound, it is of paramount importance; as an ulti-
mate end and object, it has a distinctly lowering effect
upon the minds of its victims. The Universities of
Cambridge and London have done well in providing an
examination with proper precautions, although these
schemes are open to many criticisms in detail; but it is
essential to their satisfactory working that women
should have some better opportunities of learning as
well as of being asked questions. Nothing could be
UOPM
1
100
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
more disastrous to sound education than the springing
up of that noxious system of cramming which seems to
be the natural product of all competitive examinations.
The 'grinders' and 'coaches' who train lads for the In-
dian or Civil Service examinations are mischievous
enough as it is; but if a similar scheme should be de-
vised for women, it would be mischievous beyond expres-
sion. Hence it is becoming daily more important that
some body should be formed which may do for women
what the Universities ought to do for men; that is to
say, which should lay down some comprehensive and
liberal scheme of education, and provide eminent teach-
ers to give it weight and guidance. To leave everything
to the accidental results of a scramble for certificates at
an examination is to run the risk of giving a permanently
low tone to female education. The task, we need hardly
say, is beset with many difficulties. None of the plans
at present before the public profess to do more than just
open the question. The commissioners for endowed
schools may probably do something, if Mr. Forster's
plan is carried, for improving feminine education in its
lower stages. The lectures given in the North of Eng-
land have been chiefly useful in their setting a better
model of teaching than they have hitherto known before
the schoolmistresses of the districts. Those in London
are at present merely spasmodic attempts at teaching
which, without much further development, can do little
It is a
more than lectures at the Royal Institution.
mere mockery to suppose that a couple of courses—one,
say on chemistry, and another on Greek history-can
really educate the women who attend them. They may
possibly help to convince women that they are not edu-
cated at present. The proposed college for women,
again, is a step in advance; but it remains to be seen
Mqou
THE UNIVERSITY SYSTEM.
101
whether it will be more than a rather superior girls'
school. In short, we have hitherto touched only the out-
side of a great subject, and the further we go the more
obvious becomes the need of careful investigation, and
of starting in the right path with a view to laying the
foundation of what may in time become a national sys-
tem for providing women with an intellectual training to
fit them for their place in society. What is wanted is
not to make them prodigies of cram, to instruct them in
the best mode of gaining a large quantity of rapidly pro-
ducible knowledge. That may have its advantages, but
it is an essentially narrow aim, and would not necessarily
make women any better than they are at present. What
is really required is, to widen their intellectual horizon,
and to put them in sympathy with the most cultivated
thinkers of the day. The pursuit of special sciences will
probably remain for the most part within the sphere of
masculine duties; but women should have that familiar-
ity with the more general results of modern thought
which is desired by every man of real cultivation. If
the various agitators of the question would keep this
distinctly in view, they may at least lay a foundation for
a satisfactory system of female education.
Xx
THE DIFFICULTIES.*
Ο
F all the numberless crusades of the day, there has
been none more warm and lively than that which
takes up the question of female education generally.
There have been so many words expended on the sub-
ject that we are reluctant to enter into it with further
waste of breath; but yet it is a branch of the general
subject, and cannot be dismissed without notice. The
result of the present commotion of the public mind on
this point seems to be a general feeling that to extend
that monotonous classical training in respect to which,
for our boys, we now and then take a cold shiver of ap-
prehension, asking ourselves with doubts which it is dif-
ficult to silence, is this really the best we can do for
them? to our girls, is to do them the fullest justice, and
to provide for all possible necessities. We are aware, all
the same, that when the preparation for actual life com-
mences in any but an academical career, we have to tear
our sons away from the traditions of school and compel
them to 'go in' for a totally distinct kind of training;
but yet we are told that an entirely superior new gener-
ation of women will be produced when we succeed in
tying our girls to the system of education thus proved
futile for all but one special class of our boys. This is
From the Edinburgh Review, Oct., 1869.
-
LOOKE
THE DIFFICULTIES.
103
surely a very unreasonable conclusion. So far as the
higher classes are concerned, who can choose their own
education, it seems to us that there is a great deal to be
said in favor of the present theory, which makes living
languages the portion of the sister, while the brother
is fighting his way through Ovid and Catullus: and if,
as so often happens, it is she, and not he, who reads
Dante and Goethe, is she really so much his inferior in
point of intellectual training? It is far from our desire
to say a word which should imply indifference to the
spread of education; but if women are virgin soil, as
people say, in this respect, why should we conclude in-
discriminately that the thing best to do for them is to
extend to them the monotonous supremacy of an educa-
tion which many of us regard as unsuitable for half at
least of the minds at present subjected to it? If ever
there was a case for selection, surely this would be the
opportunity; though the authorities generally seem to
prefer imitation and uniformity. With the same curi-
ous repetition of past efforts, we find that the courses
of lectures which were to make our workingmen into
sages and heroes, are cropping up again for the benefit
of women. Even in such a matter as this are we
never to find anything new under the sun?
tham
But when we turn to the consideration of professional
education for girls, we feel that we have returned to the
general fundamental conditions of women, and can only
argue the one question by an appeal to the other. Pro-
fessional education in man occupies all the season of
youth. He has reached his majority at least before he is
qualified to put his powers to the test, and exercise the
knowledge he has gained. Unless he steps into an ex-
ceptional position, reaping the benefit of some one else's
labors, the first ten or fifteen years of manhood are spent
104
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
in a struggle for position more or less hard in proportion
to his talents and his character, and his power of await-
ing a slow result. Under favorable circumstances, of
course, this struggle is not mortal, but it always requires
the man's full force, his clearest judgment, and most
careful labor. If he is prosperously established in the
exercise of his profession at thirty-five, with a clear
prospect of gain and social honor, he has done as well as
he could possibly hope, and can look forward with toler-
able confidence on the career before him. During this
early struggle he has to exert all his powers; if he
pauses for a moment he knows that it is at the hazard
not of losing that moment alone but of sacrificing ten
times its value. The road is so up-hill that he slides
down one step for every three he makes, and is aware
that to stop short or to turn aside on the way is destruc-
tion. A temporary illness sometimes neutralizes years
of labor he must be always at his post, pushing on
with speed unbroken. Should he fall some one else is
ready to jostle him out of the already too crowded way.
Snch is a very ordinary statement of the usual difficul
ties which beset the path, say, of a young physician; and
the other professions are not less toilsome. Let us see
what effect these obstacles would have on the career of
the candidate were it a woman and not a man.
The first thing we have to imagine is that the girl's
entire youth, its bloom, and softest years should be
passed like that of the young man in the steady pursuit
of knowledge. At one-and-twenty, by the devotion of
all her youth, she is qualified to enter upon the practice
of her profession; when lo! there appears at the thresh-
old of life the most natural of all interruptions to a
young woman's career, a young husband ready to take
upon himself the charge of her fortunes. She is married
THE DIFFICULTIES.
105
let us suppose, her education being no bar to the exercise
of the primitive duties of her sex; and let us also imag-
ine that she is loth to sacrifice at a stroke the labors of
so many years, and that she attempts to combine profes-
sional exertions with the duties of a wife. She works
for a year, let us say with intermissions, finding it more.
and more difficult to maintain her place against the lively
competition of men who have no divided duty. Then
she is stopped short by the inevitable discharge of the
primary function of woman. This business over, she
resumes again with a heart and attention sorely divided
between the claims of the infant she leaves at home and
the duties she finds outside. During the interval of her
seclusion, however restricted in point of time, every one
of her male competitors has made a stride before her.
Faltering and discouraged she resumes her laborious way;
and if she has the energy of half a dozen men in her sin-
gle person, if her courage is indomitable, and her deter-
mination sublime, she perhaps manages by a strain of
mind and body which it would be impossible to continue
long, to make up half of the ground she has lost; when lo,
another interruption comes, and she has to step aside
again and bear her feminine burden, and see her com-
petitors, light and unladen, stride past once more. This
is the inevitable course, known only too well to every
woman who has endeavored to combine professional ex-
ertions with the ordinary duties of a man's wife. Other
complications such as we shrink from mentioning, proba-
bly come in to take all the elasticity out of a mind sơ bur-
dened. Her children born amid these cares, and injured
before their birth by the undue activity of brain which
weakens their mother's physical powers, come into the
world feeble or die in her arms, quenching out her cour-
age in the bitterest waves of personal suffering. This is
•
5
106
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
no fancy picture. At every step in her career it becomes
less possible to maintain the unequal conflict. Her com-
petitors have marched far before her, while she toils and
strives midway on the steep ascent. They have gone on
without intermission; she has had to stop short again and
again in her course. With what sickness of heart, with
what a weary hopeless sense of the unattainable and des-
perate consciousness of the mistake, she maintains the
struggle, only they can tell who have done it, and
happily the number is not great. Such is all that a
woman has to expect who attempts to combine the
work of a man to which she has been trained with the
common duties of female life.
On the other hand, let us suppose that she puts aside
the profession she has acquired and gives herself up to
domesticity and wifehood until the period of childbear-
ing is over, and her special responsibilities so far accom-
plished. This period cannot be estimated at less than
twenty years. It may be considerably shorter; it is
sometimes longer; but we are not understating the
possibilities if we grant that at forty she may consider
herself emancipated from woman's natural disabilities,
and may stretch out her hands towards the tools which
she put from her all new and shining at one-and-twenty.
Will these tools have improved or will they have dete-
riorated in the meantime? Will her training of twenty
years ago come back all fresh to her memory as if it had
been but twenty days? Will the world be so good as to
stand still in the meantime and keep everything just as
it was in the days of her apprenticeship that she may
begin again with some chance of success? Alas, no!
this is precisely what the world will not do. She will
find her fellow-students a hundred miles ahead of her,
and their sons ready to tread on her heels and gibe at
THE DIFFICULTIES.
107
her old-world principles. She will be of the old school,
before she has even begun to put in practice her rusty
knowledge. She will feel herself the painful conscious-
ness of faculties blunted by want of use, and powers
numbed by long inaction.
If she is a wonderful woman,
with the energy of half a dozen men, she will perhaps
make a desperate effort and force her way alongside of
some plodding bungler whose indolence or stupidity
have left him out of the race. This is the best that can
befall her if she adopts this second course and waits until
she can give to her profession the matured and steady
powers of middle age.
There is, however, an alternative open to her. She
can take a vow of celibacy. She can throw off altogeth-
er the yoke of nature, and fit herself to compete with
man by consciously and voluntarily rejecting the life of
woman. This is a possibility which is not to be rejected
with disdain as out of the question. If all is true that
we continually read about the number of women who
cannot marry, it is no unfit question for the more resolute
souls among them, whether they should not make up
their minds that they will not marry, and thus qualify
themselves by one severe yet effectual effort for an exist-
ence resembling that of man. By this means alone can
they procure for themselves fair play in the world, or a
reasonable chance of success in any profession. But this
is a penalty which perhaps not one of all their male fel-
low-students would undertake to pay ; and it is the most
cruel renunciation which can be exacted from a human
creature. Thus success in a profession-nay, the mere
initiatory possibility of success-requires from a woman
not equality with man, but an amount of intellectual
and moral superiority over him, which can only be found
in the rarest and most isolated cases.
To him the pros-
108
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
pect of marriage is the strongest incentive to industry
and exertion. To her it is simple ruin, so far as her
work is concerned. If then she has the magnanimity and
self-devotion to cut herself off from all that is popularly
considered happiness in life-from all that youth most
dreams of, and the heart most cares for-she is free to
enter into and pursue, and very likely will succeed in a
profession, which men, with all solaces of love and help
of companionship, pursue by her side at not half the
cost. Perhaps even then, after she has made this sacri-
fice, she will find that she is the pot of earth making
her way among their pots of iron; and that their supe-
rior physical powers and bolder temperament will carry
them beyond her, notwithstanding the superior devotion
she has shown and the price she has paid. But this is
the best we can promise her when all is done—to (per
haps) succeed as well, at the cost of everything, as het
competitors who go into it with the commonest of mo-
tives and at no cost at all.
This is a very serious, very weighty, consideration at
the outset of a career. Professional education too is
very costly, and the parents of young women to whom
self-support is necessary, are not generally rolling in
wealth; can we then wonder at their reluctance to pur-
chase dearly such a training for their daughter, knowing
that the expense will most probably be all in vain, and
indeed hoping that her first step in actual life will be to
render herself incapable of her profession by a happy
marriage? We do not for one moment deny that the
picture we have just drawn, and the truth of which we
are but too certainly aware of, is the very contrary of
encouraging to those hapless women who are seeking
work to do and know not where to find it. We ac-
knowledge sadly that it is not encouraging, but it is
THE DIFFICULTIES.
109
better to face the truth than to ignore it. These things
would remain true were all the colleges in Christendom
thrown open to-morrow with all their means of instruc-
tion to the girl-graduates, who, we are told, thirst for
improved education. By all means, we say, let them be
thrown open. Let all contemptuous laws that teach
fools to sneer at the mother who bore them be erased
from our statute-book. Let the women who stand apart
from woman's natural existence, be it by choice, be it
by necessity, be permitted to assume men's privileges if
they choose. And what then, oh daughters of Eve?
The most of you will still be wives, will still be mothers
all the same, will still lie under nature's own disabilities
and be trusted with nature's high responsibilities, and
have your work to do, which no man is capable of doing
instead of you. Legislation may help the surplus, the
exceptional women. If it does really aid them to find a
practicable standing ground it will do well; but for the
majority, legislation can do little and revolution noth-
ing at all. ***
!
The singular way in which one writer after another
accepts, without examination, a foregone conclusion,
and builds upon a prejudice as if it were an unquesti on-
able truth—the curious assumption by the very writers
who set themselves forth as champions of women, of
woman's profound ignorance, triviality, and want of
harmony with the world around her, strikes the observ-
er with the strangest sense of limitation and unreality.
"The mental gifts which would raise a man to the wool-
sack may make a cultivated woman," says Miss Wedge-
wood; but why so? Women have money, and the best
teachers in the world are to be obtained by money;
they have leisure—too much of it they all tell us; print-
ing was invented, how many hundred years ago? and
J
110
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
all the books that are now printed are purchasable, and
may be learned and read. To what then are we to at-
tribute the extraordinary efforts necessary to make a
cultivated woman? No doubt the writer herself is one.
To our humble thinking there are a great many to be
found about the world. And how bewildering, how
unmeaning, how falsely sublime is this strange state-
ment? On the other hand a curious list of learned wo-
men, chiefly professors in Italian colleges in the Middle
Ages, seems to have been handed about from one essay-
ist to another, and appears at full length three times at
least, by way of proving that after all women are capa-
ble of something. Is there nothing in the world to show
for that but the fact that Maria Gaetana Agnesi was a
Professor of Mathematics in 1750, and that Betisia Goz-
zadini lectured on law in 1236? Good heavens, ladies!
have you never an old nurse about your houses who has
more good sense in her good grey head than half the
men who moon about your salons? Do not we all
know what our mothers were? and, whisper in your
ears, have you not in your own persons a certain power
of holding your own, were all Oxford brought against
you? Such certainly is our belief. We are fully con-
vinced that there are a great many highly cultivated
women to be met with in these days. And Mr. Mill,
who is probably a much better judge, thinks so too,
with an oft-expressed devotion which cannot but soften
towards him every feminine critic. Modern language
and literature may not be equal to the antique; but yet
they count for something, and women of the upper
classes are at least free to attain perfection if they will
in these branches of knowledge. And women of the
lower classes possess in plenty, if not education, at least
that gift of intelligence which, we confess to our own
}
THE DIFFICULTIES.
111
thinking, is the most attractive of all human gifts. We
would not close a single class-room, nor shut up a single
source of knowledge against those who thirst for it; we
would gladly see all arbitrary restrictions upon individ-
uals abolished; we would joyfully hail anything practi-
cal that any one could suggest to touch the vast mass of
misery which lies down in the depths, and which, as
Mrs. Butler well and feelingly observes, attains an in-
tensity of degradation which nothing can equal in man;
though that no doubt partly arises from the fact that
the standard of degradation in man and woman is dif-
ferent. But we cannot flatter Mr. Mill or his disciples
with any hope that the fundamental question between
man and woman can be greatly altered; and we alto-
gether reject his hypothesis that woman is man in petti-
coats. It is not so; it never was so; and devoutly we
trust never will be.
1
XI.
HOME EDUCATION.*
IN
N more than one treatise on the education of women,
we have seen it laid down that its end and object
should be to fit them for the duties of maternity. They
are to be taught and trained to the end that they may
be able to teach and train their children. If this theory
is to be admitted, at least there should be no offence to
the theorists in a faint smile at the inadequacy of the
means to the end, under modern systems. Shallow,
superficial, rapid as modern female education too often
is, it is not quite fair to assume that the rising gene-
ration stands to it in the exact relation of fruit to tree.
And, notwithstanding familiar instances of great men,
whose character, ability, and genius have been directly
traceable to maternal character and influence-notwith-
standing Napoleon's dictum that the fate of the child.
is always the work of his mother,' and the corrobo-
rations of it in the case of John Wesley, the Napier
family, and many others-much remains to be said
for the other side of the question, and examples,
such as the second Pitt, and the second Peel, may
be urged to show that not seldom it is from the
male parent that ability, energy and intellect descend
to his offspring. Without at all undervaluing that
benignest influence, to have lost or never to have
* From the London Quarterly Review, April, 1866.
HOME EDUCATION.-
113
known which is one of the sorest earthly privations, the
softening, winning, humanizing influence of a mother,
we think that it is an incomplete and narrow view of
the scope of education to limit it to training women for
destiny that may never be hers. Rather should that
system recommend itself which purports to educate for
the wider object of producing 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 blessed-
ness the sunny 'afternoon of unmarried life.' The pri-
mary and divine idea of woman is 'a help meet for man.'
And if so, in educating her for her vocation, respect
must be had, not less to such provisions as may fit her
to exercise her proper influence as a wife over her hus-
band, or as an unmarried woman over society, than to
such as may make her a model mother to her boys and
girls. In each sphere, if she realizes her mission, she
has it in her power to be 'rainqueur des vainqueurs de
la terre;' the more cultivated her mind and heart, the
more complete her spell in whatever state of life she
finds herself occupying under the allotments of Provi-
dence. The childless wife, if highly educated, has the
greater power to solace her husband's regret at lack of
offspring by being all in all to him herself; the maiden
lady, whose youthful training has ministered to her the
essentials for becoming, if need be, agreeable company
to herself, is the more likely to be welcome in society,
because she brings to it the grace of contentment with
her lot, and the power and will to contribute to it addi-
tional ornament and brightness. It is the lack of sound
early education and intelligent preparation for life
which makes the dissatisfied old maid, no less than the
114
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
silly wife, and the weak incompetent mother. The
whole subject, then, has a wide interest for the other
sex. Considerations affecting woman's development
claim our ready sympathies. When in Mr. Froude's
'Henry the Eighth,' the paradox is mooted, if we recol-
lect aright, that in a world without women that mon-
arch would have been faultless, it occurs at once to the
male reader that in such a world, humanly speaking, it
would be indifferent whether one were good or bad.
The joys and sorrows, the ups and downs, the prizes and
the reverses of man's life, can scarcely be conceived of
except in relation to his gentler helpmate. What, then,
more natural than that the steps to fit her most com-
pletely for her mission should form an ever-welcome
topic-a thesis, on which aught novel that can be said,
anything old that can be dressed in newer fashion, is
well-nigh sure of favorable reception. In this belief we
venture a few remarks on female education from a male
point of view, deferring all the while to the opinion of
really qualified female writers on the subject, and freely
admitting that a man's estimate of the matter is in
danger of being one-sided and selfish.
On the first point for consideration, the time over
which female education should extend, we have little
fear of being at issue with those most capable of dispas-
sionate judgment, although we may perchance do de-
spite to the views of modern young ladies, and contra-
vene the principles of worldly-wise mammas. About
early training all are more or less agreed. A good
mother begins teaching her child from the moment it
can crawl, and the education of the first years is ever
the most indelible. Happiest that childhood where the
mother's teaching goes on longest; next to it that
where the direction, if not the details, are under the
HOME EDUCATION.
115
mother's eye. But as to rudimentary teaching, no one
doubts the wisdom of beginning to impart it early, and
in gradual, moderate draughts. It is when the rudi-
ments are mastered, and the girl in her teens, that dif-
ference of opinion arises touching the hours and years
of female instruction. Here, if one may judge by com-
mon practice, the verdict of mothers and daughters is
as much at variance with that of disinterested lookers-
on, as universal suffrage differs from the decision of a
select committee. While lookers-on are wont to deem
that the meet preparation for cultivated womanhood is
gradual enforced acquisition of such knowledge, graces,
and endowments, as will sit easily, cling lastingly, and
minister the most unfailing resources to the future life,
it seems as though those most nearly concerned had
come to the conclusion that the main object is to crowd
so much of music, languages, sciences, graces, and ac-
complishments, into the years between twelve and sev-
enteen, that at the latter limit a girl may be pronounced
to be 'out,' may look to take her part in the grown-up
world, and be at leisure to contemplate an eligible in-
vestment in the matrimonial market, before her younger
sisters arrive at the margin of this immature Rubicon.
Yet it can scarcely be doubted that this kind of forcing
is physically as well as morally hurtful. The ablest
authorities are unanimous in saying that a young girl's
intellect is in far greater risk of being overstrained
than that of her hardier brother. He has his safety-
valves in cricket, football, boating, riding, running;
and his rougher system is less susceptible of peril from
too much mental food, which it rejects, than the care-
fully-tended, delicately-nurtured, sooner-developed or-
ganization of the girl, which will retain, it may be, the
instruction crowded into a space too small for it, but
116
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
retain it, too frequently, at the risk of health, and gen-
erally to the hurt of mental digestion. A boy at seven-
teen is entering the most telling years of his mental
culture. At the very same age the hot-house plant, his
sister, is transferred from the school-room, where every
appliance has been used to facilitate precocious ripeness
of mind and manners; and henceforth the round of
gayety, the engagements of society, the 'no-leisure' of a
restless age, preclude, for the most part, the further cul-
tivation of previous studies. We say for the most
part, because we must except the light literature and
the music, which still divide the hours with croquet,
because most attractive to the male sex, most fitted for
reproduction in small talk, and most favorable to an in-
dolence resulting from undue previous taxing of the
intellect. Doubtless it may be a human weakness to be
evermore singing 'Etas parentum pejor avis' as we
grow older, and, as such, especially to be distrusted is
the inclination to exaggerate the excellencies of our
grandmothers and great aunts; yet surely it is note-
worthy that, while their training lasted longer, it ex-
tended over far less ground, and that of them we may
say, without controversy, that they were neither weaker
mothers, worse wives, nor less pleasant and agreeable
spinsters than are produced under the Procrustean sys-
tem of the present day. To justify such a system, we
must first concede the axiom that girls ought to be
taught everything, and taught it moreover by the age
of seventeen. And this axiom is one which the more
sober-minded of either sex will, we suspect, be loth to
grant. It strikes them, on the contrary, that very much
ought to be left for after-study; that a great deal of
what is non-essential may be passed over, where there
is no manifest talent for acquiring it, and that, above
HOME EDUCATION.
117
all things the cultivation of bodily health and vigor
should go concurrently with the ripening of the mind.
For boys and men the stimulus of emulation is whole-
some and desirable; but as it is quite out of place
among girls, whose sphere is the home circle and whose
grace a sweet retiringness, it is surely enough if their
schooldays be spent in acquiring such modicums of
knowledge as can be easily digested; for these will
prove more in the end than the crude notions which a
modern school-girl carries off from her multifarious lec-
tures. Sound education and instruction effect this
chiefly, that they open the door to knowledge, so as to
enable the pupil to avail himself of access to it. Let
female education recognize this, and extend itself over
the eighteenth year, with the understanding that even
then it is but intrusted to a girl's own hands, instead of
her teacher's, and the fruits will be visible in higher
aims, less frivolous tastes, more definiteness of purpose
and greater strength of character. Such common-sense
training is the course by which to earn the high and
discriminating praise which De Quincey awards to Miss.
Wordsworth: 'She was content to be ignorant of many
things; but what she knew and had really mastered,
lay where it could not be disturbed-in the temple of
her fervid heart.'*
Enough has been said to indicate strong dissent from
the foolish system of making school-girls slaves to the
acquisition of accomplishments for which they have no
taste; and there is a natural transition to the questions.
what and how to teach, in negative as well as positive
aspects. And here a division meets us which it is less
than ever possible to ignore in the present day, that is
to say, education of accomplishments, and education of
De Quincey's Works, vol. ii. p. 136.
118
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
intellect and moral powers. Most people rank these in
the order in which we have placed them, though sound-
er wisdom would reckon that which we have set first,
the education which aims at achievements in society, as
very secondary to that which cultivates mental and
moral power. The one has an eye to externals; the
other is introspective. And while the former secures
at too great a sacrifice of time and pains, considering
what must be foregone to make room for it, the mere
transient power of attracting and captivating, the latter
furnishes the far more precious life-endowment, the inde-
pendence and self-containedness, which enables her who
has it to be as happy, good, and useful out of society as
in it. Let the education, then, of accomplishments be
relegated to the second rank, and disposed of briefly,
before we treat of essentials. No one would lay down
a law that should ban the cultivation of vocal and
instrumental music, seeing that it exercises, when suc-
cessfully developed, so just a spell over so many hearers,
and such soothing, awakening, spiritualizing influences
upon even those who are wholly ignorant of its prin-
ciples. But it may admit of grave question what is
gained by two hours and a half of practice per diem
in the case of the ninety and nine girls who will never
become first-rate performers, and who will unquestion-
ably play and sing no more after they become wives.
and mothers. It is quite time that in female education
a wider recognition should take place of the wisdom of
electing what accomplishments to pursue, and what to
decline. At Oxford and Cambridge a man may choose
his second school or tripos, while the ancient studies of
the University are a sine quá non to all alike. Might it
not be well to take a little more trouble in ascertaining
the various bents of girlish capacity likewise, so that
HOME EDUCATION.
119
C
where it was to end only in mediocrity, music might not
be followed up, but more time allotted to drawing, iî, as
is often the case in the absence of musical talent, the
taste for drawing appeared to be a compensating gift?
It may be doubted whether, except in a few brilliant
instances, the years of girlhood can furnish space for
thorough attainment of both; and the struggle to
master too many accomplishments is apt to end in a
superficiality, spreading over the more solid studies, and
acting prejudicially on the whole mind. In like manner
we venture to think it a mistake, unless in cases of rare
linguistic talent, to encourage the acquirement in mere
school-days of more than one modern language. 'Non
multa sed multum' may hold good in this case, if inter-
preted for the nonce of getting a thorough knowledge
of one or two languages instead of a smattering of
many. Perhaps, even where there is talent for lan-
guages, the complete mastery of one is a greater power
than divided acquaintance with half a dozen; and, as
French is the passport to Europe, and serves as a me-
dium of intercommunication to the civilized world, it
deserves to be more really and effectually taught to
every English school-girl, than it is likely to be, so long
as, beyond a few verbs and a few exercises, it is left to
teach itself through the broken gabble wherewith girls
cheat the hours during which a veto is put upon their
mother tongue.
A wise selection of French books
would enhance the value of this branch of study. Bet-
ter and more attractive vehicles may be found for con-
veying the knowledge of the French language to En-
glish youth than the 'Gil Blas,' and 'Recueils Choisis,'
the Télémaque,' and 'Gonslave,' of our early days.
This done, and care being taken to teach it thoroughly
and grammatically the study of French may serve to
120
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
the female mind as a substitute for that mental drill
which the dead languages supply to the English school-
boy. It will furnish the mastery over grammar and syn-
tax, and a key to self-instruction in other languages, if
such should chance to be the taste. Not indeed the
master-key; for that unquestionably is Latin, though
at various times objections have been urged to its in-
troduction into the female curriculum. Weighty in-
deed, ought such objections to be, if they avail to ex-
clude a girl from a discipline so promotive of accuracy,
so improving to English style, so helpful to familiarity
with the grammar and syntax of most European tongues.
Yet to what do they amount? To no more, we are con-
strained to own, than may, with equal or greater force,
be urged against the unwatched study of French or
English authors. Nothing in the Latin language is
more dangerous than the ordinary type of French
novels, teeming, as these do, with a subtler, because less
manifest, poison. And, to quote the most recent editor
of Homer, “As regards matters of delicacy we apologize
to modern ears for Shakespeare, on the score of the fault
of his age, on a moderate computation five hundred
times at least for once that such an apology is needed
for Homer."* And what, we may ask, would be the
ratio if for Shakespeare we were to read Beaumont and
Fletcher? Yet it may be doubted whether the
worst blemishes of the Elizabethan dramatists are
half as much calculated to sap the foundations of sym-
plicity and purity, as the equivocal situations, and
maudlin sentimentalities of the modern sensational nov-
el. Much truth lies in Mr. Ruskin's remark that "the
chance and scattered evil that may here and there haunt,
hide itself in, a powerful book never does any harm
* Hayman's Odyssey,' vol. i. p. 2.
་
f
HOME EDUCATION.
121
.؟
to a noble girl :" nor can we exclude Latin from the
studies of girlhood without ignoring another sound posi-
tion of the same eloquent writer; viz., "that a man
ought to know any language or science he learns, thor-
oughly; while a woman should know the same language
or science so far as to enable her to sympathize in her
husband's pleasures, and in those of his best friends."*
But the true answer to objectors, is, to concede the peril
of unguarded and unrestricted reading of all the clas-
sics (as indeed of all unrestricted reading in the case of
the young), while we uphold the importance, towards
strengthening the female mind, and completing its edu
cation, of such a discriminating study of Latin and
Greek as is imparted by conscientious instructors, best
of all, perhaps, if it may be, under parental surveillance
or tuition. The movement to admit abstruser sciences,
such as mathematics, into the school-girl's course, we
regard with less favor, although in the very rare cases
where she has a taste and capacity for such knowledge
the study of it need not be discouraged. Women in
general are probably best as they are-in possession of
that intuitive right judgment which is safe at first
thought, though with the stronger half of the intelligent
creation' second thoughts are best.' No teaching im-
parts this inborn leaping to sound conclusions, or ma-
tures the tact which is a woman's chief advantage over
her more methodical partner in life. What she does
want, perhaps, is the means of amassing data for induc-
tion, of storing up lessons corrective of her natural enthu-
siasm, of arranging examples available in any conceiva-
ble situation or question.
It may be that History, and, even more, Biography
(in naming which we pass from education of the accom-
*Sesame and Lilies' p. 165. Ibid. 161.
6
122
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
plishments into the range of practical education of the
intellect), deserve a very chief place among the studies
of girlhood. "What have been the books," asks Arch-
deacon Allen in a lecture on the everyday work of ladies,
from which many valuable suggestions might be gath-
ered, "that have best helped man to live? They are all
biographical." And Longfellow's reiteration of the same
idea in his 'Psalm of Life' is too well known to need quo-
tation. Now if this is true for men, much more for
women.
Their school days should-be so parcelled out
that a liberal allowance of time may be given to History
and Biography-kindred studies, interlacing each other
-to be learned not out of colorless compendiums, but
from accepted 'works for all time' of which there are
enough for ample choice. On some collateral studies,
e. g. Geography, it may be that too much is bestowed.
The broad landmarks well laid down and defined ought
not to want endless repetition, or to usurp space more
urgently due to studies having a greater influence on
life. Hoc illud est præcipuè in cognitione rerum salubre
ac frugiferum, omnis te exempli documenta in illustri
posita monumento intueri : inde tibi . . . quod imitere
capias inde fœdum inceptu, fœdum exitu quod vites."
There can be no healthier discipline conceivable for the
female mind than instruction by examples in a well-cho-
sen course f Biography. And, not so much indeed for
its disciplinary effects as for its essential claim to form
part in the training of educated Englishwomen, and its
legitimate stimulus to patriotic feeling, the kindred study
of English literature is entitled to far more attention.
Why should not English girlhood be taught, first and
foremost, its own mother tongue-so as to love it, to
read it, to write it: to be conversant with its poetry ;
to appreciate its prose: to know something of its struct-
(!
:
HOME EDUCATION.
123
66
ure and history and development? One knows not
whether to smile or blush, in this age of books and lite-
rary luxury, to see how ignorant of our standard litera-
ture are three-fourths of the young ladies one meets.
Without expecting them to pass an examination in
Shakespeare” or “Paradise Lost," or to be thoroughly
at home in the “British Essayists," one ought to find it
a harder task than it is, to fathom the depths of their
knowledge of English literature, especially if their skill
in making talk out of small data is taken into account.
To say nothing of the more frivolous, whose best reading
is the serial of Dickens or Trollope, the better average
of young ladies contents itself too generally with semi-
religious novels, and the lighter articles of the various
monthlies. The fault must lie with the misdirection of
taste in school days; and lack of knowledge so valuable
and so accessible is surely an inexcusable fault. Boys
indeed must pick it up at by-times, as their school hours
are mainly devoted to classics. But classics to them are
partly in the place of English literature, and partly the
stepping-stones to a knowledge of it, seeing that it is
chiefly modelled after the classical patterns. Girls, on
the other hand, have only English literature from which
to gain ideas of style or composition, except the mother-
wit which it must be admitted serves them in good stead.
A decided improvement in all girl-school rooms would
be the introduction of such text books as the "Student's
Manual of English literature," by Dr. Smith, or the sim-
ilar Manual of Mr. Thomas Arnold. These might be
supplemented by copious readings from the particular
authors most deserving of study, and it would be a fur-
ther advantage if lessons upon such subjects could be re-
quired to be reproduced in abstract. The gain of this
process would be twofold. The memory would be
124
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
strengthened, and this is no unimportant aim in educa-
tion. And, beside this, a style would be formed, which
would have its foundation in accredited models and ac-
curate principles, and yet retain a certain character of
its own peculiar to female composition. We might
again look for the lively, easy, graceful letters, which
women penned in time past; but which the hurry of
modern life, the preference for showy accomplishments,
the skimming of many light books in place of the diges-
tion of a few sound ones, has done so much to banish.
What is there even now to equal the natural, unsyste-
matic, but delightfully versatile correspondence of some
few women, whose education has been modelled after the
elder fashion, and whose letters achieve a more enduring
popularity at the breakfast-table, than the most skilful
and elaborate performance in the music room? Or what
more barren than the hasty scrawls, the ungainly sen-
tences and save the mark!) phonetic spelling of many
young ladies, on whose education there has been no stint
of expense. The practice recommended above would
help to remove this blot, which however has at all times
clung more or less to our fair countrywomen. From the
Plays of Beaumont and Fletcher we gather that a letter-
writer's sex was discoverable by solecisms of spelling.
"A letter," says Podramo, in "A wife for a Month,”
Act I. Scene 2—
"But tis a woman's, Sir, I know by the hand,
And the false orthography. They write old Saxon."
And from numerous other instances in later days we may
select the specimen of spelling, found in her own hand-
writing, in the Bible of William III.'s Queen Mary. We
are indebted for it to a note in Lord Macaulay's History
—“This book was given to the King and I at our Crown-
HOME EDUCATION.
125
ation.
Marie R." Yet slovenly orthography is less
than ever excusable in an age of such refinement as our
own: and there is no surer remedy for it than written
abstracts, which are but another form of dictation-exer-
cises.
A word or two may be said in favor of more cultiva-
tion of the art of reading aloud, an accomplishment so
popular and so needful that its value cannot be exagger-
ated. What simpler repayal than this of the price of
nurture to an aged father? What sweeter solace to the
sick, whom it is woman's mission to tend? What surer
mode of kindling love of books in young children?
And, in quitting the topic of "what to teach,” it were
wrong to omit a word for the science of Botany, a
science especially fitted for the gentler sex, to whose
country rambles it gives endless variety, while it inspires
them with ever-increasing reverence for the Author of
Creation.* No kindred study comes near it in attrac-
tiveness, in freshness of charm, in facilities for cultiva-
tion, or in enduringness of resource. It were wrong,
too, to let Mr. Ruskin's 'veto' upon theology as a science
for ladies lack our hearty endorsement. There is no
need to teach them wider charities, or more trustful and
unaffected piety. Those, in the true woman, are innate.
And if one thing rather than another is calculated to
mar and outroot these, it is surely the incompetent in-
trusion of themselves into the region of religious contro-
* Tennyson has an eye to both these womanly studies where,
in the Princess,' he writes—
'To and fro
With books, with flowers, with angel offices
Like creatures native unto gracious art,
And in their own clear element they moved.'
126
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
versy, "into that science in which the greatest men have
trembled, and the wisest erred.”*
It is harder to settle how to teach: and to dogmatize
on this topic in an essay would savor of arrogance. So
much depends on natural gifts, so much on self-discipline
in the teacher, that what in one would be a successful
method, might prove an utter failure practiced by
another. Patience, temper, quickness of insight, a
"happy knack," a readiness of illustration, are blessings
no less to those engaged in teaching than to those whom
they teach. But one or two remarks in passing upon
this particular topic are, if not new, at least not too old
to be repeated. For example, it seems of permanent.
consequence to all real teaching, that the life of the seed
sown should be continually and searchingly tested. Re-
petition and reproduction ought to be at least weekly
businesses. Inaccuracy is the bane of shallow and dis-
cursive teaching: and what is rarer, especially in wo-
men, than so clear a knowledge of a few subjects, that
its depths will bear sounding? Now repetition must
impress lessons on the mind, and the reproduction of
them on paper must test the strength of the impres-
sion. The wholesome confidence and sense of strength
which will ensue act as a stimulus to fresh acquisitions,
and are, besides, a moral benefit. Again, to the ques-
tion 'how?' the best half of the answer is 'Teach
principles.' To this system the Gradgrind plan of
'facts,' 'facts,' is the ill-fruited opposite. But the
main object of education must be to provide a thorough
groundwork for the reception of after-structures. No
evidence of good teaching, in the case of boy or girl, can
be so decisive as the enthusiastic following out of the
subjects taught, after emancipation from tutors and
* 'Sesame and Lilies,' p. 158–9.
HOME EDUCATION.
127
governesses. Rightly viewed, education of youth is but
the opening of the vestibules of the glorious Temple of
knowledge, the gateway of an avenue, the end of which
is not to be reached even in a life-walk. Give a sure
step at starting, put them in the way to make progress
safely by themselves, and (if the teacher is in earnest.
and inspires a contagious enthusiasm) you supply object,
purpose, and confidence to pupils, whose lives would
otherwise be a prey to dissatisfaction and ennui. The
best boys' schools quite recognize this. The ablest mas-
ters do not attach so much weight to the number of
Greek plays or books of Thucydides a lad has read
before he goes to college, as to his having thoroughly
mastered the principles of grammar and construction,
and learned the way of manipulating difficult passages,
and of extending his own stock of reading. And this
should hold good equally in female education.
But who shall best carry this out? We have left
till last this very absorbing question, involving as it
does such diversity of opinion, and experiencing at the
present time so many attempts at solution, that refer-
ence to the subject can hardly be inopportune. Long
have the stronger minds of either sex been busy with
the problem; long will it be ere they arrive at unanim-
ity or light on an undeniable panacea.
Of late years
some attempt
"To lift the woman's fallen divinity
Upon an even pedestal with man
""
has proceeded from the promoters of 'Ladies' Colleges,'
to be officered by eminent professors of the stronger
sex; and a kindred scheme is that which proposes to
admit to public examinations and degrees young ladies,
128
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
school or home-bred.
assumption that
Such schemes proceed on the
“With equal husbandry
The woman were an equal of the man,"
but probably such Utopian dreams will influence few
parents or guardians until at least it is ascertained that
all milder and less revolutionary means of improving
the class of female educators are fruitless. There may
be reasonable doubt whether male teachers will be equal-
ly alive to the danger of straining the girlish intellect,
or know so well as woman at what point to clog the
wheels of the intellectual machine. Natural quickness
and enthusiasm enhance the risk of hot-house develop-
ment; and against this the womanly instinct is the
only safeguard. Physically, therefore, it is better that,
as heretofore, women should discharge the chief func-
tions of female education, having recourse to masters to
supplement the stated curriculum with their special
arts. It is better also mentally. Elder women of
thought and tact will discourage the unfeminineness of
rivalries and competitions among meek-eyed maidens,
and deem the fervid emulation of honors and classes
more suited to the "palæstra" than the "gynæceum."
And as to the moral aspect, this, we fancy is untouched
by both the college and the examination scheme. Wo-
men, it seems to be admitted, must be installed as the
moral assessors, whose presence and nearness shall coun-
tercheck the chiefly intellectual influence of professors.
Omit this safeguard, and there looms a danger of the
sex being unsexed, of the depression of the chief wo-
manly graces, and of the exaltation into their throne of
unseemly ambition, and the conceit of being smarter
than one's neighbors. The opinion of sensible men on
HOME EDUCATION.
129
1
these matters may be gathered from the significant fact
that they rarely take a wife from the ranks of those la-
dies who have courted the appellation of "blues,"
though they by no means hold cheap the unaffected
refinement and high feminine cultivation not seldom
found in those who most "shun to have their mental
Are we
graces spied." What then is the true course?
to adopt the principle of large girl-schools? The testi-
mony of the ablest female writers on education, and the
consensus of less initiated but not less interested male
thinkers, go to negative this proposition. Miss Sewell,
in her "Principles of Education," adduces cogent argu-
ments to prove that "gregarious education for girls is
injurious." "To boys," she says, "the school is the
type of the life they are hereafter to lead. Girls are to
dwell in quiet homes, among a few friends; to exercise
a noiseless influence; to be submissive and retiring.
There is no connection between the bustling mill-wheel
life of a large school, and that for which they are sup-
posed to be preparing." She remarks, too, on the evils
of indiscriminate companionship, more lasting in the
case of girls than of boys; the absence of any strong
principle correspondent to the traditionary school-boy
honor; the greater facilities in girls' schools for petti-
ness, deceit, and frivolity. Such is a lady's view, de-
rived from experience and observation, and written in
no animus against female education by females, but
quite the contrary. And it does but confirm the more
speculative impressions of many fathers and guardians,
for whose more confirmation we throw one or two lesser
arguments into Miss Sewell's side of the scale. Semi-
naries for young ladies involve, it strikes us, all the
jealousies, heart-burnings, and contentions of the "pub-
lic examination" system, without its good results. If
6*
130
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
class-lists and places and prizes are desirable for girls,
the award should emanate from a high tribunal, and not
from the proprietress of Bayleaf Villa, with her English
and Parisian aides-de-camp. This is worth noting;
but it is a trifling matter compared with the sacrifice of
motherly influence which those make who send their
daughters to a large girl-school. Let the mistress be
ever so conscientious, she is still not the parent, but
only "in loco parentis ;" and the shades of distinction
which teachers apply to this phrase vary according to
the degrees of unselfishness in those who undertake a
work more or less for profit's sake. Can this ever com-
pensate for home care, home example, home teaching?
Can there be gain or need for girls of premature initia-
tion in the school of life, apart from the home, where
needful instruction may be imparted by a governess,
while the tone, influence, and presiding spirit is, as it
ought to be, the mother's? We think not; and for like
reasons, though in a less degree, we regard "select and
limited establishments" with coldness. These serve
their purpose for orphans, and perhaps for a class to-
wards which it is impossible not to feel kindly-the lit-
tle girls sent home for education from India. And it
would be base wrong to womanhood, to doubt that
there are many high-minded ladies who are "mothers "
indeed to such. But, by preference, that system, be it
what it may, seems aptest for female education, which
lets the mother be to the governess what the provost is
(theoretically) to the head master of a public school. So
best will distinctive character be transmitted; so tact
and sound sense infused "pari passu" with knowledge;
so woman retain that crowning grace which even the
heathen Thucydides singled out for her, "fidelity to her
own sex and nature, and the being, as little as possible,
ا.
I
HOME EDUCATION.
131
the subject of men's remarks, whether in praise or dis-
praise." It is the absence or the depression of the
motherly influence which the best French writers on
education have seen to be the prime blot in conventual
education; and if, as there is reason for concluding,
this fault is fatal to the best schemes in which it can be
detected, there remains but one, or, in a special contin-
gency, two resources and resorts. To dispose at once
of that which is contingent, it has often occurred to pa-
rents having a common interest in the question, that a
day-school open to the nominees of a limited proprietary
might be a safe solution of the educational problem in
the case of girls. In other words, the junction of four
or five families having girls to educate, in purchase or
rent of premises, and the establishment in them of a
well-selected and responsible instructress, to be aided
by the best masters. The gain of such a plan would be,
doubtless, great; nothing less, indeed, than the recourse
for daily instruction to highly competent teachers, while
the hours of relaxation, rest, and meals, would still be
passed at home-still, as is meetest, under the mother's
eyc. The moral advantage would be great. But the
plan is beset with difficulties, which greatly impede its
application. It is feasible, indeed, in towns, though
even there it involves, however great our advance since
the age of Appius Claudius, the attendance of discreet.
handmaids to conduct our Virginias to and fro. This
claim of society and its usages is wholesomely impera-
tive. And yet compliance with it involves an extra
domestic; and even then it is not every parent who will
relish the thought of his daughter
"With her small tablets in her hand, and her satchel on her arm,
Home as she bounding went from school, nor dreamed of shame
or harm."
132
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
But for country families the thing is out of the ques-
tion. In many neighborhoods it is hard to organize
weekly drawing or dancing classes, so wide apart do
houses lie. How much more impossible, then, a daily
junction of forces. We are driven therefore to home
education, to the governess-system with its admitted
drawbacks, yet with its, in our judgment, compensating
gains. There is here no severance from the parental
influence; no delegation to others of the chief work of
education, the moral discipline. And though some may
object that girls brought up at home are apt to lack
polish and self-possession in society, while a school-girl
acquires these by mixing with numbers, yet it may still
be an open question whether school-girlish confidence is
preferable to home-bred bashfulness. The graver objec-
tion to education by governesses at home, is the difficulty
of finding well-qualified candidates for the post. The
fault is mainly due to the social rule obtaining in
England, that if a lady has to earn her bread, her only
recognized resource is the profession of a teacher.
Those ladies who are seeking to open to their sex other
ways of livelihood may not indeed always command our
implicit faith in their 'modus operandi,' but at any rate
they deserve thanks for good service, if they decimate
the lists of incompetent governesses. Miss Sewell, in the
thoughtful work to which we have more than once
referred, justly observes that "the choice lies in great
measure between well-born, well-bred 1:dies, driven by
circumstances to a profession for which they are imper-
fectly qualified, and under-bred, but clever women, who
really know what they profess to teach."* It is the case,
in fact, of "superficial v. vulgar." And this we suspect
is the true account of the average number, though of
* 'Principles of Education' II. p. 257.
HOME EDUCATION.-
133
}
course there are prizes in this as in other lotteries. Yet
after all, as of all systems this is the least objectionable,
to this ought mainly to be directed our efforts at im-
provement.
Our aim should be so to answer the query
66
quis erudiet ipsas eruditrices," as to ensure the combina-
tion of high and thorough education with careful home,
nurture and rearing. "Here, then,” cries the advocate
of Ladies' Colleges, "here is our base of operations.
We propose to supply the defect you point out. We
offer you a collegiate institution with a staff of most
eminent professors in their various departments, and we
invite you to encourage the resort to it of at least those
of the gentler sex, who desire to qualify as instructress
There is reason in the proposal. There is philan
thropy in the scheme. Yet surely it is to be accepted
only with reservations and limitations; and then not as
the best means, but as good in default of better. Poll
the educated men and women of England, and an
immense majority will vote for confining the education
of each sex to its own members. And, in truth, without
sighing for a female college for governesses after the
model of princess Ida's,
es."
"With prudes for proctors, dowagers for deans,
And sweet girl-graduates with their golden hair,”
we should augur more unmixed good from training
schools for governesses under the control and tuition of
women of good sense and fair endowments, than from
the best Ladies' College with the most earnest gentle-
men professors. That such would discharge their duty,
no one can doubt. But will they, or can they, so well
women teachers, gauge the female intellect and
calibre? Will they learn to accommodate their thoughts"
to women's thoughts? And if they try, will they not
as
134
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
!
trivialize and impoverish them by the endeavor? That
were bad enough! But we apprehend a worse effect
upon the taught. And here, as before, we deem it pru-
dent to shelter ourselves under the ægis of Miss Sewell,
while we notice a feature, the exposition of which by our
own pen might involve us in a fate resembling that of
Pentheus. "Any one who has had much to do with
young girls of the educated classes will probably own
that in most instances there are but three points of view
in which they are likely to regard their gentlemen
teachers. Either they will be afraid of them, or they
will quiz them, or they will make romances about them.
Fear, ridicule, and romance are not very elevating influ-
ences. The last indeed will often be hidden under the
veil of respect; but if examined, it will be seen that
underneath lies a very large admixture of vanity and
excitement, which cannot fail to do grave injury." * Is
not all this easily conceivable? Without formal or
stealthy admission to the mysteries, a vision of them
has floated to us. The timid Blanche was just collect-
ing her senses, and beginning to get the better of her
fears, as the astronomical lecturer was perorating his
subject and coming down to earth. Hippodamia and
Myrtila were filling their note-books with-caricatures
of their Mentor for the time being; nought recking of
the Lady Visitor who, let us hope, is from a vantage-
ground taking account of their proceedings. Gushing
Melissa is soaring in thought, not indeed to the starry
heavens, but to those lower, yet not less interesting orbs,
the 'dear' professor's eyes. She will wake from her
reverie in time to rush to the door, and, with reverential
awe, rejoice to hold it open for his exit from the lecture-
To be serious, the order of things is reversed:
room.
C
* Principles of Education,' II. p. 261.
HOME EDUCATION.
135
the relations of the sexes confused in a most unchival-
resque degree, and this, so far as we can see, for little
certain gain, with much probability of loss. Doubtless
this last will be diminished in proportion as the element
of strong womanly influence predominates in the Ladies'
College; and we are not unaware that at the best of
these institutions it is carefully brought to the fore-
ground. Still it is but natural to fear diminution of the
sweet simplicity of girlhood from habituating them to
male instead of female teachers; and many old-fashioned
people will prefer the mild level of female education as
it is, to the heights which, under masculine auspices, it
may be destined to scale. There is indeed a conceivable
case where man's teaching may be all gain to woman;
we mean, where Miranda sits at the feet of Prospero;
where a highly-educated and well-read father directs his
daughter's studies, and finds time to make her mental
development the occupation and delight of his leisure.
The relation subsisting between teacher and taught here
is a great security against the pupil's strength being
overtaxed, while the desire of a father's approval is a
higher stimulus than honors or classes. Some branches
of teaching will probably have to be neglected: but
what is taught will be taught accurately and soundly.
In this case the most straight-laced can have no objec-
tion to Latin forming part of the course of instruction.
There occur to us at least three or four of the most
accomplished female writers of our day, whose strength
of mind and solidity of attainments is principally owing
to such early influence and direction; nor is there in
these instances any diminution of pure womanly grace
and nature attendant upon a more masculine training
than common. It were to be wished that our clergy,
where able and at leisure, would bestow time and pains
136
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
upon this mode of improving female education, and so
qualify their daughters, if need should arise, for be-
coming real prizes in the governess lottery; or, if not
necessitated to go out as teachers, for influencing the
more thorough instruction of their sex, as writers, as
mothers, as women of high mental culture. If but a
few such women would combine here and there to elevate
the tone of governess-dom by trying to mould others to
a standard approaching their own, and where they
found young persons anxious to qualify for the teacher's
office, would direct their studies and advise upon their
course of reading, more fruit might spring from seed
thus unostentatiously sown, than from more ambitious
schemes, beset with radical difficulties. For by women,
mainly, must the young of their own sex be educated,
whether it be in the school, or in the home. The princi-
ple is unassailable, though the practice has been hitherto
defective. The hints which have been hazarded in these
pages, towards the amendment of the latter, will not
have been in vain, if they help to ventilate the subject.
+
XII.
A TRUE COLLEGE FOR WOMEN.*
IT ought to surprise no one that the air is thick with
plans for female education. The rights and wrongs,
the merits and defects, the present and the future of
women, have taken possession of the field. They fill our
bluebooks, our magazines, our newspapers. Scientific
gatherings, Revising Barristers' Courts, the walls of Par-
liament, echo with the questions which they raise. One
profession and trade after another is startled with the
notes of intrusion. They are now invading our educa-
tional domains and laying claim to a treatment identical
with that of men in schools and universities. But
though this rather sudden flutter and buzz may take us
by surprise, there is nothing really strange in the phe-
nomenon. The one sex is but following the other in the
less sudden but equally pronounced development of
'progress' which has been of late taking place. The fe-
male franchise comes to the front as soon as the argu-
ments against household suffrage for men have broken
down. When the franchise is given to ignorant men,
how, it is said, can it be denied to educated women?
The education of boys has only just ceased to be a mys-
tery; how can girls be any longer kept behind the lat-
tice? The reform of the Universities has been in every
one's mouth for a long time; the women begin to think
* From the London Quarterly Review, April, 1869.
138
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
they must set an example themselves. Young men of
the upper class have of late been so prominently before
the public in physical and mental contests, that it is nat-
ural their sisters should think their turn has come. Then
we have the great overpowering fact that we have con-
siderably more than half a million of women in excess of
men within these islands, the growth of popular litera-
ture, so much assisted by women, and the notoriety of
Sisterhoods and "girls of the period " to help us to ac-
count for the phenomenon. Whether we understand it
or not, here, however, it is. Perhaps the most appreci-
able landmark of the change of tide may appear to some
in the fact that the Laureate's name figures in the list of
promoters of the proposed "College for Women," fram-
ed after the most approved University pattern. His
"Princess," still held by judges to be the best of his
works, certainly formed for a quarter of a century the
most solid barrier English wit had erected against the
encroachment, now only serves to measure the strength
of the tide which has lifted the barrier from its moor-
ings and left it far inland.
In point of fact the question has advanced beyond the
reach of banter. It must be dealt with on its merits.
There will be absurdities enough in any such movement
to tempt sarcasm-absurdities which a little ridicule
will be very useful in checking; but there is a sober
earnestness about the movement which quietly passes
over the jokes. We shall all be obliged to lend our best
energies to the consideration of the problem how to
place women on a level with the age in regard of edu-
cation. Nor must we be deterred by the too often of-
fensive enthusiasm of theorists or the self-interested
advocacy of particular persons. ***
Let us ask ourselves, What do we aim at? What do
A TRUE COLLEGE FOR WOMEN.
139
we want in the woman when we have educated her?
We all admit that her intellectual training should be
good and thorough of its kind, and that much requires
to be done before that result is attained; but the pro-
portion which intellectual culture is to bear in the com-
pound is not so easily settled. Nor can we pretend to
settle it. We can only state the facts of the case, and
suggest the importance of principles as a guide to prac-
tice. We shall make no apology for quoting a woman
on a woman's question, and one who has long ago estab-
lished a right to be heard :—
:
"This idea," says Miss Sewell, * “of making a boy's
attainments the standard by which to measure the girl's
is indeed obviously unfair. . . . Not one girl in a hun-
dred would be able to work up the subjects required for
an Indian Civil Service examination in the way which
boys do.
Her health would break down under the ef-
fort and health is the obstacle which, even under the
most favorable circumstances, must stand in the way of
a girl's acquiring the intellectual strength which at this
age is so invaluable to a boy. He has been tossed about
in the world, left in a great measure to his own resources,
and been inured to constant physical exertion. He has
been riding and boating and playing at cricket, and both
body and mind have been roused to energy; and so,
when he comes to study, he has a sense of power which
acts mentally as well as physically, and enables him to
grasp difficulties and master them. The girl, on the
contrary, has been guarded from over-fatigue, subject to
restrictions with regard to cold and heat and hours of
study, seldom trusted away from home, allowed only a
small share of responsibility;-not with any wish to
thwart her inclinations, but simply because, if she is not
* ' Principles of Education,' vol. ii.
140
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
thus guarded, if she is allowed to run the risks which
to the boy are a matter of indifference, she will probably
develop some disease which, if not fatal, will at any rate
be an injury to her for life. The question of health must
be a primary consideration with all persons who undertake
to educate girls. It will be a perpetual interruption to
their plans for study and mental improvement, but it is
one which can never be put aside. Parents in private,
and the intellectual world in public, will demand that
girls should be brought forward and taught all that an
age, which makes intellect its idol, thinks fit to require,
and the attempt to satisfy them must be met in one of
two ways; either by the over-mental exertion which
ends in a break-up of health, or by a superficial intellect-
ual show which resembles actual knowledge and moral
power only as the veneered table resembles solid wood."
"The aim of education is to fit children for the posi-
tion of life which they are hereafter to occupy. Boys
are to be sent out into the world, to buffet with its temp-
tations, to mingle with bad and good, to govern and
direct. The school is the type of the life they are here-
after to lead. Girls are to dwell in quiet homes among
a few friends; to exercise a noiseless influence; to be
submissive and retiring. There is no connection be-
tween the bustling mill-wheel life of a large school, and
that for which they are supposed to be preparing."
These sensible remarks must commend themselves to
all unprejudiced persons. Instead of encouraging the
formation of large, we ought rather to devise methods
of improving the small schools. Common sense would
say :-
Do not apply the mere intellectual argument too
exclusively-do not gather your examples from the case
of boys-do not look too much to the political economy
of the question, the inducements for mistresses to enrich
66
A TRUE COLLEGE FOR WOMEN.
141
themselves and for parents to obtain cheapness-but
approach the subject on all sides, believing that the
instincts of parents are the very voice of God, the very
wisdom of antiquity, to which wise legislators should
most exceedingly dread doing violence." *** We see
nothing that will be really effective on a large scale
except a gradual improvement of schoolmistresses. How
this is to be put in motion opens out a large subject, the
education of women as distinguished from girls, the
"higher education," of which we are now hearing so
much. Supposing some large and systematic scheme
of educating middle and upper-class teachers can be set
on foot, is there good reason to believe that all the main
difficulties will gradually disappear? We believe there
is. That it will be a gradual process is its greatest
merit. The chief fault of the "advanced school" is its
hasty resolution to amend all defects off-hand. Such
reforms are never permanent, for they rudely rend and
tear the whole fabric of social life. If certificated mis-
tresses and governesses could be procured as easily as
they can for the National schools, no one would employ
any one else. The present evil of female teachers set-
ting up a school or offering themselves for governesses
without any special training or qualification, would
disappear. The daughter used to comforts and inde-
pendence, 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 recognized as
a liberal and dignified profession, for which every aspi-
rant must be regularly and thoroughly prepared; char-
latans 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
142
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
1
be thought astonishing that we could go on so long
without establishing a system of this sort. ***
There is very little organization as yet of any regu-
lar and satisfactory method of training teachers for the
upper and middle classes. The only institutions of the
sort (though there are some others on a small scale)
noticed by the Commissioners, are Queen's and Bedford
Colleges in London, where a large proportion of the
pupils attend Lectures with a view to obtaining certifi-
cates as teachers. These Colleges are spoken of in the
Report' in the highest terms. Queen's College is dis-
tinguished from its younger sister by its connection
with the Church of England. Many distinguished
clergymen, with the present Archbishop of Dublin, when
Dean of Westminster, at their head, and some well-
known laymen, have assisted its progress from the first.
Bedford College was founded more lately, and on a
different system. At that institution there is a more
limited range of subjects taught for the purpose of en-
couraging a greater thoroughness in the work, and
what distinguishes it still more, there is no religious.
instruction given there. A school is attached to each,
on which the young ladies try their "prentice hands."
They are under the control of ladies, assisted by a
mixed committee; and gentlemen of eminence in their
various departments give lectures on a wide range of
subjects. The rivalry between the sister colleges is
not perhaps a bad thing. They hold much the same
relative position to one another as the old English Uni-
versities to the new, the one considering the religious.
element indispensable, the other, which will thus be
more acceptable to many dissenting families, leaving
the matter to be dealt with as it may, outside the walls
of the College.
'
A TRUE COLLEGE FOR WOMEN.
143
But these institutions are very far from meeting the
wants of the day. They are more "Schools than Col-
leges." The students do not, as a rule, remain to the
age at which "the higher education" can be successfully
given. Nor are the certificates, bestowed by the College
itself on leaving, thought to hold a sufficiently high
value. Those who have gone with us hitherto, who per-
ceive the need of some great improvement in female
teachers, and who feel they cannot expect much from
the examinations of schools, still less of particular girls,
must therefore be willing to go with us a little further,
and consider the best mode of extending to a much larger
number what has been shown to work well with a few.
There are two principal methods of extension. These
small London Colleges are chiefly, but not entirely, on
the "Professorial" system. The students, with few ex-
ceptions, lodge elsewhere, and resort to the College for
lectures. The Tutorial system--we are using the words
which have been consecrated by University use—is but
little developed. Now it is possible either to develop
this Professorial system exclusively, or to establish a full
Tutorial system with some infusion of the Professorial.
In fact, we very naturally come across the old question
of choice between the Continental method of Universi
ties for men, and the English, as understood at Oxford
and Cambridge. The first, the exclusively Professorial.
method, is already under trial in several places, Edin-
burgh, Dublin, Liverpool, etc., and, it seems, is shortly
to be organized in London. The other is the plan of the
proposed College for Women lately advocated by some
experienced and distinguished persons of both sexes,
approved by the School Inquiry Commissioners, and elo-
quently expounded by Miss Emily Davies in the "Con-
temporary Review." There is the further subject of
144
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
discussion, whether these schemes are advisable only as
a means of training professed teachers, or whether they
are to subserve the purpose of giving a quasi-University
education to all who choose to avail themselves of it,
and thus, as Miss Davies quotes from one of the Assist-
ant Commissioners, raising female education “by teach-
ing not only all the actual, but all the possible teachers,
that is, women at large.”
Of the last two alternatives, as regards the College,
the first is that which was most prominently put forth
in the original scheme above mentioned, to which the
Commissioners have given in their adhesion, though the
other was also recognized. Such an institution “would
not only be eagerly welcomed by the higher class of
teachers, but would also be made use of by many other
young women, having no definite object in view other
than that of self-improvement." ("Memorial," etc., "Re-
port,” etc., vol. ii., p. 194.) The later view of the ques-
tion is that which Miss Davies herself, the Secretary to
the ladies who promoted the Memorial, chiefly enlarges
upon, and it is that which comes most generally before
the public in a popular form.
Now, as we know, the ladies always get what they
have made up their minds to have; and as they seem
determined to have this College, a College "intended to
be a dependency, a living branch of Cambridge, aiming
at no higher position than, say, that of Trinity College,"
it would be quite a waste of paper to attempt to oppose it,
even if we wished ever so much to do so. A College of
some sort there will be, no doubt. Whether it will at-
tain to "no higher position than Trinity College, Cam-
bridge," or whether it will fall at all lower in its stand-
ard of attainments and public reputation, we will not be
rash enough to prophesy; nor would it be polite. Let
A TRUE COLLEGE FOR WOMEN.
145
us suppose that it is built, endowed, filled, and taught,
its female tutors clothed in their academical costume, its
male professors from Cambridge, "though it is not in-
tended to limit the choice of teachers to that Univer-
sity," in full career, its girl-undergraduates “drawn to
the College by a real desire for improvement, not driven
there by fashion or by their parents and guardians, and
therefore the élite of their class," only entered on the
books after an "entrance examination," each enjoying
the luxury of a "small sitting-room to herself, where she
will be free to study undisturbed, and to enjoy at her
discretion the companionship of friends of her own
choice," while she meets her fellow-students (not at chap-
el, for there is to be no chaplain), but at family prayers,
at lectures, and at "active games, not too violent and
straining, but amusing enough to be a real distraction,"
and abjures the charms of "society," which she relegates
to "the vacations, under the guardianship of her
mother."
The practical question is, whether this sweet Arca-
dian picture is one which fits in with the fundamental
notions and instincts of our social life, not gay butterfly
life, nor mere Baotian animal life, but wise, cultivated,
gentle, modest English life of that highest kind to which
the ultimate appeal lies, and will lie; whether, when
applied to women in general and extended, as it would
be if a single College failed to meet the demand, this
University education" would produce the kind of
woman that we should wish as the representative of the
nineteenth-century English lady. This must, of course,
be a matter of opinion. It is impossible to deny that
there are already, and, as cultivation becomes more gen-
eral, that there always will be, a certain number of young
women, and, still more, of women no longer young,
7
146
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
whose mental needs demand a higher course of study
than is given at the best girls' schools, or is easily pur-
sued under ordinary circumstances at home. For these
a College, or a system of lectures in towns, will no doubt
offer peculiar advantages. There is also something in
the saying so often applied as a stimulant to the other
sex-that powers and aspirations would not be given
without a purpose, and that their very existence points
out the duty of cultivation. But the question is larger
than this. We have to consider the whole complex phe-
nomena of life, the relations between the sexes, the for-
mation of the whole character of the woman, the differ-
ence between men and women which we have already
touched upon in speaking of boys and girls. A great
deal of this is much more easily felt than expressed; a
great deal had better not be expressed; but we cannot
think the strong prevailing instinct among our people
which declares against the "University-woman" quite
deserving of the contempt poured upon it by Miss Da
vies, Miss Becker, and their class.
It is, no doubt, a low sort of consideration, and it
may be said that it is mere prejudice which will pass
away, but there is no doubt that this sort of woman will
not be popular with men. The half-educated very natu-
rally do not like it; the highly-educated, as a rule, pre-
fer a less intellectual type. Some few there will be who,
yearning after mental sympathy, will be regardless of
Byron's warning:-
"O, all ye lords of ladies intellectual,
Now tell me truly, have they not henpecked you all?"
But we believe they will ever be as exceptional as the
cases for which, as we have said, the proposed College
A TRUE COLLEGE FOR WOMEN.
147
;
will be suitable. The one thing men do not like is the
man-woman, and they will never believe the College or
University-woman is not of that type. Sensible men
will always like sensible and cultivated women; but
they will always prefer that their good sense and culti-
vation should have come through channels which they
recognize as suitable for the womanly character. The
learned woman does not make the best educator of chil-
dren. We require the well-trained and well-balanced
woman. The duties of woman do not to any great ex-
tent lie in the intellectual direction. Their sprightly in-
tuition is often, in practical matters, worth far more than
the reasoning faculty which a laborious education has
developed in man. The irrepressible "femme savante
must, indeed, be let alone. She is a portent. But what-
ever Mr. John Stuart Mill may think, England is not
prepared for either female suffrage or a female Parlia-
ment, for women as poor-law guardians, attendants at
vestries, public lecturers, public speakers, doctors, law-
yers, clergy, or even, to any much greater extent than
at present, as authors. The attempts of Miss Becker and
her friends to prepare the country for this change simply
defeat their own object. They are received with unmit-
igated disgust by all but an isolated few. The sphere
of women is home. Such a cultivation as will make a
really good wife, sister, or daughter, to educated men, is
the thing to be aimed at, and this must be something
which recognizes woman not as a
“fair defect of nature,”
something which may be brought up to the same point
as man by education, and taught to be his rival; but
rather as the complement of man, perfect in herself, and
intended to hold an entirely different place in the world,
a something which is expressed in such words as these:-
148
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
"For nothing lovelier can be found
In woman than to study household good,
And good works in her husband to promote ;
"'*
or in Wordsworth's beautiful lines, beginning with-
"She was a phantom of delight;
or in Tennyson's, ending with—
(c
'Perfect music set to noble words."†
""
C
There will always be something inconsistent with the
idea of a fit channel for receiving such true cultivation
in a system where adult women are lectured to by men
(and they will generally be young men), where strictly
intellectual pursuits are exclusively pursued away from
home, and where, consequently, that "freedom of.
thought" and freedom of reading, which to some persons
opens such glorious vistas, will become as much the
characteristic of one sex as it already is becoming of the
other.
+
Thus it is hardly probable that any large number of
"young women having no definite object in view other
than that of self-improvement," will find their way to the
College. The notion of "improvement" they and their
friends will say, begs the question. Nor will parents be
found very ready to provide the required funds. Fath-
ers may be "pliant," as Miss Davies says, "and when
daughters set their hearts upon a thing they generally
manage in the end to get it. A reasonable request, urged
with due persistence, is not likely to be refused." This
may be true; but, all other considerations aside, the so-
cial condition of things must undergo a great change
before any large number of parents put their hands in
their pockets and produce several hundred pounds for
*Paradise Lost,' book ix.
'The Princess.'
A TRUE COLLEGE FOR WOMEN.
149
3
this University education which is to lead to nothing
tangible, if it does not lead away from much that is
tangible. Even wealthy men find the expense of sons at
the Universities quite as much as they like; but then
they "grin and bear it," because they know that such
education is a passport to employment and independence.
Many professions are only reached, through the Univer-
sities. It is the best investment of capital. In the up-
per
classes of professional life the demand is even increas-
ing. Where men sent one son to Oxford and Cambridge,
they now much oftener than a short time ago send two
or three. The future clergyman, lawyer, or civil ser-
vant will not take up his father's position in life unless
he has cost from one to two thousand pounds at school
and college. The statesman, the squire, and increas-
ingly, the merchant and the man of business, must carry
away the University stamp. It may be questioned
whether any amount of "persistence" will produce “pli-
ancy" on the part of fathers when they come to consider
ways and means for this new demand. We are more in-
clined to think of the unhappy family where
"The mother did fret and the father did fume,"
66
when Miss Davies whispers a "word to the ear" of their
daughters. In short no supply of any magnitude will
we suspect, be found to flow into the College from this
woman at large” source. The cases will be exception-
al. It is possible they may be enough, from the novelty.
of the thing, to start the College, but the question is as
to the continuance. We know how Universities for
men are supplied and why, though it is difficult enough
to make the country understand their value sufficiently;
it is not so easy to establish the raison d'être in the case
of the ladies.
150
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
But when we come to the other side of the question,
the teacher-training side, we are viewing the case under
a wholly different aspect. For the reasons given above
the proposed College is of course open to objection
even as a place of education for this purpose; but, if it is
conceded that a special training is necessary for school-
teachers and governesses, the advantages may well be
held to outweigh the disadvantages. The object of the
promoters should be to neutralize the latter as much as
possible, so that their institution may command general
confidence. They will, however, scarcely succeed in so
doing unless (if they will excuse us for plain speaking)
they come down from the very exalted platform on which
they have placed themselves. They have not gone very
far as yet, and may perhaps find it best to retrace one or
two steps while there is time. May we give a word of
kindly advice? We would say let it be a true College
for women. Let its promoters give up the ambitious
notion of an institution on the same footing as a man's
College. Let them lay themselves out for courses of
study and certificates of their own, quite independent of
the courses of study and degrees of Cambridge or any
other University, and connected with examinations by
persons external to the College and such as will command
national respect. Some board, such as Mr. Norris recom-
mends for superintending the examinations of girls,
might perfectly well perform the same function for
women. Let all the arrangements be made with refer-
ence to the special work of the College, the training
of teachers; the "self-improvement" class conforming to
that standard in all respects. Thus simplicity of living,
the strictest economy, so as to suit governesses; train-
ing in housekeeping, regular needlework, and, if possible,
actual school-teaching, should be parts of a system to
2
A TRUE COLLEGE FOR WOMEN.
151
which all should, with very slight exceptions, conform.
Two sets of persons living and working, in the same in-
stitution, on different scales of diet and with different
habits and notions of study, would never prosper. If the
College is to succeed, there will be no such thing as
free permission to read as much and as late as enthusias-
tic students may desire. The health of women cannot
stand much evening reading. Nature is imperative in
these matters. Reading aloud should be cultivated, and
might be made exceedingly useful if some were to read
out to others, who in various self-arranged sets, practiced
making their own dress, or worked for others as in the
mission working-parties now happily becoming common
in many places. Nothing could be more useful to gov-
ernesses, who seldom at present possess this often neces-
sary and always feminine accomplishment; while the
relief from the constant strain upon minds ill prepared
for hard and regular study, as most of them will be, may
make the whole difference in the bill of health.
With all respect for the ladies who are about to
make this interesting experiment, no one of the slightest
experience can contemplate without very great alarm
the effect of indiscriminately applying the system of men
to woman. As we have already said in regard of boys.
and girls, the former have gone through a mingled dis-
cipline of physical and mental labor which enables them,
when they have reached manhood, to grapple with the
tasks of the real student, to apply any amount of patient
study, and to suffer but little from the strain of the
stiffest examinations. Even among them it is well
known how many, from want of proper care, break down
before they arrive at the goal. It is an ascertained
physiological fact that the actual capacity of the average
male brain is considerably greater than that of the
or M
152
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN
female. The very witnesses (in the bluebook to which
we have so often referred) who are most inclined to
make light of the differences between boys and girls,
speak of the vigor and thought which appear in the
former as contrasted with the quickness and vivacity of
the latter, and that not only as the result of difference
in training. Indeed, who that knows much of young
people of both sexes can doubt the fact?
Then, further, consider that, say what we please
about "accomplishments," the young woman must neces-
sarily have been heavily weighted in comparison with
the young man during the years of her preparation for
College life. We may deplore the mistakes made on
this subject, but we cannot deny that there is reason in
the general demand that women should be “ accom-
plished." Society requires some power in the sex of
pleasing others, yes, and of being useful to others in
social life, over and above what it requires of men, who
are necessarily trained to earn their bread or to govern.
We may be quite sure that no writing, or lecturing, or
reporting in bluebooks will ever make any difference in
this respect. But this process has taken time, much
time, during which the boy has been acquiring the
power which gives him such a start when he becomes a
young man.
This leads us to subjects of study. Miss Davies tells.
us that "it is intended to apply, in due time, to the Uni-
versity of Cambridge for admission to the examination
for degrees, and the requirements of these examinations
will be met by the College curriculum. But the Cam-
bridge examinations, supposing them to be available,
will not be compulsory, and, in the plan of study, a cer-
tain amount of option will be allowed" (Cont. Rev.' p.
555). Now we have said enough to show that the
A TRUE COLLEGE FOR WOMEN.
153
notion of a Cambridge degree is more than question-
able. But supposing that it is considered a necessary
part of the scheme, the difficulty must be faced of hav-
ing at least three wholly distinct classes of young
women pursuing their studies within the same walls and
under the same teachers; and this independently of the
stages which the different classes will have reached ac-
cording to the time of residence, and of course wholly
independently of any social distinctions, or departmen-
tal divisions such as the 'Classical,' and the 'Modern'
departments, now becoming common in schools. These
three intellectual divisions will be, the candidates for
Cambridge Honors, the candidates for the Poll degree,
and those who will be allowed to study without aiming
as a degree at all. Now the system of combining even
the two former sets of young men within a College is
one of extreme difficulty both at Oxford and Cambridge,
i:volving as it does a multiplication of lectures and con-
stant confusion of various kinds; but it is met as well
as may be by the large number of the well-endowed Col-
lege Staff, and by the conveniences of a University sys-
tem where Honor-men are very much taken off the hands
of College tutors by Professors and Private Tutors.
These facilities cannot possibly be found in a solitary
College in the country; and as to the class whose mem-
bers aim at no degree, it is not admitted to English Uni-
versities at all.
The subjects for which a Cambridge degree is given
are, respectively, Theology, Moral Science, Law, Nat-
ural Science, and Mechanism and Applied Science; all
candidates having already passed two examinations in-
volving a fair knowledge of Latin and Greek Grammar,
Christian Evidences, certain Latin and Greek books,
English and Latin Composition, Arithmetic, Algebra,
7*
154
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
Euclid, Elementary Mechanics and Hydrostatics. This
is the Poll course. The Honor course is in Mathematics,
Classics, Moral Science and Natural Science respect-
ively. Now every one knows the low estimation in
which the ordinary or Poll degree is held. It is ac-
knowledged on all hands; yet the standard cannot, from
various circumstances, be materially raised. The ques-
tion is whether, supposing the College ladies are able to
obtain this degree, they will have gained what they and
their friends will consider really valuable. We are not
saying that it will not be valuable, but will it be thought
any the more of when obtained by women than when
obtained by men? And yet this very course, poor as it
is, involves a considerable amount of special previous
training which boys have, and which girls, with scarcely
an exception, have not. The years of grounding in
Latin and Greek Grammar, Arithmetic, Algebra, and
Euclid, which the most ordinary boys' school, undertak-
ing to prepare for the Universities, embraces in its cur-
riculum, are as yet all but wholly unknown and untried
in the case of girls. We entirely agree with many wit-
nesses before the Schools' Inquiry Commission and some
of the Assistant Commissioners, that the introduction of
Latin and Mathematics into girls' schools as the main
subjects of teaching, and with a view to strengthen the
mental powers for future exercise, would have a most
powerful effect in elevating the tone of female educa-
tion; Physical Science should also be more and more
introduced; and we most sincerely hope that the pro-
posed College will itself play a great part in encourag-
ing these studies; but to run young women for the goal
without the previous training will certainly be found to
produce unsatisfactory results.
This is, however, only part of the difficulty, and may
A TRUE COLLEGE FOR WOMEN.
155
be covered by Miss Davies' prudent qualification, "in
due time." In the course of a few years the previous
training may be forthcoming, though the health and the
accomplishments will always be a heavy weight in the
scale, which no power on earth can eliminate, and which
in our opinion, lies at the root of the whole matter.
But who that knows anything of human nature will im-
agine that, if they have the option, ambition will not
lead these young women to embrace the Cambridge
Honor course. One course can hardly be open to them
and the other closed; but how much more will such a
pressure as the Tripos tell upon them! No doubt there
are many clever women who, with anything like a fair
start, can easily beat in an examination men who are not
clever, and some who can even distance those who are.
But will they be able to stand the wear and tear of the
'pale recluse'? Will they be the better for working
with intense energy nine, ten, twelve, or more hours, a`
day?
Will they be able to avail themselves of the enor-
mous assistance to the intellect given by boating and
other violent exercises by which the majority of Honor
men are enabled to keep their powers fresh up to the
moment of the fiery trial? No doubt there are latent
Mrs. Somervilles whose abilities would be drawn out in
this way, but how large a proportion of wrecks would
strew the shore, for one vessel that got into harbor!
Yet, knowing, as these ladies would, from intercourse
with their own Oxford and Cambridge relatives, how
little a Poll or Passman is really thought of at either
University, how certainly would they spurn the lower
and aim at the highest goal!
It is enough to indicate the "breakers ahead." In no
carping or sneering spirit we have tried to point out
what we believe to be the true use of a College for
156
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
Wonen, how it may secure public confidence, and how
it will fail if it starts upon a wrong tack. Taking up
its proper place it may be a blessing to the nations and
the prolific parent of kindred institutions. Taking up a
position which will only foster vanity and ambition under
high sounding names, it will perpetually suggest a sense
of unfitness, speedily become a laughing stock, and end in
ignominious failure. It may, if properly started, be
hailed with the liveliest gratitude by a large and increas-
ing class of teachers who now go abroad to seek that
training which they cannot get economically and well in
England, and who, during the process, are not unfre-
quently half-starved and damaged for life. It may then
rely upon being entirely self-supporting, and all the dis
agreeable remarks which are so distasteful to women of
refinement will either be unheard or pass harmless on one
side. Nor would there be any difficulty in raising funds
for the establishment and endowment of the institution.
The difficulty arises from the want of confidence engender-
ed by the high-flown, injudicious language in which the
scheme has been too often advocated, and which indeed
appears (we are sorry to have to say it) to be only too
characteristic of the present intentions of the promoters.
The other plan for promoting the "higher education”
of women, whether as teachers or not, is the simple Pro-
fessorial system, the system of Lectures, in the subjects
of which the students are examined and receive certifi-
cates. This can only exist in great cities, as it involves
the necessity of a sufficient number of students to pay
the Lecturers, and requires competent persons already
on the spot to lecture. Where a city possesses a Uni-
versity or great Collegiate establishment, it is of course.
much easier to combine these requisites; still more where
it has to its hand a practiced, cultivated, and high-mind-
A TRUE COLLEGE FOR WOMEN.
157
ed man like Archbishop Trench, in a great ecclesiastical
position from which he can infuse a religious tone into
the merely intellectual character of the system. This
has been the case with Alexandra College, Dublin, which
has received perhaps a greater amount of approval from
competent judges than any other of the modern experi-
ments. The College has also been fortunate in securing
the active support of the most able and influential of the
Dublin clergy as well as laity, and the services of an
admirable Lady-Superintendent assisted by a body of
bona fide, hard-working Lady Visitors.
Personal observation has convinced us that the happy
mean has been very fairly hit off in this case. The young
ladies do not seem to be turned into "blues," nor to
have lost that charming bloom of simplicity and modesty
which would be ill exchanged for any amount of male
degrees and honors. We discovered that in the case of
one who had attended the class of Moral Philosophy, the
main thing which had remained with her was an intelli-
gent appreciation of "Butler's Analogy," which, indeed,
lectured on by a competent person, and thoroughly mas-
tered, is an education in itself. These classes are already
largely attended, but chiefly by the young ladies of
Dublin, not intending to be teachers, who, brilliant
enough already, are resolved to obtain a still higher pol-
ish. We are glad, however, to learn that a department
is being specially formed for governesses, who, as a
body, are too poor to take advantage at present of the
classes. We suspect they will turn out to be the per-
sons on whom the College will eventually depend, as the
attendance of the others will always be precarious and
liable to change with fashion.
The Edinburgh Ladies' Educational Association is
even younger than its Irish sister, having commenced a
158
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
year later, in 1867. The age of admission of students is
greater than at Dublin. Class-prizes are given, as well
as certificates; the subjects do not seem so numerous,
and it is more exclusively a matter of mere Lectures.
The number of students is large, and the courses appear
to meet with the general approval of Edinburgh soci-
ety.
The above will be as much as our space will admit on
the Lecture-system. The similar experiments in some of
our other great cities are only just commenced or about
to commence. As in the case of the College, we have
already stated our belief that the real criterion of the
success of Professorial Lectures for ladies will be in the
number of teachers who take advantage of them. But
it is evident that the training of such teachers is very in-
adequately provided for by the system. They may
learn something by being introduced to a higher class
of subjects and minds than they would have met with in
the ordinary course of preparation; but this is not train-
ing. The College, if properly conducted, will supply
that better. On the other hand, the system of Lectures
leaves the home life untouched, and where teachers un-
der instruction reside at these centres or can live with
friends, they have at least that compensation for the
want of thorough training by competent persons.
There remains the simple preparation at home, or in
any similar way, for University examinations such as
those just established at London and Cambridge. The
objections to this public system have been already
noticed. The great use of such a system is that it re-
moves a supposed grievance. If women are to be found
who will prepare themselves for and succeed at such
examinations, they have here the opportunity. We
observe that Miss Becker, in the 'Contemporary Review'
A TRUE COLLEGE FOR WOMEN.
159
for March, is by no means satisfied with the separate
"Liberty
position assigned to women in these schemes.
and equality” is still her cry, as it was once of certain
other revolutionists. These things will soon find their
own level. Let us hope the experiment may have a fair
trial. We shall all know better what to think of it by
and by. * * *
We do not shrink from asserting that the education
of girls for domestic life is the chief and principal fact
with which we have to do. Improve this education and
systematically train the teachers; but keep the male
and female types essentially distinct. For those young
ladies who cannot obtain a 'bigher education' through
their parents, brothers, friends, and books at home, or
by means of Lectures in cities, let a refuge be provi-
ded with the training governesses; but, for heaven's
sake, do not let us establish the 'University-woman' as
the modern type. We want to entice our 'golden
youth' into matrimony, not by wiles and plots and
matchmaking warfare, but by the exhibition of a true,
modest, retiring, useful, womanly character. If there
were more such women, we should hear less of the later
and later age at which men marry. They do not find
the help-meet with whom they can set out on the domes-
tic journey in a humble way, both parties willing to
begin life below the condition of their parents, and
willing to rise or fall together. This is not so much the
case in middle-class life; let us beware how, in improv-
ing the too-backward condition of girls of that class, we
undo as well as do. *****
XIII
JOINT EDUCATION.*
BY REV. THOMAS MARKBY.
IN SI
N speaking of the education of women we are met
with a difficulty, raised by some of themselves, which
we certainly should not have anticipated. No doubt the
great end of all education, whether of boys or girls, is
best stated in the words of the catechism, "that they
may do their duty in that state of life to which it hath
pleased God to call them." But a part even of their
duty to God is to get their own living in the world in
which He has placed them. In speaking of education,
this temporal part of it is not only kept in view, but, on
ordinary occasions, naturally and necessarily occupies
the foremost place. It by no means follows from this
that it occupies the foremost place in the care and thought
of the speaker. The Scotch saying, "the mair kirks the
mair sin," is true in a good many ways. There are times,
no doubt, when the highest view of education should be.
earnestly and fervently pressed. But under ordinary
circumstances we should have far more faith in a father
who, having many sons, talked of bringing them up to
be lawyers, soldiers, merchants, than one whose speeches.
always ended up with God and their country. We do
not love these perpetual protestations. In speaking then
* From the Contemporary Review, Feb., 1868.
JOINT EDUCATION.
161
"
of the education of boys, we should be content, except
on very fit occasions, to talk of bringing them up to some
temporal calling, no matter what. Just so, as the days
are happily not yet come in which many girls start in
life with the expectation of supporting themselves in per-
petual maidenhood, or of having not only to bear, but
find bread for, their children, we should talk of bringing
up girls to be good wives and mothers, being quite cer-
tain that this implies the right way of teaching a girl
how to do her duty to God and man, even though she
never became either one or the other. But if women
who write fairly represent the feelings of their sex, this
way of talking displeases them. Thus one lady ex-
claims-
"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 fear but they
will also train the best wives and mothers."
Nobody doubts it. But we repeat that one may be
just as conscious of this truth as the writer of those
words, and yet talk of bringing up girls to be good wives
and mothers, and boys not indeed to be good husbands
and fathers, but good lawyers, doctors, officers, trades-
men, and what not. She does not observe that people
who use these phrases have in view at the time only the
temporal ends of education; that is, in the plain phrase
of the liturgy, how boys and girls may learn and labor
truly to get their own living. Now boys seldom get
their living by becoming husbands and fathers, while
women do commonly owe theirs to being wives and
162
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
V
mothers. The home cares which these words represent
are the return they make-surely a most honorable one
—for the bread their husbands go abroad to win. If
such cares are the counterpart of out-o'-door callings of
men, we do not see how it can be wrong, in speaking of
the temporal side of girls' education, to press its fitness.
for the future discharge of those cares. We should
have passed over the matter in silence, content to use
our own discretion in treating of the subject in hand,
were it altogether indifferent. But it is not so. For it
is quite possible, and very often happens, that the fre-
quent or untimely expression of one's inner thoughts on
a matter of this kind may sink into mere buncombe-one
of the most michievous forms of the breach of the third
commandment. It is akin to the error Hooker pointed
out in the Puritans, who would have had men not pick
up a straw but in God's name, and is capable of doing a
good deal of mischief. * * *
The fact remains, that at this moment few English
girls get anything like the same measure of pains and
cost bestowed on their education that is laid out on that
of their brothers, and that those who desire to change,
and, as they believe, amend this state of things, encoun-
ter very considerable opposition. We must own, how-
ever, that, as we have already hinted, this opposition is
becoming daily more insignificant. Were it possible to
search into it thoroughly, we believe that most frequently,
and especially where it is loudest, it proceeds either from
teachers who have no great reason to be confident in the
results of their teaching, or parents who are not disposed
to encounter the expense of giving their daughters a
sound education. We should be inclined to treat both
these classes with some tenderness. Ladies who entered
the profession of teaching with old-fashioned views of
JOINT EDUCATION.
163
what was sufficient for girls to learn must find it hard to
encounter a changed world. Again, while it is every day
easier to make a certain amount of social display, it is
growing harder and harder for people in modest circum-
stances to do well by their children. So we do not care
if the change comes slowly, provided it come well. In-
deed, we know not whether we ought not to be grateful
to the opposition which enforces slow progress; for it is
very far from easy to lay down what is the best course
to adopt to secure the improvement we desire.
Certainly, we venture to think that the University of
Cambridge, in extending the Local Examinations to
girls, took what was for them the best possible first step.
It matches them with boys, spreads a large field of study
before them, while, at the same time, it completely
screens them from publicity; and should it be found not
to answer, it can be withdrawn without the smallest loss
or injury to any one. The public are, perhaps, not gen-
erally aware how ample that field is. Every student is
required to satisfy the examiners in reading aloud, spell-
ing, writing, the rudiments of arithmetic, grammar, ge.
ography, English history, and, except in case of a written
objection sent in by parents or guardians, of the Chris-
tian faith. How great an improvement has been achieved
in these elements of knowledge may be in some degree
estimated from the single fact that whereas in 1858 about
ten per cent. of the whole number of candidates (then
boys only) were rejected by the examiners in arithmetic
alone, in 1865 scarcely more than one per cent. failed in
that subject. Then follow a number of sections out of
which each student must choose two or three, and is for-
bidden to attempt more than five or six. These include
more advanced papers in the preliminary subjects, Eng-
lish composition, Latin, Greek, French, German, pure
164
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
-
mathematics, mechanics, chemistry, zoology, botany, ge-
ology, heat, magnetism, electricity, music, geometrical
drawing, drawing from the flat, from models, in perspec-
tive, and imitative coloring.
The distinguishing characteristics of the girls' work,
as compared with the boys', are narrowness of range
and goodness of quality. Last year few of them took in
the full number of sections allowed, while 21.3 per cent.
against 13.3 per cent. of the boys, obtained marks of
distinction in one or more subjects. Now examiners are
instructed for the Syndicate to award such marks "not
for comparative merit shown by one candidate with
respect to another, but for really sound knowledge of
the subject, so far as the examination tests it."
It should be remarked, however, that at present
only picked girls are, as a rule, sent in, while many
schoolmasters send up boys in whole classes—a practice
excellent from many points of view, and from none
more than as showing that they take equal pains with
all their scholars. In English, French, and German the
girls, as might be expected, were signally successful.
Few attempted Latin and Greek. We looked with
some curiosity to the result; for we never could see any
à priori reason why girls should not learn these tongues.
Women, we apprehend, contributed their share towards
forming them, and millions upon millions of women
spoke them in their day. The New Testament is ad-
dressed as much to women as to men, and it is of no less
advantage to them to read it in the language in which it
was written. The point seems to us one purely of taste
and expediency. In 1865 no girl tried Greek, but twelve
took up Latin. In 1866 Greek was attempted by three,
Latin by fifteen girls. The judgment of the examiners
is in general that they show a very fair appreciation of a
JOINT EDUCATION.
165
work they have read, and can translate it into very
good idiomatic English; but that they fail in grammar,
and in translating passages they have not seen before.
In 1864 mathematics were tried by six girls, in 1866 by
fifteen, with no great success, one senior girl excepted,
who did singularly well. Several did well in music,
and a few in drawing. Contrary to our expectation, the
natural sciences, in particular botany, do not seem
attractive to girls any more than to boys, who as a
general rule appear to hate them. We quite side with
those who think this a pity, but it is a fact. We admit
that the scheme has been in working too short a time to
allow of any certain conclusions being drawn, but pres-
ent results, so far as they go, incline us to think that
there is no reason for shutting against girls any door
of knowledge which is open to boys.
A further question arises on which there will proba-
bly be a very great difference of opinion. This is
whether, in learning, boys and girls must be kept sepa-
rate, or may work together in classes. Many persons.
will probably say that they ought not even to occupy
separate rooms in the same building, but should be
placed in different schools at least some furlongs apart.†
Others may think that nature, as expressed in the homely
Lancashire proverb, "T'lasses always coom where t'lads
* She nearly cleared the paper on Applied Mathematics, get-
ting full marks for every question she attempted.
† A boy who sent up an English essay in the local examina-
tion of 1865 informed the examiner that "Mr. A's (his master's)
school was next door to Miss B's," and added that "had they
been farther apart, the inmates of both houses might have been
spared many scrapes." Let not, however, the separatists regard
this as telling entirely in their favor. It might very well be
argued that had boys and girls been taught together, they would
not have sought forbidden communications.
つ
​166
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
are," may, after all, not be a bad guide; and that a boy
may grow up none the worse man for having sat side
by side with a girl at his lesson. Perhaps it is a ques-
tion on which it will be safest to appeal to experience
for a decision.
In former days there appears to have been no unwil
lingness to allow boys and girls to work together. Most
of the old foundation schools seem to have been estab-
lished for the benefit of the children of the parish with-
out distinction of sex. In a great many of them this
has survived nearly, if not quite, to the present hour,
only they are no longer frequented by the families of
the parson or the squire. But a generation or two
back, when in the remoter parts of the country travelling
was costly and irksome, the little village school, en-
dowed with its twenty, thirty, fifty acres of land—often,
and very properly, an adjunct to the cure of souls-
received within its walls all the young fry of the parish
alike. If we are not mistaken, the school of a little
village in Norfolk reckons Sir Robert Walpole among
its past alumni. Within our own remembrance an
earl of exalted lineage sent his children to the school of
the parish in which he lived. In one school of some
consideration the practice of teaching boys and girls
together still survives. We refer to Rivington School,
attached to St. John's College, Cambridge. The "cap-
tain" of Rivington School, we were told by a fellow of
that college who was lately sent to examine it, proved
to be a girl of sixteen. Next came a boy between four-
teen and fifteen, then a girl again, and so forth. He
discovered nothing which would lead him to desire a
change; on the contrary, he appeared to think the plan
worked extremely well. In Scotland, if we are not
mistaken, it is the ordinary rule. Cambridge has been
JOINT EDUCATION.
167
applied to in two successive years to send examiners to
a great Scotch college-the Dollar Institution, near
Stirling-attended by more than five hundred boys and
girls. The examiners speak highly of the school, and
find no fault with the system of bringing boys and girls
together. But it is to America that we must look for
the widest induction of examples and the fullest inform-
ation; for in the United States not only are there a
great number of schools and colleges of long standing
for both sexes, but they have been lately visited and
fully reported on by two independent observers. Mr.
Fraser, sent by the Schools Inquiry Commission, visited
many schools in the United States in the summer of
1865. Miss Sophia Jex Blake did the same in the
autumn of the same year. Mr. Fraser's Report has
been printed by the Commissioners, and Miss Jex Blake
has written a narrative of her trip in a small volume
published by Messrs. Macmillan. Both give very ample
accounts of various schools they visited; both, it is
clear, had thoroughly divested themselves of any pre-
judice against the bringing boys and girls together at
school; both, after producing such facts and arguments
on the subject as were presented to their minds in the
course of their respective journeys, review them at the
close of their work. Neither ventures to give a very
decided opinion. Miss Blake says:-
"With regard to the joint education of the sexes, I have en-
deavored simply to ascertain facts, and am by no means sure of
the existence of sufficient data whereon to found a just conclu-
sion."
But she appears to be inclined, on the whole, to look on
it with favor. Thus we read :—
"As boys and girls have to live together in the family, and
168
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
❤
men and women in the world at large, it certainly seems that
they ought to be able to pursue their common studies together;
and perhaps, if they did so, a much more healthy mutual relation
would result than now exists."
The American teachers, whose opinions she had the op-
portunity of learning, appear to entertain no doubts on
the question. One ground on which they found their
judgment is, we apprehend, invincible-namely, that
where provision for educating both sexes together is not
made, the girls will go to the wall. But they support it
on the further ground of its being to the advantage of
both sexes. Thus Professor Fairchild, of Oberlin, as
quoted by Miss Blake, says:—
"That society is most happy which conforms most strictly to
the order of nature as indicated in the family relation, where
brother and sister mutually elevate and restrain each other. . . . A
school for young men becomes a community in itself, with its own
standard of morality and its laws of honor; but in a college for
both sexes the student will find a public sentiment not so lenient
as that of a community of associates needing the same indul-
gence."
Miss Blake further tells us that the professor, speaking
of the supposed danger of hasty attachments and mar-
riages which may arise, remarks that—
"There is something in the association of every-day life which
appeals to the judgment rather than to the fancy, and that weeks
and months of steady labor over the same problems, or at the
same sciences, will not be more likely to create romances than
casual meetings at fetes and balls.”
We own there appears to us a good deal of force in
these arguments. Let us see what Mr. Fraser says :—
((
Very high authorities, founding themselves upon experience,
maintain without hesitation or reserve the advantages of the sys-
tem as it stands. That it has certain very manifest advantages I am
JOINT EDUCATION.
169
:
not prepared to deny ; but as all results are but a balance of oppo-
sites, there are certain as manifest disadvantages which have to
be reckoned and considered too. And there are high authorities
on the other side. The great Athenian statesman, the great
Christian teacher, appear to have formed different conceptions of
a woman's proper sphere in life; and it is probable, therefore,
that they would have formed diferent conceptions of the proper
training of a girl. Even the French Philosophical thinker (De
Tocqueville) admits that such an education is not without dan-
ger, and has a tendency to produce moral and cold women rather
than tender and amiable wives.' And it may well be doubted
whether He, who 'at the beginning made them male and female,'
did not also mark out for them in his purposes different, though
parallel, paths through all their lives."
So far nothing can be better. But when Mr. Fraser
proceeds to say—
ours.
“Their” (the Americans)" conceptions of woman's duties, and
their ideal of womanly perfection, are probably different from
To them the Roman matron of the old republic is, perhaps,
the type of female excellence; to them self-reliance, fearlessness,
decision, energy, promptitude, are perhaps the highest female
qualities. To us the softer graces are more attractive than the
sterner virtues; our object is to train women, before anything
and everything besides, for the duties of the home; we care less
in them for vigorous intellects and firm purposes, and more for
tastes which domesticate and accomplishments which charm'
""
""
66
we confess he appears to us to shoot beside the mark.
As far as the "Roman matron of the old republic " is
concerned, we know too little of that lady to be able to
pronounce whether she either possessed the sterner
virtues, or was deficient in the "softer graces." We
think, however, that there must have always been at
Rome many dames worth to rank with Tullia and Oc-
tavia in the tenderest feminine charms. Moreover, Ro-
mans, in the freedom and courtesy of their social inter-
course with each other, appear to us to bear a much
8
170
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
closer resemblance to Englishmen than Americans. In-
deed, if we have rightly understood Cicero and Horace,
the terms on which a Roman gentleman lived with his
friends have always appeared to us delightful.
So we
should be inclined to think the Roman mothers who
taught them manners must have been far from wanting
in womanly attractions. But this by-the-by. To re-
turn to the main point, we cannot help thinking that
the balance between sterner virtues " and "softer
graces" has very little to do with the matter in hand.
To us a woman's life appears to be quite as serious as
a man's, and to require quite as frequently and as large-
ly all the help that experience, self-control, and good
sense can give her. The only thing, then, we have to
keep in view in the education of women is surely how
they are best to live the life and fulfil the duties God
has given them. To this even the "tastes which domes-
ticate and accomplishments which charm," must be so
subordinate that, except just so far as they conduce to
it, they ought to be thrown out of view altogether.
Compared with this, the "ideal of womanly perfection"
men chose to frame for themselves is absolutely insignifi-
cant. And when Mr. Fraser in a note a little further
on says:-
"I should have supposed, though I don't think we have quite
hit it in England, that there was a mean between the 'cloistral
education of France' and the democratic education of the United
States.' I quite feel that there is an undefinable something that
makes a difference between the relationship of man and wife in
America, and the relationship of man and wife in England. I do
not mean that there is more mutual affection, or more mutual
confidence, but there is a different tone in the intercourse. I think
the secret of the difference lies in this, that the American husband
has more respect for his wife's mind;"-
*
JOINT EDUCATION.
171
his words sound to our ear like an acknowledgment that
the American has in his judgment fewer faults than the
English system. We can ourselves give no opinion on
the point, as we have never had the good fortune to
know any American families. But we confess the pas-
sage above quoted in one respect astonished us not a
little. We should have thought that most English hus-
bands who were willing to be taught that is to say, all
worth thinking about-would have found their wives in
many of the most important duties of life the best teach-
ers-next to or equally with their mothers—they ever
had, and, therefore, have at least as much respect as the
men of any other nation for their minds. But let us see
what are the educational results of the American plan.
For even if a comparison of manners were more to the
purpose than it is, we don't see that the difference, what-
ever there may be, between English and American ladies
depends so entirely upon school life as to be much in
point. That, we conceive, springs at least as much
from the difference of manners throughout society. But
do women in America gain enough in knowledge and
power to make it worth our while to change all our own
customs? Here there appear to arise very grave doubts.
All authorities seem to say the girls do as well as the
boys. Mr. Fraser writes:-
"Some of the best mathematical teachers are women; some
of the best mathematical students are girls. Young ladies read
Virgil and Cicero, Xenophon and Homer, as well (in every sense)
as young gentlemen. In mixed high schools the number of
female students generally preponderates, and they are found in
examinations to carry off the largest proportion of prizes. In
schools where I heard the two sexes taught or catechized to-
gether, I should myself have awarded to the girls the palm for
quickness of perception and precision of reply. In no department
of study which they pursued together did they not seem to me,
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THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
as compared with their male competitors, fully competent to hold
their own."
So Miss Blake :—
"The professor of Greek told me that he was unable to see
much difference between the students of the two sexes: 'But for
the difference of voice, I should find it hard, or impossible, with
my eyes shut, to tell one from the other. If I am to find a dis-
tinction, I may, perhaps, say that, speaking generally, the ladies
have more intuitive quickness in construing, and earlier acquire
elegance in composition; while the gentlemen [in passing may
we beg this republican professor, as well as his mathematical
brother, to have nothing to say in future about 'ladies' and 'gen-
tlemen,' but to be content with 'girls' and 'boys?'] seem more
able to seize on points touching the philosophy of the language.
As regards power of attention and application, I have never re-
marked any difference, and the work done is usually about
equal.'"
Again-
"The professor of mathematics said, 'I have found the work
done by ladies to be fully equal to that of the gentlemen-fully ;
and it has more than once occurred that the best scholar in my
class was a lady. Ladies are generally the quickest at recitation,
and will repeat long problems more accurately than most of the
young men.
I do not know that they have any counterbalancing
defect. As to strength and power of application, I know that
the advantage is said to lie with the men, but I have not found
it so.""
But of what kind of work do these gentlemen speak?
We confess we don't feel much struck with mathemati-
cal instruction which attributes high value to "repeat-
ing long problems," or which, as we read in another
place,-
"Makes the pupils work most thoroughly, though not profes-
sing to carry them to so high a point as was attempted else-
where; not, if I remember right, beyond a sort of summary of
Euclid and quadratic equations.”
JOINT EDUCATION.
173
1
What a
summary of Euclid" can be we cannot con-
ceive. We fancy, however, that at Cambridge it would
please the undergraduate better than the tutorial mind.
Nor do we think that the lady "who stood,” as a Mrs.
Mann informs us, "before her classes solving the most
difficult problems as if she had discovered them, and as
if books had not yet been invented," would there get
many pupils among possible senior wranglers. They
prefer teachers who can "discover problems" for them-
selves. If she did, we fear it would be chiefly due to
those "feminine traits of character" in which we read
she was (C as rare as in her intellectual cultivation."
We doubt even whether the fact that "one of the most
talented actuaries in the United States is a woman,
would carry much weight in favor of the professor's
views with mathematical men. In classics again, when
Professor Fairchild tells us that "proper discrimination
will evade all difficulty;" that "such authors as Plato
and Xenophon, Cicero and Tacitus-as noble and chaste
as the entire range of literature affords may be read in
mixed classes without causing a blush," and serenely
adds, "it might be well even in schools for young men
to keep within such limits," we cannot help thinking,
with all the respect due to the learned professor, that he
must be talking about what he does not very well under-
stand. We think he might find a good deal in his pet
authors that would prove rather awkward to read
among boys and girls together; and we should uncom-
monly like to know his views about Aristophanes. And
when we hear from Mr. Fraser that the books used in
American schools are mostly after the model of Mr.
Anthon's, we ask for no more evidence. A good deal
of the enthusiasm of the worthy professor must be sim-
ply "tall talk.”
""
174
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
|
Next, as to the effects on the bodies of girls. Stu-
dents of either sex are, it is probable, less robust in
America than in England.
But Mr. Fraser leads us to
think that girls especially suffer terribly from overwork.
Thus he writes :-
•
"There can be no doubt that everywhere, at least in the city
schools, a severe strain is put upon the physical strength both of
teachers and pupils, particularly in the girls' schools. I
remember very distinctly in a New York school, at the close of
one of those little addresses which, in my capacity of a visitor, I
was so often called upon to make in the schools, in which I had
endeavored to explain our English system, and had spoken of the
growing prevalence of the opinion that five hours of study
properly distributed over the day were as much as it was prudent
to attempt to get out of young people between the ages of twelve
and eighteen, a general sigh issued from the class of girls who
had been listening to me, followed by the audible expression of a
wish from several that the same opinion might begin to prevail
there."
Miss Blake seems a little reluctant to acknowledge any
need for more care for girls in this particular than for
boys. She says :—
"It seems to be proved that at least a considerable number of
women can undertake and successfully.complete the same course
of study that is usual for men, and that without more apparent
detriment to their health than students of the other sex."
Again, with a fine sarcasm,—
'Experience seems, moreover, to furnish many warnings that
in England at least it is not well for most girls between the ages
of fifteen and twenty to work as hard as is supposed to be usual
with their brothers; though, by-the-by, how hard the boys really
do study I do not know, occasional glimpses of results having
made me a little sceptical on this point."
Miss Blake does not appear to understand how the
<<
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175
pressure of work increases as you go on. It is much
like climbing up a mountain: for the first two or three
hours it is all very well; after that the weaker members
of the party begin to be what athletes call "pumped,"
and drop off. Only one here and there may boast-
66
Right up Ben Lomond can he press,
And not a sob his toil confess."
Miss Blake very little knows, and we are quite certain
very few women could bear, the strain of mind and
body necessary to attain a good place in any Tripos. It
is no argument to say that many men seem to do it with
ease and pleasure. Look at their strength of build-of
mind we mean rather than body, though the latter often
goes with it—and see whether it is such as is likely to
fall to a woman. Where, indeed, is there any experience
which should induce us to think it desirable to carry the
literary education of women in general to the same
height as that of men? In what branch of the service
of the Muses have they shown original power? In
poetry and music at least they have had fully as good a
chance as their brothers; but who among women can be
called, except according to the most moderate standard,
either poets or composers? On the whole, we cannot
help thinking that the results of the Local Examinations,
crude as they still are, lead us to a tolerably safe conclu-
sion-viz., that up to a certain point, say about such as
these examinations indicate, there is no reason why girls
should not receive pretty much the same literary educa-
tion as boys. Without going so far as to say that they
ought to go to school together, we think it is fairly
made out by experience that there is no reason to fear
evil from such association, and much reason to hope for
benefit to both sexes. Of one thing we entertain no
176
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
doubt, namely, that not only boys and girls, but men
and women, live too little together in England just now.
How this is to be amended is another question. If a
change in the habits of school can help to bring it about,
so much the better; but we are bound to concede at once
that it is a subject on which it is absurd to attempt to
dogmatize. Taste and even prejudices must be consulted,
and an improvement can only come to pass si volet usus.
But after the limit of rudimentary education is passed,
we see nothing to induce us to alter the opinion we have
always entertained; that is, that studies conducted
together will, generally speaking, be injurious to both.
No doubt there are girls-though we believe compara-
tively few*—who are willing and able to carry their
studies further. For these we conceive no better plan
could be devised than one which we hear is already on
foot. We advert to the project of building a college
within a convenient distance of London for girls of six-
teen and upwards. If it be true, as it is alleged to be,
that endowments intended for the youth of many
parishes have been seized for boys only, this fact would
constitute a fair claim on the country for the building
and support of such a college. On the side of this
allegation of the ladies let us turn to an American
decision cited by Mr. Fraser :-
M
* We say few, because it is remarkable that the work of the
senior girls in the Cambridge Local Examinations is, as a whole,
as inferior to that of the juniors as is found to be the case with
the boys. We did not so much wonder at it in the latter. The
Universities and the Oxford A A would naturally attract the most
promising boys. But there is no such cause at work with the
girls, and the fact rather points to the conclusion that a majority
of both sexes are not capable of much literary advancement after
sixteen-that, in short, their hands are better than their heads.
JOINT EDUCATION.
177
"In Nelson v. Cushing, 2 Cush. (Mass.) 519, decided in 1848,
the testator bequeathed his property, for the establishment and
support of a free English school in Newburyport, for the instruc-
tion of youth wherever they may belong.' The court was of
opinion that the testator meant a school for girls as well as
boys."
Much, of course, would depend on the wording of
testaments. But however that may be, we heartily hope
that such a college may be somehow or other built and
endowed. Only we trust that it may be as far as possi-
ble officered by women. Just as only men can make
men, so only women can make women. We suppose that
in one or two departments of knowledge the employment
of men cannot be helped, though if Sir William Hamil-
ton is right in exclaiming, "Whatever is good in a lec-
ture is better in a book," we don't see why they might
not be done without. But that argument might perhaps.
go to the abolition of colleges and universities altogether.
Besides, we think he is as much the reverse of right as it
is possible for a man to be. There is a power in the liv-
ing voice the printer cannot attain unto, and we believe
that without speaking teachers' learning would soon die.
So let the ladies have their professors. We advise them
to be careful in making their choice of teachers of either
sex, not to be led away by the ignis fatuus of "European
reputations," but to look out for persons who love their
work enough to be honest and sound instructors, and to
this warning we will only add a hearty wish that they
may succeed in founding an institution which may be
abundantly fruitful of "good wives and mothers."
8*
XIV.
LOB-SIDED.*
BY REV. JOHN TODD, D.D.
HEN a ship gets the heaviest part of her cargo
or ballast on one side, she sails badly, and is said
to be lob-sided.
W¹
When the nice workman wants to ornament the lid
of the beautiful box he is turning, he puts the elliptical
cutter in its frame, faces the box accurately, and then
the centers must be in exact line, or-his ornaments will
belob-sided."
When a church, a school, or a college becomes un-
balanced, the results are "lob-sided." So it is in every
department of life. I have seen families, institutions,
and even so-called religious papers, terribly "lob-sided.”
Among all the experiments made, now making and to be
made, we are to see many of these results.
I see the question is entertained by some of our grave
New England colleges, whether they shall not admit
women within their walls. (I dare not say "females,”-
because one of our lady-writers protests that this is an
indelicate word, and may mean a feminine dog or horse
-as well!)
Shall our colleges be opened to receive women? I
* From the Congregationalist, Aug. 31, 1871.
:
1.
LOB-SIDED.
179
don't say young ladies, for I have too much gallantry to
think of making age a standard of admission.
When so many papers clamor for it, when we are
told the age demands it, when we are told how it will
civilize our young men, soften their manners, rub off
their roughnesses-how this and that institution has
done it, how it will help to obliterate the odious distinc-
tion between men and women, fill up our small col-
leges,--who am I, that I should dare thrust in objec-
tions, or incur the odium of being called an "old
fogy" who hardly belongs to this century? These old
horses may do very well as wheel horses-good to hold
back—but not fit to be leaders! Well, I have known a
stage, and that more than once, saved from being upset,
plunged off the bank and wrecked, by these same old
wheel horses. No, I'm too wise, too shrewd, too timid
to object. But I want very modestly to ask a few ques-
tions. I fear I shalt put them too bluntly, but I will try
to be gentle.
1. Is it certain that the normal structure, the physi-
ology, the diseases, the tastes, the sensibilities, the nerves,
the habit of thought and feeling, the physical endurance,
the strength and weaknesses of the two sexes, are so nearly
alike, that it is wise to shut them up in a college, to be
educated together?
2. Is it necessary for women? We have just about
us the Mount Holyoke Seminary, are to have one at
Northampton costing $400,000, have Vassar College,
and I know not how many more seminaries of a high or-
der—one in almost every town-all for females. (I beg
the lady's pardon). Do we need to multiply facilities
for their education ?
3. A rule should work well both ways. Will these
lady colleges, such as Vassar-open their doors for
1
180
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
young men? Sauce that is good for the goose, must be
good for the gander. If the sexes had better be educa-
ted together, then hasten to invite us in.
Are they pre-
pared to do that?
4. If ladies enter our colleges and compete in the
long course, with the other sex, they must do it by sac-
rificing the female accomplishments-the piano, cultiva-
ted singing, and attractive dress. Why must they?
Simply because they can't compete with the young men
without using all their time and exhausting all their
strength.
5. Is it certain that the delicate, nervous, physical
organization of woman is such—(I admit all you ask as
to her quickness of mind, and fine mental attributes,)
that she can endure the physical strain requisite for a
regular, old-fashioned, college course? I am informed
that in institutions where the experiment has been tried,
of 100 young men who are fitted for college, sixty-six
go through the course. Out of 100 females, only six
go through the course. Exceptions there may be but as
a general thing, can the female constitution bear the
long strain ?*
<<
* Dr. Todd writes as if no girls could stand the "strain" of
a regular old-fashioned college course," and as if all girls wish
an education for" the piano, cultivated singing, dress, etc." But
neither is true. There are differences which our Western col-
leges recognize by providing a choice between the college curricu-
lum and a "ladies' course." Those who take the former may be
"polished after the similitude of a palace," in the Bible sense,
though they prefer to give their time to the higher and more in-
tellectual accomplishments. The difference in physical endurance
Western educators are quite aware of, and, as a rule, their young
lady graduates-though they be not provided with the costly
gymnasia of Mt. Holyoke and Pittsfield and Vassar-come forth
with a healthier and stronger physique than those of the best
LOB-SIDED.
181
6. Are we prepared to change the whole organic plan
of our colleges-introducing the accomplishments which
are as natural to woman as her breath, which accom-
plishments the Bible recognizes-"that our daughters
may be polished after the similitude of a palace "-shap-
ing the course of study so that she will not sink under
the strain—(for an army must grade its march to the
feeblest battalion)—having women on the Board of
Trustees and in the Faculty for it must come to that
—throwing aside the experience of ages in the hope that
our new experiment is to advance human improvement?
Eastern female seminaries. These objections about the "physi-
cal strain" are in point only if the same college course is enjoined
upon every young lady. Even when "an army must grade its
march to the weakest battalion" it need not oblige artillery and
light infantry to carry the same weight!
But Dr. Todd answers his own objection on the score of physi-
cal strain, by asserting that young ladies do not need to go to col-
leges, for there are “seminaries of a high order-one in almost
every town"-for them. If these require an equal course of
study, then the strain is equal; and his objection is really an ob-
jection to the existing female seminaries, like that at Pittsfield.
If they do not, then his argument that the opening of the colleges
is not needed is nil.
The simple fact is, that many young ladies can bear the
long strain"-whether in seminary or college, that many do not
desire the lighter accomplishments which Dr. Todd exalts as
more appropriate for women than the higher studies, but prefer
these last,—and that these young ladies are numerous enough to
warrant,—not compelling them to go through the college course,
nor opening all the colleges to them,—but giving them an equal
opportunity with young men. The day is not far distant when it
will seem incredible that this ever needed any argument in its
favor. And the more widely this equal opportunity is opened to
them, and American collegiate education ceases in the main to be
<L
'lob-sided,” the more numerous this class of young ladies will be
found to be.―College Courant, Oct 28, 1871.
1
182
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
The whole system of dormitories and boarding must be
altered. The girls must go out evenings and debate in
the societies. Shall they join the secret societies? If
not, do they have all the rights of the young men?
where will you begin to tear down and fit the dormito-
ries? I only ask the question.
7. Provided you say that woman can bear the wear
and strain of the College course, and you want her to be
educated like men and with men, what about the gym-
nasium—is she to perform there? What about the boat
club, is she to be shut out of the delightful training and
struggling in the boat-race? I only ask in my igno-
rance; for if you try to make her a college student, I
can't see why she must not be one! Is she any way in-
ferior to her brother? May she not smoke the cigar in
the street as well as he? Why not?
Once more. For the widely separated duties of life
-which, by laws unalterable, must be separated-is it
certain, or even probable, that it will be any advantage.
to either sex to change the whole organic structure of
our colleges in order that this experiment may be made?
It does not meet the case to cite the experience of child-
hood. We all agree that in childhood, in the nursery,
so long as they are under the mother's eye, they should
be educated together, but the question is, when the days
of flirtation have arrived-when the thoughts of the
young naturally and strongly flow towards one point-
when the passions are strong and the will weak, and the
judgment inexperienced, is it wise to bring the two sexes
together in the college?
The institution that does that must take a wide de-
parture from its own organization and become "lob-
sided "—or am I mistaken?
$
1
XV..
ON THE WAY TO COLLEGE.*
BY T. W. HIGGINSON
HE old soldier in "Bleak House," Mr. Bagnet, al-
THE
ways takes his wife's advice in the end, but never
tells her so. "Discipline," he says, "must be maintain-
ed." It is in much the same way that Harvard Univer-
sity yields to the demands of women for entrance.
"Go
round to the side door, my daughter," says Alma Mater,
"and we will see what we can do for you. Perhaps
there may be a little cold food for you in the Divinity
School or elsewhere, if taken on the sly and nothing said.
But so long as you persist in knocking at the front door
you must remain outside of it."
For instance, I was told by one of the overseers that
at the examination of the Divinity School a young lady
appeared among the students, apparently a member of
the school. She was, it seemed, the daughter of a Bos-
ton clergyman, and was herself preparing for the minis-
try. She was questioned like the other students by the
professors, and answered as well as anybody. She pur-
sued the same studies, attended the same lectures, used
the same library, and would ultimately go forth to the
same duties. But could her name appear in the cata-
* From the Woman's Journal, Feb., 1871.
184
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
logue? By no means.
tained."
"Discipline must be main
Again, it was mentioned some time since in this jour-
nal, that a young lady had quietly availed herself in the
same way of the mathematical classes for undergradu-
ates. She had recited in University Hall, where most of
the recitations are held-she had gone to and fro among
hundreds of young men, and had been, of course, treated
with all respect. To all intents and purposes she was a
collegian, except in one respect; she got into the recita-
tion-room, but she could not get into the catalogue!
Why not? It could only be because discipline must be
maintained.
Again, it is well understood that the University lec-
tures are chiefly attended by women-ninety to sixty-
five. It is understood that the very professors who
pooh-poohed their attendance are perfectly willing to
take their fees. Last year their names appeared in
the catalogue; this year they have disappeared again;
but it is something to have had them there once. What
is that magic in a catalogue, that final obstacle of a
piece of paper, which still holds out after the substantial
things have been conquered? If this "young univer-
sity," as President Eliot bravely calls it, can stand the
ordeal of actually teaching women, why can it not stand
the ordeal of publicly owning the fact. There is not
more reason for doing it and yet concealing it than there
would be for retaining Madame Boylston's picture in the
college picture-gallery, but turning its face to the wall.
As the matter stands, no woman's name appears in
the one hundred and eighteen pages of the Harvard Cat-
alogue, except that of a lady who was very properly
appointed as one of the judges of prize dissertations
written by the senior class. If a woman is worthy to sit
ON THE WAY TO COLLEGE.
185
in judgment on the literary work performed by these
sacred and exalted youths, cannot a woman be deemed
worthy to sit and do literary work beside them? The
Bagnet theory of discipline is gone forever, it seems;
and there is no use in trying to maintain its traditions in
Harvard University.
The whole tendency of women is toward collegiate
education. A few years ago the summer reports of Com-
mencement exercises made no more reference to women
than if there were no such sex. But each year now sees
them more and more introduced, by way of example or
of warning. All our colleges manifest uneasy consciences.
At the late meeting of the alumni of Williams College, a
committee was appointed to confer with the trustees in
regard to admitting women. A similar committee was
proposed last year, at Brown University, by Dr. G. S.
Howe and Hon. F. W. Bird. Whether anything ever
came of this does not appear. But at Bates College in
Maine the thing has gone further, and the President
boasts, in his annual address, that we know no sect,
and, what is more, we know no sex."
As for the Western colleges, they seem to be going
with a steady sweep, and with Western frankness, in the
same direction. That lively monthly newspaper in blue
covers, Old and New, atones for many of its shortcom-
ings on "the woman question" by collecting facts so
satisfactory on this subject. The July number has am
ple information in regard to the successful admission of
women, on equal terms, into Michigan University, Wis-
consin University, the Lawrence University at Appleton,
Wis., Indiana University, and the St. Lawrence Univer-
sity, at Canton, N. Y. All of these reports agree that
the average scholarship of the young women is as good
as that of the young men ; and that their influence is
186
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
good, not evil, and that no sort of trouble followed their
admission. Is human nature different at the East and at
the West? and is there anything in New England life to
make boys less courteous or more brutal?
I have just received a letter from a father who has
applied in vain to have his daughter admitted at Cam-
bridge. He is a man who has fitted class after class of
boys to enter there; and now, having fitted his own
daughter, he finds her excluded. "I cannot see," he
writes, "why my child must be exiled to Michigan Uni-
versity for an education simply for the crime of being a
girl instead of a boy."*
* It must never be forgotten that the conditions of women's edu-
cation are so different in England and in America, that it is hardly
possible to compare them. In England the education of girls is
proceeding from above downwards, in every sense; here, from
below upwards. Girls of the highest social position are those
best educated; in America it is just the other way, since the girls
of the middle classes (if we have any) receive a far better educa-
tion in high schools and normal schools than the daughters of
more exclusive families obtain. In England, the strong point is
the university system, and the best hope of the schools, public or
private, is that the university examinations may give vigor and
life to them. In America, our universities are far less developed
in their sphere than our public schools in theirs. If it were pos-
sible to combine the strong points of both systems, and to furnish
for the English university examinations such a class of trained
pupils as our high and normal schools afford, there would be a
vast step taken in the education of women. And what with the
new school system of England on the one side, and the gradual
opening of American universities to women on the other, it is pos-
sible that the next twenty years may see this combination brought
to pass on both sides of the Atlantic.- Woman's Journal, Feb. 24,
1872.
XVI,
THE SEXES IN COLLEGES.*
THE
HE admission of women to our colleges and uni-
versities is, if not the most important educational
problem yet to be solved, at least the most pressing and
the most clamorous for an immediate solution. It hangs
closely together with the question of female suffrage, and
indeed may almost be said to depend upon that; for, if
women are once admitted to vote, there will be little likeli-
hood of their being long excluded from college classes, and
if, on the other hand, the suffrage is still denied them, it
will be largely on grounds which will be equally weighty
against the reform in question. Still the separation of
the sexes in education has nothing to do with any alleged
inferiority of the one to the other-hardly, indeed,
with any difference in “
difference in "sphere;" for all agree as to giv-
ing women as good an education as men, and an identi-
cal one if they desire it. And in those institutions which
are designed to complement college education such as
the university courses at Cambridge, no objection is
made to the admission of ladies, and no mischief can
result.
The subject of co-education in colleges and universi-
ties must be regarded from two points of view—that of
the character and demeanor of the students, and that
of their intellectual training. In the courses just spoken
From The Nation, No. 244.
188
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
of, intellectual considerations are the only ones, as the
students are supposed to be old enough and mature
enough to look after themselves. The lecturers have no
responsibility but to give their best; it is for the hearer
to determine whether it meets his or her wants. But the
college has higher aims than mere intellectual training—
to turn out well developed men, in both intellect and
character; and it is the essential feature of a college that
it assumes the responsibility of the student's entire
development. Any college, therefore, before making
so radical a change as that proposed must satisfy itself
that it is ready to assume this added responsibility;
that it feels prepared to turn out as good members of
society, men and women, as it could men alone or women
alone. The assumption that it is "natural" or "right
in itself" has nothing to do with it; the sole question is
as to the results, and that not merely or mainly in secur-
ing good discipline and good lessons, but in producing
manly men and womanly women, fitted to do the work
of life in their generation. President Eliot, for the
Faculty of Harvard College, frankly says that they are
not prepared to assume this responsibility; and, so long
as this is the case, the question of duty is settled for
them.
The colleges are distinguished from those institutions
of higher culture which are able to make a certain pro-
vision for women, by the fundamental fact that they
take the young man at the most critical period of his
youth, and retain the entire control of him for a period
long enough to form his character, and give his mind
the training he needs in order to prepare him for the
work of life. This is what the American colleges under-
take to do, and, with all their defects, they may claim a
fair degree of success; the college graduates as a class
THE SEXES IN COLLEGES.
189
are not unworthy of the pains and expense that have been
bestowed upon them. There are two other classes of
institutions which appear to possess a considerable anal-
ogy to colleges in this respect-the high schools and the
normal schools—both of which, in very large proportion,
are composed of students of both sexes, and of nearly
the same age as college students. In what essential
point do these differ from colleges? It seems at first
sight that the normal schools especially present a com-
plete analogy to them, and that the entire success of the
experiment in these gives good reason to expect equal
success in colleges. It will be found, however, we believe,
that this analogy is not complete. The normal schools
lack the essential features of the colleges. They are not
established to make men and women, but school-teach-
ers; the students are, on the average, not far from the
age of the higher college classes, but they go to the
school with the definite purpose of fitting themselves for
a special work, not with the vague desire of being dis-
ciplined into manhood. The school authorities, to be
sure, have their rules, and maintain more or less super-
vision over the demeanor of the students; but this dis-
cipline is wholly subsidiary to the professional training,
not itself an end. And as to the high schools, they are
simply the last and highest grade of our mixed common
schools, touching upon the lower edge of the college
course, as the normal schools do upon the upper.
And what is more essential still, the scholars of the
public schools live at home, and are under the care and
responsibility of their parents, looking to the school
only for intellectual instruction. Now, it is precisely
here, where the colleges differ essentially from the high
schools, that we find the weak point of college discipline.
It is right that a time should come when the boy shall
190
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
I
1
leave home and learn to rely on himself, leaving behind.
him the constant and watchful control of his parents,
and having in place of it only the indirect and general
influence of the college. This is just what he needs at
the right time; but it is in the impossibility of knowing
in each individual case just when the right time has
come that the dangers of college life chiefly consist. The
boy goes from home, passes four years in the compara-
tive freedom of college life, and leaves the college walls
Are we prepared to have our girls do the same
thing? Many a boy is wrecked in his course, many a
one stumbles and recovers himself; but a girl cannot
retrace a false step as her brother can. For her, once to
a man.
fall is ruin.
It is here that the peculiar difficulties of co-education
in colleges appear to reside; and it was from a consid-
eration of these, no doubt, that Horace Mann, as we are
told, insisted so strenuously upon the dormitory system
as essential to success in a mixed college. That is, the
freedom which young men enjoy with safety and profit
will not do for young women of the same age and on
professedly the same footing. In this he was probably
right; a college will not undertake this peculiar respon-
sibility for girls away from home, except by retaining a
much more constant control than they care to exercise
over boys. But is not this really admitting that not
only a real equality of the sexes in college education has
never been tried, but we are afraid to try it? If every
girl lived under her father's roof, it would be different.
There could then be no objection to mixed classes-none,
that is, from the point we are now considering; it is in
the fact that the college assumes a responsibility which
it has not adequate means of maintaining that the dan-
ger lies; for we see no more harm in girls and boys
THE SEXES IN COLLEGES.
191
meeting in the class-room and lecture-room than in
sleigh-rides and parties.
We have spoken only of the moral aspect of the
question, and that side of it which has to do with the
special dangers arising from the sexual relation; because
this is the first and most essential point of view in which
to regard it. We have seen that the analogies from
other kinds of educational institutions do not apply here,
for the reason that the aim and the circumstances differ.
No experience can be conclusive except where these are
the same; we must, therefore, fall back after all upon
the limited experience of Oberlin and Antioch, and other
less known institutions in the West. With regard to
these, it must be admitted that the evidence of experi-
ence is favorable in this point; we believe that they
have been as free from scandal and moral danger as the
average of institutions for girls alone-certainly far
more so than many girls' boarding-schools. On the
other hand, it cannot be denied that the community.
appears to have lost confidence in this feature of these
institutions, as is shown in some interesting statistics
lately given in a series of papers in the College Courant.
We pass over those which relate to Antioch, for the
reason that the financial embarrassments and suspension
of that institution may be fairly presumed to have
affected it in this respect. As to Oberlin, it is shown
that the proportion of girls in the college classes has
steadily decreased from one-fourth to one-fifteenth; that
of the nine present members (against one hundred and
thirty-five men), three belong to Ohio, all of these resi-
dents of Oberlin itself; while a separate "Ladies' De-
partment" contains one hundred and seventy; and eight
Ohio girls are members of the college classes of the dis-
tant and expensive Vassar College. These remarkable
•
7
192
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
figures certainly seem to show a falling off of the demand
for education in mixed colleges, from whatever cause it
may be.
We suspect that the real cause is that the young
ladies do not, after all, wish for the same education with
young men; and while we fully believe that, if they do
wish for the same, they ought to have it, we as fully
believe that, in nine cases out of ten, they had better not
have it. Very few girls can do, without breaking down
physically, the intellectual work which their more robust.
brothers can safely undertake. And even if they could,
we cannot but believe that a quite different training is
required to fit the members of the different sexes for the
diverse work that will necessarily fall to their lot.
Where they feel called upon to undertake the same
work, they should have the same training; but this is
professional training, and we have already pointed out
the wide distinction between the professional school and
the college. In the professional schools we see no reason
that much of the preparation for the same work should
not be made in company.
We have not touched, however, upon a point which
is made much of in arguments upon this subject-the
mutual influence of the sexes in their co-education.
Apart from the serious moral dangers which we have
already considered, there seems no doubt that, in regard
to the demeanor of the students, the mixed colleges are
under no disadvantage. More than this is often claimed
-that the female influence is necessarily refining and
elevating. But this depends upon other things. Noth-
ing is more healthy for a young man at this critical age
than the society of cultivated ladies. We do not know
that we can say as much for that of school-girls. It is
only by constant watchfulness that the intercourse of
THE SEXES IN COLLEGES.
193
school-girls and boys can be kept from downright rude-
ness; so that we should say only that under good man-
agement the influence of the sexes may be good upon
one another; under bad management, it will be un-
equivocally bad.
Intellectually, we should pass a different judgment.
Girls as students are quick, faithful, and intelligent; but
they have loose habits of thought, and are prone to be
mere book-students. It is an unmixed good for them to
be brought in contact with the freer and, at the same
time, closer habits of reasoning of the boys; while their
perfect knowledge of their lessons serves to stimulate
their rivals to faithful application. Nor is there much
danger of the influence being the other way, and each
sex acquiring the bad habits of the other; for each rec-
ognizes the other's points of superiority, and the women
especially feel that it is mainly from this masculine qual-
ity of mind the long supremacy of the male sex has re-
sulted.
We have given the reasons which make us incline to
the opinion that the experiment of mixed colleges is not
likely to be a success. At the same time, it must be
remembered that it is still an experiment, and whoever
has real faith in it possesses so far a chief condition of
success. We hope that trials will continue to be made,
until it is an experiment no longer. We have so much
confidence that it would be an intellectual benefit to
women, that we should be sincerely glad if it should be
found practicable to unite the classes so far as the
studies cover the same ground. But whether this move-
ment is to go on or is to die out by degrees, there is, we
are confident, one condition to a successful union of the
sexes in college classes-a policy of sympathy and trust
rather than of suspicion. If it is safe for girls and boys
9
194
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
to be together, let those who have the control of them
be men who heartily believe so, and show that they
believe it. If there is danger of mischief, the surest way
to make the mischief come is to be constantly expecting
it. Nobody expects girls to have the same freedom as
boys when they are sent from home to be educated.
They are of necessity subjected to rules and hours from
which boys may safely be free; and this circumstance,
while it shows the futility of expecting a real and genu-
ine equality of the two sexes in the same institution, has
also this evil effect, that the girls who are promised
equality of treatment, and expect it-ignorant as they
are of the dangers of their new life, and ambitious for
their sex-chafe against restraints which they would not
mind if they were by themselves, and by this again
become unwittingly the instruments of their own dis-
appointment.
XVII.
SHALL GIRLS HAVE COLLEGES ?*
WH
HAT reason is there in the nature of things why
girls should not have equal facilities for educa-
tion with boys; and since a college education is consid-
ered desirable for the latter, why should it not be for
the former? It may be admitted that the precise curric-
ulum would not suit both cases; but with the modifica-
tions which good sense would suggest as to the course
of study, why should there not be colleges for girls?
The two reasons ordinarily given are first, that the
bringing together of a large number of girls would
have an injurious effect on their characters; and second,
that they do not require the time and expense which a
college course involves, on account of their avocations
in life.
As to the first objection, it applies to boys about as
well as to girls. Some people are alarmed at the bad
influence of boys on each other, and we have shocking
accounts of the sayings and doings of these bipeds in
college. In point of fact, however, the morals of col-
legians are superior, very far superior, to those of boys
employed in any other way. Shop boys and those
learning trades are by no means superior in moral char-
acter to collegians, and with them there is generally
*From The Williams Review, Oct., 1871.
196
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
none of the restraining influence of public sentiment
which operates so powerfully in college. A shop boy
may be conceited, and false, and even dishonest, and
keep his secret until it crops out in life; when the same
qualities in college would be detected very soon, and per-
haps be regenerated. As for the grosser vices, if coun-
ter-jumpers and apprentices and young men who are
educated alone do not find them out, who does?
It is often remarked that girls who are educated at
boarding-schools are injuriously affected, and we have
stories of tattling, and secret letter-writing, and bad
novels, and stolen interviews, and even vicious habits;
but the same thing may be said of boys. Of all the hot-
beds of corruption, commend us to certain boarding-
schools for boys, where in addition to being half-starved,
they learn from some leading spirit every conceivable
wickedness. It is, in fact, because there are so few of
them in each school, that their intercourse is injurious.
A bad fellow in such a place can poison the whole num-
ber, and they get so thoroughly infected with his nasti-
ness that it may require years for its eradication. In
college, where there are a large number together, there
is a public sentiment which as a general thing is right.
There may be meanness and folly, but there are also
manliness and good sense. There will be sneaks and
liars, but they are at a discount and are put down by fel-
lows of honorable instincts, who speak and act the truth.
The fact is, that where there are a large number together
the average sentiment is more apt to be elevated than
where there are but few. In the former case one bad
man can work a good deal of mischief; his influence
in the latter is distributed over a larger surface, and is
met by the counter influence of good fellows. In every
decent community, the sneaks are in a minority.
SHALL GIRLS HAVE COLLEGES?
197
This reasoning will not meet the difficulty of those
who think that girls should be educated exclusively at
home. Here, too, it is not uncommon for a distinction
to be made which is without a difference. It is gene-
rally admitted that, although a boy may be as well or
better instructed by a tutor alone so far as mere book-
learning is concerned, he cannot, in fact, be so well
educated in broad and liberal views and in regard to
character, as when he is brought in contact with others.
He may become very learned, and yet be a "sappy"
after all. A great man once said to a young person of
this kind who came to London : "You are quite learned,
you have read a great deal, you have studied hard, but
you don't know anything." The same people who con-
tend for aggregate education for boys deny its benefits
to girls, or rather they contend that the evil influences
on their characters more than balance any additional
advantages. This may be so. It is a fair subject for
discussion. But it is to be considered that the experi-
ment has hardly been fairly tried as yet. The difference
between the ordinary boarding-schools of the present
day, and colleges presided over by men and women of
ability, with the supervision of boards of trustees and
under the immediate criticism of the public, and with
large numbers as at Vassar, is too marked to require an
argument.
As to the second reason why girls should not have col-
leges, namely, that they do not need the education thus
furnished, we are rather suspicious of the stereotyped
jokes about marriage and the rearing of children and
managing a household. The object of education is
mental and moral discipline. If this be not needed in
the lives which women are to lead, where is it needed?
In intellectual cultivation, who is more called on for
198
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
1
clevernesss of thought and vigor of expression than the
mother? Who has more occasion to compare, combine
and arrange than the manager of a household? In
moral culture who has more need of it than woman in
every part of her life, especially if she be yoked with a
drunkard, or has a harsh, overbearing and tyrannical
husband? "But what is the use of teaching a girl alge-
bra, and surveying, and Latin, and Greek?" What is
the use of teaching a boy the same things? Of what
practical use will they be? Is he necessarily to be a
surveyor or a schoolmaster ?
The practical use is, that the study of these and like
things tend to enlarge and strengthen the moral and in-
tellectual powers, and this is as necessary sub modo for
women as for men. It may be of no consequence that
the former should be able to read Tacitus in the origi-
nal, or be able to survey a field, or to point out the dis-
tinction between Locke and Kant, or to discuss intelli-
gently the moral questions in dispute between President
Hopkins and Professor Bascom; but it is of importance
that she be able to think clearly, that she should be
sound in her judgments, and able to hold wise converse
with those she meets. An ignorant woman may make
a kind mother, and a cultivated one may not manage
her household with a firm hand; and so among men, a
wretched brawler may sometimes overcome in debate a
man of education. A demagogue may have his way
for a season, but the time will come when his career
receives full check at the hands of men of education
and moral character. The chances are that a woman
of culture will perform her duties better than one who
is illiterate. Even in the kitchen, intellectual power
will show itself. Bridget, by following the rules, may
make a good pudding, but her educated mistress not
SHALL GIRLS HAVE COLLEGES ?
199
only can do this, but she can on an emergency invent a
new one. Moreover, the labors of the kitchen are not
mere physical drudgery to her, but are relieved, and
in a sense, glorified, by a familiarity with literature and
art, and by a sense of intellectual superiority. When
Burns was beaten in a reaping match, he exclaimel in
tones of triumph, "But, Jamie, I wrote a song while I
reaped."*
* Is it not time for us to ask, Are we educating our young
women justly, wisely, rationally? Is there not some monstrous
mistake about our system, when an education is no help at all to-
ward earning a living, but perhaps rather a hindrance? Can we
not, and ought we not, so to instruct them that, for all the purposes
of life, and in every position, the educated woman shall be worth
more than the uneducated? Ought they not so to learn the prin-
ciples of caloric and combustion that they can use fuel more ece-
nomically; so to learn chemistry and physiology as to select and
prepare food wisely; ought they not to understand the laws of
light and of color, and the principles of correct taste, so as to be
able to produce for themselves or for others the best effects, the
finest combination in dress; and, more than all, ought not a true
education to render every woman, in whatever sphere, more pru-
dent, more systematic, more economical of time, more fertile of
expedients? (And, in trying to show what education ought to do
for women, have I not delineated exactly what it does not do ?)—
Rev. H. L. Wayland in Independent, 1867.
XVIII.
COLLEGES FOR BOTH.*
THE
HE Williams College Review does not quite ap-
prove the idea of having girls and boys educated
in the same colleges. It would spoil the colleges for the
boys, and give the girls a poorer education than they
could get in institutions of their own, to put the two into
the same play-ground and through the same course of
instruction together. Moreover the best part of the
college discipline comes from the association of the stu-
dents with each other, and even hazing has its uses, and
will be administered to the mind if not to the body.
The attrition of rough, conceited, uncouth personalities
would prove injurious to girls, while the hazing-even
though not administered to their persons-would lacer-
ate and embitter their souls. This, and more in the same
strain.
All of which is sophistical as well can be. The rea-
son college boys are so rough, boorish and bad-that
they so often contract habits of dissipation and vice at
college that they so often become hard, self-seeking, un-
principled men-is that the four years of life in which
they are most susceptible to impressions and plastic to
social influences, they are practicably shut away from
the refining and purifying and sweetening society of
young women, and left entirely to the companionship of
* From The Golden Age, Nov. 1871.
COLLEGES FOR BOTH.
201
rough, boorish boys who delight in playing mad pranks,
and cultivate inhumanity by administering all sorts of
torture upon each other. The reason that so many col-
lege graduates are deficient in the finer traits and
gentler qualities of mind, and the sympathies which en-
rich human nature and the affections which are the
crown and beauty of character, is that they are
educated with members of their own sex exclusively,
and have had all that is tender, lovely and humane,
beaten out of them by associating with the roughs
and rowdies gathered there. The one thing our colleges
need for the moral and affectional training of the young
men who are educated in them is an equal number of
young women to infuse a new element of life and influ-
ence of character into all the exercises and recreations,
and call out what is sweetest and most truly human in
the young men's minds. Harvard has a professorship
of the heart occupied by a man; three hundred young
women in that University would render such a chair
superfluous, and afford the young men a heart-culture
that no learned professor can give even the alphabet of.
And the young women-for whom our Williams con-
temporary has so much sympathy-need just that disci-
pline and criticism it is so fearful they will receive.
Really it makes the strongest argument for the educa-
tion of the sexes together, when it simply tells how the
students act upon each other, taking the nonsense out
of each other's heads and the conceit out of each other's
hearts. The standing criticism of even our cultivated
women is that they are effeminate. They lack the
strength, the vigor and discipline of mind, the knowl-
edge of men and things, the sharpness and shrewdness.
which come from just the sort of training a good college
gives its students. They would not be one whit the
9*
202
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
less womanly for having the vanity, the conceit, the friv-
olity, the nonsense pruned away from their minds.
Womanliness is not such a frail and precarious element
as some people seem to imagine, that it is endangered
by association with manliness and can be bowled or
ciphered out of a woman's constitution. Educate the
sexes together and they will be fitted to work together
in every field of industry, every department of philan-
thropy, as well as in home which, to be the heaven it
was designed, must be built by the united endeavors and
mutual love of two equal souls. So long as boys and
girls are born in the same family, and play in the same
nursery, and together constitute the beauty and joy of
the same household, they should be trained together for
the duties and cares and the pleasures of the life which
is beautiful, successful, and grand only when man and
woman join their hands and hearts to make it so.
1
XIX.
SHALL WE ADMIT WOMEN?
W¹
HILE heartily endorsing any plan which shall
truly place at the disposal of women, as well as
men, the means of obtaining such culture and discipline
as shall enable them to put their talents to the best pos-
sible use, and give to their powers the freest possible
play, we cannot bring ourselves to believe that the exi-
gencies of the case demand the immediate and unqualified
admission of women to this college.
The question is simply one of expediency, not of nat-
ural or abstract right. Amherst College was never in-
tended for the education of females. Neither in the foun-
dation of the college, nor in the establishment of its pro-
fessorships; neither in the erection and arrangement of
its buildings, nor its course of study, as originally laid
down, nor in the changes and improvements, whether in
the curriculum or in the general administration of the col-
lege, whereby its usefulness has been enhanced and its
character and standing elevated, have the peculiar wants
and requirements of women been taken into considera-
tion. Therefore the college is not the best place for
their highest development. Widely different educational
means and methods ought to be employed in fitting men
aud women for totally different spheres of duty and use-
fulness.
* From the Amherst Student, Oct., 1871.
204
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
To render this college, then, a proper place for the
co-education of the sexes, many radical and expensive
changes must be made. We all know that the needs of
the college, even now, are not fully met, owing to lack
of funds; and to impose any additional burden upon our
Alma Mater, will be to seriously retard her progress,
hamper her strength, and cripple her energies.
It is claimed that the present system of education is
false in theory and unnatural in its workings; and that
the coeducation of the sexes will be a return to the nor-
mal condition of affairs, of which normal condition the
family is the best representative; but it is hardly con-
ceivable that by any such means as the admission of
women into men's colleges, the restraining, refining, and
ennobling influences of home life will ever be brought to
bear, any more than at present, upon young men in
process of education.
No such intimacy or friendship, as now exists among
classmates, could or would be encouraged or permitted
between students of different sex. We would inevitably
be placed under stricter surveillance, our actions would
be more sharply scrutinized and our privileges materially
abridged. A slight change for the better, as regards
rowdyism, immorality, and unscholarly conduct, might
possibly ensue; but such a result is by no means prob-
able. Why delude ourselves with the notion that the
presence of females whose approbation should act as a
stimulus and incentive to right action, would prevent a
single student from becoming, or remaining a spend-
thrift, a drunkard, or a debauchee, when the love for
mother, sister or friend fails to restrain him.
Advantages for the higher education of girls, are by
no means so meagre or insufficient as many would have
us believe. When Vassar College has proved such a suc-
SHALL WE ADMIT WOMEN?
205
cess, and similar institutions are being endowed in va-
rious parts of the country, why clamor for the admittance
of women to our colleges? Are not such institutions as
South Hadley, the Smith Female College, at Northamp-
ton, and the Simmons Female College, to be erected in
Boston, with an endowment of three millions of dollars,
likely to meet the wants of this horde of thirsty knowl-
edge-seekers, so far as our own State, at least, is con-
cerned, for some time to come?
The majority of the members of this college are stu-
dents and not triflers, gentlemen and not rowdies. As
gentlemen and students, then, we object to the introduc-
tion of women among us as being unfair and unneces-
sary. If the Trustees shall deem it best to make the ex-
periment, and women shall finally enter the college, they
need fear no such reception as they would be likely to
meet from Philadelphia medical students, but may rest
assured that they will be treated with respect and cour-
tesy, by those who are not yet prepared, as are the Wil-
liams students, "to welcome them with open arms.
XX.
THE OTHER SIDE:---A REPLY.*
FIRST, you say: "We should inevitably be placed
under stricter surveillance, our actions would be
more sharply scrutinized, and our privileges materially
abridged." One unacquainted with the peculiarities of
a college community would be at a loss to understand
what "surveillance" or "scrutiny," unknown to all
mixed society, would be made necessary, or what" privi-
leges," which true gentlemen desire, would be "abridg-
ed" by the presence of women. Is it our religious privi-
leges? Certainly women are as good as men.
Is it our
intellectual privileges? Surely women are mentally
capable of studying side by side with men in any ordi-
nary college course. What, then, are the privileges that
the presence of women in our college would take from
us? This question has been answered. What you in-
timate, a speaker upon the college stage has recently
stated with great plainness of speech. The privileges
which would be taken from us are the very same which
our parents, our friends, the Faculty, and the trustees
have been for years trying to induce us to forego. The
privilege of abusing innocent Freshmen, the privilege
of destroying college property, the privilege of making
night dreadful with hideous noises, the privilege of
M
* From the Amherst Student, Nov., 1871.
THE OTHER SIDE.-A REPLY.
207
transforming a literary society into an organized mob,
the privilege of screaming our insults at the women who
visit our cabinets or even ride through our grounds, and
the privilege of being sent home in disgrace-these, for-
sooth, are the "privileges" which would be "materially
abridged " by the admission of women to our monastic
community. Be assured, gentlemen editors, there are
at least twenty men in Amherst College who will wel-
come with unbounded joy that saving element which
will "materially abridge" such "privileges" as these,
even though it be accomplished only by a "stricter sur-
veillance" and a "sharper scrutiny." Yet we believe
this longed for abridgment would be brought about, not
by any unnatural means or tyrannical rules, but by those
innate principles of propriety which govern every mixed
community. At our homes young men and maidens be-
tween the ages of eighteen and twenty-five are subject
to no restrictions, save those which, from the tacit con-
sent of society, are a part of its universal code. These
very rules, so well understood by every intelligent
youth, would be sufficient not only to insure good beha-
vior under the new regimé, but also to abolish by their
potent influences those offences against law and order
which Faculty and Trustees are alike powerless to cor-
rect.
Again, you affirm: "A slight change for the better,
as regards immorality, might possibly ensue, but such a
result is by no means probable.” And upon what do
you base this extraordinary proposition? Why, upon
the assumption that what the absent woman's love fails
to effect, her present influence would not accomplish.
Now it is this restraining influence of woman's presence
for which we are contending; this is the very point at
issue. Many a student will resist all the checks which
1
208
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
family affection can throw around him while he is absent
from home, whom the presence of impersonated refine-
ment and purity will improve and elevate. There are
few who possess a love which absence will not weaken,
and this few need help least of all. For the sake of the
thoughtless many who constantly need restraint, we ask
for the presence of women in our midst. We believe it
is not only possible, but certain, that her presence would
effect a complete reformation in many of those immor-
alities which now disgrace our college.
From the earliest times every step in the advance-
ment of woman has benefited our own sex no less than it
has elevated her. Slowly she has wrought her way from
an abject position to one which commands the admira-
tion of all right thinking people. She has demonstrated
her power to adorn and to elevate every sphere into
which she has been admitted. Society, literature, and
art could not dispense with her own peculiar talent. We
believe that in education also she has a yet more im-
portant place to occupy than has yet been assigned her.
Twenty students firmly believe that her coming will
"materially abridge" our dangerous privileges. She
will prevail where College Law is a failure. "For what
the law could not do in that it was weak," she, coming
to us in all the strength of purity, will speedily accom-
plish.
XXI.
THE ARGUMENT FOR CO-EDUCATION.*
BY PROFESSOR BASCOM, OF WILLIAMS COLLEGE.
SEP
EPARATE Female Colleges proceed almost always
on the idea that the same grade of intellectual dis-
cipline is not called for in the training of young women
as of young men. They in the outset theoretically ac-
cept, and practically still farther accept, the view that
female education is to put forth freely on the southern
side of accomplishments, and send out only a few
branches in the rugged northern quarters of thorough
knowledge and solid reflection. Institutions, with even
this limited idea, are wanting, and if they were ready,
they are unfit for their work. They concede inferiority
of relation, assume superficiality as a desirable result,
and play into the state of society built upon this theory.
It is well nigh impossible to make a Female College as
complete and thorough in its course as are even the
majority of Male Colleges. There is a presumption as
well as a wish in the mind of the public against it; a
position on the faculty of such an institution is not cov-
eted by men of the best ability. The entire experience
of the past, its associations and prestige are gathered
about colleges for the training of men. So true is this,
* From the Minority Report made to the Alumni of Williams
College, June, 1872.
210
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
that a deep-seated feeling against the admission of wo-
men is found in the latent conviction, that the standard
of scholarship and cultivation would thereupon fall away,
that there cannot be a co-education of the sexes without
a reduction of attainments. The public is jealous of the
fidelity and adequacy of its male institutions, and but
slightly observant of its seminaries and Female Colleges.
A certain rank, a fixed method, a standard result, are
pre-determined necessities in every good college, and
this strength of interest and cogency of public senti-
ment cannot, for many years, if ever, be gathered about
purely female institutions. Compare Mt. Holyoke, in
some respects the first of female schools, standing in
many important particulars alone as a competitor for
popular favor, with any one of many colleges, in the
public attention, support, and interest it elicits. An
educational force cannot in many years be independ-
ently secured equivalent to that at our immediate dis-
posal in our present college system. In fact, it is im-
possible for us to establish and sustain a second series
equal to the first. The theory which leads to two meth-
ods precludes it, and the poverty of human resources
forbids it. So long as men are educated in distinct col-
leges, these will and must be superior to those devoted
to women in all that pertains to thorough education and
public enthusiasm.
But it will be said, in objection to this argument of
the immediate, realized, and sufficient power at our dis-
posal in the institutions already established, that the
form of education is not adapted to women; that young
men and young women do not require the same disci-
pline; that one or the other must be sacrificed in joint
education; that if young women receive absolutely less
3
1
THE ARGUMENT FOR CO-EDUCATION.
211
in their own schools, they receive relatively more in re-
ceiving what is adapted to their wants.
In the first place, this is an answer we never give to
a young man. We never say to him, the idiosyncra-
cies of your mind require a different discipline from what
we are giving in our college; you must go elsewhere.
We more frequently say, we regard our institution as
offering the best conditions for a general training of the
human mind; we shall be glad to have you enjoy them.
The same language addressed to a young woman would
be just as true and just as apt. That which strengthens
one mind strengthens another, and if men are often
turned aside too soon from general knowledge and dis-
cipline to narrow and special ends, women are yet more
often thus diverted. It is this precocity, this poverty
and haste that we deprecate in female education. This
it is which keeps the eye too sharply bent on current
social distinctions, fitting the pupil to play a limited and
conventional part in life. Thus at Vassar Greek is an
infrequent option. What is the result? The graduates
of that institution are not prepared to take charge even
of our high schools. They cannot fit young men for col-
lege. They must begin at once, in this chosen branch
of female industry, not only to drop off from the higher
departments of instruction, but from all that leads to
them. Women may swarm in the district school, the
grammar school, but they thin out and insensibly disap-
pear when we mount so high as the instruction of a lad
of sixteen in the preliminaries of a college course.
Wo-
men cannot hold their own in education on such degrad-
ing terms as these. They must be able to rank with the
best, or occupy a position, suffering the constant dispar-
agement of an unfavorable comparison. But, you say,
add Greek to the course. Yes, add it, and so add every
212
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
men.
other study, and thus it remains no longer a fact that one
curriculum belongs to one sex and another to the other.
Neither in the theory of mental discipline, nor in meet-
ing the daily wants of life, is it true that the course of
our colleges is excessive and superfluous for young wo-
If it be true that it is so for a portion of them, it
is not less true that it is also superfluous for many young
men. Liberty is just as good for the one sex as it is for the
other. Some young women do wish exactly this college
course, and this we should be glad to give them. Here
is the most thorough instruction which we have yet
attained to, fully established and surrounded by every
auxiliary, and it is an outrage to say to one who seeks
it, you are a woman, it would not benefit you. Lan-
guage may be more contemptuous in form, but never
more contemptuous in substance than this. It is not
possible generally and at once to reproduce elsewhere.
the advantages of these established colleges, established
in spirit and regimen, and we shall hardly deal honestly
with the question before us if we fail to acknowledge it.
We must, therefore, open this best and highest in
human thought to women, or be able boldly to say,
"these tings are not for you; less will serve your turn
better than more."
It may be said that, at Oberlin, where co-education
has long existed, very few women complete the course.
It is not to be expected that a community should at once
or extensively avail themselves of a new and higher
education. Such a change in discipline must involve a
corresponding change in ideas a modification of social
ambitions, and a relaxation of social customs in a variety
of directions. The opportunity and the disposition to
improve it must arise together; the change in education,
and the modified views which are fully to sustain and
THE ARGUMENT FOR CO-EDUCATION.
213.
justify it, must accompany and complete each other
This is peculiarly true of a college course involving
long preparation, itself consuming four years of time,
and fitting one for entirely new duties, rarely recognized
as belonging to woman. Moreover, Oberlin is an insti-
tution which has its own character, not given it by this
single feature of joint instruction. There is a variety
of influences operative there not to be met with else-
where.
It is also urged that women have not the intellectual
and physical stamina requisite for an entire college
course. As regards intellectual strength, facts do not
give sufficient coloring to the assertion to allow it to
delay us. Health is so largely the result of wise action
that we especially covet a little more knowledge for
women, and for all classes, that this may be improved
and established. Well ordered study is not injurious,
but the reverse rather. What we need is more temper-
ate and better sustained effort, and this is not only con-
sistent with health, it is productive of health, even in
those of a feeble constitution. The strength of women
is as a fact wasted by their methods of dress, is sacrificed
to the demands of society, and to relax these in favor
of systematic physical and intellectual education would
be a gain, not a loss in strength. Society is often very
exacting; and from its so-called claims, a well-conducted
college would be a retreat, a shelter, not less physically
than intellectually and morally. We are to remember,
moreover, that we are not imposing anything on any
one; that we only propose to open the ways of improve-
ment to those who both wish them and are able to pur-
sue them. It is a sorry reason to give to the strong and
enthusiastic, repelling them at the door of knowledge,
that there are those weak and unable to meet the strain
214
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
of consecutive study; that they belong to a caste beset
with restrictions, and must abide its fortunes. The very
knowledge thus gained would lead to the devotion of
physical strength to higher ends, would impart higher
motives for its cultivation, and a better comprehension
of its conditions. A struggle with a difficulty discloses
the means of surmounting it.
It would seem, then, to remain true, that for some
now, and for more in years to come, co-education would
be attended with more complete and immediate educa-
tional privileges than can otherwise be secured by them
-privileges not incompatible with their powers, nor
alien to their wishes.
These advantages also lie open to them in co-educa-
tion, on more economical conditions, and hence would
be more generally available. The expenses of institu-
tions exclusively devoted to young women, are almost
always materially greater than those for young men.
With one class, education seems to come under the
economic laws which regulate a luxury; with the other,
under those which control a necessity of life. Large
endowments and public supervision improve instruction,
increase its facilities, and diminish its cost in colleges,
while in seminaries, too frequently, private speculation
retrenches the conditions of education and enlarges its
fees. There are colleges by the score in our country
which, with a competent faculty and large endowments,
have fewer students than they can readily accommodate.
A college with a full corps of instructors is not com-
pletely justifying the expenditure involved with less
than one hundred and sixty students. A class of forty
has decided advantages over a smaller one. There is
more moral force, more variety of ability, a better
opportunity for that play of enthusiasms and affinities,
THE ARGUMENT FOR CO-EDUCATION.
215
$
of hikes and dislikes, for receiving and exerting influence,
which constitute so large a part of college life.
With fewer students, a college can hardly secure
that stimulus, that bracing atmosphere, which make it
educational, quickening, to the intellectual life-blood.
The forces of mind and heart begin to grow feeble, and
to fall off when fed on a thinner pabulum of thought,
and aroused by less electric impulse than are involved
in this number of companions. Moreover, a machinery
of appliances and professors is kept up and run on two-
thirds or one-half power, when the number of students
drops down to a hundred, or fails to mount up to it.
There is a great waste of educational strength in main-
taining these feeble Colleges. What are we to think,
then, of that policy, which, not venturing to reject the
claim for an improved education of women, proposes to
create a corresponding and relatively worthless series
of weak institutions for them ?
There are very many Colleges that would be im-
proved financially and educationally, would experience
at once a bracing tonic in the acquisition of twenty,
forty, sixty students, though not a single dollar were
added to their endowments.
The general economy, therefore, of educational insti-
tutions taken as a whole, looked upon as so much
strength put forth by the public for the training of its
sons and daughters, can only be secured by making
each of them available, if possible, to its full capacity,
before the number is materially enlarged. This economy
of complete use, co-education would signally tend to
reach, and separate education tends as obviously to
prevent; as the young women are to come from exactly
the same territory now overspread and occupied by
male colleges. The expenses also of each particular
216
1
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
student would thereby be put at the minimum, since
the charities that have gathered about our established
institutions would be open to all; libraries, cabinets,
apparatus, would render a more enlarged and adequate
service; and the spirit of economy in board and per-
sonal expenditures, which is now possible to young men,
would be equally so to young women. The aggregate
of these gains would be very great in educational wealth,
power and spirit.*
* In reply to the statement by Prof. Bascom that at Vassar,
Greek is an infrequent option, and that therefore the graduates are
not prepared to take charge of our high schools and cannot fit
young men for college, it is sufficient to say that Vassar College
is not a Normal School. It was not founded for the purpose of
manufacturing teachers: its sole aim is to provide a liberal edu-
cation. What that shall include, no two colleges agree. But
certainly Vassar has equal right to her own judgment. Her
faculty aim at no lower object than to send forth women of char-
acter, sense and culture. Two years ago, a critic in Godey's
Lady's Book complained that too much Greek was taught at
Vassar; now we have it that Greek is virtually ignored! The
language of Homer, Plato and Demosthenes is critically studied
by a respectable number of young ladies; and it should be re-
membered that Greek is voluntarily chosen by these students,
not thrust upon them by law.—Ed.
+
XXII.
EFFECTS OF CO-EDUCATION ON
YOUNG WOMEN.*
BY PRESIDENT WHITE, OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY.
THE
HE first question naturally regards the effect on
physical health.
On one side appear those like that eminent authority,
Dr. Clark, of Boston, who think much close study, at
the time usually assigned to a college course, hurtful.
These say that they are frequently called upon to treat
diseases permanently injurious to body and mind brought
on young women by too close application to study at
this period of life.
On the other side are the statistics given by the
President of Oberlin College, and the answers given the
Committee by the lady students themselves, at the Uni-
versity of Michigan, which seem to show that the health
of the young women is quite as good in college as out
of it.
The deterioration in the health of American women
is without doubt one of the most serious among modern
social problems. It outweighs in real importance, vast
masses of questions usually claiming far more attention.
That some of this deterioration may be due to close
* From the Report of the Committee on the Sage Proposal,
Feb., 1872.
10
•
218
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
}
application to study is possible, but the numbers of those
who have ever closely applied themselves to study is so
very small, compared with the number of those in bro-
ken health, that evidently search must be made for
causes lying deeper and spreading wider.
The want of success in grasping and presenting these
causes hitherto by men, seems to show that there should
be brought to the question the instinct, the knowledge,
the tact of woman herself, and it would seem that, for
this, she has need of a system of education to give the
mental strength required for searching out those causes
and grappling with them.
More than this, it would seem that if the cause lies to
any extent in want of knowledge of great principles of
health, or in want of firm character to resist the inroads
of certain vicious ideas in modern civilization, a change.
of woman's education from its too frequent namby-pam-
by character, into something calculated to give firmer
mental and moral texture, would help, rather than hurt
in this matter.
While the Committee do not think this injury to
health so likely to be increased as diminished by the
system of education proposed, they hold that very care-
ful provision should be made for the development of
physical strength commensurate with mental strengtu.
Any college building erected for women should be
planned with special reference to the health of its in-
mates. Sunlight should be admitted to every room and
copiously; the most effective system of ventilation.
should be adopted; there should be a well-equipped
gymnasium, and provision should be made for work in
the botanical and general gardens, and for amusements.
Physiology and hygiene should be among the sub-
jects absolutely required in every course of study.
EFFECT OF CO-EDUCATION ON YOUNG WOMEN.
219
In the general system of studies, the Committee be-
lieve that stimulus, in the way of competitive prizes,
should not be brought to bear, to any considerable ex-
tent, on the young women. If any quality in their work
at the various colleges, as submitted to the Committee,
appears more clear than another, it is conscientiousness;
and this is far more effective than emulation in its direct
influence, and more responsive to considerations of
health.
With such provisions and precautions, it is not likely
that a body of young women would be more injured by
study in the college proposed than by the aimlessness,
listlessness, luxury and relaxing modes of physical and
intellectual life common among young women who
make no endeavor after a higher and better education.
But another class of effects claims attention-effects
on character and manners.
By one side it is argued that the proposed system
will probably injure the dignity, modesty, refinement
and delicacy of young women,--that it will give a mas-
culine tone.
By the other side it is argued that association, under
proper restrictions, with young men engaged in scien-
tific and literary pursuits, makes any young woman feel,
more than anything else, the necessity for womanly dig-
nity and self-control, at the same time that it brings out
more clearly the value of that refinement and modesty
which all young men prize so highly.
That there may be some danger to certain classes of
women shallow in character and weak in mind is not un-
likely, but of all women, these are the least likely to
involve themselves in the labor of preparation for the
university or of going on with its courses of study.
As to the good effect on the women who have actu-
220
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
ally entered the colleges, the testimony is ample. The
Committee in its visits found no opposing statement
either from college officers, students of either sex, or
citizens of university towns, and all their observations
failed to detect any symptoms of any loss of the distinct-
ive womanly qualities so highly prized.
Nor have they found that those who have been thus
educated have shown any lack of these qualities in after
life.
On the contrary, it would be hard to find a body of
women combining these qualities more nobly than the
matrons of this State and surrounding States, who have
graduated at the Academies and Normal Schools.
These qualities they have, by the agreement of all ob-
servers, in a very much higher degree than the women
of countries where a semi-conventual system of educa-
tion is adopted.
It may be said that they must come in contact with
vulgarity in words and action, and so be injured. This,
it is believed, will be rare indeed. There would at
once be brought to bear a common law, a stringent code
not made by any Trustees or Faculty, but none the less
effective. It would be enforced by the great body of
students, and summarily. Should any boor so far for-
get himself, as to say or do what could be construed
into an insult to the young women present, there would
certainly be a sufficient number of brothers, friends or
admirers of the injured parties, to take such measures as
the case might demand.
And here, it may be added, would be one of the good
influences on the young men. Nothing is more disheart-
ening to those in charge of colleges, than to find profan-
ity and obscenity, on the part of a wretched minority,
tolerated by the great body of students, simply because
EFFECTS OF CO-EDUCATION ON YOUNG WOMEN. 221
all are men, and, by common consent, among men a man
may say what he pleases.
By the admission of women the point of honor in
this respect is at once changed. Words and actions
before unchallenged would now be necessarily forbidden
by the great body of students themselves, and such
edicts would be enforced.
With the aid of a few words of common sense to
young women by their matrons, and to the young men
by their Professors, there would be created a right sen-
timent in this respect, powerful enough for all emergen-
cies; and it is believed that women would be subjected
to far less annoyance from vulgarity in the University,
than they constantly have to encounter in the streets or
conveyances of any town or city.
It seems necessary before closing this discussion as
to the effect on woman by this plan of education, to
allude to an argument often presented, that as woman's
sphere of duty is different from that of man, her educa-
tion should be different. The most natural argument
from analogy would seem to destroy this position.
While the physical and material duties of women differ
widely from those of men, her physical nutriment and
the ordinary conditions of sound physical health are the
The simplest analogy would lead us to the con-
clusion that the intellectual nutriment, and the condi-
tions of sound mental health should be the same.
same.
Under every roof in the land, we see persons of dif-
ferent sexes in the household, preparing themselves by
the same diet for their different functions and duties.
It would seem then that, no matter how great the differ-
ence may be between the intellectual duties and func-
tions of the two sexes, it does not at all follow that there
should be a difference in the general preliminary mental
222
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
I
food. As the bodies of men and women are built up by
the same food, whether vegetable or animal, so it would
seem that their minds and hearts and souls are to be
built and beautified by the same moral, mental and
æsthetical food.
The very statement of this argument shows that the
same education of both sexes does not lead to any
usurpation of unnatural functions, social or political, by
woman. It would rather show that such education, by
its proper development of mind and heart and soul in
women, would most surely lead to her taking that very
place, and discharging best those very duties, whatever
they may be, which the Creator has appointed her.
Even if the most restrictive theory of woman's duties
be accepted,—even if it be allowed that her only duties
are those of a well-ordered household,-would she not
be fitted better for her duties as the mother of future
generations of citizens by courses of study large and
broad, than by the unutterably inane instructions of the
great majority of our ladies' boarding and "finishing"
schools?
The noble institutions of comparatively recent crea-
tion for the education of young women separately, like
Vassar College and Wells College seem to support this
general line of argument by facts. The great acknowl-
edged value of these institutions arises mainly from the
fact that they have broken away from the traditions of
the boarding and "finishing" schools, and have provided
thorough, substantial courses of instruction more like
those aimed at in our best colleges.
While the admirable character of these colleges, and
the excellence of the work they are doing and will con-
tinue to do, will, doubtless, be to many an argument
that young women can be most satisfactorily educated
EFFECT OF CO-EDUCATION ON YOUNG WOMEN. 223
by themselves, it will be no less strong an argument for
the position that, in the main, the best studies for devel-
oping the most worthy culture in young women, are
identical with those required for young men.
* If it be said that the presence of women will tend to lower
the standard of scholarship, or at all events to keep the Faculty
from steadily raising it, it may be answered at once, that all the
facts observed are in opposition to this view. The letters re-
ceived by the Committee, and their own recent observations in
class-rooms, show beyond a doubt, that the young women are at
least equals of the young men in collegiate studies. As already
stated, the best Greek scholar among the thirteen hundred stu-
dents of the University of Michigan, a few years since; the best
mathematical scholar in one of the largest classes of that institu-
tion to-day, and several among the highest in natural science, and
in the general courses of study, are young women.
It has been argued that the want of accuracy and point, the
sloppiness" of much of the scholarship in some of the newer
colleges, is due to the admission of women. The facts observed
by the Committee seem to prove that this argument is based on
the mistake of concomitancy for cause.
If "
sloppiness" and
want of point are inadmissible anywhere, it is in translation
from the more vigorous and concise ancient and modern authors.
Now, the most concise and vigorous rendering from the most con-
cise and vigorous of all-Tacitus himself-was given by a young
lady at Oberlin College. Nor did the Committee notice any better
work in the most difficult of the great modern languages than
that of some young women at Antioch College.-Pres. White.
"
A
1
XXIII.
MIXED COLLEGES FROM VARIOUS
STANDPOINTS.
A
FEW moments of reflection ought to be sufficient
to bring every sensible man to see that the condi-
tions of education are so essentially diverse that the
same provision, in a limited degree only, is required for the
two sexes. The question of mental equality does not enter
into the discussion. It is enough to know that the aims
of the two sexes in education are different; that their
physical conditions forbid the same course of study at the
same time with men ; that their intellectual structure
requires different instruction in many studies, and that,
apart from all moral considerations, there are sanitary
and physical reasons that will always interfere with the
advantageous classification of young women with men
during the period of college life. All intelligent parents
understand this; and although one college after another
may nominally open its doors to young women, and fe-
male seminaries may admit here and there a nice young
man to their class-rooms, it will be found practically to
amount to nothing. Nature has made the ordinances
that regulate the case, and it will come to that in the
end. [N. Y. Observer.
If it were proposed to open all colleges to women, or
to have none in the country in which either young men
MIXED COLLEGES FROM VARIOUS STANDPOINTS.
225
or women could be educated apart, we should not care
to answer the objectors. That is perhaps the theory of
those who use the term "co-education,”—but it is not
that of the great majority of those who are training im-
partially the two sexes together, giving them equal op-
portunities of college culture. "Co-education" may not
win the day, but joint-education, as the rule, we are con-
fident will. There are some of each sex who should not
be educated save in excluded institutions. They are ex-
ceptions, and therefore such institutions should be excep-
tions.["Iowa College," in College Courant.
As to the question of promiscuous education of the
sexes, the question, "Shall the highest education of
women be attempted in men's colleges?" I am not, as I
said, prepared to speak from the fixed conviction which
experience only can warrant. I incline to the view that
our universities should be thrown open to women so far
as the studies pursued in them are elective; that wom-
en should have the privilege of attendance on such
courses of lectures as they may choose to hear, that they
should be allowed to offer themselves for examination in
the studies they have pursued and receive degrees, if the
examination has proved them competent, on the same
terms on which these degrees are awarded to the other
sex. They should not, however, be admissible to any
of the college courses, excepting those known as “uni-
versity lectures," to which they have already been in-
vited, without formal matriculation based on approval
by examination as rigorous as that required of boys who
offer themselves as candidates for admission to the col-
lege. For the sake of both sexes the rigor of require-
ment should be as great for the one as for the other.
I have spoken of the admission of women on equal
terms with men to the lecture courses and the degrees.
10*
226
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
-go+
I am not so clear as to the expediency of the mingling
of the sexes in the recitation-room. My plan would be
this, that the sexes should be educated together until
the age of 14, that then they should separate in their
preparation for college, and come together again as
grown-up gentlemen and ladies in the lecture-room.
[Dr. F. H. Hedge.
The question you put me is one of no little interest.
* * * There are difficulties and embarrassments connected
with it, still my impression is that the advantages con-
nected with our higher institutions for young men,
might be shared by young women to a great extent, with
great advantage to both. Probably the course of study
should not be the same throughout, but in many things
there certainly could be no objections to the continuance
of that association in study, which is begun at the com-
mon school; and there would be many advantages from
it. The difficulty would be social; if intercourse of the
classes and aside from study could be properly regulated,
it would work well. That would depend much on the
arrangements you might be able to make, and on the
tone of sentiment in the community. *** My impres-
sion is that you might try the experiment safely, and I
hope you will do so.-[Pres. Hopkins to the Regents
of the University of Michigan.
We believe that the true remedy for the defective
education of girls of these classes is to be found, not in
the establishment of separate schools for girls, but in the
foundation of schools, open on equal terms to girls and
boys, and officered by women as well as men. This is
the more reasonable when we consider that the standard
of the university local examinations, which particu-
larly affect pupils of this class, is the same for boys and
girls.
MIXED COLLEGES FROM VARIOUS STANDPOINTS.
227
We desire further to remind you that there is in this
country no provision whatever for the higher education
of women, except such as has been provided by what
may, without disparagement, be called amateur effort,
which cannot, from the nature of the case, be permanent.
The university examinations for women afford tests of
attainments, but no means of education. The lectures
and classes for women, now to be found in many towns
in England, Scotland, and Ireland, have been provided
exclusively by individual zeal and interest, and have in
no shape received public recognition and assistance.
Nor do we see any remedy for the desultory and uncer-
tain nature of such provision, until we abandon the
separate system of instruction, which we hold to be even
more disadvantageous in the case of men and women
than in the case of boys and girls. We do not believe
that this nation can ever become an educated nation
until opportunities of intellectual culture have ceased to
be a privilege of sex or class, and are brought within the
reach of every man and woman, which can never be
done on the separate system.
No university has as yet opened its doors to women
(Edinburgh cannot be fairly considered an exception),
and no advantage either of university teaching or of
university distinction is permitted them. Even if any
university did admit women, there does not exist any
provision by which a girl of distinguished ability could,
undeterred by poverty, profit by the years of study at a
university. There is no provision whatever for girls
analogous to the liberal provision made for boys in the
shape of scholarships and exhibitions. We desire to sec
such a redistribution of endowments as shall permit a
gifted or industrious girl or boy to proceed from an ele-
mentary school to a higher school, and from a higher
228
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
1
school to a university, without hindrance from poverty.
-[Memorial to Wm. E. Forster, M. P.
"These studies that are congenial and helpful to all
minds alike, together with such other studies as experi-
ence might show to be adapted to womanly mind and
womanly physique, and to individual capacity,—why
should not young women pursue them under the accu-
mulated advantages which colleges have been elaborat-
ing for centuries, and which separate colleges for women
could not hope to originate for themselves for cen-
turies?"-]Pres. Buckham.
I believe in educating both sexes to the extent of our
ability, so that they shall be thoroughly qualified for the
duties that await them. I would educate daughters as
completely as sons. I would accord them equal, but not
necessarily identical, opportunities. I do not hold it.
essential that they should be educated together through-
out; and I would not advise that they study and master
exactly the same departments of knowledge. On the
contrary, I would have some of their studies different;
and I would not have them lodged as may happen in the
dormitories of one college building. In short, I prefer
to send a daughter for schooling to Vassar rather than
Yale or Harvard.-[Horace Greeley.
Wendell Phillips' theory, that political rights should
not wait for education, but be conferred in order
to ensure it, will find confirmation in the magnificent
efforts which the women who are interested in securing
a nobler position for their sex have made to secure
scientific education. Since the prospect of their enfran-
chisement has drawn nearer, their demand has been so
urgent that there have sprung up, in nearly all of the
leading cities," classes," which receive lectures from the
chief professors of the country. Professors Huxley,
MIXED COLLEGES FROM VARIOUS STANDPOINTS.
229
Foster, Morley, Masson, Seeley, and many others, are
now lecturing to large classes of women, and it really
amounts to the formation of female universities, side by
side with the old ones devoted to males, and under the
same instructors. And, though I am warmly in favor
of having persons of both sexes educated together, I
must admit that I see more advantages in the delay of
that particular reform here than in America. The
great universities here were established to educate
priests they are not only still monastic in excluding
women, but also in their antiquarian ideas of culture,
and especially in their adoration of Latin.
It is some
compensation at least, until the four winds have breathed
upon the dry bones of Oxford and Cambridge, that
their fossilized methods will not be imported into the
new institutions for the education of women. These
are likely to be based upon the most advanced ideas of
the age; and one may hardly be called visionary if he
sees in the distance the co-educational principle reached
by a general demand of young men to be admitted to
the female universities.--[M. D. Conway.
Jean Paul, in that most suggestive of all books on
education, “Levana,” implores on the mere ground of
sexual purity and refinement, that the boys and girls
should not be separated. "To insure modesty I would
advise the educating of the sexes together; for two
boys will preserve twelve girls, or two girls twelve
boys, innocent amid winks, jokes, and improprieties,
merely by that instinctive sense which is the forerunner
of matured modesty. But I will guarantee nothing in a
school where girls are alone together, and still less
where boys are.”—[T. W. Higginson.
Perhaps the companionship of women increases rather
than destroys the manly qualities of the other sex; and
230
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
this may be the reason why Homer makes Achilles enter
a young ladies' academy as a pupil to the great detri-
ment of the establishment when his disguise was found
out. Perhaps either sex receives from the society of
the other an impulse towards the perfection of those qual-
ities which are essentially its own. The boy learns
insensibly, while with his mother, to be courageous,
generous and unselfish, a protector of the weak, and, if
necessary, an assailant of the strong; and the girl, ma-
tured in character by her father's sober sentiments, and
perfected in temper by her brothers' rough, good-hu-
mored jokes, loses by degrees all the conceit and flip-
pancy of young-ladyism, while she acquires habits of
correct judgment, unprejudiced observation, and frank
sincerity from the male influences that surround her.
-[From Fraser's Magazine, 1863.
1
XXIV.
CO-EDUCATION IN HARVARD.*
BY JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE.
IN considering the question of the propriety of receiv-
ing young women as well as young men as students
in our University, it seems to me that the burden of
proof rests with those who are opposed to it. For
there are three facts which we may assume as undenia-
ble, viz. :
1. The friends of Harvard University have daughters.
as well as sons.
2. They wish their daughters to have as good an
education as possible.
3. They cannot obtain as good an education any-
where else as in Harvard University.
Unless, therefore, there be good reasons why young
women should not receive their education at Harvard
University, it is desirable that they should be educated
there.
We have at Cambridge all the material and personal
conditions of the best education-buildings, library,
cabinets, and museums-a corps of distinguished teach-
ers, long experience, large endowments. If young
women are to be educated well, they cannot be so well
* From a Report to the Committee of the Board of Overseers,
1872.
232
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
educated anywhere else. Why, then, should the patrons
and friends of the University not have the privilege of
sending their daughters there, as well as their sons?
If there are no good reasons to the contrary, it would
seem reasonable to allow it. Instead of attempting to
establish another university for women, with buildings,
endowments, museums, library and professors, let us use
that which we have already-unless, as I have said be-
fore, there are weighty arguments against it.
We have at present more than a thousand young
men, students in the different departments of the Univer-
sity. If we had a thousand young women there too,
they would increase the means of the University, and
its power of usefulness. It does not require twice as
many instructors to teach two thousand students as are
needed to teach one thousand. A professor can lecture
to two hundred persons as easily as to one hundred.
When libraries, museums, and cabinets have been once
established, they can be used by larger numbers with-
out a proportionally increased expense.
We have established the Elective System in the
University. But the success of that system depends, in
practice, on there being very large numbers of students
to be taught. The Elective System requires a great
many teachers.
Even if there be only two or three
students in some departments, these classes must be
taught, if the study is to be offered for election. It is
evident that the mere increase in the size of the classes
must make it much easier to succeed with the Elective
System. If twenty electives are offered, they will be
more successful in a class of a hundred than in one of
fifty, and still more easily distributed in a class of two
hundred. There must be twenty teachers provided for
CO-EDUCATION IN HARVARD.
233
the smallest class, and not many more will be needed
for the largest one.
All the serious objections to the system are urged by
those who have had no personal experience of its work-
ing; and that all of these objections are given up as
without foundation by those who know the system by
actual experience.
Before this system was introduced into the State
University at Ann Arbor, Michigan, many eminent
educators and presidents of colleges were consulted, and
it must be admitted that almost all those who had never
tried it were opposed to it. All the a priori arguments
were fatal to its success. It would be "demoralizing,”
they thought; it would produce "corruption of morals.
and manners; ""the delicacy of female character would
be destroyed;" "it would confound the higher educa-
tion of the two sexes,” etc., etc. It was also predicted
that the effect on the physical health of young women
would be disastrous, as they would not be able to bear
the strain of study demanded for men.
In regard to the first a priori objection, of its bad
effect on manners and morality, the argument a posteri-
ori is exactly the other way. What theory asserted ex-
perience denies.
The testimony from Oberlin is that "there has been
an entire absence of the irregularities and roughness so
often complained of in colleges." "Drinking saloons
and other places of dissipation," says President Fair-
child, "which might be tolerated if young men only
were present, seem intolerable when ladies are gathered
with them."
All the testimonies on this point ever one way, and it
is not needful to multiply evidence to show that for
young men and young women to associate together
234
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
openly in study and social life is likely to be beneficial
to both.
I hear it objected that matrimonial engagements
would be often formed by those thus brought together.
This is very probable beforehand, and is confirmed by
experience. But which are the most favorable circum-
stances for such engagements-when young men and
young women meet for gayety or when they meet for
study? Most engagements are now formed between
those who have become acquainted only at balls and
social parties, where the powers of pleasing are chiefly
made known. Would it not be well for the success of
such unions that something of the mind and character
should also be revealed-as they are by those who study
together? "I knew him at school-I knew him in col-
lege," men say of each other-meaning that they knew
each other thoroughly. Young men and young women
who have studied together would probably know each
other thoroughly.
I have also heard it objected that these engagements
might be formed between those in different spheres of
life, and belonging to different social positions, which
would be disagreeable to the families and parents. I
conceive that this would be a real advantage-for many
unhappy marriages are the result of intermarrying among
persons of the same clique-and the happiest marriages
are those which bring together persons of different ex-
periences, varied culture, diverse faculty, and having
different circles of friends and acquaintances. In what
is called good society, people die of monotony; anything
which will tend to introduce variety into their life will
be to them a real blessing.
I think that this method is particularly applicable to
Harvard University, because the system of elective study
}
CO-EDUCATION IN HARVARD.
235
is already so largely adopted therein. In colleges where
one course of study is the rule for all, that would neces-
sarily be adapted to the male students, and might not be
so suitable for women. But in Harvard they would have
such large liberty of choice that they might easily select
a course suitable to them.
Mr. White also informs me that in his opinion it
would be easier to introduce this plan into colleges like
Harvard and Yale, which are situated in large towns,
where board could be found in private families, than in
small places, where it would be necessary to erect board-
ing-houses for the young women, and then to watch
them. In Cambridge they could take care of them-
selves.
Whether the proper time has come for introducing
this change at Cambridge, I do not undertake to say.
It may be said, "Let well enough alone. Harvard
University is in a prosperous condition now. Let us not
run the risk of introducing such radical changes." But
we do not wish any of our grand Massachusetts institu-
tions to lag behind in the advance of society. We
ought to lead the way in all genuine improvements; and
recollect that our President, in his inaugural, taught us
that the duty of the Board of Overseers was to push the
other departments of the University, and to initiate ne-
cessary reforms.
It is no sufficient objection that the other method
has hitherto prevailed. We have inherited the present
system from monastic times, when priests were the only
teachers, when the college was a cloister, and when it
was thought that the only way to preserve purity was a
separation of the sexes. We have now learned not to
put asunder what God has joined together, and know
236
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
that the presence of men and women together in the pur-
suits studies, and pleasures of life is good for both.
"She humanizes him, and he
Educates her to Liberty."
The seclusion of the college dormitory is the only
reminiscence, among ourselves, of the old cloister; and
for my own part I think it would be better for the mor-
als and manners of the students if this seclusion was ex-
changed for a residence in families, as is now the case in
the great continental universities.
But if it be maintained that the plan of dormitory-
buildings is good for young men, that is no reason why
young women residing in town should not come to the
recitation-rooms and lecture-rooms of the University to
share with the others in common studies. This is what
we mean by co-education. Co education means that the
sexes are to be together in their studies—that they are to
have the same teachers, be in the same classes, recite to-
gether, and contend together for the same rank and
honors. And we say that experience shows that the
effect is good on both-that by these common studies
the young men grow less rude, and the young women
less frivolous; that the characters of the one are refined
and the minds of the other deepened.
It may be said, "This is a new thing-it is an experi-
ment-let it be tried first elsewhere." But it is not so
much of an experiment as we sometimes think.
In the first place, this plan has now been tried for a
long time in the high and normal schools. Indeed, it
has been carried further in these than it would be in
college; for in the high schools the two sexes study to-
gether in the same building; whereas in college they
would only meet for recitations, examinations, and lec-
CO-EDUCATION IN HARVARD.
237
tures. In the high schools the system has certainly
proved a success. Mr. David B. Hager, now at the head
of the Salem Normal School, one of the first teachers in
the State, a gentleman somewhat conservative, I think,
in his tastes and opinions, told me that after a long ex-
perience of the method he was wholly in favor of it.
"There are not," said he, "many propositions to make
in regard to education, concerning which I could speak
very positively. But of one thing I am sure, that young
men and young women study better, behave better, and
are in every way benefited by being together in the
high schools.”
Now, it must be remembered that in our high schools
the ages of the pupils approach very near to that of stu-
dents in college-the average age in the high schools be-
ing probably about equal to that in the Freshman class
in college. The studies are of the same kind.
We have two normal schools in Massachusetts in
which the system of co-education exists. During many
years in which it was my official duty, as a member of
the State Board of Education, to examine and watch
these institutions, I never heard the first complaint made
of any evil or injury arising from the fact that grown up
and marriageable young men and women were studying
together at Bridgewater and Westfield.
But
I believe the system is good in itself—that it is in accord-
ance with the ideas of modern society-that in practice.
it has worked very well, wherever tried, and that the
sooner it can be introduced at Cambridge the better it
will be for our excellent University.
*
*
*
XXV.
THE EXPERIENCE AT OBERLIN
COLLEGE.*
BY PRESIDENT FAIRCHILD.
A
،
FTER the Preparatory Department, we have two
courses open to young ladies the 'Ladies'
Course,' and the regular College Course.' The Ladies'
Course is a course of four years, requiring, as conditions
of entering, a good elementary English education, and a
year's study of Latin. It embraces all the studies of the
regular College course, omitting all the Greek and most
of the Latin, omitting also the Differential and Integral
Calculus, and adding lessons in French and Drawing,
and some branches of natural science. Those pursuing
this course recite with the college classes in the same
studies. Separate classes are organized for the ladies in
essay-writing until the commencement of the third year,
when they are added to the Junior College class in this
exercise. Their training in this department is limited
to reading and writing, none of the ladies having any
exercise in speaking. The great majority of our young
ladies pursue this course, and it was supposed at the
organization of the school that nothing farther would be
required for them; but in 1837 four young ladies pre-
* From an Address before a meeting of College Presidents at
Springfield, Ill., July, 1867.
THE EXPERIENCE AT OBERLIN COLLEGE.
239
pared themselves for the Freshman class, and were re-
ceived upon their own petition. Since that time it has
been understood that the College Course is open to
young ladies, and we have always had more or less in
the classes: sometimes the proportion of ladies to gen-
tlemen in the course has been as high as one to four; at
present it is one to ten. We have observed no special
tendency to an increase in this proportion; for the last
three years there has been a diminution. The ladies in
this course are under the same general regulations and
discipline as in the other course, and are responsible to
the lady Principal. At the termination of their course
they receive the regular degree in the Arts. Eighty-
four ladies have received this degree, and three hundred
and ninety-five have received the diploma of the Ladies'
Course. ***
.
The association of gentlemen and ladies out of the
class-room is regulated as experience seems to require,
They sit at the same table in families and in the Ladies'
Hall. Young gentlemen call on ladies in a social way
at the parlors of the Ladies' Hall and of private families,
between the hour for tea and half-past seven in the win-
ter, and eight o'clock in the summer. They walk in
groups from one class-room to another, as convenience
and their sense of propriety may dictate, with the help
of a suggestion, if needed, from thoughtful and observ-
ing friends. Now and then the young ladies have per-
mission to attend an evening lecture given under the
auspices of the college, and in such case to accept the
attendance of young men. No such association is per-
mitted in the case of religious meetings. They do not
ride or walk together beyond the limits of the village,
except on a holiday, under special arrangements. There
240
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
P
is no association of the sexes in literary societies, or
other voluntary and independent organizations.
It seemed necessary to give this detail of arrange-
ments, that the conditions upon which the solution of
the problem has been conducted with us may be fully
understood. In speaking of results, I wish to be under-
stood as giving not merely my own individual judg-
ment, but the unanimous opinion, so far as I understand
it, of all who have had responsibility in connection with
the school. If there has been any diversity of sentiment
on the subject, it has been unknown to me. Others
might choose different terms in which to express their
opinions, but I shall endeavor to make no statement
from which I suppose that any one of those that are or
have been associated in this work would dissent.
Among the advantages which seem to be involved in
the system, as we have observed its operation, are the
following:
1. Economy of means and forces. The teaching
force and other apparatus required in all the higher
departments of study is made available to a larger num-
ber. In most Western Colleges the higher classes
might be doubled without any detriment, and often with
great advantage. Scarcely any one of these schools has
had larger classes than our own, and yet only once or
twice have we had occasion to make two divisions in
any college class, including the ladies pursuing the same
study. In the preparatory department, classes must be
multiplied on account of numbers; but in the higher
departments of instruction, where the chief expense is
involved, the expense is no greater on account of the
presence of ladies. If a separate establishment were
attempted for ladies, affording the same advantages, the
outlay in men and means would have to be duplicated;
THE EXPERIENCE AT OBERLIN COLLEGE.
241
or, as would often happen, the force would have to be
divided, and the advantages as well. Of course, if there
were obvious disadvantages in the arrangement, the
argument from economy would have essentially no
weight. We must have the best system of higher edu-
cation at any necessary cost.
2. Convenience to the patrons of the school. It has
been a matter of interest with us to note the number of
cases in which a brother is accompanied or followed by
a sister, or a sister by a brother. I cannot give exact
statements upon this point; but it is an interesting and
prominent feature in our operations. This is most con-
venient and wholesome; each is safer from the presence
of the other; and the inducements to attend school, to
the one or the other, are increased by the possibility of
having each other's company. The want and tendency
in this direction are shown in the fact that in the vicin-
ity of every flourishing college, opened for young men
only, a ladies' school, equally flourishing, is almost sure
to be established, requiring afterward a good degree of
vigilance to keep apart those who have thus naturally
come together.
3. Another advantage we find in the wholesome in-
citements to study which the system affords. This is a
want in all schools, provided for often by a marking and
grading system involving a distribution of honors and
prizes. An acknowledged defect in this plan, not to
speak of anything unwholesome in the spirit of rivalry
which it induces, is in the fact that it appeals to com-
paratively few in a class. The honors are few, and the
majority soon cease to strive for them. The social influ-
ence arising from the constitution of our classes operates
continuously and almost equally upon all. Each desires.
11
242
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
1
for himself the best standing that he is capable of, and
there is never a lack of motive to exertion.
It will be observed, too, that the stimulus is the same
in kind as will operate in after life. The young man,
going out into the world, does not leave behind him the
forces that have helped him on. They are the ordinary
forces of society, and require no new habits of thought
or action in order to their effective operation. We have
introduced a marking system into the recitation-room,
pertaining solely to the performance there, and used for
the information of teachers and guardians, and the pupil
himself: not for the assignment of grade or distribution
of honors, or for any publication whatsoever. We rely
upon the nat ral love of a fair standing with teachers
an ass ciates as the supplement to the higher motives.
for exertion, and have not found it a vain reliance.
4. Again, the social culture which is incidental to
the system is a matter of no small importance. To se-
cure this the student does not need to make any expen-
diture of time, going out of his way, or leaving his prop-
er work for the pleasure or improvement resulting from
society. He finds himself naturally in the midst of it,
and he adjusts himself to it instinctively. It influences.
his manners, his feeling, and his thought. He may be
as little conscious of the sources of the influence as of
the sunlight or the atmosphere; it will envelope him all
the same, saving him from the excessive introversion, the
morbid fancies, the moroseness, which sometimes arise in
secluded study, giving him elasticity of spirits, and case
of movement, and refinement of character, not readily
attained out of society. It seems desirable that our
young men especially should enjoy these advantages
during the period of their course of study, while the
forces that form character work most efficiently.
THE EXPERIENCE AT OBERLIN COLLEGE.
243
5. Closely connected with this influence is the ten-
dency to good order which we find in the system. The
ease with which the discipline of so large a school is
conducted has not ceased to be a matter of wonder to
ourselves. One thousand students are gathered from
every State in the Union, from every class in society, of
every grade of culture-the great mass of them, indeed,
bent on improvement, but numbers sent by anxious.
friends with the hope that they may be saved or recov-.
ered from wayward tendencies. Yet the disorders inci-
dent to such gatherings are essentially unknown among
us. Our streets are as quiet by day and by night as in
other country town. There are individual cases of
any
misdemeanor, especially among the new comers, and
now and then one is informed that his probation has
been unsatisfactory; but in the regularly organized
classes of the College and Ladies' Departments, number-
ing from two to four hundred in constant attendance, the
exclusions have not on the average exceeded one in five
years, and in one instance a period of more than ten
years without a single exclusion from these classes.
This result we attribute greatly to the wholesome influ-
ence of the system of joint education. The student feels
that his standing and character are of grave consequence
to him, and he is predisposed to take a manly attitude
in reference to the government and regulations of the
school. An admonition in the presence of the students
assembled in the chapel has always been more dreaded
by an offender than a private dismission. Offences
against propriety, that in a body of young men forming.
a separate community would seem to be trivial, change
their aspect when the female element is added to the
community; and that better view adds greatly to the
force of wholesome regulations. From the beginning,
1
244
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN,
J
the use of tobacco has been prohibited to our students.
In the presence of ladies the regulation has a force and
significance that could not be otherwise secured, and has
been maintained with a good degree of success. College
tricks lose their wit and attractiveness in a community.
thus constituted. They are essentially unknown among
us. There are no secret societies, and, so far as I know,
there has been no tendency toward them. The relations
of the classes to each other are comfortable and desira-
ble. With a sufficient degree of class feeling to give
unity and collective force, there is an entire absence of
the antagonisms which sometimes appear in college life.
It may be a mistake to attribute this fact in any degree
to the social constitution of the school, but it seems to
me to be a natural result. The general force of the so-
ciety controls and limits the clannish tendency. We
have had no difficulty in reference to conduct and man-
ners in the college dining-hall. There has been an en-
tire absence of the irregularities and roughnesses so
often complained of in college commons.
6. Nor can it be reasonably doubted that the ar-
rangement tends to good order and morality in the
town outside of the school. Evils that might be toler-
ated, in the shape of drinking-saloons and other places
of dissipation, if young men only were present, seem in-
tolerable where ladies are gathered with them. The
public sentiment requires their suppression. Of course,
this influence alone would not be sufficient; but it in-
creases and intensifies the moral forces of the place which
withstand their introduction.
7. Another manifest advantage is in the relations of
the school to the community-a cordial feeling of good
will, and the absence of that antagonism between town
and college which in general belongs to the history of
+
THE EXPERIENCE AT OBERLIN COLLEGE.
245
universities and colleges. The absence of disorder in
the school is the prime condition of this good feeling;
but beyond this, the constitution of the school is so sim-
ilar to that of the community that any conflict is unnat-
ural: the usual occasion seems to be wanting.
8. It can hardly be doubted that young people edu-
cated under such conditions are kept in harmony with
society at large, and are prepared to appreciate the re-
sponsibilities of life, and to enter upon its work. They
will not lack sympathy with the popular feeling, or an
apprehension of the common interests. They are nat-
urally educated in relation with the work of life, and
will not require a reädjustment. This seems a matter
of grave importance, and we can scarcely be mistaken
as to the happy results attained. If we are not utterly
deceived by our position, our students naturally and
readily find their work in the world, because they have
been trained in sympathy with the world. -
These are among the advantages of the system
which have forced themselves upon our attention. The
list might be extended and expanded; but you will
wish especially to know whether we have not encoun-
tered disadvantages and difficulties which more than
counterbalance these advantages, and you will properly
require me to speak with all frankness upon those diffi-
culties which are commonly apprehended.
1. Have young ladies the ability in mental vigor and
bodily health to maintain a fair standing in a class with
young men? Do they not operate as a check upon the
progress of the class, and degrade the standard of schol-
arship? and do they not break down in health under a
pressure which young men can sustain?
To this inquiry I answer, where there has been the
same preparatory training, we find no difference in abil-
246
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
ity to maintain themselves in the recitation-room. Un-
der the circumstances, I shall be excused for referring
to my own individual experience, which has been some-
what varied. The first eight years of my work as a
teacher was in the department of the Ancient Langua-
ges-Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; the next eleven in
mathematics, abstract and applied; the last eight, in
Philosophical and Ethical studies. In all these studies
my classes have included young women as well as young
men, and I have never observed any difference between
them in performance in the recitation. The strong and
the weak scholars are equally distributed between the
sexes.
In this statement I do not imply that I see no differ-
ence between the normal male and female mind as to
taste for particular studies. I have no doubt of the ex-
istence of such differences; but they do not appear in
the ability as pupils to comprehend and express the
truth. A few days since, on a visit to the University
of Michigan, I attended a recitation in Thucydides. So
far as could be judged from a single exercise, in which
there were many excellent performances, the daughter
of the Professor of Greek, the only young lady under
the wing of the University, led the class. But it did
not strike me as an anomaly; I had often seen such
things.
Nor is there any manifest inability on the part of
young women to endure the required labor. A breaking
down in health does not appear to be more frequent
than with young men. We have not observed a more
frequent interruption of study on this account; nor do
our statistics show a greater draft upon the vital forces
in the case of those who have completed the full college
course. Out of eighty-four young ladies who have
THE EXPERIENCE AT OBERLIN COLLEGE.
247
graduated since 1841, seven have died-a proportion of
one in twelve. Of three hundred and sixty-eight young
men who have graduated since that date, thirty-four are
dead, or a little more than one in eleven. Of these
thirty-four young men, six fell in the war; and leaving
those out, the proportion of deaths still remains one to
thirteen. Taking the whole number of gentlemen grad-
uates, omitting the Theological Department, we find the
proportion of deaths one to nine and a half; of ladies,
one to twelve; and this in spite of the lower average
expectation of life for women, as indicated in life insur-
ance tables. The field is, of course, too narrow for per-
fectly conclusive results; but there is no occasion for
special apprehension of failure of health to ladies from
study.
2. But it is held by many that ladies need a course
of study adapted to their nature and their prospective
work, and that it must be undesirable to bring them under
the same training with young men. The theory of our
school has never been that men and women are alike in
mental constitution, or that they naturally and properly
occupy the same position in the work of life. The edu-
cation furnished is general, not professional, designed
to fit men and women for any position or work to which
they may properly be called. Even in the full college
curriculum, it does not appear that there is any study
that would not be helpful in the discipline and furniture
of an educated lady. But only a small proportion of
young ladies seeking an education will naturally require
the full college course. It is not difficult to frame a
suitable course parallel with the college course, made up
substantially of studies selected from it, and diversified
by the addition of the accomplishments supposed to be
peculiarly adapted to female culture. Almost every
248
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
Western college has a scientific course, involving these
substantial elements. The best schools in the land for
the education of ladies alone have the same course.
We do not find that any peculiar style of teaching is
required to adapt these studies to female culture. The
womanly nature will appropriate the material to its own.
necessities under its own laws. Young men and women
sit at the same table and partake of the same food, and
we have no apprehension that the vital forces will fail
to elaborate from the common material the osseous and
fibrous and nervous tissues adapted to each frame and
constitution. Except under pressure of great external
violence, the female nature asserts itself by virtue of
its own inherent laws. No education can make alike
those whom God has made as unlike as men and women,
·
3. Yet apprehension is felt and expressed that char-
acter will deteriorate on one side or on the other; that
young men will become frivolous or effeminate, and
young women coarse and masculine.
The more preva-
lent opinion seems to be that, while the arrangement
may be desirable in its effect on young men, it will be
damaging to young women. That young men should
become trifling or effeminate, lose their manly attributes.
and character, from proper association with cultivated
young women, is antecedently improbable, and false in
fact. It is the natural atmosphere for the development
of the higher qualities of manhood-magnanimity,
generosity, true chivalry, earnestness. The animal man
is kept subordinate, in the prevalence of these higher
qualities. We have found it the surest way to make
men of boys, and gentlemen of rowdies. It must be a
very poor specimen of masculine human nature that is
not helped by the association, and a very poor specimen
of a woman that does not prove a helper. In my judg-
THE EXPERIENCE AT OBERLIN COLLEGE.
249
ment, as the result of experience, the chances are better
even for the poor specimen.
But, on the other hand, are not womanly delicacy
and refinement of character endangered? Will not the
young woman, pursuing her studies with young men,
take on their manners and inspirations and aims, and be
turned aside from the true ideal of womanly life and
character? The thing is scarcely conceivable. The
natural response of woman to the exhibition of manly
traits is in the correlative qualities of gentleness, deli-
cacy, and grace. It might better be questioned whether
the finer shadings of female character can be developed
without this natural stimulus. If you would transform
a woman into an Amazon or virago, take her apart
from well-constituted society, and train her in isolation
to a disgust for men, and a rough self-reliance. You
will probably fail even thus in your endeavor; but it is
the only chance of success.
But it is my duty not to reason, but to speak from
the limited historical view assigned me. You would
know whether the result with us has been a large acces-
sion to the numbers of coarse, 'strong-minded' women,
in the offensive sense of the word; and I say, without
hesitation, that I do not know of a single instance of
such a product as the result of our system of education.
It is true that in our Triennial' are found the names
of three somewhat distinguished lady lecturers, who are
sometimes referred to as belonging to this class. They
pursued their studies at Oberlin from four to five years
in each case. But, whatever their present position and
character may be, I have personal knowledge of the
fact that they came to us very mature in thought, with
their views of life settled and their own plans and pur-
poses determined and announced. Whatever help in
11*
250
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION. OF WOMEN.
their chosen life they derived from the advantages
afforded them, they have never given us any credit for
their more advanced views of woman's rights and duties.
While avowing a radical dissent from those views, I can
not forbear to say that I am happy to number these
ladies among my friends, and to express my admiration
of much that is noble and womanly in their character,
and of their earnest but mistaken philanthropy.
To show that our system of education does not be-
wilder woman with a vain ambition, or tend to turn
her aside from the work which God has impressed upon
her entire constitution, I may state that of the eighty-
four ladies that have taken the college course, twenty-
seven only are unmarried. Of these twenty-seven, four
died early, and of the remaining twenty-three, twenty
are graduates of less than six years' standing. The sta-
tistics of the graduates of the Ladies' Course would give
essentially the same result. There may be an apparent
indelicacy, perhaps, in parading such private, domestic
facts; but the importance of the question upon which
they bear will vindicate the propriety.
4. But this view does not touch the exact point of
the difficulty. It is in general admitted that the associa
tion of young men and women, under proper conditions,
is elevating instead of degrading, but there is doubt
whether bringing them together in a school provides
for those proper associations. The wholesome association
of the young requires the presence and influence of
those who are mature and have experience and a senso
of responsibility,-more of the family influence than
can be secured in a large school. Is there not danger
that young men and young women thus brought togeth-
er in the critical period of life, when the distinctive social
tendencies which draw the sexes towards each other seem
•
THE EXPERIENCE AT OBERLIN COLLEGE.
251
to act with greatest intensity, will fail of that necessary
regulative force, and fall into undesirable and unprofit
able relations? Will not such associations result in
weak and foolish love affairs, and in such habits of com-
munication and social life as lead to these and grow out
of them.
It is not strange that such apprehensions are felt, nor
would it be easy to give an à priori answer to such dif-
ficulties; but, if we may judge from our experience, the
difficulties are without foundation. I have no hesitation
in expressing the conviction that in the associations of
our young people there is as little of this undesirable
element as is found in any general society. The danger
in this direction results from excited imagination,-from
the glowing exaggerations of youthful fancy; and the
best remedy is to displace these fancies by every-day
facts and realities. The young man shut out from the
society of ladies, with the help of the high-wrought
representations of life which poets and novelists afford,
with only a distant vision of the reality, is the one who
is in danger. The women whom he sees are glorified by
his fancy, and are wrought into his day-dreams and
night-dreams as beings of supernatural loveliness. It
would be different if he met them day by day in the
recitation-room, in a common encounter with an alge-
braic problem, or at the table sharing in the common
want of bread and butter. There is still room for the
fancy to work, but the materials for the picture are
more reliable and enduring. Such association does not
take all the romance out of life, but it gives as favorable
conditions for sensible views and actions upon these
delicate questions as can be afforded to human nature.
There is another danger to which the young man is
exposed, greater even than this' of a too high-colored
252
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
ideal of female character. It is too low an estimate,
springing from his own sensual tendencies, and darkened
by a dash of misanthropy, which is one of the most com-
mon experiences of the young. Such an ideal degrades
the one who indulges it, and mars his whole conception
of life. No greater misfortune can befall a young man
than to admit to his heart such a misconception. It
can spring up only in an isolated life, apart from the
society of the pure and the good. It is good for a young
man to face the facts, and let his dreams go, whether
bright or dark. In the presence of these facts, he
will conceive and maintain a genuine respect for women
as worthy of his confidence and regard, which will save
him from amorous follies on the one side, and from a
degrading misanthropy on the other. There may be,
here and there, displays of these weaknesses of youth;
and where are there not? Among hundreds of the young,
such weak ones must be found; but if there is any more
potent corrective than the public sentiment of such a
company of young people of ordinary good sense, I have
not been able to find it.
Of course there is room for the wisdom which comes
from experience in regulating the associations of such a
school. The danger seems to be in both extremes, of
too great strictness and restraint and too great laxity,
as in all forms of school discipline. Those who have
observed the pressure against restrictions, where there
is an attempt to prohibit intercourse, sometimes imagine
that any letting-up would prove fatal to all order and
propriety. They would probably be surprised to find
that the sense of propriety and self-respect of their pupils
would prove a surer reliance than any artificial barriers
imposed from without. On the other hand, it is impor-
tant that the intercourse of the young people be regulated
THE EXPERIENCE AT OBERLIN COLLEGE.
253
by such restrictions as the good sense of the community
will justify-not minute and arbitrary, in an attempt to
meet all deficiencies of taste and judgment, and forestall
every conceivable impropriety, but comprehensive and
suggestive, expanded as occasion may require in familiar
and practical suggestions from principal or teacher. It
is desirable that the intercourse of the school be easy
and natural, not fettered at every step by some restric-
tion. The government of our school would be impossible,
except as approved and sustained by the great body of
the pupils. It would be easy, but extremely unwise, to
surrender this stronghold in the endeavor to fortify our
selves by artificial barriers.
The experience of the Friends in this country in the
management of their schools is instructive. For many
years they have had boarding-schools at the East and
the West, to which they sent both their sons and their
daughters, but intended to allow no association between
them in the schools. They found the undertaking too
great. Walls could not be built that would entirely sep-
arate them. Within two or three years the policy has
been changed and the walls removed, and, as I am in-
formed, with the happiest results. A regulated associa-
tion becomes easy now which was impossible before.
5. But will not the young people form such acquain-
tances as will result, during their course of study or after
they leave school, in matrimonial engagements? Un-
doubtedly they will; and if this is a fatal objection, the
system must be pronounced a failure. The majority of
young people form such acquaintances between the ages
of sixteen and twenty-four, and these are the years de-
voted to a course of study. It would be a most unnat-
ural state of things if such acquaintances should not be
made in a school where young men and women are gath-
254
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
ered in large numbers; nor is it to be expected that mar-
riage engagements even will not be formed more or less
frequently. Now and then it may occur that parties
will seem to have left school for the purpose of consum-
mating such an engagement. The reasonable inquiry in
the case is, whether such acquaintances and engagements
can be made under circumstances more favorable to a
wise and considerate adjustment, or more promising of a
happy result. Are the circumstances such as naturally
to promote hasty and ill-assorted marriages? If the sys-
tem were to stand or fall by this one test, its friends
would have no occasion to apprehend the result.
6. But what security is there that positive immorali-
ties may not at times occur, and startling scandals even,
that shall shock the community and produce distrust
of the system? Of course, such a thing might be; but
it would scarce be logical to condemn the system on the
ground of such possibilities or even actualities. The
only pertinent inquiry is whether such immoralities are
the more natural and frequent product of this than of
other systems. Is the moral atmosphere of the best and
most approved Eastern colleges perfectly free from every
taint of impurity? Is the propriety of the best-ordered
and most carefully-guarded female seminary not liable to
be broken in upon by a sporadic offence of this character ?
Such liabilities go everywhere with fallen human nature;
and it has not been shown that the monastic institutions
of either ancient or modern times have afforded perfect
security upon this point. There may have been a time
when one such scandal in a school for joint education
would have brought reproach upon the system and over-
whelmed it with popular disgust. A generation of suc-
cessful trial, under a sheltering Providence, should have
THE EXPERIENCE AT OBERLIN COLLEGE.
255
won for it the impartial judgment which is the right
of every system.
7. But is this method adapted to schools in general,
or is the success attained at Oberlin due to peculiar fea-
tures of the school and of the place, which can rarely be
found or reproduced eleswhere? This idea is not an un-
natural one, and is somewhat prevalent. It is true, we
have been favored with some special advantages. The
place and the school were founded together—a Christian
enterprise, with a common aim. From the beginning,
the great interest of the place has been the school. The
religious earnestness, in which the enterprise had its birth,
has been in some good degree maintained, securing a
unity of interest and of action very rare in the history
of schools and of communities. The habits of the com-
munity have in a good degree taken their shape from the
necessities of the school, and there is a very general and
hearty interest in all that pertains to its welfare. On the
other hand, the village has increased until its population.
numbers nearly 4000-a population gathered from all
parts of the country, with a colored element amounting
perhaps to one-fifth of the whole, of every grade of cul-
ture, and of want of nature, not in any proper sense a dis
turbing element, but precluding that perfect homogene-
ity of thought and life embraced in the popular idea of
Oberlin society. Our students, too, have been so numer-
ous as to preclude the possibility of the close personal
supervision attainable in a smaller school; and while we
have had occasion to congratulate ourselves on their
general character, their earnest endeavors after improve-
ment and usefulness, still they are essentially like the
pupils in other schools at the West between the parallels
which embrace the New-Engand emigration, with the
CA
256
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
addition of the colored element, varying from five to
seven per cent. of the whole.
The experiment was commenced, too, by those who
had had no experience in such a school, who had to feel
their way through the various questions involved in its
organization and arrangement. Thus, with the special
advantages of our position, there have been some special
difficulties.
But the experiment at Oberlin, if the earliest, is by
no means the only one. At least a score of schools have
sprung up that have adopted essentially the same plan,
and I have yet to learn that there has been any other
than a uniform result in the convictions of those who
have best understood these movements.
There are
doubtless advantages in entering upon the plan at the
organization of a school instead of introducing it into
a college already in existence. The usual style of col-
lege life, the traditional customs and habits of action
and of thought, are not suited to a school where ladies
are gathered as well, and the changes required might
occasion difficulty at the outset, and peril the experiment.
On this point I have no experience; but I have such
confidence in the inherent vitality and adaptability of
the system, that I should be entirely willing to see it
subjected to this test.
In concluding this statement, permit me to say that
I have no special call as an apostle or propagandist of
this system of education. The opinions set forth are
such as, with my limited experience, I am compelled to
cherish, and when called upon, as now, I cheerfully
express them.
·
XXVI.
1
THE EXPERIENCE AT WHEATON
COLLEGE.*
BY PROF. O. F. LUMRY.
A
S the discussions of this subject have been mainly
theoretical, and as my lot for the last seventeen
years has been cast where I have had constant experience
in this matter, I have supposed it proper to give some
facts that have come under my observation. My
experience and observation have been to me perfectly
satisfactory on the following points :
(1.) Boys and girls think of each other less, and seek
each other's company less, in improper ways and at
improper times and places, when brought into frequent
contact in recitation rooms and college halls than when
kept in separate institutions.
(2.) Cases of scandal are much rarer in mixed schools
than where the sexes are educated apart.
(3.) Order in class is much easier secured where the
sexes are together.
(4.) Each sex is not a hindrance, but I think, in every
way a help to the other.
We have a Freshman class consisting of two young
ladies and several young men who have had the same
* From the College Courant, Feb., 1872.
258
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
opportunities, and been held to the same requirements.
I am sure that any impartial committee examining them
would mark the girls first and second in Cicero de
Officiis and Xenophon's Memorabilia. I have had other
classes in which the preponderance of intellectual power
was as clearly the other way. Judging from my experi-
ence, I can but feel that if it was entirely possible to
afford the young ladies equal facilities for education in
separate colleges and universities, it would be a misfor-
tune to both sexes to make such an arrangement.
Co-education does not necessarily mean that in every
case, and to the same extent, they are to pursue the
same studies; but that, so far as they do pursue the same
studies, their exercises should be together. As the aim
of the college course is mainly to develop intellectual
and moral power, I think that experience has shown and
will continue to show that, making due provision for
elective studies in the third and fourth years, the ordinary
college curriculum is just as well adapted to the wants
of one sex as the other.
After-life is the post-graduate course that must try
all systems. The best education in every respect is that
which, while providing for intellectual, moral, and phys-
ical culture first, best fits the pupil for all the relations
he is to sustain in the great future. Now it so happens
that the life-work of men and women, in every depart-
ment of society, has to be performed side by side, and an
intimate knowledge of the mental idiosyncrasies of the
other sex, and an easy bearing in their presence, are
absolutely necessary to the happiness, and in many cases
to the success of each. If they are separated before
they are of an age to realize that they belong to differ-
ent sexes, and educated apart until their characters are
fixed and their mental and bodily habits have grown
THE EXPERIENCE AT WHEATON COLLEGE.
259
rigid and inflexible, and they suppose, often, their edu-
cation is finished, and what they have not learned is not
worth knowing; how are they to get this peculiar men-
tal and physical education so indispensable?
Many of the graduates of male colleges who have
become very successful in their chosen callings, confess
that in the beginning of their career they were exceed-
ingly mortified when they had supposed their education
finished, to find themselves entirely lacking in one of
the indispensable qualifications for success. Others fail
to accomplish much for themselves or others with their
education, when the only assignable cause for such fail-
ure is want of knowledge of human nature as it is devel
oped in the other half of the race.
The professional school where the graduates of both
kinds of schools come together, is a very good place to
observe the comparative merits and defects of the differ-
ent systems. The testimony, so far as I am informed, is
that the graduates from the schools where co-education
exists, appear far better than those of either the male or
female schools, having learned how to conduct them-
selves in mixed society, an accomplishment the others
often have yet, if ever, to acquire. Our teaching corps
includes one lady who is principal of the female depart
ment an has charge of the deportment of the young
ladies. The position is one of especial difficulty, and
which from various causes has had quite a large number
of occupants. There have been sometimes one or two
assistant lady teachers. Some of these have succeeded
well, and others, from one cause or another, have par-
tially or totally failed. Some of them have been gradu-
ates of institutions where the sexes were educated
together and others of ladies' schools. Some of each
class have succeeded. Of the failures growing out of
260
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
want of ability to manage their own relations to the
other sex or to manage the pupils under their care, so
as not to injure their usefulness as teachers, every one
has been of those who were graduates of ladies' schools.
Also among the gentlemen teachers, including graduates
from colleges East and West, every failure from the
above causes has been from among the graduates of
male institutions.
were.
I think that the idea of separate schools for the train-
ing of the sexes in the higher studies, did not grow out
of any intelligent "consciousness of a native difference
of mind suggesting and demanding diversity of intellect-
ual discipline," but had a religious origin in the monas-
teries of the dark ages. Priests mainly constituted the
educated classes. The Jewish system established by
God himself was, probably, the source of the idea that
men alone could be priests. The monasteries where the
priests were educated were all the higher schools there
When the human mind burst its shackles in the
times of the Reformation it was but natural that the
sa ne general system, modified in some particulars,
should continue, and thus grew up the higher schools
and universities for men. When the human mind once
set free began to see that the other half the race needed
to know something, very naturally the male schools
were taken as models and separate high schools grew
If the experiment of shutting men and
up or women.
women up in separate institutions for the purpose of
developing holiness in them was a failure, we ought not
to be surprised if doing the same thing to make them
wise, is not a perfect success.
XXVII.
THE EXPERIENCE AT KNOX
COLLEGE.*
BY PRESIDENT BLANCHARD.
HE question of uniting or separating the sexes in
schools and colleges is, "Which, where things are
equal, yield the fewest evils and the best results ?"
If I were giving, as the lawyers would say, an argu-
ment "upon the case," I should say this: That God has
united the sexes in the family, and that man and Satan
have separated them in the convent and the camp; that
love between the sexes cannot be shut in or out by
seminary walls, and least of all when it has festered and
soured into lust; that shutting the sexes apart to keep
them pure is a mistake; that monks, as a class, are more
passionate and corrupt than merchants; that imagina-
tion of the absent sex in the separate schools is worse
than its presence in the mixed; and that the history and
habits of the lower animals prove this as horses are
known to work quietly in teams which rage and neigh
when kept solitary in stalls; and that, therefore, by the
laws of Nature and the workings of the mind, we ought
to expect a college of young men or of young ladies
kept separate and apart, would be more disorderly,
harder to manage, more unreasonable, and every way
* From the Independent, Jan., 1870.
262
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
(
worse than where the two are united in an institution
sanctified by Christ's presence, and governed by con-
science and God's fear. And the institution where the
latter conditions are not, however constructed or con-
ducted, is a curse. Daniel Webster said: "Mere intel-
lect is nugatory; and teaching without sanctifying
youth is but to make them brighter children of the
Wicked One."
I went to Knox College in 1846. The “ Society for
Promoting Collegiate and Theological Education in the
West" had then just been formed to save Illinois,
Wabash, Hudson and Marietta colleges, and Lane Theo-
logical Seminary. Oberlin and Knox Colleges were left
out at first, until their importance and success conquered
a recognition by that society. The five institutions first
named are exclusively for young men, and they had for
years a monopoly of Eastern benevolence through and
by means of that society. Now I have not the statistics
at hand, (I am writing in the city of Rochester); but
the facts are so well known to the public that I hazard
nothing in saying that the two last-named institutions.
could buy out all of the first five and have funds enough
left to endow an institution better than either of the five
is endowed; that the last two have educated more males
and many more ministers than the other five. The last
two admitted female pupils from the first. The first
five still exclude them.
When I first went to Knox College, I had no opinions
as to girls going to college; but I had some prejudices
against their being in the regular college classes, which
prejudices were aggravated by the fact that those minds
which step out in advance of public opinion are always
less remarkable for delicacy than strength, and we love
delicacy in women and admire strength in men.
THE EXPERIENCE AT KNOX COLLEGE.
263
The first girls, therefore, who wanted the boys'
education seemed to me to be tom-boys. But when, by
and by, I saw the shrinking and delicate girls look
longingly toward the Greek which Christ spoke and his
Evangelists wrote in; when I saw (my own precious
child among them) loving and clear spirits creeping up
toward "the regular course" like fawns, looking this
way and that way, to see if they might drink from a
public trough; I blessed God that I was a man and that
they were women, and I blessed God anew for the man
who drove away the shepherds who kept away the
daughters of Midian from the well!
Yet I did not rashly forget, that, as there is diversity
between men, so there is a difference between women
and men, which it is folly, not wisdom, to disregard.
While I resolved that I would never be president of
any but a mixed college, and that girls who longed for
any knowledge which our faculty could help them to,
should have that knowledge, without being loaded with
opprobrium for acquiring it, we still felt it necessary to
remember that mothers suckle babes and mend their
clothing, and that they ought to be allowed for it in
reckoning up their time. We, therefore, allowed some-
thing for needlework, and other things, in making up
our "Ladies' Course," which girls do, and which boys do
not get. We have the two courses still. We omit
something of languages and higher mathematics from
our ladies' course; but we hear them recite in the same
classes so far as their studies coïncide, and we graduate
them on a level as alumni and alumnæ of the college.
I said I would not be president of any but a college
where both sexes were pupils. In fourteen years at
Knox College, with an annual attendance of 200 to 500
pupils, there were eleven years in which I never had to
264
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
take a case of discipline before our faculty; yet the fac-
ulty alone had power to expel!
Young men would rather be fined, rusticated, expel-
led, any and all put together, than have the misdemean-
ors of which they were known to be guilty calmly dis-
cussed in chapel, where the young ladies are present.
Hazing, practicing Masonic imitations by tossing in a
blanket, etc., as at Yale, Brown, and other old colleges,
is now practiced-coarse practical jokes and general dev-
iltry, these cease to be funny since girls cannot take
part in them, and no college police-power can extermin-
ate by mere vigilance and severity, such miserable horse-
play which yet perishes at once before female contempt.
""
There are still problems connected with this subject.
which must yet work themselves out, or be wrought out
by the progress of ideas and events. And things will
never be quite well here till Christ comes again. I am
sure, too, that "the man is the head of the woman, and
Christ the head of the man, and God the head of Christ.'
This is the testimony of Nature as well as the teaching
of Revelation. I dislike, too, all doctrines which plainly
tend to make my wife and myself count two, whom
Christ has declared-aye, and made-"no more twain,
but one." There are border questions, too, which God
refers for solution to the local sense of " decency and
order."
But I believe in the natural equality of souls; that
the advice-giver should be taught in the same things.
with him who is to receive the advice; that woman's
arm is weak is no reason why her mind or her love
should not be strong; that Adam and Eve got their
education together in Eden; and that their sons and
daughters should do so in the school, though the sons
THE EXPERIENCE AT KNOX COLLEGE.
265
may name the cattle, and the daughters dress the flow-
ers.*
* The two sexes are trained together in a large portion of the
Western colleges, and it is a rare thing to hear it suggested that
the ladies are an inconvenience or a hindrance to the classes in
which they recite. The plan of education seems to grow in favor
rather than to become unpopular. At Knox College this question
has received particular attention, and peculiarly favorable oppor-
tunity has been given for testing it by actual experiment. The
College and Ladies' Seminary are organized as distinct institutions
under one body of trustees. For a time the classes were kept al-
most entirely separate, but lately the two sexes, when studying
the same branches, have generally had but one recitation, as ex-
perience has seemed to do away with the supposed objection to
this plan. In the philosophical studies which come at the close
of the course in both institutions, it is the custom of the two
senior classes to meet together throughout the year. They are
found to deal with the subject under discussion by somewhat dif-
ferent methods, but each gives light to the other, and no complaint
is heard that either is a hindrance. *
*
*
One fact in this connection is worthy of mention. The col-
leges all seem to report that the ladies are among the very best
scholars in their classes. *
*
The moral influence of co-education is greatly feared, but it is
feared least by those who have seen its workings. The experi-
ment has been tried in hundreds of Western institutions, and
those who have watched the results seem to be free from fear of
serious ill-effects. Moreover those ladies whose influence would
be undesirable are the class least likely to seek the discipline of
college life. The hard work and continued effort demanded will
prove a most advantageous protective, if not a prohibitory, tariff
against these mischievous importations.—[Professor H. M. Tyler.
12
XXVIII
THE EXPERIENCE AT THE UNIVER-
SITY OF MICHIGAN.*
T
BY PROF. MOSES COIT TYLER.
THE
HE year 1870 is likely to be a memorable one in
our history; and, possibly, through its reflected
force, our experience may tell somewhat on the general
history of universities throughout the country. The
year began with us, as you then informed your readers,
by a very significant announcement on the part of the
regents to wit., "that no rule exists in any of the
university statutes for the exclusion of any person from
the university who possesses the requisite qualifications."
Everybody understood what that meant. It was the
shy and even blushing way which these gentlemen
adopted of saying to the knowledge-seeking Pegotties
of the whole country: "Barkis is willin'." It makes us
smile, now, to remember how many years it took the
university to screw its courage up to the point of making
that very diplomatic proposal to the ladies; how long,
in fact, it stood shaking and trembling at the mighty
effort; and what disasters and convulsions dire, in earth,
sea, and sky, we dreaded, when at last the declaration
should tremble into speech. It is wonderful what a stoic
* From the Independent, Dec., 1870.
3
THE EXPERIENCE AT UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN. 267
Nature turns out to be, in spite of her sex; and how,
without a murmur, she adjusted herself to portentous
changes! So, to-day, if you would come here, and walk
into our buildings, you would find ladies attending lec-
tures and recitations in all the departments, without giv-
ing any greater jar to the processes of the seasons or
causing any greater perturbation among the planets and
fixed stars than, in your great city, is occasioned nightly
by ladies attending theatres, operas, and prayer-meet-
ings-all of which, strangely, are organized on this for-
midable "epicene system." According to latest report,
the record stands thus:
In law department.
In literary department.
In medical department..
From Massachusetts....
66
Connecticut..
New York..
Indiana..
cr Illinois...
"c
(C
Total....
SE
These daring persons are distributed among the States
as follows:
33
•
Wisconsin.
Michigan..
Total....
•
.1 lady.
10 ladies.
17 ladies.
•
28 ladies.
3
∞ 1 ∞ Q H
3
2
1
1
218885
17
"Now," you say, "what of it?"
To which I reply only by quoting to you the admir-
able words of our Acting President Frieze, a man who
is not and never has been given to any of these dubious
social novelties. "We have already ceased to fear," says
268
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
!
he, within the very year of its adoption, "the dangers
which were apprehended from this action, and which con-
stituted the chief argument against it—the loss of repu-
tation and caste among universities, the decline of
scholarship, and the corruption of morals." *
* I think I should hardly convey an erroneous impression, if
I should say, that the effect of this admission of these women, upon
the general spirit and life of the University, is much the same as
would have come from the addition of the same number of earnest,
intelligent young men. No new rules have been made since they
came, no new courses of instruction have been established for
their special accommodation. They pursue the same studies as
the men, and in the same way, are treated in precisely the same
manner in the class-room, receive no favors, and wish none. The
fear which some persons expressed in advance, that the admission
of women would result in lowering the grade of work, or in giv-
ing a sort of effeminacy to the spirit of our institution, has proved
wholly unfounded. We are constantly and rapidly raising our
requirements for admission, and so our standard of work.
So far, the women show themselves entirely competent to
master any of the studies of the course, and without injury to
their health. This year, the absences from sickness have not
been proportionally more numerous than those of the men; my
impression is, that they have been fewer. The number of
women here is too small, and their residence with us has been too
short, to justify generalizations concerning their special intellect-
ual aptitudes, if, indeed they have any, more than men have.
There is no department of study in which some of our female
students do not excel; and in none have they, as a class, failed to
do fine work. It is possible that those now here are under a
special stimulus. As pioneers, they doubtless feel that the repu-
tation of their sex is, to a certain extent, staked upon their efforts.
And they labor with great fidelity; we have been constrained to
caution some of them against over-work. But I think that sub-
stantially the same zeal may be expected of their successors. I am
not aware that their presence in our class-rooms has had any ap
preciable effect on the scholarship of the men.-Pres. Angell.
XXIX.
↓
THE EXPERIENCE AT ANTIOCH
ܕ
COLLEGE.
WE
E really have the most orderly, sober, diligent, and
exemplary institution in the country. We passed
through the last term, and are more than half through
the present; and I have not had occasion to make a
single entry of any misdemeanor in our record book—
not a case for any serious discipline. There is no rowdy-
ism in the village, no nocturnal rambles, making night
hideous. All is quiet, peaceful; and the women of the
village feel the presence of our students, when met in
the streets in the evening, to be a protection rather than
an exposure. It is now almost five years since I came
here, and as yet I have had no 'practical joke' or 'col-
lege prank,' as they are called, played upon me-not in
a single instance.-[Horace Mann.
No one conversant with the daily life and walk of
Antioch College can deny that the purity and high tone
of its morals and manners in both departments, were
unequalled by those of any other known institution.
There are many colleges at the West, in whose neigh-
borhood schools for young ladies have sprung up, in
order that the services of teachers and professors in the
270
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
former may be made available in the latter; and in
such cases there have always been regulations prohibit-
ing any intercourse whatever between the two. But it
is the universal testimony of those acquainted with the
subject, that loss of reputation, and even of character,
are not unfrequent in such places, growing out of clan-
destine correspondences and meetings. Mr. Mann
thought the monkish error of repressing natural senti-
ments should be swept away with other errors of the
same nature, and a generous culture should enlist them
in the interests of purity. Young people are thoughtless
rather than vicious; and it is cruel to put them into
circumstances where they can learn wisdom only from
a fatal experience. . . At Antioch the dining-hall, which
was the commons of both sexes, was a charming scene
of social enjoyment and innocent hilarity-a scene
which Mr. Mann specially enjoyed for its beneficent
influences upon manners and happiness. In American
society the freedom of intercourse between the young
has even been found compatible with virtue, in striking
contrast with the system of repression that exists in the
older societies of the world, even of modern Europe.
-[Mrs. Mann.
As to the intellectual result of co-education, I have
seen nothing to warrant the belief that the general
average of scholarship is lowered by it. Young women,
as we find them, have not the same powers of endurance,
in severe and protracted study, that young men have;
but, on the other hand, they do much of their work
with greater facility. In the Languages, in Rhetoric
and Belles-lettres, for instance, they are apter pupils
than their brothers. Perhaps we do not find them as
strong or original mathematicians as young men, but
THE EXPERIENCE AT ANTIOCH COLLEGE.
271
still it must be said that if the two most successful
scholars of the last seven years, with us, were to be
named in this department, both sexes would be repre-
sented. They recite what they know better, on the
average, than young men. The sexes seem to take
different results from the same course. The philosophic
phases of a subject always seem to me to take deeper
hold of young men. They have "Darwinism,” for in-
stance, harder. It seems to me that a more symmetrical
view is obtained when a subject has been brought under
both points of vision.-[Pres. Edward Orton.
XXX.
VASSAR COLLEGE.*
BY PROFESSOR ORTON.
"O, I wish
That I were some great Princess: I would build
Far off from men a college like a man's,
And I would teach them all that men are taught.”
-Tennyson.
W
ERE Plato living, he would cease to give thanks
to the gods that he was not born a woman. Long
has the cry gone up for the definite recognition of the
rights of woman to all the advantages of a thorough
education accorded to man. Long and heroically has
she lived by faith; she has now the sight, at least the
sure promise, of better things. Woman has an Alma
Mater.
When, in 1858, Matthew Vassar was contemplating
his novel enterprise, he asked the advice of the great
philanthropist, educator, and publisher, William Cham-
bers, of Edinburgh. Mr. Chambers replied, that the pro-
posal to endow an institution of a high class for board
and education of several hundred young ladies filled him
with astonishment and consternation. "I cannot ima-
gine such a thing. Boarding-schools with but thirty girls
* From Old and New, Aug., 1871.
VASSAR COLLEGE.
273
seven.
are difficult to manage satisfactorily, and much above a
hundred, in a day-academy is impracticable. It has only
been by exercising a marvellous degree of vigilance and
discipline, such as you could not carry out among your
high-spirited and highly-dressed republican young la-
dies, that the Scottish Institution has been attended with
success." He then recommends him to pause, and con-
sider whether he might not modify his benevolently-
conceived scheme, which he fears would never work to
his satisfaction or be creditable to his good name.
A
safer investment, he thinks, would be a seminary for the
blind, the deaf and dumb, or the weak in intellect.
But the deed is done. And nothing could better
show the determined purpose of the founder, or the un-
deniable demand of the age, than the fact that the costly
experiment was begun while our National Government
was rocking to its foundations. By the old Dutch city
of Poughkeepsie, midway between New York and Al-
bany, and in fair view of the Catskills, stands one of the
largest edifices in America, covering nearly an acre of
ground, and furnished as few of our oldest colleges are,
with all the appliances for a thorough and comprehen-
sive instruction. For six years Vassar College has
thrown wide its doors to the daughters of the land, with
this result:
Average number of students, three hundred and sixty-
Average number of undergraduates (excluding spe-
cials and preparatories), one hundred and fifty-three.
Total number of graduates, one hundred and seven-
teen.
It has also demonstrated the following facts:
1. The shallowness of the popular education of young
ladies. A short course, crowded with high sciences
12*
274
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
1
which are attempted without a preliminary drill, or
filled with those glittering generalities, the accomplish-
ments of speaking French and making a brilliant noise
on a piano, cannot possibly give "clearness, breadth,
force, precision, and fertility to the mind, nor dignity,
weight, refinement, and symmetry to character." Our
daughters deserve something better than knowledge
falsely so called, unorganized and inert, without the
power of independent thinking and accurate observation.
Can the systematic, effective education of woman be
safely committed to private enterprises, when the other
sex require permanent, well-endowed colleges? The es-
tablishment of Vassar reveals the like ambitious scheme
and the slurring of fundamentals in many public schools.
Few who leave them know how to study, and fewer still
have a right conception of the means and end of a sound
culture, and the inexorable conditions for its attainment.
Vassar College is therefore compelled to have a prepara-
tory department, and properly fit the candidates for its
college course.
2. The opening of Vassar College, in 1865, proved.
that woman herself was demanding a higher education.
At no time has there been a lack of students. Their de-
mand was not met by existing institutions. There are
colleges which admit young ladies to their literary feasts;
but the food is prepared by and for men. It is a mascu-
line curriculum. Woman does not ask for any lower
standard than that of Yale; but she asks for a similar
course, modified to meet her distinctive nature and her
peculiar sphere. For, while the mental faculties in the
two sexes are essentially the same, they are very differ-
ent in their proportions, and they should have a corre-
sponding treatment.
3. The age is demanding a broader, deeper, truer,
VASSAR COLLEGE.
275
female education. Unreasonable prejudice is hiding it-
self, along with the effete and narrow views of our fathers;
and, the world has come to the consciousness, that the
culture of both sexes must keep pace with the ever-en-
larging sphere of personal activity.
4. Woman has shown herself capable of a liberal
education. There are already one hundred and seven-
teen living proofs that she has earnestness and energy
enough to carry her through the difficulties. And one
of those difficulties has been the depressing, deadening
influence which consists in feeling that nothing very
good is expected from her. The world has great expec-
tations of a young man in Yale or Harvard; but who
cares for the uncrowned Corinnas and silent Sapphos?
“All women who do any thing are self-made, and can
only be fairly compared with self-made men. The
achievements in science and literature of such women as
Mrs. Somerville, Harriet Martineau, Anne Swanwick,
and the author of 'Adam Bede,' must be taken as repre-
senting, besides what is actually accomplished, a reserve
of force, expended in removing special obstacles." Vas-
sar College, with educational advantages of the first
order, enables us to test the question, whether average
women have sufficient force of brain to justify the hope
of success. If her students manifest diligence and enthu
siasm; a memory more quick to receive, if not so reten-
tive as man's; a delicacy of perception, a habit of
minute accuracy, patience of details, quick and clear
insight, and the love of aesthetic finish; a relish for
scientific research, aptness for the acquisition of lan-
guages, and capacity for the higher mathematics; if her
graduates pursue Hebrew and extra-collegiate Greek,
and follow Pierce and Safford through "the wondering
* See Pres. Raymond's paper.
*
276
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
mazes” of nebulous astronomy without being lost,-
surely the problem is solved. But all this is fact, not
hypothesis. A keen critic of Vassar says, "The answer-
ing, translating, and demonstrating which we witnessed
were done in a style which we have never seen surpassed
by young men of the same standing; and in the treat-
ment of some subjects. in readiness and clear-cutness,
and dexterity in expression, the superiority to young
men was very perceptible."* We have no fear that a
Fielding, a Thackery, or a Dickens will ever portray
women of that stamp as either unprincipled schemers
or affectionate fools."
But have young ladies the physical strength for
study? Why not, when "the endurance of woman" has
become a proverb; when her "delicate constitution"
does not incapacitate her for other callings; when she
has been the burden-bearer of the race ever since the
Fall; when she can do washing and ironing, cooking
and nursing, by the year, or needlework for fourteen
hours daily. It is sufficient to say that Vassar can show
as fair a health-roll as any other college. 'A more
robust, plump, and rosy company than the three hun-
dred and seventy we have never seen seated in one
room. We doubt very much whether any institution in
the world has ever offered young girls such a chance of
combining physical with mental culture." Lectures on
the laws of health, by the resident physician; sanitary
regulations respecting food, dress, exercise, bathing,
sleep, and study; airy, cheerful rooms, opening into
spacious corridors; ample grounds (two hundred acres),
with miles of walks by forest, hill, and lake; gymnastics,
riding, bowling, boating, skating, floriculture,—such are
some of the arrangements for physical training. And
* The Nation, No. 255.
+ The Nation, No. 255.
ܕ
VASSAR COLLEGE.
277
we think that the hundred alumnæ who have passed the
ordeal of a four-years' course are as well-developed, vig-
orous, and graceful women as the majority of ladies who
have been imprisoned in the parlor, the nursery, or the
kitchen.
5. Woman has use for a liberal education. First of
all, to ennoble herself. But it is her province to refine,
illumine, purify and adorn; she is the chief educator of
the human family; therefore she has need to be as intel-
ligent as man. Give her an invigorating moral and
intellectual discipline, the want of which is so demoral-
izing and enfeebling to any one; enable her to draw
upon larger resources for conversation and instruction,
so that she will be "more of a woman, and more what a
woman ought to be,"—and will she not become a still
greater and diviner power in society, and ready to enter
upon those new fields of activity which Providence is
plainly opening for all who have heads, hands, and
hearts? America, pre-eminently, needs the influence of
cultivated women in the development of American char-
acter.
women
6. A liberal culture does not lower the personal
character and grace of woman. When the door of the
Academy of Medicine at St. Petersburgh was shut in the
face of Mlle. Souslowa, the world was told that “
do better, as such, when they know nothing and under-
stand nothing." This may be imperial, but it is not
true. There is nothing like a boundless science to in-
culcate humility and remove prejudice; it is the weak-
minded and half-educated who turn out termagants.
There is no necessary connection between a sound head
and vulgarity; between the ability to calculate an
eclipse and rough manners.
"Ought our standard of what is perfect and beautiful
278
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
ever to stop short of the best that can be reached?
Should not a perfect development of feminine grace and
beauty rest upon a basis of strength,-moral, mental,
and physical, rather than upon the absence of
strength?" Helplessness is not a grace; self-reliance,
energy, brains, are intrinsically good qualities in either
sex. If an excessive education is dangerous, an insuffi-
cient one is not less so. If education unfits woman for
household duties, does ignorance conduce to domestic.
happiness?
But trial is better than theory. Vassar College aims
not to make women like men, but to make the best
women. In giving a high culture, the distinctive char-
acteristics of the sex are carefully guarded and nurtured.
How it has succeeded, the writer whom we have quoted
testifies: "There was nothing in dress or manners to
make anybody fear that any of the graces of life were
going to suffer from the experiment; nay, there were
plenty of signs that it was likely to give homes what
they have perhaps wanted most of all,—the dignity of
strength, the repose that comes of knowing exactly
where one stands, and what one can achieve."
Vassar College professes "to do for young women
what the existing colleges are doing for young men.
It is neither a convent nor a mammoth boarding-school,
with the legal power to confer degrees. As a matter
of wisdom and economy, it is on the home-system, and
furnishes the quiet and safety, the privacy and freedom,
of the family, with no silly espionage, and no more ex-
clusiveness than every parent would desire.
It is not a theological seminary; yet it is not indif-
ferent to religion. It is believed that the scholar should
be more than a mere intellectual result. Elevation of
thought and feeling, a pure and joyous religiousness of
!
""
VASSAR COLLEGE.
279
spirit, are held up, but incidentally, not formally. The
Bible is preached, without ecclesiasticism; principles are
inculcated, without the dogmas. The trustees, faculty,
and students are of all denominations: "All sectarian
influences should be carefully excluded," was the voice
of the founder.
It is not an organ of "Woman's Rights" in the civil
sense. The true women of our land neither wish to be
assigned to their true position by the other sex, nor to
usurp it; but to be allowed to prove themselves worthy
of it. They would rather be masters of their faculties
than masters at the polls. There is work enough to be
done, within woman's present sphere, to demand a higher
education. There are woman's rights that are dearer
than woman's duties; and one is, the power to work.
It is not an industrial school, nor a university for
professional education. The prime object of the colle-
giate system is, not acquisition of positive knowledge,
but the development of the mind itself, irrespective for
the time being of the uses which may be made of learn-
ing. Below the applications of science, lies the great
deposit of primary principles. High over practical life
hang the clouds of hypothesis. But truths are first
clouds, then rain, then harvest and food. A college
gives gold in the bullion; the university is the mint
which turns it into coin. Civilization is but the diffu-
sive radiance of a profound culture. "Who does not
know (said Edward Everett) that there is not a yard of
cotton cloth bleached or printed in the Commonwealth,
without assistance from the last results of chemical re-
search? that you cannot construct a turbine water-
wheel but by the aid of the highest mathematics?" It
is a mistake, therefore, to suppose that that only is use-
ful knowledge of which an immediate use can be made,
280
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
*7
Very little of our knowledge is directly applied; most
of it is an unseen force behind, to make effective the
little we do use. A college course should consult utility
in its highest and broadest sense,—not that eager utility
which would cut down the tree for the sake of its fruit,
but that far-sighted utility which ploughs deep that the
world and the ages may reap.
With this view of its mission, Vassar seeks to reduce
the number of its "specials,"* and recommends the sym-
metrical culture of its regular course. It considers a
principle worth more than its application, and the power
of thinking of more value than erudition. It does not,
however, lose sight of the fact that maternity is the or-
dained condition of woman; and hence a course of in-
struction should have higher reference to the sex in its
normal state than to the exceptional cases of single life.
Colleges are not founded for a few women who, appa-
rently, ought to have been men, nor for the few men who
ought to have been women.
The course of study at Vassar is not offered as a fin-
ished pyramid of knowledge, but as a good foundation
for future labor. It aims at a thorough and productive.
training in essentials, rather than in giving multifarious
information. It is impossible to crowd within four
years (reduced by vacations to three) the ever-widening
circle of human science. At the same time, a reasonable
variety is secured by the clective system. All the studies
of the freshman year (chiefly Latin, French and Mathe-
matics) are required. The average age upon entering
sophomore is eighteen and a half; which, considering the
earlier maturity of the sex, corresponds to the age of
the Harvard sophomore and the age of university free-
*The Special Course is intended only for ladies of advanced
age and culture, who wish to pursue particular branches.
VASSAR COLLEGE.
281
Latin,
Greek,
dom in Europe. The young lady is then supposed to be
capable of making an intelligent choice of studies; and,
during the rest of her course, is free to do so within cer-
tain limits. Her selection is subject to the approval of
the faculty; for the special wants, as well as tastes, of
the student, and the logical order of the sciences must
be considered. Whoever knows nothing of mineralogy
and zoology is unprepared for geology; whoever has
omitted the higher mathematics cannot take astronomy.
No student is required, or (under ordinary circumstan-
ces) permitted to take more than three full studies at a
time with one art study. Comparing Vassar and Yale,
we find the following relative amount of time which can
be given to the several collegiate branches, combining
the prescribed and elective:*
English,
French,
German,
Mathematics,
Physics,
Astronomy,
Natural History,
Chemistry,
Anatomy and Physiology,
Mental and Moral Philosophy,
Logic,
History,
VASSAR.
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The difference of time in the two courses arises main-
ly from the greater freedom of election at Vassar; still,
*This is exclusive of rhetoric, criticism, and elocution, which
are taught similarly in both colleges. Political economy and art
are also omitted from the list. History is at present taught only
incidentally; but it is intended to give due prominence to this im-
portant study.
-282
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
it is true that more importance is given to modern lan-
guages and the inductive sciences, while nearly as much
time may be given to the classics and mathematics as in
Yale. Thus a student can, with the consent of the fac-
ulty, elect Latin for three years, both colleges starting
with Livy. Greek is not required upon entering Vassar,
nor in the course. But the college believes in holding
its students to Latin and mathematics for at least one
year, as the best possible preparation for the work before
them. It is the experience of centuries that classical
study is the most perfect training in the study of lan-
guage; and no young lady can afford to lose that price-
less culture. It is, moreover, a means of mental refine-
ment and the inspiration of original thought. The length
of time given to the modern languages needs no apology.
Modern literature is the broadest, as well as latest, efflor-
escence of the highest intellectual growth; and belles-
lettres is as eminently appropriate in a ladies' college as
oratory in Yale. As linguistic study gives flexibility
and grace, so mathematics gives strength. With less
than is required in Vassar, a student will lack capacity
to take and hold "the long breaths of patient thought.”
And, surely, the higher walks of calculus and astronomy
-"that form in which science has reached her highest
development, the power of prophecy"-should at least
be open to that little circle of minds who love to ab-
stract themselves from all things terrestrial. Thus far,
in no other college save Harvard do students voluntarily
go farther in mathematical astronomy, or do more ob-
servatory work. The claims of the physical sciences are
imperative; and there are special reasons for giving to
woman, so exposed to narrowing influences, as wide an
interest as we can in all that is now expanding human
thought and enterprise, and the study of which commu-
VASSAR COLLEGE.
283
"P
nicates precision, clearness, and method to the mind's
working. Nature has given to woman the keener per-
ceptive faculty,-an argument that natural science is
specially within her range.
To early cultivate the power and habit of observa-
tion, botany is placed in freshman year; while physiol-
ogy is the Alpha and Omega of the course. Heavy is
the penalty the world has paid for keeping half the race,
"whose sphere is home," in prudish ignorance of the
laws of health and the first principles of chemistry.
Who would strike metaphysics from the Vassar curricu-
lum, and with it the pleasure of "coasting around the
shore of things invisible?" or logic, in which the loftiest
minds of all ages have delighted to dwell?
In the higher education of woman are necessarily
included (but how often left in heathenish neglect!) the
arts of expression, so well suited to her imagination, and
the grace and delicacy of her nature. We believe in
the true and the good, but none the less in the beautiful,
and in its refining power. "Mere science is wont to
denude Nature, and, unlooping her drapery of field and
flower, bind it up in a lean bundle of principles." But
Nature hath a soul and voice; and genuine æsthetic
culture, true elegance of taste, does not stop at externals.
In the departments of music and painting at Vassar,
mechanical dexterity is not the ultimate aim; for that is
no higher than parrot-talk in an unknown tongue. But
the students penetrate into the sanctuary of the art,
and get the sense, the science, and the literature of
what they are doing.
Very likely some may say the Vassar course of study
is well enough in theory, but too strong to practice.
But the "impossible" is done. And the faculty has yet
to receive a petition for a lower standard. The voice
284
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
of womankind is, "Give us undiluted knowledge. We
can digest anything, up to least squares; but we cannot
feed forever on gruel prepared expressly for the female
mind." Of course, young ladies display unequal talents;
and according to Dr. Baur, representing many eminent
educators, a college system should be adapted to the
average student. But we prefer the judgment of Pres.
Eliot, that the course should consult the wants of the
best scholars. Nothing is so elevating to our prepara-
tory schools as the keeping of the colleges in the high
altitudes.
As to the method of instruction, Vassar has not dis-
covered any royal road to learning. We plod in the
old military path of "drill and review." In general,
text-books are preferred to lectures, combining, when
properly used, greater accuracy with equal freedom of
inquiry. In no case, if possible, are words allowed to
take the place of conceptions. In the study of Nature,
the student is taught to search for fundamental laws,
homologies, and analogies, rather than burden the mem-
ory with details. It is insisted that the name shall not
be substituted for the thing itself; that the eye is a
nobler organ than the ear; that a specimen must be
handled without gloves before it can be known. In the
art department, the system of Albert Dürer is followed,
-that of first studying the object mathematically, to
insure a perfect likeness rather than a "picture." The-
oretical rhetoric is not taught in the college; "Whately"
being studied solely for its analysis of thought. Through-
out the course, the ladies are exercised' in composition,
and their essays are used as the basis for developing
style. German and French, by Otto's method, are
mastered to a full and facile possession both of the
tongue and the literature. In the classical course,
VASSAR COLLEGE.
285
grammar is the beginning and end; while the genius
and structure of the language and the people are brought
to light, and all the elements of ancient life-philosophy
and art, history and civilization-are reproduced in the
analysis of the author. To the mere linguistic inter-
pretation which prevails in the preparatory course,
other æsthetical and historical studies are added as
progressive features, together with exercises in prose
composition, written translations, and essays on the
subjects read.
We commend to all these words of the Edinburgh
Ladies' Educational Association: "So far as we can
see, cultivation does for women what it does for men,——
intensifies every moral attribute in proportion to the
mental growth. Those who must go out into the world,
go out with a truer courage, founded upon a nobler
estimate of work; those whose duties lie within the
circle of home, find them invested with a new and vivid
significance from the higher elevation, and consequently
larger views, of their own minds; and, finally, as "wo-
man is not undeveloped man," we believe that woman-
hood can only be made more truly womanly, as manhood
is made more truly manly, by the utmost use of the
possibilities of high cultivation."
THE SECOND DEGREE.-At the annual meeting of
the trustees of Vassar College, June 20, 1871, the fol-
lowing resolution was passed :—
<<
Resolved, That graduates who shall have pursued a two-
years' course of study submitted to and approved by the Faculty,
shall have passed satisfactorily a thorough examination in the
same, and shall have presented a commendable dissertation on
some literary or scientific subject, shall be entitled to the Mas-
ter's Degree."
XXXI.
EDINBURGH LADIES' EDUCATIONAL
ASSOCIATION.
THI
HIS is perhaps the most systematic and successful
attempt in Great Britain to meet the great want
of the age-the higher education of women.
It was
organized in 1867. Her Grace the Duchess of Argyll is
President, and some of the most eminent men and
women of Scotland are connected with it. It offers to
girls over seventeen the essentials of a liberal education.
"It is not certainly a movement for throwing open
our existing Universities to women-that being a matter
upon which, as I have said, opinion has not been taken,
and upon which there would probably be great diversity
of opinion. It is decidedly, however, a movement for
providing for ladies some equivalent for that University
education which has hitherto been the exclusive privilege
of men.
Education for ladies as nearly as possible
according to the University standard-this is what the
Association proposes; by this aim must its proceedings
be regulated; and any forgetfulness of this aim, any
letting down of the standard below the level of this aim,
as avowed in the prospectus, would reduce the Associa-
tion to a mere futility, and deprive it of all distinctive.
meaning. Since our young ladies, after leaving school,
cannot go to the University, some equivalent to a Uni-
EDINBURGH LADIES EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION.
287
versity ought gradually to be set up for them—this is
what the Association proclaims as desirable. Or rather
it is an equivalent only to a certain portion of our
Universities for men that the Association, as such,
desires to see set up for women. 'It is not the aim of
the Association,' says the prospectus in the sentence
next after those already quoted, 'to train for professions;
but its promoters desire, in the education of women,
to give them the advantages of a system acknowledged
to be well suited for the mental training of the other
sex,'
The meaning of this substantially is that, in
order to limit its aims to what is most practicable at
present, and what all can agree in, it proposes the setting
up for women of an equivalent to that portion of our
University-system which is known. as the General
Faculty, or Faculty of Arts, but refrains from any
attempt at the special or purely professional Faculties.
of Theology, Law, and Medicine. By this limitation of
its design, the Association excludes all possibility of its
being considered the organ of theories that would be
provocative of discord, and, without saying anything
whatever about these theories, reserves for itself a dis-
tinct work of ample range, to which no exception can be
taken, which can be approved by an assemblage of
names so striking and so widely representative as that
which has heralded its foundation, and which is yet suffi-
ciently important and sufficiently difficult. This work,
I repeat, may be defined as the gradual setting-up in
Edinburgh of an apparatus for the instruction of ladies
that shall be as nearly as possible equivalent to the
classes which form collectively the General Faculty, or
Faculty of Arts, in our Scottish Universities. Latin,
Greek, Mathematics, Logic and Metaphysics, Moral
Philosophy, Rhetoric and English Literature-these are
288
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
the classes of the ordinary curriculum in the Faculty of
Arts of the University of Edinburgh; to which, however,
there is no theoretical reason why certain other classes
--such as Natural History, Chemistry, and Geology-
should not be added."*
"The committee arranges with several Professors of
the Edinburgh University, to deliver their college lec-´
tures to separate classes of ladies, in a room hired for
the purpose. These, unlike popular lectures, consist of
a full course of from thirty to forty lectures from each
professor, and extend over the winter session. The
Professor of English Literature began the experiment;
the following year Mental Philosophy and Experimental
Physics were added; last session a class of Mathematics
was also started, and a class under the Professor of
Botany now works in the Botanical Gardens. These
were all working classes; students were expected to
take notes of the lectures—their progress was tested by
three written examinations, and by the writing of
Essays. These were judged by the same standards used
in the University, and final certificates were given which
indicated the place of each student. These certificates,
signed by the professors, in which honors of the first or
second class were assigned, or pass-work certified, have
their real value in the educational world at home, or in
foreign universities.
It will be seen that the three branches of the Arts
Curriculum are represented; viz., literature proper,
mathematical and physical science, and mental philoso-
phy and logic. Students of all ages attended the lec-
tures; many only one of the courses-and a certain
proportion gave in no work. But as to the quality of
the work given in, the different Professors report highly
* From Professor Masson's Address, 1868.
EDINBURGH LADIES' EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION. 289
of it. Of the English Literature class, Professor Masson
says, 'I had a large and excellent class, conducted as
nearly as possible as a university class-the same stand-
ards were applied in judging of results-the averages
came up fully to averages elsewhere-the best here were
closely comparable to the best there.' The Professor
of Natural Philosophy remarks, 'I never had a more
attentive or intelligent class, nor one in which the pro-
gress was more marked.' And Professor Fraser reports
that one-twelfth of his Mental Philosophy class gained
more than eighty per cent of the marks, that one or two
of the best papers were, on the whole, superior to any of
the corresponding university class-and that the answers
given at the examinations, which were nearly the same,
and equal in difficulty to those at the university, showed
powers not inferior to that of successful candidates for
honors in mental philosophy at graduation. And
Professor Masson said, in a recent lecture, that while the
extent of the higher education given to ladies in Edin-
burgh might be gauged by the fact that he had lectured
to between five and six hundred students, its depth
might be estimated by the fact that the Professor of
Mathematics had brought his class in one session to
quaternions."*

SUBJECTS.
English Literature,
Experimental Physics,
Mental Philosophy,
Mathematics,
1867-68. 1868-69. 1869-70. 1870-71.
265
……….
....
120
141
65
……..
141
72
44
35
84
70
49
17
A class in Botany, held during the summer session
of 1869–70, numbered 28 students, and that held during
last summer numbered 19.
*From The Monthly Packet, Aug., 1870.
13
290
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
It is impossible to generalize from the scanty data
supplied by the experience of four sessions only. These
tables, however, show that love of novelty, as well as
the kind wish to assist a struggling enterprise, helped to
fill our class-rooms at first. They also point out that,
while new subjects are naturally popular, and a second
session has hitherto been invariably marked by dimin-
ished numbers, on the other hand, a third year's attend-
ance has not always shown a like falling off. It is evi-
dent that our work is still only an experiment, and that
we do not as yet know what is to be the average number
of working students for whom we have to provide in-
struction, since it is not unlikely that a farther decrease
in numbers may yet take place. Still, in the number of
students who return year after year, and, above all, in
the general steady improvement in the quality of their
work, we find abundant encouragement.*
The Honorary Secretary, Mrs. Crudelius, says:
"Very lately the University of Cambridge seems to
have discovered for itself the force of an argument which
is strongly implied in the conduct of the movement here,
viz, that only half, and that the latter and less impor-
tant half, of the work is done, when a system of examin-
ation of high attainments is devised and carried out be-
fore an equally high system of teaching is organized.
In spite of the difficulties which beset corporate action in
such a direction on the part of Cambridge, the first step
has been taken, and classes for women have already been
opened there in various branches of study. The Univer-
sity of Edinburgh has infinitely greater facilities for in-
corporating the teaching of women with its ordinary
work, as it is distinctively a teaching University, with
From the Fourth Annual Report.
EDINBURGH LADIES' EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION. 291
classes conducted by Professors, and unincumbered with
college residence rules. This system makes it a compar-
atively easy matter to devise a means (without going
into the vexed question of mixed classes) of extending its
advantages, in at least some departments, to women."
XXXII.
COLLEGE FOR WOMEN AT HITCHIN,
HERTS.
HE object of the institution is, to provide for women
a systematic education equivalent to that afforded
by the Universities to men. Its distinctive features
may be thus described:-
1. It embraces students of all classes, including those
whose homes are in the country and small towns. To
this numerous class, the Courses of Lectures and other
educational advantages by which the wants of women
in large towns may be partially supplied, are for the
most part inaccessible.
2. The teaching, being given by men engaged in Uni-
versity and College tuition at Cambridge, is of the very
highest class. This teaching is partly given to classes,
partly individual, thus combining the Professorial and
Tutorial systems. It is hoped that eventually the chief
part of the tutorial work will be undertaken by resident
women, who having themselves gone through the Col-
lege course with credit, will have given evidence of fit-
ness.
3. Each student has a room to herself and her hours
of private study are thus guarded from social and domes-
tic interruption, while she has the advantage of being
associated with others in common pursuit. The oppor-
素
​COLLEGE FOR WOMEN AT HITCHIN, HERTS.
293
tunity for intelligent sympathy and mutual help afforded
by fellowship in study supplies a healthy stimulus from
which the solitary student is altogether debarred.
4. There is an Entrance Examination,* which serves
the purpose of keeping up the level of the studies of the
place, and obviates the necessity of giving teaching in
* ENTRANCE EXAMINATION.-The Examination is conducted
in writing. 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 construc-
tion of sentences and meanings of words; 3. Physical and Politi-
cal 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 is required; 5. English Composition;
6. Scripture History. (The New Testament.) Part II. OP-
TIONAL SUBJECTS.-Every Candidate is also required to satisfy
the Examiners 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 sen-
tences for translation into Greek, with questions on Grammar.
3. French; 4. German; 5. Algebra. Addition, Subtraction, Mul-
tiplication, and Division of Algebraical Quantities, Arithmeti-
cal and Geometrical Progression, Simple Equations. 6. Geome-
try. The First Four Books of Euclid; or the Principal Proper-
ties of Triangles, and of Squares, and other Parallelograms treated
geometrically; and the Principal Properties of the Circle, and of
its inscribed and circumscribed figures, treated geometrically;
7. Experimental Physics; 8. Chemistry; 9. Botany; 10. Music.
Notation. Thorough bass up to the inversions of the dominant
seventh. The execution of certain previously specified compo-
sitions by classical writers and a piece of easy music at sight.
11. Drawing, from the Flat, and from Models. Perspective.
* In case of objection, this subject is not required.
294
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
elementary subjects, while at the same time it holds out
a standard for the higher schools to work up to.
5. Certificates will be given upon examinations of
recognized authority. The University of Cambridge,
with which it is desired as far as possible to connect the
College, has not yet been asked to open its Examinations
for degrees to the students of this college, but some of
the students have already, with the cognizance of the
Council of the senate, passed the Previous examination
informally, and certificates given by the college of hav-
ing passed University examinations will be really,
though not formally, equivalent to University degrees,
and will be practically useful in a similar manner. The
attestation is specially important in the case of teachers,
but the certificate would be valuable to all women who
want to give evidence of their qualifications for the
various positions which may be open to them.
6. The college course extends the period of educa
tion, adding three years, at a most important stage,
to the time usually bestowed upon systematic instruction`
and discipline. It thus removes the necessity of trying
to cram everything that ought to be learned into the
school time, at the risk of sacrificing both physical health
and thoroughness of attainment, while at the same time
it makes it possible to offer to women a kind of training
which would be appropriate at an earlier age. It sup-
plements the best schools without entering into competi-
tion with them, and the benefit is likely to extend in due
time to families, by making future mothers and govern-
esses acquainted with the best methods of teaching and
the best books. But though the college course extends
over three years, the whole of that time is not devoted,
without intermission, to study. Rather less than half
of the year is spent at the college. There are in each
COLLEGE FOR WOMEN AT HITCHIN, HERTS.
295
year three terms, each of eight weeks. The period of
the course may thus be regarded as divided about equal-
ly between residence at college and home life.
Some progress has already been made in the attempt
to establish such an institution as has been described.
In 1869 a house at Hitchin, capable of accommodating
six students, was taken, and a college was opened, the
instruction being given by lecturers from Cambridge.
and London. In 1870 it became necessary to put up
iron rooms for the reception of additional students. By
various temporary expedients, accommodation has been
provided for twelve students during the present academ-
ical year (1871).
It is an essential and distinguishing feature of this
college that at the outset the student is required to pass
an entrance examination designed to secure that she has
received such elementary instruction as is given in good
schools, and will thus be qualified to make use of teaching
of a high order. This is imperatively necessary, if the
college is to maintain its position as a place of higher edu-
cation. Without such sifting, we should be obliged either
to give the sort of teaching which belongs to the school-
room, or to fall into the fatal error of allowing the stu-
dents to be nominally pursuing high subjects while.
ignorant of such fundamentals as arithmetic and English
grammar. Some people say that in our strictness on
this point we are setting a good example to our superiors.
at Oxford and Cambridge. However that may be,
there can be no doubt as to its necessity in the case of
women. And I dwell for a moment on this point,
because I think it goes far to explain a fact which needs
explanation. I mean the comparatively small number
of women who have applied for admission to the college.
It may not unfairly be asked how it is that if such an
→
296
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
institution is really wanted, the want is not shown by a
large number of women flocking up and begging for
admission. No doubt there are many reasons, but
among them, I believe that this entrance examination is
one of the chief. Let us picture a case.
We will sup-
pose a lady of fair abilities and some taste for study,
and few opportunities at home, who hears of the college,
and thinks she would like to go. To begin with, she has
to make up her own mind that she cares enough about
it to do a thing which nobody that she knows has ever
done before, at which some will wonder, and some will
not quite approve. Then she has to persuade her rela-
tions to let her go, and not only so, but to pay a consid-
erable sum for it. Then she hears of the entrance ex-
amination. She knows nothing of examinations except
as a name of terror, and has no clear idea as to how
much she knows or does not know in relation to the
standard imposed.
Perhaps she asks to see some examination papers,
and if so, her terror is probably increased. For we all
know what unanswerable looking things examination
questions are, and only those who have had experience
are aware with what sort of answers a long-suffering
examiner will profess to be "satisfied." Our supposed
candidate has had no such experience. She pictures
herself going through the process of first earning an
unwelcome reputation for great learning by the mere
fact that she desires to learn, and then going back to
her friends rejected for ignorance. The picture may be
imaginary. The examination is not so severe but that
any one who has had a fairly good school education is
sure to pass. But one cannot wonder, I think, that it
should have a strongly deterrent influence on those who
are timid and inexperienced. This ordeal passed, the
COLLEGE FOR WOMEN AT HITCHIN, HERTS. 297
students are free to choose, within limits, their own
course of study. Practically, their choice is in some
degree influenced by the University examinations. It
has been felt to be a very essential point that the work
of our students should be submitted to the highest tests.
It is our aim to give to women the highest culture of
the time. Ambitious as it may sound, it is only candid
to say that nothing less than this will satisfy us; and
we believe that we are using the best means for securing
the highest culture by accepting a University standard.
I do not mean by this to express an opinion as to whether,
among the various courses of study now sanctioned by
University authority, there is any one which can rightly
claim to be the absolutely, ideally best. But in passing
by University standards, the alternative must have been
accepted of setting up a standard of our own. And for
such a standard we could not have claimed the respect
which belongs to the highest educational authorities in
this country. Some of our students have already passed,
informally, the previous examination, popularly known
as the "little-go," and are preparing for the final
examinations. But the University examinations are
not compulsory, and the course of study is not lim-
ited by their requirements. Among the subjects which
have already been taught, I may mention, besides Divin-
ity, Classics, and Mathematics, the more modern subjects.
of English, German, and Natural Science. The teach-
ing given is of a twofold character, partly collective, to
classes, and partly individual. This combination of the
professorial and tutorial systems is found to work re-
markably well. As to hours of study, and exercise, and
other personal matters, the students are expected to use
their discretion. It has not been found necessary to
lay down minute rules for their guidance. One word
13*
298
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
more, as to what we look to as the result of the college
training. There are two questions constantly asked-.
Of what class are the students? and what have they in
view? Are they preparing to be governesses, or to go
into professions, or what are they intending to do? I
am afraid I cannot give a categorical answer to these
questions. We do not consider it our business to in-
quire as to the social position of the students. Our
view is that the college ought to be similar in its scope
to the Universities, i. e., embracing every class, from
the Prince of Wales down to the laborer's child, if he
can find his way there. Practically, the college is, of
course, limited to the classes which are able and willing
to pay for a prolonged education, except in so far as
aid is received in the form of scholarships and exhibi-
tions. We hope that as time goes on aid of this kind
will be largely given, so that promising students, who
have ability but not means, may have the opportunity
of turning their gifts to account. But I do not by this
mean necessarily making money by them. We do not
consider it necessary that our students should have any
such object in view. We do not ask what specific use
they intend to make of their knowledge when they have
gained it. We say to them rather-
Earn the means first,
God surely will contrive use for your earning.
We believe that sound and godly learning—to use one
of the good old phrases—can never come amiss to them,
to whatever state of life they may hereafter be called.
If they are to go into professions, to have had the
ground-work of a liberal education to begin with is
most valuable. If they are to teach-and most women
do teach in some form or other, at some period of their
COLLEGE FOR WOMEN AT HITCHIN, HERTS. 299
lives—it is most necessary that they should themselves
have been taught. If they should desire to pursue
scientific research, not merely to get entertainment
from the labors of others, but to add something to the
store of human knowledge, a thorough scientific training
is needful. If they are to take part in the social and
philanthropic work which falls to the lot of the leisured
classes, to have acquired the habit of patient, thoughtful
study of facts and accurate generalization, is surely of
the first importance. To whatever field of duty they
may betake themselves, the habits acquired in an orderly,
purposeful, disciplined life, can scarcely fail to make.
them more able, if not more willing, workers. This,
then, is the aim of the college-not to train women for
this or that specific calling, but so to develop and dis-
cipline their powers that they may be ready for use for
the common good.*
༢
·
* From the address of the Hon. Sec. Miss Emily Davies, at Bir-
mingham, Oct. 1871.
:
1
LECTURES FOR WOMEN IN CAM-
BRIDGE, ENG.
T
HESE Lectures are designed to supply the demand
existing among women for the higher education.
The scheme embraces the subjects included in the Cam-
bridge Examination for Women above the age of 18,
and the Lectures are intended primarily to meet the
needs of persons preparing for this Examination. They
are delivered (with the exception of Modern Languages)
by some of the Professors and College Lecturers who
compose the General Committee.*
The following is the Scheme of Lectures for the
academical year (1871–72):
English History.
by Professor Seeley.
Papers will be set and looked over weekly, for students preparing for the
Examination, by B. E. Hammond, M.A., Fellow and Lecturer of Trinity Col-
lege.
English Language and Literature" W. W. Skeat, M. A. Lecturer and late Fel-
low of Christ's College, and others.
(The Public Orator, Mr. Jebb, will deliver a course of Lectures on Milton in
the Lent Term.)
Latin
advanced
elementary
XXXIII.
Greek
German
French...
··
•
··
by J. E. B. Mayor, M.A., Fellow and Lecturer
of St. John's College.
"A. Holmes, M.A., Fellow and Lecturer of
Clare College.
"J. Peile, M.A.,Fellow and Tutor of Christ's
College.
"Mr. Steinhilper.
"Mr. Boquel.
*The Examination is established by the University, while
the Lectures are managed by a voluntary combination of Pro-
fessors and Lecturers.
LECTURES FOR WOMEN IN CAMBRIDGE, ENG. 301
Algebra and the Principles of
Practical Arithmetic (to com-
mence, January, 1872)
Geometry
••••
Logic.....
Political Economy..
Botany (in the Easter Term)...
Geology and Physical Geography
Chemistry.
..
··
Harmony and Thorough-Bass)
(in the Michaelmas and
Lent Terms)
………
by Professor Cayley.
.. W. H. H. Hudson, M.A., Fellow and Lec-
turer of St. John's College.
"N. M. Ferrers, M.A., Fell. and Tutor of
Gonv. and Caius Coll.
"J. Venn, M.A., Fellow and Lecturer of
Gonv. and Caius Coll.
"A. Marshall, M.A., Fellow and Lecturer of
St. John's College.
"Professor C. C. Babington.
" T. G. Bonney, B.D., Fellow and Tutor of
St. John's College.
"P. T. Main, M.A., Fellow and Lecturer of
St. John's College.
(6
G. M. Garrett, Mus. D. Organist of St.
John's College.
The public lectures of many of the University Pro-
fessors may also be attended by women.
The fee for a
single course is one guinea. The Candidates who sat-
isfy the Examiners will receive certificates to that effect,
and those who pass with credit, certificates of honor.
Every certificate will specify the subjects in which the
Candidate has passed.
"The published result of the examinations does not
speak very well for the attainments of English young
ladies, if the candidates are to be regarded as fair
representatives of their sex. These examinations were
held in six different places-Cambridge, Cheltenham,
Liverpool, London, Manchester, and Rugby. One hun-
dred and twenty-nine candidates entered, and of these
twenty withdrew before the examination took place.
All were required to qualify by first passing in di-
vinity, arithmetic, English history, English litera-
ture, language, and composition, which studies were
classified as "Group A." These, with the excep-
tion of the first, are branches of learning in which
most young ladies in this country who have had good
school advantages are expected to be proficient. Yet
thirty-six out of eighty-four of the lady candidates
302
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
before the Cambridge examiners failed to pass in them.
The report of the committee shows a great lack of thor-
oughness in all the subjects examined upon, and it is
evident from their complaints that the young women of
England must apply themselves to the elementary
studies with much more zeal and perseverance before
they shall be able to carry off the honors in the great
universities.”—Philadelphia Press.
XXXIV.
THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON.
T
HIS University exhibits the most advanced form
into which the question of the higher education
of women has yet been shaped by the action of consti-
tuted authority, as distinct from mere miscellaneous
opinion. The University has no class-rooms or profes-
sors: not an atom of teaching on any subject whatever
goes on within its walls. It is purely an examining and
degree-granting body; and though centred in London,
it extends its operations over all Her Majesty's domin-
ions. The forty examiners at its head are men of mark,
socially and intellectually; and the degrees they be-
stow are among the most hard-won in Britain, and every-
where esteemed as unsurpassed certificates of real pro-
ficiency. This singular Institution, which for the last
thirty years has done so much to set and raise the
standard of school-education for young men, has re-
cently begun to perform a similar service for women.
In August 1867 it received a supplemental charter which
opens its doors to both sexes. "A girl (says Prof. Mas-
son) who has obtained a pass-certificate of the London
University, especially should it be with honors, may be
regarded as on a par, in respect of general knowledge.
and various mental training, with the best of her broth-
ers in the first year of their university course, or there-
abouts."
304
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
Candidates must have completed their seventeenth
year, and show a competent knowledge in each of the
following subjects :—
1. LATIN, with Grammar, History, and Geography.
2. Any Two of the following Languages:-GREEK, FRENCH,
GERMAN, ITALIAN.
3. ENGLISH LANGUAGE, ENGLISH HISTORY, and GEOGRAPHY
(Physical and Topographical).
4. MATHEMATICS.
5. NATURAL PHILOSOPHY.
6. Either CHEMISTRY or BOTANY.
Any Candidate who has passed this General Exam-
ination may be examined for a Special Certificate of
Higher Proficiency in any one or more of the following
subjects either in the same year or in different years,
provided that she give notice of her intention Two Cal-
endar Months before the commencement of the General
Examination :—(1) Latin, (2) Greek, (3) French, (4)
German, (5) Italian, (6) English, (7) Mathematics and
Mechanical Philosophy, (8) Natural Philosophy and
Chemistry, (9) Botany, (10) Human Physiology, (11)
Geology and Palæontology, (12) Political Economy,
(13) Logic and Moral Philosophy, (14) Harmony and
Counterpoint.
XXXV.
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON.
TH
HIS College allows classes to be formed "exclusive-
ly for Ladies who are not under the age of seven-
teen. Each class is taught by the Professor of its
subject in University College, and meets in the college.
There is sufficient separation of the students in the
Ladies' classes from the other students of the College."
The ladies are allowed to compete not only for the
class prizes, but also for the Hume and Ricardo Scholar-
ships awarded for proficiency in Political Economy, and
for the Slade Scholarships given to students in Fine Arts.
The Professors unanimously express their satisfaction
with the attention and diligence displayed. Professor
Amos says: “I have a class of five women in Jurispru-
dence, and they are some of the best pupils I have any-
where. I have lectured repeatedly on Law to mixed class-
es; and though the women have sometimes (not always)
attended in smaller numbers than the men, they have
been in every way equal to them, and their presence has
vastly improved the general tone of the class and the
quality of the teaching.”
XXXVI.
ALEXANDRA COLLEGE, DUBLIN.
THIS
HIS College was founded in 1866 "to supply de-
fects in the existing system of education of women
of the upper and middle classes-to afford an education
more sound, more solid, systematically imparted and
better tested than was at that time to be obtained in
Ireland.” The age of admission is fixed at fourteen
years. There is no entrance examination.
The manner of instruction in the language classes is
that of advanced exercises in composition, vivá voce
questioning, reading of authors. In the literature
classes it is carried on by means of prelections and tak-
ing of notes, etc.; in science, by lecture, demonstration,
and experiment.
Attendance on a course of two years' study with
examinations conducted by printed questions and writ-
ten answers four times during the course is required
from the candidates for certificates.
A very remarkable and encouraging fact in the
working of the system is, the development and increas-
ing demand for the higher studies, side by side with
this necessity for elementary instruction, so that it has
been found desirable to appoint Professors in many
branches of knowledge which were at first omitted from
the curriculum. Of these Ethnology and the science of
ALEXANDRA COLLEGE, DUBLIN.
-TIME TABLE.
307

Ilours.
10
11
12
12
1
14
24
3
10
to
3%
MONDAY.
French, 2nd div.
French, 3rd div.
Italian, 3rd div.
French, 1st div.
German, 4th div.
Geology.
Geography.
Mathematics, 1st div.
(Arithmetic,) 2nd div.
German, 1st div.
TUESDAY.
Instrumental Music.
Italian, 1st div.
Cookery.
Calisthenic Exercises. Drawing & Painting.
Drawing.
French Conversation.
German, 4th div.
History (French).
Drawing.
T. and Vocal Music.
2nd div.
English Literature.
English Language.
Ancient Civilization.
Instrumental Music.
WEDNESDAY.
Italian, 2nd & 3rd div. French, 2nd div.
Latin, 3rd div.
Perspective.
French, 3rd div.
Italian, 1st div.
Latin, 2nd div.
Drawing.
French Literature.
German, 1st div.
German, 2nd div.
German, 3rd div.
Latin Literature.
German, 2nd div.
History (Christian
Church.)
Latin, 1st div.
Theoretic and Vocal
Music, 1st div.
German Literature.
German, 1st div.
Reading.
THURSDAY.
Instrumental Music.
French, 1st div.
French Conversation.
German, 4th div.
History (Roman).
Calisthenic Exercises.
History (English).
Meteorology.
Astronomy.
English Literature.
English Language.
Instrumental Music.
FRIDAY.
Scripture.
Latin, 3rd div.
Italian, 2nd & 3rd div.
Latin, 2nd div.
Drawing.
French Literature.
German, 1st div.
German, 2nd div.
German, 3rd div.
Latin Literature.
German, 2nd div.
Drawing, Painting.
T. & V. Music, 2nd div.
Drawing, Painting.
Latin, 1st div.
Theoretic and Vocal
Music, 1st div.
Mathematics (Arith.)
German Literature.
Spanish Language.
Instrumental Music.
308
THE LIBERAL EDUCATION OF WOMEN.
language, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Astronomy, and
elementary Physics are studied with enjoyment by a
fair proportion of students, who pursue them as an intel-
lectual recreation after the main business of their educa-
tion has been finished; while in the direction of accom-
plishments the scientific teaching of harmony has
ripened into the practice of concerted music, both vocal
and instrumental, of a strictly classical character.
1
APPENDIX.
THE HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMAN.*
BY T. W. HIGGINSON.
The higher education of woman is like one of Spenser's palaces
in the "Faerie Queene," that it is guarded by a series of ghostly
sentinels, all individually powerless as you approach, but collect-
ively formidable to the imagination. There is a series of pre-
judices, each of which has been exposed a great many times, but
still they rear their heads, unconscious of annihilation. They re-
semble those Portuguese soldiers who used to be instructed to
attack the enemy "with ferocious countenances," and like those
traditional soldiers, they seldom stand fire. Every energetic wo-
man, every man who has had a daughter to educate, has encoun-
tered and overcome them; still, it is impossible to approach the
subject without at least recognizing their existence as you pass.
I. One of these fallacies, for instance, is that which confounds
the laws of sex with the laws of digestion. Man and woman be-
ing of different sexes, says some physiologist, must obviously
require different intellectual diet. Why so, if they do not need
different physical diet? If we go home and dine with the phys-
iologist, we find him politely assisting his wife to soup, and his
daughter to roast mutton, ignoring the fact of sex. His own din-
ner-table refutes his theory; his knife is sharper than his logic,
and his joint of mutton disjoints his argument. Sex is certainly
as marked in the body as it is anywhere. Yet nature shows an
essential identity of the digestive system in man and woman.
If
this is true of the body it would seem to be true of mind. To
say, boys study Greek and mathematics, therefore, girls, being
* From & paper read before the Social Science Convention, May 14, 1873.
310
APPENDIX.
1
different, should not, is as if you said, boys eat beef and potatoes;
therefore girls, being different, must find something else to eat.
I resist the argument of the physiologist, therefore, till I see him
prohibiting his own womankind from the dinner they have super-
intended, and restricting them to the judicious dry toast and the
enlivening teacup.
II. Another of these ghosts of objections is the assumption of
the hopeless intellectual inferiority in the case of women. I call
it an assumption, because there is no class of facts directly sus-
taining it, and the class of facts which have most to do with it—
the records, that is, of our public schools-look just the other
way. The school superintendent of my own city said to me.
"Those who theorize on public schools without personal knowl-
edge imagine us to be constantly taxing the powers of the girls to
keep them up to the standard of the boys. It is the other way.
My whole struggle is to keep the boys up to a grade which the
girls maintain without difficulty." I myself remember, in a city
where we had twenty prize medals for the high school, that two-
thirds of the pupils were girls, and all our effort was to keep the
girls from getting three-quarters of the prizes. Girls are so quick-
witted, they have so few distractions compared to boys, and their
school constitutes so much larger an interest in their lives, that
they unquestionably hold their own, and it may be a little more
than their own, in our high schools and academies. It is a pretty
safe inference that they will not drop far behind in university
studies, and I am disposed to adopt as a general formula that cer-
tificate given by the school committee of a New Hampshire town
to a teacher: "This is to certify that Fanny Noyes stands on a
medium with other girls of her age and sex, and for what I know
is as good as folks in general.”
Heine has pointed out, in his Reisebilder, that the young men
of these days are very severely taxed-they have so much to keep
in their heads-whist, politics, genealogies, the liturgy, carving,
and all sorts of things-that it is no wonder they forget their
mathematics and history. From some of these distractions, at
least, young ladies are free; even the demands of dress do not
quite fill the place of these. And as for the demands of society,
we must remember that those are only felt severely among a very
few hundred or thousand, in a few large cities. In almost any
town in New England the obstacle in the way of a studious girl
APPENDIX.
311
is not want of time, but want of teaching and encouragement.
So long as she is allowed to stay in the high school, she holds her
own, and she stays so long that it taxes the ingenuity of the com-
mittee to get rid of her. During the short-lived experiment at
a high school in Boston in 1826, it was made a serious charge
against it that the girls would not leave it. Good President
Quincy said with plaintive earnestness: "Of all those who en-
tered the high school, not one, during the eighteen months it was
in operation, voluntarily quitted it, and there was no reason to
suppose that any one would voluntarily quit for the whole three
years, except in case of marriage. Strange to say, this was what
killed the institution-this preposterous pertinacity-this love of
knowledge which refused to leave school for anything short of
honorable wedlock! The school had to be abolished in order to
graduate the class; a method too suggestive of Charles Lamb's
"Dissertation on Roast Pig" to be generally desirable.
III. The third fallacy may be said to be that of hopeless phys-
ical inferiority. This is a fallacy not very prevalent, so far as I
know, among those concerned in teaching, but more common
among physicians. To expose it properly perhaps needs one who
represents both professions. I am not a physician, except in the
sense in which the proverb says that every man of forty is either
a physician or a fool; but I have been for years familiar with the
public school system, as applied to girls. And if I were not, I
think that, so far as the medical argument is a priori or theoreti-
cal (and it is chiefly that), I should meet it, as one of the best
physicians I ever knew met Michelet's celebrated work, in which
he maintains that every woman, by mere structure, is a life-long
invalid. My friend wrote indignantly at the end, "As if the
Lord did not know how to create a woman." All the physiolo-
gists in the world would not convince me that, in case of women
any more than of men, desires are essentially disproportionate to
destinies. If nature has made woman wish for education, nature
has given her, as a rule, the physical power to obtain it.
And so far as the argument from this source is based on ob-
servation, I have as yet seen no array of facts that bear upon it.
So vague an argument as that there is a great deal of ill-health
among women, therefore they ought not as a class to be well edu-
cated, can hardly be attributed to any man of scientific reputation.
Even to say that there is more of this ill health in New England
312
APPENDIX.
than elsewhere, and that New England is better educated, and
that these facts must be connected, is very vague reasoning; it is
the fallacy cum hoc, ergo propter hoc. New England commits
other sins besides education. New England also eats a great deal
of unwholesome food; New England has a trying climate; and
I know a sensitive gentleman who has left Boston because the
wind blows there and the streets have so many corners.
More-
over, I can show you white populations in the United States where
the women are innocent of the alphabet as they are of soap and
water; and yet the sickliest town in Massachusetts produces
healthy women compared to these. When it is proposed to cut
of all our women from thorough education in order to save their
lives, we have a right to more definite facts before we decide to
reduce them to the condition of the "Good Woman." Show your
statistics of connection between education and the death rates.
If education is on trial for its life, it is entitled with every other
criminal to be held innocent till it is proved guilty.
Statistics of the sort I mean are certainly within reach There
are towns in New England where, for more than a generation, the
standard of education for girls in the public schools has been ex-
ceptionally high. I know one town where I assisted in examin-
ing, nearly twenty-five years ago, a class of girls and boys in
mathematical studies, more difficult than those pursued by nine-
tenths of the Harvard students-analytic geometry and the cal-
culus. Those girls are now wives and mothers; their vital
statistics can be ascertained, and the vital statistics of that whole
community. There are other communities—I am sorry to say that
Boston is one of them-where there has been no high school for
girls till a much later period. Let the physiologists who deny
the possibility of female education collect and compare the sta-
tistics, setting these towns side by side, giving tables of educa-
tion and mortality, and showing that health increases with ignor-
ance, and disease with knowledge. Is it too much trouble? In
England there is such an interest in physical training that the au-
thor of a late book on “ University Oars" has taken the pains to
write to every man who ever pulled in a regatta and ascertain his
physical condition. And yet physiologists will condemn a whole
generation of girls to ignorance without collecting in any definite
form the facts that must determine the question. It is not enough
APPENDIX.
313
to give the verdict. It is a matter of such importance that we
have a right to the evidence.
Then there is another class of facts easy of collection. There
are colleges that for 30 years have educated men and women side
by side. The pupils of these colleges, coming from all parts of
the Union, exclude from the result all the disturbing force of cli-
mate and local habits, and afford a fair basis of calculation. We
have one table of statistics on this point from the oldest college
where joint education is practiced. President Fairchild of Ober-
lin has tabulated the record of deaths among Oberlin graduates
for more than 30 years. "Out of 84 young ladies who have
graduated since 1841, 7 have died, or 1 in 12. Of 358 young men
who have graduated since that date, 34 have died, or 1 in 11. Of
these 34, 6 died in the war, and leaving these out, the proportion
still remains 1 to 13."
What we want, of course, is the facts. That the pressure is
too great on both sexes in our public schools I have always be-
lieved. I believe that the school hours should be shorter and the
amount attempted less. But the chief pressure is exerted before
we come to higher education at all. As we go higher the scheme
of study is more elastic, and he who supposes that any enormous
outlay of health or strength is required at present to go through
Harvard College must have had less experience than I have late-
ly enjoyed in attending the exercises of that University. The
simple fact is that the whole tendency of our higher institutions
is to make the course of study more and more capable of modifi-
cation, adapting it to the tastes aud strength of each; and I speak
of what I know in saying that I would far rather trust the health
of my daughter at Harvard College than at a first-class Boston
grammar school. Individual instances do not decide the ques-
tion. The first scholar in my own class broke down in health
and left college. The first scholar of the class next mine died
soon after graduating. That somnambulic boy, bearing the ap
propriate name of Wilfred Fitts, who is now in jail for assault-
ing his comrades with knives at night, is now declared to have
been injured by over-study, and the daily session of the Lowell
High School has been shortened one hour in consequence. So
there are doubtless girls who will be made sick or somnambulic
if they study too hard. These we can estimate. But against
these we must set those other cases, less easily ascertained, of
14
314
APPENDIX.
girls who now sink listlessly into disease from the vacancy of
mind that education could fill, or the vacancy of heart that ed-
ucation would supply with nobler objects. If I seem presumptu-
ous in pleading those more subtle possibilities against physicians,
who no doubt are on their own ground sufficiently my superior
to put me to death with one potion and bring me to life with an-
other, yet I cannot forget the class of clients for whom I plead!
young girls, such as Tennyson describes:
(6
In glowing health, with boundless wealth,
Yet sickening of a vague disease."
Young girls, such as Dr. Johnson's heroine in Rasselas, who
"thought she was in love, when she was only idle."
IV. The last of these fallacies is the assertion that there is
sufficient provision already. It rests mainly on social narrow-
ness, the assumption that because the daughters of the rich are
satisfied with what is called "society," and its delights, there is
therefore no class of girls to demand higher education. On this
point, my experience in public schools has led me to conclusions
different perhaps from those held by many who hear me. So far
as I can see, our higher advantages of instruction, like those in
England, are transferring themselves more and more from the
children of the rich, who do not need them-or think they do
not-to the children of the poor, who do need them. No one can
look over the rank-list at Harvard, for instance, without seeing
this; and I am inclined to think that a great social law-what
may be called the law of social alternation-lies behind it. In a
monarchical country, it is desirable, perhaps, that eminence and
influence should be perpetuated in certain families; in a republic
it is better, I suppose, that families should be broken up, inter-
changed, alternated. One instrument in this social alternation is
called wealth. The poor boy must study; the rich boy need not;
so in the next generation the poor family comes forward, the
rich family recedes. If this is true of the sons, it is far more
true of the daughters. I remember a radical English lady of
rank who, arriving in this country, went first to Newport, in
the fashionable season, and began asking all the young ladies if
they had been at college. College!" said one of them, the
granddaughter of a very eminent Bostonian, "not a young lady
of my acquaintance ever thought of going to college."
"But
(6
-
APPENDIX.
315
surely there are colleges for women in America," pleaded the be-
wildered English woman. Then it must be the daughters of
mechanics who go to them," said the young aristocrat, secure in
her monopoly of ignorance, and happily she was correct. Happily,
I mean, for what would become of us if there were no class bet-
ter educated than the young ladies one meets in the very best so-
ciety? That is what English people never can understand in
America. In England, the standard of female education is high-
est in the highest class, and very poor in the middle class. Here,
so far as we have such classes, it is the other way. The early
age at which girls in fashionable circles go into company renders
their higher training simply impossible. They leave books at
about the age when their brothers go to college. And if they
get a tolerable share of French and music, it is a good deal. The
real training of the mind goes to those who do not go to parties,
either for want of inclination or for want of opportunity. Every
high school even, and, much more, every college, must gather its
recruits chiefly from the ranks of the unfashionable.
As a rule, the well-educated girls in America are, as some
novelist says, the daughters of poor ministers and mechanics in
country towns. This is as it should be; it ultimately promotes
that alternation of families which is the salvation of republican
society. If the middle classes in America educated their children
no more thoroughly than the rich, I do not know but republican
institutions would be in danger. We need higher education, but
it is for the daughters of the poor. Those young ladies who re-
fused to leave the Boston High School were right, and their
granddaughters, if we will allow it, will stay even longer than
they did.
<<
I have now spoken of certain fallacies to be encountered-the
misinterpreting of the law of sex, the alleged inferiority of femi-
nine intellect, the asserted inferiority of the feminine body, and
the assertion that there is already provision enough. These are
the kind of fallacies that we have to pass before we reach the
higher education of women. Fortunately when reached at last
it turns out a very simple thing. The question of intellectual
education is not one thing for man and another for woman, any
more than the question of healthful diet is one thing for man
and another for woman. When we have separate treatises on
the laws of digestion for the two sexes, it will be time enough to
316
APPENDIX.
have separate treatises on the education of woman. Whatever
is best for the masculine is best for the feminine mind. All the
questions of modes of instruction, kindergartens and object les-
sons, science and literature, required and elective studies-all
these must be essentially the same for woman as for man. All
the problems of education seem to present themselves in the
same way at Harvard for boys, at Vassar for girls, at Michigan
and at Cornell for the two united. The logic of events is sweep-
ing with irresistible power to the union of the sexes for higher
education. West of the Alleghanies, as even its opponents ad-
mit, public sentiment is irresistible in its favor, and east of the
Alleghanies the tendencies are all one way. The tide is sweep-
ing in--the smaller New England colleges are swept away, and
if the others do not follow, the promised Boston University with
its vast endowments will soon make it unimportant whether they
follow or not. The exhaustive reports of President White of
Cornell, and of the Rev. Dr. Clarke of the Harvard University-re-
ports to which it is useless to add anything, since nobody has yet
attempted to answer them-have established one thing—that all
the testimony of experts is in favor of joint education. With
hardly an exception the doubts and fears are from those who
have not tried it, and the endorsement and approval from those
who have seen it tried for years. In the public schools and acad-
emies, where the influence of actual experience is felt far more
closely than in our colleges, the tendency is all one way. We
often hear of separate schools being abolished and joint schools
established. This has taken place in every town where I have
been on the school committee--three in number; but neither in
these towns nor in any other have I so much as heard of a propo-
sition to change the other way. If anything is certain in our
public school system it is that the sexes once united are united
forever. This is a popular verdict from which there is no appeal.
In our incorporated academies, too, the system of joint education
has prevailed for nearly a century; and I cannot conceive why
every atom of experience gained there is not directly available
for our colleges. As between the two the age of the pupils does
not greatly differ, nor do the studies. If, now, two or three hun-
dred young men and women of 18 or 20 can dwell together in
peace in an academy, why does the whole experiment become
APPENDIX.
317
perilous and alarming when you change the name and call the
thing a college?
The system of elective studies, which is destined, I am sure,
to prevail in all our colleges, is working clearly in the direction
of the joint education of the sexes. The greater subdivision of
classes makes abundant room in the class rooms, and the elective
system gives plenty of opening for the special bent, if there is
such a thing, of the feminine intellect. It also meets the asser-
tion that the system of education for woman should be more elas-
tic than for man. If it is possible for a man to render direct and
important service to a cause which he thinks himself heartily
opposing, I should say that President Eliot is that man, and the
joint collegiate education of woman is that cause.
I have no
doubt that good Madam Boylston smiles at him from her canvas
on the walls every time he passes through the reading room, and
that she already looks forward to the time when she will not be
the only person of her sex present among so many men at the
Commencement dinners.
Probably there never will be so many young women in our
colleges as young men, for they will be less driven to study for
the sake of a livelihood; but if there are but few, so much the
easier to provide for them. The late successes of the young
English ladies, pupils of Girton College, who have undergone at
Cambridge severer examinations than any American college of-
fers, and have come out successful, shows that there is no danger
of putting our educational provisions too high. Harvard pays
from various pecuniary foundations some $25,000 annually to
young men that they may come and be taught. Can she not
make room for a few young women, who ask only permission to
pay their own bills and receive no charity? Do let us be at
least as generous as a certain school committee in Massachusetts,
who said lately, in their report in regard to a vacant school,
this place offers neither honor nor profit, we do not see why it
should not be filled by a woman."
"AS
REMARKS BY PROF. AGASSIZ.-He believed he was on the
right side of the question; that is, he held to the imperative ne-
cessity of granting woman in any enlightened community all the
privileges, political and educational, which any man has a right
to claim. Still he thought it necessary to correct some of Col.
318
APPENDIX.
Higginson's statements. And first, in reference to the dinner ta-
ble. "I have sat," said the Professor, "for a longer time than
he, I am sorry to say, at tables at which I have met ladies and
gentlemen, and I have watched them, just as I am in the habit of
watching everything which passes around me; and I have always
found that ladies and gentlemen would be helped to a different
dinner, one from the other; that their preferences, their appe-
tites, their needs with reference to diet, were not the same.
Whether the table is always so provided as to answer these
needs, whether people have always the discretion to take that
which is most useful and most beneficial, is another question.
But I think that the absolute statement that men and women
need the same diet, and do take the same, is not correct. Physi-
cians know it well. Even among men there is a discrimination
made. The scholar who sits at his table to do intellectual work
needs a very different diet from the man who uses only his mus-
cles. As long as there shall be different vocations among men
there will be need of that discrimination. And it is no evidence
of ignorance on the part of a physician that he alludes to this ne-
cessity of regarding the sex." There are physicians who have
made wild assertions, and these he would leave to the tender
mercies of the Colonel, and his ready wit. He did not claim to
be a physiologist. His training in science had been in another
direction; but he felt bound to say that physiologists work upon
facts and statistics perhaps more thoroughly than any other class.
As to the question of what shall be taught and what is the range
of educational topics which belong to woman or to man, he did
not see that there is any reason for discrimination. He did not
see that there are particular subjects of intellectual activity
which belong more particularly to one sex than to the other. He
wished to be permitted to say a few words in regard to his own
doings, to show by a statement of fact his position on the ques-
tion. When he took his degree as a doctor of medicine at Mu-
nich in 1830, his thesis was upon this subject: “ Femina humana
superior mare." He had assigned in that juvenile effort the bet-
ter part to woman, and they have it, because in their hand lies
the future destiny of nations by the education they initiate. Sec-
ondly, when he was appointed professor at Harvard, as soon as he
could without opposition, he opened the door of his lecture-room
to women, and when the museum-which is independent in al-
-
APPENDIX.
319
-
most every feature of the government at Harvard-was founded,
he secured admission then legally to all teachers, whether male
or female. At this moment, said the Professor, the number of
assistants of both sexes belonging to the museum is about equal;
the number of hearers in my lecture-room is, I think, of the same
character. I do not know but the ladies are more numerous
than the gentlemen. There has never been any complaint made
of the topics I have treated before them. I have treated every
significant question relating to the state of nature there as I
think it ought to be treated. I am now delivering a course of
lectures upon reproduction to the same mixed audience.
A new opportunity is now presented by the foundation of the
Anderson School of Natural History. The first question which
arose was this, Who is to be admitted? I never hesitated upon
that question, but acted at once upon it, and said: Since the or-
ganization is entirely left to me, men and women shall be equally
admitted. The number of applicants has been about equal from
the two sexes, and an equal number have been admitted. So you
see we are in some way more advanced than Col. Higginson would
make it appear. And as we cannot carry time forward as rapidly
as our wishes run, I only say that in these matters the best thing
we can do is to act and let time work. I have no doubt the re-
sult will be right. The result would be retarded by entering now
into an argument on points of ways and means about which we
differ. Do not press the ways and means, but press the final re-
sult. For the question of higher and better education which has
been submitted to-day concerns our colleges for boys just as much
as the future colleges where both sexes will be admitted. We
require an improvement in all these institutions of learning with
reference to the education of boys quite as much as with refer-
ence to the education of girls. It is a question of human pro-
gress, no longer a mere question of sex.
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT ELIOT.-I should like to put
one question aside if I could; but, for the reason Professor
Agassiz has given, I do not feel at liberty to. I should like
to put aside the question of the co-education of the sexes; but
as Colonel Higginson has frankly expressed his convictions
in the matter, and I have had the advantage of long conver-
sation with him, I feel obliged to state the ground of my differ-
ence with him. It will be granted, I suppose, by every one, that
320
APPENDIX.
the co-education of the sexes is a new experiment in this country;
not completely, perhaps, but it has been quite a new experiment
in this country-originating, I think, in the New England
academies and extending to the West, and now coming eastward
from the West again. Now when you ask long-established in-
stitutions like the New England colleges to take share in this ex-
periment, those who are responsible for the direction of those in-
stitutions naturally ask why should they leave the arduous and
fruitful work in which they are already engaged to take part in
an experiment? We want evidence, and we want also the reasons
a priori-for I believe in a priori reasoning, as well as deduction
from facts. It seems odd that different persons can arrive at
diametrically opposite conclusions in examining the same institu-
tions. But to the best of my ability I have examined this sub-
ject. I have been through all the catalogues of the leading insti-
tutions of the West which admit girls. I have also visited a
good number of them, and have conversed with a large number
of the teachers of those institutions; and the conclusion I arrive
at is precisely opposite that of Col. Higginson, namely, that the
tide is ebbing not rising; that this system of educating boys with
girls is now on the wane in the West. That is to say, it is lead-
ing in the West to precisely what has taken place here; that as
the community becomes richer separate schools for boys and girls,
for young men and young women are provided. I think that all
ladies and gentlemen who know of the growth of the institutions
of the West, where boys and girls are now educated, will say that
Oberlin College is by far one of the most successful of those in-
stitutions. It is one of the oldest, and has had the services of
men and women of the utmost devotion, and its course of instruc-
tion has been the best of those institutions, so far as my exami-
nation has informed me. They have graduated more girls in their
college course than any other institution, except the few of recent
origin, where the course is low. To my mind, it is altogether the
most favorable example of an institution for the co-education of
the sexes in this country, and therefore in the world. I entirely
agree with Col. Higginson in his opinion of the admirable fair-
ness of President Fairchild in his discussions of the topic. Now
what is their experience? It is as plain as can be upon the cata-
logue of that institution and elsewhere. They began by admit-
ting girls to the college course. They admit them still. But it
APPENDIX.
321
has resulted in the establishment of a separate course of instruc-
tion for girls. On the last catalogue which I examined there
were 140 girls in what was called the ladies' department, and
eight in the college. This proportion of the girls in the separate
department has been constantly rising, and the proportion of the
girls in the college has been constantly falling, and the very last
communication which I saw from President Fairchild called at-
tention to this phenomena as the result of their experience. This
is so in many of the institutions of the West, where this supposed
union takes place. It is not a real union. In many of them the
girls take a separate degree, and they follow the scientific course
instead of the classical. It would be too long for me to go into
details in this inquiry; but the result, for which I was unpre-
pared, was perfectly convincing to my mind.
President Eliot then referred to the personal testimony of
teachers, citing the matron of Oberlin College, who told him that
on no account would she allow her daughters or any girls in
whom she was interested to go through the college course. This
was the result of ripe experience. If they looked at the catalogue
of these Western institutions they would find that the girls are
residents of the town in which they are established. It is to
them a day-school. They live at home, under the supervision of
their parents. This is a fact very easily substantiated.
As to the a priori reasons. When Col. Higginson asks if the
male and female mind are not the same, we would answer No,
very distinctly. The male and female mind are not alike. Sex
penetrates the mind and the affections, and penetrates deeply and
powerfully. Col. Higginson had spoken of the elective system
at Harvard as tending to facilitate the admission of girls to that
institution. Now, the philosophy of the elective system is based
on the infinite variety of mind. It is because the same intellec
tual food is not good for all minds. Now, women differ from men
more than men differ from each other; that is to say, there is a
fundamental pervading difference between all men and all women
which extends to their minds quite as much as to their bodies.
We are to inquire, in the next place, what is wise and right with
reference to a great change like this. He thought nothing was
more important in considering this question than the effect of ed-
ucation upon the physique. We are brought face to face with the
fact that the physique of American woman is unsatisfactory.
322
APPENDIX.
That result may be ascribed to a great number of causes. Col.
Higginson had named some of them. In that state of things if
a leader in education wants to know the probable effect upon the
physique of women of certain changes which are contemplated
in the methods of her education; and any one not a specialist in
such a matter will naturally go to doctors and physiologists for
an answer to these questions. IIe wished to say that all the com-
petent and eminent men whom he had consulted upon this ques-
tion, including the distinguished anatomist and physiologist who
had addressed them, testified that they did not consider that wo-
men could bear the stress that is put upon men. He had never
heard any difference of opinion on this point among men compe-
tent by special experience to speak on it. He had heard female
physicians bear testimony in corroboration of Dr. Clarke's evi-
dence. On these two grounds of Western experience and a priori
education, he shrunk from taking his part of the responsibility of
introducing the education of women in Harvard College. It is
very different to be in a position where one must act and take
responsibility, and to be in a position where one has only to main-
tain honest convictions without responsibility. As far as the ar-
gument from the rising tide is concerned, he had only to say that
if the tide rose high enough it would rise over Harvard.
As to the question whether it was expedient to try to provide
for women a higher education than they now have, there was no
difference of opinion between them. About nine months ago, the
University was asked if it would provide examinations for wo-
men like the local examinations for women in Oxford and Cam-
bridge, England. The University answered that it would. It be-
came necessary to inquire what those examinations should be that
led him to inform himself as to the present condition of the up-
per part of the education for girls. It immediately appeared that
girls have nothing like a fair chance with boys even in this com-
munity. The question is what can be done to improve this.
Thinking that girls suffer very considerably from the fact that
they have had no common standard to look to, no goal to reach,
the University has agreed to provide examinations for girls not
under 17, and a second examination for girls not under 18.
The effect of this examination will be, in the first place, to in
dicate a suitable course of study for girls; and, in the second
place, to indicate the nature of the study to be devoted to the sub
APPENDIX.
323
ject. It will tend to make the course of instruction for girls more
uniform. It is marvellous what a diversity there is in different
schools for girls. In the English High School there was no Latin
taught. In another school near Boston he found the girls reading
Virgil, Cicero, and Cæsar. Many private schools for girls are ut-
terly dependent upon the prevailing sentiment of the parents.
These examinations for girls are to be under the auspices in Bos-
ton of the Woman's Educational Association, and the University
will conduct examinations for women in any part of the country
where a similar institution for the conduct of these examinations
will be organized.
race.
He wished to mention another important step in the education
of girls within the reach of persons who wish to benefit their
It is a hard thing to start new institutions for women. To
start colleges and universities is a very serious undertaking; but
to endow a school for girls which shall be a day-school in the
town in which it shall be situated is a feasible thing. It requires
but from $1,000 to $2,000. He felt it to be a most desirable pro-
vision for the instruction of girls at this moment. He found that
fathers and mothers did not want their daughters to go away from
home if they can help it. To his mind it had to do with the abso-
lute necessity for refinement of women. It requires special care
to prevent evil in the contact of large numbers of girls. He
would also warn those who are interested in the instruction of
girls that it is not safe to trust to our public school system any
more than it is for the education of boys. Only about a third of
the boys coming to Harvard are educated in the public schools.
More than two-thirds are educated at private academies or under
tutors. There are a certain number of institutions endowed for
girls in this country, but they are not endowed day schools, they
are endowed boarding-schools. He hoped that ladies and gentle-
men who wish to do something for their sex would act upon this
remark.
REMARKS BY WENDELL PHILLIPS.-Mr. Phillips said the
statement of President Eliot seemed to him an insufficient state-
ment of the question. He was surprised that any President of
Harvard College should offer it in any assembly of Massachusetts
citizens. He began to imagine that the President was speaking
of an institution established by a dozen men from their own
wealth, who had indicated their desire that boys should be edu-
324
APPENDIX.
cated. A millionaire has a right to set up an institution and give
it just what direction he pleases. The officers who represent him
have a right to carry out that testamentary direction; and if the
President had been speaking of an institution established for
such a distinct purpose, he would have been speaking in a right
tone. But Harvard College belongs to the public. Its wealth
comes from the State of Massachusetts; it does not come from
individuals. Even that share of it that comes from individuals
was given so long ago-half a dozen generations have intervened
-that we have the right to consider it public property.
Woman made her claim on such public institutions and asked
admission at her own risk, as she would claim a right upon the
public highway. President Eliot might, if he chose, argue to
women that they had better not come, that it would injure their
health to come, but he should not bar them out. If only five
women in the next twenty years asked admission to Harvard,
they should not be barred from its advantages. If President
Eliot tells a young woman ardent for education, "Your sex bars
you," she might justly answer, "Hang my sex, I don't care for
that." No one could say that any college which admitted both
sexes had developed immorality. The family type was founded
by God himself, and should be carried out in the schools.
Harvard College belongs to the Commonwealth of Massachu-
setts; and if he had a daughter and her health was such and her
disposition such that she wanted to go, he would carry it to the
Supreme Court-if he supposed there were an honest one-and
claim it as a right. If Harvard College wants to draw back with
in the line of certain theories and her own conceptions, let her
disgorge the contributions of the State, and then when she relies
on her own funds, when she is a private way, she may put up a
sign, "This is a private way; dangerous passing here." But
while it is opened by the State, accepted by the Commissioners,
graded and hardened by the labor of the Commonwealth, it
should be open to all.
INDE X.
A.
ACADEMIFS, their defects, 31.
Accomplishments, 117, 152, 180.
Admission of women to colleges,
29, 56, 62, 76, 178, 183, 187,
209, 221, 231, 266.
Agassiz, Prof., 317.
Alexandra College, 157, 306.
American and English women
contrasted, 169.
Amos, Prof., 305.
Antioch College, 269.
Art, study of, 283.
Astronomy, 282.
B.
Baker, Lady, 73.
Bascom, Prof., 209.
Becker, Lydia E., 67, 147, 158.
Blake, Sophia Jex, 167.
Blanchard, President, 261.
Botany, study of, 125, 165, 283,
289.
Buckham, President, 228.
C,
Capacity for liberal education,
15, 36, 65, 75, 110, 213, 245,
268, 275, 289.
Capes, J. M., 81.
Clarke, J. F., 231.
Co-education, 29, 56, 76, 88, 95.
102, 160, 165, 178, 183, 187,
201, 203, 206, 209, 217, 221.
224, 231, 236, 238, 257, 261,
266, 269, 312.
Co-education at Harvard, 29,
183, 231, 309.
Celebs in search of a wife, 13.
Colleges, admission of women
to, sea Admission.
Colleges, aim of, 188.
Colleges for women, 24, 57, 100,
127, 133, 144, 150, 156, 176,
195, 210, 272, 292.
College course for women, 34,
98, 238.
Common-sense training, 117.
Competitive system, 98, 175
219.
Conventual education, 131.
('onway, M. D., 229.
Crudelius, Mrs., 290.
D.
Davies, Emily, 143, 152, 299.
Deficiencies, mental, 81, 82, 93,
175, 193, 309.
Degrees, honorary, 54, 153, 225,
285.
Demand of the age, 5, 27, 42,
274.
De Tocqueville, 169.
Difficulties, 91, 102, 149, 154,
175, 190.
E.
Economy of co-education, 216,
232, 240.
Edinburgh Ladies' Association,
4, 157, 286.
Education at home, 112, 130,
197.
326
INDEX.
Education, its chief end, 43, 113, | Health question, 24, 37, 85, 115,
126, 140, 147, 159, 170, 197,
258, 279.
139, 151, 155, 174, 180, 192,
213, 217, 245, 268, 276, 310.
Hedge, Dr. 226.
Herschel, Caroline, 73.
Higginson, T. W., 183, 229, 309.
High Schools, 189.
Hindrances, 68, 94, 102, 105, 149,
154, 396.
Education, its fitness for wives
and mothers, 63, 65, 198,
222.
Education, its value to women,
43, 66, 197, 277, 285, 298.
Education of boys and girls com-
pared, 21, 33, 59, 75, 116,
129.
Education of women compatible
with feminine grace, 40, 66,
219, 233, 249, 277.
Education of women feasible,
33, 36.
Education of women, historical
sketch of, 9.
Education of women, its defects,
31, 53, 60, 92, 96, 112, 115,
117, 129, 227, 274.
Education of women in America
and England compared, 186.
Education of women in Eng-
F,
Fairchild, President, 168, 173,
233, 238.
K.
land, 29, 61, 227.
Education of women neglected, Knox College, 261.
65, 112, 137, 162.
Eliot, President, 319.
English Literature, study of,
122, 282.
Fawcett, Millicent G., 58.
Fraser, Mr., 169.
French, study of, 119.
G.
Governesses, 20, 132, 136, 141,
157.
Greek, study of, 164, 172, 211,
216, 282.
Greeley, Horace, 228.
H.
Historical sketch, 9.
Hitchin College, 4, 292.
Home education, 112, 130, 197.
Hopkins, President, 226.
How to teach, 126.
J.
Jellicoe, Mrs., 66.
Johnson, Dr., 23.
Joint education, see Co-educa
tion.
I.
Ladies' courses, 54, 57, 80, 89,
102, 121, 238, 247, 263.
Ladies' seminaries, 31, 53, 129,
274.
Languages in ladies' course,
103, 119, 164, 282.
Latin, study of, 120, 164, 282.
Law, study of, 305.
Learned ladies, 18, 110.
Lecture system, 3, 90, 93, 100
148, 156, 158, 284, 300.
Liberal education, 27, 34, 52, 83.
Lob-sided, 178.
London University, 78.
Lumry, Prof., 257.
M.
Harvard University, 29, 183, 231, Mann, Horace, 269.
315, 319.
Mann, Mrs., 270.
INDEX.
327
Markby, Thomas, 160.
Marriage, 44, 108, 234, 250, 253.
Masson, Prof., 288, 303.
Mathematics, study of, 172, 282,
289.
Means of liberal education, 52,
311.
Men, their advantage in educa-
tion, 59, 94, 175.
Metaphysics, study of, 283, 289.
Middle and higher classes com-
pared, 21, 186.
Mill, John Stuart, 17, 110, 147.
Mixed Colleges, 29, 56, 76, 95,
160, 187, 201, 217, 221, 224,
231, 238, 257, 261, 312.
Moral dangers of co-education,
190, 204, 219, 229, 233, 248,
265.
More, Hannah, 13.
Music, cultivation of, 118, 283.
N.
Natural sciences, 283.
Normal Schools, 142, 150, 189.
Orton, President, 271.
Orton, Prof., 272.
P.
Patterson, J. S., 87.
Paul, Jean, 229.
Peculiarities of female mind,
68, 81, 93, 152, 172, 224.
Phillips, Wendell, 323.
Physical sciences, 282, 289.
Physiology, study of, 283.
Practical education, 159, 161,
199, 279.
Prejudices against education of
women, 309.
Professional training, 103, 192,
279, 287.
Professorial system, 143, 156.
R.
Raymond, President, 27.
Reform in woman's education,
61, 76, 79, 83, 136, 138, 141.
Rights of women, 9, 16, 88, 279.
Royal Geographical
Geographical Society
closed to women, 71,
Royal Society of England closed
to women, 71.
Royal Society for Ireland, 74.
O.
Oberlin College, 4, 191, 212, 233, Somerville, Mrs., 65, 71.
238.
S.
Science, study of, 49, 67, 125
283, 289.
Sewell, Miss, 129, 139.
Sex in mind, 68, 81, 93, 152.
Sexes, their influence on each
other, 192, 201, 208, 229,
243.
Smith, Sydney, 14.
Social arrangements, their hin-
drances to woman's welfare.
6S, 94.
Strong-minded women, 18, 40,
60, 110, 249.
Studies, appropriate, 103, 119,
120, 122, 125, 164, 282.
T,
Teaching, true, 126.
Teaching, woman's fitness for,
47, 128, 135, 177.
Tennyson, 138, 272.
Theology for women, 125.
Tinné, Mlle., 72.
Todd, Dr. 178.
Tutorial system, 143, 197.
Tyler, Prof. H. M., 265.
Tyler, Prof. M. C., 266.
328
INDEX.
U.
University examinations, 3, 78,
90, 95, 152, 163, 176, 227,
301, 303.
University of Edinburgh, 290.
University of London, 78, 99,
303.
University of Michigan, 266.
University system, 145, 159.
Utilitarian view of education,
159, 161, 199, 279.
V.
Vassar College, 5, 272.
Voting, 63, 137, 147, 187.
Vulgarity not a result of educa-
tion, 41, 219, 233, 249, 277.
W.
Wayland, H. L., 199.
Wedgewood, Miss, 109.
Wheaton College, 257.
White, President, 217.
Wolstoncraft, Mary, 9.
Women, admission of, to Oxford
and Cambridge, 29, 62, 78,
92, 94, 99, 152, 163.
Women, admission of, to Har-
Women as geographical explor.
vard, 29, 183, 231, 315.
ers, 71, 73.
Women as teachers, 47, 128, 133,
Women claim a higher educa-
135, 141, 147, 177.
tion, 58, 88, 137, 201.
Women in competition with
men as students, 75, 94, 105,
139, 155, 164, 171, 223, 246,
268,276.
Women in public affairs, 50, 63,
94, 137, 147, 187, 279.
Women, mind of, 15, 36, 58, 65,
67, 75, 110, 213, 223, 245,
268, 275, 289, 309.
Women, obstacles to profession-
al training of, 104.
Women, rights of, 9, 16, 88, 279.
Women, sphere of, 41, 44, 47,
50, 63, 65, 94, 111, 117, 147,
222.
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From PROF. THEO. F. DE FUMAT, Hebrew Educational Institute, Memphis, Tenn.
M. Pujol's French Grammar is one of the best and most practical works. The
French language is chosen and elegant in style-modern and easy. It is far su-
perior to the other French class-books in this country. The selection of the con-
versational part is very good, and will interest pupils; and being all completed in
only one volume, it is especially desirable to have it introduced in our schools.
From PROF. JAMES H. WORMAN, Bordentown Female College, N. J.
The work is upon the same plan as the text-books for the study of French and
English published in Berlin, for the study of those who have not the aid of a
teacher, and these books are considered, by the first authorities, the best books.
In most of our institutions, Americans teach the modern languages, and hereto-
fore the trouble has been to give them a text-book that would dispose of the
difficulties of the French pronunciation. This difficulty is successfully removed
by P. and Van N., and I have every reason to believe it will soon make its way
into most of our best schools.
From PROF. CHARLES S. DoD, Ann Smith Academy, Lexington, Va.
I cannot do better than to recommend "Pujol and Van Norman." For compre-
hensive and systematic arrangement, progressive and thorough development of
all grammatical principles and idioms, with a due admixture of theoretical knowl-
edge and practical exercise, I regard it as superior to any (other) book of the kind.
From A. A. FORSTER, Prin. Pinehurst School, Toronto, C. W.
I have great satisfaction in bearing testimony to M. Pujol's System of French
Instruction, as given in his complete class-book. For clearness and comprehen-
siveness, adapted for all classes of pupils, I have found it superior to any other
work of the kind, and have now used it for some years in my establishment with
great success.
From PROF. OTTO FEDDER, Maplewood Institute, Pittsfield, Mass.
The conversational exercises will prove an immense saving of the hardest kind
of labor to teachers. There is scarcely any thing more trying in the way of
teaching language, than to rack your brain for short and easily intelligible bits
of conversation, and to repeat them time and again with no better result than
extorting at long intervals a doubting "oui," or a hesitating" non, monsieur "
For further testimony of a similar character, see special circular, and
current numbers of the Educational Bulletin.
41
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