The Education of American Girls Part 23

"Let nothing disturb thee, Nothing affright thee; All things are pa.s.sing-- G.o.d never changeth; Patient endurance Attaineth to all things,"

if we did not know that there is something higher, even, than patient endurance, and so we say to them, with Goethe, instead:

"Here Eyes do regard you In eternity's stillness, Here is all fulness, Ye brave, to reward you; Work and despair not."

ANNA C. BRACKETT.

New York City.

FOOTNOTES:

[54] The statistics of the Bureau of Education, circulars 3 and 5, show that there are at present in the United States no less than forty-six colleges open to both s.e.xes; and as we go to press, word comes that the London University, Queen's College, Belfast, and Owen's College, Manchester, England, are seriously considering the propriety of the measure for themselves.

[55] My professional work has lain in Grammar, High and Normal Schools in Ma.s.sachusetts, city and country; High and Normal School in Charleston, S. C., for two years, during which time I knew perfectly well the three large public schools in the city, modeled after the New York schools; and in St. Louis for nine years, where I was necessarily called to be familiar with almost every room of every school in that rapidly-growing city. I am also acquainted with the Chicago schools, and with the Normal schools in many States of the Union.

[56] _s.e.x in Education_, p. 29.

[57] _The First Duty of Woman._ By Mary Taylor. Pub. by Emily Faithfull.

[58] In this statement I find myself most unexpectedly endorsed:

"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 ma.s.ses of questions usually claiming far more attention.

"That some of this deterioration may be due to close 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 broken health, that, evidently, search must be made for causes lying deeper and spreading wider.

"The want of success in grasping and presenting these causes. .h.i.therto 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-pamby character, into something calculated to give firmer mental and moral texture, would help, rather than hurt in this matter."--_Majority Report submitted to Trustees of Cornell University on Mr. Sage's proposal to endow a college for women. February 13, 1872._

The concluding paragraphs will be found entire in the Appendix.

[59] Chancellor Winch.e.l.l, of Syracuse University, makes this statement:

"It is not pertinent to the question for us to inquire whether the pursuit of the higher studies be compatible with the health of woman.

She is to be her own judge in that respect. We allow her to judge in regard to the healthfulness of all other pursuits. The pursuit of fashion, in some instances, is reported to have been damaging, if not ruinous, to health; yet in our legislative halls, and in the formation of public opinion, we enact no laws which interfere with the right she exercises to pursue her business of fashion, and to lead a life which may be, and is, prejudicial to her physical health."

APPENDIX.

Conclusion of Majority Report to the Trustees of Cornell University, on Mr. Sage's Proposition To Endow A College for Women,

Albany, February 13, 1872.

"In beginning their report, your committee stated that their duty seemed first to be to investigate the facts in the case separately, then to collate them, then to throw any light thus concentrated into theories and programmes.

"In accordance with this plan they would conclude the general discussion of this subject by concentrating such light as they have been able to gain, upon the main theory imbedded in the arguments against mixed education.

"The usual statement of this theory contains some truths, some half-truths, and some errors. As ordinarily developed, it is substantially that woman is the help-meet of man, that she gives him aid in difficulty, counsel in perplexity, solace in sorrow; that his is the vigorous thinking, hers the pa.s.sive reception of such portions of thought as may be best for her; that his mind must be trained to grapple with difficult subjects, that hers needs no development but such as will make her directly useful and agreeable; that the glory of man is in a mind and heart that rejoices in solving the difficult problems, and fighting the worthy battles of life; that the glory of woman is in qualities that lead her to shun much thought on such problems, and to take little interest in such battles; that the field of man's work may be the mart or shop, but that it is well for him to extend his thoughts outside it; that the field of woman is the household, but that it is not best for her to extend her thoughts far outside it; that man needs to be trained in all his powers to search, to a.s.sert, to decide; that woman needs but little training beyond that which enables her gracefully to a.s.sent; that man needs the university and the great subjects of study it presents, while woman needs the 'finishing schools' and the 'accomplishments;' and that, to sum up, the character, work, training and position of women are as good as they ever can be.

"The truths in this theory have covered its errors. The truth that woman is the help-meet of man has practically led to her education in such a way that half her power to aid, and counsel, and comfort is taken away.

"The result has been that strong men, in adversity or perplexity, have often found that the 'partners of their joys and sorrows' give no more real strength than would Nuremberg dolls. Under this theory, as thus worked out, the aid, and counsel, and solace fail just when they are most needed. In their stead, the man is likely to find some sc.r.a.ps of philosophy, begun in boarding-schools, and developed in kitchens or drawing-rooms.

"But to see how a truly educated woman, nourished on the same thoughts of the best thinkers on which man is nourished, can give aid and counsel and solace, while fulfilling every duty of the household, we are happily able to appeal to the experience of many; and for the n.o.blest portrayal of this experience ever made we may name the dedication to the wife of John Stuart Mill of her husband's greatest essay.

"But if we look out from the wants of the individual man into the wants of the world at large, we find that this optimist theory regarding woman is not supported by facts, and that the resulting theory of woman's education aggravates some of the worst evils of modern society. One of these is conventional extravagance.

"Among the curiosities of recent civilization, perhaps the most absurd is the vast tax laid upon all nations at the whim of a knot of the least respectable women in the most debauched capital in the world. The fact may be laughed at, but it is none the less a fact, that to meet the extravagances of the world of women who bow to the decrees of the Breda quarter of Paris, young men in vast numbers, especially in our cities and large towns, are harnessed to work as otherwise they would not be; their best aspirations thwarted, their n.o.blest ambitions sacrificed, to enable the 'partners of their joys and sorrows' to vie with each other in reproducing the last grotesque absurdity issued from the precincts of _Notre Dame de Lorette_, or to satisfy other caprices not less ign.o.ble.

"The main hope for the abatement of this nuisance, which is fast a.s.suming the proportions of a curse, is not in any church; for, despite the pleadings of the most devoted pastors, the church edifices are the chosen theatres of this display; it would seem rather to be in the infusion, by a more worthy education, of ideas which would enable woman to wield religion, morality, and common sense against this burdensome perversion of her love for the beautiful.

"This would not be to lower the sense of beauty and appropriateness in costume; thereby would come an aesthetic sense, which would lift our best women into a sphere of beauty where Parisian grotesque could not be tolerated; thereby, too, would come, if at all, the strength of character which would cause woman to cultivate her own taste for simple beauty in form and color, and to rely on that, rather than on the latest whim of any foolish woman who happens to be not yet driven out of the Tuileries or the Breda quarter.

"Still another evil in American women is the want of any general appreciation of art in its n.o.bler phases. The number of those who visit the museums of art is wretchedly small, compared with the crowds in the temples of haberdashery. Even the love of art they have is tainted with 'Parisian fashions.' The painting which makes fortunes is not the worthy representation of worthy subjects; French boudoir paintings take the place of representations of what is grand in history or beautiful in legend; Wilhems and his satin dresses, Bourgereau with his knack at flesh-color, have driven out of memory the n.o.ble treatment of great themes by Ary Scheffer and Paul Delaroche; Kaulbach is eclipsed by Meissonier. Art is rapidly becoming merely a means of parlor decoration, and losing its function as the embodiment of great truths.

"So rapidly evaporates one of the most potent influences for good in a republic. An education of women, looking to something more than accomplishments, is necessary to create a healthy reaction against this tendency.

"Still another part of woman's best and n.o.blest influence has an alloy which education of a higher sort, under influences calculated to develop logical thought, might remove. For one of the most decided obstacles to progress of the best Christian thought and right reason has arisen from the clinging of women to old abuses, and the fear of new truths. From Mary Stuart, at the castle of Ambroise, to the last good woman who has shrieked against science--from the Camarilla which prays and plots for reaction in every European court down to the weakest hunter of the mildest heresies in remote villages, the fetichisms and superst.i.tions of this world are bolstered up mainly by women.

"In Lessing's great picture, the good, kind-faced woman whose simplicity Huss blesses as she eagerly heaps up the f.a.gots for his martyrdom, is but the type of vast mult.i.tudes of mothers of the race.

"The greatest aid which could be rendered to smooth the way for any n.o.ble thinkers who are to march through the future, would be to increase the number of women who, by an education which has caught something from manly methods, are prevented from clinging to advancing thinkers, or throwing themselves hysterically across their pathway.

"So, too, that indirect influence of women on political events, so lauded even by those who are most opposed to any exercise by her of direct influence, has some bad qualities which a better system of education might diminish. The simple historical record shows that in what Bacon calls the 'insanity of states,' her influence has generally been direful. From Catherine de Medicis in the struggle of the League, down to Louise Michel, in the recent catastrophe at Paris--from the _tricoteuses_ of the first French Revolution to the _petroleuses_ of the last, woman has seemed to aggravate rather than soothe popular fury.

Nor is the history of civil strife nearer home, without parallel examples.

"An education which would lead women to a more thoughtful consideration of great questions and more logical treatment of them, would, perhaps, do something to aid mercy and justice in the world at those very times when they are most imperiled.

"But to all this it may be said that these considerations are too general and remote--that woman's most immediate duties relate to maternity, and that her most beautiful mission relates to the dispensing of charities. As to her duties as mother, if the subject were fully discussed, it would be shown that, under the present system of physical, mental, and moral education of women, there is a toleration of perhaps the most cancerous evil of modern society. Suffice it that the system of education proposed cannot make it worse, and may make it better.

"As to woman's beautiful function as the dispenser of charities, it will do no harm to have leading minds among women shown, as a stronger education would show them, that systems of charity based on impulse and not on reason have in older countries caused almost as much misery as they have cured. Her work in charity would be certainly strengthened by the training which would give her insight into this.

"ANDREW D. WHITE, _Chairman_,

"In behalf of a majority of the Committee."

EXTRACTS FROM THE REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT OF MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY FOR THE YEAR 1872.

"The number of women who are availing themselves of the opportunity to study at the University is nearly twice as great as it was in the year 1870-71. The number registered then was 34, viz.: 2 in the Law Department; 18 in the Medical Department, and 14 in the Academic Department. This year the number has been 64, viz.: 3 in the Law Department; 33 in the Medical, and 28 in the Academic. These last are distributed in the cla.s.ses as follows: Seniors, 2; Soph.o.m.ores, 7; Freshmen, 13; in select courses, 6. Of those in the regular courses, eight are Cla.s.sical students, nine Latin and Scientific, and five Scientific. Five of those in the select courses are giving their attention chiefly to scientific studies and modern languages and literature; the sixth to cla.s.sical work. Six women graduated in April with the medical cla.s.s, one with the law cla.s.s, and two now graduate in the Academic Department. In the Medical Department the women have received instruction by themselves, except in chemistry. In the other Departments all instruction is given to both s.e.xes in common.

"It is manifestly not wise to leap to hasty generalizations from our brief experience in furnishing education to both s.e.xes in our University. But I think all who have been familiar with the inner life of the University for the past two years, will admit that, thus far, no reason for doubting the wisdom of the Regents' action in opening the University to women has appeared. Hardly one of the many embarra.s.sments which some feared, has confronted us. The young women have addressed themselves to their work with great zeal, and have shown themselves quite capable of meeting the demands of severe studies as successfully as their cla.s.smates of the other s.e.x. Their work so far does not evince less variety of apt.i.tude or less power of grappling even with higher mathematics than we find in the young men. They receive no favors, and desire none. They are subjected to precisely the same tests as the men.

Some of them, like the men, have stumbled at examinations; but nearly all of them have maintained a most creditable reputation for scholarship in every branch of study which has awaited them in their course. Nor does their work seem to put a dangerous strain upon their physical powers. They a.s.sure me that they never enjoyed better health, and their absences by reason of sickness do not proportionately exceed those of the men. Their presence has not called for the enactment of a single new law, or for the slightest change in our methods of government or grade of work. If we are asked still to regard the reception of women into our cla.s.ses as an experiment, it must certainly be deemed a most hopeful experiment. The numerous inquiries which are sent to me from various parts of this country, and even from England, concerning the results of their admission to the University, show that a profound and wide-spread interest in the subject has been awakened. Cornell University has recently decided to open its doors to women, and it can hardly be doubted that other conspicuous Eastern colleges will soon follow the example. The Alumni and Trustees of at least four prominent New England colleges are formally considering the subject."