Part 5 (1/2)

A great deal of nonsense has been talked and written about the spectacled Girton girl co their adround

Spectacles do not enter into the matter at all As has already been pointed out, physical attraction has nothing, or very little, to do with fe

Woift of trained observation, and from the subtlety conferred upon theence to the nuo to er develop these pohen they are systematically subjected to a process of education which has invariably failed to evoke them in the opposite sex And with the loss of them, woman is bound also to lose the empire which she has hitherto exercised over masculine nature

From this point of view alone, the education of women on the modern systeeneral have always exercised their predo exceptions ht easily be adduced froed that wo that is calculated to undermine or destroy this favourable influence on huarded as otherwise than pernicious

The iven the same educational equipeneration of woman It is a well-known fact in the medical profession that weakly boys are often unable to withstand the strain of school craanization, will suffer proportionately in a greater degree Physical training, of course, obviates a great deal of this evil But the sairls as has already been experienced where boys are concerned; that is to say, the h the ambition of the school authorities, whose principal anxiety is to see their pupils distinguish the to the fact that exceptional ability so often implies a nervous temperaed, by noand observation to the best advantage The conclusions at which they arrive are often far too definite, and have been forht that it often becomes a mere intuition Yet the remarkable accuracy of a woman's intuitions is evidence that there underlies the on a uesswork

It is the crude and untutored stage of develop faculty in woman that causes it to work intuitively, instead of by the slower and sounder processes of logic To neglect a faculty is by noit Hence woht and observation are embryonic rather than matured The work they perform is not a tithe of ould be accoe The faculty has neither been destroyed by over-crahtened treatment

It has si to the natural environment of the individual

If ed to cultivate the habits of observation at present restricted to wo, instead of to a few selected objects, the ratio of the world's progress would be enormously increased Who first started the notion thatmanufactured into a superior article, and that woman cannot do better than submit herself with all haste to the same process, I do not know At any rate, it is a disastrous doctrine, and the sooner the fallacy of it is perceived the enerations of wo the rand thing if educationists could be persuaded to open their eyes to the fact that wo been providentially saved froenerations, have been enabled to preserveand corporal punish in norant atteift, and possibly even do so man a littlefaculty

CHAPTER X

YOUTH AND CRIME

We now come to the consideration of an aspect of the educational problereat difficulty and importance The discussion has hitherto been li upon the masses of the people a useless and unsuitable kind of education But there are far graver possibilities than the e numbers of individuals for the occupations their natural propensities intended them to pursue

People are, as has been pointed out, driven by the stupidity of the teaching syste and waste caused by this constant production of the unfit are incalculable It is scarcely to be wondered at that soenious theory that this world is hell itself, and that we are now actually undergoing our punishround for the supposition in the fact that the lives of so many of us seem to have been ordered in direct opposition to our individual tastes and wishes

This is bad enough The question we have to face nohether we have not to thank education systereat deal worse Mere unhappiness is not necessarily soul-destroying But there is only too good reason to suppose that the evil effects of theits victie a certain proportion of theed that the allegation is very difficult to prove No satisfactory evidence on the point is derivable from published statistics It is quite possible to deter persons between the ages of twelve and twenty-one have been convicted of indictable offences during the year

But everybody who is acquainted with criy, or who is conversant with the compilation of statistical infor upon the apparently clear testiures

It would be extremely useful to find out whether juvenile offenders have increased or decreased since the institution of co to this subject are procurable, but it is impossible to place any reliance upon the to show the cause of any such increase or decrease in the offences co persons It may be due to a variety of circumstances, none of which can be accurately determined For instance, it is a well-known fact that youthful offenders have of late years been treated byleniency Consequently, fewer convictions take place now, in regard to this class of offence, than was the case soo The nuuide at all as to the increasing or di proportion of youthful criilance of the police, which leads to the ainst this, there is the fact that education teaches the cri of police-court reports and sensational storyettes, to be more wary

Besides these, there is the i persons guilty of offences of various kinds are not prosecuted at all This is due to two causes: firstly, to the fact that in the majority of cases they are not found out; and secondly, thatyouthful offenders within the meshes of the criminal law, as a conviction, whether or not it be followed by punishuilty

There may be, and there probably are,statistics that are commonplaces to experts in criested by com at satisfactory conclusions on the basis of statistical tables published by the authorities

The Blue-book containing the latest judicial returns attempts to deal with this question of the increase or decrease of juvenile cri only available, however, from the year 1893 'To answer this question,' it is stated, 'it is necessary to ascertain the proportion which youthful offenders bear to the total nu table, where it will be seen that the proportion of offenders under the age of twenty-one remains almost constant:

'PROPORTION OF YOUTHFUL OFFENDERS CONVICTED OF INDICTABLE OFFENCES TO TOTAL NUMBER OF PERSONS CONVICTED

+---------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+ | Age | 1893 | 1894 | 1895 | 1896 | 1897 | 1898 | +---------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+ | |Per cent|Per cent|Per cent|Per cent|Per cent|Per cent| | Under 12 | 46 | 49 | 46 | 56 | 56 | 56 | |12 and under 16| 150 | 152 | 134 | 145 | 140 | 145 | |16 and under 21| 212 | 220 | 218 | 197 | 195 | 202 | | | | | | | | | +---------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+ |Total under 21 | 408 | 421 | 398 | 398 | 391 | 403 | +---------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+