Part 10 (1/2)

A few years since, when Mr Higginson's essay ”Ought Women to learn the Alphabet?” first appeared in the _Atlantic Monthly_, and I was reading soentleman just returned from a tour of Eastern travel, he related a bit of his recent experience in the old city of Sychar, in Sareat interest and attention, a rehout all the neighborhood of Ebal and Gerizim--the observed of all observers, when she appeared on the street, or ith the lory of their city This little irl in that old city, who, during a period of nine hundred years, had transcended the allotted sphere of wo to read There had been no special purpose in the act She had been attracted by thetheir first lessons in Talratified her curiosity by learning what they meant ”It whistled itself,” averred the little school-boy, apologetically, under fear of the rod; so she, another _it_, learned itself

It was not until the steps of other little ravity of her transgression, and the danger of the innovation, were at all co the orthodox Samaritans In the opinion of the staunch appellants to the Law and the Prophets, she had transcended the limitations of her sex, and the marital claim, ”My wife is my shoe” was oes The scribes and prophets waited in expectancy to see fire fros had been suffered, or to see the young transgressor transforments of heaven, out of the proper semblance of womanhood But when she appeared in the streets, with her sister maidens, performed her appointed tasks in rank and file with theossiped less--and bore her pitcher as deftly on her head as ever, the an to die away, and she was only pointed out as the one who had _first_ sinned True, the High Priest shook his head and prophesied ”The end is not yet” But the fire had caught, and, according to the laws of fire, physical or Pro and cursing, a dozen Sairls had learned the alphabet

How far education has advanced in Sychar, what has been its effects upon the health of Samaritan women, or how much it has shaken the social basis, ”My wife is ; but, judging fro the alphabet in other places, I cannot doubt that this innovation, seeing it did not precipitate the world out of its course, has been followed by others, less startling, perhaps, but tending the same way Be this as it may, this initiate of an educational revolution in Sychar has its lessons for our times

The Rabbis of the old Samaritan capital saw in this unlooked for seizure of the key of knowledge by the hand of a wons of woe that all was lost” This Miltonian cry of woe to the world, through knowledge or privilege given to woh Priests, who find the Eden of life in the poet's picture of the human family, before woman aspired to taste the fruit of the tree ”to be desired toof the object for which man and woman each were made: ”He, for God only; she, for God in him”

That the world was a paradise while man's wisdoh hi of creeds not yet dead There is a lesson in the little Saression, as well as in its repetition a thousand times since He that runneth end, or verity of Holy Writ, whichever e ard the story of the bite of the apple, viz: that a desire _to knoas evidently an eleinal sin, or otherwise; and correspondingly endowed, as is, just as evidently, her physical organization, to gratify this desire, we may conclude that she will coe to her service in its accolad that the recent alar of our tih tower of professional eminence and authority, it must and does attract attention

It is a cry of ”Halt!” and let us see where we are going So, rude and harsh as are many of its tones, discordant with truth as we can but believe solad it has been sounded His facts are e the sin where it belongs The book will lead to investigations and in the end to an ih, education of women Dr Clarke thinks ”that if it were possible to anization to her Western liberty and culture of the brain, there would be a new birth, and a loftier type of worace and force” But his conclusions seem to be that this is impossible, and, since they cannot be united, of the two types of women, the brain-cultured, intellectual women of the West, and the Oriental women, ”with their well developed forms, their brown skins, rich with the blood and sun of the East,” he prefers the latter

Two years since I visited some portions of the East, where these primitive Oriental types of woardens of a hare life away, only careful to guard their veiled faces from exposure, noas their souls were of feeling, or their brains of thought I saw more frequently another class of women--those fro to a filthy rag, or diverting a arments to cover their faces, because, as a sheik explained toto coth of the life of woman, under such conditions, with that of life which we have been wont to call civilized and enlightened, I often inquired the age of wo as often assured that women whose furrorinkled faces would indicate that they were sixty, were not ht--at most, forty years old Most Eastern woanization” by abandoning their own to a etation They had borne children innumerable These swarmed upon us from fissures in the rocks, from dens, caves, and old toeny of wretchedness, with a few fairer types, to which soth to rise above the common conditions of life

I had also soanization of woman”

under process oflike our own

Especially anxious to learn all that pertained to progress in education in the old cities in the East, I sought every opportunity to visit schools, Mahometan, Christian, and Jewish, under the old or under theset down as a true American inquisitor, I pressed questions in every direction that would be likely to be suggested to a practical teacher, studying the proble to solve: ”What is the best education for our Airls?”

The best schools that I visited are those established within twelve or twenty years some, quite recently, by the Prussian Protestant Sisters or Deaconesses, who have had a rare and severe training for their work--physical, ienic In these schools, also, are to be found pupils froh they often have an orphan departlected and wretched children are received, kindly cared for, and educated In the opinion of these teachers, mental development is the source of health to their pupils, and they invariably spoke of the i They colect or abuse of ignorant rowing active and playful, the deforirls under her care inclined to any active play, until they had been in school months, sometimes years, was very rare This inertness was her than the lower classes, for, in addition to an inert physical organization, a contempt for labor, hich they associated all exertion whatever, was born with the--not until their brains began to take in theand pleasure of study--could they throw it off; To rouse a girl and find out what she looked forward to in life, she had often asked her, ”And what do you intend to _do_ when you leave school?” ”Oh, sit,” had been many times the answer she had received

”Sit,” which etschools The Superior or Principal of one told me she had been associated, in her preparatory course, at Kaiserwerth, with Florence Nightingale, for two years; and she described to me the discipline of that institution and others, where these teachers and nurses are trained It is a discipline of severe study, acco, hospital practice, and soery of work She had often seen, she said, ”Miss Nightingale, a born lady, on her knees scrubbing floors But there was no distinction of persons in these institutions Those who came to them looked forward to lives, not of ease, but useful work, and they ood soldiers” ”But Miss Nightingale has broken down; may not the severity of this discipline have been one cause of what she is suffering now?” She did not think so; they had all had a training just as severe as hers, the sisters here, in Jerusale But there were liale's work in the Crimea, performed under such conditions as it was, had transcended what the huer, foul air, insufficient and unwholeso, that no huainst it

It was a ale had withstood before she broke down

But these sisters wear no long or heavy dresses Their uniform is a si nor very full, sleeves close, yet allowing perfect freedom in the use of the ar, spotless whiteness

Their shoes, too, are after the pattern of those which, we are told, are alorn by Florence Nightingale--with a sole as broad as the foot they were made for, and fitted to the natural shape of the foot The food, the sister said, at Kaiserwerth, as in all the training-schools, was ”nourishi+ng, but very si If they were accompaniments of our systeirls would break down under the brain-work that any University course for men, in our country, ireat deal more work, and better, can be performed in shoes that fit, than in such as tire the feet? And this is scarcely less true of brain-work than house-work I believe that the shoes worn by young girls and young woreat cause of nervous irritability, and, joined with other causes, may be a source of disease, ”nervous prostration,” so called in after life I have heard wo a sick-headache on so quickly as wearing a shoe that hurts my feet” The oft repeated words have led me to watch my pupils in this respect carefully, and to study shoes and their effects, as aed to brain-work, _per se_, nor to our school systeeneral It also made me take especial note of the shoes that the Deaconess sisters wore as a part of the dress in which, through long practice, they learned ”hardness,” and ca and healthy, but not the less acco woe of these sisters, is probably one of the best in all the East I was conducted by the lady Principal through every departed at the black-board, instructing a class in studies pursued in that language In another part of the sa to a lady-teacher an oration of De critically a portion of Milton's ”Paradise Lost,” and yet another was engaged in preparing a French lesson With all these classes the lady sister spoke in the language under study or recitation, as did the teachers of each class, with the exception of the Greek class, in which, the sister said, the pupils were taught to read the classic Greek, but allowed to speak the language as now spoken, as they had ht to be able to read the works of their great e In another department I heard the same sister speak ue Italian was also taught, and I heard it fluently spoken It seeh different, required nearly as much study as ours

At the hotel, where I re ladies, of Greek and Are They had been in this school for several years and were still pursuing their studies They spoke half a dozen languages, English, they said, the irl who spoke French or Gerlish, and their drill in irls They were taught arithirls are in our schools Physiology was also a part of their course They were not so unctuously fat as many of the entirely idle women of the harems, whose object in life is to ”sit,” but to us, who are wont to call that a ”well-developed for in life, rather than to sit an existence through, their physiques would indicate rave Turk's wifely crohich Dr Clarke wished he could marry to the ”brain-culture” of our women Their faces were still ”rich with the blood and sun of the East,” and I should pity the Ae of the ”unintelligent, sensuous faces” of the hareh brain-culture, bea women

In this school they had advanced to an innovation beyond anything to which the teachers had been the in the East, even the mission schools--the experiment of co-education, in the primary departhter and a son of the Pasha of Syria in the same room and in the same class ”And how does this system work?” I asked ”Well;” the sister said, ”adood for the boys, who, in this country, are so arrogant and overbearing They are born with a contes, to lord it over them But it has a wonderful influence to huirls fully their equals, as they are, in their classes”

Dr Clarke says, that ”the error of the co-education of the sexes, and which prophesies their identical co-education in colleges and universities, is not confined to technical education It permeates society” That it does so, is true, but that it is always an ”error,” we should not so readily ad effects upon society in Beyrout, h conforn of equality between ned for the men on one side, and the women on the other, had always been separated by a heavy curtain drawn between the far above the heads of the worshi+ppers, even when they should be standing, it had for the church up to the space in front of the preacher's desk But this curtain had, within the last few months, been re a straightforward gospel, the same to men and women Thus was the co-education syste the church! This was noticed with surprise by a , after two or three years' absence in this country, to his former mission field, and who entered the church, for the first time after his return, with reat advance in Christian sentiment! This is as it should be And how does it work?” he asked of the pastor of the church, in delighted surprise ”Admirably,” was the reply There was some remonstrance on the part of some of the olderabout it any longer, and it was so ether, than to have his congregation separated by that high wall of a curtain, and to seeospel to the men, and another to the woood man, in a conversation with brethren who had co with severe reprobation ”this absurd womanthe churches,”

”pervading society in a thousand ways,” ”subversive of social order and refinement;” and, as one of its irls' heads the idea of going to college with the young nize as one impulse of the wave of the ”wo!

So often is the Babe of Bethlehe him as he is, a fair and beautiful child, welcoh the h him some subversion of their power, position, or interest, cry: ”Aith him! crucify him! crucify him!”

At Beyrout I had several conversations with a entleovern ladies travelling for study and instruction, our conversation very naturally turned upon our American educational systems, about which he was much better informed than many members of our public school boards He had read our school reports, and his knowledge of our methods, courses of study, etc, surprisedupon the broadening influence of the increasing attention paid to the sciences in our schools, and the coes upon national character And could it be possible that young ether, he asked The school reports which he had read would indicate this, yet he could hardly believe it possible Iladies too closely, but he had been interested to study the influence of our ideas of education upon the first Aine how the difference struck hiy, their companionableness, was so different from women of the East ”And yet, they are perfectly modest!” he said He had observed their anxiety to visit places of historical interest, getting up early in thedistance to do this He had seen elegant, pleasing woraceful manners--the Eastern women were often that--but he had met few educated women Their women were trained to please, but they were never educated to be a ht of a cohtfully for a lish, he said, ”Yet I can't see for the life of me why it would not be better that she should be”

This was the frank, involuntary utterance of a cultivated ht suddenly, for the first time, as he said, to consider the question of the education of women, an elemental half of humanity, in the unbiassed, comprehensive view of the subject that can alone lead to a just decision He was an Eastern man, outside of the turmoil and interests of the discussion No personal or professional craft lurked unrecognized behind his conclusions to give theeneral human happiness and welfare With us, however, where it has beco domestic, social, and professional interests, its coly difficult for the e, to look at it without touching, in some of its intricacies, the question, ”Does not space for her to bourgeon,” i me andthe subject of woman's education, from which there are so many out-co it is e coe or defence Sermons that have been preached at learned women, and jokes perpetrated at their expense, are still issued inas of yore It is quite curious to note how the style changes, but the thought remains the same Our fathers planned our earliest educational institutions according to the best they knew Our ht leave bequests to colleges and theological schools, where their sons could be educated; while their daughters picked up such cruht their best, according to the light of their day, but the shadow of their fuller eclipse extends to us Calvin's requirehty to determine woy,” their creed: ”That she be learned is not requisite That she be beautiful, only that she be not ill-looking, is not important But she must be of sound health, that she may bear me children She must be industrious, econoood care of _my_ health”

This was the summary of oarded by our fathers as a law-giver, entrusted with the oracles of God An old o so rich in thought as tofa more piquant instructions, I copy a sentence: ”But if thou wilt please God, take much pains with thy heart, to make it stand in awe of thy husband Look, therefore, not on his qualities but on his place, for if thou despisest him, thy contempt redounds upon God” ”When a woh he be of ood carriage is dried up”

In proof that we have outlived only the for of Part VII of Mr Hamerton's ”Intellectual Life,” a very recent publication, and, the reviewers say, ”a chare” he says: ”It appears to be thought wise to teach boys things which woree of respect for men's attainments which they would not feel, were they prepared to estis Mr Hamerton illustrates by nuuished artist was, that a ht marry either a plain-minded woman ould occupy herself exclusively with householdthese cares upon herself, or else a wo into his artistic lifeAnd of the two kinds of women which he considered possible, he preferred the fornorant person, from whom no interference was to be apprehended He considered the first Madares the true model of an artist's wife, because she did all in her power to guard her husband's peace, and never herself disturbed hi the part of a breakwater, which protects a space of calm and never disturbs the peace it has norant to wish to comprehend her husband lest she should meddle in his pursuits, and who should find her cruht to yield, in ”acting as a breakwater” to protect hireat artist's view of the education needed by a woman! To this I would oppose h ould add theirs thereto, to ht to that of Mr