Part 11 (1/2)
Kalaainst the opinion of many educated and educational o And classes, about equally divided, have been graduating fro the authors of thethese twenty years, in the practicability and thewoood scholarshi+p and health as the young men A _s word ”men”? ]have abandoned their course on account of ill health During the period ofwomen pursued there an extended elective course of study, who did not graduate It was not their plan to do so when they entered the preparatory departraduated fro as persistent study, though not in all respects like that of the young h some did, and were leaders of their classes They did not pursue Latin quite so far, but h study of French and German, History and Literature There is scarcely a week in the year but I receive communications in so my most enjoyable, intellectual, and literary correspondents With few exceptions, they are _growing_ wo learned how to learn--which they will all remember, was the most I ever professed to be able to teach them--they have instituted schools for themselves, compelled sometimes very hard circumstances to become their best teachers, and learned to draw lessons, as Mr Emerson once said in a lecture to them, from ”frost and fire”
So it, and are turning wealth and its advantages that have come to them, to useful, noble purposes A few, but very few, of the large number, are invalids, but there is not one whose case does not furnish me with abundant evidence of many more probable causes of invalidism, than over-study There is not one, of whom I have heard, whose case does not wear on the face of it decidedly other causes than ”persistent study”
Dr Mahan, as the first, and for fifteen years, President of Oberlin College, has since been for nearly as long a period the President of Adrian College, in this State He says that, during his connection with Oberlin, the proportion of youngwomen who entered upon the course, and failed to complete it on account of failure of health, under the strain of thought and study, was at least _two to one_ The proportion was not quite so great in Adrian; butwoes, everywhere--succue from their former life to one of study
Dr Mahan also says that, owing to the peculiar circue was established, he has, through subsequent years, maintained a far more familiar acquaintance with his former students than is common for old teachers to do; and that he can count raduates, than broken-doomen It would be impossible for one now to conceive the obstacles in the way of the girls ere first adh a moral battle with public opinion and popular prejudice, the depressing effects of which cannot now be esti their whole course, and in their graduating exercises, as the young men They are all of the and healthy, far above the average of A ale faculty s, he has never _once_ heard, froirls in the class were in any hatever a drag upon the class They invariably keep up, and oftener co behind Nor is this uages, science, philosophy, they grasp as clearly, strongly, and comprehensively as men; and as the result of his observation and of his experience, which, he says, in co-education in a higher course of study, has perhaps been greater than that of any man in the world, he thinks that while it is just as much better for men to be so educated as it is for women, the result to the latter is to iven to effeminate, rather than fe life may demand of them than any class of women he has ever known Also, in the particular of health, he has carefully observed the effects of close and continued study, not only during the course, but in subsequent life, and he will risk his reputation for truthful state that he believes--that he knows--thethe woher standard of health than a the sa women, fashi+onable women, or women of merely quiet, domestic habits And yet, ”every well-developed, well-balanced woes has actually performed one-fourth _more_ labor than a man who has stood by her side, and she is entitled to one-fourth irl should be as free to choose for herself as a boy is She can never truly know herself, nor be known by others, as the power in the world, greater or less, which she was ordained by God to be, until these thousand restrictions that limit and dwarf her intellectual life are reive or keep, to live, and learn, and be All that not harms distinctive womanhood”
I have recently been assured by one of the best students that have ever graduated froraduated froe in this State, froentlee course, all that is required of the young men--and all that _they_ are accustomed to perforirl of average health and abilities, who is properly prepared when she enters But the trouble is that while girls like the studies in the regular course, and study with a real relish, they want more They are not satisfied with the French and Geres, and add extra private lessons to those of the regular classes The few lessons of the course in perspective drawing have, in some, awakened an artistic taste, and they want to pursue drawing farther There are better teachers to be found in the vicinity of a University than they will find at home, and they are constantly teirls in the literary course of the University attend the medical lectures in certain departments, some teach students who are ”conditioned” in certain branches Froirls can easily do all that is required of the young men, but they will doed, fro woirls who atte es towards elective courses of study is in the right direction to reirls are liable to fall--of taking studies outside the course I hope to see even greater freedom of choice
From a woman, a mother, and lover of little children, a feords about school buildings and school methods iving to boasting People of the older world tell us that this is an expression of our undeveloped youth--a kind of _Sopho that we are yet not very far advanced Be that as it may, I have observed that there is nothan our schools and our school syste our future monarchs! Those are the towers of our defence--the bulwarks of our republic!” I heard a western Congressman exclaim, as the railway train whizzed past one of those immense school edifices which so closely dot the area of ht of one ere the high towers and ornate roofs of another coe that I aner to such buildings as those, and tell him they are but our common free schools, open to every child in the land, rich and poor, alike”
The friend addressed, an intelligent, shrewd, naturalized Scotchy,” he supposed, but that those great high buildings, where six or eight hundred children were gathered in one school, were like great cities, where too ether School life, no ht to be, under such conditions To carry out these great union school plans, made a necessity for tooout the education of our children, rather than developing thought, and the result would be machine education He said that school was a continual worry at home
One child was kept after school one day for one thing, and another the next day for so about how they were ood deal more talk about the marks for the lesson, than there was about as in the lesson itself One little girl, a delicate lassie, they had been obliged to take out of school The child didn't eat, couldn't sleep, and was getting in a bad way altogether
”There is nooff to school in the , than there is inmarked,” said awas especially one of trial to the child I wish you could have seen her when she got off, or rather when she got hoed her not to hurry so, but co to fail; I would rather she would lose the day than to gain her school through such an effort” The child reached the school, and ca into the house, the delicately organized, nervous little girl exclaiet there; and the best of it was, I overtook G---- S---- (another as delicate child); she was as late as I was, and we both ran every step We et into our seats, but G---- could not get her mittens off; and when she at last dropped into her seat, she put both hands up to her face and burst out crying as loud as she could cry Oh, I did feel so sorry for her!” The effort of getting to school, the fear of the iven her physical system a shock, and made demands on her brain that a year's study could not have done I could fill a volu woman, with instances like this--the occurrences of every day in the year They cannot, perhaps, be helped Teachers are not to be blaht hundred children cannot be hindered for one child All are tied to too much machinery
In some of the public schools which I have visited in Germany, the lessons for children eleven and twelve years old seemed to me more difficult than the lessons set for children of the sae in our public schools; and our children are not in school nearly so many hours in a day as the children in German schools, which are so often referred to, not only as model educational institutions, but conservators of health as well Children in Ger In very earlywalks, I have often met scores of German children, with their little soldier-like knapsack of books strapped to their shoulders, and have stopped them to examine their school-books, and inquire about their schools In a little valley in Switzerland, seeing a bevy of children starting, so , I inquired where all those children were going ”To the school, to be sure,” I was answered ”But they cannot see to read or study,” I said ”_O, sie ht with theed; there are defects to be remedied, evils to be cured, which affect both sexes; but woe are towards a higher intellectual culture for them Women's clubs, classes, library and literary associations, are, throughout our cities and villages--in little country neighborhoods, even--furnishi+ng worowth and advancee than these associations The Babe of Bethlehem is born, and has even now too far escaped the search of Herod to be overtaken
Nor is there anything in the spirit of the times which betokens the revival of the nunnery and monastic systems Women already tread aled The shrines of Minerva will not be desecrated by their presence Their intellect will be developed, and their affections will be cultivated, and all truly womanly virtues fostered in the innermost penetralia even, of that teht; whose patron deity was prophetically y, wise beyond its own ken, not a man, not a God--but a Goddess, a typical woirls persistently breathe the sao with them to church, public lectures, concerts, plays, and social entertainments, so will they, in the new and , coe, in the acaderoves of philosophy, halls of science, schools of theology--everywhere and ”persistently”
LUCINDA H STONE
Kalamazoo, Mich
GIRLS AND WOMEN
IN
ENGLAND AND AMERICA
GIRLS AND WOMEN
IN
ENGLAND AND AMERICA
When I was giving, in Dundee, a lecture upon the Education of Women in America, the substance of which appeared in the _West me, said, ”De Tocqueville, the French philosopher, considered that the chief cause of the great prosperity of the American nation is the superiority of the woht how these won travellers in our country; the general intelligence of the people, and the equality of the education and intellectual interests of the men and the women; and few remarks are oftener heard from those who have visited us, or have known our countrymen and women on the Continent than this: ”American women seem so much superior to the men”