Part 13 (2/2)
Whether the future has possibilities for girls that will give no occasion for this deficit of available power for school-work, it is ian University report that the young women are no more frequently absent fro men But it must be remembered that the women are few in nue of wo men Especially in the respect of a prudent care for their health their necessities have made them wise--and this will be the character of e for soe of work for girls as for boys, but this must not be wholly put down to equal resources Girls, on the average, are more anxious for approval than boys are, and if work is assigned thees they are quite as likely to do it as boys are
Nor are we to suppose that the best average education for the present girls would show just the sae education for boys
Oberlin, the oldest experies its plans with especial reference to the average differences between the quantity and direction of the school-work at present demanded for men and women It has its ”Ladies' Course,” as well as its University Course The young woh out of the four or five hundred young woive only an average of about two in a year At Antioch there was a large range of optional subjects, and awoh schools have also a wide optionalaside the old idea that it is well for all boys to pursue the same line of study, independent of tastes, and past and prospective circumstances in life; and another still ive way, that boys and young men, of whatever physical and brain power, are to be put through a definite course of study in just the sauarantee for a man's scholarshi+p that he holds an AB or an AM
degree This only assures us that he has spent four years at sorees When our systees is sufficiently flexible toto adapt it to the varying needs of boys and girls, or h the whole scale of physical power and irls will at least have no difficulty in carrying on three subjects of study, while the best boys carry on four; and girls not only can, but as a rule do, reer at school than the boys It would be well, too, to give irls in the schools I can think of nothing else that would conduce so ive it an optional place in our school curriculuirls awith their school-work--that is, to develop a united domestic and intellectual taste With the habit once for this combination of pursuits, we should betheir intellectual cultivation through life If this could be done, they ought, as a rule, to be able to do more than men do in the last fifteen or twenty years of their lives
The results of our experiments in co-education have so far indicated that there is no difference between the intellectual tastes ofsentiirls cannot do all that boys do, and that they are a little in discredit because they cannot, has given them an undue stimulus to prove their power by experiment; and it is well that they have done it, to silence the doubts Moreover, the woher places of intellectual industry occupied by men, had to test themselves by the standards established for their rivals And the sa pursuits for wo; in order to get any ground, they have had to fall into men's ways, so that their work could be tested by men's standards To prove that they were the equals of men, they have had to prove that they were the equals of both women and men; they have had to learn and to be all that other women know and are, and, in addition, to equal men in the points where men surpass women; while their masculine rivals are exeht bestowed upon the specialties of woain authority for their own standards--the right to work in a woman's way, tested only by the quantity and quality of their results, that is, by the value of their work to society-- wo men do, nor will the total of their work appear smaller than the total of men's work There is no intrinsic reason omen's work, done in women's way, should have less conition than ood repute and sell as well as books of philosophy, and house decorators are as much in demand, and are paid as well as architects The present industries of wo theh-class work, andto women have been developed by es of woe of work they are atte to do
The industries that are exclusively in their hands are alent labor is not required, and so few of the industries that have been developed by reat competition, even the skilled work of women, as yet, commands but a low price They want ent or skilled work They anize and develop, by the application of the division of labor principle, the work they already have, and they must win from men a part of their work
But they can make their way into the industries occupied byet undisputed possession, they can and do apply their own methods
Mr Mundella's Bill, to which I have already referred, will, as is believed, if it becoress It is to the interest of the mill-owners to keep their machinery at work as many hours as they can, and if men ork ten hours a day, while wo more than nine and a half, men will be ee of larger wages But, fortunately, it is said, the women cannot be wholly driven out In some branches of the work they do so much better than the men, that even if this reduction of hours should be enforced, the e to employ women
The women in these special lines have already proved the value of woot a si trade; and in teaching, they have already proved the superiority of their reat strain required in using ates opened to theates The wages are kept low along the line of their advance, because an ar so fast in the rear I have no fear but that women will stand a fair chance with et a free and open way into them, and learn to apply scientific principles asto be as valuable a quality as strength
To secure the changes that all wise or good feeling s are needed; and as I have said, first of all, we need organization in domestic work, in order to reduce the quantity, to save waste inthe different departments into trades or skilled industries--thus we ists, and in a variety of ways provide work for wives and daughters suited to their intelligence, and relieved of coarse drudgery We need women physicians, employed by the year, whose duty and interest it will be to keep the fa theirls--a person familiar with both the home life and school life of the children, and whose interest would forbid her to yield either to the weak affection of the htless ambition of the teacher The fa up between competent women physicians on the one side, and mothers, children, and cooks on the other, would contribute vastly to the ieneral sanitary habits of the fa the relation between different varieties of food and peculiarities in the mental and physical powers and appetites We need creditable wages, given in e, in order to save our schools fro the receptacle of all women who have occasion to earn money We need some half-time system in our schools, to provide for the pupils who have less health or less tiher class of fa or confining We need to raise the scale of fees, in order to invite the application of ti inventions in women's work, as they are now ee of work for women
As a means to all this we need, and as the result of all of it we shall get, a recognition of feminine methods and standards, as well as of masculine methods and standards If the specialties in the culture of wo, it is because they have value; many of them, I am certain, have real value, and others have a current value, so that we cannot at present dispense with them--if they have value, e have a free and well-adjusted laborabout these changes, we must have well-educated, omen
Our women, in matters of dress, are more completely the slaves of fashi+on than the women in any other civilized country This is due to the necessity they feel for ood personal impression Their faainst the theive them other means of influence than this, e secure to them industrial and political power, these personal considerations will diminish in importance, and their minds will naturally turn away fros that need to be improved, but we must be wise in our lish, nor do I believe it is worth doing The Malthusian chorus of political econoests the notion that a nation may be over-physical We want health for ourselves, and healthy tendencies for our descendants Beyond this, ant to send our surplus force to the brain
MARY E BEEDY
83 Ladbroke Road, Notting Hill, London W
MENTAL ACTION
AND
PHYSICAL HEALTH