Emily Davies

“ The master of the house may discourse upon politics, or literature, or any other topic that may interest him, but there can be no intelligent response, no interchange of thought, no pleasant discussion of things worth talking about. He may lay down the law on matters of which he knows nothing whatever, betraying the grossest ignorance of elementary facts, in full confidence that his conclusions, whether true or false, will be accepted with equal indifference. ”

“ The want of hearty sympathy, not only between the classes which are divided by broad and easily recognised distinctions, but between those which are separated by lines so shadowy that, looked at from above or below, they are scarcely discernible—is one of the most serious impediments to social progress, and it is one which a better and more widely diffused culture might do much to remove. Not, indeed, that the education of youth, even taking the word in its deepest sense, is to be regarded as the only, or even the chief, agency for the improvement of society ”

“ How little need should we then have of philanthropic schemes for elevating the poor! How naturally would they share in all social reforms, how inevitably would they be refined and civilised by the insensible influence—the best of all influences—of the employing class, whose ideas, unconsciously communicated to their subordinates, gradually leaven all the classes below them. ”

“ A man has some chance of making up at the university the deficiencies of his school training; or if he passes direct from school to business, there is a possibility that he may find in his daily work something of the mental and moral discipline that he needs. But a girl who leaves school unawakened, is not likely to be roused from her lethargy by anything in her home life. The dissipation to which, in the absence of any spur to wholesome activity, so many girls give themselves up, completes the deadening process begun at school. ”

“ Who gives the tone to the lax and luxurious homes of the wealthy? Who teaches the boys that hard work is foolish self-torture, that an easy life is more to be desired than the fine gold of intellectual attainment? Not their fathers, for though they too may be led away by the prevailing passion for play, they have had a nobler ideal set before them. ”

“ Matthew Arnold says of our highest class that its culture has declined. Young men at the universities exhibit "a slackness," "a sleep of the mind," which he traces to "a torpor of intellectual life, a dearth of ideas, an indifference to fine culture or disbelief in its necessity, spreading through the bulk of our highest class and influencing its rising generation. * * * * Never," he says, "in all its history, has our whole highest class shown such zeal for enjoying life, for amusing itself." ”

“ Is it not precisely what might have been expected in a society which, for at least one generation, has been content to bring up its girls to be more elegant triflers? Is it not true that to amuse themselves and other people is the great object in life of women of the non-working classes, and is it possible that their sedulous devotion to this one object can fail to react upon the men with whom they associate? ”

“ Children, servants, dress, and summer tours—all very good subjects in themselves, but so treated, partly through sheer ignorance, that as the conversation advances, tedium grows, till at last all signs of intelligence disappear, and the weary countenances too faithfully reveal the vacancy within. Of literature, women of the middle class know next to nothing. I am not speaking of religious literature, which is extensively read by some women, and to which they owe much. ”

“ I believe I may say, however, on behalf of the advocates of female education, that any objector is welcome to assert anything he likes about the inferiority of the female intellect, if only he does not rate it so low as to be incapable of improvement by cultivation. We are not encumbered by theories about equality or inequality of mental power in the sexes. All we claim is that the intelligence of women, be it great or small, shall have full and free development. ”

“ There seems to be as yet no body of opinion formed out of the floating mass, unanimous enough to be authoritative and competent to pronounce upon what branches of study are in themselves most worthy, what are most useful as educational instruments, what proportion of time should be allotted to each, and the many other complicated questions which must be answered before a scheme of education can be produced. ”

“ I am speaking, let it be remembered, not of children, but of grown-up women. Does anybody care for their opinions on any but the most trivial matters? Have they a thought beyond the circle of petty cares? ”

“ We are learning more and more the importance of physical health to the life of a nation, and a training which should produce a thoroughly sound physique, even at the expense of feebleness of mind, would have much to recommend it. But women are not healthy. It is a rare thing to meet with a lady, of any age, who does not suffer from headaches, languor, hysteria, or some ailment showing a want of stamina. ”

“ We hear a great deal of the disastrous effects which would follow if women were to abandon the habits of elegant leisure by which the balance is supposed to be redressed. The otium sine dignitate of drawing-rooms presents itself to men's minds in enviable contrast with the bustle and turmoil of an active career. ”

“ In using the word professional, I do not refer to any trade or business, but to the profession which absorbs the great majority of women, that of marriage. For this calling, some technical preparation is required. The amount cannot be great, as under existing social arrangements, a thorough acquaintance with needle-work and cookery—the very easiest of arts—includes I believe all the special knowledge required by the mistress of a household. ”

“ That this great work should at least be well begun during the period allotted to secondary instruction, is especially necessary in the case of women, because with this first stage their education ends. I do not mean, of course, that a girl necessarily lays aside all study on leaving school, any more than a man does on taking his degree, but that the end of the school course is the same kind of educational terminus to a woman that graduation is to a man. When a girl leaves school, her strictly professional studies assume a greater prominence. ”

“ Some, and those the men most worth listening to, are unwilling to speak of what they imperfectly know, and it is difficult for them to know much about girls or women. When they speak of boys, they have at any rate their own experience to go upon, and it is not unnatural that they should by preference confine themselves to that side of the subject of which they have personal cognisance. Others are no doubt insensibly influenced by the view of education which regards it merely as a means of making a living. ”

“ Newspaper writers, expressing the prevailing sentiment, assume towards women an indulgent air which is far from flattering, giving them credit for plenty of good intentions, but very little capacity, and the tone in which many ladies speak of the capabilities of women is still more depreciatory than that adopted by men. No doubt this is partly exaggerated and unjust. All classes, as such, are now and then maligned, and so long as women are unfortunately regarded as a class, they will come in for their share of ridicule. ”

“ Masters and mistresses reveal in their everyday life in what their ideal of blessedness consists, and that ideal becomes, with some modifications, that of the humbler homes of working men and women. I say with modifications, because working men are through their mutual association subject to counteracting influences, and it is chiefly in so far as that of wives and mothers prevails over others scarcely less strong, that the ideas of the employing class penetrate and govern. ”

“ I speak of general literature, and of ordinary women, whose reading is for the most part confined to novels, and of novels not the best. The catalogue of a bookseller's circulating library, in which second-rate fiction largely preponderates, is a fair criterion of the range and the taste of middle-class lady readers. Newspapers are scarcely supposed to be read by women at all. ”

“ National and British Schools for girls are inspected, mistresses are trained, female pupil-teachers are apprenticed, and speaking generally, the education of the daughters of the labouring classes is as carefully watched over as that of their sons. Why is the case altered when we advance a few steps higher in the social scale? With regard to the public schools, the reason is obvious enough. As there are no Etons for girls in existence, they could not be made the subject of investigation. Probably the sisters of public school boys are, for the most part, taught by governesses at home. ”

“ But setting aside the question, whether it is desirable that the merely professional training should begin so early—"the second and finishing stage of a liberal education" being altogether omitted—it seems obvious enough, that if regular, methodical instruction is to cease at the age of eighteen, it is the more imperative that the culture, up to that period, should be wide and deep and humane in the highest possible degree. ”

“ Let me entreat thinking men to dismiss from their minds the belief, that this is a thing with which they have no concern. They cannot help exerting a most serious influence upon it. Silence sometimes teaches more eloquently than words, and while they refrain from giving encouragement, their apparent indifference damps and chills. ”

“ The impression is conveyed to the public mind that the education of girls is an affair of very little consequence—that it is, in fact, one of the things which may safely and properly be left to take care of themselves. ”

“ Whether it will attain to "a high commanding pitch of culture and intelligence," depends on "the sensibility which it has for perfection, on its power to transform itself." And "in its public action this class has hitherto shown only the power and disposition to affirm itself, not at all the power and disposition to transform itself." Here again, we are reaping what our fathers have sown. A young man of the middle class, who enters upon life with generous instincts and aspirations after perfection, is apt gradually to lose them. ”

“ It is needless to bring proofs of what no one will deny. It is a simple fact, that in the mass of speeches, articles, reviews, pamphlets and volumes which have lately been before the public on the subject of secondary instruction for boys, there is scarcely so much as a passing allusion to that of girls. ”

“ Its virtues and its defects, what it has and what it needs, have been held up to view, and those whose knowledge of that great class is most intimate will most promptly recognise the admirable faithfulness of the portrait. We are told that it is "traversed by a strong intellectual ferment,"—that it has "real mental ardour, real curiosity." ”