Educated woman

“ If a woman is not married in the end, the wider and deeper her education goes, the happier and more useful she is; and yet can we deny that a very wide education is likely to repel rather than attract even highly educated men?
My own solution of the difficulty would be to give a girl the best education within reach, but to lay such stress on warm-heartedness and sweet temper that her intellectual attainments would not stand out prominently and concentrate all attention on them. ”

“ Nearly all the habits of modern female education—I mean the fashionable education of the family and school—are entirely at war with the virtue I am endeavoring to inculcate. It would be a miracle, almost, if a young woman who has been educated in a fashionable family, under the eye of a fashionable mother, and at a fashionable boarding school, under the direction of a teacher whose main object is to please her patrons, should come out to the world, without being quite destitute of all true decision of character. ”

“ Is not, then, the normal education of a woman that which, while it does not cramp her life in one direction, nor mould her in a set way, yet keeps always in mind the fact that the normal woman is being educated for a normal woman's life? ”

“ The educated woman no less than the man strove naturally after a characteristic and complete individuality.”
When one remembers the struggle in nineteenth century England for the higher education of women, and particularly the desperate resistance to their studying and practising medicine, one realises the fallacy of expecting melioration from the mere movement of time. ”

“ When we remember the institution she founded and conducted; the six thousand young women whom she educated, many of them gratuitously; when it is borne in mind the numerous books she wrote to be used in schools and the great favor with which these books have generally been received; when we think of the zealous energy in various ways which she put forth for more than half a century to elevate the standard of education of her sex, it would be difficult to find a woman who, in her age or country, was more useful or will longer be remembered as both good and great. ”

“ Classics, philosophy, and science were studied with enthusiasm and success. We welcome gladly the evidence that society is beginning to recognise woman’s right to be as highly educated as her capacity will allow. She is to be man’s companion, and what can better enable her to be a fit companion for him, than a due comprehension of what he comprehends; an appreciation founded upon knowledge of the difficulties he has mastered, and power to stand beside him and help him in his intellectual labours. ”

“ Let us once see a hundred women educated up to the highest point that education at present reaches; let them be supplied with such knowledge as their faculties are found to crave, and let them be free to use, apply, and increase their knowledge as their faculties shall instigate, and it will presently appear what is the sphere of each of the hundred. ”

“ The great elements of usefulness and duty are too little attended to. Women ought, in my view of the subject, to approach to the best education now given to men, (I except mathematics and the classics,) far more I believe than has ever yet been attempted. Give me a host of educated, pious mothers and sisters, and I will do more to revolutionize a country, in moral and religious taste, in manners and in social virtues and intellectual cultivation, than I can possibly do in double or treble the time, with a similar host of educated men. ”

“ A woman so educated would, we are assured, make a very poor wife or mother. Much learning would make her mad, and would wholly unfit her for those quiet domestic offices for which Providence intended her. ”

“ But, above all, let us be assured that our daughters are educated as women, not as men. Women are not needed as men; they are needed as women: to do, not what men can do as well as they, but what men cannot do. Woman was created to be a wife and a mother; that is her destiny. To that destiny all her instincts point, and for it nature has specially qualified her. Her proper sphere is home, and her proper function is the care of the household, to manage a family, to take care of children, and attend to their early training. ”

“ I, therefore will venture to assert, that till women are more rationally educated, the progress of human virtue and improvement in knowledge must receive continual checks. ”

“ Men and women must be educated, in a great degree, by the opinions and manners of the society they live in. ”

“ I then began to realize by comparison with others how very ignorant I was, and, being resolved not to continue so, I devoted all my spare moments to study, until, much to my surprise, I found myself regarded as a woman of education. ”

“ We would have the large-minded, earnest, noble, public-spirited one, who would go out into the world as a fine type of woman, to live a woman's life and do a woman's work. Married or unmarried, she would still have a woman's interests, a woman's influence, a woman's charm.
This higher education may or may not include practical studies in domestic science, nursing, and household emergencies, but she should learn somewhere the elements of these studies, so that when she goes into a home of her own her duties and responsibilities will not be met in a half-hearted and untrained way. ”

“ True it is, that one can scarcely call that education which teaches woman everything except herself,—except the things that relate to her own peculiar womanly destiny, and, on plea of the holiness of ignorance, sends her without a word of just counsel into the temptations of life. ”

“ Let me hasten, therefore, to say that I believe most heartily in the higher education of women; in fact, the higher the better. The only question to my mind is: What is "higher education" and how do you get it? With which goes the secondary enquiry, What is a woman and is she just the same as a man? ”

“ But if the following view from one of our most distinguished moral and religious writers of what female Education should be, has any truth or justice in it, our prevalent systems of fashionable Education exhibit a most lamentable deficiency in almost all essential points. This admirable writer says, in the form of advice to a young man—"For my own part, I call Education—not that which smothers a woman with accomplishments, but that which tends to consolidate a firm and regular system of character—that which tends to form a friend, a companion, a wife. ”

“ She has no doubt her civic duties, and again her education puts the edge 19 on her abilities: she is a more valuable helper in the world’s work. She may be a bread-winner, for herself and for others; and herein, perhaps, is the most simple and popular argument for a woman’s pursuit of Studies, one so self-evident that I need not dwell upon it.
I have been speaking of an ideal education and of an ideal woman, but where should we consider them both if not in this very place? A college like yours aims at nothing less! ”

“ Besides, if women are educated for dependence; that is, to act according to the will of another fallible being, and submit, right or wrong, to power, where are we to stop? ”

“ With trained mind and a realization that opportunity has brought responsibility, most often in a position where domestic affairs are those most prominently before her, the woman who is a college graduate is especially well situated to turn her attention to this subject.
What can she do? She can prove, as she is proving, that her college education has not unfitted her for domestic pursuits. Before the college door was opened to them, the education of women was largely a matter of information and accomplishment. ”

“ And ’tis the sordidest piece of folly and ingratitude in the world, to withhold from the sex the due lustre which the advantages of education gives to the natural beauty of their minds.
A woman well bred and well taught, furnished with the additional accomplishments of knowledge and behaviour, is a creature without comparison. Her society is the emblem of sublimer enjoyments, her person is angelic, and her conversation heavenly. She is all softness and sweetness, peace, love, wit, and delight. ”

“ Whenever I happened to hear the teaching of a lady of good ability who had herself been thoroughly educated, its merits struck me as at least equal, and probably superior, to those which would be found in the teaching of a man of the same general capacity and education. Women seem to have more patience as teachers, more quickness in seeing whether the pupil understands, more skill in adapting their explanations to the peculiarities of the pupils' minds, and certainly a nicer discernment of his or her character. ”

“ At school, we merely acquire the means to be used in that true and higher order of education which every one must gain for himself. It matters not how many studies a young lady may have pursued at school, nor how thoroughly she may have mastered all she attempted to learn: if, after leaving school, she do not read, observe, and think, she will never make an intelligent woman.
In every company a young lady will find two classes of persons, distinctly separated from each other. ”

“ But you say to the girls, "Go to school, get your education, and then come home, sit still, and do nothing." We must give them every chance to fit themselves for new spheres of duty. If a woman wants to study medicine, let her study it; if she wants to study divinity, let her study it; if she wants to study anything, let her have the opportunity. If she finds faculties within her, let them have a chance to expand. That is the second demand—the whole of it.
And the third claim is for a Sphere of Influence. "That is not it," do you say? "You want to take woman out of her sphere." ”

“ All hail the widespread movement for the higher education of woman, for in intellectual development is the future of posterity, in study is happiness, through the open door of the college is the key of a truer womanhood, a broader humanity, and a brighter hope. ”

“ I am, however, convinced that the elevation of woman's social position, and greater care in her education, will considerably facilitate the development of her faculties. Education should not develop mundane qualities in women, but depth of sentiment. There are many aged women who can be cited as examples of activity and perseverance, for their sound and clear judgment, as well as for their affability and simplicity of manners. ”

“ In the earlier stages of girls' education, then, it was the teacher who urged the promising girl to have a career; but the more recent development is that the parents, harassed by increasing economic pressure, and encouraged by the instances they meet of successful professional women, press more and more strongly for their girls to be educated for professions, whether they are exceptionally gifted or not. ”

“ Thus the holder of an A.K. scholarship may travel for a year, in order, by the wise provision of the founder, to enlarge his or her mind and bring back new experience to University organisation, research, and teaching. The woman who fulfils the claims of sex, and to do so journeys into the realm where life and death struggle for victory, cannot thereby be unfitted for the profession for which she has qualified. Enlargement of mind and new experience will help her too, in the daily routine. ”

“ A woman can become a member of a kindergarten association, and get from books and study the result of scientific knowledge of child-life and training. She can find means to study the ethics of her relations to her kind and become an effective philanthropist, or join the league for political education and acquire a more or less enlightened understanding of politics; but who is to formulate for her the science of beauty, to teach her how to make the interior aspect of her home perfect in its adaptation to her circumstances, and as harmonious in colour and arrangement as a song without words? ”

“ In a book devoted to womanhood, and written at the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, the reader might well expect that what we call the higher education of women would be a subject treated at great length and with great respect. ”

“ Just like the new learning of the Renaissance to men’s minds in Europe was the opening of high school and university to the feminine mind of to-day. Thousands of women of the last generation and this, who would otherwise have passed their existence in genteel poverty [18] and vacancy of mind, have found their happiness in teaching, in medicine, or in some other profession. ”

“ Born with a strong desire for learning, she keenly felt the educational disadvantages of her sex. She began teaching at an early day, introducing new studies and new methods in her school, striving to secure public interest in promoting woman's education. ”

“ If it were true of the mere means of education, education itself is not won for woman, till it brings to her precisely the same blessings that it bears to the feet of man; till it gives her honor, respect, and bread; till position becomes the rightful inheritance of capacity, and social influence follows a knowledge of mathematics and the languages. Our deficiency in the last stages of the culture offered to our women made a strong impression on a late Russian traveller. ”

“ Bistany then speaks of the importance of teaching woman domestic economy, sewing, cook161ing, and the care of the sick, as well as geography, arithmetic, and history, giving as reasons for the foregoing remarks, that the education of woman will benefit herself, her husband, her children and her country.
"How can she be an intelligent wife, a kind companion, a wise counsellor, a faithful spouse, aiding her husband, lightening his sufferings, training his children, and caring for his home, without education? Without education, her taste is corrupt. ”