Women's education

“ Among the controversies to which the movement for improving the education of women has given rise, there is one which presses for settlement. The question has arisen and must be answered—Is the improved education which, it is hoped, is about to be brought within reach of women, to be identical with that of men, or is it to be as good as possible, but in some way or other specifically feminine? The form in which the question practically first presents itself is—What shall be the standards of examination? ”

“ But the most important of all the departments of a woman's profession is one for which no college or high-school for women has made any proper provision.
Woman, as mother and as teacher, is to form and guide the immortal mind. She, more than any one else, is to decide the character of her helpless children, both for this and the future eternal life. And for this, liberal provision should be made; so that no woman shall finish her education till all that science and training can do shall be bestowed to fit her for this supernal duty. ”

“ The immensity of the change which the last century has wrought in women’s education may best be seen by setting side by side the conditions at its beginning and at its close. In 1800 no colleges for women existed, and only two endowed schools for girls—these belonging to a small German sect. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the most recent writers, the tendency to regard general theories of education as applying exclusively to that of men, is quite as strongly marked.
It seems, therefore, that in attempting to treat of female education, it is necessary once more to ask what we are aiming at, and to obtain, if possible, a clear understanding and agreement as to the end in view. What ought the educators of girls to be trying to make of them? What is the ideal towards which they ought to direct their efforts, the end to be desired as the result of their labours? ”

“ Is it asked, What then; would you require every woman to turn teacher and keep school? No; but every woman is bound to bring this into the list of her duties, and, as one of her most imperious duties, to do all in her power to secure a proper education to the American children now coming upon the stage.
Every woman has various duties pressing upon her attention. It is right for her, it is her duty, to cultivate her own mind by reading and study, not merely for her own gratification or credit, but with the great end in view of employing her knowledge and energies for the good of others. ”

“ From the time of this awakening in the thirties and forties, two lines of educational activity for the advancement of woman's education steadily developed. One was the effort of women to educate themselves in distinctly women's schools; and the other was the movement by which existing institutions for boys and men were gradually opened to girls and women. ”

“ The temperate, calm, earnest demeanour of women, both in the schools and in university life, awakened admiration and respect from all; and the movement brought into existence a vast number of women, as well-educated as men, hard-working, persevering and capable, who invaded many professions, and could hold their ground where a sound education was the foundation of success. The pioneers of female education spent their energies in developing their higher and more intellectual ideals, but later years opened up other positions which better education has enabled women to fill. ”

“ Not only the probability and desirability of marriage and the training of children as an essential feature of women’s career but also the restriction of women to the mediocre grades of ability and achievement should be reckoned with by our educational systems. The education of women for such professions as administration, statesmanship, philosophy, or scientific research, where a few very gifted individuals are what society requires, is far less needed than education for such professions as nursing, teaching, medicine, or architecture, where the average level is essential. ”

“ As women do a large proportion of the teaching in public schools as well as in colleges for both sexes, the education of the citizens of the 20th Century depends largely upon the opportunities available to women in the past, present and future. ”

“ Women who have lived in the atmosphere produced by such teaching know how it stifles and chills, how hard it is to work courageously through it. Every effort to improve the education of women which assumes that they may, without reprehensible ambition, study the same subjects as their brothers and be measured by the same standards, does something towards lifting them out of the state of listless despair of themselves into which so many fall. ”

“ It may do something towards clearing away the haze to endeavour to give some answer to the questions—Why do you ask for a common standard? Do you want to prove the intellectual equality of the sexes?—or their identity? If you desire to improve female education, why not strive after what is ideally best, instead of trying to get things for women which have produced results far short of perfection in men? ”

“ And clearly 'the education of a lady' ought to mean the highest and the finest culture of the time. The accurate habits of thought and the intellectual polish by which the scholar is distinguished, ought to be no less carefully sought in the training of women than in that of men. This would be true, even if only for the sake of the charm which high culture gives to social intercourse, a charm attainable in no other way. But apart from this consideration, the duties of women of the higher class are such as to demand varied knowledge as well as a disciplined mind and character. ”

“ A stronger one, probably, is the natural desire of women not to be left on a confessedly lower level than yourselves, to say nothing of your own honest convictions that educated woman is best fitted by her counsel, sympathy, and encouragement, to strengthen your own efforts in mental and moral advancement. These forces are silently, but most surely, and irresistibly, influencing thought and conduct. Every graduate who leaves these walls, if he is himself imbued with the true spirit of learning, of necessity becomes an advocate of female education. ”

“ Thus misunderstanding or antagonism, or at least disharmony, prevails in relations in which there should be perfect harmony of ideals and purposes, and productive [300] activities of the highest nature. The education of women, whether for the domestic life or for the life outside the home is plainly but a part of the educational problem. The sexes have different desires, and it is precisely the work of harmonizing these desires, and regulating and coordinating activities and functions, that is the most important part of social education in regard to the sexes. ”

“ Female education, in the best families, went no further than writing and [94] arithmetic; in some few and rare instances music and dancing."
On another occasion she said that female education had been everywhere neglected, and female learning ridiculed, and she speaks of the trifling, narrow, contracted education of American women. ”

“ For this reason, the education of women should always be relative to that of men. To please, to be useful to US, to make US love and esteem them, to educate US when young, and take care of US when grown up, to advise, to console US, to render OUR lives easy and agreeable: these are the duties of women at all times, and what they should be taught in their infancy. ”

“ How far expansion of soul, or enlightenment of intellect, is to be expected from the present systems of female education, we have seen in effects,—let us now go back to causes.
It is unnecessary to start from the prejudice of ignorance; it is now universally acknowledged that women have a right to education, and that they must be educated. ”

“ The whole idea of women's position in social life, and their ability to take their place, independently of any question of Higher education and its results. sex, in the work of the world, was radically changed in the English-speaking countries, and also in the more progressive nations beyond their bounds, during the 19th century. This is due primarily to the movement for women's higher education and its results. ”

“ In the second place, the girls should be taught by men and women, married and unmarried, and fine ideals of actual womanhood, not alone in shops and factories, in school-rooms, and in professions—but also in homes, should be constantly held before them. Our present education leaves this training mainly to the homes, and neither the parasitic rich nor our eight million wage-earning women, when mothers, can or will attend to it. ”

“ The sooner and the more clearly this is recognized as a universal rule, not, of course, without many notable and much vaunted exceptions, the better for our civilization. For one, I plead with no whit less earnestness and conviction than any of the feminists, and indeed with more fervor because on nearly all their grounds and also on others, for the higher education of women, and would welcome them to every opportunity available to men if they can not do better ”

“ One is that spread of knowledge and that accompanying change in moral attitude which is more and more sterilising the once prolific American home, and the second is the rising standard of feminine education. There has arisen in this age a new consciousness in women. ”

“ The higher education of women should be added to the list of causes for which she and other women struggled. She has lived to see the work of her hands established in the gaining of educational and social rights for women which might well be called revolutionary, so momentous have been the changes.... ”

“ For this reason a scheme of female education ought to be mainly a scheme for the education of wives and mothers. And if women realized how noble and important a task it is that falls upon mothers, they would ask no other. If they realized how magnificent a nation might be molded by mothers who devoted themselves faithfully and earnestly to their great privilege, they would be proud to carry out the duties of their maternity. Instead of that, the scheme of female education now in vogue is a scheme for the production of literary women, schoolmistresses, hospital nurses, and lecturers on cookery. ”

“ In addition to definite discussions as to the learning appropriate for women, there were numerous books on general topics pertaining to women, with incidental but often most illuminating comments on the advantages or disadvantages of a liberal education. These books also aid in building up a conception of the prevailing ideas concerning women apart from technical questions of education. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Perhaps the most defined and significant feminine movement which flowered it had long before blossomed at the death of the past century is that which is generally termed "the higher education of women." ”

“ The modern, and what are regarded as the improved and enlightened modes of education of women, abjure, as far as words go, an education of mere show, and profess to aim at solid instruction, but mean by that expression superficial information on solid subjects. Except accomplishments, which are now generally regarded as to be taught well, if taught at all, nothing is taught to women thoroughly. Small portions only of what it is attempted to teach thoroughly to boys are the whole of what it is intended or desired to teach to women. What makes intelligent beings is the power of thought ”

“ It is also to be considered, that all the education which women receive from society inculcates on them the feeling that the individuals connected with them are the only ones to whom they owe any duty—the only ones whose interest they are called upon to care for; while, as far as education is concerned, they are left strangers even to the elementary ideas which are presupposed in any intelligent regard for larger interests or higher moral objects. ”

“ When one finds schools for the higher education of women in every one of these it is easy to understand how widely diffused the feminine movement was. Lest it should be thought that the education provided for or allowed the women of the time was narrow in its scope, with so many limitations that intellectual development in the true sense of the word was hampered, it may be as well to recall that women were even encouraged in the public display of their talents. ”

“ Now you will argue, perhaps, and rightly, that higher education for women is not a modern idea, and that, if that is the means of setting free and invigorating the long desired feminine force in the world, it has already had a trial and should, in the past, have produced some of these glowing effects. ”

“ I have often thought of it as one of the most barbarous customs in the world, considering us as a civilized and a Christian country, that we deny the advantages of learning to women. We reproach the sex every day with folly and impertinence; while I am confident, had they the advantages of education equal to us, they would be guilty of less than ourselves. ”