Woman's Higher Education.
T has been seen that in the rearing and training of her children, woman has a great work to perform; that in this work she exerts an incalculable influence upon untold numbers, and that she molds the minds and characters of her sons and daughters. How important, then, that she should cultivate her mental faculties to the highest extent, if for no other reason than to fit herself the better for the performance of this great duty of educating her children. How important it is, also, that she should look to the higher education of her daughters, who, in turn, will become mothers of future generations, or may, perhaps, by some vicissitude of fortune, become dependent upon their own resources for support. With the highest culture of the mental faculties, woman will be best enabled to faithfully perform whatever she may undertake.
TRAIN YOUNG WOMEN TO SOME OCCUPATION.
Owing to the changes in social and industrial life which have crowded many women from their homes into business and public life, women must train for their branch of labor as men train for their work, if they wish to attain any degree of success. Even where women have independent fortunes, their lives will be all the happier if they have been trained to some occupation, that, in case of reverses, may be made a self-sustaining one. A young woman who is able to support herself, increases her chances for a happy marriage, for, not being obliged to rely upon a husband for support or for a home, she is able to judge calmly of an offer when it comes, and is free to accept or decline, because of her independence. Women are capable of and adapted to a large number of employments, which have hitherto been kept from them, and some of these they are slowly wrenching from the hands of the sterner sex. In order that women may enter the ranks of labor which she is forcing open to herself, she needs a special education and training to fit her for such employment.
EDUCATION OF GIRLS TOO SUPERFICIAL.
The school instruction of our girls is too superficial. There is a smattering of too many branches, where two or three systematically studied and thoroughly mastered, would accomplish much more for them in the way of a sound mental training, which is the real object of education. The present method of educating young girls is to give them from five to ten studies, in which they prepare lessons, and this, too, at an age when their physical development suffers and is checked by excess of mental labor. Such a course of instruction, bestowing only a smattering of many branches, wastes the powers of the mind, and deters, rather than aids, self-improvement. It is only a concentration of the mind upon the thorough acquisition of all it undertakes that strengthens the reflective, and forms the reasoning, faculties, and thus helps to lay a solid foundation for future usefulness. The word education means to educe, to draw out the powers of the mind; not the cramming into it of facts, dates and whole pages to be repeated verbatim.
AN EDUCATION APPROPRIATE TO EACH SEX.
The fact is becoming more palpable every year that there is an education appropriate to each sex; that identical education for the two sexes is so unnatural, that physiology protests against it and experience weeps over it. The physiological motto in education is, "Educate a man for manhood, a woman for womanhood, and both for humanity." Herbert Spencer, in speaking of the want of a proper course of education for girls, says: "It is an astonishing fact that, though on the treatment of offspring depend their lives or deaths, and their moral welfare or ruin, yet not one word of instruction on treatment of offspring is ever given to those who will, by and by, be parents." It will thus be seen, that as women have the care, the training and the education of children, they need an education in a special direction, and should have a very thorough one, to prepare them for the task.
WOMEN SHOULD HAVE A KNOWLEDGE OF THE LAWS OF HEALTH.
Physiology is one of the branches of that higher education, which should be thoroughly pursued by women to enable them to fulfill the various duties of their allotted stations. Yet it is also desirable that they should have a thorough knowledge of all branches that they undertake, and a mastery of the studies pursued by them; for the want of thoroughness in woman's education is an obstacle to success in all branches of labor. But woman should especially have a thorough knowledge of the laws of physiology and hygiene. If she becomes a mother, such knowledge will enable her to guard better the lives and health of her children. She will understand that when she sends out her child insufficiently clad, and he comes home chilled through, that his vitality, his power of resisting disease, is wasted. She will know that by taking the necessary precautions, she may save the child's life; that she must not take him thus chilled, to the fire or into a room highly heated, but that by gentle exercise or friction, she must restore the circulation of the blood, and in using such precautions, she may ward off the attacks of disease that would surely follow if they were neglected. This is but a single case, for there are instances of almost daily occurrence when a proper knowledge of the laws of health will ward off disease, in her own case, as well as in those of various members of her household. The diseases which carry off children, are for the most part, such as ought to be under the control of the women who love them, pet them, educate them, and who would, in many cases, lay down their lives for them.
RESULT OF IGNORANCE OF SANITARY LAWS.
Ignorance of the laws of ventilation in sleeping-rooms and school-rooms is the cause of a vast amount of disease. From ignorance of the signs of approaching disease, children are often punished for idleness, listlessness, sulkiness and wilfulness, and this punishment is too often by confinement in a closed room, and by an increase of tasks; when what is really needed is more oxygen, more open-air exercise, and less study. These forms of ignorance have too often resulted in malignant typhus and brain fevers. Knowledge of the laws of hygiene will often spare the waste of health and strength in the young, and will also spare anxiety and misery to those who love and tend them. If the time devoted to the many trashy so-called "accomplishments" in a young lady's education, were given to a study of the laws of preserving health, how many precious lives might be spared to loving parents, and how many frail and delicate forms, resulting from inattention to physical training, might have become strong and beautiful temples of exalted souls. We are all in duty bound to know and to obey the laws of nature, on which the welfare of our bodies depends, for the full enjoyment of our faculties can only be attained when the body is in perfect health.
IDLENESS A SOURCE OF MISERY.
Perhaps the greatest cause of misery and wretchedness in social life is idleness. The want of something to do is what makes people wicked and miserable. It breeds selfishness, mischief-making, envy, jealousy and vice, in all its most dreadful forms. It is the duty of mothers to see that their daughters are trained to habits of industry, that their minds are at all times occupied, that they are well informed as to household duties, and to the duties of married life, for upon a knowledge of household details may depend their life-long happiness or misery. It is frequently the case, that a girl's education ends just as her mind is beginning to mature and her faculties are beginning to develop. Her education ends when it ought properly to begin. She enters upon marriage entirely unprepared, and, perchance, by some misfortune, she is thrown penniless upon the world with no means of obtaining a livelihood, for her education has never fitted her for any vocation. Not having been properly taught herself, she is not able to teach, and she finds no avenue of employment open to her. An English clergyman, writing upon this subject, says: "Let girls take a serious interest in art; let them take up some congenial study, let it be a branch of science or history. Let them write. They can do almost anything they try to do, but let their mothers never rest until they have implanted in their daughters' lives one growing interest beyond flirtation and gossip, whether it be work at the easel, music, literature, the structure of the human body and the laws of health, any solid interest that will occupy their thoughts and their hearts. Idleness, frivolity and ignorance can only be put down by education and employment. In the last resort, the spirit of evil becomes teacher and task-master."
WOMEN SHOULD CULTIVATE A SPIRIT OF INDEPENDENCE.
In this country more than any other, women should, to some extent, cultivate a spirit of independence. They should acquire a knowledge of how business is transacted, of the relation between capital and labor, and of the value of labor, skilled and unskilled. As housekeepers, they would then be saved from many annoyances and mistakes. If they chance to be left alone, widows, or orphans possessing means, they would be saved from many losses and vexatious experiences by knowing how to transact their own business. And those women who are obliged to take care of themselves, who have no means, how necessary is it that they should have a thorough knowledge of some occupation or business by which they can maintain themselves and others dependent upon them. In this country, the daughter brought up in affluence, may, by some rapid change of fortune, be obliged, upon arriving at maturity, to be among the applicants for whatever employment she may be fitted. If she has been trained to some useful occupation, or if her faculties have been developed by a thoroughness of study of any subject she has undertaken, she will be better qualified to prepare herself to fill any position which may be open to her. With a mind drilled by constant study she will the more quickly acquire a knowledge and grasp the details of any subject or business to which she may devote herself.
HEALTH AND LIFE DEPENDENT UPON A HIGHER CULTURE.
Not only wealth and comfort, but health and life are dependent upon a higher form of culture, a more thorough course of education than is now the standard. Not more, but fewer branches of study and a more thorough comprehension of those pursued. Not only are the health and life of each woman dependent upon the kind and degree of the education she receives, but the health and lives of great numbers may depend upon it. In proportion as she has a knowledge of the laws and nature of a subject will she be able to work at it easily, rapidly and successfully. Knowledge of physical laws saves health and life, knowledge of the laws of intellect saves wear and tear of the brain, knowledge of the laws of political economy and business affairs saves anxiety and worrying.
CULTIVATION OF THE MORAL SENSE.
A well educated moral sense prevents idleness and develops a well regulated character, which will preserve from excess those tenderer emotions and deeper passions of woman, which are potent in her for evil or for good, in proportion as they are undisciplined and allowed to run wild, or are trained and developed into a noble and harmonious self-restraint.
The girl who has so educated and regulated her intellect, her tastes, her emotions and her moral sense, as to be able to discern the true from the false, will be ready for the faithful performance of whatever work in life is allotted to her; while she who is allowed to grow up ignorant, idle, vain, frivolous, will find herself fitted for no state of existence, and, in after years, with feelings of remorse and despair over a wasted life, may cast reproach upon those in whose trust was reposed her early education.
It is not for women alone that they should seek a higher education of their faculties and powers but for the sake of the communities in which they live, for the sake of the homes in which they rule and govern, and govern immortal souls, and for the sake of those other homes in the humbler walks of life, where they owe duties as ministering spirits as well as in their own, for in proportion as they minister to the comfort and health of others, so do they exalt their own souls. Women should seek a higher education in order that they may elevate themselves, and that they may prepare themselves for whatever duty they may be called upon to perform. In social life we find that the truest wives, the most patient and careful mothers, the most exemplary housekeepers, the model sisters, the wisest philanthropists and the women of the greatest social influence are women of cultivated minds.