The Education of American Girls

by Anna C. Brackett

In regard to whether girls from fourteen to eighteen are able to do as much work as boys of corresponding age, the experience is as yet too limited to give any ground for positive opinion. The presumption, based upon the difference in physical strength, is against it. Still, girls, on the average, at the best girls' schools, are now doing more work than the average of boys in the best boys' schools. But these girls have better care than the boys have, and none of them do the work of the leading boys, who are looking forward to university honors.

All agree that girls have not less mental aptitude, but no one, I am sure, would like to assert that it is safe to subject girls to as much intellectual pressure as may be safely applied to boys. One teacher of both boys and girls confirmed my own observation, that there is often some clog in the development of boys which, though less positive in its action and less productive of a crisis, induces a sort of physical torpor, which is not wholly attributable to rapid growth, as it often appears when the growth may be the very reverse of rapid; against this a boy may be pressed without much danger to his health, but not without liability to give him a distaste for study, thus showing that we are making a demand for an amount of mental force which he has not ready at hand to give. There is, however, but one opinion upon this point—that the least safe thing to do for girls at this nervously critical and mentally excitable period is, to allow them time to indulge and feed their fancies, or to grow weary of themselves; that mental work is as healthful as food, but, like the food, needs careful regulation; and that the health of women would be vastly improved by increasing the school work in degree, and by continuing it beyond the present term, chiefly as a matter of employment to the women in the upper classes. Among the lower classes, it would be a means of enabling them to secure more sanitary arrangements in their homes, and, in general, of enabling them to get better results from their annual expenditures. The usual practice in Germany, by which Dr. Clarke confirms his theory, is not the usual practice in England, and there would be great unwillingness on the part of English people to accept it as a general rule. Experienced teachers, women physicians, philanthropic men physicians, and wise mothers, are, as I have said, more afraid of an undue development of the emotional nature in these critical years, than of overtaxing the intellectual powers; and it is doubtless true that while very few of the girls and women in the upper classes overwork, a very large number suffer in health from the absence of interesting and absorbing employment. In Germany and America the circumstances are different—in the former, girls have more domestic occupations, and in the latter we have to guard, not so much against the depressing influence of idleness, as against the temptation to social excesses, from which energetic school-work seems to be the best shield. But even here, in England, I have found a few thinking, active women who, judging from their individual cases, had come upon Dr. Clarke's theory for themselves, only, instead of limiting it to girlhood they would extend it through womanhood, calling these periods of repose the natural Sunday in a woman's life, during which, if rest of body and mind was indulged, there succeeded a marked renewal or awakening of power—but this is an exceptional view in England.

Two movements are going on side by side in this country to improve the education of women. One aims to make the ordinary school-work more thorough, the other to extend this school-work into later years of life. In 1858 Cambridge University established a system of “Local Examinations” in various parts of the country, for boys or schools of boys who wished to avail themselves of this test for their work. There were two of these examinations, the “Junior Examination,” for boys between the ages of thirteen and sixteen, and the “Senior Examination,” for those between sixteen and eighteen. The effect of this spur upon boys and boys' schools was so apparent that the university, at the request of a large number of women interested in education, in 1863, opened these examinations to girls of corresponding ages, and it was the glaring defects discovered by these examinations that led the Royal Commission so readily to extend its inquiry to girls' schools. The number of girls' schools, and girls studying under governesses who avail themselves of these examinations, has steadily and rapidly increased, and the results have been such as to leave no doubt in regard to the mental acumen of girls as compared with boys. These Local Examinations subjected the girls to precisely the same examinations as the boys, but the subjects in which both boys and girls were examined did not follow the precise curriculum of Eton, Harrow, and Rugby; that is, the university, in making up its list of subjects for examination, instead of adapting itself to the long established lines of study for boys, conformed rather to the modern opinion in regard to the best system of education.

Out of this experiment in examining girls grew a movement to secure a higher education for women, which soon separated into two sections, the one subsequently embodying its views in Girton College, the other in the “University Examinations” for women above the age of eighteen. The two parties agreed upon these points—that intellectual development takes place in men and women in the same manner, and that the methods that would be best for the one are also best for the other; and that, while the methods at present made use of for girls are wholly inadequate, the standard methods applied in the education of boys and men are by no means in accordance with the best educational opinion of the time. But the friends of Girton College said, “Admitting these defects in the masculine system, it is, nevertheless, the existing system; it has precedent and popular sentiment in its favor; its standards are the accepted standards for educational measurement; and the education of women will be at a disadvantage, in inferior repute, so long as we test it by a different standard—that is, we can never get full recognition for the intellectual work of women until we test it by the standards accepted for men; and it seems to us that we shall advance the education of women most successfully by falling into the existing routine.”

The other party said: “We will not waste our energy in crystallizing into a form that is not the best, and that evidently cannot long keep its place in the education of men; we will start upon a plan consistent with the most enlightened educational opinion, and by our results will secure favor for our methods, and respectability for our standards.” Girton College, now located at Cambridge, holds simultaneous examinations with those of the university, and uses the university examination questions. The number of its students is small, and they are for the most part those who are looking forward to teaching as a means of support.

By the second, and what seems to be considerably the stronger party, four years ago lectures were instituted in various parts of the country, to prepare women for the University Higher Examinations. The plan of these examinations and lectures is something like what I understand to be the plan at the German Universities. There is no definite curriculum connected with them. They cover a wide range of subjects, each candidate making her selection, and preparing herself for examination in one or more specific subjects, and, if successful, receives a certificate of proficiency in those, except that certain subjects must be passed before a certificate is awarded for others.

To meet a widely preferred demand, Cambridge University has recently opened these “Higher Examinations for Women,” to men; and “mixed classes,” as they are called, are now being formed. The university pledges itself to supply the lecturers, provided classes of a certain size are formed in towns sufficiently adjacent to be grouped together. Under this last extension of its educational advantages, the University proposes that, in each place, a lecture on one subject shall be held at some hour in the middle of the day most convenient for women to attend; and one on another subject shall be held in the evening, with reduced fees, for the benefit of the working classes. Each lecture is open to any one who will pay the fees; but, as a rule, the higher classes would go to the day lectures, and the lower classes to the evening lectures. To supplement these lectures, which in each subject occur but once a week, in each of a group of three towns, what is called a “class” is held on a second day, when, by the payment of a small additional fee, any one can go for further instruction upon any point which he was not able to grasp from the lecture. The lectures recommend a course of reading, and suggest subjects for investigation, just as is done by the lectures in the university. These examinations, as I understand, are considered as severe as the examinations for the same subjects in preparation for the B.A. degree at the university. The plan is to carry systematic instruction in the branches of university education into all the large towns, and to keep it at a cost that can be afforded by women and working men.

I have spoken only of the Cambridge University Examinations; but, though Cambridge has taken the lead in this work, the other universities have followed along at more or less remote intervals, and the London University has, here as elsewhere, placed its standards above those of the others. The present system looks something like an itinerant university; but no one can predict just what it will become. All this work is simply experimental. Plans are adopted to meet the present exigency, and new ones are at any time engrafted. But a few strongly-set tendencies are unmistakable, old forms are giving way, education is working its way down below the rich, men and women are coming together in their intellectual work, and the notion of “finishing” an education sometime between twelve and twenty-three, promises to be forgotten.

The elasticity of this more German system, into which English education is drifting, will obviate the difficulty so much complained of in the English university system, that of forcing all students, irrespective of the varying mental and physical powers, through a definite course of study in a definite period of time.

Opportunities for instruction are offered. Students choose the subjects, devote as much time to them as they like, present themselves at the annual examinations if they choose, and when they choose.