INTRODUCTION.
By Dorothea Beale.
Subject.I have been asked to undertake one section of a book on the education of girls, and to confine myself, as far as possible, to the intellectual aspects of education, leaving to others the task of dealing with the physical and moral aspects. I shall try to keep within the assigned limits—abstain from any systematic treatment of the laws of hygiene, and write no formal treatise on school ethics—but all the intellectual work must of course be conditioned by the necessities of the physical life, and the final cause of all education must be the development of a right character.
Education of girls in secondary schools.I am to treat the subject too with special reference to the large secondary schools which have come into existence during the last fifty years, and in doing so, I must dwell briefly upon the changes which have taken place in the ideals and theories regarding the education of girls, which have found expression in these schools, and in the Women’s Colleges. I shall speak of what has yet to be accomplished, for we are still in a period of transition, and I shall consider by what means we may best realise our ideals.
Aim of educationNow in education there is always a twofold object. Bacon tells us the furthest end of knowledge is “the glory of the Creator and the relief of man’s estate”—in other words, the perfection of the individual, and the good of the community. In some periods, indeed in pre-Christian times generally, the latter was emphasised,[1] men were to live for the commonwealth; the individual was regarded as an instrument for accomplishing certain work—he was not thought of as an end in himself. Thus even the most enlightened among ancient writers have spoken of slaves, as if they were mere chattels. Our moral sense is shocked by much that we read in Plato and Aristotle, and still more by what the laws of Rome permitted. Christianity on the other hand taught that the primary relationship of each was to the All-Father, the primary duty of each to realise God’s ideal for His children, to become perfect, and by glorifying human nature to glorify God. This was the first commandment, but the second was implied in the first—self-love was not selfish, the love of God descending from heaven became the enthusiasm of humanity.
[1] Even Milton writes: “I call a complete and generous education that which fits a man to perform justly, skilfully and magnanimously all the offices to the public and private, of peace and war”.
as regards the individual,“Education,” writes Mr. Ruskin (Queen’s Gardens), “is the leading human souls to what is best and making what is best out of them; and these two objects are always attainable together, and by the same means; the training which makes men happiest in themselves, also makes them most serviceable to others.” “The only safe course,” writes Miss Shirreff (Intellectual Education), “is to hold up individual perfectness as the aim of education.”
as regards the commonwealth.And so the task of the educator is in the first instance to develop to the highest perfection all the powers of the child, that he may realise the ideal of the All-Father. But the perfection of man “the thinker,” the anthropos, “the upward looker,” can be attained only when as a son he enters into, and co-operates with the Divine purpose in thought and act: therefore to know God and His laws for His children’s education and development, is the beginning and the end. These laws man reads (1) in the world of Nature with which science has to do; (2) in human history and institutions; (3) in the hidden life of the soul—of which philosophy and religion and ethics treat. He has to seek first to know truth, to bring his will into conformity with the Divine thought, and then to utter what is true and right in word and deed; only thus will the kingdom of righteousness be set up, and the perfection of the whole—the well-being of the commonwealth—of “man writ large” be secured. The most civilised nations are devoting their best energies to the work of education, realising that upon this depends their very existence—that it is not by starving the individual life, and merging it in the general, but by developing each to perfection, that the common good will be secured. They trust less to the power of laws and institutions, more to the power of a right education—less to external restraint, more to the wisdom that comes of a wisely directed experience.
Reforms since 1848.These principles have guided the new movement for women’s education, and those who have followed the changes in public opinion, since people have thought more of each individual as an end in himself, are full of confidence and hope. The reformers said: “Let us give to girls an invigorating dietary, physical, intellectual, moral; seclusion from evil is impossible, but we can strengthen the patient to resist it”.
’Tis life, not death for which we pant,