At the last meeting of the British Medical Association at Sheffield, it was most truly said that independent medical officers of health would before long change the character of disease throughout the nation, and save future generations much misery. It is to be hoped that the country, which will reap the benefit of their endeavours, will strengthen the hands of those whose efforts are directed to raising the standard of national health.
THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
To what age should boys' and girls' education be alike? — Accomplishments fruitlessly taught — Nursery and School-room government — Helplessness — Introduction to society — The convent system — Unhappy results — Scientific education — Geometrical illustration — Religion — Professional life for women — Home training — Varied knowledge — Companionship of a mother — Experience — Kindness — Truth.
At what age should the training of boys and girls begin to differ? This is a doubtful point, though we may consider that as, until about the age of fourteen, their nature has been much the same, their strength of mind and body nearly equal, and their tastes and dispositions much alike, this may be the time when their training should begin to follow each its own path; as the boy's strength grows from this time beyond that of the girl, while she becomes more remarkable for the increasing delicacy of her skill.
Practically there is a divergence when their clothing begins to differ, but this is merely artificial. The girl is made to wear finer and more delicate clothing than the boy; its texture and form impede her movements, and it is more easily injured by the weather. But where a girl is sensibly dressed, so that her clothes will not spoil with the rain, nor prevent her moving her limbs freely, this diversity between the two disappears.
But although it will not harm a girl to share her brother's pursuits till the age of fourteen, the conditions of her so doing will depend upon circumstances. Except in the case of twins, the boy will be rather older or younger than the girl, if even she have brothers about her own age at all, and many accidents will be found to control her education. Besides these, nature works gradually, and there are seldom abrupt transitions in her processes. The girl's future skill of hand and the boy's strength of arm will be prepared for, and seen, in their differences of taste and choice of pursuits and games; the girl will prefer working for her doll and protecting it from the boy's rough handling, and the boy will love his bat and knife. He will show his instinct for construction, and she hers for preservation, after the first early stage when both alike delight in destruction. Here education comes into use, leading each child to exercise the good instinct instead of its converse.
When the conventional proprieties are not allowed to warp the natural taste, a girl loves running and climbing as well as the boy does: she likes to collect stamps, minerals, fossils, birds' eggs, insects, etc., fully as much as he does. Their favourite books are identical, their scrap-books equally enjoyed, the theatre and theatricals at home delighted in by both, and their pets are much beloved. Why, then, should we make so much difference between them where Nature has created none?
Girls of the upper classes are always at lessons of some kind from six years old to eighteen; thus they have twelve years of instruction, and we know that of old a seven year's apprenticeship was held sufficient to make a master in some craft. What do the twelve years do for our girls? Does their training enable them to maintain them decently in any one line? What have they learnt, and what can they do?
They have learnt music enough to play a morceau de salon showily, and the allegretto movement of a sonata stumblingly, and the latter only because it was thought 'proper' that they should learn 'classical music.' But they do not know enough even to learn another morceau de salon without the help of a master, so of course music cannot be reckoned upon as doing much for them.