THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."]
Sin,—It is, perhaps, an ungracious task to meet the appeal made to our girls in the Spectator of the 9th inst. with opposition, its aim being doubly benevolent,—to relieve our weary girls of their ennui, and our poor women of their ignorance ; but your corre- spondent, I think, in enthusiasm for her subject, forgets the youth of her patients, and prescribes for very mature years.
Allowing everything to your correspondent, allowing that the misery about us is chiefly owing to the ignorance of our working- women, and that most of this misery could be prevented, were that ignorance enlightened—which is much too sanguine an expec- tation for me to indulge in—I cannot accept her suggestion that here a field opens before our weary girls, where they can exchange- their ennui and dissatisfaction for utility and self-esteem ; for would they be in their appropriate place, young and inexperienced, and luxuriously brought up as they are, instructing the mothers,
and wives, and daughters of the working-classes in the duties and domestic arta of those classes ? If they attempted it, would not a good, sharp rebuke, and to be told to " look at home, enough, there's to be done," be a wholesome return for their pains? I think so.
The aim of our girls should be to reach themselves a high mark, not to point out to others how far they have fallen short of that
mark ; simplicity of life and gathering of useful knowledge is
what they need, not to join in a crusade against the ignorance of the working-woman, to relieve themselves of the ennui insepar- able from artificial life ; and this one change, simple as it sounds,. would require a complete reordering of society, for our girls play an important part in it.
Perhaps our working-women are lamentably ignorant, but it is ignorance of a kind that would yield to instinct and the ex- perience of real home life, could that be acquired for them ; while no organisation of ladies for its enlightenment, assisted by lectures- on " ventilation, the management of infants, cooking, &c.," even though these lectures be given in " colloquial style," and made so- amusing with "diagrams, pictures, &c.," that they invariably draw large audiences, will effect this,—only the reordering of labour which would reappoint woman to her natural
place. Your correspondent complains of attempts, by almsgiving and visiting amongst the poor, to alleviate misery,. the causes of which remain untouched, as unspeakably dis- couraging ; and I must apply the same term to her own remedy,. for it is equally superficial, touching no radical evil. It is not an. ignorance that can be removed by lectures, which is the cause of the misery your correspondent so keenly feels ; and even were it so, it opens no new field of action for our "English girls," who, by their youth and the desirable ignorance attaching to youth, are- entirely unfitted to join in any crusade against the ignorance of the working-woman.
I am considered despondent and a dreamer, yet perhaps I am• not dreaming, but foreseeing, when I imagine and faintly hope for a condition of society in which our working-men's wives and daughters will learn their duties and their domestic arts at home,. rather than at evening lectures, and simplicity of life and fitting usefulness will deprive our girls of their ennui,—one, too, in which, it will be possible " to fear God," yet not " fear to sit at ease " in moderation, for such sitting at ease is, I believe, the very thing, we all need, and might deserve.—I am, Sir, &c., F.
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