INTELLECTUAL TRAINING.--THE REASONING FACULTIES.--FEMALE EDUCATION.
The time comes at last,--sooner with one child, later with
another,--when the superior faculties begin to show their activity; when
the young pupil attempts to reason, and should be helped to reason well.
The preparation for this time ought to have gone on during all the
preceding years, in the establishment of a perfect understanding between
his parents' minds and his own. He ought to have received nothing but
truth from them, in their intellectual, as in all their other
intercourse. What I mean is this. From the time he could speak, the
child has no doubt asked the Why of everything that interested him. Now,
no one knows the ultimate Why of anything whatever; and it is right to
say this to the inquirer,--telling him as much as he can understand of
the How; and it is but little that the wisest of us know of the How. For
instance, the little thing cries out "O! there is a robin!" "A robin!
and what is it doing?" "It is hopping about. It has picked up something.
O! it is a worm. What does it get the worm for?" "To eat it. Robins eat
a great many worms." "Why do they eat worms? Why does this robin eat
that worm?" "Because it is hungry." No intelligent child will stop here.
He will want to know why the robin does not eat anything rather than
worms; why the robin is hungry; and certainly he will sooner or later
wonder why there are robins at all. About these latter mysteries, the
parent knows no more than the questioner: and he should say so. He may
tell something of the how;--how the robin and all other living creatures
are impelled to eat; how food gives nourishment; and so on. He may or
may not, according to his judgment, give information, as far as he has
it himself: but it ought not to be a matter of choice with him whether
to put off a child with an unsatisfactory answer, or to declare
truthfully his own ignorance. He must never weary of replying "I don't
know," if fairly brought to this point, after telling what he does know.
If he tells all that is understood of a tree and its growth, so that he
thinks his child cannot possibly have more to ask, he will find there
are other questions still to come. "Why are trees green?" If they are
not all green, "Why is the red beech red, and the pine black?" "Why does
a tree grow, instead of being always tall?" "Why is John Smith handsome
while Tom Brown is ugly?" "Why do people exist when they could not tell
beforehand whether they should like it or not?" Now, it will not do, if
the child's mind is to be fairly dealt with, to give a dogmatical
answer; to put off the inquirer with a form of words, or any assurance
of anything that is not absolutely known to be true. "I do not know," is
the answer which parental fidelity requires. "Does anybody know?" is the
next question. "Nobody." "Shall I ever know?" "I don't think you will:
but you can try when you grow up, if you like." Of course, the child
determines to try when he is a man: and meantime, he is satisfied for
the present. There is an understanding between his parent and himself,
which will be of infinite use to him when his time comes for finding out
truth for himself by a comparison of abstractions;--that is, by
reasoning.
With some abstractions every child becomes early familiar; as the days
of the week. Perhaps the first which he is able to use for purposes of
reasoning are numbers. They are at least eminently useful as a link
between tangible objects and those which are ideal. A child sees on the
table that two pins added to two make four pins: and then that a button
and a thimble put down beside a marble and a halfpenny make four things,
as well as if they were all of the same sort. He thus receives into his
mind the abstract notion of numbers. Whenever by his own thought, or by
inquiry of others, he clearly sees that, because two sixes make twelve,
four threes must make twelve, he has begun to reason. He has found out
a truth by comparing an abstraction with an abstraction: that is, he has
begun to reason. Having begun,--having once satisfaction in grasping an
invisible truth in this way,--he will be disposed to go on: and I, for
one, would allow him to do so, at his own pace. Nothing can be more
foolish than to stimulate the reasoning faculties too early: but I do
not see why their natural action should be repressed because of a theory
that the reasoning faculties should not come into activity till such or
such an age. I know how painful such repression is to a thoughtful
child, and how useless is the attempt to stop the process, which will
only be carried on with less advantage, instead of being put an end to.
I knew a girl of eleven, thoughtful and timid, seldom venturing to ask
questions, or to open her mind about what occupied it most,--who, on
some unusual incitement to confidence during a summer evening walk,
opened a theme of perplexity, to get a solution from a grown-up brother,
whom she regarded as able to solve anything. She told him that she could
not see how, if God foreknew everything, and could ordain everything,
men could ever be said to sin against him, or be justly punished for
anything they did: and then she went on to the other particular of that
problem;--how, if God was all powerful to create happiness, and all good
to desire it, there came to be any suffering in the world. Her brother
answered her with kindness in his tone, but injudiciously. He told her
that that was a very serious question which she was too young to
consider yet; and that some years hence would be time enough. She was
dissatisfied and hurt;--not from pride; but because she felt it hard to
be left in a perplexity from which she fully supposed her brother could
relieve her. She felt that if she could ask the question,--thus put in a
definite form,--she must be capable of understanding the answer. And so
she undoubtedly was. If the brother held the doctrine of free will, he
should have replied that he did not know;--that he could not understand
the perplexity any more than herself. If he held the necessarian
doctrine, he should have imparted it to her; for her question showed
that she was capable of receiving it. The end of the matter was that she
suffered for years under that reply, never again venturing to propose
her difficulty to any one. She worked her way through the soluble half
of the question alone at last,--thinking first, and then reading, and
then meditating again, till all was clear and settled; and in her mature
years she found herself fast anchored on the necessarian
doctrine,--rather wondering how she could have been so long in
satisfying herself about a matter so clear, but aware that she had found
an inestimable gain;--which she might have reposed upon some years
earlier, if the natural working of her faculties had been trusted as it
might have been.
Our enjoyment of our faculties appears to me to be more proportioned to
their quality than their strength:--that, whether any one of us has the
reasoning power, or the imagination stronger or weaker than the
perceptive and conceptive faculties, he enjoys most the exercise of the
higher. Certainly, children whose faculties are developed freely and
fairly have an intense relish for reasoning, while the mind remains
unwearied. The commonest topics voluntarily chosen are conduct and
character; because the most familiar and interesting abstractions are
those which are connected with morals. How boys and girls will debate by
the hour together about the stoicism of Junius Brutus, and the
patriotism of Brutus and Cassius; and about all the suicides of all
Romans, and all the questionable acts of all heroes! The mother is the
great resource here, because she is always at hand; and these matters
are of such pressing importance to the little people, that they cannot
wait till their father comes in, or can give them some of his evening
leisure. These topics are good as an exercise of both the moral and
intellectual powers: but they do not yield full satisfaction to the
reasoning faculty, because they can never be brought to any certain and
evident issue. The conclusions of morals are clear enough for practical
guidance; but they are not proveable. For the full satisfaction of the
reasoning faculties, therefore, children must set to work
elsewhere.--They may get something of it out of their lessons in
grammar, if they are trusted with the sense of the grammar they are
taught: lighting upon an accusative case and a verb in a Latin sentence,
they know there must be a nominative: and there it is presently,
accordingly. Finding an ablative absolute, they are confident of finding
some sort of proposition: and there it is, to their hand. The words on
the page before them are as real to the sense as the written numerals on
their slates: but behind both there is a working of unseen
laws,--independent of the signification of either words or
numerals,--whose operation and issue it is a deep-felt pleasure to
follow and apprehend. The rules of grammar, and the laws of
numbers,--(the rules of arithmetic, in short,)--are abstractions
proceeding from abstractions; and their workings bring out a conclusion
clear to the pupil's apprehension, and unquestionable. This is all
exercise of the reasoning powers; and it is this exercise of those
powers, or the use of ear and memory only which makes the difference
between a pupil who learns grammar and arithmetic with the understanding
or by rote.
I once witnessed a curious instance of the difference between the
reasoning pupils of a class at school and the learners by rote. The test
was, I think, designed by the master to be a test; and it answered his
purpose even better than our strenuous exercises in grammar and
arithmetic. Our master proposed to give some of us an idea of English
composition, and said he would next week explain to us how to set about
it. Some of us, however, were all on fire with the idea of writing essays,
and were by no means disposed to wait. The next time our master entered
the school-room, eight or ten pairs of beseeching eyes were fixed upon him;
and he, being a good-natured man, asked what we wished. What we wanted
was to be allowed immediately to write an essay on Music. He had no
objection; but he asked for some precision in the object of the
essay;--proposed that it should be the Uses of Psalmody, or some such
topic, which could be treated in the limits of a school theme;--but no;
he saw by the faces and manner of the class that it must be an essay on
Music. I was the youngest of the class, who ranged from eleven to
sixteen: and I wondered whether the elder ones felt as I did when I saw
the little smile at the corners of the mouth, amidst the careful respect
of our kind master. I felt that we were somehow doing something very
silly, though I could not clearly see what. It was plain enough when we
brought up our themes. Our master's respect and kindness never failed:
and he now was careful to say that there was much that was true in each
essay; but----. We saw the "but" for ourselves, and were ready to sink
with shame; for nobody had courage to begin to laugh at our folly. Such
a mass of rhapsody and rhodomontade as we presented to our master! Such
highflying, incoherent nonsense! Each was pretty well satisfied with her
own rhapsody till she heard the seven or nine others read. "Now, perhaps
you perceive," our master began: and indeed we saw it all;--the lack of
order and object;--the flimsiness,--and our own presumption. We were now
more ready to be taught. Some, however, could not yet learn; and others
liked this lesson better than any they had ever attempted. This is the
difference which induces me to tell the story here. We were taught the
parts of a theme, as our master and many others approved and practised
them, in sermons and essays: and the nature and connexion of these parts
were so clearly pointed out, that on the instant it appeared to me that
a sudden light was cast at once on the processes of thought and of
composition,--for both of which I had before an indistinct and somewhat
oppressive reverence. I saw how the Proposition, the Reason, the
Example, the Confirmation, and the Conclusion led out the subject into
order and clearness, and, in fact, regularly emptied our minds of what
we had to say upon it. From that day till our school was broken up (and
my heart nearly broken with it) a year and a half afterwards, the joy of
my life was writing themes;--or rather composing them; for the act of
writing was terribly irksome. But that which some of us eminently
enjoyed was altogether burdensome to others, from the procedure of the
task being utterly unintelligible. I suppose their reasoning faculties
were yet unawakened,--though they were not so very young. The
Proposition they usually wrote down in the words in which our subject
was given to us;--the mere title of the theme. The Reason was any sort
of reason about any affair whatever,--the authors protesting that a
reason was a reason any day. The Examples were begged, or copied out of
any history book. The Confirmation was omitted, or declared to consist
in "the universal experience of mankind,"--whatever the subject might
be: and as for the Conclusion, that was easy enough:--it was only to say
that for all the reasons given, the author concluded so and so,--in the
words of the title. This was a case in which it would have been better
to wait awhile, till the meaning of the task and its method should dawn
upon the minds yet unready. But, for those who were capable, it was a
task of great pleasure and privilege; and we loved our master for
testing and trusting our faculties in a direction so new to us.
Those studies which require reasoning as a means to a proveable issue
are of a high order, as regards both profit and pleasure: and boys and
girls will be the better through life for whatever mathematical training
their parents can procure for them. Be it little or be it much, they
will have reason to be grateful as long as they live for what they can
obtain. I mention girls, as well as boys, confident that every person
able to see the right, and courageous enough to utter it, will sanction
what I say. I must declare that on no subject is more nonsense talked,
(as it seems to me) than on that of female education, when restriction
is advocated. In works otherwise really good, we find it taken for
granted that girls are not to learn the dead languages and mathematics,
because they are not to exercise professions where these attainments are
wanted; and a little further on we find it said that the chief reason
for boys and young men studying these things is to improve the quality
of their minds. I suppose none of us will doubt that everything possible
should be done to improve the quality of the mind of every human
being.--If it is said that the female brain is incapable of studies of
an abstract nature,--that is not true: for there are many instances of
women who have been good mathematicians, and good classical scholars.
The plea is indeed nonsense on the face of it; for the brain which will
learn French will learn Greek; the brain which enjoys arithmetic is
capable of mathematics.--If it is said that women are light-minded and
superficial, the obvious answer is that their minds should be the more
carefully sobered by grave studies, and the acquisition of exact
knowledge.--If it is said that their vocation in life does not require
these kinds of knowledge,--that is giving up the main plea for the
pursuit of them by boys;--that it improves the quality of their
minds.--If it is said that such studies unfit women for their proper
occupations,--that again is untrue. Men do not attend the less to their
professional business, their counting-house or their shop, for having
their minds enlarged and enriched, and their faculties strengthened by
sound and various knowledge; nor do women on that account neglect the
work-basket, the market, the dairy and the kitchen. If it be true that
women are made for these domestic occupations, then of course they will
be fond of them. They will be so fond of what comes most naturally to
them that no book-study (if really not congenial to their minds) will
draw them off from their homely duties. For my part, I have no
hesitation whatever in saying that the most ignorant women I have known
have been the worst housekeepers; and that the most learned women I have
known have been among the best,--wherever they have been early taught
and trained to household business, as every woman ought to be. A woman
of superior mind knows better than an ignorant one what to require of
her servants, how to deal with trades-people, and how to economise time:
she is more clear-sighted about the best ways of doing things; has a
richer mind with which to animate all about her, and to solace her own
spirit in the midst of her labours. If nobody doubts the difference in
pleasantness of having to do with a silly and narrow-minded woman and
with one who is intelligent and enlightened, it must be clear that the
more intelligence and enlightenment there is, the better. One of the
best housekeepers I know,--a simple-minded, affectionate-hearted woman,
whose table is always fit for a prince to sit down to, whose house is
always neat and elegant, and whose small income yields the greatest
amount of comfort, is one of the most learned women ever heard of. When
she was a little girl, she was sitting sewing in the window-seat while
her brother was receiving his first lesson in mathematics from his
tutor. She listened, and was delighted with what she heard; and when
both left the room, she seized upon the Euclid that lay on the table,
ran up to her room, went over the lesson, and laid the volume where it
was before. Every day after this, she sat stitching away and listening,
in like manner, and going over the lesson afterwards, till one day she
let out the secret. Her brother could not answer a question which was
put to him two or three times; and, without thinking of anything else,
she popped out the answer. The tutor was surprised, and after she had
told the simple truth, she was permitted to make what she could of
Euclid. Some time after, she spoke confidentially to a friend of the
family,--a scientific professor,--asking him, with much hesitation and
many blushes, whether he thought it was wrong for a woman to learn
Latin. "Certainly not," he said; "provided she does not neglect any
duty for it.--But why do you want to learn Latin?" She wanted to study
Newton's Principia: and the professor thought this a very good reason.
Before she was grown into a woman, she had mastered the Principia of
Newton. And now, the great globe on which we live is to her a book in
which she reads the choice secrets of nature; and to her the last known
wonders of the sky are disclosed: and if there is a home more graced
with accomplishments, and more filled with comforts, I do not know such
an one. Will anybody say that this woman would have been in any way
better without her learning?--while we may confidently say that she
would have been much less happy.
As for women not wanting learning, or superior intellectual training,
that is more than any one should undertake to say in our day. In former
times, it was understood that every woman, (except domestic servants)
was maintained by her father, brother or husband; but it is not so now.
The footing of women is changed, and it will change more. Formerly,
every woman was destined to be married; and it was almost a matter of
course that she would be: so that the only occupation thought of for a
woman was keeping her husband's house, and being a wife and mother. It
is not so now. From a variety of causes, there is less and less marriage
among the middle classes of our country; and much of the marriage that
there is does not take place till middle life. A multitude of women have
to maintain themselves who would never have dreamed of such a thing a
hundred years ago. This is not the place for a discussion whether this
is a good thing for women or a bad one; or for a lamentation that the
occupations by which women might maintain themselves are so few; and of
those few, so many engrossed by men. This is not the place for a
speculation as to whether women are to grow into a condition of
self-maintenance, and their dependence for support upon father, brother
and husband to become only occasional. With these considerations,
interesting as they are, we have no business at this moment. What we
have to think of is the necessity,--in all justice, in all honour, in
all humanity, in all prudence,--that every girl's faculties should be
made the most of, as carefully as boys'. While so many women are no
longer sheltered, and protected, and supported, in safety from the world
(as people used to say) every woman ought to be fitted to take care of
herself. Every woman ought to have that justice done to her faculties
that she may possess herself in all the strength and clearness of an
exercised and enlightened mind, and may have at command, for her
subsistence, as much intellectual power and as many resources as
education can furnish her with. Let us hear nothing of her being shut
out, because she is a woman, from any study that she is capable of
pursuing: and if one kind of cultivation is more carefully attended to
than another, let it be the discipline and exercise of the reasoning
faculties. From the simplest rules of arithmetic let her go on, as her
brother does, as far into the depths of science, and up to the heights
of philosophy as her powers and opportunities permit; and it will
certainly be found that the more she becomes a reasoning creature, the
more reasonable, disciplined and docile she will be: the more she knows
of the value of knowledge and of all other things, the more diligent she
will be;--the more sensible of duty,--the more interested in
occupations,--the more womanly. This is only coming round to the points
we started from; that every human being is to be made as perfect as
possible: and that this must be done through the most complete
development of all the faculties.