THINGS AS THEY ARE.
Whether it is owing to the prevailing confusion of ideas as to
the objects of female education, or to whatever cause it may be
attributed, there can be little doubt that the thing itself is held
in slight esteem. No one indeed would go so far as to say that it is
not worth while to educate girls at all. _Some_ education is held to
be indispensable, but how much is an open question; and the general
indifference operates in the way of continually postponing it to other
claims, and, above all, in shortening the time allotted to systematic
instruction and discipline. Parents are ready to make sacrifices to
secure a tolerably good and complete education for their sons; they
do not consider it necessary to do the same for their daughters. Or
perhaps it would be putting it more fairly to say, that a very brief
and attenuated course of instruction, beginning late and ending early,
is believed to constitute a good and complete education for a woman.
It is usually assumed that when a boy’s school education has once
begun, which it does at a very early age, it is to go on steadily
till he is a man. A boy who leaves school at sixteen or eighteen,
either enters upon some technical course of training for a business
or profession, or he passes on to the University, and from thence to
active work of some sort or other. In other words, he is _in statu
pupillari_ until general education and professional instruction are
superseded by the larger education supplied by the business of life.
In the education of girls no such regular order appears. A very usual
course seems to be for girls to spend their early years in a haphazard
kind of way, either at home, or in not very regular attendance at an
inferior school; after which they are sent for a year or two to a
school or college to finish. The heads of schools complain with one
voice that they are called upon to ‘finish’ what has never been begun,
and that to attempt to give anything like a sound education, in the
short time at their disposal, is perfectly hopeless. But, to take the
most favourable case,--that of a girl so well prepared that she is able
to make good use of the teaching provided in a first-rate school,--just
at the moment when she is making real, substantial progress, she is
taken away. At sixteen, seventeen, or eighteen, as the case may be,
her education comes to an abrupt pause. When she marries, it may be
said to begin again; but between leaving school and marriage there is
usually an interval of at least three or four years, if not a much
longer period. These years a youth spends, as has been before said,
in preparation for his future career. In the case of girls, no such
preparation seems to be considered necessary.
Is this reasonable? Apart from immediate pecuniary necessity, is it
desirable that the regular education of women should be considered as
finished at the age of eighteen? If we are to take the almost universal
practice as an answer, it is a very decided affirmative. Even girls
whose parents must be fully aware that they will eventually have to
maintain themselves, seldom receive any adequate training for their
future work. Those whose fathers intend to provide for them, are still
less likely to be supposed to want any further education after they
leave school.
So fixed and wide-spread a custom must have had, at some time or other,
even if it has not now, a meaning and a justification. And this may
perhaps be found in the fact that our mothers and our grandmothers were
accustomed to undergo at home, after leaving school, what was in fact
an apprenticeship to household management. It seems indeed at one time
to have been customary to apprentice girls of what we now call the
middle class, to trades,--as we find George Herbert urging his Country
Parson not to put his children ‘into vain trades and unbefitting the
reverence of their father’s calling, such as are taverns for men and
lacemaking for women,’--but even where there was no apprenticeship to
a specific business, the round of household labours would supply a
very considerable variety of useful occupation. An active part in these
labours would naturally devolve upon the daughters of the house, who
would thus be forming habits of industry and order invaluable in after
life.
Probably a great many fathers, profoundly ignorant as they are of the
lives of women, cherish a vague imagination that the same kind of
thing is going on still. If Providence should at any time lead them
to spend a week in the society of their daughters, under ordinary
circumstances--not when illness has altered the usual current of
affairs--they would find that this is very far from being the case.
That great male public, which spends its days in chambers and offices
and shops, knows little of what is going on at home. Writers in
newspapers and magazines are fond of talking about the nursery, as if
every household contained a never-ending supply of young children, on
whom the grown-up daughters might be practising the art of bringing up.
Others have a great deal to say about the kitchen, assuming it to be
desirable that the ladies of the house should supersede, or at least
assist, the cook. In that case, where there is a mother with two or
three daughters, we should have four or five cooks. The undesirableness
of such a multiplication of artists need scarcely be pointed out.[1]
Needlework, again, occupies a much larger space in the imagination of
writers than it does in practical life. Except in families where there
are children, there is very little plain needlework to be done, and
what there is, many people make a point of giving out, on the ground
that it is better to pay a half-starved needlewoman for work done, than
to give her the money in the form of alms.
Having mentioned needlework, cookery, and the care of children, we
seem to have come to an end of the household work in which ladies are
supposed to take part. If young women of eighteen and upwards are
learning anything in their daily life at home, it must be something
beside and beyond the acquirement of dexterity in ordinary domestic
arts.
Many fathers, however, are no doubt aware that their daughters have
very little to do. But that seems to them anything but a hardship.
They wish they had a little less to do themselves, and can imagine all
sorts of interesting pursuits to which they would betake themselves if
only they had a little more leisure. Ladies, it may be said, have their
choice, and they must evidently prefer idleness, or they would find
something to do. If this means that half-educated young women do not
choose steady work when they have no inducement whatever to overcome
natural indolence, it is no doubt true. Women are not stronger-minded
than men, and a commonplace young woman can no more work steadily
without motive or discipline than a commonplace young man. It has been
remarked that ‘the active, voluntary part of man is very small, and if
it were not economised by a sleepy kind of habit, its results would be
null. We could not do every day out of our own heads all we have to do.
We should accomplish nothing; for all our energies would be frittered
away in minor attempts at petty improvement.’ The case of young women
could scarcely have been better stated. Every day they have to do out
of their own heads nearly all that they have to do. They accomplish
little; for their energies are frittered away in minor attempts at
petty improvement.
How true this is, the friends and counsellors of girls could abundantly
testify. There is no point on which schoolmistresses are more unanimous
and more emphatic than on the difficulty of knowing what to do with
girls after leaving school. People who have not been brought into
intimate converse with young women have little idea of the extent to
which they suffer from perplexities of conscience. ‘The discontent
of the modern girl’ is not mere idle self-torture. Busy men and
women--and people with disciplined minds--can only, by a certain strain
of the imagination, conceive the situation. If they at all entered into
it, they could not have the heart to talk as they do. For the case of
the modern girl is peculiarly hard in this, that she has fallen upon an
age in which idleness is accounted disgraceful. The social atmosphere
rings with exhortations to act, act in the living present. Everywhere
we hear that true happiness is to be found in work--that there can be
no leisure without toil--that people who do nothing are unfruitful
fig-trees which cumber the ground. And in this atmosphere the modern
girl lives and breathes. She is not a stone, and she does not live
underground. She hears people talk--she listens to sermons--she reads
books. And in her reading she comes across such passages as the
following:--
‘It is a real pleasure to me to find that you are taking steadily
to a profession, without which I scarcely see how a man can live
honestly. That is, I use the term “profession” in rather a large sense,
not as simply denoting certain callings which a man follows for his
maintenance, but rather a definite field of duty, which the nobleman
has as much as the tailor, but which he has not, who having an income
large enough to keep him from starving, hangs about upon life, merely
following his own caprices and fancies; _quod factu pessimum est_.’[2]
Or again:--
‘N’est-il pas vrai que la fadeur de la vie est à la fois le grand
malheur et le grand danger? Il y a une douzaine d’années, un orateur
s’écriait à la tribune: “La France s’ennuie.” Et moi je dis: L’humanité
s’ennuie, et son ennui ne date ni d’aujourd’hui ni d’hier, quoique
peut-être il n’ait jamais été plus visible qu’en ce moment. Sans la
poursuite d’un but idéal, toute vie devient inevitablement insipide,
même jusqu’au dégout. Or, comptez parmi vos connaissances les personnes
qui poursuivent un but élevé. Beaucoup vivent sans savoir pourquoi,
uniquement, je pense, parce que chaque matin ramène le soleil. Que
de femmes, si vous exceptez les mères qui se donnent à leur famille,
que de femmes, hélas, dont la vie se passe entière dans de futiles
occupations, ou dans des conversations plus futiles encore! Et l’on
s’étonne que, rongées d’ennui, elles recherchent avec frénésie toutes
les distractions imaginables! Elles accusent la monotonie de leur
existence d’être la cause de ce vague malaise; la vraie cause est
ailleurs, elle est dans la fadeur intolérable, non d’une vie dépourvue
d’événements et d’aventures, mais d’une vie dont on n’entrevoit pas
la raison ni le but. On se sent vivre sans qu’on y soit pour quelque
chose, et cette vie inconsciente, inutile, absurde, inspire un
mécontentement trop fondé.’[3]
Such things the modern girl reads, and every word is confirmed by
her own experience. With the practical English mind, which she has
inherited from her father, she applies it all to herself. She seeks
for counsel, and she finds it. She is bidden to ‘look around her’--to
do the duty that lies nearest--to teach in the schools, or visit the
poor--to take up a pursuit--to lay down a course of study and stick
to it. She looks around her, and sees no particular call to active
exertion. The duties that lie in the way are swallowed up by an
energetic mother or elder sister; very possibly she has no vocation
for philanthropy--and the most devoted philanthropists are the most
urgent in warning off people who lack the vocation--or she lives in
a village where the children are better taught than she could teach
them, and the poor are already too much visited by the clergyman’s
family; she feels no sort of impulse to take up any particular pursuit,
or to follow out a course of study; and so long as she is quiet and
amiable, and does not get out of health, nobody wants her to do
anything. Her relations and friends--her world--are quite satisfied
that she should ‘hang about upon life, merely following her own’--or
their own--‘caprices and fancies.’ The advice given, so easy to offer,
so hard to follow, presupposes exactly what is wanting, a formed and
disciplined character, able to stand alone, and to follow steadily a
predetermined course, without fear of punishment, or hope of reward.
Ought we to wonder if, in the great majority of cases, girls let
themselves go drifting down the stream, despising themselves, but
listlessly yielding to what seems to be their fate?
An appeal to natural guides is most often either summarily dismissed,
or received with reproachful astonishment. It is considered a just
cause for surprise and disappointment, that well brought up girls,
surrounded with all the comforts of home, should have a wish or a
thought extending beyond its precincts. And, perhaps, it is only
natural that parents should be slow to encourage their daughters in
aspirations after any duties and interests besides those of ministering
to their comfort and pleasure. In taking for granted that this is the
only object, other than that of marriage, for which women were created,
they are but adopting the received sentiment of society. No doubt, too,
they honestly believe that, in keeping their daughters to themselves
till they marry, they are doing the best thing for them, as well as
pleasing themselves. If the daughters take a different view, parents
think it is because they are young and inexperienced, and incompetent
to judge. The fact is, it is the parents who are inexperienced.
Their youth was different in a hundred ways from the youth of this
generation; and the experience of thirty years ago is far from being
infallible in dealing with the difficulties and perplexities of the
present. No doubt young people are ignorant, and want guidance. But
they should be helped and advised, not silenced. Parents take upon
themselves a heavy responsibility when they hastily crush the longing
after a larger and more purposeful life.
That such an impulse is worthy of respect can scarcely be denied.
The existence of capacities is in itself an indication that they are
intended for some good purpose. Conscious power is not a burden, to
be borne with patience, but a gift, for the due use of which the
possessor rightly feels accountable. To have a soul which can be
satisfied with vanities is not eminently virtuous and Christian, but
the reverse. To be awake to responsibilities, sensitive in conscience,
quickly responsive to all kindling influences, is a sign that education
has, so far, done a good work. A flowing river is no doubt more
troublesome to manage than a tranquil pool; but pools, if let alone too
long, are apt to become noxious, as well as useless. The current may
require to be wisely directed; but that there should be a current of
being, wanting to set itself somewhere, is surely a cause for thankful
rejoicing. It is an unfortunate misunderstanding of the true state
of the case that makes parents sigh over what might well be their
happiness and pride: one more exemplification of the sluggishness
which hates nothing so bitterly as to be called upon to think--to
consider a new idea--perhaps to go farther, and take a step out of the
beaten track. It is much easier, no doubt, to say to a daughter who
comes to you with her original notions--‘My dear child, put it out of
your head directly; it cannot be thought of for a moment’--than it
would be to hear her patiently, to consider how far her crude ideas
are practicable, to help her, so far as may be, in carrying them out.
And one ought not to wonder that the easiest course is the one most
commonly chosen. How far it may, or may not, be the duty of daughters
to sacrifice their own wishes to the temporary pleasure of those to
whom they owe so much, is a separate question. It is at least well for
parents to know that, far more than they are at all aware of, it is
felt to be a sacrifice, and that they must accept it as such, if at
all.[4]
The representation here given is, of course, not universally
applicable. It is quite possible that in some senses, and to some
persons, an apparently empty life may be easier, and even richer, than
one of toil. There are people to whom the Happy Valley kind of life is
by no means intolerable; and even earnest-minded and conscientious
girls, urged by a strong sense of the heinousness of discontent, often
manage to crush troublesome aspirations, and make themselves happy.
There is something undignified in being miserable, without a just and
intelligible cause to show for it; and many young women, capable of
higher things, accommodate themselves with a considerable degree of
cheerfulness to a narrow and unsatisfying round of existence. Nor is
it intended to represent ladies as habitually doing nothing. On the
contrary, they have many resources. Among them are various arts and
handicrafts, gardening, letter-writing, and much reading. Of these,
the last is perhaps the most popular and the most delusive. A girl
who is ‘very fond of reading’ is considered to be happily suited with
never-failing occupation, and no thought is taken as to what is to
come of her reading. On this subject, the observations of Miss Aikin,
herself an experienced reader, are worth considering. ‘Continual
reading,’ she says, ‘if desultory, and without a definite object,
favours indolence, unsettles opinions, and of course enfeebles the
mental and moral energies.’ And Mr Robertson of Brighton, speaking in
reference to girls, remarks that they ‘read too much, and think too
little. I will answer for it that there are few girls of eighteen who
have not read more books than I have.... That multifarious reading
weakens the mind more than doing nothing; for it becomes a necessity
at last, like smoking, and is an excuse for the mind to lie dormant,
whilst thought is poured in, and runs through, a clear stream, over
unproductive gravel, on which not even mosses grow. It is the idlest of
all idlenesses, and leaves more of impotency than any other.’
The same might be said of all merely _dilettante_ occupation. Its fault
is simply that it _is dilettante_--literally a pastime. It may as well
be done, if nothing else turns up, and that is all. And this drawback,
belonging to nearly all the ordinary work of young women, they are by
themselves unable to overcome. Of course, the case is partly in their
own hands, and those who are by nature abnormally energetic, will make
a career for themselves in spite of difficulties. Where the inward
impulse is irrepressible, it becomes a lantern to the feet, and a lamp
unto the path, making the way of duty plain and unmistakable. But for
the few whose course is thus illumined, there will be the many hovering
in uneasy doubt, their consciences and intellects just lively enough
to make them restless and unhappy, not sufficiently clear in their
minds as to right and wrong, either to be nerved for vigorous action,
or to accept contentedly the conventional duty of quiescence. There
must be something wrong in social regulations which make a demand for
exceptional wisdom and strength on the part of any particular class;
and that such a demand is made upon average young women is sufficiently
clear. What society says to them seems to be something to this effect.
Either you have force enough to win a place in the world, in the face
of heavy discouragement, or you have not. If you have, the discipline
of the struggle is good for you; if you have not, you are not worth
troubling about. Is not this a hard thing to say to commonplace
girls, not professing to be better or stronger than their neighbours?
Why should their task be made, by social and domestic arrangements,
peculiarly and needlessly difficult? And why should it be taken for
granted that, if they fail, they must be extraordinarily silly or
self-indulgent? More than any other class, at the same age, they are
exempted from direction and control--liberally gifted with the kind
of freedom enjoyed by the denizens of a village pound. Within their
prescribed sphere, they may wander at will, and if they ‘there small
scope for action see,’ it is explained to them that they must not ‘for
this give room to discontent;’ nor let their time ‘be spent in idly
dreaming’ how they might be
‘More free
From outward hindrance or impediment.
For presently this hindrance thou shalt find
That without which all goodness were a task
So slight, that virtue never could grow strong.’
In reply to such admonitions they are tempted to inquire what task,
other than that of dreaming, is set before them--what virtue, always
excepting that one virtue of passive submission, has any chance of
growing strong under such conditions. The ‘slow,’ who sink into dull
inertia, and the ‘fast,’ who get rid of their superfluous energy
in silly extravagances, have alike the excuse, that at the moment
when they need the support of a routine explained and justified by a
reasonable purpose, discipline and stimulus are at once withdrawn,
leaving in their place no external support beyond the trivial demands
and restraints of conventional society.
It may seem that an exaggerated importance is here attached to the
interval between school and marriage; and if the considerations
brought forward had reference to this period only, the charge would be
just. But rightly to estimate the value of these years, we must bear in
mind that they are the spring-time of life--the season of blossom, on
which the fruit of the future depends. It is then that an impress is
given to character which lasts through life. Opportunities then thrown
away or misused can scarcely be recovered in later years. And it has
seemed necessary to dwell upon the existing tenour of young women’s
lives, because, in dealing with the question of extending the duration
of female education, we must be largely influenced by our conception of
the alternative involved in leaving things as they are. It has been
said that the end of education is ‘to form a nation of living, orderly
men.’ If it has been shown that the course now pursued tends to make a
large part of the nation inanimate and disorderly, a case would seem to
be established for urging efforts at improvement.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] As this pursuit is sometimes recommended with apparent seriousness,
it may be as well to point out to the uninitiated, that if mistresses
are to do the cooking, masters must dine alone. Dinners cannot be
cooked an hour beforehand, and left to serve themselves up. In this,
as in other arts, the finishing touches are among the most important.
This does not mean, of course, that a mistress may not give directions
and occasional help, or that it may not be a very good thing for girls
to lend a hand, now and then, by way of learning to cook. That is a
different thing from regularly spending a considerable part of their
daily lives in the kitchen.
[2] Letter to Dr Greenhill, an old pupil, in ‘Life of Dr Arnold,’ p.
392.
[3] Sermons par T. Colani.--_Deuxième Recueil_, p. 293.
[4] ‘M. de Parthenau would have been surprised had any one suggested
that this peaceful life was less to the taste of his children than
himself. Like so many excellent fathers, he sincerely believed that
because it suited him, it must suit them. He had forgotten his own
stormy youth, to find himself happy by his fireside, and it never
occurred to him to ask, “Is my daughter happy?” So much the better,
since he could have done nothing; and Thérèse was the last person to
make him suspect that she was not perfectly satisfied. Yet, whoever had
seen her, would have thought her destined for a wider sphere than that
of the narrow world where she strove to be content. It had not always
been so. Now, however, she stifled all the aspirations, the radiant
visions which once haunted her, under the crowd of occupations which
she found for herself. She silenced the cry of her intellect, and yet
heard it always; perhaps because she shunned as snares the natural
outlets which presented themselves, refusing each rare opportunity of
leaving home, lest she should return discontented; and putting away
books and pencils, that she might have no interests but those of her
father and her poor dependents. It was an honest, mistaken effort
to do right; and the confessor, who stood to her in the place of a
conscience, approved it--nay, urged it on her. It was strange, this
mute, ceaseless conflict, known only in its full extent to herself, and
hidden under so monotonous and peaceful a life!’--_Sydonie’s Dowry_, p.
24.
May not something like a counterpart of this mute, ceaseless conflict
be hidden under many a monotonous and peaceful English life?
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