Schools For Girls

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30811, 24 July 1965, Page 4

Schools For Girls

Hope Deferred. By Josephine Kamm. Methuen. 302 pp. Refs, and Index. In tracing the educational * vicissitudes of girls over the centuries, the author has covered an interesting field of English social history. The decline of feminine prestige [from Saxon times when [women were “highly esteemed” for their brains and energy, to the 19th century, 1000 years later, can hardly be ascribed to the march of civilisation, but rather to the gradual imposition of masculine values on the physically weaker sex. Up to the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th century 7 all instruction to young people was based on religion, but whereas in the monastery boys were taught Latin and Greek, “medieval thought was opposed the thought of scholarly women” and girls had to give i their time to practical matters such as sewing, weaving and managing their households. Grammar schools in the 13th 14th and 15th centuries were established for boys, but the best education that the daughters of the nobility could glean was a smattering of reading, writing and French. Some of the advocates of a reform of women’s education in the 19th century said of the Dissolution: “Boys lost something: girls lost everything," and for 300 years subsequently the latter were offered up to the requirement of the marriage market. Some outstandingly clever women, notably the daughters of Henry VIII and their near contemporary Lady Jane Grey managed to acquire considerable learning, but these were notable exceptions. Christ’s Hospital, a charitable institution founded in 1563 for destitute children of both sexes, took in at first an equal number of each, but 300 1

years later boys numbered 1192, while the girls’ section had dwindled to a mere 18. While the daughters of the gentry were learning the arts of husband-snaring, the Charity 7 Schools movement in 18th century made strides in the harsh manner of the times, and Sunday Schools were begun to keep the poorer children off the streets on the Sabbath when they were apt to be a considerable nuisance. The female child in the Charity Schools was not expected to receive any real education except that required for domestic service, and the work-houses in which they were reared could be guaranteed to cow them suitably. Indeed a social reformer, Mrs Cappe, drew attention to one in particular where girls who did not die of malnutrition became “wretched victims of prostitution.” The binding of girls as unpaid apprentices, after leaving school had much the same effect and many fell into the hands of scrupulous exploiters. One of these merciless slave-drivers .was hanged when it was discovered that her girl apprentice had died of ill-treatment.

Despite the abuses of the very poor, education for girls in the 18th century took a short stride forward under pressure from the redoubtable women (known as “Bluestockings’’), Hannah More, Elizabeth Montagu and Mary 7 Wollstonecraft, all of whom, in the face of much scoffing opposition, perpetually advocated a higher standard of education for women. As the century progressed, their ideas began to gain ground, though even 100 years later the numerous girls’ boardingschools were still employing pernicious 7 short-cut systems to knowledge, (such as “question and answers” which were learnt, by rote) and where girls were not infrequently under-nourished in order to line the pockets of their mentors.

Nevertheless the 19th century began to see a considerable resurgence of feminine learning, and first Queens College London was launched, to be followed shortly by Bedford College, also in London, where young women could be trained to University level, though it was not till 1878 that London

University 7 opened its examinations and degrees to them. Meantime two redoubtable women Miss Beale, and Miss Buss, became headmistresses of two famous schools, Cheltenham and a London Collegiate one which approximated for learning to Public Schools for boys. Miss Emily Davies must be credited with the victory 7 over prejudice which eventually permitted women to compete on equal terms with men for entry to Cambridge and Oxford Universities through the installation of Girton College in the one and Lady Margaret Hall in the other. These significant events happened in 1874 and 1879 respectively. Even then the universities, though allowing women to take the examinations. refused to grant them degrees. Lt was not till 1920, with the extension of the franchise, that this filial concession was made.

The deep-seated conservatism on this subject put England far behind other countries, including New Zealand. The University of Otago, founded in 1869, was “the first college in the British Commonwealth to admit women students: and Canterbury (Christchurch) produced the first woman graduate in the Commonwealth in 1877." SO much for the progress of higher learning.

The Education Act of 1870, saw the first serious attempt to extend the system of general education for both sexes to all classes, and by successive stages has continued to do so up to the present time through a series of experiments in schooling too lengthy and numerous to detail. The net. result is that a girl of the present day can become as determined a careerist in her own special field of interest, as her brother, and for this she has to thank a series of devoted women of high intellect, indifference to rooted prejudice, and sustained unpopularity during a battle which has lasted for the best part of two centuries. The author has made her book extremely interesting to an ordinary reader notwithstanding a weighty and comprehensive content to which 17 pages of references bears ample witness.