BOARDING SCHOOLS.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXVIII, Issue 4743, 6 November 1872, Page 3

BOARDING SCHOOLS.

To the Editor : Sir,— Those who Bee all the humiliation invclred in training girls for the matrimonial market, know only too well the immoral tendency of the sort of education given in some schools to which girls are sent by mothers who care for nothing but that their daughters may be taught how to cut a figure in the world, where every womanly sentioient is undermined with subtle grace. If we did but know it, it were more fitting to " put on weeds" for the living than the dead ; so dead are they to all that is woith liTing for. The teacher of the " young idea," with flummery face and velvet pave, thus apostrophises her brood : My dears, book-learning will be almost valueless to you after school-days, but, as Satan loves idle hands, employment is needful to keep you out of mibchief. Mine is the pleasant task of showing you how to angle for a whale — if possible ; if not, a gudgeon. Man is a beautiful animal : always keep him in your eye ; look up to him, my dears; look up, for to set man-traps adroitly is the Alpha and Omega of your existence. There is nothing like soft-sawder if you want to get the blind side of him ; be be honest, f would not give a fig for your chance ; therefore glide about him in a 'creamy, delicious sort of way. Insinuate the thought, that a charming neat would not be uncongenial soil for the growth of so fair and lovely a flower as any one of you. Atti,tude is everything ; therefore let the grace and modesty of your bearing be suggestive of tulle-illusion and passion-flower ; be nothing that he may be your all-in-all. It is well that you should witness the marriage ceremony to the end: it may throw its glamour over your young life. There is so much of sacrifice in takiug the veil, we choose to garland the victim with roses, and feuds from the orange tree, that the odour of incense may steep her senses in the waters of Lethe ; sackcloth and ashes will tell only t too truly of grit. You will be your lover's guiding star till marriage, and he'll ciave windows to his breast that you may see how truly his heart goes pit-a pat for you alone, though at th« talfcar he may put his shutters up, and write on his breast, No admittance except on ibusiness. Still, your gratitude must be •boundless for the honour of bearing his name. Cheat him intd believing himself the pink of perfection. Hoodwink him right and left : nothing is easier, only lay on your flattery w'th m-wterly skill ; by so doing you'll float on a, placid lake of billing and cooing all your days. Having conducted you to the threshold of the better- land, ' I'll take my leave, wishing you a long and merry time. — Now, sir, is not a girl's education " finished" when such thoughts have been carefully though insensibly instilled ? Do you wonder that Bhe is essentially false ? The wonder is that she is not more knave than fool. Moreover, the wrong will never ,be righted until girls themselves upset the apple-cart, Baying, We will be women, not , dolls, whether men like. it, or nofc, and prove .that nothing which is Womanly can by any (possibility be, silly ov unbecoming, though at .present everything silly passes for feminine. \\ — I am, &0., ' Scholar.