The Technical Education of Women.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 913, 30 August 1889, Page 4

The Technical Education of Women.

H.R.H. PRINCESS CHRISTIAN, IN TUB QUEEN. I was asked some months ago to write something fq? this paper, and was prevented from doing so, Since then the kind request has been repeated, J have been thinking a great deal about what I should write, and itt has struck me that a few words about women’s technical education would not be out of pines. It is a subject, I am glad to find, which is beginning to occupy a good deal of attention. Far be it from my intention to say one word in dispayagemeßt of the higher education of women, which must raise the tone of women’s minds and develop their mental faculties 5 but I do feel that thereis’ a tendency to carry suoh education too far, and to think no'knowledge ’worth having , which does not vie with that of men. I have alway’h held.’that there (a a great danger in ! this,' first of all beoau.se I think it is a shortsighted polioy. Those women who aye feroed ; by eironmstAnaes to earn their daily bread, seem to think that there is no field open to them but in competing with men on their

ground, with the disastrous effect of adding to the overcrowded market, aud thereby necessarily lowering the rate of remunera* tion. Secondly, I feel moat strongly all that we women lose by attempting rivalry with men. We lose sight of all we might be, aud of the very high position we could and should hold in this world, by struggling to be a weaker imitation of them. Exceptions only prove the rule. That small section of women whose minds are pre-eminently adapted for classical and mathematical learning, to them every facility ought t > be given to train their best faculties, and enable lliem to reap their due reward. There i 3 a view of technical education which I should like to mention, as I think it is often overlooked, that is, the reason why home teaching, which in former days used to be handed down from mother to daughter, can now be taught to so much greater advantage in schools. Knowledge has so much increased, and the art of impartiug it, that experts are needed to teach it accurately and well. For example, hygiene has become a modern science, absolutely necessary for every woman to study, in order that her house may be a healthy habitation. Gastronomy in its widest sense is a science. The choice and preparation of food suitable to climates and seasons, ages and constitutions, should bo carefully studied and known, These subjects were but very imperfectly, if at all, understood by our ancestors, Much domestic work which was formerly learnt and practised at home is now handed over to special workers, and has become to be considered as a separate trade ; for instance, laundry work, Ac.

There ia v.o doubt that farmers’ wives and daughters are quite different from those of fifty years ago ; they Du longer manage their own dairy acid poultry, nor do they educate their daughter ß to take part in these domestic arts, It is the agß we live in whioh is partly to blame for these changes ; it is impossible, nor could one wish, to stem the ourrent, the true wisdom lies in directing it wisely, and not shutting one’s eyes tc the attendant evils. Progress iB inevitable, and therefore desirable. Let women be duly qualified, and let them choose discreetly their paths of usefulness.

The idea of sound technical training is no longer a mere dream, for a college has come under my own personal notice of which I am president, and in which 1 am much interested, which was founded for this purpose. I believe this is not the only instance of such institution. This scheme was set on foot by Miss Forsyth, daughter of Sir Douglas Forsyth. She began it ou a very small scale,

feeling her way, and only tnlarging it as she saw it succeed. Her wish has not been to revolutionise the existing systems of female education, or to supplant any of them ; but ou the contrary, to supplement them, intending the teaching in her school to be a course whieh girls should go through after they have passed the higher examinations, and the groundwork is laid, for the duties i practical life. Miss Forsyth is most anxioug | that her school should not become a mere fashionable novelty, aud her object is to gjvq real solid training. To qse hqr" own words , ‘ To combine thoroughness of teaohing with speed in learning, and so concede as far as possible to the convenience of an economical and hurry-loving public. My original idea was to start a school where every girl when she leaves the high or ordinary boarding school might for six months learn those things which would best fit her for her homelife before she is called upon to plungd : into society or a profession or marriage, and where her brain would have that true 're- | creation which exists best in change of ; occupation and hot in mere idleness.’ I quite agree with Mi'sa Forsyth that the advocates for brain culture have rather too | much faith in the poorer j and in the theory- that a highly edpaateq woman ought to be able to tunyhey hgnfl t,Q anything. *I am willing tp grant the O.mM $ but what I fail to sqe is tk»t she In adfljtiqn tej this technical scflopl, flu

whiph millinery, qphq'steyy, dreEjsgmkiag, coofling, hogseholci mauagefflPflti »»»'* laundry WQrk ftrq tine etfisfimt lectures V - J ! a !? 8 ’ ' ery l e Mi"- kyg lo ne and finance are ® .. 1 ~ -os Forsyth has in contemplation a --.rther development which must prove of even greater influence. It is a training which aims at fitting women to go forth to the colonies properly qoalified ; so that, instead of meriting the reproach that only the useless women emigrate for whom no employment can be found here, the object is that those who go out should be capable of helping in the development of the colonies. There are many other subjects which must be taught if this further idea is to be carried out j for instance, poultry and dairy farming, beekeeping, type writing, and other occupations which women can do well. This so bool should be in it widest sense a technical, oollege, for it would exist for the purpose of bringing out each woman’s strong, point ia ‘ technical. matters. It will enable her tq, make her life independent of cirounastances by earning better salaries if goiog oat fjo earn, her livelihood, or if called upon to b,e a wife and a mistress of a household, she will be saved all the wearing discomforts of the little daily details of domestic life which press so heavily on those who are devoid of such training and knowledge. The education of women in this present

day is of such momentous interest, and stretches over snch a wide field, that I feel very diffident in giving my own opinion about it ; it is only because 1 do feel so strongly how much women may and can do without stepping out of their own sphere that I have ventured to touch upon the subject. Miss Forsyth has taken for her motto, and hung up in her class room, the following words : ‘.Be not simply good, but be good for something f and I should like to add a sentence I found in a German book the other day, 4 Do thoroughly whatever is given you to do, love thoroughly that which is given to you for your own, and help to work out the future according to God’s will.’ And who can doubt the great future that women have before them ? It rests with them alone.