EDUCATION FOR GIRLS

New Zealand Times, Volume L, Issue 11706, 19 December 1923, Page 4

EDUCATION FOR GIRLS

PROSPECT & RETROSPECT “SHOULD TAKE PART IN GOVERNMENT OF COUNTRY.” SIR ROBERT STOUT’S ADVICE. Sir Robert Stout, in his address at the Wellington Grils’ College prize distribution expressed l surprise at the large number of activities in ‘ connection with the school. Certainly, he said, the girls were wisely taught all kinds of subjects, and he had no doubt that this; would' have a great effect on them, in after life. Be could remember when there were no girls’ secondary schools in New Zealand at all. At one time, indeed, it was thought that girls should' not have a secondary education at all. Perhaps the first man to advocate secondary education for girls was John Ruskin, in a lecture he delivered at Manchester in 1864. But the man who had the greatest influence in America in urging that girls should be taught the same as boys was Colonel Higginson, afterwards editor of the “Atlantic Monthly.” He put at the head of his paper. “Ought women to be taught the alphabet?” And if people agreed to that, then he asked them, “Where are you going to draw the line?” AN IMMENSE ADVANCE. Since that time there had been an immense advanoe. Girls were now educated just the same as boys, and women were allowed to take part in the government of the country. That was a great gain. We ought, he declared, to train our girls to be able to take part, when they came of age, in the government of the country. The great question to-day throughout the world was till© need of peace. We must do what we could to get rid of war; and could the girls, he asked, have any part in that? They had to have a part in it when they became 21 year® of age. Why, then, should they not have a part in it nowP The United States could have great influence in securing peace throughout the world; and New Zealand could exercise a great influeuce on the United States. We were told to love our neighbours; but we could not do so unless we were acquainted with and understood our neighbours. America was our neighbour; and how were we to get acquainted with the American people and to love them, and make them feel that there should be no war amongst the English-speaking nations, at all events ? If that spirit could be secured, it would lead on to world peace. The only way to become acquainted with America was by reading American literature and seeing what the great American men and women held out as the great ideals of life. He was glad to see that one ef the girls had put down as one of the hooks she would like as prizes the poems of Walt Whitman, the great American poet. ‘SURVIVAL VALUES.” Sir Robert Stout said that he would have the girls became acquainted with American poets, prize-wnters, and essavists. Among these they should study were Whittier, Emerson, and Longfellow ; and there was also a great galaxy of women poets in America, whoso works were well worth reading. The American people had the highest ideals of life put before them by their great writers; ar.d they also were anxious for peace aud the highest possible civilisation. Every girl should read Emerson’s essays on the conduct of life; and they should also read the great English poems, such as .Tennyson’s “In Memoriam.” They should learn poetry Ruskin had said that man ought to defend civilisation, and that women ought to give the charm of civilisation—the goodness, the purity, the fine ait, and the music of civilisation. He, however, thought that women could do both. They oould defend civilisation by their upright conduct and good lives. These wfere of tho things whioh had what was now teTmed “survival value.” They should do the things that had “survival value.” That was to say, they should do only the things that helped humanity forward. They should be thrifty, have gumption, with common sense, and hold ever before them the highest ideals of life and conduct; and thus show that their education had been such as to fit them to' set a worthy example.