The Women's Emancipation Union.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXI, Issue 6763, 10 December 1896, Page 1

The Women's Emancipation Union.

At the conference on questions affecting women in St. Martin's Town Hall, Miss Rogers read a paper on "The Position of Women at Oxford and Cambridge," and it was resolved "That this conference holds that the time has now come when, not only for the benefit of women themselves, but also for the use and service of the whole community, every educational advantage and opportunity should be open to women equally with men, and every restriction placed upon intellect and capacity on the ground of sex should be abolished." A paper on " Co-education," prepared by Dr Frances Hoggas, urged that a fundamental principle in the bringing up of children was that they ought never, whether boys or girls, to be taxed to the outside of _ what they were able to do, the chief aim of education being to develop and strengthen the immature faculties and to induce the habit of steady and thorough work, instead of cramming with a certain amount of knowledge. Co-education based on this principle offered many and obvious advantages to girls. Intellectual training admitte/l of no special adaptation to the different sexes. Educational strain was, however, always harmful, and a girl's special functions were liable to become deranged by over-pressure. It was not excessive mental work, but the mental worry consequent on the many subjects required to be mastered simultaneously in preparing for examinations, which endangered the health and vigor of students. Mr John Ablett read a paper on the same subjecb. lb was resolved—- " That on every ground, economic, moral, and social, this conference urges that the best results of educational effort can be secured only by the system of the joint education of boys and girls, men and women, from the earliest to the latest period of life." In the afternoon the subjects included "Women in India and the Duty of their English Sisters" arid " Women and the Franchise."