FEMALE EDUCATION.

Otago Witness, Issue 987, 29 October 1870, Page 2

FEMALE EDUCATION.

The following is the concluding portion of Major Richardson's lecture on this subject : —

It had long been thought by those deeply interested in raisins the standard of female education, that this object could be best attained through the instrumentality of University degrees. A degree may be regarded as a certificate indicating I that a student has resided a certain number of years at one or other of the Colleges or Halls attached to the University — such aa the various Colleges attached to the (Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, and the affiliated institutions attached to the University of London— and that he has satisfactorily passed certain examinations which had been appointed to test his ability and proficiency. The residence in a college uaually embraces a period of two or three years, as in the older colleges, while in the case of new colleges connected with the University of London the term of residence usually extends to nearly five years, but the cost of residence is much more reasonable than in the older colleges. In one respect the constitution of the University of London differs from that of the more venerable English Universities, inasmuch as it embraced those who were unable to afford the time and the necessary means for residence 1 at a college in connection with it ; and it wisely provided that anyone, wherever he was educated, might become a candidate for matriculation and degrees, other than degrees in medicine and surgery. Such an innovation on recognised practice, intertwined with old and valued associations, was thoroughly reprehended by thoae who had graduated at the colleges ; but, practically, the exercise of the privilege did not immediately result in any material change, for it has been found that the great majority of those who have taken honours have passed through Borne of the colleges connected with the University. While there is very much to be urged in favour of the principle of a residence in a college, and more so formerly than at present, still there is even more to be said in favour of that system, which includes in it the recognition of high attainments and real ability in all classes^ and under all circumstances. This recognition is now an established fact, having re- j ceived an additional endorsement from! the establishment of competitive examinations for appointments in the Civil Service of the country, and has been proved highly beneficial in the adminis- : tration of government, both in the home country and in India. While these extended privileges were ; granted to men, it was very pertinently enquired why women should be debarred from a recognition which is a stimulus to study, by adding a reward to scientific attainment. No satisfactory reply could be given to such a question, unless it could be proved that the gentler sex; were incapable of the higher education, or that such education was incompatible with the nature and duties of woman. A tame acquiescence in Buch theories was resented ; and in 1852, and subsequently in 1856, application was made by a lady to be admitted as a candidate for examination at the University of London, which was met by a legal opinion that ladies were not admissible. Nothing daunted by this rejection, the advocates of the cause attempted to get an alteration made in the charter, which was not successful, though it elicited an expression of opinion from the Senate of the University " that opportnnities Bhould be afforded to women of testing their attainments in the more solid branches of learning." Subsequently the Convocation of the University deollned "to make provision for the examination and certification of women."

But though the University was somewhat fcardy in the appreciation of its duty, it was not long before it became aotive in its performance. By the regulations re.lating to the examination of women, which were printed in July, 1868, it ap«

pears that a candidate for a general examination must be certified as having completed her seventeenth year ; that the examination shall be conducted chiefly by means of printed papers; and the candidate will not be approved unless she shows that she haß a competent knowledge of Latin, with grammar, history, and geography, of any two of the following languages — Greek, French, German, Italian, of the English language and literature, English history and geography (physical and topographical), mathematics, natural philosophy, and either chemistry or botany. Those who pass this examination may obtain special certificates of higher proficiency in any of these and other enumerated subjects. In 1863 the University of Cambridge appointed a board to conduct the examination of students not members of the University, which included women, who composed one-seventh of the whole number examined. In 1868 a University Association was formed at Oxford for promoting the higher education of women by instituting examinations for the granting of certificates of proficiency in various branches of knowledge : and, lastly, the University of Edinburgh has inaugurated a similar movement for the local examination of boys and girls, nearly one-half of the candidates at the first examination being girls. The Jewish Chronicle of July 10th, 1868, with reference to a proposed college for women, says — " The education of women has scarcely yet received the practical attention it merits. For, indeed, since a child's first impressions are stamped on his plastic mind and heart by the women who surround his infancy, and since his after career probably never loses the stamp and shape of those first impressions, the foundation of male education will never be firm and strong till it be laid on a steady and intelligible basis of female education."

While I thus record the exertions made by the other Universities, it is only right to state that they were impelled to this course by the large-mindedness of the University of London and Queen's College, Ireland. It may be fairly said of Cambridge University that she is now in the forefront of the battle for academical reform. It is to be hoped that ere long the four Universities in each of the three Kingdoms may become in every sense national universities.

Some persons may be disposed to underrate the advantages which result from periodic examinations of schools, but 1 think on a fuller review of all the benefits which flow from them, when properly undertaken, it will be found that they are a very effective means to a desired end. Such examinations are not an idle craze, which will die out as other crazes have, neither are they an unnecessary tax upon the freedom and energies of the young. It is right and desirable, both for the teacher and the scholar, that some independent authority, free from local bias, should from time to time test the zeal and ability of the teacher, by the sound and real progress of the scholars. If there be an error or a want on either side the evil is discovered in time to apply a remedy, instead of allowing the pupil to awake to the mortifying perception of misspent labours and misapplied means, and the master allowed to dream away his life in the vain delusion that his system is perfect and his ability equal, if not superior, to each of those similarly engage i around him. In addition to this, there is a healthy stimulus given, not only to the scholars immediately concerned, and their tutors, but to all those concerned with them, who take a pride, and rejoice in, the success of those who have gone forth as it were to try their strength in striving for the coveted honour ; and, moreover, wholesome competition divested of all foolish rivalries, is instilled among the various educational bodies, which is not evanescent, but shows fruit in after life, acting and re-acting for the public good. Great advantage arises from having a fixed standard for examination, such for example as those graduated standards provided by the Gambridge Board of Examiners ; and here it is worthy of remark that many of the most successful girls have gone through the ordeal from the ordinary school routine without being either specially coached or mischievously examined. While there is a fixed standard there is a different value given annually to those subjects which are termed optional, so that a teacher desirous of examining his pupil, may from ignorance of the scale, dinaimßn her chance of BUCC6B3. Nor should we overlook the special advantage which arises not only from a fixed Btandard, tut one which is common to both boys and girls. It was very important that in selecting the educational curriculum especial regard should be had to the inferior capacity of women for earnest and long continued study. Many an Oxford and Cambridge student, though braced to his work by engaging to out of door athletic games, has found.

his mental powers overstrained by an undue devotion to his reading ; and even the highest honours are too dearly bought at such a sacrifice. It is therefore very important that in colleges where girls are resident some healthy bracing exercise should be insisted on.

While, however, I strongly advocate the system of periodical examinations, I would. &ot be understood to overlook the disadvantages which may arise if they be injudiciously conducted. While encouraging a friendly rivalry, we should avoid anything like a public display, which would lead to unhealthy excitement and the destruction of thoae feminine qualities which add a charm to beauty and a grace to intelligence. The examination being conducted by trained scholars such as the University Boards afford, and through the medium of written papers, seems well adapted to secure a thorough examination. It may, however, be a question whether the expense attending this mode of examination is not a serious objection, and whether the attention which is given to one or two picked scholars, their success being a kind of advertisement, will not act injuriously on the general efficiency of the school ; and also whether, as has been recommended, whole classes, and not selected scholars, should be examined, which certainly appears a much better system, if the expenses of a moveable Board of Examiners can be met, or by a Board sending its examination papers, varying from year to year, to be answered in writing in the presence of a local Sub-Com-mittee of Ladies. There is one point in connection with Ladies' Colleges which it is well to bear in mind, viz., that a citizen of London is able to educate his sonß in such schools as the City of London School, the Tower Hill Grammar School, the Mercers' School, and the like, at an annual cost varying from nothing up to L 9, without any extras, while in the existing Ladies' Colleges he must pay for his daughters L 22 annually, exclusive of extras.

It is much to be regretted, in considering the subject of female education, that the influence of parents, in the opinions they express on the subject, has not hitherto been of that sort to foster the desire that their daughters may have for a culture more in consonance with their highest aspirations, and with the calls that may be made on them in fighting the battle of life. This is partly to be accounted for by the fact that the mothers themselves have probably gone through life successfully with no other attainments than those which were to be acquired from the wretched teaching which has obtained till very recently in all establishments intended for the education of girls. The fathers of families are still more to blame than the mothers, for they have, in their intercourse with the world, and from their own experience, better means of arriving at a just estimate of the value of a well-trained intellect and of a vigorous understanding. A lady teacher, in speaking of thia apathy on the part of parents to their daughters' desire for study, says, "if a girl begins to get interested in the school work, and is seen in the evening busy over her work, her mother comes to me and says, ' Now, Miss 8. , you must not make Augusta blue.' If I report that another does not improve herself in arithmetic, the mother says, ' Well, you know, I am anxious about her music, of course ; but it really does not matter about her arithmetic, doeß it 1 her husband will be able to do all her accounts for her, you know.'" This, of course, tends to fill a girl's mind with the idea that she need care for nothing else in life but those showy qualities which, according to the mother's dictum, are the surest ends towards the natural ambition of a woman's loving nature, viz., a husband. Thia is an ambition which, based on such principles, often o'erleaps itself, and falls on the other side ; for a girl of this description often finds herself, after years of an unsuccessful display of those arts and graces which she has been taught to think the surest way to the purposed end, deserted and neglected, while some girte of less pretensions, but possessed of those sterling qualities and that culture which all true men reverence and love, has attained the happy position which the other sighed for in vain.

One of the incidental, if not direct advantages attending the system of giving a higher class of education for women is that connected with the effective training of governesses and conductors of female schools. With respect to boys, whether educated at school or under the paternal roof, the utmost solicitude is often evinced in seeking a tutor not only of good moral character, but one who bears a certificate of competency, by holding a degree from some University ; but no such precaution is practicable with respect to girls so far as efficiency is concerned ; nor was it possible until the Ladies' Colleges or the University Boards afforded the necessary means. The mere pittance which is too often deemed a sufficient recompense for;

the services of a lady teacher, is a sufficient deterrent without the absence of that respect, which is more especially due to one to whom you have entrusted the morals and intellectual tuition of your child. Influenced by the low esteem which you evince for the governess, the servants of the establishment will often Bhew still lessj and the children, apt learners in such a school, are not slow to follow in the same direction. Were trained skill to meet with a fair reward, and were due respect ungrudgingly accorded, we should hear less of the incompetency ■of teachers, and of the slow progress of the . scholar. In every reßpect there would be a marked improvement, and instead of an unskilled governess, there would be a lady equal to teach, and adapted (o secure the respect and, may be, the affection of all around her. 1 would not be understood to say that there are not many such at present, but that the number would be much increased. Inthe Quarterly Review, of a late date, it is stated that at this moment there is a family of tie highest rank in the nobility, where LIOO a year is considered a sufficient salary for a governess, who is equal to the very best of her class, who has several daughters under her care, and who is spoken of by the family as a perfect treasure. When distinguished merit is so stingily rewarded, no wonder that ladies, in all that constitute the name, are unwilling to undertake Ihe d'x'cy. It is fervently to be hoped that when Queen and Bedford Colleges send forth their certificated teachers, the affluent, requiring their services, will not ■demur to granting them a fair remuneration.

Had time permitted, I would willingly nave asked your attention for a few moments to the consideration of the question of elementary education as a stepping stone to that higher education of which I have spoken. Unless the foundation be properly laid, the superstructure will not be commensurate with either the desire or the design. A child's first school-room is his home, and his mother is his first instructor. A child dwarfed in infancy scarcely ever attains in physical development to the proportions of a full grown man, neither will the child, whose voice is hushed, when, with an inborn curiosity, it seeks to know the origin, use, and nature of things, attain to those mental proportions which he might have attained to had his nascent energies been duly nourished. An eager anxiety to learn is the characteristic of infancy. The child desires to examine every object around him, and not unfrequently asks questions which many a mother, and many a father too, knows not how to reply to. It is better under such circumstances to acknowledge ignorance thai? to damp the spirit of enquiry. To my mind it appears that a book in such a stage, and not seldom in

a more advanced stage, is not the best medium of conveying knowledge ; it has been called learning through an opaque medium, which is interposed between the child and nature, an unanswering master, the greatest obstruction to advancement. Many a lesson taught on a mother's knee, especially that on the most important of all studies, has influenced the child in her progress through life. But supposing a child has been blessed with a mother who, in her early, and I may call insensible, tuition, has declined to use the over- diluted educational pap which is too often administered to children, and has, by judicious treatment in the nursery, at the family table, and in the field, infused an ardent desire in the child's mind to know more ; and supposing that the mother's numerous associations will not admit of increased attention being devoted to this special duty, and that the child is transferred to another nursery away from home counsel and example, and meets for the first time the cold world face to face, he then makes his first acquaintance with the standard books of knowledge, and pries into them with eager curiosity, and, unless a prodigy of knowledge, with utter amazement. If engaged as he advances in lessons in physiology, he will be invited in the language of the silent teacher to reply to this question : " How many varieties of absorption are there ?" and when he has imbibed sufficiently freely at this fountain of knowledge, he will, if he were tapped, reply: "Interstitial, cutaneous, excrementitial, venous, lacteal." This nourishment would be dry and unassimilative, and he might chew the cud of bitter reflection for many a long day before he could, unassisted, gain any precise knowledge of what is meant. Surely, there are some unscientific, familiar words which, even though a little roundabout, would convey the necessary meaning. Such training as this is of a peculiar narcotic tendency, and gives the learner an aptitude for learning that most difficult of alt arts, the art of sleeping upright on a hard form. Doubtless, as a technical memory for an advanced boy, budding into manhood, the reply may be good, and doubtless it is in

I strict accordance -frith science, but what I object to is that it is not giving milk to babes. Those who have been much accustomed to visit the elementary schools of the old country must have observed what might be called the peculiar twang in which the daily reading is performed — a musical chime by no means, nor at any time inviting, and never less than when emitted successively in every varied intonation by the whole class, but all flavoured with the same educational brogue. I have read that in some Scotch schools the Bible is almost the only reading book; the junior and senior classes being called the Testament class and the Bible class, and the lessons are read in something like a chaunt. A boy from such a school, in one of those leisure moments which occur when we circle round the family hearth and bask in the glow of the evening fire, was asked to read a passage from a newspaper, giving perhaps some local gossip of a purely worldly character, and like all good children, he at once proceeded to obey, and struck off in the old familiar monotonous chaunt style, when his mother roused his attention by a good box on the ear, summarily administered, on the extended jurisdiction principle, accompanied by these words : " How dare you, ye scoundrel, read the newspaper with the Bible twang." This is curiously illustrative of the principle of association, and might afford some useful practical lessons. The tuition in this case was certainly not narcotic, though it may have been well questioned whether stimulants too freely administered are not sometimes injurious to the physical as well as mental constitution of a boy. But it is all-important that whatever a boy is taught should be taught thoroughly, and given in such a way that the process of digestion would be rapid and easy. This application of narcotine appears to have been bo freely administered in certain of the elementary schools attended by one of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools, that he declared that he could tell pretty accurately by the pupils' faces how long they had been at school ; the longer the psriod the more stupid, vacant, and expressionless the face. What would our old physiognomists say if they could learn the educational uses to which their uoble science has been applied. In such schools as those referred to the annual report should be confined to the facial angles of che boy, the measure of his gradually retreating forehead, the increasing lacklustre of his eye, and the amount of stolidity exhibited, the whole bßing expressed in decimal parts. Supposing the child, having marvellously survived this infant period, and to be fit to be transplanted into a Latin class, surely his physiological investigations would rush frantically to his memory when he was introduced to the use, in the language of D'Arcy Thompson, one of the most earnest and able advocates of education, of an elementary manual, actually issued only a year ago, and prepared by an assembly of some ten of the most learned head masters in England, with the express view of remedying such deficiencies in elementary education as had been brought to light by a recent Government commission of enquiry. The dazed boy will be duly informed on looking into his new Latin grammar of nouns that are parisyllabic, unparisyllabic, collective, heterogeneous, heteroclite. and mobile ; of pronouns and particles correlative, which branch into interrogatives, demonstratives, relatives, indefinites, and universals ; and these last mentioned branch off again into universals relative and indefinite, universals distributive and inclusive, and universals exclusive ; of cases that are objective genitive, or subjective genitive ; of verbs with gutterus, dentus, iatial, liquid, and anomalous stem 3— strange forest trees ; of verbs with periphrastic conjugations ; of verbs finite, infinite, substantive, transitive, intransitive, active, passive, deponents, quasi-passive, Bemi-de-ponents, defective, inceptive, fragmentative, desiderative, anomalous ; of verbs with moods indicative, imperative, poteutial, conjunctive, conditional, concessive, opiative, dubitative, hortative, historised, infinite, and prolate infinitive ; of relations, never heard of in a respectable English family, epithatic, attributively enthetic, adverbally enthetic, complimental, annexive, circumstantative, predicative, prolative, receptive, prepenative. Now if thia does not drive a boy mad, he will never be fit for a lunatic asylum ; and only fancy a beautiful blooming girl, kissing papa, and on wishing him goodnight, whispering in his ear a whole volley of such wonderful euphonism and expletives. If such an array of indigestible food must be swallowed, it 1b at least desirable, to use the words of an essayist, that " youths shall no longer be sent into active life from costly seminaries, accomplished in Greek metre, but ignorant of the structure of their own bodieu, the constitution of their own minds, filled with mythological lore, but unaware of

their social duties; primed with verbal scraps of inconsistent moral precepts, but less ashamed of debt than of honest industry." Let us contemplate for a moment the picture which is presented by two utterly diverse systems of ma'ernal training. On the one hand we have the picture, as drawn by the reviewer, of a young girl compelled to direct all her energies to the attainment of superficial accomplishments, and to look upon men as fit objects to be beguiled into the matrimonial net by the practice of every fascinating art, and the ignoring of some of the principles and finer instincts of her nature. She is not to become in any sense learned, for she is taught to believe that men dread clever women, and that the more she can fit herself to become an amusing companion for man, the greater will be her value in the matrimonial market. If such a woman become the mother of a family, she will probably instil into her daughters' minds the same principles of action, which will entail much suffering and disappointment on any one of them who fails to attract man's love ; and she will be left to travel on her path through life without any of those intellectual sources of comfort which make a solitary lot endurable : and she will modfc likely be devoid of many of the attributes of a sympathetic nature, which enable the possessor to lighten her own sorrows by seeking to mitigate the sorrows and hardships of others.

On the other hand we have the picture of a young girl whose mother, convinced of the fact that the world is something else than a spot for the gratification of the less noble mental and moral emotions, that it is the preparatory school for another state of being, and that the highest ambition of humanity should be the desire to build up, out of the materials which God has provided, a spiritual edifice fitted to receive some of the inexhaustible treasures of divine life, and elevate her conceptions of the destiny of the human soul. Neither will she bid her aeglect the cutivation of those charms of the female nature, which united to the insight she has into character, and that subtle power of seizing and overcoming the difficulties of a case, and which a refined mother invariably increases, never fails to fascinate men, who desire to have in their wives companions with whom they can feel that they are in sympathy, by a community of tastes, interests, and intellectual pursuits. Such a girl is a treasure indeed. When a mother, her children will arise and call her blessed, and amid her trials and disappointments of life, which are the lot, with rare exceptions, of all men, they will recall with a feeling of the deepest gratitude the memory of those days when they were first brought to see the hand of their Heavenly Father in the caaopy gemmed with ten thousand stars, or were allured to discover the hand of a heneficient Creator in the formation of flowers which breath forth fragrance as the grateful incense, and add their tribute of beauty to the splendour of earth. Well may the poet say of sueh — Oh ! she was good as she was fair, None, none on earth were )ike her, As pure in thought as angels are — To know her was to love her. "When little, and her eyes, her voice, Her every gesture, said, "rejoice," Her coming was a gladness ; And as she grew, her modest grace, Her downcast look, 'twas heaven to trace, When shading with her hands, her face She half inclined to sadness. Her voice, what e'er she said, enchanted, Like music to the heart it went,

And her dark eyes, how eloquent, Ask what they would, 'twas granted. If I were asked to point to a living example illustrative of the principle which I have attempted to delineate, I should be under no difficulty in replying, for there is a name which rises spontaneously in every breast, and points with unerring certainty to o»e who, at the call of duty, unhesitatingly left her home to witness strange scenes in a strange land, and who dared and did what might have daunted the bravest to attempt to do. The image of a gentle creature who, 4 c night after night, with lamp in hand, passed as a relieving angel along miles of beds in the hospital of Scutari," bearing blessings as she went in many a tender word and in many a tender act, is indelibly stamped on the minds and affections of tens of thousands of her fellowcountrymen, and of tens of thousands of others who pride themselves in a common humanity.

Her chosen mission from early womanhood was the relief of sickness and sorrow, and while the world was busied in admiring the wonders of the Great Exhibition she was a humble learner on the banks of the Rhine, seeking that practical knowledge, by earnest and patient painstaking, which alone can effectively carry out great designs. She brought to bear upon her work — the practical daily work of life — a mind cultivated by study and a large intercourse with society, and enriched by

travel and reflection. Sickness could not arrest her labour of love. Shaking off a fever on the cliffs above Balaclava she declined to leave her post ; and sick, among the wounded soldiers of Inkerrnann, she would know no rest while there was a pain to relieve or a sorrow to assuage. On the close of her mission she returned with shattered health to her native land, and never conqueror returned so humble and self-denying. Not as the conqueror comes, i She the true- hearted came, | Not with the roll of the stirring drum, I Or the trumpet that Bounds of fame. She had conquered sorrow, pain, and sometimes death, and saved more lives than most military heroes have slain ; and yet she retired, her duty done, to the seclusion of everyday life, with her | " deeply sensitive nature, and intense and eloquent humanity," alive to every call of duty. Alike triumphant in peace as in war, her comprehensive and vast practical mind devised schemes of hospital administration, which stand unchallenged for effectiveness in the annals of suffering. It will be a sufficient record on her tomb to tell that she was chiefly instrumental in reducing the death-rate ,in the British army by more than onehalf. And what was the secret of her success? that which may be the success of many, if a rightly conceived and judiciously administered system of female education be carried out. It is said that she lived in an atmo&phere of sincerity and freedom, of reality and fact ; her earliest years were watched by those who were known for force and sincerity of character, from which the plastic mind of infancy receb ed its impress, and her studies were guided by a governess whose lofty rectitude and immaculate truthfulness commanded the reverence of all around her. Among the names which will survive in all their freshness the lapse of ages, and receive, nnchallenged, the tribute of the undying appreciation of the wise and the good of every nation, the name of Florence Nightingale will stand forth prominent, as of one who, receiving great gifts from God, evinced her gratitude by devoting her life to His service in the noble duty of administering to the relief of her fellow- creatures. APPENDIX. The educational system in Ofago is* entirely undenomination.il. There are 80 schools, and 122 teacher 3, of whom 19 are schoolmasters, 7 teachers of sewing, 2 male pupil teachers, <t,'id 14 female pupil teachers. There -ire also 5863 scholars ; the number of boys is 3261, and of tarls 2602. Of these 80 schools, 4 are grammar schools. There is also a High School, in which the number of scholars iB at present 70, and a University just about to spring into existence, and also a High School for girls, will which be operative early in the coming year. In 1869 the revenue was L 14,314, the whole of which was provided by the Government, with the exception of about LBOO. The expenditure amounted to the same sum, with the addition of L 4315 expended by the Government on school buildings. Besides the revenue mentioned, the school districts raised L 5310, and L 1324 was raised from contributions and other sources. There are public libraries attached to many of the schools. The population of Otasfo, before the union with Southland which has just taken place, was about 60,000. The High School for girls will be conducted under the personal supervision of a Lady Principal, assisted by one or two governesses. The fee for either boys' or girls' education in the High Schools, which are quite distinct, is L 8 annually. The design of the two schorls is to impart instruction in the highor ranches of education, and no pupil is admitted under 9 years of age. The Rector of the boys', and the Lady Principal of the girta' school, respectively, are bound to receive pupils as boarders, when desired, at the rate of L 52 10s per year, exclusive of washing. Following the practice adopted in institutions of a similar kind, it is earnestly to be desired that in schools or colleges for the higher education of women, some of those who have passed the time when instruction is usually received will not deem it undesirable to avail themselves of the advantages presented by a regular and efficient staff of professora ; but will, by their example, exhibited in their attendance, stimulate the rising generation of girls to pursue «rith diligence the study of the sciences, arts, and languages. The famous Charlotte Bronte" did not think it beneath her to be a pupil at 26. Switzerland furnishes a noble example on this point, it beina: a part of the daily routine of the married life of women in the middle and higher classes to continue study of some kind with masters and mistresses. May we hope that Otago will not be behind Switzerland in this respeot.