GIRLS’ SCHOOLS, PAST AND PRESENT.

Otago Witness, Issue 3755, 2 March 1926, Page 71

GIRLS’ SCHOOLS, PAST AND PRESENT.

Few modern social developments afford greater cause for satisfaction than the vast improvement in the education of girls and in their whole school life. It is not only that the intellectual instruction is far more liberal than that commonly afforded by even the /better type of girls’ schools, till past the middle of last century, and that more attention is given to the physical side of education, but that methods of management and discipline have altered in the direction of freedom. There is co-operation between teachers and pupils, and a spirit of loyalty and comradeship among the girls. The moral atmosphere of a modern, girls’ school is far more bracing than thai of the school of a hundred or eighty years ago or perhaps a nearer time. There is now a very large out put of stories of girls’ school life, the majority of which deal with the high- school stage. To older people who do not know much of present day girls’ schools at first hand, it is illuminating to read some of the better of these, and contrast the picture of girls’ school-life they give, with that given in school stories of early Victorian days or ones of older date. Or still better, to contrast what they sec and hear of contempory schools and what they read them in books, with personal reminisences of old-tfashioned schools. The general! impression given by the old schools is one of formalism and constraint, and of narow and one-sided educational methods mainly directed to the acquisition of ornamental accomplishments. In hor memoirs Mrs Somerville tells how when she was sent to a young ladies’ boarding school the first thing done was to put her into a rigid corselet of metal and whalebone with some device for holding the chin up. Sho was perfectly straight and strong, but the idea then was that a good figure and carriage could only be secured by mechanical devices to make girls sit or stand rigidly upright. This was in Scotland in pre-Victorian days, but such methods were general and persisted quite up to the middle of last century. The back-board and the stocks were amongst the most prominent items in school equipment. Exercise was limited to dull walks, the pupils marching stiffly two and two, with a few calisthenic exercises anti dancing, and perhaps a few lady-like games such as battledore and shuttlecock. Nowadays active games have taken the place of dull routine walks, and the games’ mistress is as important as any other member of the staff of a well equipped up-to-date school. In old days the diet at girls’ boarding schools was often poor, being monotonous, even if not stinted in quantity. In some schools this would be owing to meanness. Oftener it was dua to insufficient knowledge of the dietary needs of growing girls, and to the old view that a hearty appetite and physical robtisness were incompatible with feminine refinement. One sometimes hears complaints of boarding school diet even to-day, but probably the majority of these mean nothing more than that the girls are dissatisfied because they cannot have their fancies suited as in their own home 3. As a result of more fresh air and active exercise and more liberal diet, the overage physical development and standard of health among school girls have greatly improved. One seldom hears now of anaemia, which used to be such a common trouble among girls and voung women before girls benefited from modern perception of the virtues of fresh air, physical culture, and inspiring games. Girls have gained morally as well as physically by the stress laid on physical fitness and by the prominence given to games. They acquire hardihood, and in such strenuous games as hookey learn to take hard knocks without complaint Tliev acquire the team spirit and learn to “play the game” on the play ground and elsewhere. Then methods of school government favour the developmo'"of character. Instead of the rigid supervision and espionage of old schools, an appeal is made to the girls’ sense of honour and through the system of school prefects the upper girls are associated in th© government of the school. There can be no doubt that these improvements in educational ideal 9 and methods have tended and are tending to lessen typical feminine faults and weaknesses. The feminine standard of honour lias been raised. There is certainly much less spitefulness and meanness in the dealings of women with one another than there used to be—if one may credit common report and testimony of the fiction of past generations. Women have gained a new sense of loyalty to one another. One meets with evidence of this on all sides. Perhaps the swing of the pendulum has gone too far in the wav of assimilating girls’ education to that of boys and youths. Very naturally and rightly the aim of those who worked for tho improvement o‘f womens* education was to open to them all the means of intellectual development arid enlightenment within reach of men. .And later feminists have desired, hef> rall things, to fit women for economic independence bv opening to them instruction that will fit for professional and business careers. There is a constant contention being waged between this latter cln*s of advocates, for equality in ed” cation and the class which takes its stand on the fundamental difference of the sexes, and holds that, women are mentnllv different from men and that therefore their education should be different. “Men and women arp eomnlimentarv to one another,” tliev say, "and it is follv to educate them os if tliev were identical.”

But whatever amount of truth there may be in these views, there certainly will be no surrender of the right gained for women to receive the fullest education they desire. There may be more consideration of the needs of the very large

class of girls who are not ambitious of scholastic and scientific requirements; less prominence given to examination results and more attention given to diversities of mental capacities and ta&tes. There is a differentiation in higher grade schools into scholastic and business courses, and in girls’ schools there might well be a domestic course which would combine a good general education with the study of household arts and management, domestic hygeine, the financial side of housekeeping, etc. But already some of the best private schools for girls specialise in domestic instruction. While, generally speaking, the modern girls’ school is an immense advancement on that of two or three generations ago, one should not go to the extreme of supposing that in all schools of the past the instruction was meagre and finicking, and the moral atmosphere confined and enervating. Since people generally, ever, the well-to-do and upper class, had low standards of feminine education, the majority of sclioolmistresses would devise theifl curriculum and let their standards of attainment accordingly. But there were school mistresses of strong character, enlightened minds, and high acquirements, and under them an education in most respects as good as that afforded by modern schools was attainable. Mathematics, beyond ordinary arithmetic, would figure slightly or not at all in the curriculum, and Latin was little taught. Modern languages, French, Italian, and German would be taught very thoroughly by either resident foreign governesses or visiting masters. * There would be no specialising in science, but probably some insight into elementary botany, physics, and chemistry would be given. History and geography were commonly carefully taught all girls’ schools of any standing, though the teaching was too much mere memory work in ordinry schools. “The use of the globe” was a branch of knowledge that used to figure prominently in the curriculum of old fashioned l schools. I have never seen an explanation of what “the use of the globe” was, but I infer that it meant acquaintance with latitude and longitude, the seasons variations in standard time, and the movements of the heavenly bodies—knowledge supposed to be acquired nowadays as a port of the study of physical geography, but in which educated people often show themselves conspicuously lacking. “The three R’s” were taught thoroughly in all tolerable schools, though the higher rules of arithmetic might not be insisted on, and the acquisition of a clear and elegant hand-writ mg was held an essential of feminine education. When one sees the scrawls of letters, often with misspellings and mistakes in grammar as well as vuigarisin3 of diction, that are written by the average ex-high school girl of to-day, one cannot help feeling, that after all, some points can be scored to the credit of the old-time school. The girl of sixty years ago who had been educated at a superior school or by a good governess in her own home, commonly had far wider and sounder knowledge both of English literature and of general European literature 'and history than is possessed even by the young woman graduate of to-dav unless she has specialised in these subjects. She would have been taught a good deal of Greek and Roman history, and through study and reading would be familiar with the names and the leading facts in the lives of the great men of all countries. Not having to devote much time to mathematics and technical science, she had leisure for human subjects, and what is of most importance she did not cram up special books and periods of literature or history for examination, neglecting what was outside set work, but read and tudied in a more discursive and yet systematic manner. Education should show itself in our conduct, our tastes, and amusements. The poor diction, slangy speech, and faulty manners so common among girls who have had good educational advantages are a poor testimonial to the educational influences brought to bear cn them. So is their want of interest in other literature than ordinary fiction. Another criticism that suggests itself is that with all the modern attention to physical culture, the girl of to-day commonly walks and holds herself so badly, slouching along, with shoulders high and chin poked forward and sitting all hunched up. No educational system of course can be perfect, or can effect for all w’hat it sets out to do. But perhaps in a few points the present system of girls’ education might borrow from the old, much as it has improved on this in most directions.