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(T 
 
 PAPER 
 
 ON 
 
 THE STANDARD OF 
 
 NATIONAL EDUCATION 
 
 MRS. W. GREY, . 
 
 READ AT THE MEETING OF 
 
 THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION, BRISTOL, 
 
 August, 1875. 
 
 REPRINTED FROM THE JOURNAL OF THE 
 WOMEN'S EDUCATION UNION. 
 
205449 
 '15 
 

 A PAPER 
 
 ON THE 
 
 STANDARD OF NATIONAL EDUCATION. 
 
 Read at the Meethig of the British Association, Bristol, 
 
 In the paper I had the honour to read 
 before this Association last year I 
 pointed out the necessity of studying 
 education as a science. This year I 
 wish to draw your attention to some 
 practical considerations arising from the 
 scientific view of education, and of these 
 the most important seems to me that 
 which forms the title of my paper, i.e., 
 the Standard of National Education, or, 
 in other words, the ultimate aim we pro- 
 pose to ourselves in the education of 
 the nation, and towards which all its 
 separate parts should lead up as means 
 to an end. In my former paper I de- 
 fined education to be ' the direction 
 given to the development of the whole 
 human being, by the external influences 
 brought to bear upon him, aiding, ar- 
 resting, or distorting his growth ; ' and the 
 same definition may be applied to 
 national as to individual education. 
 According to this definition, the term 
 'National Education' will include all 
 instruction from the elementary school 
 to the university, all the direct moral 
 and intellectual influences brought to 
 bear on childhood and youth, in home 
 and school life, and the indirect, but 
 often more powerful influence of the 
 associations and habits which are the 
 unconscious and involuntary result of 
 the social atmosphere which surrounds 
 us, — the physical, moral, and intellectual 
 conditions of the time and country in 
 which we live, the station we belong to, 
 the habits, beliefs, prejudices prevalent 
 in our immediate section of society. No 
 one will dispute that the two former 
 elements in national education, the in- 
 struction and direct influence of home 
 and school, are within our control, and 
 can be deliberately guided towards a 
 chosen and defined result, but the 
 latter, the indirect influence of our sur- 
 
 roundings, may seem to result from general 
 conditions as independent of our will as 
 the changes of the atmosphere. It is, 
 however, just on this element, variable 
 and uncontrollable as it seems, that a 
 standard of national education, if we 
 had one, would exercise a most powerful 
 influence. For in every nation, every 
 class of society, every profession having 
 any vigorous life, we find an ideal of 
 what the nation, the class, the profession 
 should be, which affects every individual 
 composing them, and which, from being 
 constant and universal, while all other 
 influences are more or less variable and 
 individual, is the most powerful agent in 
 moulding character and influencing con- 
 duct. The most unimaginative of hu- 
 man beings is swayed by this ideal 
 which is embodied to him in the public 
 opinion of his class, his set, or his pro- 
 fession. It is the unwritten law of life ; 
 governing it far more effectually than 
 any written code and enforced by social 
 pains and penalties far more certain and 
 more dreaded than any legal judgment. 
 The actual practice will inevitably fall 
 short of the ideal, but there is a general 
 tendency towards it which keeps the 
 deviations within certain limits, below 
 which none can fall without coming 
 under the social ban. 
 
 Some such ideal does, in fact, exist 
 in the different classes of society with 
 regard to education as to all other 
 requirements of social life. The ques- 
 tion I wish to bring before you is what in 
 each case decides the standard ; whether 
 it is an adequate one, judged from a 
 general, not a class, point of view, and 
 whether the principles of education, 
 derived from the study of it as a 
 science, would not supply us with a 
 standard universally applicable, which 
 might become the ideal of national 
 
( 
 
 ) 
 
 education and raise both its theory and 
 practice out of the realm of unreasoning 
 custom and fashion to that of national 
 and well-grounded method. 
 
 We have not far to seek for the deter- 
 mining causes of the existing standard 
 of education in the different classes of 
 society. From the highest to the lowest 
 its ground is a certain fitness to the 
 position in life of the children to be edu- 
 cated. The estimate of what this fitness 
 consists in, varies considerably from 
 generation to generation. The feudal 
 baron, as we all know, took pride in his 
 ignorance of all clerkly arts, and would 
 as soon have thought of sending his sons 
 to any school but that of arms and 
 knightly exercises, as of making them 
 hucksters or labourers. His representa- 
 tives of to-day go to school and college 
 as a matter of course ; and the supposed 
 acquisition, at least, of scholarship and 
 culture, is an essential part of the fitness 
 for their station, which is the standard 
 of education of their caste. The educa- 
 tion of women and of the poorer classes 
 has in the same way been entirely 
 guided by this standard of fitness, which 
 has necessarily varied with the state of 
 society. The daughters of the feudal 
 baron before mentioned were trained in 
 all sorts of housewifely arts, including 
 some simple medicine and surgery, 
 which their modern representatives 
 would despise as too homely, or maybe 
 unfeminine ; while from the latter is re- 
 quired an amount of literary and artistic 
 accomplishment, — or its seeming, at least, 
 as in the case of their brothers, — which 
 would have been deemed preposterous 
 by their more remote ancestresses, and 
 contemptibly flimsy by the dames of 
 Queen Elizabeth's time, who learnt 
 Greek and Latin, and read Aristotle and 
 Cicero, before it had been discovered 
 that solid knowledge was more danger- 
 ous to feminine worth and grace than a 
 smattering of desultory information and 
 accomplishments never ' really accom- 
 plished. 
 
 The education of the labouring classes 
 is entirely a modern growth, and in 
 England it has had to fight at every step 
 against the notion of its unfitness for 
 their station in life. In every discussion 
 on the subject, in and out of parliament, 
 as to its quantity and its quality, this is 
 the standard always referred to ; and the 
 question turns not upon the value of the 
 education in improving our human 
 
 material, but upon [how much or how 
 little can be given in the humble position 
 of the recipients without danger of set- 
 ting them above it. In spite of the pass- 
 ing of the Elementary Education Act, 
 there is still a large minority who hold 
 any instruction beyond the three R's a 
 dangerous gift to the poor, and its 
 possi))le inconvenience to their betters 
 a sufficient reason for withholding it. Of 
 course it is understood that education in 
 every class shall include moral and religi- 
 ous training, and that the young of both 
 sexes shall be prepared to obey the code 
 of morals, and accept the religious creed 
 of their family and section of society. 
 But in all classes alike, we shall find 't 
 governed by temporary and adventitious 
 circumstances, having no reference tc 
 any general, and still lees to any scien- 
 tific principle. I think I am fully borm 
 out by the facts when I assert that, fc 
 the immense majority of the nation, < 
 the highest as much as the lowest, th " 
 idea of education, as the systematic dt 
 velopment of the whole nature an 
 powers of the human being as sucj^ 
 irrespective of class or sex, as far a 
 nature and circumstances permit an 
 the equally systematic preparation of tl 
 young to use the powers so developed i 
 the performance of their duties as huma- 
 beings, as members of a family and tj 
 society, is absolutely non-existent, an 
 when put before them, will rather b. 
 contemned as theoretical and doctrinaire 
 or, at best, be regarded as a counsel e 
 perfection too high for ordinary practice 
 than accepted as the true standard h\ 
 which all educational efforts should bi 
 measured, and which public opinicr 
 should be educated to recognise and en- 
 force, as the standard of national educa 
 tion. Confirmation of this fact, if any b^ 
 needed, may be found in the contemptu- 
 ous treatment by the House of Commons 
 only the other day of the proposals of the 
 Government to endow a Chair of Peda- 
 gogy, — why could they not call it Educa- 
 cational Science ? — in the University of 
 Edinburgh, which caused it to be with- 
 drawn without a division. 
 
 No wonder that when the highest 
 council of the nation rejects with deri- 
 sion the idea that education is either a 
 science or an art in need of professional 
 exposition, and does not even conde- 
 scend to look abroad and notice the 
 fact that the chair, considered so un- 
 necessary in Edinburgh, exists in every 
 
( 
 
 ) 
 
 German and Swiss University ; that the 
 ordinary public should know no better, 
 and still trust the training of their chil- 
 dren to the ignorant treatment they 
 would not tolerate for a moment in the 
 management of their crops or their 
 cattle. 
 
 I will proceed now to point out what 
 from the scientific point of view, which 
 takes human nature for its basis, should 
 be the standard of education in its 
 three great divisions, — physical, intel- 
 lectual, and moral. In each of these 
 divisions we find a certain hierarchy of 
 powers, and a proportion between them, 
 the observation of which is essential to 
 armony of development. If this be lost 
 ight of, the result is more or less of dis- 
 )rtion. Let us begin with physical 
 •aining. If any one set of muscles is 
 xclusively developed without due atten- 
 on to the exercise of all, and especially 
 ) the healthy action of the vital organs, 
 le lungs and heart, not only is the 
 Hrst element of beauty, proportion, sacri- 
 ■■ced, but strength, vital power, is 
 icrificed with it. We may have, as is 
 . ;en every day, with our imperfect and 
 I nscientific methods of physical training, 
 ;'ie arm of a blacksmith and the leg of 
 a n opera-dancer, with a flabby heart and 
 ;; narrow chest. The Greeks possessed 
 I'lis standard of physical perfection, 
 c ^pressed it in their art, and worked up 
 t I it in the training of their youth. We 
 iiave their statues, to preserve it amongst 
 curselves, and resources of medical and 
 anatomical knowledge and appliances 
 Tir beyond any they possessed. Why 
 -hould we not make it our ideal also, and 
 V ork up to it ? Why should we not aim 
 a.u beauty of form and grace of action 
 as they did.'' Assuredly we do not 
 undervalue them now ; and in our public 
 schools and universities the games and 
 the boating, which are amongst the best 
 means of physical training, hold a higher 
 place in the estimation of the pupils 
 themselves and of the general public 
 than the studies for which schools and 
 universities exist. Would it be much 
 more expensive and more trouble- 
 some to make our drill, our gymnastics, 
 our athletic sports, our calisthenics — to 
 use the absurd word adopted for bodily 
 exercises in girls' schools — parts of a really 
 scientific physical training, steadily di- 
 rected to obtaining not only strength which 
 means health, but the grace which makes 
 health and strength beautiful, and re- 
 
 ducing to a minimum weakness, dispro- 
 portion, and awkwardness .'' I do not 
 suppose that we should create a popula- 
 tion of ApoUos and Dianas, but we 
 should greatly increase the number of 
 healthy, active, weU-grown, and grace- 
 ful men and women ; and we may take 
 encouragement as to what can be done 
 in this way, even in a short time, 
 from the transformation in daily opera- 
 tion amongst us, of the loutish, round- 
 shouldered, clumsy recruit, into the 
 lithe, springy, erect Life-guardsman, the 
 observed of all observant nursery-maids. 
 It is to be borne in mind also that such 
 a national standard of physical education 
 would indirectly act upon more than the 
 school training. It Vv'ould give import- 
 ance to the conditions of healthy devel- 
 opment before and after, as well as dur- 
 ing, the school life of the child, and 
 scientific unity to sanitary legislation, by 
 making every step a means towards the 
 same end, the physical improvement and 
 perfection of our human breed, so infi- 
 nitely less regarded hitherto than that 
 of our cattle. 
 
 Let us pass on now to intellectual 
 training. Here I expect to be triumph- 
 antly told that standards are not want- 
 ing, since examinations are the order 
 of the day, and success in passing them, 
 that is, in coming up to the standards 
 they prescribe, the inevitable portal of 
 almost every profession. Allow me to 
 point out, however, that these standards, 
 in every case from the elementary 
 schools upwards, test only the neces- 
 sarily fragmentary bits of knowledge 
 acquired by the pupils or candidates 
 submitted to them, and cannot in any 
 sense be taken as standards of intel- 
 lectual development. Such a standard 
 must be sought, as in the case of phy- 
 sical training in the constitution of 
 human nature, and must measure not 
 knowledge, but intellectual power. Here 
 also our ideal must include not only 
 development but harmony, that balance 
 of the intellectual forces in their due re- 
 lation to each other, which is the es- 
 sential condition of soundness of mind. 
 To develope exclusively one set of 
 powers, or allow one or other to get the 
 ascendancy when it ought to be subordi- 
 nate, is as destructive to mental as to 
 bodily health and perfection. We shall 
 discover their natural order by looking 
 to the supreme end of intellectual life, 
 which is right reasoning ; the discern- 
 
( 
 
 ) 
 
 mcnt of the true rcLitions to each other 
 and to ourselves of the objects and per- 
 sons making up the world in which we 
 live. I am aware that some excellent 
 people think reasoning a recondite pro- 
 cess only carried on by philosophers, and 
 that others consider it a dangerous and 
 presumptuous exercise, overlooking, in 
 their timid or indolent refusal to use 
 the light God has given them, that what 
 they term the pride of human reason, 
 is humility itself, compared to the ar- 
 rogance of human ignorance. But, 
 whether we like it or not, it is, in fact, 
 as impossible for our minds not to 
 reason, i.e., draw inferences, right or 
 wrong, from the facts presented to us, 
 as it is for our lungs not to breathe ; 
 only the defects in our breathing are 
 at once recognised as disease, requiring 
 cure, whereas the defects in our rea- 
 soning are seldom recognised by our- 
 selves, at least, until they produce the 
 unpleasant results of failure or disaster; 
 and not always even then, for only 
 minds of rare candour admit that their 
 misfortunes are the natural fruit of their 
 blunders, not of their ill-luck. As- 
 suming, then, the supremacy of reason 
 as our intellectual ideal, the standard 
 of intellectual education should be the 
 formation of sound judgment, which, 
 exercised on common things, is no other 
 than common sense, and in the region 
 of abstract thought is the discovery of 
 truth. I need scarcely point out that 
 this standard is thoroughly practical, 
 since the exercise of judgment is the 
 necessary antecedent of all deliberate 
 action, — action neither automatic from 
 habit, nor simply impulsive, but rational; 
 and it must be allowed that no end can 
 be more practical than to direct intel- 
 lectual education towards the production 
 of rational beings. How to attain this 
 end, how to make all our appliances 
 for intellectual training, from the three 
 R's of the elementary school to the sixth 
 form of the great public schools, tend 
 towards it ; how to choose the subjects 
 to be taught and the methods of teach- 
 ing them, having regard to the age, the 
 opportunities and the intellectual de- 
 velopment and characteristics of the 
 pupils, so as best to exercise the faculties 
 concerned in reasoning, observation, 
 comparison, analysis, combination, in- 
 ference, and thereby make the small 
 modicum of knowledge, which is all 
 that at most can be given in school, 
 
 serve the double purpose of placing an 
 instrument in the pupils' hands and 
 teaching them how to use it; finally, how 
 so to conduct school examinations from 
 the lowest to the highest, that they shall 
 test the strength and accuracy of rea- 
 soning power, not the mere quantity of 
 facts and processes retained by the 
 memory, — is a problem, or rather a series 
 of problems, which I humbly think can 
 be solved only by the study of educa- 
 tion as a science. I think I may appeal, 
 without fear of contradiction, to ex- 
 aminers of every degree, for professional 
 and academical as well as general edu- 
 cation, to bear out my assertions that 
 they are not solved yet, and that the de- 
 velopment of intelligence producing a 
 high average of reasoning power is not 
 the general result of our present systems 
 of education. 
 
 I have not mentioned the universities 
 or other means of higher education after 
 school-life is ended, because their office 
 is a different one. Knowledge, which in 
 schools must be treated as a means to 
 train intelligence, becomes in the uni- 
 versity an end in itself, and yet should 
 be made by university training, or what- 
 ever answers to it in the lives of men 
 and women who cannot enter a univer- 
 sity, the means to another end not less 
 worthy, — culture, that refinement of mind 
 and taste produced by familiarity with 
 the highest forms of thought, and the 
 most perfect modes of expressing it. 
 Although it may seem presumptuous to 
 tread on ground so ably pre-occupied by 
 Mr. Mattiiew Arnold, yet, in addressing 
 an Association specially devoted to the 
 investigation of physical science, and at 
 a time when the paramount interest of 
 those investigations, and the demand for 
 practical utility, are apt to make people 
 look upon culture as mere ornament, 
 very charming, like good manners, when 
 people have time for it, but Ijke them 
 quite useless for the business of life, it 
 may not be superfluous to show that 
 culture has a real educational value, and 
 imparts a finer edge, as it were, to our 
 mental tools, apart from mere polish. 
 Its grace is, indeed, beyond the reach of 
 the many, as much as the grace of fine 
 breeding, but some of its most precious 
 fruits, appreciation of beauty, an en- 
 larged mental horizon and purified taste, 
 rejecting whatever is meretricious and 
 exaggerated, may be won by all who 
 have any leisure at all, and care to spend 
 
( 5 ) 
 
 it in making acquaintance with our no- 
 ble English literature. And if such cul- 
 ture does not pay in cash, it pays in 
 enjoyment ; it makes the mind rich with 
 great thoughts and beautiful imagery, 
 though the body may dwell in a garret, — 
 riches which no moth can corrupt, or 
 thieves break through and steal. 
 
 The higher state of culture which 
 should be reached through the syste- 
 matic training of our Universities raises 
 the mind to a higher level, and not only 
 gives a finer taste by acquaintance with 
 the best models, but a larger knowledge 
 of human nature, of the play of human 
 thought and passions under different 
 circumstances, which excludes crudity 
 of judgment no less than crudity of taste, 
 and affords to the reasoning powers that 
 exercise in the balancing of human pro- 
 babilities,- the weighing of evidence 
 coloured by human passion, which is 
 the principal office of judgment in the 
 actual relations of life, and which cannot 
 be got out of the study of physical science 
 dealing with the invariable laws of mat- 
 ter, and admitting of proof by experi- 
 ment. I may mention that our greatest 
 statesmen have been men possessing 
 this form of culture, and the fact that it 
 is obtainable only by those who have 
 means and leisure is one of the sti'ongest 
 arguments for an aristocratic as against 
 a democratic governing class. 
 
 This culture was the paramount object 
 of the founders of our universities and 
 of the schools intended to prepare for 
 them, and their whole system was di- 
 rected to attain it through the study of 
 classical literature, the only literature 
 which then existed, and therefore the 
 only, as it still is the best means 
 of culture. Notwithstanding many mo- 
 dern innovations and additions, the 
 original object is still the predominant 
 one. Is it generally attained ? I will 
 not venture to answer that question, but 
 will leave it to Mr. Matthew Arnold and 
 the university authorities themselves to 
 decide whether high culture is the 
 general result of an education begun in 
 a public school and ended at Oxford or 
 Cambridge ; or whether, as I was assured 
 not long ago, by one who had good 
 means of judging, hundreds of young 
 men leave our Universities after taking 
 their degree, without the slightest tinc- 
 ture of any culture at all. Assuming 
 the notoriety of, at least, very common 
 failure, let me ask if these things 
 
 could be, if we had, first, a high na- 
 tional ideal of culture as the necessary 
 crowning of the educational edifice, 
 giving us a standard which must be ap- 
 proached by every man and woman 
 laying claim to high education ; and, 
 secondly, a science of education, by 
 which we might discover and rectify 
 those defects in our methods of teach- 
 ing which so often waste the twelve years 
 of boyhood and youth spent at school 
 and college in grinding the dry husks of 
 classical learning without ever getting 
 at the rich kernel within. 
 
 We come now to moral training ; and 
 here let me point out that the Order I 
 have followed is not an arbitrary but a 
 natural one, for the physical life is first 
 in order of time, then the life of intelli- 
 gence, and lastly, moral life, which, ac- 
 cording to the purely scientific analogy 
 of evolution, would justify us in classing 
 it as the highest. In the moral as in the 
 intellectual nature of man we find a 
 hierarchy of powers, and one having a 
 rightful supremacy over the rest. This is 
 the power we term conscience, — the voice 
 within, which pronounces some actions 
 right and others wrong, and determines 
 the obligation expressed by ' I ought' or 
 ' I ought not ' In the establishment of 
 this rightful supremacy, uncontested as 
 soon as it is fully comprehended, lies the 
 ideal of moral education. To teach ' I 
 will ' to wait upon ' I ought ; ' to 
 bring up the child to his moral man- 
 hood when he becomes a ' law unto him- 
 self,' and his appetites, desires, affec- 
 tions, are made subject to his righteous 
 will ; this is the paramount object of 
 moral training, the standard by which to 
 measure its success or failure. I will 
 not enter upon the troubled ocean of 
 . discussion concerning the origin of this 
 moral sense, or the reality of free-will. 
 It is enough for my purpose that in 
 practice and by the universal consent of 
 mankind, we do acknowledge the ex- 
 istence of conscience, and the respon- 
 sibility of every sane human being for 
 his obedience to its law of right and 
 wrong. 
 
 Here, at least, it will be justly ob- 
 served there can be no want of a 
 standard. We have that of Christianity 
 which permeates the moral atmosphere 
 of the country and forms the unconscious 
 basis of moral life, even to those who 
 reject or ignore its authority. We have 
 the laws of the land enforcing by pro- 
 
( 
 
 ) 
 
 hibitions and penalties certain broad 
 outlines of morality, and we have public 
 opinion commanding and forbidding 
 actions in a region law cannot touch. 
 Except by the lowest outcasts of society, 
 these obligations of duty are universally 
 recognised ; and every child who is 
 taught at all, is taught that he has some 
 duty towards God and his neighbour, 
 which includes, at the very least, the ob- 
 ligation to be honest in word and deed. 
 And yet, who can look abroad upon so- 
 ciety and say that it is practically go- 
 verned by this ideal, or gives its awards 
 strictly according to its standard ? If 
 we may trust an authority which cer- 
 tainly no one will accuse of want of 
 knowledge of the society it condemns, 
 or of any femininelynarrow and squeam- 
 ish standard of morality, it would appear 
 that our standard is sinking to a level 
 scarcely sufficient to keep society to- 
 gether,^ and that practically no high 
 moral ideal exists among us. This is 
 what the Titnes says in a leader of the 
 I ith of this month : ' There is not an ob- 
 server of human affairs who has not been 
 disposed to give a portentous signifi- 
 cance to scandals when they become so 
 great and so numerous as to arrest and 
 monopolise the attention. Scandals we 
 expect, but not that they should eclipse 
 all that is good in the world, and become 
 the rule rather than the exception. . . . 
 It is a simple matter of fact, that these 
 last twelve months have been marked 
 by a succession of disgraceful scandals. 
 . . . They are scandals in the very 
 matter upon which we most pique our- 
 selves. There is increasing audacity, 
 increasing greed, increasing fraud, in- 
 creasing impunity ; and these are 
 stimulated and fed by increasing in- 
 dulgence and ostentation. . . . With- 
 out reference to any one case, or any 
 one class of cases, we cannot help 
 thinking that the police and assize reports 
 exhibit an increasing amount of the crimes 
 arising from self-exaltation, self-confi- 
 dence, self-indulgence, and uncontrollable 
 "will," as it is called, but which is not 
 "will," but the very contrary of it— mere 
 passion.' This is a terribly severe verdict; 
 but after making every allowance for the 
 difficulty of fairly judging one's own 
 time, enough remains to show that our 
 professed ideal and standard of morality, 
 is not our practical and efficient one, 
 exercising real sway overmen's thoughts 
 and conduct. How is it to be made 
 
 efficient ? How is our universal teach- 
 ing of morality to be rescued from its 
 present impotency, and carried from the 
 region of barren precept to that of prac- 
 tical application to the duties of life ? 
 How can we secure to conscience the 
 supremacy de facto which it has de jure, 
 writing upon it this law : — that self- 
 mastery in obedience to duty is dis- 
 tinctively human, and self-indulgence 
 bestial ? How can we create the second 
 nature of habit, which will keep conduct 
 steady in the groove of accustomed right- 
 doing even when passion is blinding 
 reason and silencing conscience ? These 
 are questions, on the solution of which 
 the honour and prosperity of the coun- 
 try in the future manifestly depend ; but 
 how are they to be solved except by that 
 deeper knowledge of the springs of hu- 
 man action and the means of working 
 them, which only a science of education, 
 in other words, the applied science of 
 human nature, can supply .'* 
 
 There is another branch of educa- 
 tion which deals with the religious ele- 
 ment in our nature, the latest developed 
 of all. It is potentially the noblest, for 
 it is that by which we conceive, and love, 
 and worship the Divine, and walk by 
 faith in the invisible and eternal, but it 
 is also the root of our worst evils, super- 
 stition, fanaticism, and bigotry. Over 
 this element, education, working through 
 our earhest associations, through the 
 teaching of the pulpit, of home and of 
 school, through direct and indirect in- 
 fluence incessantly exercised, wields al- 
 most unbounded power ; and it has a 
 professed ideal and standard generally 
 accepted as of divine authority. The 
 standard is the standard of Christ, love 
 to God and love to man ; the ideal is 
 the life of Christ, an ideal so divinely 
 lovely, that shining through the clash 
 of hostile creeds, and the disfiguring 
 mists of superstition, it draws after it, 
 with invincible might, the hearts even 
 of those who least acknowledge its 
 divinity. Yet, if we look round on this 
 Christian nation, so apt to boast that the 
 true light shines upon it, and to thank God 
 that it is not as other nations are, shall we 
 find love to God and love to man the 
 prevailing characteristics of our religious 
 life, attesting the success of our religious 
 teaching? There are so many other 
 causes of its notorious failure than that 
 which it is the special business of this 
 paper to point out, i.e., ignorance on 
 
( 
 
 ) 
 
 the part of the teachers, of the human 
 heart, and how to sway it, that I should 
 not have touched upon the subject 
 except to point out that intellectual and 
 moral training are most powerful factors 
 in religious training, and that their 
 standard will inevitably react upon the 
 religious standard. When our national 
 and practical standard of intellectual 
 education is the power of sound judg- 
 ment in the discernment of truth, and 
 of our moral education, the sovereignty 
 of conscience, we shall have laid the 
 best foundation in human power, for 
 religious education up to the Christian 
 standard. 
 
 All that I have said hitherto applies 
 equally to both sexes, and is based upon 
 the human nature common to both. 
 The standards of intellectual, moral, 
 and religious training I have endea- 
 voured to set forth, are the same for all 
 endowed with reason, conscience, and 
 the capacity for religious emotions. But 
 as the education of women has been, 
 and is still, almost universally placed 
 on a wholly different level from 
 that of men, and as, after all, women 
 make up the half, or rather more than 
 the half, of the nation, a paper on the 
 standard of national education would be 
 very incomplete without some special 
 mention of the standard of education 
 for women. Strange, and not less sad 
 than strange, to say there is no general 
 ideal of what a woman should be, of 
 what constitutes perfect womanhood. 
 There is an immense deal of talk about 
 women being womanly, and being 
 trained into good wives and mothers, 
 but men's minds seem in the haziest 
 condition regarding the qualities which 
 constitute true womanliness and go to 
 the making of a good wife and mother, 
 and still more as to the training re- 
 quired to develope them. Practically 
 there is no standard of education for 
 women, above that of the elementary 
 schools, and the whole subject is still 
 in a chaotic state, tossed on the horns 
 of every variety of opinion, from that 
 which measures their every claim by the 
 convenience and pleasure of men, to 
 that which concedes to them perfect 
 equality with the other sex. And yet a 
 noble ideal of womanhood, raising a 
 high standard of womanly worth and 
 dignity, is the very salt of a nation's 
 social life, which, if it lose its savour, 
 society grows corrupt, and slowly rots to 
 
 the core. Vague, incomplete, and inconsis- 
 tently acted upon as it is, there can be no 
 doubt that the English ideal of the purity 
 and sanctity of home presided over by 
 the \vife and mother has preserved what- 
 ever there is of sound and wholesome 
 social life in the country. But there are 
 signs abroad of a change for the worse 
 even here. In the same article I quoted 
 before, the Thftes lays upon women much 
 of the blame for 'that boundless and 
 ruinous extravagance which introduces 
 all the vices, and disables all the virtues, 
 even to decay and extinction.' I think 
 it may be fairly doubted whether the 
 sums lost in one season at play or on the 
 turf, not to mention other roads to ruin, 
 by husbands and sons, would not cover 
 the expenditure on dress and entertain- 
 ments by wives and daughters for half a 
 lifetime ; but there is no question that the 
 example of self-indulgence, of love of 
 pleasure sweeping out of sight the 
 serious duties of life, given by women 
 from whom greater self-restraint, a 
 higher sense of duty, are always expected, 
 is a fatal encouragement to masculine 
 license. Considering, however, that al- 
 though there is no avowed and accepted 
 standard of education for women, the 
 unavowed, but not less powerful stand- 
 ard, held up expressly or impliedly 
 before them from the cradle upwards, is 
 to please men, and that they learn from 
 their earliest experience that men, as a 
 rule, are best pleased by the external 
 shows of beauty, dress, and fashion ; 
 most easily won by the ' giddy heed and 
 wanton cunning' of coquetry ; most 
 effectually repelled by any independent 
 exercise of thought and judgment, I 
 confess, the wonder to me is, that they 
 are as good as they are, and that there 
 is still so much sound-heartedness, truth, 
 and obedience to duty left among them. 
 None the less do we urgently need a 
 high national ideal and standard of educa- 
 tion for them. Not long ago Professor 
 Max Miiller said to me, 'The future 
 of England depends upon its young 
 mothers, but how are they to be 
 educated?' Is not this a problem 
 worth solving at any cost of thought and 
 study ; and can there be in the whole 
 range of scientific investigation one 
 more worthy to occupy our ablest minds, 
 or whose right solution is of more im- 
 portance to the welfare of the nation and 
 of the human race ? 
 
 I have done. Let me only strengthen 
 
( 
 
 ) 
 
 my pica by words of greater authority 
 than mine : ' Nations,' says Mr. Matthew 
 Arnold, ' are not truly great solely be- 
 cause the individuals comprising them 
 are numerous, free, and active ; but they 
 are great when these numbers, this 
 freedom, this activity, are employed in 
 the service of an ideal somewhat higher 
 than that of an ordinary man taken by 
 himself: not only the greatness of 
 nations, but their very unity, depends on 
 this. In fact, unless a nation's action is 
 inspired by an ideal commanding the 
 respect of the many as higher than each 
 ordinary man's own, there is nothing to 
 keep that nation together, nothing to 
 resist the dissolvent action of innumera- 
 
 ble and conflicting wills and opinions.' 
 To these words based, not on theory, but 
 on the history of the decline and fall of 
 nations, let me add this practical com- 
 ment. Of all ideals giving a nation 
 unity and greatness, the most powerful 
 is a high ideal of a national character, 
 of what its men and women, its gentle- 
 men and gentlewomen, should be; and 
 of all sciences giving us command over 
 the forces of nature, none is so important 
 as that which will give us command 
 over the forces of the human heart and 
 mind, and enable us with approximate 
 certainty to educate the nation up to 
 its ideal. Maria G. Grey. 
 
 London : Printed by John Strangeways, Castle St. Leicester Sq. 
 
Pamphlets Issued by the Wo?nen s Education Union. 
 Published by Messrs. Ridgway, Piccadilly. 
 
 I. 
 
 ON THE SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS FOR 
 IMPROVING THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS. 
 
 By Mrs. W. GREY. Price 6d. 
 
 IL 
 
 ARE WE TO HAVE EDUCATION FOR OUR 
 MIDDLE CLASS GIRLS.? 
 
 The History of the Camden Collegiate School. 
 By MARY GURNEY. Third Edition. Price 6d. 
 
 III. 
 
 THE WORK OF THE NATIONAL UNION. 
 
 By EMILY SHIRREFF. Price 6d. 
 
 IV. 
 
 ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE TRAINING 
 
 OF TEACHERS. 
 
 By JOSEPH PAYNE. Price 6^. 
 
 V. 
 
 ON THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS OF THE 
 MIDDLE CLASSES. 
 
 By Miss ISABELLA M. S. TODD. Price 6d. 
 
 VL 
 
 ON THE STUDY OF EDUCATION AS A 
 
 SCIENCE. 
 
 By Mrs. WILLIAM GREY. Price 6d. 
 
IPampWetg tip tbe game author. 
 
 ON THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN, 
 
 Price Sixpence. 
 
 THE IDOLS OF SOCIETY. 
 
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 OLD MAIDS. 
 
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